John Isherwood

I wouldn't argue with any of that - I am fortunate in that I model to 16.5mm. gauge. The Markits wheel centres really don't bother me - it's just that I am currently building a series of Kemilway kit chassis, and the etched covers are supplied. I'm about to build the Kemilway valvegear for a BR Standard 3MT 2-6-2T; it will be interesting to see how the clearances work out, and if I have to remove the etched axle covers. John Isherwood.

I have recently taken to using the blackened etched covers that can be purchased; they are held in place by the screwed in crankpin. The appearance of the axle end is much improved. John Isherwood.

It may well be that they just didn't have a suitable offcut. John Isherwood.

Do NOT force them on with a vice - just remove any machining burr from the square axle ends with a fine file, and any casting flash from the rear face of the cast square holes in the wheels with a square needle file. The wheels should then fit the axles without force, and you will not have affected the inherent quartering. John Isherwood.

Try (really sharp) scissors - I use them exclusively nowadays. Regards, John Isherwood, Cambridge Custom Transfers.

Thank you - one case where the lining is understated; albeit only in the black. John Isherwood.

As will be appreciated, I have some twenty years of experience doing what Corbs is trying to do. The bottom line is that, within the budget of most modellers, it is not now possible to buy a printer that will do Spot Printing over a white base. Citizen / Alps / Oki / Kodak printers were the solution, but they are now only available secondhand or refurbished. All of the above printers used Alps' Microdry technology which, at the time (pre-2000) was the cutting edge for home photo-quality printing. It used ribbon ink cartridges; the ink itself was a synthetic 'wax' that was heat-transferred onto the printing substrate. Printer technology soon left the somewhat cumbersome Alps system behind, and the niche decal printing market was insufficient to sustain Microdry printer production. The secret of Alps Microdry technology's capability to Spot Print was its ability to feed the paper through each spot print colour layer, and to wind it back and repeat the operation with the next colour ink - all in perfect registration. The paper did not leave the printer until all colour passes were completed. Apart from white and CMY & K inks, metallic and foil inks were available and, for some of the later printers, Spot RGB inks. Though dye sublimation ink options were available, these have no application whatsoever for decal printing. The fact that I can still produce and offer waterslide decals, produced on Alps printers, is solely due to the fact that I have invested heavily in buying-up Alps printers and ink cartridges. When the last printer fails, or I run out of ink cartridges, Cambridge Custom Transfers will close. As to offering a bespoke decal service, I set out with this intention; suffice to say that good intentions are rarely translated into reality! Most modellers requiring bespoke decals have a niche / esoteric subject in mind, and usually have only a sketchy idea of exactly what the finished subject should look like. Unless you have unlimited time to devote to researching and designing decals for other people, don't go there! I know that Railtec do this, but I cannot understand how they can do so at a price that is affordable. A warning; Alps technology printers often appear for sale - especially on Ebay. The chances are that these have damaged print-heads that produce a white line through each print pass, and are not repairable except by a company called Elephant's Rocket (!) in Japan; https://aikishugyo.no-ip.org/alps/info/elephants-rocket.html The problem is that shipping to and from Japan is very expensive. Never buy an Alps printer secondhand unless the seller can provide a self-test print - which has the printer's unique serial number on it. Alps printers are fragile, and very prone to damage in transit. Always insist that the seller ships the printer strictly according to Alps original specification - you can find these details at https://alps.groups.io/g/ALPS Frankly, knowing what I do now, I would certainly not set out to produce my own decals at this point in time - affordable technology is simply no longer available. John Isherwood, Cambridge Custom Transfers, https://www.cctrans.org.uk/products.htm

I think that I've raised this before, but - those Kernow photos do suggest that the boiler lining is a single orange line. Can anyone who has seen this model 'in the flesh' confirm whether this is the case, or is there a black line between two orange lines? John Isherwood.

Since when? I have never used that box when editting. John Isherwood.

Yes - use a light coat of Dullcote if you want anything less than a gloss finish. John Isherwood.

That was my father - in his time of the 14th Army in Burma; and lately deceased aged 97. John Isherwood.

OK -let's get controversial (again)! Those '6's in 60163 lean to the right - BR wouldn't have done that. (Cue miriads of links to photos that prove that BR did do that). John Isherwood.

That cab is definitely sloping backwards on the RH side - you can see the bend in the running plate at the firbox / cab interface. John Isherwood.

What is the subject of this thread? Panic buying; are there reports of a shortage of wine due to panic buying? If you were producing toilet roll, you would spend your money building a warehouse to store product that you could not sell - unless Covid-19 came along? You wouldn't stay in business for long - that's certain. End of discussion (as far as my participation goes) - we are entering 'Captain Mainwaring' territory now! John Isherwood.

If you don't wish to accept an informed response from a fellow member; and given your location in Zummerzet, why not ask for a guided tour of the Morrisons mega-distribution depot next to the M5? I am sure that they'd be delighted to welcome you. Then, perhaps, you will accept that what I have been posting is fact. John Isherwood.

My point is that the items that are panic-bought cannot simply be restocked at the panic-buyers' whim. What are we talking about? Toilet rolls, pasta, flour, milk. All of these have to be manufactured or processed - and the capacity to double / treble / quadruple output is simply non-existent. Pointing to seasonal production only enables me to remind you that those (non-panic-bought) items are not stockpiled by the supermarkets; they are stored in bulk by the producers, who do not have the packing capacity to suddenly double / treble / quadruple output. There is always a good reason why the apparently obvious solution to a crisis in supply cannot be overcome at the whim of the consumer; it only needs a little thought to work out what that might be. ..... and as to my exasperation with posters who repeatedly pose questions that have obvious answers - I'm human, and I put a little thought into an issue before posting; I make no apology to those who do not. John Isherwood.

No - because it's happening all around the globe; do you not watch the news on TV? Think about it for a moment. I manufacture toilet rolls, and I know how many I can sell to the supermarkets in any one (normal ) week. So I produce that many toilet rolls per week - no more, no less. Then along comes a global virus and the idiots - worldwide - panic and start bulk-buying. The supermarkets could panic in their turn, and try to double / treble / quadruple their weekly order; (I suspect that they don't bother because they know they'd be wasting their time). Why would they be wasting their time? Because my factory can only produce the same number of toilet rolls per week as it did pre-crisis. Why would I have been daft enough to build a factory capable of producing two / three / four times as many toilet rolls as I can sell (unless their is a Covid-19 crisis)? A little thought before posting goes a long way! John Isherwood.

.... but it does point to the probable thought processes of those selecting a livery for a newly Nationalised railway system, created at the behest of a Labour government; as near to red, white and blue as was practicable in the steam railway environment! John Isherwood.

Surely you have realised that that particular 'god' motivates all commercial activity worldwide - I'm afraid that particular crusade was lost very many years ago! John Isherwood.

I think that, if you were to look into what happens in these buildings - and I pass the Morrisons depot every time I go 'up country' - you would find that they are distribution depots, rather than warehouses. The giveaway is the vast number of artic loading bays along the length of the building. Goods come in from the manufacturer / supplier by the artic-load and are automatically sent, by computer-controlled conveyors, directly to the loading bay for a particular store. The 'wares' are not being 'housed'; they are being sorted, and probably don't remain in the distribution depot for more than an hour or so. My brother, as an architect / planner, has been directly responsible for the planning and design of several of these vast 'wiggly tin sheds', as he calls them; and confirms that nothing is stored in them. John Isherwood.

See my post above - warehouses are an (expensive) thing from the past. John Isherwood.

Nope - if you watch any of the 'Inside the Factory' TV series, virtually everything goes straight from the production line into the artic. lorries that deliver direct to the store. Storage of production is a thing of the past, as is storage of ingredients / raw materials. Most farm produce is harvested to order direct from the supermarkets. John Isherwood.

Supermarkets don't have that area of spare storage space - in fact, most have little or no storage space. Try asking if they have a particular item - the answer is usually that, if it isn't on the shelf, they haven't got it! John Isherwood.

I'm afraid that I have no idea - I'd have picked up the idea from the model press, I'm sure. John Isherwood.

I strongly suspect that the printing is etch-resist, applied by the metal suppliers. The brown staining will probably be ferric chloride - which I used to use to etch brass for homemade number and nameplates; (I still have a brown jar of the stuff somewhere in the garage). Letraset was commonly used as the resist on the metal face to be etched. John Isherwood.