Friday, May 23, 2025

Eastbourne Models van

 

A new addition to my collection of modelshop commissioned railway vehicles - Eastbourne Models Hobbies & Collectors shop. 

According to Ramsay's, this is one of 4950, produced in 1981. That's a big run for a small shop. I wonder if they have any left on the shelf? 

I can ask, because I was pleasently surprised to discover from the shop website, they are still open! 

At three hours drive away, I can't nip in for a look around, but if I can find a reason to be in the area, I definitely will! If any blog reader is familiar with the shop, please tell me how hard I need to find a good reason...

Thursday, May 22, 2025

Front suspension

 

Back to the Baja, and a job that really needs at least three hands - assembling the front suspension. 

It actually looks a lot like the real car - I remember lugging a front beam for my campervan across a field many years ago, and being glad I did when the one on the van broke!

The tricky bit of the job here is working out what goes where. There aren't that many parts, but they are handed. The question is, when something is marked "left upper", does it mean left sitting in the car, or from the front? 

After a bit of puzzling over the diagrams, which impressively show some very odd-shaped parts in perspective,  I managed to get it all together. Logically, the curved projections on the arms should hit the round bit in the middle, but making that happen took a while, and was the point where I needed three hands to juggle the pieces!


One mystery, how long does it take for the thread locker to work? I managed to fit the dampers the wrong way up initially, or the right way as the instructions tell you, but was able to take things apart within a few minutes. 


Wednesday, May 21, 2025

The Range superglue - not rubbish!


I'm a bit of a snob about superglue. 

While many people boast about using something from the local market that costs tuppence-ha'penny a gallon, I've always preferred to use "proper" modelling glues. Ideally, Zap Green, which I've always found to work really well, sticking quickly, and filling little gaps

Once you open glue, it starts to go off, and when I started a project for Garden Rail that needed superglue, I quickly discovered the bottle of Zap on the shelf had gone off. It was stringy, and the joins really weren't setting. 

Now, I think I have some spare in storage, but decided that as I needed to nip out to the local shops, I'd see what The Range had in stock. 

I picked up a few candidates, including, for a just over a pound each, their own brand stuff. "How bad can it be?" I reasoned. 

Actually, it does the job very well. 10 second stick is promised, and that seems to be delivered. 

Best of all, there is a brushable glue, handy for lots of jobs, and rarer than it should be. Even Zap don't seem to make it any more, which is a real pity. 

Am I converted? Not quite, but perhaps I'm now less of a snob. 

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Stamford Haul

 

I stuck gold at Stamford. Rooting around a box where the second-hand stall were just looking for a few pence donations, there were some plastic trees in a bag. I didn't want the trees, but the bag is a flimsy, small Beatties carrier - properly rare as viturally all of them will have been thrown away. OK, you can say they are probably still all in landfill, and will be for thousands of years, but that's too depressing a thought, and anyway, I'm not going to dig through a rubbish dump looking...

As well as the bag, I also scored a couple of the branded Hornby wagons for less than a fiver each. Not bad for Sunday morning, when the locusts had already enjoyed picking through it for a day...

While digging, I found a few packets of plastic details - tools, pallets, sacks and barrels, that are worth grabbing for pennies as they are always useful. The Gem kit cost a pound - and reminded me of the days when these were marketed as "Pound Packs"

The Kibri bufferstop is a buried type that offers a variety from the Peco version. A couple of Monty's Models figures came from Rich Wilson's charity clearout, and I'll always add these to the people pot, as they are superb models.


Finally, a little box too cheap to warrant opening. I know of the old Graham Farish buildings made up of plastic boxes, covered with stickers, but I don't think I've ever had a go. Well, now I can. I wonder if our N gaugers want a couple of houses?

Monday, May 19, 2025

Stamford Show 2025

 

Vegan cake! I tried some vegan chocolate cake - and you know what? It was OK. I still had a sausage bap for lunch later in the day though. 

Aside from cakes without dead animals in them, Stamford show is one of those local events that punches above its weight each year, and so well worth a visit. The day dawned sunny, but as this was just another nice Sunday, after several others, the show wasn't clobbered numberswise as it had been last year when their doors opened on the first nice weekend of the year. 

Thos that did attend found an impressive selection of layouts. I'm not going to pretend that I took photos of all of them, or that I'm bringing you all that I took (some are hidden for mag usage), but quite a few things caught my eye. 

Porthllechan

A Clyde "Puffer" seems to have found its way to Porthllechan. Nicely done, and the finicular (is that the correct term for a goods lift) worked well too. 

Megsdorf is another layout from Norman Raven, whose layouts I've photographed for BRM in the past. The loco here caught my eye as it's unusual, and I'm pretty sure I have a DJH kit to build it in my stash somewhere. No, I have no idea how that happened. 

St Judes bay is rather nice. We're talking to them about a fuller pagazine feature, but when that happens, I always take a few shots to remind me of the model. 

Market Deeping clubs own  layout, Corsham is a nicely done N gauge model, and this little corner appealed to me. I don't suppose I'm the only visitor to take a photo looking under the bridge!


Providence Colliery is another I'd have signed up for a shoot, but it turns out the owner is a friend of Tony Wright, so he's going to do this. It's local to him too, always a bonus. 


If you like novelty micro layouts, and I do, then Moor Boxes, by Kevin Staden is up your street. Over a dozen boxfile based N gauge layouts, each one different from the next, showcased the builder's imagination and ingenuity. Unlike a lot of novelties, the modelling wasn't bad either. Some ideas for a future Phil project perhaps?


Finally, the Kwai Bridge, built by James Spence. OK, it's novely, and the plastic plants are clever, if a little garish, but nice to see something very different at a show. 

Events like Stamford are my answer to those who only go to the larger events, because the little ones aren't worth the effort. Not every layout was amazing, but most were pretty good, and more than worth the cost of admission. Market Deeping also make great efforts to entertain youngsters and get them to sample our hobby. 

And the cakes are pretty good too.