Golden Fleece 30

Thanks Mike, I am pleased with how it is turning out now. I think that painting it all has taken away some of the toy look and it has allowed the rail sides to be painted, a chore I never tried to do on other layouts like most. It is just because I used a large brush but you can see where some parts need going over. Due to its construction there are issues I cannot rectify. Sometimes the cork was glued and other places left loose. It means I cannot trim it neatly parallel to the track edge so using the grass to try to keep a straight line. You can see in the bottom photo where I tried to ballasts the end of the headshunt but it does not detract, and I am looking at putting the odd little bit of grass in the track for the last inch or so. You can also see how the fibre sleepers have "warped" which hopefully painting will help prevent it going further. It is a pity I cannot get to the underneath point motors in its position easily to rectify the odd issues. Unfortunately my operating friend has got a new job so cannot get down during the week and with Christmas coming I don't think weekends are an option, maybe during the holidays we will manage it. All the scenic items are 00 but do not look too much out of place, some I had forgotten about until a couple of days ago when looking to see if I had more grass available. The hillside scenery will be a bigger job than I hoped as polystyrene blocks were used, BUT, not shaped or anything so the paper over the top is loose and hollow. It means stripping it off smoothing out the base foundation and redoing the paper/glue top before I can put grass down. I have accumulated a lot of signals but unfortunately not many are suitable for the track layout so I will be making a few to suit. Garry

A couple of scenes showing a lot of the track painted. I cannot do much more until a couple of points or their motors have been looked at. The little flower tubs and power boxes may go back or elsewhere but at the moment there just for looks. The signal box wall has been redone with my usual embossed paper which is a darker shade. I had hoped to complete the grassed area on the left where the fence goes to but the static lot has not arrived yet. I even need more fencing which is now on order. Garry

Don't worry David, she knew I would take it in good part and I replied saying "I will book you in on Saturday Evening and Sunday". What did not copy onto here were all the laughing icons etc she used. She knows what I buy as 1) she often collects the parcels from the postman, 2) she sees all the posts I put up showing the latest items etc, 3) she knows I sell a bit of Dublo to help pay even though not enough to cover everything. Our sink has been waiting about 6 months to get done, but trains always got in the way but after making it public I have to now look at it lol Garry

Regarding the tyres, I hate them, which is why I turned some steel wheels for Dublo locos. They worked fine on the Deltic, Co-Bo, EMU but on E3001 and the Bo-Bo which were unsuccessful probably due to the weight and with swapping to TT I never pursued it. There are various videos on YouTube showing the 3 with steel wheels running. Garry

Ray, some people, myself included, do not want extra pick up wires if possible and prefer a "genuine" 3-rail loco. Having said that I have in the past done the screw in the side of the chassis block. I always said mine would never be going back to 2-rail so there is no need to keep them to be able to change back. Less pick ups mean less time screwing things together making sure parts fit etc and the possibility of the wires losing contact which is why some 2-rail locos stop. My Tri-ang locos were a doddle as spares are cheap and easy so I just removed the insulated wheels and replaced with non insulated ones. We are all individuals and do what we want and there is nothing wrong with any method if it works. David, metric threads are usually easier to come by these days, taps/dies/screws. I did need some nylon screws (the same as Dennis Williams uses on his R1 conversions) and at the time only metric were available. I do now have a few 8BA nylon screws for some TT projects but they are uncommon, and dearer. When I was at work we only had metric in the workshop so metric it had to be lol. Mike Dublo wheels were always a better profile than others, especially for their day. When Peco introduced their finer Universal pointwork (not genuine finescale) to accept modern Hornby, Bachmann etc they told me it was now too fine for Dublo and it would not run. After trying it Dublo runs far better than it did with the old universal system proving how much better their wheels were in their day. Peco were quite surprised when I told and showed them. I like the gauge you have. Garry

This is what happens allowing your wife to look at your posts on FB and post comments lol. Does your other half see anything David? Garry Jackie Newlands Just loving all the work you have put into this Garry Hall. Such detail and precision.. I have a kitchen sink that would benefit from such a good eye for detail

You will find that the trailing bogie was modified sometime to take two lightly sprung plungers pushing down on the axles to help current collection. Having both bogies live resulted in the couplings being mounted on very thin bakelite spacers to prevent shorting out in certain positions, as happened with early 2-rail City locos which had the tender pin mounting changed from metal to fibre board. These Bo-Bo spacers can crack and allow the couplings to droop but replacements are available although I milled some from brass for myself, 3-rail does not have the shorting issue. I have used Dennis Williams de-insulating bushes, and made my own from brass and aluminium but it was easier to pin the wheel to axle rather than replacing the bush on steam locos. Garry

Had a go at making a new waiting room a little larger that the Bilteezi one. The door width and window size are very similar although door height is about 1mm more. The building is a couple of mm taller with the windows 1mm higher from the base and does not look too bad after the brick paper is on. When the roof tiles arrive I will decide if I should think of making one or two other buildings. Garry

How many of you have an actual Tri-ang EMU Pullman train, Brighton Belle? In the 70's some whitemetal castings were made to cut some Pullmans up to convert, BUT, about 7 years ago some all plastic full mouldings of these coaches became available. I think someone had used the castings then had moulds made to produce a kit of plastic parts to make a Brighton Belle, without the need for cutting or gluing anything. Here is mine and the driver/motor vehicles had moulded panels for the EMU/DMU motor bogie (just as those vehicles had. After buying and making mine I have never seen another set for sale. Garry

The brass pin method was my preferred option too. I well remember those silver lined stick on demisters :-), :-), :-) Garry

While waiting for more static grass and fencing I have been making a new station building support and stairs. The Skaledale station has a canopy that just matches the Tri-ang footbridge so that will be the way down. I will have to try to get another set of stairs, these two parts were all there was in a collection. There will be little flower pots around the wall to platform joints. Across the road is a new pub, the Masons Arms, which again is a Skaledale building. I admired Kevin West's work and reasoning for the scenery keeping it in the 60's/70's retro style but I wanted a nice operating layout (which it is, and will be more so when I make a trailing crossover near the goods yard) and to put more modern scenic work on, I am not a scenic modeller though :-). I like the embossed papers and static grass materials as you will have seen and a fair bit more to do. It is slowly coming along but it will not be finished by Christmas though. Kevin did say the fiddle yard needed a good looking at and sorting out some issues so I am replacing those points with Peco and/or Tillig ones, all the points that is. Garry

3-railing the West Country chassis is easy as a standard Dublo assembly fits. There are different ways to short the wheels and in the past I have drilled a hole in the insulating bush between the wheel and axle and forced a brass pin in to short it out, it is permanent though. Electrical conductivity paint between the axle end and wheel boss, I don't like but can be easily removed, or drill and tap a hole in the chassis block side to hold a tag with a wiper on the wheels. Cutting the backheads out is easy as I use a Dremel with a cutting tool (like a milling cutter end mill or slot drill). Garry ps, its all still Tri-ang to me even the China made ones as that was their heritage.

Possibly Ray as the rear shoe is close to the chassis. On one or two locos I ended up grinding a recess for the shoe, definitely on an 0-6-2 where I had moved the collector back a few mm's. Garry

I have a Trix one too but at the time I was seeing what bodies I could fit Dublo chassis's to. I had a couple of Trix Scotsmans but fitted Dublo/Wrenn chassis's to these as well. If you do a Tri-ang Spam Can body you will obviously need to remove the backhead and cab floor though. Garry

Is this a different chassis block to the Spam Cans? I was led to believe they were the same with just the wheels and valve gear differences. Mine are all put away so no chance of looking at both. Garry

I don't see why not, I fitted one to a Tri-ang Britannia body after swapping its wheels for the Spam Can build I did with an A4 chassis. Valve gear is not an issue as the parts not needed can be removed. I also ended up at one time having Wrenn Spam Can valve gear etched to use for this purpose. Garry

You will find there is a bit of lateral play on the centre wheels and the coupling rods are in two pieces, both held by the centre crank pin, which also gives more play. The centre wheels are also lightly sprung. This design was Wrenns which was completly different to a Dublo chassis, they used the same one in the Royal Scot too. Garry

That building goes along with what I was saying in an earlier post to NCB about how you cannot always go by a door/window size for scale. This building is quite tall with the two floor to ceiling heights considerably more than the usual although some stations were larger, maybe more so in Italy and other countries. Garry

Totally agree with you about never forgetting David and glad I am not the only one who has these "other half" issues lol. I get a new train and its "why I thought you had enough", she gets a new dress and when I say thought you had enough its "no, I need a new one". Same as trains to me I guess :-). Garry

A start on the goods yard has been made with the platforms getting their brick edges and a goods shed started. I did not take into account the embossed paper thickness when cutting the wagon doors out but thankfully covered wagons just fit through. Not certain yet if I will cut any windows out on the line side, the card has been cut ready though and now just waiting for some roof tiling to arrive. A new section of platform has been made a little lower than the previous one (which was so high that coach doors would hit it and not open) and with an extended cut out for longer bays. You can see where the cork ballast needs a second coat. Garry

I remember the name "Picador" set but cannot remember the SNCF brake van which is a copy of the TT one (or vica-versa). It is a 60's set as it has Super 4 track in it. I believe that loco was disguised at times for different countries but not 100% certain. Garry

Hi David, ME taps and dies are not too hard to come by as you have found out, there is also Reeves of Birmingham and Blackgates of Dewsbury as at least 2 ME companies selling them. I doubt the .01 is going to make any difference and as a locknut is used the bearing will be held tight. Good luck with the project, I too will be watching for its progress. Garry

A few years ago I was told that the hardest part of doing a raw chassis casting was the drilling and tapping for the upper and lower bearing holes to keep them both in alignment. Meccano, and Wrenn, supposedly had special drills to do this in one go and that only Tony Cooper and a couple of others had these. He did say he had asked Tony if he could have/borrow one but obviously the answer was no. How right this is I cannot say but I can imagine Meccano having something and not trying to do what we would have to attempt. Fettling a cast body was not easy so there was no way I would attempt to do a chassis casting, especially as I know how hard it is to drill and tap one hole anywhere let alone 2 at once an inch or so apart. Garry

As Mike says this is most likely Ebay's GSP of which the seller has nothing to do with it. When it was introduced Ebay asked sellers if they wanted to sign up to have all the hassle removed from them and Ebay would sort it all out. Thankfully I did not sign up and later found out that once you had you could not cancel it, whether that has changed I don't know but Ebay are very greedy. A while ago they started taking a cut of the postage charge as well, plus, Paypal (who were at the time owned by Ebay anyway) also took a % of the postage so if the Royal Mail site states £3.95, as it does for most of my sales, then I charge the customer £5. I have to pay for paper and tape (boxes are usually from deliveries to me), £3.95 at the Post Office, then 10% goes to Ebay with about 4% to Paypal so if I charged just the £3.95 I would be out of pocket. It is so easy to send abroad so why anyone would go for GSP beats me. Garry

I think you will find this is a typing mistake and should be £1.69. Garry