Week ending 18 August 2024

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The Dog Days of 2024 are upon us and things are a tad quiet at the club before we do into a jam-packed Autumn with the club being involved in four exhibitions plus an Open Day – put a note of 10 November in your diaries.

Rhobat and Fred are working together to produce a satisfactory bunker on Rhobat’s BR Class J. The first step is to create a mock-up using the rough cut pieces shown here.

Tuesday and Luke’s shunting plank has been erected on the new legs. After a bit of electrical soldering work we did some trial running.

Also the fence in front of the semis on ABB has been fixed with ground built up around it.

Friday and preparation of ABB continues. While the track and cassettes were being cleaned, the loco roster were in for wheel cleaning. Selecting 1954 as the time period does mean there are a lot of black engines and the picture is a bit reminiscent of Barry scrapyard.

Meanwhile Wagonman is preparing some GWR 9ft coach bogies in 7mm scale. The four of them are supposed to be identical. However, the pairs come from two different manufacturers and in the closer shot you can see that there are differences.

LBH rolled the second boiler for the B&MR Class 36. In the horizontal view you can see one of three temporary straps that were put in place while the internal gusset, seen in the end view, was soldered in place.

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Week ending 11 August 2024

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Monday and the wall and fence in front of the semis has been tried in place. It looks best at this level so there will be a bit of filling in of the ground to do. I should have made the walls deeper.

Freshly returned from a Missenden Modellers week, LBH has actually cleared space on his workbench so that his work tray can fit in. How long will it remain this tidy??

Tuesday we were meeting on Zoom. We started with discussions on the new test track and entries for next year’s exhibitions.

Later Steve Bell described the George Bennie Railway in Milngarvie outside Glasgow. It was a prototype, powered by electricity and though abandoned pre-war was not removed until the 1950’s. A kind of halfway towards a guided aeroplane, or maybe HS 0.5?

Friday was a quiet evening in the clubrooms, Andrew and Luke working on their respective layouts and Fred preparing to kick off a build of an A4.

LBH did a little on his ADR 14 with is getting close to needing a coat of paint.

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Week ending 04 August 2024

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Monday and the quest for a Barry Class G continues with a Midland 0-4-4T as another possible candidate. You can make a comparison between the two in the picture.

In case you’re wondering what the Barry Class G looks like, to save you googling it here’s a pic.

For more info on Barry stock look here.

Work has resumed on some fencing for in front of the semis on ABB. The view in the pic is from the back. The fencing has been attached to the front brickwork and brass wire glued in to help locate the assembly in position.

Tuesday and the inner face of brickwork now has been trimmed to match the step down in the fence and then stuck on. Some primer next, then attempt to install it.

Luke has had the privilege of wielding Thor’s hammer to persuade the T nuts into these wooden blocks. They are to take the adjustable feet for a set of legs. Then he used it again to get the blocks into the ends of the legs themselves. The modified legs are the further set. With a little adjustment the baseboard was level.

With ABB set to go to Scaleforum as soon as next month, it was time to get it erected in the layout room. Of course we chose the bit where the floor is not completely level so some packing was required.

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Week ending 28 July 2024

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Destined to be a Barry Class G

Another model to be added to the Barry Railway roster. This is destined to be modified into a class G.

LBH’s TVR Iron Van in S7 has at last sprouted buffers and will soon find its way to the paintshop.

Friday

The legs for Luke’s shunting layout are too wide for the baseboards so eventually we came up with this solution – insert two new lengths of aluminium inside the existing legs, screw them in place retaining the structure, then cut away the excess. We’ll see next week how successful it is.

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Week ending 21 July 2024

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Monday and a select few at the club. Rhobat continues with the Barry class J fitting a replacement cab and bunker. The first version was rather flimsy and a poor fit but the new one is a bit better. It’s not yet glued in place.

Tuesday was a quiet evening. Away from the clubroom I have been painting the doors and windows for the terrace, adding variation in colours. Some of them need toning down.

TAFKATYS’s latest offering is an ex-NER J23 in 0 gauge based on a Gladiator kit.

Also on display this week we had a lovely Black 5 that The Welsh wizard has for sale and a Saint belonging to Don. Yes, we know the tender is wrong.

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Week ending 14 July 2024

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Monday at the club had the usual tidying up theme. Inevitably lots of bits were thrown in my workbox at the end.

The only major problem with Pavilion End at the show was the failure of a point mechanism. Its position was too difficult for an immediate fix so the drive has been positioned to come from the rear of the layout instead from under the platform. The next steps are to connect a servo onto the other end, connect the drive, disguise the tube and reposition the ground signal.

On Tuesday Luke came with some lovely NG stock from Bachmann. The loco represents the Alice class from Dinorwic Quarry and the wagons are very good too.

We took the cliched opportunity to contrast two locos, both to 7mm scale – Dave’s 42xx and Luke’s Quarry Hunslet

Friday and a much better attendance than the usual four. There were 8 of us plus one visitor.

On Pavilion End the wire-in-tube drive has been connected up and hot glued in place. It curves around so that the servo can be close to its controlling circuit board to make plugging in easier. The turnout has been tested and all is satisfactory.

When he wasn’t installing point servos TAFKASTYS spent some time grinding away on the goods shed for T’yn y Coedcae blending in some new stonework. With 9 bodies present space was at a premium, so the corridor is being used to work out how to recycle ex-LMJ legs into supports for Luke’s shunting layout, advised by Wagonman.

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The second half of the year starts.

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Monday is our only meeting at the clubrooms this week. Tuesday we’re on Zoom and Friday many of us ar helping Mr C set up Pavilion End at Penarth Exhibition at St Cyres School, Penarth.

Five of us made it to the clubrooms on Monday but with most of us continuing to work on he same projects we have no new photos. Sorry!

Tuesday bought our monthly electronic get together on Zoom and we had presentations from Mike E with his very appealing proposal for an American Short Line layout in 0 scale, a blatant plug for the Industrial Railway Society in the guise of info on the locos of Maritime (Pontypridd) and Varteg collieries from LBH, a fascinating selection of images of terraced houses culled from the web for research into window frame painting practice in the ’50s from Mr C and a fine collection of railway and family pictures from Stephen Bell.

The second half of the year starts. Read More »

GBVs Pontnewynydd (twice), Rhymney and York

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First up this blog is this poster print of York that has been bequeathed to the club by Rowena, the widow of our founder member, club stalwart and Secretary, Tony Bennett.

York held special place in Tony’s affections having spent his student days there.

The Wizard is still working on the Rhymney Goods Brake Van in Scaleseven

Andrew N has recently completed his second Pontnewynydd break van in P4, the first, on the left is from an ancient Falcon Brass kit, the one on the right is a recent product from the 247 Developments stable. Here is the story of the latest build.

Tuesday and more work on the doors and windows for the terrace. The green door has come out very dark because of the red primer. Perhaps the white primed one would have been better. The white of the window frames is too stark, so the second frame has been overpainted with light grey, thought it’s come out looking cream.

Last seen back in mid-May as basically a flat pack the GWR Hawksworth autocoach has been put together by Wagonman. There’s a lot of detail on both ends because of the autogear. Windows, couplings and paint will come next.

Friday

Work on the terrace continues with the pavement to the front. The grey primer is being overpainted with a white / grey acrylic mix. The laser cut edges to the flags made it easier to run the paint up to the edges.

And LBH almost finished a wagon – in this case a NDR (aka A(N&SW)DRCo) two-plank example with the help of Bernie’s paint job. Just couplings remaining to be fitted.

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