Garden Railway Forum

I've got a half built kit for the IP engineering cabbed Ruston if you are interested Tom.

Probably far too late but don't use sand paper. I used 80 grit wet and dry paper in water on my Ruston LAT and was done with the body in 5 mins. I then swapped to a fine grit to get it fully smooth. Go for good quality paper as the cheap stuff tends to disintegrate.

I wouldn't be concerned Tom, I have a couple of large coal fired locos and they still have a wet exhaust even at 3ft long. You could try adding some thin insulation around the cylinders.

Some of you from other forums may already be aware of this but Photobucket has recently changed its user terms, mostly the part about third party image hosting. The third party hosting, that is displaying your photos on other sites through Photobucket, is now part of one of their paid for packages. ...

Nice loco. If you set your speed then turn the transmitter off does it not keep going like other Roundhouse diesels ?

If its a slide valve engine then the valves may have fallen off the valve face and got stuck, its usually a simple fix by taking the covers off and pushing them back on tha face with some fresh oil. The other cause as you have said could be the o rings in the pistons.

You weren't that bad Laurence, it was an improvement on last years mood

My standard MSS used to run for about 8 mins with 4 wagons on tablets but they weren't the MSS ones. IT ran like that for about 4 months untill the camping shop closed and i changed to a meths burner.

As Jim said, a meths burner gives a massive boost in heat and therefore steam generation. It is possible to fit 1.5 tablets into the normal burner by bending the tabs in the centre flat, this should give you a bit of a boost. Give that a try, if not I have a lot more ideas

Over the winter I have been repainting the 1.5" scale Allchin that lives here. The initial plan was to do a bit of a tidy and retouch the paint, this quickly escalated when the new tin of paint was a different colour to the old tin. In the end, the entire engine has been repainted and lined as ...

Here you go, My Bertie has Hackworth but you should be able to use the same lever position.






Before you ask yes, the wheels are double flanged

I've got my reversing lever in the cab door way on the same side as the gas tank. I will get a picture later.

As Christopher has said, a flow from the chimney would suggest either the piston rings are no longer sealing or for some reason a valve has got stuck off its face. As the valve chest covers are readily accessible on a Billy checking to see if the valves are off the face or the timing is out shouldn'...

Is there any beat to the exhaust or is it constant flow of steam ?

I would guess that a special crank pin for the rear axle will need making and the eccentric rod may need to be replaced with either the short one if its not already in the kit or a special one making. It should be a relatively easy conversion, accuracy is key with valve gear.

Have a read of this, taken from Chris Bird's website http://www.summerlands-chuffer.co.uk/78ths-betty/4577588091 I've done the Hackworth conversion which does need a small addition to the frames however, apart from a couple of carefully positioned holes I cant see any major issues with fitting the k...

84mm tall from the top of the rail.

16mm scale is in a very unusual position in the modeling world as it covers a huge variety of skills and interests. Since starting this hobby I've learnt gardening, landscaping, carpentry and metalwork aside from the usual modeling practices. Its also one of the few scales where real materials can b...

I've never heard of anyone taking one as hand luggage though I think the words gas tank might cause the issue. As for running on a layout you can always Email the show director and see if he can be of help, I think its possible to book slots on the modular layout to run but check first.

Try these, they are slightly smaller than 1mm but might be the closest you can get. Can't help with the small snaps I'm afraid but it may be possible to make some.