Clement Matchett
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Posts posted by Clement Matchett
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Not today, but yesterday, I received the Pullman brake coach and some buffer stops.
All fine.
But regarding front trucks, my 00 S15, bought from a very reliable dealer had loose wheels when the brand new box was opened, and the dealer mended them for me before payment. But they had dropped off again before I got the loco back home, only 25 miles away.
it seems to me that Hornby is not a company to be trusted on quality control. If you buy things costing upwards of £100 from other companies in other fields - Makita for instance - you get a little slip identifying the individual who checked the item before despatch. No such checks from Hornby, apparently - the stuff is ‘just off the boat’.
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Yes, it is. But you have to use Hornby fishplates unless you work out at the gym every morning.
I have both brands on my layout and there is no noticeable functional difference. The two DO look different, but I doubt that will be noticeable once I have weathered and ballasted the track. And in any case, nobody is saying that the whole of the British system had a consistent appearance.
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Quite right, Fishmanoz!
And in this case, by building a second engine shed by deliberately photocopying one which was paid for, a pecuniary advantage would be obtained.
To do so is an infringement of copyright in the UK too.
The moderators will say this is off topic. But if we are to persuade Metcalfe to do TT120 stuff, which I would welcome too, I wouldn’t start by publicising an intention to infringe their copyright.
PS I practised in intellectual property for 33 years before my retirement.
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More than luck! What you are proposing is a breach of copyright! I hope you don’t get sued! smiley
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I now have three Gresley Pacific’s circling my 3rd and 2nd radius tracks acceptably, using my second hand Select, and Dapol Imperium decoders. No real problems, but of course not perfect. But anyone familiar with the steam age will recall the shrieking which occured when real locos negotiated tight curves.
As regards the choice of N18 decoder, there are few available. Hornby haven’t got any, and the Zimo N18 ones are hard to come by; Youchoos haven’t got any.
Obviously, I was betting against the odds with the cheap GM ones, since with an old Select, I can’t alter CVS, and without an old Select, I am obliged to use the analogue rubbish which came with my Scotsman set - it produced a most unpleasant noise and wouldn’t readily switch from forward to reverse! It is now landfill.
So I followed Simon, of Simon’s Shed and bought Dapol ones. Thanks, Simon!
I could, of course, have bought a pukka controller, but why would I when according to Hornby, I will be able to do everything with HM7000 at quite low cost.
But, RAF96, won’t the Hornby stuff be bought in too? OK, Hornby is a famous brand, but so is Sainsbury. And their stuff is all bought in, with the variable quality implicit in that.
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Thanks SM. I received my additional 3rd radius curves today and followed your advice to manipulate them a bit.
I am reasonably happy with my oval now, though it took quite a time align it. I don’t know what the newbie customer would make of it though!
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Thanks SM. I received my additional 3rd radius curves today and followed your advice to manipulate them a bit.
I am reasonably happy with my oval now, though it took quite a time align it. I don’t know what the newbie customer would make of it though!
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Thank you 96RAF but I don’t like the tone of your response.
I asked for help, not abuse.
But since you are clearly into aggression, have some back…some companies who supply new locomotives with bent valve gear and set curve track which doesn’t make a circle are rubbish too.
You do some working out yourself!
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I posted earlier that my TT Flying Scotsman arrived damaged. But I managed to bend the valve gear back into a state in which, in the last couple of days, it has circled my 2nd oval without problems.
But
When I try to stop it, it goes into a mad sequence of high speed revs and stalls, and I have to grab it and put it on the baseboard to calm it down!
I also have Blink Bonny, and that has circled my track without problems.
I am using a second hand Hornby Select controller, which is similar to that which I use on my beautiful 00 diorama, and in Scotsman, a Gaugemaster Omni decoder. I bought two of those but it behaves the same way with both. Blink Bonny is decoded using a Dapol N18.
I don’t understand why these problems are occurring.
Can anyone help.
I have to say that added to my difficulties with my 3rd radius track, and now with Flying Scotsman, I am pretty unimpressed with TT120 so far. But it is early days.
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To Rallymatt,
From my experience of Hornby 00 Schools, the cab will certainly be a separate moulding.
That comment is reinforced by a recent YouTube video showing a difference in design between the cab on TT120 Flying Scotsman and TT Blink Bony. That is explained, the comments say, by the reduction in the LNER loading height during the temporal interval between the two builds.
somone is very knowledgeable about Greeley Pacific’s, though not I.
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I unpinned some of my 2nd radius curves and formed a circle with the remaining unpinned ones. The circle was fine, and Blink Bony ran smoothly round the oval formed later.
The 3rd radius curves are a different matter, but they are cheap and I shall order some more.
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The 3rd radius curves which I have, and which as Charlie Bishop rightly says, do not form a circle when twelve of them are fitted together, contain 35 sleepers, which is the same number as shown on Hornby’s shop illustration.
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I don’t know, Fishman. Some of them are pinned down and I would have to unpin them to answer your question. But when I laid out my track plan, I scribed a perpendicular from a point to give me a 180 turn, together with a cross line at 90. And when I had pinned six curves, it was clear that the intended semi-circle was an arc of about 190 degrees. I added a straight, but it was clear that something was wrong.
As I say, Charlie Chadwick has the same issue.
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If you look at the Chadwick Model Railway review of The Eastener set on YouTube, you will see that Charlie confirms what I had already discovered for myself in my Scotsman set, that twelve 3rd radius curves don’t form a circle! There is a considerable overlap between the first and twelfth curve!
I suppose this could be an error which applies to only one of the moulds for the sleeper web and that some of us have just been unlucky, but I raised my problem with Simon (of Simon’s Shed on YouTube) and he replied that he had the same issue.
I don’t yet know whether the 2nd radius curves are more accurate, but I will shortly discover…mine arrived on Thursday.
Simon suggested that Hornby may have done this deliberately to cope with expansion and contraction, but personally I doubt that.
I suppose I will have to form my ovals with ten curves and some Peco flextrack, and try to cope with the fishplate issue.
Any comments?
Peter
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I received my new Flying Scotsman loco yesterday and opened the box this morning.
The valve gear was bent on both sides. One side stuck out at about 15 degrees!
I already have Blink Bonny, and it runs well, so I have a pattern for an attempt at correcting this, but has anybody had the same fault? And has anybody had components of the valve gear snapping as a result of trying to bend it into place?
Peter
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OK. Thanks GS. 60ft is 18.29mm, so not so far off 166.
We could understand some issues with sleeper spacing in the model, which might explain the difference.
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I have been surprised by the short length of the straight rail supplied in The Scotsman Set (166mm).
166mm is equivalent to 1 chain at 1 to 120.
Were individual rails in the steam age one chain long? I can’t find the answer on the web.
If so, and using true-to-scale coaches, TT:120 will produce the old and once familiar, clickety-clack.
Sounds as if it does on my layout…
Good
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The problem with mix-and-matching Hornby TT120 and Peco 120 is that though the rails match in height, the fish plates don’t match in width.
Hornby fish plates will slide onto the Peco track, but not vice versa - the Peco rail is about 0.3mm narrower at the track bed.
You might need to pinch the Hornby fishplates up a bit, but the real problem is that they aren’t available unless you take them from the set track from The Scotsman.
So if you want to mix and match, you have to do it in biggish blocks, or hope you live long enough for TT120 stuff from Hornby to come into stock.
I hope I do….
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Thanks Fishman…
Yes, I am aware of the current issues.
But first, build your baseboard! The Scotsman is mostly still in its box!
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I have been pondering this too, and may have misunderstood the situation, but;
I already have a DCC controller for my 00 layout (Hornby Select…adequate, limited and a bit 20th Century).
My new and second layout will be a reach to connect that controller, but I don’t want to use the cheap analogue controller which comes with the Scotsman set. It seems to have a built-in wasp’s nest!
So I have bought a N18 decoder from Gaugemaster and plan to buy a second used Select on eBay, as a stop gap solution. Have a look at the Simon’s Shed channel for fitting this decoder.
I hope to live long enough to see all this much-hyped TT120 stuff become available! It may be iffy!
Peter
Moderator Edit: amended to remove banned language. R-
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It is easy, in these discussions, to want to win a point. So it is difficult to respond without appearing to do so.
I like the idea of a frameless baseboard, but I am not sure I could undertake it. That is disregarding the effort involved..I probably don’t have the skills.
Just as a heads-up, I looked at the B & Q site to see what people thought about their 12mm hardwood ply. There are a lot of reviews citing delamination and voids. And despite some comments here, it is no cheaper than 12mm Mdf.
At the other end of the scale…one which I would be relatively comfortable with from the quality point of view, Travis Perkins are currently offering 8 x 4 x12mm marine ply to BS 1088 at £88.31 per sheet!
And, many glues contain carcinogenic substances.
And some silly people put hydrogen peroxide on their teeth…and on their scalp near their brain🥸
Thanks, but no thanks, I’ll use Mdf!
Peter
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I have read Hornby’s recommendations for constructing a baseboard for TT:120. Half inch ply plus 2x1 battens.
I have used 18mm MDF as the baseboard for my 00 steam shed diorama without any problems. It rests on battens screwed to the wall and on an old organ bench.
So why is ply the favoured material? Full of voids unless you can find a marine grade (in which case it will cost as much as MDF), more resonant, especially in the treble, more homogeneous and not nearly as rigid.
Yes, I know MDF is heavy, but is that such a problem with the small baseboards needed for 120?
Hornby’s recommendation notwithstanding, I shall construct my 120 baseboard from 18mm MDF.
Looking forward to it!
Peter
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I am in the perhaps fortunate position of having acquired a Scotsman set (from eBay) , and am being advised that Rails of Sheffield have despatched my bundle of Peco track!
I am planning to start by making a shelf layout.
Can anyone say what the minimum spacing between straight rails should be? I only have permission from The Fat Controller for a shelf of 3240 x 196 mm.
How much would I have to spend every year to get my £30 back?
in Hornby TT:120
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You have all lost me here!
I have discovered, as my father obviously knew, that the ‘hobby’, if it is a hobby, consists of buying stuff!
In contrast, if you buy a musical instrument, there is a heavy initial outlay, and then you either buy a book of music, which will take you years to learn, or download something. Add on cost is minimal.
I don’t think the odd £30 is very significant. If you want a beautiful layout which either replicates an historic facility, or projects your own fantasy, then you are going to spend money.
Railway modelling is not cheap - I have already spent £1100+ on my new TT120 layout, and it still looks crap and only works well on Wednesdays with an ‘R’ in the month.