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Part built Emett
It's Easter Monday and I suspect most people will be happily tucking in to chocolate eggs or doing religious things rather than cruising the web for model train stuff. With that in mind, here's a quick...
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Bracing joints
Zap superglue is marvellous stuff but like all such glues, there are times when the mechanical joint isn't as strong as you would like. A good example is on the back of Nellie, where the cab back meets...
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Crazy details
One of the joys of Nellie is the crazy detailing to be carried out. It's the first time that I've found a load of large round-head pins to be sued on the ends of cylinders and tops of sandboxes (I...
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Saving 2nd hand models in BRM
Modellers are always moaning about rising prices. It's true that wage increases in China and demands (sometime even tantrums) for ever higher levels of detail are pushing the cost of railway models...
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Ready for paint, but what colour?
All the parts are fitted, apart from some copper wire inside the cab, so the model is ready for a quick scrub in the sink to remove any mould release and grease from my fingers. After this, there will...
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York 2015
Nearly 3 hours for a toy train show? Pulling up in the car park, it was slightly tempting to enjoy the sunshine by wandering around the city but no, there was chatting to be done so it was in to the...
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Exhibition catering
"I felt at £1.90 for a sausage roll the catering staff should have been wearing masks"Comments like this are common after every exhibition and are the bane of many managers lives.Hundreds of hours work...
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Nellie gets painted
So, there I was talking to Chris at Phoenix Precision Paints during the York show. "I need something to paint an Emett Nellie locomotive", I said. "Certainly sir. Something from our extensive cartoon...
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Smallbrook Studio, Nellie
Yesterdays photo showed Nellie painted, but looking a bit flat. The colours were there and all very pretty but I felt there was no life in them. That's not unusual, especially for matt black. There is...
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Book Review: How about railway modelling by John Craven
If you are a sensible age, one of the features of your youth would be getting back home from school and watching "John Craven's Newsround". 5 minutes of real news presented in the same way the stuff...
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Replacement crossheads
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the GWR Railcar project had stalled as I wasn't happy with the whitemetal crossheads. Well, the good news is that at York, I was able to pick up some nice lost-wax...
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Waggly bit installed - on one side
Attaching the crossheads to the connecting rod was achieved by using a small bolt through the back. The head is large enough to stay put and the thread poking through the front can support the...
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An unexpectedly difficult livery
I've a 009 Society RNAD van on the workbench for review. Having built the kit, I thought it wold be nice to paint and weather it for final photos. The pictures in the instructions show a simple livery...
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Olde worlde boat modelling
Mt Dad is indulging in a bit of old style boat modelling. Using a 1950s plan (still available) for a boat called "Water Bug", he's busy with balsa wood doing some scratchbuilding.Waterproofing the wood...
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Microzip hand sander
While we are talking about model boat building, a tool that has proved to be unexpectedly brilliant is the Microzip hand sander. On the face of it, the tool appears just to be a foam handle to which...
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Edding cutter MP9
Some traders can see me coming. Gerry Freestone knows if he points me at a quality tool, I'm probably going to buy it. So it was that I ended up with a Edding knife. Truth is, it's a very nice bit of...
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Harringworth Viaduct
A trip in to the BRM offices usually take me a couple of hours. This time however, one of the main roads on the way was being dug up leading to a half-hour long scenic diversion. Along the way though,...
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Seaton station for the scrapyard
Driving towards Harrington Viaduct, I rounded a a corner and though, "Blimey, that's an old railway station.", so on the way back I tried to get a better look. Sadly, there was nowhere to stop on the...
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Vintage houses
On my way to the subjects of the last two days posts, I passed through the village of Ketton. One of the highlights of this was that I finally saw the cement works that I normally only spy from a...
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That's 15 quid wasted then...
A few days ago, I was cleaning out my electric razor and lost one of the cutting heads inside the foil. No idea where it went, but it was gone. Preferring to mend things rather than throw them away, I...
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