Whoops

Exhibit A:

One jar of solvent free paint stripper suitable for use on plastics

Exhibit B:

One jar of not safe for plastic paint stripper

The rest of this post more or less writes itself, doesn't it?

It looks a LOT worse than it is!

I made the mistake of trying to strip the paint off of the diecast Lisbon tram at the same time as trying to get the last traces of paint off of one of the 14XX bodyshells.

I very nearly got away with it.

In fact it might just be salvageable down the line if I can identify suitable Archer resin rivet transfers. I was going to replace the toolboxes anyway. The splashers aren't brilliant either, so perhaps I should just replace the whole area of the footplate.

In the meantime lets make a virtue out of necessity and use the damaged body to practice some techniques on. If I'm honest with myself I was already feeling uneasy about having removed the bunker and tank steps. I still think there is something wrong with the moulded ones, but that doesn't mean I'm capable of improving on them just yet.

In any case replacement Airfix 14XX are easy to come by and a new one is already en route to me, and this one is allegedly a runner, not that that is relevant.

Whilst I'm confessing to mistakes I also had a stupid accident whilst clamping the Lcut platform. I let some glue escape whilst taking a belts and braces approach to clamping pieces together which damaged the surface detail. Not catastrophic, but annoying.

Are we downhearted?

Well yes, a bit, because both the mistakes were stupid and avoidable. Who would be so daft as to make sure they had a separate brush for each type of paint stripper, but use identical brushes with no way of telling them apart?

But hey, nothing expensive has been ruined, I have a plan B to recover from both situations and, perhaps most important of all, I expected to make some mistakes along the way. I'm glad I made the mistakes now rather than further down the line. I was watching a programme about the Lindisfarne Gospels and a calligrapher said two things. The first was that the scribe included a deliberate mistake on every page, and the other was that as a calligrapher you always,always, make a mistake on the very last page.

Hopefully I can avoid that by making my mistakes on the first page and getting them out of the way.

And the Lisbon tram is looking great.

Not the Scaleforum News

This was going to be a photo-report on my first trip to Scaleforum.

Unfortunately cumulative flight delays to and from Amsterdam meant that by Saturday there was no way I could face another day of travelling. I was beginning to feel a bit brighter on Sunday, but so was the weather which persuaded me both to clean out the garden shed and to re-visit the saga of the baseboard legs.

Fairly quickly it became apparent that what I thought was a design fault I'd built into both pairs of legs was actually a constructional fault that only affected the one pair and which was quickly rectified with a hammer and a screwdriver.

That still leaves me with the problem of adding stability to a high and narrow baseboard that needs to be assembled around existing furniture in my home office, and which can standalone without the baseboard in place. I suspect I might be on a fools errand, though I have a couple of ideas to try out still.

I also found the time to assemble the Tim Horn laser cut baseboard kit I bought with the tramway layout in mind. Not that it needed much time, it just fell together with minimal effort on my part.

Now the baseboards I've already built for the Art of Compromise are OK, but I'm beginning to think Tim's might be a better bet for long term use, if only because they are deeper and the alignment between boards is so well thought out. My tramway plan might also need a bigger board if I adopt the plan so that the trams never need to reverse, avoiding the trolley pole and the driver position being out of synch.

The reason I built my own boards in the first place is because my slight variation on the design meant the turnout to the coal staithes siding would be right over a baseboard join if I used 3ft long boards.

But having rethought the design I think it works best as Roy first drew the plan, which means that 3ft boards aren't an issue. The trouble is that means returning to the arcane universe of Templot to make the revisions,

The photos feature one of my Airfix 14XXs. The good news is that the Ultrascale EM gauge wheelsets for it arrived last week. 

The bad news is today an email arrived from Mainly Trains to say they no longer stock the 14XX detailing pack, or the chassis to fit the GEM Cambrian 2-4-0T. 

Both bits of news are a very serious blow to my plans.

New Additions

I've finally managed to pick up a couple of 14XXs off ebay, one GWR Airfix and one BR still in a GMR box.

Both are destined to have Mainly Trains detailing kits applied to them, and one at least will end up on a Comet EM gauge chassis. The other might end up being retained in OO form at least until Apa Valley ends up in the bin an Llanrahaiadr Mochnant rises from the ashes.

In shots like this the photographic backscene actually works

Until then I've been getting a few jobs done post Warley. I've changed the line of the wooden fencing so it doesn't obscure the signal box in photos and made a start on adding foliage to the trees at each end. The stove pipe on the signal box is now a more realistic height and the area where the rodding comes out of the frame room has been tided up. I still need to leave a saucer of milk out for the cat though.

The layout in its entirety