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Rusty bridge sides
A bit of gap filling on the high-level rail line. Using some Wills Vari-girder bridge components, fairly heavily hacked around, I've joined the bridge parapet to the canal bridge at last. There's some...
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Meccano Clockwork Motor No.1A
I sometimes get calls asking how and where to dispose of old model railway items. I'm no expert and usually recommend the local model shop, or MRC Second-hand sales, unless the items are especially...
View ArticleSaturday Film Club: The secret life of the sewing machine
Not the most obvious choice perhaps, but this is one of the films from Tim Hunkin's wonderful "Secret Life of Machines" TV series from the 1980s. Each one explained, in simple but not idiot terms, how...
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National Garden Railway Show 2021
It's just over a week since the first large model railway exhibition since the start of the pandemic. All in all, despite a bucket-load of restrictions, it went very well. The challenge for me was to...
View ArticleTime for a break
I'm afraid there aren't going to be any posts this week - I need to take a bit of a holiday from blogging for a few days. Sorry about this. If you need a bit of my drivel, there are well over 5000...
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Uh-oh
If you are reading this, something has prevented me from updating my blog for some time.Obviously, I don't know what that something is. I might be on holiday and forget to postpone this blog post, in...
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Working waterwheel
Looking to replace a water feature in the garden, my parents came back with a working waterwheel. Powered by a couple of solar cells, it's not little thing. The base is 46cm square and it's 54cm tall....
View ArticleSaturday Film Club: The ugliest loco on the Isle of Man
Much as I love all the Isle of Man railways, number 18 "Ailsa" is in any eyes, pug ugly. Built for work on the London Underground as a contractors loco, it was never meant to be seen much above ground....
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Painting the dragon
I wasn't confident I would have enough plants to fill my garden railway display and decided a little more colour would be useful, and ideally, something amusing. Our garden is home to a number of...
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Birmingham bus stop
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Brummie buses didn't stop at shelters looking much like the Merit concrete version. Birmingham had it's own spindly metal design, which appeared all over the city. As...
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Detailing a Bachmann Wickham Trolley
I've just finished a little detailing on my Bachmann Wickham Trolley. You can read the full details (for free!) over on the World of Railways website. Nice little project - there's not much to do...
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Camping coaches and buying kitbuilt locos in BRM
This months' project is one of those that grew the more I dug into it.My plan had been to take a Hornby generic coach, paint it then plant the result in a field as a camping coach. Then I found a...
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Garden Rail August 2021
Does building a garden railway take a long time? I set out to build a working layout, complete with plants, in a day for the National Garden Railway Show. See how I got on, and enjoy highlights from...
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Pop-pop boat
"What did you buy at the National Garden Railway Show Phil?", I hear you ask. I bought a pop-pop boat. Well, it was only a tenner and I liked the look of it. You'd pay more for the power unit. I also...
View ArticleSaturday Film Club: Dresden Suspension Railway
I visited Dresden years ago, but no-one mentioned this monorail funicular - or I'd have sought it out for a ride!More information on Wikipedia.
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Selly Oak sails away
Time to wrap up the Selly Oak story as the model has now been delivered to its new owner. The sharp eyed will notice that there are a few jobs still to do - laying the track being the main one....
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New brushes
I paint a lot of stuff, and so am always on the lookout for modestly priced brushes that are good enough for the sort of work I do. £10 for 20 brushes counts as better than a bargain, at least if they...
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Meng cartoon "Hood"
My dad is still working on his scale model or the warship Hood - but when looking through the Meng website after finishing my Santa Tank, I spotted a plastic kit version and wondered if I could finish...
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Assembling the Hood
In theory, the Meng kit pushes together, but in the same way I don't do plastic kits without paint, I don't do them without glue either. Not that the model was likely to fall apart. Most of the holes...
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"Hood" ready to sail
And there it is done. A fun little project which apart from a little hole cleaning, went together perfectly. The finished ship is 16cm long and 9cm tall plus base. Big enough to see the detail, but...
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