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Book Review: James May's Man Lab
You are thinking, "This is one of those rubbish TV series tie-in books. Why is he blogging this?"I would reply, because I bought it very cheap in a charity shop, think James May is very sound on the...
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009 RNAD van
Over on MREmag.com I'm reviewing the 009 Society members only kit for a RNAD van, so head over there and have a look today.
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Mystery kit
What crazyness is this? A pile of plastic parts watched over by the Road Runner? All I'm going to say is that this could be the unholy offspring of Airfix, Hornby and Scalextic and possibly one of the...
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Painting Plastic
If anyone worked out yesterdays pile of bits was an MPC Road Runner and the Rail Rider kit, well done. Except if you cheated and looked at my Flickr page, in which case you are a bad person and are...
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Rail Rider
An hours gentle assembling later and here we have it - the Rail Rider. Snapping the bits together took more brains than brawn in several places. I can see kids breaking plastic if they try it unaided....
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Industrial awning
Here's a rather nice industrial detail spotted in Banbury a few days ago. While sensible people take photos of picturesque buildings, I'm attracted by the ugly bits stuck on the side of buildings....
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Topp Trains - Stafford
People are always talking about model shops closing down, but there is some good news as others are opening up. Topp Trains is a relatively new shop but in the few years since it opened its doors, the...
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Lessons in light switches
Some DIY jobs need to be completed quickly - such as changing a light switch. As this involves turning the power off in the house, it needs doing when there is least demand for electric. Sadly, that's...
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Modified micro chisel
This is a Micro chisel, bought from Little-Cars a few years ago*. It's very useful as the sharp end is 1mm wide, ideal for removing moulded on detail from model trains whose value on eBay I'm in the...
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Mystery Tool 1
As some of you may know, I'm helping out with the disbursement of the late John Webb's workshop stuff. Basically, all the tools and materials accumulated over many years modelmaking. They were all put...
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Mystery Tool 2
This tool would appears to be a drilling jig and our best guess is that it's for Midland Railway carriage sides. That rectangle of holes would be drilled and then joined up to form a round cornered...
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Mystery Tool 3
Now for the one that has the entire club stumped. If you pull the handle, a cam forces down a piece of metal into the slot above the nearest end of the clamp. It will shear wood (we had some to hand)...
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Mystery Tool 4
At last, a tool that I think I know the purpose of. Not at first admittedly, but once I dug through all the miscellaneous paperwork (old magazine articles, newspaper cuttings, random plans, postcards)...
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Duchess of Montrose
Among the items found in John's collection was this Hornby Dublo Duchess of Montrose in lovely condition. It is boxed complete with packing and spanner but no bottle of oil. A friend tells me that as...
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Is a dumb picture worth a thousand smart words?
Once upon a time, authors of magazine articles saw very little feedback on their work. The odd letter might wing its way to the editor and, the letter writer would hope, make it to the letters page....
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Mystery Tool 5
I thought I'd finished the mystery tool thread, but then, in the bottom of a bag, I found these. Each steel rod is 15cm long and on the end is brazed a steel ball. The balls vary in size and weight -...
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War Department Deans Goods
A wartime Deans Goods locomotive, manufactured by Mainline and re-painted into this livery by John Web, as far as we can tell. 62 of the engines headed abroad during WW1 with 46 of them returning at...
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Trix electric motor
That's a Meccano motor everyone said. And it turns out we were all wrong. It's actually from a Moto Trix construction set. Looks a bit like Meccano but the holes are spaced differently so the two...
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Wagons and a cottage in BRM
Plenty of wagon action from me in the June issue of British Railway Modelling magazine. I'm hard at work saving a few second hand examples from the bin. Starting with RTR models, there are a couple of...
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I'm not sure I'm getting any better at this
On the left, the second wagon I ever built. Constructed at least 25 years ago. On the right, the most recent, constructed about a month ago. Both are from the same Kenline whitemetal and plywood kit....
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