Finally a home for all the boxes of locos, wagons, DCC controllers etc.etc. A trip to Ikea on Monday and a Hejne shelving kit later and now Die Keinnamebahn has an indexed store in my attic.
I have been extremely fortunate to have employed Bob Dawson of A.C.O.M.B Architectural Models, York to make me a 1/87 model French NG station based on ‘Chey’. Bob has done a excellent job in making a model that captures the essense of the small stations used on the French narrow gauge lines. The original plans […]
This is a nice video guide to using resistance soldering units from the Scalefour Society.
A new decal production service has come online. Custom Model Decals are offering a customised decal production service for waterslide transfers. Using a state of the art white+colour printer they can produce linings down to 0.3mm in width and will Initially provide lining and also the lettering for all the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway in L&BR […]
I am going to try this paint/nail varnish shaker bought inexpensively from eBay. It grips small bottles on their caps using various sized adapters. It should work nicely with the small dropper bottles I buy to store my paint mixes in and the almost identically dimensioned Vallejo acrylic paints I use.
The Aldi Alarm Padlock is, in my opinion, a total waste of money. Publicised by Aldi as suitable for protecting your shed or garage it has a fatal flaw, one night of rain destroys the electronic alarm circuitry! The padlock has upward facing loudspeaker holes which have no effective sealing. One night of rain filled […]
I have been developing a JMRI (Java Model Railway Interface) DCC (Digital Command Control) system for my exhibition layout “Die Keinnamebahn” that uses mobile smart phones as WiFi connected hand throttles connected to the JMRI software running on a Raspberry Pi Model 3B+ microcomputer set up as a WiFi access point. I got the […]
it never ceases to amaze me what you can buy via a certain internet auction site. For £4.42 inclusive of postage you get a brass handled precision cutter with easily replaceable snap-off blades for less than you would expect to pay for a flimsy plastic component. Sold as a “Leather Craft Tools DIY Incision Cutter […]
As a little whimsy I designed, and had made, some mugs for myself and my wife for use at exhibitions. They are aluminium heat retaining travel mugs with sealed lids. Labelled “Zugfürer” (Driver) and “Zugwache” (Guard) they, along with our banner and custom Die Keinnamebahn sweatshirts will, hopefully, add a little extra professionalism to our […]
As part of getting ready for our 2019 exhibition outings at (Chapel-en-le-Frith on 23rd & 24th February, Narrow Gauge North at Pudsey (9th March) , Chesterfield Model Railway Society show at Bakewell (8th & 9th June) and the North Wales N Gauge Society show at Conwy 6th & 7th July) I have designed and had […]
Christmas is coming early for me this year. My wife, forever trying to buy me a useful present, is buying me a model makers’ belt sander for Christmas. It is only 175mm x 110mm x 140mm/6.88” x 4.33” x 5.51” in size and uses 330x10mm belts as used in some electric files/sanders. I should be useful […]
This idea is not mine, I picked up the idea from reading the forums on ngrm-online.com. Dispensing superglue (cyanoacrylate adhesive) to stick small components can be difficult because the thin superglues are very runny and you can easily flood the item if trying to dispense it from the nozzle on the bottle or tube. You […]
The Resistance Soldering Unit (RSU) that I bought was a second-hand unit and appears to be a home-made unit. It was nicely finished but I wanted to check it out for safety as potential mains voltages and hand held probes do not go together! I therefore opened the box and checked that all the wiring […]
I recently bought a resistance soldering unit (RSU) to help me construct etched nickel silver and brass models. My first project is to build the RT Models 4mm scale 009 gauge Shotton Steel Works/SBR Hudswell Badger Loco body kit. To make the ground connection for the RSU I use a piece of 2mm galvanised steel to […]
I needed to make a relatively large expanse of station yard and road on Valdieu-Lutran. I decided that chinchilla dust, a form of powdered clay, would be a good base. I initially tried to stick the dust to the baseboard using diluted PVA but this was unsuccessful because the clay did not stick well. After […]
All modellers have experienced that dreaded moment when a small part goes ‘ping’ from a pair of tweezers or when using a scalpel to cut them from the spruce. Dropped parts, screws and other tiny bits are promptly eaten by the carpet monster only to be found when you have finished or binned the project […]
I needed a way to join together the new prototype corner scenic baseboards kindly gifted to me by Tim Horn so that the boards are tightly held together and located by pattern makers’ dowels. I decided that using small removable pin hinges would be a suitable and quick method of achieving this aim. Most split […]
A second tree is now under construction utilising the experience of making the first one. I used 6 instead of 4, 150mm x 0.6mm, stainless steel wires to give me more branches and a thicker trunk. DAS modelling clay was again used to thicken the trunk up to the lowermost branches and to form ‘roots’. […]
Die Keinnamebahn has, so far, used plastic trees obtained via eBay, from Hong Kong. Though cheap they are no very realistic and are only about 4 inches tall, a scale height of approximately 28 feet in 1:87 H0 scale and all looking the same with not a very good representation of leaves. I wanted to […]
I wanted to add some ambient sounds to Die Keinnamebahn. Not wanting to have a wired in solution I found on eBay some inexpensive (<£5) self-contained mp3 players with 2 inch speakers. The units have a 4 hour rechargeable battery and can use mp3 sound files from either micro SD cards or USB thumb drives. […]
I had a problem when we exhibited Die Keinnamebahn at the Rainford show in October. The ESU SwitchPilot Servo (Version 1) I was using to operate the remote uncouplers decided to overheat and fail after only 10 minutes of the show starting! This was despite it working successfully for over a week at home! I […]
I obtained an old galvanised ‘Champion Bread’ bread tray from an eBay seller. By bolting four 1m chains to the corners and using 4mm carabiners to link the chains to a central 8mm carabiner I had a basic platform. I lined the mesh base with 4mm plywood so that small items could be carried. By […]
Having built Die Keinnamebahn, my H0e scale narrow gauge layout, and its two storage crates, I had now to find a home for it in my house. My well-engineered attic, which was floored on 8″x4″ beams on 15″ centres, seemed ideal. A single attempt at getting one of the storage crates up into the […]
I had bought two 6ft x 2ft 6in folding tables to display my layouts on at exhibitions. At their first outing it was found that the exhibition floor had a slight gradient to it which meant some stock ran away if uncoupled. I therefore looked at a way to make the steel tube table legs […]
After advice from members on several forums I managed to re-gauge theBemo 1260/1 Loco No. 81 ‘Wallis’ electric tunnel loco from 12mmH0m to 9mmH0e gauge. I thought therefore, as this information appears to be a well-hidden ‘secret’ that I would post how I did it. 1: To remove the bogie cover plates to expose the […]
