A very busy month leading with the news that David had reached the point where he could break cover over his new 7mm Scale 0 Gauge layout Lyme Regis.

The intention was to build this to scale but, large though it still is, it is reduced to 81% of the original. It was always intended to be a project involving others and various modellers are participating in the layout’s construction. Apart from the fiddle yard (next part of the project) the track is laid and wired, most of the buildings constructed and the scenery taking shape. Spoiler – your Future Editor is aware that the flyover bridge at Axminster is on the agenda!

Lyme Regis does, of course, require three Adams Radial tanks (!) the first of which is making steady progress on David’s work bench. Meanwhile, Lyme Regis is having to make do with slightly over-powered locomotives. The layout is designed to be portable so one day…

Dom has made good progress on the station building on Coombe Town – the roof is now fully tiled so it’s mainly weathering and detailing to get it to a finished state. The building really adds to the feel of the station as he hopes members will agree from the attached image.

Dom’s friend was also kind enough to print some office furniture to his design to fill out the offices when he gets to the interior.

Allan asked members for methods to remove the BR lion logo from his unnumbered Dapol Jinty. Only Roger came up with a solution, use IPA – not, as Allan originally thought, Pale Ale! Unfortunately it only partly helped, the rest was white spirit and much gentle scraping. he does not recommend doing this. Fortunately the resulting mark – the logo was embedded in the paintwork – was masked with the M of LMS, as you will see from the attached image, now heavily weathered, next to his 4F. The photos below them show 7316 at Radstock in 1950, and 4417 at Glastonbury, and at Cole in 1962.

This 4mm scale EM gauge Peckett 0-6-0T from a Mercian kit has been built by Adam and was having a running in session on South Junction. It was named ‘The Marshall’ after the late John Marshall who died in 2015. John was responsible for finding both sheds in Martock. He was a Bristolian, hence it being a Peckett.

Pete’s two Hawksworth auto-coaches have been coupled with the magnets directly into the pockets to give just enough clearance between them, much easier than a bar and loop connector.

Finally we have enough auto-coaches to run a 4 coach set with the 16XX:

Dick received his 7mm Ellis Clark Black 5 recently and is very pleased with it. He is still getting his head round all the DCC functions and sounds as he is fairly new to DCC. It can be set up so that the fire needs coal adding regularly, otherwise the engine runs out of steam, but he thinks that is a bit much at the moment. He has yet to add the details and choose a number for it – he is looking for one that worked over the S & D but the Armstrong Whitworth built ones seem a bit rare. 5440 was one but he knows others with that number on their Black Five so is still looking.

Plank Street, Jim’s 7mm scale Forest of Dean themed layout started life in Chicken Shed 2, but has now been re-erected in the garage following an enforced stay in the trailer whilst the space was needed for the storage of the new B&Q kitchen. This has now been successfully installed in the kitchen and some of the old kitchen units are now in the garage with the layout below them. The next task is to construct the laser cut engine shed and water tower purchased from ‘L-Cut Creative’ at the Doncaster show earlier last month, so the Panniers and Jinty (below) can have a roof over their heads – not all at once of course!

And this is the Jinty that Jim couldn’t resist. For sale on the GOG Sales and Wants” site for only £165, DCC and sound fitted.

Some years ago Steve built a Mercian kit for the ex-LMS Armstrong Whitworth 0-6-0 Diesel Electric shunter that all went into War Department use. Four of them ended up in Belgium and there was an H0 gauge etched brass kit produced to model them, and it seems likely that this ‘4mm scale’ kit was derived from that kit. When built (to 4mm Scale EM Gauge), the loco was found to be 4mm too high and 2mm too wide and towered over any box van it met. Steve had ordered a complete spare chassis etch at the time of purchase, and this allowed him to fully articulate the rods and compensate the chassis on the Sharman principle with one fixed axle. Compensated, with a large Mashima, two 16mm flywheels and a High Level Kits Gearbox and once given enough sideways play on the centre driven axle, it ran exceptionally well. As a result, Steve felt that this was a loco that he couldn’t reasonably give up on, despite not needing it for his model of Verwood.

Having modelled the Downton Train Crash coaches from the 1860s, it occurred to Steve that he should now design a 4mm scale body for it that could be 3D printed, one that would fit on the etched running plate after it was cut and shut. Eight days, 77 QCAD drawings and 1500 lines of OpenSCAD script later he was able to produce these renders.

The Roche drawing was the starting point, with close examination of photos to winkle out the many errors in the drawing. The etched running plate has been shortened, though not by much. A bit was taken off the edges, with the valances refitted slightly inboard, and now the width is about right. The overall wheelbase is 60mm when it should be 58mm, and that pushes the brake blocks behind the sanding hoppers, which being in their original positions are slightly too far outboard – but then something has to give. On Western Thunder Adam perceptively described it as a ‘rubber ruler job’!

This masterpiece of the resin 3D printers’ art (by a specialist) is seen perched on the shortened running plate and chassis, with (happily) everything now pretty much where it should be. The glazing pockets for the side windows came out OK, but will only accept packaging film, so they will need to be opened out to allow for the ‘additive kerf’ of 3D printing. The pockets for front and rear cab windows did not form completely as the resin was unable to drain from the deep slots above the windows, so those will need to opened up to the cab so that they will drain. As with the 1860s coaches, flush glazing is a must and adjustments will be made to the model for the mk2 print so that it will accept Plasitiglaze or glass cover slips. There’s nothing that Steve can do to stop it being an ugly brute flush glazed or not!