2mmMark

I'll just leave this here and make no comment.

I wonder if we'll see Stern Steve taking over editorship of Model Boats magazine.

I believe you get better grip with a solvent based contact adhesive but having said that, the Easitrac adhesive is non-solvent and that seems to hold very well. The reason for letting Evo-stik go off is that you're not trapping wet glue within the joint. Mark.

Agreed, from the this issue it's looking very promising. The only problem with infrequent publishing is keeping track of the publication dates. Incidentally, the online price includes UK postage so that explains the extra quid.

British Oak seemed well received at Scaleforum this past weekend. We had significant interest in 2mm finescale, gaining one new member and selling a good quantity of 2mm books. Even though the layout still has much to be done, smartening up the presentation was worthwhile. The photo below shows the display arrangements. The layout sits on its carrying case which usefully raises it above table top height and provides somewhere to attach the pole for the LED spotlight, which proved quite sufficient to illuminate the layout. The hall lighting at the Stoke Mandeville venue is much improved. Alongside the layout, I had my notebook PC showing photos and video of the real thing. While I was away from the layout, I'm told that someone cheekily photographed the articles about British Oak contained in the Industrial Railway Record magazines in the picture. Tsk tsk whoever you were! Throughout the weekend, I was using one of the amazingly cheap Chinese-made PWM controllers similar to this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-8v-3v-5v-6v-7-2v-12v-2A-30W-DC-Motor-Speed-Controller-PWM-1803BK-Adjust-Y6F5/123841954827 fed a 12v dc supply from a plug-in transformer. It gives very good slow speed control on a variety of mechanisms so I'm considering fixing one into the layout permanently. Incidentally, if anyone decides they'd like to do the same, look for controllers that have a 0% to 100% duty cycle, which means than when the control pot is set to minimum, no power is being provided. Some don't go down to 0% which allows locos with a low current demand to creep. Overall, Scaleforum was its usual informative and enjoyable self, this year featuring several larger layouts. A personal highlight for me was meeting my former design & technology teacher, Denis Griffiths, again after about 45 years. Denis started working in P4 in the Studiolith era. I think Denis was pleased that at least some of what he taught me sank in. The school is now gone but at the time we had a superb set of very well equipped workshops for both wood and metal.

Somewhat of a minimum space odyssey then? I've definitely found that keeping a portable layout in an enclosed box pays dividends in keeping everything clean and fresh. I expect you've found the same with Chapel Wharf.

I suspect there are times that Cecily suspects she might well be married to CG&LH and CF!

I can't help with a chassis recommendation as I prefer to keep my Lone Star collection original. If you want to try using the original chassis, the drive bands can be cut from 1/2" neoprene tubing. That's what Lone Star themselves did. A weak motor is usually down to loss of magnetism. They can be remagnetised which if something I'm intending to try. Small self tapping screws are readily available, I got a batch of various sizes from eBay, down to just below 1mm in diameter.

You might try Di-Limonene as a solvent for polystyrene sheet. It's much less aggressive and less prone to causing warping. Evo-stik also works well for laminating plastic sheet to dissimilar material if used very thinly and allowed to nearly dry before fixing. Mark

I quite like the idea of a GWR Pannier in early British Railways express loco blue livery.

Just a quick note to say that if the M4 is on anyone's route to Scaleforum, there's a full carriageway closure between junctions 5 Langley and 6 Slough East from 20:00 on Friday 27th Sept. (today) to 06:00 on Monday 30th Sept. I guess the diversion route is through Slough on the A4. That is likely to be sloooooow!

Progress update just before Scaleforum Among the photos that Paul Lunn provided was this intriguing grounded van. It's obviously had a lick of paint during it's non-wheeled retirement and possibly has been re-roofed. I had already made a grounded van using the 2mm Association's Iron Mink kit but this one I feel has a lot more character. The colour is interesting, it makes you wonder if they simply found a job lot of cheap unfashionable paint and slapped it on to weatherproof the body. I can't imagine that a great deal of artistic "Farrow & Ball" judgement went into the job. The first job was to make a concrete hardstanding, which I did using a section of printed concrete from the Scalescenes sampler kit for a warehouse. The detail in these card kits is excellent. The only thing I felt was that the colour was a little too blue, so it got a wash of Pollyscale "Aged Concrete" paint. Concrete is a very elusive thing to represent, I find. The next job was to find a van body that was close enough to the one in the photo. A rummage in my box of part-made wagon kits revealed an LMS van body, made quite a long time ago from an 2mm Association kit. While not 100% accurate, it had the right look about it. Some thin paper strips were attached to the roof and plastic strip sleeper sized bearers were glued to the floor. The fun bit was the painting & weathering, which I did using Vallejo Modelcolor acrylics. The pea-green colour was mixed up to match the prototype. The roof used a flesh colour. Various browns, red & greys were used to weather the van, aiming to match the weathering on the real thing. A final wash of dark grey and a coat of matt varnish and the job's a good 'un. Something which has been under consideration for a while is the treatment of the scenic break, which needs some sort of "endscene". A search on the Internet for images of the Aire & Calder Navigation showed up a few possible images including this one from http://www.penninewaterways.co.uk/aire/acn34.htm http://www.penninewaterways.co.uk/aire/acn516.jpg My intention is to paint the details on the "endscene" as I'm not really a fan of photographic backscenes but this proved to be a useful image for trial purposes. The image was suitably cropped and resized to suit, printed on some thin card and placed into position. I've been reading Mike Raithby's excellent guide to backscene painting in the June 2016 & August 2016 editions of the 2mm Magazine, the recommended paints have been ordered so the next step will be to attempt to replicate the scene.

You can't fool me, I've seen you in a tweed jacket. And the answer, obviously, is yes. It's the reason I get so little modelling done.

Have a look at the DVD catalogue of Camden Miniature Steam Services https://www.camdenmin.co.uk/ and a test of your French, or how good Google translate is https://trains.lrpresse.com/CT-471-dvd.aspx LR Presse also publish very good books on the subject, albeit in French.

Personally, I think the scratchbuild challenge is just a distracting embarrassment. "Here's some shite we found in a bin and we want you to waste time trying to make something of it". Gives entirely the wrong impression of scratchbuilding. However, I do grant you that sitting down with some nickel-silver sheet and a jewellers saw won't make for gripping TV.

It does fit within the size constraints but it would be very cheeky indeed to enter it. Just like An Clár accidentally turned into a "cameo layout", Britsh Oak could be an accidental DJLC entry, but rest assured, it won't. Mark

As Jerry has mentioned, I brought British Oak to the 2017 Warminster Show and thereby hangs another chapter in the saga. Shortly before the show, I decided that the layout needed some smartening up, something I'd long planned to do. Unfortunately, I have a habit of putting all my roundtuits in a very safe place and then forgetting where I'd left them. By the time I'd remembered where the British Oak roundtuit was stored, it was pretty close to the show date, like the Wednesday before the show! The first job was to cover over the point and uncoupler controls. I had originally left them open just in case of any problems but as they'd survived ten or so years without problem, it seemed reasonably safe to cover them in. The first step was to sheet over the area with some shaped cardboard, in this case the back of an MRJ subscription envelope. The card was glued in place with PVA and held in place by pins, then given a through coating of PVA. When this dried, it made a nice hard shell, thin and with a bit of resiliency. Once the PVA had set reasonably hard but was still wet, I cut some strips from the front of the MRJ envelope and laid them over the cardboard again with PVA glue. Please note, other finescale envelopes may be available... After the strips were in place but while the PVA was still drying, I painted on a thickish layer of tinted Sandtex paint. The reason for working with the PVA wet is that the whoe thing bonds together and forms a very robust shell for the scenery. In fact it took a couple of coats to hide the paper strips but when it was done, it blended in quite well. In fact I had used the same technique of paper strips and Sandtex to cover the polystyrene landforms. The Sandtex was tinted with artists acrylics. I have found subsequently that Indian Ink works just as well and possibly better as it seems to mix more throughly. Final colouring was done with washes of artists acrylics blended directly on the layout. This took care of the top surface and covering in the ugly open areas massively improved the overall look of the scene. Encouraged by this, the next move was to tidy up the front and back sides of the layout. I needed to keep the width within the confines of the storage box so a thin but strong sheet material was required. The solution was 1.5mm aeromodellers plywood. Some extra polystyrene blocks were inserted to provide some support and the front and back were skinned with the plywood. Cutting out was done using a Stanley knife. The following photo sequence shows the process. The plywood skins were blended in with a thickened mix of tinted Sandtex and filler. There's a bit of theme here, still if it's good for ten or more years on the outside of your house, it ought to stand up well in this situation. The final result was a much smarter looking layout and fortunately, everything dried out in time for the Warminster show, as can be seen from Jerry's earlier photo. The next phase is to work up some more scenic detail and that is what is currently happening, ready for the layout's forthcoming appearance on the 2mm Scale Association's stand at Scaleforum.

30" by 8" overall and the visible section is 22" by 8". There is another British Oak model which also includes the loading screens as well as the canal staithe. It was at the 2016 Supermeet in Tutbury. The builder is Richard Caunt, I think. It rather upstages my model! Thanks for the photos, I've not seen some of those and the Youtube video is especially interesting. Mark

I reckon for your needs Steve, it's better to have the coaches as free running as possible. Weight is secondary to that. The main consideration is to get all the stock in the train to a consistent weight per item.

Thanks. I thought it would make an unusual model and so it has proved. I don't know about a standard design of sector plate, it's something I came up with to complete the other end of the run-round loop. Its not removable so it's not a cassette as such. It pivots between the two roads and is kept in place at each end of travel by magnets, holding the sector plate against end stops. Mark

For the fourth edition of The Beginners Guide to 2mm Finescale Modelling, published in 2006, I built a small layout "British Oak" as a worked example of the techniques described in the book. Here's the description of the layout from the book: British Oak is located in West Yorkshire, alongside the Calder & Hebble Navigation canal at the Eastern end of the Denby Grange colliery line. Coal was transported from the pits to the canal, from where it was loaded into barges for onward transportation to Thornhill Power Station. It was a surprisingly long lived enterprise, lasting in service until the mid 1980s. The scene is a highly compressed version of the scene in reality, but it contains the main elements from the overbridge to the canal drop. It makes a conveniently self-contained little diorama which can be operated by a single loco and a few wagons, either hoppers or bottom door mineral wagons. All the necessary items are available in N, ready to run or in kit form. The line was home to an ex-LMS “Jinty” sold by BR into industrial service which sported an unusual black, orange, blue & red livery. Other plausible locomotives would be an Austerity (J94) saddle tank and for later years, a variety of small diesel shunters. The inspiration for this layout came from “Model Railway Planning and Design Handbook” published by Santona Publications in 2004 (ISBN 0 9538448 5 4) where it is featured in some detail, including scale drawings of the canal staithe. The design was by Paul Lunn and I've been in correspondence with Paul, who's provided some useful additional information, including an NCB subsidence plan! At the close of the book, the layout reached the stage below: and was fully functional from an operating perspective. One of the problems I had with progressing the layout beyond this was a lack of photos. I had a handful of pictures from various sources but a few more would have been welcome. As is the nature of things with the Internet, pictures have a habit of turning up and most recently these series of images turned up on the Flickr photostream of "ee20213", so whoever you are, sir or madam, you have my thanks! These images are dated 18th July 1973 and are very useful scenic references. Elsewhere in the photostream are views of the canal and surrounding landscape. https://www.flickr.com/photos/58585785@N08/with/36173168172/ The loading staithe was rebuilt in the 1960s, replacing an earlier wooden structure. The new staithe was designed to accept bottom door wagons whereas the earlier one relied on tipping end-door wagons. Anyway, back to the layout in question. A start was made on some scenery. The staithe itself had already in constructed in a basic format as it was a necessary part of the layout. Plastic sheet and Evergreen I-beam sections were employed and the handrails came from a Peco turntable kit. The next piece to be made was the overbridge forming the scenic break. Girders were made from some I found in my bits box, I think they may be Peco but the packaging was long gone so I cannot be sure of this. The line running across the bridge will be modelled as the disused Barnsley branch. The foundations of the trackbed are a length of brass bar. An attempt was made to represent timber baulks going across the bridge using the old style cast chairpins but as will be seen later, this wasn't terribly successful so the track was subsequently relaid. Nowadays, the Easitrac moulded chairs would be the automatic choice but British Oak predates this by some years. The next step was to "block in" the scenic landforms using Dow Corning Floormate 25mm thick extruded polystyrene insulation. This was my first attempt at using this material. I had expected the 25mm material to be easy to work. Unfortunately that proved not to be the case. The major difficulty was persuading the blocks to adhere to each other. Previous experience with expanded polystyrene led me to believe that PVA glue would be OK. It was not, as the impervious structure of extruded polystyrene prevented the PVA from drying. I changed over to a solvent free contruction adhesive and pinned each block together with cocktail sticks. The end result was not as neat as I'd hoped it to be. The following series of photos shows the process. The end result wasn't too bad and is certainly strong. Hindsight shows that it would be better to shape the forms from larger blocks of the material. I also tried to work too cleanly, using knifes and a hot wire cutter. Sawing and shaping with a Surform would have been a better, if messier, technique. The polystyrene was covered with strips of heavy duty paper towel then painted with tinted Sandtex textured paint. This helped unify the whole landscape. I like using Sandtex, it provides a good base for subsequent scenery, it's strong and flexible so less susceptible to damage than filler based substrates. Unfortunately the lack of neatness in the shaping left the whole thing looking rather unsatisfactory and to be perfectly frank, was rather demotivating. Something would have to be done. For some considerable time, British Oak languished inside its storage box while other projects occupied my attention.

Are any other scenic techniques permitted?

I'm intrigued by the tender wheels. They look like an outside bearing split frame type.

I make quite a lot of stuff by filing it out of brass, steel, nickel, aluminium, tufnol etc. but in my defence, I am doing it digitally. Sometimes I cut or burn one of my digits or even accidentally glue it to something , which is quite annoying.

From my earlier years at BA, I well remember the Battery Shop in one of the old BOAC hangers (Technical Block A). It seemed like a particularly unhealthy place to be, full of wizened-looking technicians with huge rubber gloves. Mind you, they'd sort out any vehicle battery problems you'd have! As for repairing lead/acid batteries, I would be tempted to have a look at some of the electronic battery desulphaters now available. It is possible to desulphate using a chemical called EDTA but I understand that removes some of the active coating from the plates, losing a bit of battery capacity. From https://www.mgownersclub.co.uk/news/uk-restrictions-sales-acid "The new legislation doesn’t stop there as from 1st November 2018 it will become an offence for any unlicensed individual to hold any quantity of battery acid, so those who have small remaining quantities of battery acid from their last dry battery purchase will be committing an offence to keep or use it after 1st November. Clearly the advice has to be to dispose of any existing quantities of separately stored battery acid before that date so there is no possibility of you ever being caught out by circumstances that you may never believe could occur. Note that acid that remains in a battery is not restricted, but empty it out for any reason and as soon as it becomes separated from the battery is immediately restricted and an offence for any unlicensed individual to hold." It's unfortunate that use of acids for nefarious purposes has caused problems for legitimate users. Mark