Elmham Market in EM

[James Spooner]

It’s been a bit of a challenging day today, modelmaking wise. The morning was spent taking my youngest son back to uni but on the way back I diverted through Alton to see whether Paul had any 4mm round rod, ideally in plastic but other materials would do.

The Wickham units had quite a distinctive set of covers sitting on the roof for the interior lighting units. From the available drawings they are about 4mm round and about 1.5mm high. Paul didn’t have anything suitable but pointed me in the direction of an engineering business in the town. I popped in there and the very helpful proprietor found some 4mm silver steel bar offcuts, which he was happy to let me have for the price of a box of chocolate biscuits.

My next enquiry was to a friend in the village who has a small lathe. He was happy to help and we got six lamp holders cut (out of the roughly two dozen needed) before the drive band on his lathe gave up the ghost and collapsed in a heap of perished rubber and tangled cord. After tidying up the mess (and he is going to buy a new drive band!) I took the half dozen pieces home with the steel bar. This evening I have hand made another five using files and saws and glued enough on to complete one carriage. I think I’ll go back to hand rails tomorrow…

Photo attached.

Nigel

 

[simond]

You’d have whizzed them off on a Myford

 

[James Spooner]

You’d have whizzed them off on a Myford

Yes, I know!! Still thinking along the lines of upgrading my equipment but more along the lines of a micro lathe than a Myford. I’m tempted to take a look at the Warco range, if only because they are a short drive down the A3 from me and if there is a problem I can take it down to them quite easily…

Nigel

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

The really frustrating things with my original Unimat set up was the tiny cut one could take, the 8 minute cooling wait after two minutes cutting and the frequent belt breakages. I just didn't have the patience to persist and have absolutly no regrets at getting a Myford.

Having said that I did have access to one of the bigger Emco machines with the milling column for a while and it was very good but in the end decided to buy British.

Ian

 

[simond]

Surely 8 on 2 off on the Unimat?


(or maybe I take smaller cuts )

 

[Dave Holt]

Nigel,
Don't know much about DMUs, but you look to have made a nice job of marrying the printed cabs, extruded roof and etched brass sides. I'm sure it will look just the part on Elmham.
Good luck with the chassis/drive arrangements. I've got a Bachmann twin power Cravens, converted to P4 (drop-in wheels, but I can't remember whose make) and it runs very nicely indeed.
Dave.

 

[James Spooner]

Nigel,
Don't know much about DMUs, but you look to have made a nice job of marrying the printed cabs, extruded roof and etched brass sides. I'm sure it will look just the part on Elmham.
Good luck with the chassis/drive arrangements. I've got a Bachmann twin power Cravens, converted to P4 (drop-in wheels, but I can't remember whose make) and it runs very nicely indeed.
Dave.

Thanks Dave. I haven’t done much on it today (just added the lavatory water pipe and some more handrails) as I have been gathering stuff together to help out on the EMGS stand at the Southampton show tomorrow. I try to demonstrate track (points) and re-gauging stuff in the possibly rather naive hope it might encourage others to dip their toes into the finer scale pool…

Nigel

 

[James Spooner]

I had a very enjoyable (and quite productive) day on the EM Gauge Society stand yesterday. I caught up with some friends, had some good conversations on moving to a finer scale level of modelling, managed to make progress on a point I am constructing (for a putative quayside extension to Stratford St James) and purchased some items that will help me progress a few projects. Key amongst the latter was the purchase of six mini motor mounts and servo motors to drive the ground signals under construction (and that will give me an impetus to finish the remaining three).

Today I have done some more to the point (rather stupidly, when packing for the show, I omitted to include my pack of track gauges so I couldn’t glue the chairs to the sleepers) and have finished detailing one half of the Wickham set. I have just given it a coat of primer; a photo of the current state of play is attached.

Nigel