John Isherwood

Not specific to the Class 71, but I recently took delivery of one of the coreless motors available on Ebay. Testing it on a H&M Walkabout it is noisy, coggy and jerky to a totally unacceptable extent; on straight DC from an old Tri-ang controller it is smooth and virtually silent. It would seem that these coreless motors are *much* pickier about the form of power supplied than are the conventional type of motors; I'll be sticking to traditional motors wherever possible! Regards, John Isherwood.

I have to confess to a certain mishieviousness with the original posting; my recollection of Electric Blue was that it was always the same - but the photo seemed to prove otherwise. I guessed that the apparent difference was some form of photographic anomoly, but I certainly generated a lively debate. Below are some (bad) photos that I took at Brinklow in September 1965, using an Instamatic camera with, I believe, Kodak slide film. They were all taken on the same day within a couple of hours, and I don't recall the weather changing significantly. Now I'm sure that I can see the difference between Electric Blue on the earlier AL? and the Rail Blue of the AL6s and the AM10. Furthermore, I distinctly recall regretting the change from Electric Blue to Rail Blue; this being my first sighting of the latter colour. Regards, John Isherwood.

Airfix and Dapol did release quite a few of the Kitmaster models - in fact, all of the ones for which the moulds were viable, I believe. Some of the moulds were destroyed and some deteriorated during storage, to the point where they were unusable. Some may have been destroyed in the Dapol fire a good few years back. The definitive history of Kitmaster can be found at http://www.kitmaster.org.uk/ and in http://www.kitmaster.org.uk/Book.htm . Regards, John Isherwood.

Removed.

Sounds as if all is not lost - that could just as easily have been the 1960s at any significant station that you care to name! Regards, John Isherwood.

'Twas ever thus - just small boys' bravado. Regards, John Isherwood.

Clearly a modeller !! Congratulations. Regards, John Isherwood.

I have to wonder why the ashpan was not incorporated with the keeper-plate - so that the pick-ups could be at the normal level and sandwiched between the chassis and the keeper-plate. Perhaps I'm being too simplistic? Regards, John Isherwood.

Read, thought, probably thick - so please spell it out !! Thank you. Regards, John Isherwood.

Now Larry; you're assuming that we're all scratchbuilders - you can't expect mere mortals to "hack" their shiny new toys !! If I had a use for a Coal Tank, it would already be looking remarkably like your sketch. On the other hand - if the box-shifters find themselves with an embarrassment of returned Coal Tanks, I'll take one off their hands - 58900 please !! Regards, John Isherwood.

I'm not questioning the right of anyone to return a model that is in any way sub-standard. I was just surprised in this case by the statement that "Re Coal Tank: I'm not prepared to hack about (and probably ruin) this rather exquisite model to provide pickups in the appropriate position so it'll probably go back. That's a shame, it is really nice!" ; tweaking pick-ups can hardly be described as "... to hack about ..."! Each to their own - I suppose it depends on how much you really want a Coal Tank. Regards, John Isherwood.

I think that you are overstating the case by implying that you have to be capable of scratchbuilding in order to tweak pick-ups. I don't have a Coal Tank but, from what I've read, the pickups are making contact with the back of the flange rather than the back of the wheel itself. Surely all that is required is a slight upward adjustment of around one millimeter to correct this? A pair of tweezers or fine-nosed pliers should achieve this with no problems. Pick-ups can get out of alignment on the best-run model railways - what do you do then? Depriving yourself of a desireable model, just because the most minor of adjustments is required, seems to be taking 'box-opening' to the extreme !! Regards, John Isherwood.

Crooked, yes - but what's with the lettering? Surely the prototype wasn't like this? Regards, John Isherwood.

I never have all this problem with good old DC - I just like watching the trains go by at a speed that looks sensible. Am I missing something? Regards, John Isherwood.

We are all getting older, and less inclined to have our declining years intruded upon. The extent to which we choose to interact with other people who want what we can produce is our decision. If, (and I have no information to support this), Dave has chosen only to interact with customers at shows, that's his prerogative. At our age, it's rarely financial necessity that motivates us to continue to produce products that others desire; deal with it, and visit a show that Dave is scheduled to attend. Regards, John Isherwood.

Thanks for the kind comments, Likes, etc. - much appreciated. I'll now set out a few random thoughts relating to this (rather protracted) build. The Golden Arrow resin body kit, ( http://www.goldenarrow.me.uk/products.htm ); is, it transpires, some 4 mm. too short, though I didn't realise this until I placed the body over the High Level chassis kit - ( http://www.highlevelkits.co.uk/ ). The lack of length is also apparent when measured against a drawing - I used :- I felt that the missing scale one foot was noticeable, and made the model look somehow 'stubby' when compared to photos of the prototype. I therefore purchased a second main body moulding in order to cut-and-shut the two to produce a scale length body. The detail on the body moulding should be treated with suspicion, as several features did not seem to match the drawings and photos to hand; it is, however, relatively easy to amend / fill / replace and add to the detail using plastic card and strip. The cab roof / rear / door moulding needs attention; the roof being too short and lacking the rear overhang. Extend it front and back with plastic strip and cut back the bonnet on the main body moulding to suit. (Vertically project the front of the lower cabside with a straight-edge to determine how much to extend the front of the cab roof). I could not drill the edges of the cab doors for handrail stanchions without breaking the resin, so I replaced the doors with ones laminated from plastic card. Photos that were passed to me during the build prove that the bonnet exhausts did not have grilles - they were just open 'trenches' lined with sheet metal. It's a pity that the etches for the cab windows are not produced in nickel silver; ( http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=46203 ); silver paint is never a convincing representation of polished aluminium. I fabricated replacement cab steps / vacuum cylinder shrouds from nickel silver strip and plastic card, with etched brass chequer-plate kick panels between the steps. The running board walkway was surfaced with etched brass chequer-plate - this is a little thick, and I wonder whether resin-printed waterslide transfer chequer-plate from Archers would have been more subtle. The resin-cast 'hub-caps' for the coupling rods are centrally drilled and, as such, seem to be intended for fixing th the crankpins. This would result in them revolving with the wheels - which is incorrect; they are an integral part of the rods. I filled the holes in the 'hub-caps' with plastic rod, and then very carefully hollowed the rear of the mouldings with a ball-ended cutter in a minidrill. I used Markits wheels, with matching etched axle-nut covers secured with Markits deluxe crankpins. The crankpin nuts / bearings were recessed into the coupling rod bosses by counter-drilling the rods. Once the 'hub-caps' had been painted, and the coupling rods polished and fitted for the final time, the 'hub-caps' were placed over the recessed crankpin nuts, centrally on the rod bosses, and secured with tiny drops of cyanoacetate glue applied with a needle. The handrails and stanchions on GT3 were chrome-plated. As, to the best of my knowledge, nickel silver handrail stanchions are not available, I resorted to sterling silver 0.8 mm. dia., half-round wire, clenched into split-pins; see (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/122522-chromed-handrail-stanchions-knobs/ ). 0.8 mm. is a little large, but all that I could find in the UK. (0.6mm. is available from the US, but the shipping is three times the price of the wire)!! For some unfathomable reason, the etched GT3 numberplate has come out deeper than my transfer for the same item. The transfer seems to be correct, but I'd already securely fixed the etching and painted the body before this became apparent. If using my transfers; (see Sheet BL149 at https://www.cctrans.org.uk/products.htm ); just cut two rectangles of 0.25 mm. plastic card to match the transfer dimensions, and round off three of the corners before fitting them to the cabsides. The corridor connections front and back of the tender are flexible rubber mouldings, which can be obtained from a number of suppliers. That between the loco and tender was a cut-down BR Mk.1 type, whereas the one on the rear of the tender was a suspended British Standard pattern. As the flexible fuel and water connections between the loco and tender are quite prominent, I represented them with black flexible plastic beading cord. At the loco end they were glued to the back of the cab steps, whereas the tender ends of the connections had tiny rare-earth magnets glued on with cyanoacrylate. Matching magnets; (get the polarity right !); were glued below the tender running plate. Holding the magnet ends of the flexible connections close to the magnets on the tender will induce self-coupling ! The cab interior was knocked-up from plastic card, following a layout diagram and screen-grabs from the BTF GT3 film and a digital version of GT3 from a PC simulation game. That's about it really - if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask here, or you can PM me if you need prototype images of any particular feature - if I have it, you're welcome to it. I have a spare pre-production version of the etched chassis kit; it lacks some of the final content but you can PM me if you're interested. Building GT3 has been a very interesting project - thought-provoking at times and needing some techniques that are new to me - but I am very pleased with the result. Regards, John Isherwood.

Right - a quick photo session of the completed model; details of the final part of the build, plus things to watch out for, will follow when I have more time. Do bear in mind that I am no Tony Wright or Coachmann - these photos show this only too well, in cruel detail !

I have a collection of fifty-six photos of Class 71s in green livery; the dirtiest that I could find are :- Regards, John Isherwood.

He means the one that I sell, the Mitsumi; see #37. Regards, John Isherwood.

Surely local traffic would be detached, turned and moved to the sidings, one wagon at a time, by horsepower? Quite conventional for the period, I would have thought. Regards, John Isherwood.

I'm with you Larry. With RTR, if it's financially viable and accurate enough to be the basis of a decent mode, I'll buy and amend it; if not, and I want / need a certain model, it's kit or scratch building. What can't be got away from is that those who are prepared to model, as opposed to 'open the box', will always be able to more accurately represent the prototype. For any period, the chances of a truly representative selection of motive power and rolling stock being available RTR are virtually nil; let alone the pre-grouping era. Regards, John Isherwood.

I wouldn't have thought so with that roof profile? Ex-LNWR? Ex-MR? Regards, John Isherwood

Another thing to be thankful for - that you can afford to spend £125.00 on a toy. Frothers say so much about themselves. I am not a troll - for a start, I use my real name - but I do think that a little self-restraint goes a long way. Regards, John Isherwood.

For goodness sake - it's a toy train !! If that's all that you have to worry about - be thankful. Regards, John Isherwood.

Well - not long to wait !! All is now reassembled and running fine; (and virtually silently). Remaining jobs are :- glaze the windows; refit functional couplings; refit dummy loco / tender flexible fuel and water connections; touch-in any paintwork flaws / damage. Photos will appear here as soon as everything is complete - I have to say that I'm *very* pleased with GT3. Regards, John Isherwood.