Some bits and bobs worth mentioning

Me again :o)

Just a post to catch up with bits and bobs I am working on and things that might be of interest to some people. Firstly a couple of bits for the 2mm Scale Association...

1. Farish Conversions

 All the design work for a method of converting Farish engines to 2mm Finescale has been completed for the first engine (the Jinty). If everything goes to plan, these will be available to members at this years AGM where more information on the conversions will be available too.

  2. Farish Standard Class 4 Replacement Chassis

The design of the chassis is progressing slowly as the design of the original chassis is quite a bit different from the new style of chassis. I am currently getting my head around the valvegear to produce am etch to replace the original...

The last two are just some things worth mentioning but not connected with the Association...

3. Peckett Chassis

I am going to try something out with regards to the chassis and CNC mill something out instead of relying on an etched one.

It still needs lots of work, especially with the gearing as I can produce a gear ratio from 28:1 to 138:1 for this engine. The plan is to produce some sort of split solid chassis.

4. GWR Engine Shed

By request Osborns Models are working on a laser cut large GWR style engine shed and progress has been great.

I have a (cunning) plan for one of these and I cannot wait to get my hands on one.

Julia :o)

P.S. If I am posting too much then let me know....

SVR Autumn Gala 2014

Hello :o)

For the past day and a bit I have had the pleasure of spending it at the Severn Valley Railways Autumn Steam Gala with the company of Andy H. We went last year and it was amazing to see steam engines operating in the dark so this year was one of those 'not to miss' events.

I decided to travel up on the Friday straight from work but it seems the traffic conspired against me and so I didn't arrive at Kidderminster until 6.30pm, a whole 2 1/2 hours later than expected, but once I was parked up I could then enjoy the weekend.

Nighttime photography has always alluded me, especially moving things like trains so as last years photos were admittedly a bit of a nightmare I tried to read up on how it should be done. Now I will be honest and say that my photography skills leave lots to be desired and I have always worked to the  thought of 'if I take enough photos I am bound to get one or two good ones' and this year it seems I have had a little more luck, here are some of my favs...

Ok, so they aren't going to win any awards but I am happy with them and they are a definite improvement on last years! Sad to say though, these people were more prevalent this year...

...and as you can see it was very hard, almost impossible to take photos of some things. There were times when they came and just set up their cameras in front of me while I was trying to take photos, and to me some were quite rude to other members of the public. I know I was just trying to do the same but I try to be as considerate as possible to others. Anyway, whinge over...

The Saturday was nice too...

  A 4f amongst the flowers, a timeless scene.

I think there is a leak there.

The fireman said to me "when you are filling at 5000l/min you aren't worried about a 5l/min leak"

The relief crew poised, ready for action

Finally my favorite photo of the (205!) I took...

But how stereotypical! (Its on the M7 btw).

For those who haven't been to such an event I would thoroughly recommend it, seeing steam engines and trains running in the dark is a whole different world, its so atmospheric (hence why my layout Highclere can be run in the dark). I will be back in 2015 and fingers crossed my photography might be slightly better then too.....

Julia :o)

EDIT:

I took only one video, it was taken at around 4am on Saturday so apologies in advance if the quality is a bit poor...

:o)

More Weathering

Hello.

More photos from the painting and weathering genius that is Steve T. This time its the turn of my GW Class 52xx...

This was a Worsely Works etched kit with a scratchbuilt chassis. Detailed, painted, and transfers by my fair hands, then passed onto Steve for the finishing touches. This is the second engine to be weathered by Steve, the first being my Farish Jinty. Please bear in mind that the photos have been cropped but thats all, other than that they are camera fresh.

(A very happy)
Julia :o)

Things this weekend

Hello again :o)

Well, this weekend was a busy one! Two shows over two days with lots of people to talk to and lots of things to look at and do. Sunday evening I looked (and felt) like I had been to some sort of festival...

Saturday was spent at the Swindon 'Steam' festival at the Swindon Steam museum. Its the 3rd year I have done a demo there and it never fails to impress me on the venue, content, and general atmosphere of the place. I mean, how many model railway shows are there each year where the stands and layouts are mixed in with the Great Westerns finest steam locomotives, its such a mecca for people like myself.

I managed to get some modelling done too in the form of putting together my recently CNC milled chassis side frames for the PECO collets I have. It was fairly straight forward as the bits were already ready from the previous attempt so all I needed to do was swap them over to the new frames. I am sure to post about them sometime in the future. I was a little saddened by the performance of some of my engines which had the opportunity to run on Mick S ever excellent Wansbeck Road layout. Its hard not to compare them to Micks and John Gs engines which I know it not a good thing to do. They are in a different league to my modelling abilities and their modelling never ceases to impress me. Its good to have something to aspire to though, and hopefully one-day my modelling will be held in just as much high regard as theirs.

Sunday was spent the the N Gauge show (TINGS) where once again I spent an enjoyable day mingling with other members of the public talking to people and marvelling at all the nice bits and bobs on display. The highlights for me at the show were the following..

• B&H Enterprises 3D printed streamlined railcar, fortunately not the later one like my 'Elvis' but the earlier version. It was very well printed and has been duly added to my shopping list.
• Osborns models laser cuts buildings and things. They looked really well done and I am looking forward to purchasing some in the near future.
• Brixham Bay N Gauge layout, absolutely superb modelling, the buildings were amazing and the whole layout was presented really well. everything was nicely finished and toned down. Definitely the best layout there in my opinion.

The last thing that I feel is worth mentioning is the 3D printed bits from DJM. To me, the display and representations of future models was shockingly bad. So much so that even the guy on the stand seemed embarrassed about them when I spoke to him. NOT a good advert for someone who is trying to gain a foothold into the market and the total opposite to all the hype I have heard about.

Overall I had a brilliant weekend and from what I have heard, it sounds like I made the right choices of what to go to as well.

Julia :o)

CNCing About.... Part 1

Hello :o)

A few years ago I went into a sort of partnership with a guy called Steve from the Oxford 2mm group. The deal was that he provided the milling machine in the form of a Proxxon MF70 and I would supply the CNC conversion kit. I purchased a conversion kit from a company called USOVO and the mill was duly converted by Steve. It was then passed onto me to finish off the conversion and get the thing working.

Roll on a couple of years and after not touching it I decided to get it out of the cupboard and try to get it working as it seemed too good to hide away unused. This is where another guy called Robert stepped in as I just couldnt get my head around the electrical connections and configuring the Mach3 control software. Robert took the mill and promptly got it working in about an hour and it was then back to me to finalise a few settings and tweak it until it was happy.

Anyway, its all up and working now and I am one happy bunny. Even better I found a plugin for Autodesk inventor which creates G Code based on my 3D models. It even does a nice little preview so I can check to see if everything works how it should.

Even with this preview, it still took a bit of 'tweaking' to get the machine cutting right though..

Eventually it all came together..

And now I have four chassis sideframes for my PECO 22xx collett engines on my 'to do' list..

Thank you goes to Steve and Robert in helping get the machine to this stage. The trouble is now what can I do with it next....




Julia :o)

All Change

Hello.

Well, its been a long time since I have posted on this blog but thats about to change...

For various reasons, all of which I am not going to go into publicly, I have decided not to continue posting details of my modelling on RMWeb but instead focus my posting on this blog instead. As I said, I am not going to go into details on my reasons for this but instead if anyone is mildly interested then request that you contact me directly where I will explain in more detail.

So, if you are interested (for some weird reason) in what I am doing, then please bookmark this blog and you will be able to keep track of what I have been upto.

Regards.

Julia :o)

January 2013

Hello.

Modelling has slowed down a bit recently but thankfully not stopped. The most notable thing recently was I finally managed to get another test etch done which has a few revised bits and bobs on it.

One of them was the remaining bits I needed for Highcleres yard crane based on a standard GWR 6 ton design. The majority of the bits were already drawn and were etched last year but I ran out of time to complete it so they had to wait until the next...

I am pleased with the way its turned out, the assembly went not too bad at all (for me thats quite surprising!). The next step is to paint the crane, I want to do this before I add the chain as I have some nice blackened chain which doesnt require painting. Also I need to build the hook and pulley once again, I have already done it once but cannot find it! Luckily there is a spare on the etch!

Secondly City of Truro was also included on this etch. The first time I found quite a few mistakes with it so I was looking forward to trying out my revised design...

This time I got a bit further but sadly there are still a few design issues to work out. This is my first ever engine kit after all so the next attempt should be a little better.

Julia :)