Himself isn’t the only one being diverted by non-NG projects this week - although mine is at least still 4mm scale.
I’ve got to the stage of refreshing the paintwork on the cottage model for my friend.
The more I looked at it the more apparent it became that the white was becoming rather dirty, so just like any real building I’m giving it a coat of whitewash.
In this case I’m using thinned Humbrol enamel so it flows better over the harling, which in model form is represented by fine ballast glued onto a styrene base.
I always have been one for doing things the hard way, but it is very effective and has stood the test of time.
I let Himself out of my sight for a week and see what happens?
While he was in Wales volunteering on the FR he got nobbled by the Engineering Consultant who succeeded in bribing, or blackmailing him (I’m not sure which) into putting together some etched brass 3mm scale standard gauge kits.
Having reached a unavoidable dead end with both the Fairlie and NGG16 builds - waiting for Blodge and Dinas to finish the real ones - he has made a start on the first of these kits which is a GWR Hawksworth Carriage.
It’s rather odd to be making something in a smaller scale which is actually bigger than the models he usually works on.
It can be the little details which really make a model and one of the things I like most about our Fairlies are the bars at the front of the bogies which Himself adds on.
These are the thing that instantly differentiate the modern Fairlie from days gone by.
I call them bull bars because they remind me of the bling which people put on the front of their cars to make them look more rugged.
Himself tells me these are quite tricky to fit.
Not only do you have to get them sitting level and equally spaced, but over do it with the soldering iron and you could have bits falling off, or in the worst case scenario, the plastic gears on the front axle (which are not a million miles away) could deform.
Fortunately this has never happened on any of the nine bogies he’s made.
Himself's probably gone as far as he dare's with our James Spooner for now.
Our model has reached pretty much the state of construction on the real locomotive.
Both the bogies have been completed to the point where they can be test run on a rig with an old motor and a spring driveshaft.
I've included the slow motion sequences on the video so that you can appreciate the really tight clearances on the motion.
Himself says the key to building these Backwoods power bogies is to have a really good set of small files!
It's crucial to ensure the bearings in the frame are as flush as they can be.
You will also have to carry out surgery on the motion bracket in order to make space for the coupling rod to rotate, and some elongation of the hole into the cylinder block is needed to give the piston room to waggle about a bit.
Himself recalls that when he built the first one, for Merddin Emrys over 20 years go, the trial and error was so frustrating he got close to hurling it down the garden path.
Now on his ninth Fairlie bogie it's all become somewhat routine....
It looks like some devastating storm has hit Beddgelert, but these are, in fact, some new trees ready for planting around the S bend.
In real life the vegetation is a lot thicker around this area, but we do want people to actually see the trains on the layout.
The other issue is that we need to be careful that adding more trees doesn’t upset the very close tolerances when the boards are stacked face-to-face for storage and transporting.
Since the weekend the bogies for James Spooner have advanced with the first almost ready to be connected to a motor for a test under power.
These bogies are deceptively hard work.
You might suppose that a simple four wheel chassis with no valve gear would go together quite easily, but much like with the real things the problem is that there’s very little room to squeeze everything in.
In the case of the models the problem area is behind the crosshead which has a fag-paper clearance to the coupling rod behind.
It’s doable - but only just!
The second bogie is also coming along.
Three wheels are fitted but the crank pins have yet to be cut to length.
Despite the difficulties of making them they are lovely works of art.
Chop off the box holding the worm gear - and strip the gears off the leading axles - and you’ve got beautiful miniature models of real Fairlie power bogies.
Broadcaster, writer and railway modeller.
Best known for the 009 Festiniog Railway layout 'Dduallt' which I built with my father David in the early 1990's and which is still making appearances on the exhibition circuit.
