On holiday

If everything is going as planned, by the time most of you are reading this, I should be at St Pancras station, awaiting the first of a series of trains, that will transport me to Switzerland. 

I've booked a trip through Great Rail Journeys, and should be heading to Wilderswil, for a week. 

Part of the holiday includes a trip up the Jungfrau Railway, so I hope the weather is good!

I'll also be near Interlaken, and have identified a couple of model shops, among other attractions. Well, it's a good way to make yourself visit different bits of a city. 

All this means no modelling content for a week, but you can (hopefully, technology permitting) follow my travels. 

On Instagram, I am Practical_Phil

 

 On Flickr, I am Phil Parker

Feel free to head over to either of these sites for your daily entertainment. And, all being well, I'll see you on my return in a week.

Hamblings catalogue

 

Found in a box of stuff under a second-hand stall, a rather tidy Hamblings catologue. 

There's some lovely stuff in here. A complete Jinty kit anyone?

Those lever frames would still be useful today.

One of the earliest 08 diesel kits too. 

All this speaks of a time before RTR models, when people had to make pretty much everything, but there were stores where you could go in, and buy all those bits. My guess is that some of them weren't as good as we remember them to be, but it didn't matter. Standards in the hobby were lower, but were modellers happier? (Probably not. I bet they still moaned about everything). 

Sadly, there's no date on the catalogue. I'd guess early 1950s, and would love a time machine to go and take a look. 

Bunker time

 

The imaginary bunker is a simple afair. Four sides to be joined together, and fitted to the footplate. Raised beading on the sides indicates these go outside the front and back. 

Once fitted to the footplate, they didn't seem parallel to the cab sides, so I loosened the joint, and gently levered them back a little with a long, thin screwdriver. At least the doorway looks right, even if it's a bit tight for the normal, portly crewmembers. 

A top is supplied, but that's going in the spares box as making a solid box would preclude getting anything in to clean out the flus. Also, it's pointless, as I'm going to put some real coal in the back eventually. 

The sharp eyed will spot I've fitted the bufferbeams too. Quite a bit of glue to be removed to do this, but now they are firmly fixed.

Mike Buttell - RIP

 

I'm sad to report that my friend Mike Buttell passed away this week. 

Mike was the Isle of Man steam railway in many ways. He was an ebullient figure who was responsible for many of the Enthusiast Week celebrations. You'd see him sheperding people around the sheds on official visits, providing entertaining commentry on the progress of various restorations. He'd then be climing on locos to fit headboards that he had arranged to comemorate figures from the line's history. 

I have a couple of reasons to remember Mike. 

First, I was over there on holiday, but planned to grab some content for a BRM DVD, and arranged to interview him about the history of the lines. This was to take place after the late train to Port Erin had arrived, and everyone was looking around the museum. Obviously, this made it a bit noisy, but Mike quickly dragged my Dad and I up into the locked royal saloon, he had a key, which made the perfect studio for our chat. 

The other occasion is when Sea Lion's side tank and cab back came up for auction. I was keen to buy them, but didn't have an easy way to collect, or anywhere suitable to put them. Mike volunteered to not only get the things from Groudle, no easy task, but find them a home in the Port Erin railway museum, where they lived until recently. 

Without Mike's help, it's unlikely that I'd have aquired these items, and they would probably be say, rusting, in someone's garden. 

I'm going to miss Mike's updates from the Isle of Man, and his jolly help when on the island. A sad loss to this very special corner of the railway world.

Shim brass

 

Shim brass is basically just very, very thin brass sheet. Modellers in the old days seemed to make pretty much anything from it, and I was always impressed by the versatility of this wonderful material. 

Of course, I aquired some, and have hardly ever found a use for it. 

Until I came to fit the backhead to Ghillie. 

The whitemetal backhead is fitted to a U-shaped lump of the same material. Said U-shape is to be cut back so the backhead just clears the rear fixing screw. Trouble is, when you do tha, you are still left with a gap between the back of the backhead casting, and the cab back. 

No problem, a strip of shim brass, soldered to the backhead with some 100 degree solder (a process that sounds simpler than it turned out to be) covers this, and makes the whole assembly look much better. 

And I've still got loads of the stuff left - probably a lifetimes supply!