22nd January 2024
Having missed my target of getting the R/C system running for the AGM show, I was left with a backlog of essential house & garden maintenance that had been put off to give me time to concentrate on thr R/C system so that became my priority for October, November and December. Unfortunately I was then hit with a bad dose of flu that took up most of November and then again over Xmas.
This has all rather screwed up my production schedule for that period.
I apologise to all my customers waiting for their LMS 3F kits. I guess it is just one of the hazards of being a one-man business.
I am now back on working to complete the R/C system, but I have decided to defer the programming for customising the initial R/C setup. It will come later after I have sent out the kits.
The enforced rest has given me time to consider my longer term production objectives.
It is now obvious that the carriage kit market has become very competitive as far as laser cut ply kits are concerned. Consequently I will only be producing kits for the carriages that I have actually done all the research and 2D drawings for – see my list in the current price list here.
From now on I will be concentrating on the locomotive developments – again see the current price list here.
The RtR LMS 3F (one only) will be ready for sale after the kits have been sent out – needs painting and filming shunting.
23rd February 2024 – revised on 02/07/24
I now have 2 spare LMS 3F kits – available fairly soon.
I have revised my tank loco kit prices – small tank locos will now cost £1200 (an increase of £100) and larger tank locos will be £1350 (an increase of £150) – this is primarily due to in increase in etching costs. I will absorb those extra costs for tender locos (both kit & RtR) and RtR tank locos.
13th March 2024
I am moving on to Vinyl wraps instead of transfers for locos. Hopefully this should reduce the amount of painting (etched priming even) as the wraps can go on bare metal suraces (cleaned with wire wool or similar first). A wrap will be provided for the boiler cladding as well as all the panels on the loco. This should reduce priming/painting to just the frames and most of the black parts (and various others where the livery requires a large block of another colour).
The wraps will be tougher than transfers and hopefully easier to apply.
I will report back here on progress.
More detail added to the prototype section on the T9 page.
2nd July 2024
A lot has gone on behind the scenes with much development work and a lot of time spent on non-model stuff (you really do not want to know!).
Attention has now returned to the radio control system and becomes my main priority this month. I am now investigating getting wheels 3D printed in stainless steel for all those not available from Slater’s and Walsall Models. They continue to have square axle holes for easy quartering.
The LSWR T3 design is now almost ready – 3D design and mechanical design complete – just needs to have the etches designed.
All my tender designs have now been updated to the latest specifications using the latest version of my R/C system and NiMH cells for power – I ditched the previous Li-Ion cells for safety reasons. Tank locos will also revert to NiMH cells.
6th December 2024
Just checked my news page and discovered I have not updated it since July. I updated my Welcome page twice in September but the corresponding News page entries seem to have gone missing.
Actually on closer inspection those 2 entries seem to have been replaced by a duplicate of all the earlier entries for the year. Odd! Now removed. Sorry about that. Anyway here is a summary and the latest developments since the AGM.
It has been an extremely busy period attempting to get at least 5 prototype locos running in time for the AGM meeting in Swindon. Totally failed in that due to problems with completing my radio control system. The problem with that was that the chip manufacturer changed the code a couple of times but failed to document it soon enough, leaving me with compilation errors and trying to guess the changes required. Now fixed but I have not had time to complete the R/C system due to other problems (see below). That has also held up the delivery of the production LMS 3F kits – again apologies.
Since the AGM I seem to have run into all the usual problems of a one-man business plus a few others. Firstly having to complete the annual company accounts for HMRC – now complete. Then an operation for a hernia – successful but caused an unwanted infection – now recovered. At the last review on Tuesday of this week my hernia surgeon recommended a scan. Due to take place yesterday, the hospital phoned just as I was about to leave for there to say that the scanner had just broken!
My 105 year old mother-in-law died 10 days ago followed 12 hours later by my main CAD design PC (presumably not in sympathy). 3 days after that my email laptop refused to boot and in trying to recover from that my old backup PC (now used by my wife) also crashed. I will not bore you with more details.
Back to the modelling. Although the 3D printed backheads turned out more successfully than I expected, the same company trying to 3D print buffer stocks and heads ran into problems with them falling off the sprues – initially in stainless steel then in nylon. I tried strengthening the sprues, but same result. So it is back to turning my own from brass and nickel silver.
When I have all the equipment back in action (nearly there) I will complete the R/C and the LMS 3F kits. Next after that is getting the prototypes all running and testing them shunting on my “Inglenook Sidings” style track. I will film them in action and put the videos on YouTube with links from the relevant loco pages on this website.
14th January 2025
Another year, another setback. I had a CT scan after my hernia op and went back to get the results on January 7th.
I got a triple A diagnosis. Bad news – in this case AAA means an abdominal aortic aneurism. Mine was just in the serious category. Oops!
Got a quick appointment at my local hospital with a vascular surgeon today (14th). Need a complete scan to check OK elsewhere (previous scan was only lower abdomen), so I am now waiting for that appointment. Hopefully this should not have too much impact on my ability to design & build locos.
NHS says chances of recovery from a burst aneurism are low.
I will obviously need some repair work – back to the loco shed for a light overhaul!
10th March 2025
Regrettably it looks I will not be fit enough to take my stand to the Spring meeting @ Statfold Barn. I am due for my second CT scan on 11th April – presumably to measure up for the FEVAR (fenestrated endo vascular repair) tube to be inserted in my aorta. Hopefully the op should be fairly soon after that, but who knows? The response to my initial diagnosis was swift with another 2 appointments within 3 weeks – I guess to check my general fitness was good enough to operate on. The speed suggests my condition was serious.
Incidentally the final loco in the LMS 3F batch has now been sold.
13th March 2025
I will soon have 2 ready-to-run 10mm scale locos available for sale – an LMS 3F (in whatever livery is wanted, but basically black) and an SR Q1 (black again, but could be SR or BR).
Why? Well basically because they will be replaced by 1/32 scale versions. The 3F will be available as soon as I have filmed it running on my Inglenook test track.
The Q1 still needs a few more parts made to be runnable. In view of my other production commitments that will probably only happen when a customer orders it, so a slight delay will be incurred there.
I also have one set of etches for the 10mm scale SECR H class. I could supply just the etches, but if anyone wants it as a kit or ready-to-run, I can do that too.
As all of these are going to be replaced by their 1/32 scale equivalents this is probably your last chance to acquire the 10mm version.
The problem of the old 10mm etches is compounded by the original etching company going bust which means that new (expensive) masks will be required for more etches. This is probably not going to happen unless there is suddenly an upsurge in demand for them justifying the expense.
27th March 2025
The Ready to Run LMS 3F has now been sold. Actually replacing a kit order, so that 3F kit is now available.
Please note that as a result of my etcher going bankrupt I have lost access to the etch masks (“tooling”) for all the earlier 10mm kits that I had designed. Putting these back into production will cost a considerable amount so is unlikely to happen unless there is a surge in demand for them. Some are being reproduced in 1/32 scale.
8th April 2025
I will be having a CTscan on Friday this week so hopefully the op will follow soon and that should set me up for the next 20 years – I am 80 later this year.
This health problem has concentrated my mind on what to do to ensure that all the work I have done on model loco design is not lost when I pop my clogs.
Bowande recently exited from the gauge 1 market leaving previous customers without a source of spare parts. I have always tried to ensure that my models
use standard easily & cheaply available components wherever possible. When standard parts are not available I will ensure that drawings are freely available
so that anyone with the right equipment and skills can make them if anyone needs spare parts. These could be home made or “cottage industry” productions, thus enabling my models to continue in use as long as required.
I will continue to produce the parts, kits & RtR locos as long as I am able.
So far I have designed and produced 10 locos, 4 tenders, 1 railcar and 3 carriages. These total to 3111 different parts and 762 assemblies.
The 2D drawings were done in TurboCAD and I have now saved those drawings as dxf files that can be read by any 2D or 3D drawing software including free
software such as LibreCAD and FreeCAD. The 3D drawings were all produced in SolidWorks (and my opinion on that is unprintable – even the latest version)
and I am now in the process of rebuilding them all from the basic dxf files in FreeCAD. Mostly done in the evenings to minimise the impact on my production & design of future models.
7 locos are almost ready to go into production this year – just held up by the R/C system.
There are currently another 59 locos and tenders in the production pipeline – 21 have got as far as completion of the 2D GA drawings, 2 as far as the 3D drawings completed.
The earlier 10mm models have now gone out of production since my etcher collapsed and producing new etches is rather expensive given limited future demand.
I have now got all the parts for my lathe attachment for my CNC mill so when I have assembled all that it should speed up my production of turned parts for the locos.