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george356

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Everything posted by george356

  1. Wow, fame at last! How will you handle the rock star lifestyle, I hope it doesn't spoil you
  2. I like the look of the paint scale half way between the chimney and the handrail. You should be proud of the work you have done on this loco, Mick.
  3. Cor, that looks great!! I am 65 and remember the days of steam very well, and that is EXACTLY how they looked when the mainenance teams, the shed crews and the loco crews themselves realised there was no point spending time cleaning them up as they were going to the cutting torches within a few weeks anyway Top job, Mick.
  4. Top notch, Mick, and great instructions too. Thanks very much, it is inspiring me to a) Buy a load of 16t minerals and b) Get weathering
  5. It's probably the same these days too, Griff. Keep the lid and the vest but add a clipboard and a couple of pencils With that lot who would question you?
  6. Although you claim not to be an expert on weathering Mick, I am sure that those wagons would stand against anything I have seen offered for sale at shows for silly prices. Any chance of a tutorial, maybe even some video of how you get those effects?
  7. I'd like to see the capacitor that keeps the house "alive" for 5 hours, Chris I think you are within an ace of cracking the problem though, having the DCC Concepts decoder with the wires attached is a big plus. The probable fail point of your experiment will be the diode, probably gone open circuit, as you most certainly will have already figured out.
  8. Most Americans would pronounce it Ch eye chester, with the emphasis on 'eye', but it should be pronounced as Chi chester with both ch's as in chicken. As to how it got its name, it is partly Roman ( the chester part) and partly Saxon (the Chi, a corruption of the mythical Anglo Saxon king of Sussex, Cissa).
  9. What did you try, Chris, to avoid others repeating your experiment (and failing too)? If my memory of electronics is reliable (not always the case these days ), to charge up the cap from 15-18 v AC you will need to rectify the input to DC and have the capacitor as close in operating voltage as possible and be a high value ufarad, as we discussed previously. The discharge path back to the motor is the unknown, IMO. Do you discharge through the decoder or directly to the motor? Hmm................ that is the question. ETA - a little googling has found this - where the poster has found the decoder bridge rectifier and has soldered wires to the pads on the decoder board. He is able to apply 12v to these wires and drive the loco. I think that from this point he needs to use a voltage regulator feeding into a capacitor and he has cracked the problem, what do you think?
  10. Aye, I have got a Class 101 DMU on pre-order (green with speed whiskers) - no announcement of its release yet though
  11. Lol, once the weather improves I suspect that 'I' will be that suitable friend. I know Rod personally from our shared interest in sports cars and he is more than welcome to run whatever he wants on Cherry Parkway (as he already knows )
  12. If you DO put lights in, Chris, I would appreciate a photo tutorial (as I am sure others would too). In particular the positioning of resistors and any rectification needed.
  13. I totally agree about the Peco re-railer, a boon for those with shaky hands, long sight or a bad back
  14. I wonder if he is getting wind of your intended action, Ian. Maybe he reads here, or has someone who tells him? Strange that after all this time there is suddenly movement from him.
  15. I would have thought 5 amp would be more than suitable, Ian. When I went about wiring my layout I didn't bond the rail ends, I just used the fishplates to make a mechanical connection. I fed a dropper from the middle of each metre length to a ring bus around the layout. My thinking on this was, with end to end bonding you are relying on the soldered joints between each rail length for total continuity, thus when you get 40 metres away from your power feed you have 38 bonds and 76 soldered joints on each rail (+ & -). A break or dry joint in any of those soldered connections means either loss of power or a high resistance to the rest of the track from that point. It was a pain in the butt wiring all the droppers, but that was done before I set foot outside, all I had to do once out there was solder the droppers to the bus, and for that I used a soldering gun more than capable of bringing the joint up to temperature. (it was 150watt and made light work of it) I don't regret going down that route as I didn't fancy trying to bond the ends together at ground level outside (bad back, bad eyesight etc) Sorry for going on so long, but if you take a look at pages 10 & 13 of Cherry Parkway you will see me doing the job. George
  16. Looking at that Rocco bridge, I wonder if it would be possible to build the main skeleton out of aluminium angle and glue on the plastic sub structure using Evergreen styrene sections. That way you would have the durability of the aluminium frame but the detail of the intricate girder work in plastic.
  17. As far as I can recall Griff, Mt Teide has a snow cover most of the year. The slopes of Mt Teide, and indeed Tenerife itself, was the film location for the original Planet of the Apes movie (the Charlton Heston one) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teide" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; And apologies to Rossi for hi-jacking the thread
  18. I remember the last time I visited Tenerife. We stayed at Puerto Santiago, a lovely, mostly unspoiled by mass tourism, fishing village. We hired a car and toured the island, such contrasts between the Southern tourist part and the Northern business part. We visited Loro Park and drove down the West side of the island along some of the most frightening roads I have ever been on, huge drops on the right hand side in many places. Ahh... good times Sorry for hi-jacking the thread, Rossi, but the picture of Mount Tiede brought it all back to me.
  19. Is that new locos of ANY make, Ian? I have just pre-ordered the Bachmann Class 101 DMU from Hattons, and bought a Heljan Hymek (which is tremendous) middle of last year and a Bachmann Berkshire 2-8-4 Pere Marquette from the States just after Christmas. I am more than happy with both of those purchases that I have - I just hope that the Class 101 turns out as good.
  20. Great potted history, Brian. It gives you a lot of satisfaction when you run your first train, doesn't it? I particularly like your little bridges and scenery breaks, it makes it look like it is a real railway, rather than just some track in the garden.
  21. Unfortunately Ian, in every pond there is a percentage of "pond life". I would rather give something away than have someone try to con me out of it. He can only use his underhand tactics once, when everyone finds out what he is like they will shun him and he will soon run out of 'friends', victims, really. Again, try the small claims court, costs very little/nowt, but might just get the action you desire. Plus, if he has a SCC judgement against him you may find the police look on your claim against him in a different light.
  22. Ian, I am pleased that you have finally found the problem, and have a solution of sorts. However, I thought "Customer Service" of this type had died out years ago. Dapol ignoring the problem you have had with this model is not acceptable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sale_of_Goods_Act_1979 You have redress in the law - the Sale of Goods Act 1979 gives you the right to have a refund, a replacement or a repair. However, if Dapol are not willing to communicate with you over this, you may need to go down the Small Claims Court route. When you email Dapol I would advise you to put read receipts on the email (easy if you use Outlook or Outlook Express as your mail client), that way you know that at least someone is reading the email. I wonder what the Model Railway press would have to say about Dapol's attitude? ETA There is a user on RMWEB called DapolDave who appears to be connected with Dapol, maybe worthwhile joining if you are not already a member and contacting him?
  23. We missed you Jim. However, the weather has not been kind to us outdoor modellers so none of us UK based railwayists have made much progress. At least you will have spent some time on the planning
  24. Quick replies to your questions, Pidge. 1. Unless your track is Peco nickle silver flexible track, and preferably with wood effect sleepers, you will have problems using it. Settrack or Hornby fixed radius track will probably rust out in a year (or a lot less if the weather is similar to last year's) 2. Opinions vary as to how to lay the road bed - most people opt for track laid on decking covered by roofing felt and supported by either a masonary substrate or timber posts. 3. Ground level track? Well, if you are young you won't be bothered by back problems stooping to work on your railway, but you WILL have problems keeping the rails free of rain splashed mud/soil from the ground. Also if you follow the ground contours you will have leveling problems unless your garden is perfectly flat (think bowling green). Ground level track makes it difficult to build that garden railway essential too, a viaduct. Take some time to read some of the build threads on this site, there is a lot of information there. Oh, and by the way, welcome to the site
  25. All good tips, Rod. I had/have a problem with the incline bottom to top - I think it's around 1:70 - my Heljan Hymek pulls a full load up it easily, but the real old stuff from the '70s struggles with more than 4 coaches. When I did the leveling it would have meant that the track at the patio end would have been chest high. That was higher than I wanted it to be so I compromised.
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