MrWolf

Ebay can be odd like that. Demand for certain items seems to ebb and flow and some stuff is unsellable. I had 3 attempts at selling an original, NOS ignition unit for a post 1968 Triumph Bonneville. I was asking for a starting bid of £15, just to get rid. Other people were asking £90 buy it now. Unfortunately, it may be original, but they weren't the most reliable thing and everyone fits a modern electronic unit. Ding. No sale. Just because it was old and unobtainable, didn't stop it being junk.

Gentlemen, I think we have a winner! This is the O gauge version.

Well done, I no longer have a provender wagon to check. Another possibility is that it's some kind of cask wagon or acid jar wagon, kits have been made for both over the years.

Yes, that's why I felt guilty about mentioning the pinch bolt on the balance weight!

I could be wrong (and I am sure someone will point it out if I am!) but it looks suspiciously like an old Coopercraft GWR provender wagon, a large capacity vehicle designed for delivering hay bedding to goods yard stables in the days of the company's cartage services. It would probably have collapsed in a heap if filled up with that much coal. Upside is there would be a lot of top quality kindling as a result...

True, I should probably have just said: "There isn't half some junk on eBay" but then I would expect someone to dust off the "One man's junk..." chestnut. I recall thinking that the van looked a bit empty before setting off to an autojumble and filling it up with odds and ends from my scrap pile. No prizes for guessing what sold first for way more than it would have made over the weighbridge!

Perhaps because society is so terrified of offending anyone these days what he means by "Excellent build" is more like "Hasn't fallen apart yet" ? I am all in favour of such warm and cosy language, nowadays I don't refer to someone as "butt ugly", I call them "visually offensive" instead. Disappointingly, despite my efforts, they still act all offended and generally butthurt. You can't win.

This is described as an Excellent kit built weathered 10 plank wagon with real coal load. Starting bid £14.99 + £3.90 post and packing. The weathering appears to be Wilko non drip gloss white... This clearly has a foot in two camps. Modelling crimes and eBay madness

I've seen those! Another seller with some er, interesting junk starts all his titles with: Excellent kit built... I don't know how to put the links up on here with my phone, but try typing that in, there's some real horrors!

We seem to have derailed this topic somewhat! So to clear away the pile of twisted metal and charred timbers, here is a picture from the dump siding at Aston on Clun. On the doorframe to the right of the guards lookout there is what appears to be a lump of carpet embedded in the paint. My friend picked this up and I swapped it for a kick start spring. If I can get the paint off, it will be cut and shut into something more prototypical. I originally assumed that a young child had painted it, but they don't usually go to the trouble of fitting scale wheels!

A dealer who likes to fill a great chunk of the item description with self praise and quotes just about every piece of positive feedback he ever got. Two things: Everyone writes something nice, it is mandatory to get through the feedback system on eBay. That still doesn't justify the price. Sorry folks, not feeling the love atm. There isn't half some overpriced junk on ebay lately!

I was an engineer until about 15 years ago, but hopping all over the planet ended up costing me everything in the end. I had to start again and decided that I would be happier making a living from my hobbies. It's working well so far!

A straight pull on any chain, cable or rod is best engineering practice for mechanical advantage and reducing the chance of jamming. Well done.

What she don't know she will probably use her vivid imagination for, be warned!

Well, nobody on here gets to stare at it anyway.

It's looking absolutely great, I think that you are creating a convincing overall picture here. One thing I have learned over the years as a professional artist is that you can drive yourself insane trying to put every single detail that you know should be there into a painting, even though you can't really see it (The brain 'knows' it's there and accepts it) and you can end up with a picture that seems somehow unconvincing, because the eyes are instructed to search for yet more. Far better to suggest that it is a complete picture and the brain ticks the box as real. How much time do we spend poring over atmospheric 90 years old photographs looking for details that even a machine that was there at the time could not record? After all, we are trying to recreate those old pictures in 3D, miniature and in colour. Viewing a well made layout is about as close as we can get to stepping into those prewar photographs and you're doing a hell of a job of crossing that threshold. Keep it up!

Seriously, Don't.

Impressed with your miniature balance weight, the fulcrum even looks like an iron casting. OCD at its finest! Nah, if you were truly OCD, you'd be looking at modelling the 3/4" Whitworth pinch bolt that holds / adjusts the weight on the arm....

Would it be prototypical to take the platform fencing across the top of the ramp at 90 degrees to the rails, then turn it down alongside the signal and down the ramp, leaving just enough footwalk for staff to get down the ramp.? You can then position the GWR Thou shalt not cross the line or else sign at the corner of said fence. Might, if there's room, save your butchering the signal further and protect the scale Joe Stupid from swinging balance weights. Just my $0.02

I didn't want to bring you down with that one, but the GW had a pretty much set in stone way of doing things with signals and I recall reading somewhere that the black paint was always x distance from the visible bottom of the signal post. Thanks everyone who has pointed me in the right direction about the signals on my layout. I had better take some pictures of my track plan.

My dog made it after eating my stash of magic mushrooms?

Looking good, signals are something that I will need to tackle on my layout soon and frankly I have no idea what to place where. I have a nasty feeling that I will be digging a hole in the platform too. But this is giving me ideas and construction details. No need to apologise for the bad language, it comes under the classification of "Task appropriate profanity". It's those words of power we learn from our fathers very early on like when the starter jams again on his Hillman Minx. Go back a few centuries and one of your ancestors will be cursing the pack horse that stops in the middle of a toll bridge or the flint axe whose head keeps coming off.

Something else that would make a lovely splash in the canal.

Perhaps the description would be more accurate as "Refugee from the £1 box at a model railway show in your local village hall" ?

That's bad news, I've been there too. It was ugly. At the time it seemed like it would go on forever, but you do bounce back, usually without realising it and start to live life again.