An early attempt at scratchbuilding

 Back in the late 80s I came across Brian Clarke's (Saltford Models) booklet An Introduction to Plateway Modelling (plateways are an early and crude form of railway where the wheels are without flanges and the rails comprise of L shaped plates). I found the subject quite intriguing, and Saltford did at one stage make some stock, however it was unavailable by the time I discovered the booklet. (Later on I did come across some, built for display and described here.) So, armed with a drawing in the booklet, some plasticard, styrene strip and balsa I made my own;

As can be seen I never finished them. (The grey waggon is by Saltford.)

Wheels were going to be GEM N scale cart wheels, which looking at them now, still sealed in the packet, appear too big.

I'm not entirely sure how they survived all this time, but somehow I'm glad that they did as they're an early, albeit crude, attempt at scratchbuilding on my part in my teenage years. I think they can stay as they are.

This is the first time that I've featured my past work on here rather than current projects, should there be more perhaps?

Paul.

More 006 mine tubs

I decided that I wanted a few more mine tubs based on my type 2 design, so I've built another 3. The only difference between these and my earlier waggon is that I've used my axle spacing jig to make up baseplates for the wheelsets.

Here they are;

And from underneath, to show the baseplates;

With my earlier two waggons;

This now gives me a nice train of tubs, however I may yet make a wooden bodied version.

Paul.

Saltford Models 'Mudmaster'

 As you know, I rarely feature anything on this blog that I haven't built myself, however I'm making an exception for this little rarity;

It's a Saltford Models K1 Hudson Hunslet (also known as 'Mudmaster'), bought from the 009 Society's stall at Narrow Gauge North last weekend.

It's very nicely built and finished, with the exception of the cab roof which needs to be removed, straightened and re-painted.

The kit was brass, with the chassis block and engine being cast and the bodywork and frame sides etched.

Interestingly, the frames on the prototype is a single casting as well.

The buffer/coupler blocks aren't part of the original kit, these are also Saltford castings as used in the K4 Simplex and also supplied separately. Nameplates are also Saltford items.

I have removed the cab roof, in the photo above the ECM motor can be seen.

Drive is to both axles using an idler gear;

Wheels are nickel silver and the axles run in brass bearings. Note the ballast weights behind the buffer beams.

I've applied a drop of oil where appropriate and cleaned the wheels, and I'm happy to say that the loco runs well.

Paul.

Finding the radius of a van or coach roof

 Quite often on a drawing of a loco, coach or van the roof radius is left off. This means that you need to find the radius, which is actually quite simple. The dimensions that you need are the width of the vehicle, and the height difference between the sides of the vehicle and the total height, that is the rise above the coach sides.

To find the radius;

a = half the width of the vehicle

b = maximum rise above the top of the coach side

r = radius of the roof

So, r = a2 + b2    (a squared plus b squared*)

               2b

(*I can't find a way of showing squared properly on this laptop.)

On the build shown below the width is 17mm and the height b is 2mm. So to find a we divide the width (17mm) by two to get 8.5mm. Putting that into the formula;

r = 8.5 squared + 2 squared       i.e.         76.25       = 19.06mm

                    4                                               4

So, from that the roof radius is 19.06mm. To mark out the radius I marked a line from the top of the end 19mm down, found the centre of the end, then used a pair of dividers to mark the roof profile. This worked well;

I hope the above is easy to follow, however this post is more of an aide-memoir for myself. This method was taken from Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling by D.A. Boreham, an excellent book that I would recommend if only to show how easy we have it these days!

Comments welcome.

Paul.

Mamod MM1

 A few years back I decided that I wanted a Mamod stationary engine, simply because I always wanted one as a child. I chose a MM1, probably the most basic model in the range, as I knew that I'd only use it a few times before either putting it on the shelf as an ornament or putting it in the loft. In fact it just had a clean up and a new safety valve and headed for the loft, until today.

It didn't come with a funnel, so I used a couple of syringes to fill the boiler and burner;

Both were used for dog medication. I'm a modeller, I never throw anything away unless I have to. A few drops of Singer sewing machine oil provided lubrication, probably too refined for the job but that's what I have to hand as I use it for the Unimat and my aged Singer.

And we have fire;

Whizzing away;

I must have gone a bit mad with the lube as there's emulsified oil everywhere. 

With it's original box;

I've run it a few times today, and made a few mistakes simply because I didn't read the instructions on the box. I overfilled the boiler and burner, so nothing happened and I had fire everywhere and bubbling paint on the base. Still, I've now gotten the hang of it and to be honest it's a fun toy to play with. I'll probably run it some more before giving it another clean and putting it back in the loft. I need to be careful as I can see these toys becoming addictive!

I've found that the easiest way to empty the boiler is to turn it upside down and use a syringe to suck the water out.

Paul.

Mining remains at Hay Dale, Derbyshire

 We have a new dog, a rescue from Spain who's very reactive. So, we're looking for quiet out-of-the-way places to walk him until he's more settled and we can be better placed to deal with his anxiety and reactivity. As a result of that today we took a walk along the Limestone Way down through Hay Dale nature reserve, in the White Peak. This took us past some mining remains, much to my surprise. I was even more surprised to find the rusted out body of a Hudson Jubilee skip wagon;

The view above is looking towards the adit, the one below away;

Looking into the adit, there's what looks like an old red tent behind the screen;

You have been warned!

Another view;

Fuel tank from what looks like a tractor, the left hand end was for petrol used for starting and the right hand for TVO (tractor vapourising oil, basically paraffin);

By the look of it the line came out of the adit on an incline to a tipping dock. The remains of the dock are very overgrown and difficult to interpret;

Like I said, very overgrown!;

A quick scout around on the web reveals very little information, the most useful being this page from Derbyshire County Council. However, there may be more, I'm not great at searching.

Paul.