B&MR

Week ending 16th February

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Monday saw five of us at at the club.

Continuing the etched brass tank engine meme from last week, Rhobat, with the helpful Wizard’s eye, is also essaying his first loco, in this case a Hunslet Jazzer kit in OO from the CSP range.

Meanwhile LBH converted a B&MR PBV to S7. Now it needs some serious weathering!

Tuesday evening we largely concentrated on runs-through of the ABB table honing a few items here and there. Wagonman continued to work on his ex-CM&DP pannier tank, the Wizard on a diesel (a Peak perhaps), and LBH on a gearbox for a 2-4-0T.

Friday and the next job to do on Cwm Carno was to cut the plywood for the track- and river beds. The initial idea was to extract the positions of the edges on the trackbed at 150 mm intervals from the drawing below.

That approach wasn’t welcomed by the club carpenter, Paul S!

Instead, we had already obtained a full-size print of the layout drawing for planning purposes, so we drilled small holes through it to plywood below marking the borders of the beds. Then by ‘joining up the dots’ we were able to use a jigsaw to the correct outline. Here we see the river bed in place, but not yet fixed.

And here’s the trackbed placed on the frame. The top of the picture is the top of the valley with, from the left, ‘mainline’, headshunt and colliery screens.

There are adjustments to make at the entry and exit points.

Meanwhile in the workroom a small parade of locos was assembled.; two pannier tanks and two 56xx’s. From left to right we have the Ditton Priors tank that’s featured before, two 4mm scale tanks from Mike E’s stable (which ran much better after the wheels had been thoroughly cleaned) and a brand new Minerva Models 7mm 56xx. This last belongs to Ed who in true Newport fashion has his feet in both the 4mm and 7mm camps.

Week ending 16th February Read More »

Week ending 1st December

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Perhaps Storm Bert deterred a few this week, but we had four members present and two guests, Phil and Cory, good to see you.

Dave is still working on the short wheelbase coal wagons and we took the opportunity to pose some of them with LBH’s Manning Wardle Class I, the B&MR’s Lady Cornelia, which was built thirty years ago, on Llanastr.

Not entirely coincidently the image is not so different from this, taken at the Rhymney Iron Works probably in the 1880s

Operating Llanastr at the open day threw up some issues with the track alignment between the baseboards, so after 40 years we thought it might be timely fix some proper dowels. Here is Paul discharging the drill’s battery to this end.

Tuesday and numbers are up to 8 today. But despite the number of people there were periods of studious silence when we were just getting on with modelling. Perhaps that was due to the drill battery going flat so PaulS had less to do.

Luke continues work on his Loriot, now applying buffers and ABB was moved into the workroom for attention to the electrics by TAFKATYS. We are hopeful for some test running on Friday.

Friday and numbers were back to normal, with Fred, Paul 🏅🏅, Mr Chairman, Luke, Wagonman and LBH all making an appearance.

The operation of Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae’s fiddle yards at Statfold proved problematic, with the operators unable to view the front of the layout so see what was happening.

So we’ve decided to try operation from the front. This necessitated removal of the board on the front of the Fiddle Yard above approx 1″ the surface, which Paul did on Friday.

Having got the Loroit to the paintshop, Luke is now working on a model T railcar. Or more exactly a pair of them to work back to back. Here’s the result of the first 30 mins work.

The Southern U class progresses on Wagonman’s workbench. The smokebox, boiler and firebox are now joined as one piece.

Week ending 1st December Read More »

Week ending 24th November

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Another quiet Monday will only Andrew J and LBH in attendance.

Andrew progressed with his Signal Box for Lyne Road

In an attempt to model the August 1912 delivery of 12 axles of Mansell wheels from Pickering, Wishaw to the Brecon and Merthyr’s works at Machen in the Evans and Bevan coal wagons (numbers 1296, 1297 and 1298 if you must know), LBH has made a start by commissioning 3d prints of the wheels from Andrew Smith of  3D printolutions. Wagons to follow hopefully before too long.

Tuesday was quiet too, the cold snap not helping matter, but work continued on Signal box, goods shed. Southern mogul and antediluvian wagons, but all the efforts evaded the camera’s shutter (do they still have shutters?).

Friday was a tad busier with four members in attendance.

Luke is making good progress with his 7mm GWR Loroit
And at last LBH has an accurate boiler thanks to the efforts of all round good egg Richard Spoors.
Thanks to his efforts a replacement etch was made, which LBH rolled on Friday.

Elsewhere Mr Chairman continued with the short wheelbase wagons and Andrew J worked on the Signl Box.

Week ending 24th November Read More »

Members at Missenden

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Four of the club members attended the Missenden Abbey Railway Modellers’ weekend at Missenden Abbey, two of us working in 4mm/ft and two in Scaleseven.

After many tears years LBH is getting close with his S7 Brecon & Merthyr 0-6-2T

Keeping the South Wales pre-grouping theme, TVR class V kit was unwrapped and started. Here the valance is being soldered in place, the tiny clothes pegs are really useful here.

On the etch with the cab side you can see the lack of locating tabs and there are obviously then, no matching slots. By trial positioning, measuring and marking the cab was formed, turning out to be nice and square. Help from the tutor on our course was necessary for the bending of metal though.

Back in the 29 September post there is a picture of a 3D printed tank being inspected. In fact it fitted onto the brasswork pretty well, though some material had to be cut away from around the smokebox

4mm scale found an ADR railcar chassis with motor and radio control fitted, and the start of a kit for a Sharp Stewart 0-6-0. Can you spot the coupling rod that had been overheated by an RSU?

Members at Missenden Read More »

Week ending 15 September 2024

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With Scaleforum getting closer more attention to preparation of stock, getting the ground surface ready for the terrace and tweaking and practicing the timetable on ABB.

Meanwhile Rhobat made some fascinating finds among his late father’s model collection …

This whitemetal GWR ex-Barry Class G 0-4-4T in OO. Rhobat plans to repaint in Barry Crimson

See the 4 August post for more on the Barry G class or click on Barry in the tags above to get all the Barry related posts.

and this pair of GWR Steam Railmotors, also in OO. Little is known of their origins.

Five of us attended Guildex in Stafford, and LBH made a few purchases:

A pair of S7 wagons, which on later examination proved to be sprung but had become gummed up. A few minutes attention freed up the axleboxes and they ran well.

They came in LMS livery, which LBH is removing to allow repainting in Midland colours.

And this Brecon and Merthyr Composite, superbly painted by Dave Studley. Luckily the conversion to Scaleseven was a quick and simple wheel swap.

Paul S has been sorting out the ground levels in preparation for the planting of the terrace Mr Chairman is working on.

Thursday saw an extra session snuck in, again for preparation for ABB‘s trip to Scaleforum – the throws of signal arms were adjusted, wheels were cleaned, routing macros were corrected, a fiddle yard casette split into two match traffic demands

Friday and Mike E arrived with his latest bargain. Only three of these prototypes were built by the Southern, with both 3rd rail and pantograph pick-up. The pantograph does actually unfold. Also the cab lights turn on, though it’s not apparent in the shot.

Mike E has also designed and fitted laser-cut window frames on the ABB Villas.

Mr Chairman has spent a while on the window furnishings on the terrace to good effect.

Seeing LBH struggling with the boiler fittings on ADR 14, and knowing that it’d be great to run it at Warley at Statfold, our resident Wizard kindly offered to fit the fittings and has also done a wonderful job of cleaning it up and removing LBH’s extensive extraneous solder.

Sunday and Mr Chairman has completed a trial assembly of the terrace.

Week ending 15 September 2024 Read More »

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