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81F

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Doc I've just come across your narrow boat, not sure how I missed it before. Did you form it around something like balsa or is it hollow?

The hull is made of thick card in horizontal layers, and the sides are printed  onto thin card. I made it pretty much by following the  scalescenes instructions.  I really enjoy making their models, they are very well designed,  but I was pleasantly surprised how well the boat went together. 

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Was the scratches between the bearings just used on fitted wagons? Or was it more complicated than that.  Like every thing with railways! 

Fazy, are you referring to the tie bar that attach the bottom of the 'W' irons?  'W' irons are also called axleguards and are the structures that hold the axleboxes. 

 

If so, then it is more complicated than that.

 

Unfitted wagons rarely had tie bars. However tie bars were fitted on some unfitted (hand brake only) 4 and 6 wheel wagons which had long wheelbase, such as  the LMS Tube wagons and LNER Plate wagons.  (see below)

 

Tie bars were usually found on  vacuum braked wagons which had 'push type' brakes i.e. those with only four brake shoes.

 

Other wagons did not have tie bars, these include 4 wheeled wagons with clasp brakes i.e. those with 8 shoe brakes, also on wagons with disc brakes.

 

Tie bars were also provided on most coach bogies  except those made from cast steel.

 

An unfitted  Plate wagon.

/media/tinymce_upload/c44ee02bc31b797c928c905af057a2bc.jpg

 

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Just completed a Scalescenes downloadable canal boat - now all I need to do is build the canal + lock gates for it to go on.

 

 

Now that does look good!

 

One advantage of the modern "recreational" narrow boats is that they come in different lengths, rather than the carrying boats, which, of course, SHOULD all be 70 feet long....280 mm in 4mm scale, almost a foot long!

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70 Foot long (by 7 foot beam) Narrow Boat.

Basically the Craftlines Balsa Wood covered carrying boat kit, but with hand painted cabin sides and "cloths" (Tarpaulins), the cabin doorway cut out and a steerer added.

 

Based on the Fellows, Morton & Clayton "Single Motor"  boat "Tench". FMC were taken over by British Waterways (British Transport Commission, Docks and Inland Warerways Executive) after making their first trading losses after the canal system was Nationalised...

 

Crosing the Aqueduct at Ffrwd, heading towards Coed Talon....

 

/media/tinymce_upload/622744ddb68b4d55331c939c4842d171.JPG

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Yes that's  it stretchers not scratchers! (Tie bars) You have to love predicted text,  especially in the hands of a edit no no  "idiot"  with dyslexia.  

 

Thank you LC, an excellent and comprehensive answer as always.

 

And a "Happy new year" to all you young ladys, gentlemen  and even to all the GWR fans.

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The Scalescenes canal boat measures in at 245mm, or about 61ft, so a bit shorter than prototype, but it looks about the right length to my eye.  Mind you, I'm not too fussy.  As far as I am concerned 00 gauge track is fine, as are passenger expresses that are only 4-5 coaches long, which is probably less than half the correct length.

It wouldn't be difficult to scale the canal boat up to 70ft, but I'm not sure whether you would simply stretch it lengthways or expand it in 3 dimensions.

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Sizes are all over the place. from 32", 58", 60", 61", 62" 70" are the most common. A mite of mine had a 61footer before buying a beautiful Dutch barge. Which I was lucky enough to use as a base for a cycling holiday many years ago. Though the Dutch was band from some canals due to its width. 

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 Been working on the Layoyut this weekend. Decided not have flap down mounting for the DCC decoder but fixed it to a, off-cut of boardf fgitted top anm upright under the layout. Have yet to install the second decoder although the next four points are now wired ready for connection.

 

I've also been planing/shaping the edge of platform two to match the curve of the track. Thuis is made of two sheeds of ply laminated together and is about 3ft x 7" with harly a rightanglke on it. It is now screwed into place probably temprarily as I may need to remove some from the back once I've worked out where the narrow gauge will conmer in. Will posdt some photos as soon as I've had a tidy up.

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I have been converting a Bachmann 3 car Class 159 to DCC; anyone familiar with these will know that Bachmann put the light cluster behind a body diaphragm and the only way to get at it is to cut the diaphragm! I then stripped the old bulbs and replaced with LED's, securing these with a good blob of epoxy. I had to trial & error to find resistor values that gave reasonably similiar red/white brightnesses. Just finished the second/media/tinymce_upload/3a7c7475b6da085af9ff00166edd0b13.JPG car and everything working fine, except my Select which has just died on me! I have an Elite and RM for the layout but the Select was very useful with my Rolling road. Photo shows a piece of white plasticard reinforcing & repairing the diaphragm.

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