Members project night (What's on your bench).
4th January Meeting
Members' Modelling Evening
This was a very good evening with a wide range of contributions provided entirely by the members.
Nick Coppin talked briefly about a Swift Sixteen model of a War Department Light Railways 'petrol tractor'. This is a 16mm to the foot scale model built from resin castings and etched brass. It is intended for use on his Ffestiniog layout.
Mike Wakefield demonstrated his flywheel-assisted wagon used to control his live steam locos. if they try to speed, the flywheel keeps them in check and when they slow down, the flywheel gives them a push to keep going. He was inspired by the Australian-built 'Slomo' mechanism. He showed us a short video of it in operation on his garden line.
Ian Payne brought along a charming 45mm gauge brake van recently built from a North Pilton Works kit. It is mostly laser cut plywood and comes complete with interior furniture, lighting and glowing stove! Ian has added a guard and tail light. There was interest in his vinyl cut lettering made on a CNC cutter.
Andrew Vaughan brought some more of his delightful etched brass models in a variety of scales from N to 1/12. There was cutlery and crockery, board games, ladders, a Dolls house train set with a gauge of 2mm! There were GWR station benches, garden tools and a brilliant 0 gauge pram. Andrew will be at the Stafford show next month.
After a coffee break, Stephen Duffell showed us a beautifully manufactured Hornby coach. It was a model of a Southern rebuild of a LSWR panelled wooden coach. The SR added a ten foot rivetted steel section to the older coach, so Stephen decided to saw it off again to produce a fine quality model of the original LSWR vehicle. He will mount it on a shorter Coopercraft chassis. This meant he had a spare, over-length chassis so he added an etched LSWR body kit to that, getting two coaches from the one Hornby model.
Tim Lewis had lots of cattle wagons for his P4 Coldstream layout. Parkside LNER, David Geen LMS and a couple of 'fabulous' and very accurate Southern cattle wagons; one Maunsell and a Bulleid. He compared the models with a much older whitemetal kit and there was no comparison in quality. He also demonstrated a 00 gauge Wickham trolley with its motor in a little wagon which whizzed up and down the track. He plans to convert the trolley to P4 and add a DCC chip.
Dave Evans showed us a little analogue meter he had bought from Charlies for £3.99. He also had some building kits and textured pages downloaded from the Internet. They were from Smart Models smartmodels.co.uk and Scale Scenes scalescenes.com You can download and print kits and roofing materials etc with the capability to calibrate your printer for accurate scale printing.
Staying with the card modelling, Howard Mainwaring had built a fine Metcalfe church which he illuminated from within using a USB light. He also showed us a shunter's truck built from a brass etched Connoisseur kit which was coupled to a nice 0-4-0 side tank loco.
Michael Glover had two Japanese 1/160 scale Kato models. One was a very smart tram, the other was an industrial building he had built from a kit. Apparently it went together very quickly and very well. Michael recommended his supplier - Traintrax.co.uk
Finally, Gordon Woods had brought along some 00 gauge models and a length of demonstration track. There were some nice wagons and coaches which he had detailed and weathered. He uses Life Color acrylic paints in an airbrush for the weathering with some use of weathering powders. His locos caused much interest. An LNER Q6 with DCC and sound was demonstrated and seemed very good. A Haymarket shedded A4 'Merlin' had slightly better sound and a super whistle. They puffed when the regulator was opened and stopped puffing when it was closed with the sound of clanking side rods! There were even tyre and brake squeaks when the locos stopped. He then demonstrated a Sutton's Locomotive Workshop class 24 diesel. It sounded like there was a full size loco in the room! It was very impressive.
A very informative, entertaining evening rounded off by Peter telling us about an online American modelling magazine model-railroad-hobbyist.com.