MrWolf

IF someone started churning out all of the old D&S, Coopercraft, Kirk, Geen et al kits again, half of the secondhand dealers would go bust. Sadly, so would the reproducers of the kits. Because people like me would have laughed themselves to death

Definitely chilly here today. I've been on the go since seven. SWMBO put one leg out of bed, mumbled BRR and NO! and went into hedgehog mode. It's a hard life this lockdown!

Bric a brac dealer. I had a look at his inventory just to see if there was a Victorian chamber pot, so I could say: "Here's another item he's selling that truly takes the p###". I'll get me coat...

You've probably heard about secret messages being dropped into seemingly jibberish newspaper ads during world war two? Maybe this is the 21st century version? A coded message from "Them" to "They"? Whatever it is, don't click on anything, there will probably be a black helicopter over your house in ten minutes!

Dammit, he can throw in a low mileage 1959 Invicta 4 door hardtop! (And a few trains!)

IIRC there is a reproduction transfer available for the old Dinky Supertoys Coles mobile cranes. I don't know any specific suppliers but such things regularly appear on eBay.

Very true, the old "condition as per photos" get-out methods. I bought the wagons I mentioned at a model railway exhibition. The L&Y wagons were in the £2 box of general train set tat. Seller had a huge modern image layout and said they had come in a box of junk. A friend is a big LSWR/SR fan, he lives up north and picks a lot of models cheaply at exhibitions.

Or put the correct numbers on them! You know, it's not so many years ago that a lever frame would have been represented with a row of pins in a piece of black painted card and the signalman a repainted Airfix soldier!

Recently saw an old white metal D&S GWR outside frame brake van kit fetch £64. Another, incomplete, badly built and even worse painted, £42. (that one has a better chance of being sorted out and used rather than being stuck in a bank vault) Even the more prosaic models are pushing £25, such as the old Ratio GWR Open C and the MAJ models L&Y LWB Open. I have a couple of these on the bench at present. The big question is: Do I build and run them? Or surround them with razor wire, Dobermans, a minefield and a couple of Panzer divisions for good measure, just in case Miss Riding Hood and I decide to get married on Bali?

I suspect that you have hit the nail on the head there. I know for a fact that is exactly what happens at autojumbles. You would roll up at 8am and the professional dealers would be trying to climb in the van to be the first to see what you had got. Conversation would often go like this: "Will you take a fiver for this old lamp mate? It's a bit grotty" "You do know what it's off don't you? Give me the £80 on the price tag, spend £40 on getting it re-chromed and you'll get £300 for it. Just like the one you already have on YOUR stall - mate..." They'd generally stalk off in a huff. Some would strike a good deal, others didn't just want a good profit, they wanted ALL the profit. I got sick of pointing out that it was supposed to be a hobby and a lot of one make car clubs have broken up because of greedy %#@$¥s. I used to see body panels I had sold a year or two earlier (recognisable by the make and model written on it by myself in white marker) moving from dealer to dealer and going up in price by £20 or so. Whether or not they ever got painted and fitted to a classic car, or just continued to contribute to the false 'worth' of collectors items, I haven't a clue! I have absolutely no doubt that exactly the same thing happens with model railway equipment, particularly the finescale, the low volume and rarer items. In exactly the same way as the vintage car and motorcycle trades and the antique trade, there is often a mad scramble to jump on the latest bandwagon before the bottom drops out of the market. I believe I have made my opinions clear about buying things that have a purpose with no intention of doing anything but stashing them away. Would you marry your favourite Hollywood actress and then sleep on the couch?

But it sold! I often think that it's just people being lazy. I bought a Scale Link fret brand new from the manufacturers recently, for about half what the same thing sold for on eBay. I suspect it was because one of the main agents had it as Out of stock, new stock TBA on their website. I don't mind saving myself a tenner for five minutes trawling the internet

I did get offered a Studebaker once, a 1955 Starliner IIRC. Unfortunately it had been in England from new and had been dumped under a tree since about the time LBJ was in charge of it's homeland.

Must admit I didn't look at the scale! Though at $14,070 including postage, I would expect him to throw in a few HO scale Union Pacific Big Boys, Shay logging engines and a scattering of 1930s streamliners. Or perhaps a restoration project 1949 Buick Riviera Roadmaster hardtop.... I'm not fussy!

You mean to say that you didn't model the hook at the top of the pendulum?!? Next you'll be telling us that you didn't bother with the advance and retard mechanism for the pendulum weight!

Ouch! Is that a 3.5mm/ft model with a 12"/ft price tag?

Hm, I wish. Try five oddly shaped rooms over what used to be a store and stables for a shop. The upside is that there is plenty of room for our junk and 20' x 2' of railway. Ni Persian cats, they're kryptonite to my other half. She has a nasty habit of bursting into flames if she gets too near to one.

Yes, it was the The three tuns, one of the last pubs with its original brewery out back. They used to do a beer called Castle Steamer after the old Bishops Castle Railway. Potent! It's a shame that the museum dedicated to what must have been the most ramshackle railway in Britain appears to have closed. We always had a look round when the town beer festival was on. This usually coincided with a vintage motorcycle rally near Craven Arms. There was also a second-hand book shop near the top of main street which had a lot of niche railway books at decent prices.

Not quite, downstairs is full of motorcycles, ancient bicycles and god knows what. At least we're not those weirdos that like football, celebrity TV, golf etc who think that anything to do with trains is for middle aged bachelors who still live with their mothers. They really are weird.

I have to agree with Bogie. To put your work out there for all to see (and possibly judge our mind monkeys tell us) is the hardest thing to do. I make some of my money as an artist, but putting my work out in public is as nerve wracking now as it was in 1985. There's always that detail that bugs is, sometimes to the point where we can't see the great 99.9% of the work that everyone else does. It's kind of a curse, man...

Nickel silver, depending on the compound, is a little more forgiving to work with. However, the advice given above still applies. On brittle materials, plenty of patience and cutting fluid are important. I was taught to make no more than a quarter turn in the cutting direction, then half a turn back to clear the tap. On blind holes especially, a heavy compound or grease, helps to bring the swarf back out of the hole and prevents jamming. In this case you may have to make your cut and wind the tap all the way out. A tedious process, but necessary. Cast iron is about the only metal where you are better off cutting it with a dry drill and tap.

Tell me about it! I bet that extends to other parts of your life too. I get fed up of telling myself to: Do it properly or don't bother. Or at least as well as you can all things considered. At times it's infuriating. The other day I sold another old bicycle, the deal was done, but I simply HAD to spend half an hour finding and fitting the correct 1970s pattern of reflector to the rear mudguard.

The works would be a most interesting project to model and I can see that you are looking to represent the development of the buildings over time. I look forward to seeing it take shape as it was an early interest in industrial archaeology (trips to Ironbridge and Gloddfa as a kid were more interesting than Alton towers, I was a strange child) that got me interested in railway modelling rather than just running trains on a board. I like the way you are using the studying process to include those "Government jobs", it's all good practice! I used the machine shop facilities at university to rebuild several motorcycles in my spare time, even wangled them into projects. Your CAD sketch and comments got me thinking of a mixture of Victorian brick buildings around something in stone from the 1820s re-roofed in corrugated iron.

Great job. I too would like to congratulate you on the groundwork. It looks natural, busy and convincing, without being cluttered. It reminds me of a long deceased relative's farm, even though that was built from granite with brick quoins.

That was the general answer I used to give. More specifically, the Crown & Anchor, Bishops Castle. I believe it's still trading.

" I don't do modern although it would have solved a number of issues." I'm 100% with you on that one. Each to their own, but pretty much anything modern bores me to death. Everything built to a price rather than a standard and so called designers tweak details on amorphous blobs created from a set of computer generated parameters. Zero artistry. I detest modern cars, however much 'better' they are than the old ones. My other half put it best I think when asked her opinion on all things from cars to bicycles: "Everything modern looks like a @£#*?!% Dyson". Anyway, if you were going modern image with the branch line station, we would all be impressed with your efforts to replicate a couple of dozen identical bogus Tudor farmhouses with silver hatchbacks parked out the front, probably named Old station Close!