The cheap way into Roundhouse ownership

 

This is my new toy. A Roundhouse Lady Anne. Bought at Llangollen garden railway show last Saturday. 

I'd normally say I hadn't planned to buy this, but in truth, there was an inkling. Right at the end of Ally Pally show, I spotted that Footplate had a green one on the stand, for very modest money. I asked what was wrong with it, and the answer came that it was a bit scruffy, but otherwise OK. 

Now, if I'd seen that loco at the start of the show, there would have been a lot of pondering. A Roundhouse loco was a hole in my collection. I've toured the factory and seen the quality of the work. But there was no way I could justify the outlay to myself. Even the kits (which I'd stilll love to build) end up north of a grand by the time you buy all the bits. Excellent value for money, but still a big chunk of cash. 

Anyway, having seen Footplate at a couple of shows since, and the stand being devoid of loco, I assumed I'd missed my chance. Not to worry I thought. 

But at the garden railway show, the green loco was back. And joined by a black one. Each for £600. I asked, and was assured the loco had steamed. It felt OK when I turned the wheels, and was pleasently oily in the right places. I took a deep breath and handed over my credit card. This may be a bargain, but it's still not something I'd planned or saved for. 

Back home, a chance posting on Facebook about the Paul Perryman estate sale allowed me to start digging into the models history. From the serial number, Roundhouse told me it was built in 1999 by Harry. I have now comunicated with the first owner, who sold it to Paul. I also know it has been run with 40-50 wagons on the back relatively recently. 

Now this might be a bargain, but there is work to do. The boiler moves slightly. It's greasy and dull. The loco was once red, but repainted black after falling off a table and becoming scratched. This also explains the very slight lean of the chimney - not something I spotted until it was pointed out. 

The first job is to steam the model. From that I'll get an idea of the work required. Being Roundhouse, all the bits are available, and the model can be taken apart using hand tools if required. 

Assuming it's as good as suggested, then after 25 years, this thing was excellent value for money. It's not like it's never been used after all. 

Anyway, the adventure starts here. I'm looking forward to this one. Quite chuffed with my new purchase.

Bus stop, ballasting and dry-brushing in June's BRM

 

I've gone Old Skool with this month's main project - a steam era bus stop diorama. It revolves around using some materials that many modellers will hav forgotten about for the greenery in the background. There's nothing wrong with them, but others have come along. 

 This also inspired my BRMTV feature this month - dry-brushing brickwork. 

A perenial topic we have to cover is ballasting track. Yes, you've seen it before, but not everyone has, so I've covered the basics in four steps. Partly because I needed a 009 photo plank...

My camera has been out again: 

The Viaduct in N gauge. 

Longmorn in OO. 

And Foxbury in TT.

Base painted

 

I don't like paper wraps on kits much. Adding my own surface detail is more my bag. For a start, it means I can be consistant across a layout. The wraps will be excellent, and there's a good chance anything I paint won't look as good. 

Anyway, that's why the greenhous base has been dabbed with different emulsion paints to look a bit like concrete, and the walls are covered in brick Plastikard, painted and dry-brushed to look like brick. I should do the inside walls, but they won't easily be seen. 

Before all this, the top part, and top of the brick wall, have been sprayed with white primer which looks pretty good. 

Just the glazing to go. I'm not looking forward to that.

Greenhouse

 

Various models land on my desk for work. Most simply require photography, others assembly and then photography. 

Last week, this rather nice greenhouse from ScaleModelScenery arrived. I don't know what it was about the photo on the packet, but I felt the urge to build the model straight away, and it's a long while since I've felt like that!

For the magazine page, a simple build will suffice as I only need a single photo. 

But I fancy going futher. A paper wrap is included to cover the brick base, but I don't like these much, so some Plastikard will be brought in. I'll paint the concrete base too, another wrap as supplied. 

Glazing using the celophane packet is suggested, but some clear sheet will look better I think. Nothing major, just a few tweaks to improve what is already, a really nice model.

Adverts. Grrrr

Paul asks: Have you changed your advert settings? They're now appearing in the post as well as on the right. A bit too intrusive for my liking.

No, I haven't. It seems that Google (Moto: Don't be Evil) has decided my blog needs more adverts. When I look at it, there is an anoying slide up advert at the bottom. Paul's seeing adverts in the posts. I don't have control over either of these. 

And, I don't make any money from them either. The only remuneration I get is if you click on the sidebar advert. 

I assume that this is Google looking for payback for hosting Blogger for free. Unfortunatly, they don't offer a paid-for ad-free version (Wordpress do). If they did, I'd probably take it up.  But they don't. Odd really, as this would be a more reliable source of income. Perhaps the joy of being evil and forcing adverts onto people's content is more fun. It's not like they need the money. 

Anyway, apologies for the adverts. Ill do a bit of digging to see if there is a way to calm them down. If not, I'll have to think about a bigger move to my own webspace, but that's a massive technical challenge as I'd need to move the photos currenlty hosted in Blogger too. And it needs to be automated. With 4600+ posts, I'm not doing it manually!