Garden Railway Forum

I'm initially designing everything first before I cut metal, but I am stuck on cylinders and (especially) valve chests. Have a look at the drawings for Dave Watkins Wild Rose III design. It has the same arrangement of outside cylinders with inside valves and slip eccentrics. http://www.davewatkins....

MDLR:103950 wrote: (Assuming, of course, that you are a 16mm Association member.)

No, I'm not a member of the Association. Thanks to Royal Mail it's not cost effective out here in Oz.

Graeme

Need to fill in small drill holes in steel at the moment but maybe brass later. Can I use car body filler such as below? There's no single method, it depends on the material thickness and the hole size. For small holes in thicker materials, say 1mm and up, I usually fill it by countersinking each s...

This was the second steam loco. I started, but for various reasons it was the fourth to enter service. Given the length of gestation, it should have probably been named Jumbo..... The model is based on a loco. named 'Little Yarra' built by Baldwin in 1913 for the Powelltown Tramway, which was a timb...

Bogies, wheels, transfers, I have a start on. The next part will be the balconies - the Bachmann efforts look positively rickety. Wonder if Accucraft do their Pickering gates separately too, or if I should get some 3D-printed? Bachmann copied the bogies on the Jackson Sharp cars from LGB and the co...

My initial thoughts are to use the 32 mm drawings and to multiply dimensions by 1.4 to get to 45 mm gauge dimensions, and just wondered if this was the correct approach. There's no 'correct' approach, it's your railway..... Multiplying all the dimensions by 1.4 will give you a 7/8" scale Quarr...

Just wondering what colour it would be in the 1930's when the GWR owned the line (using Google tends to bring up the Welsh Highland example of all over brown)? There's a photo in one of Boyd's books and another in Johnson's book, both showing the original body type in a two tone scheme with what lo...

I should very much like to see one of your trains in action. Alas, my wife is unwilling to visit Australia due to the spiders. You live in a country with the two largest land carnivores in the world and she worries about spiders? If it comes to that, your arctic wolf spider is larger than anything ...

kandnwlr:102946 wrote:how did you do the bolts (I assume) on the sides.

I used Peco pins (SL-14), pushed through a 0.6 mm hole with a smear of superglue, then clipped off flush on the inside.

Yes, they represent bolts, not rivets. Wooden wagons were assembled with coach bolts.

Graeme

These models were built earlier this year, when it was too hot in the workshop, so I was working inside the house. The under frames for bogie wagons had been sitting around on the bench for some time and this was an opportunity to finish some of them. When the weather started to cool off I was back ...

 I haven't yet worked out how the gas seal is made and whether the leak is coming from the top of the cylinder seal or the connection between that and the filler pipe.   I'm guessing there are no user repairs to this unit? Is it leaking only while being filled, or does it leak all the time? If it l...

I'm very envious of those on here (and elsewhere on-line) who have access to the right workshop equipment, tools, materials & skills to quickly run off something like this. Unfortunately I'm not one of them so have to rely on the ready made option for now. Have a talk with Roundhouse, they make...

I plan to buildt it from two or three layers of 1mm styrene card, which will be laminated together. So is there enough time to apply the MEK Pak to one sheet and then laminate the other sheet on it before the solvent dries? I usually use MEK for polystyrene sheet work, it's OK for applying narrow s...

As Brian observed it betrays its bus origins with the distinctive motor and gearbox noise. What were they -Leyland or Gardner engines? Neither - that's a AEC engine under the cowling! Ummm...... RM76 was built with a 100hp AEC petrol motor, but was converted to a 102hp Gardner diesel before WW2. Th...

The original is 3'6" guage so it would probably have been better suited to 45mm but I want to build a 32mm line so 2' guage it is. Looks good. ;) The QR considered converting a 45hp AEC to 2' gauge for use on the Innisfail Tramway in the '30s, but the local bus company beat them to it. They wo...

As far as I can tell, having RC fitted is expensive, and I can only assume that doing it yourself (i.e. at home) is considerably cheaper. However, how the dickens do you do this? Does anyone have the ultimately check-list of things you need and good value source? Have a look at Tony Walsham's site ...

This gadget is used to calibrate pressure gauges and Kozo Hiraoka has a suitable design for miniature locos in a couple of his books. This one came from his Heisler book and was this weekend's project, made from various bits and pieces of metal in the workshop. Not an essential workshop item by any ...

  I wonder if there is a manufacturer out there who is prepared to make a sheet of transfers of just the letters I need, in the size and colour I want,  without having to throw away 90% of the alphabet I won't ever use? I print my own decals and there are a few bespoke waterslide decal manufacturer...

All are in stable condition and do not appear to have become brittle,  however, I will admit they have been kept in boxes when not in use and only then used on indoor exhibition layouts, away from damaging UV. For some reason I thought 'Peter Jones' when I saw the photos.... My early scratch built ...

Peter Butler:99125 wrote:Got the bit between my teeth now....

You are getting perilously close to the batch building precipice.

Be a devil and try building a couple more open wagons while you are on a roll.....

Graeme