Saturday morning

Well, RMweb seems to be down or not responding (which seems to be a moderately common occurrence lately for me at least), so I suppose I'll have to write something myself instead.

I've been doing some thinking about the freemo end plates that Cabbage has come up with in terms of what one can actually do on them. All good fun with a pencil and paper. We must have a chat about standards at some point, or maybe I'll just declare what they are. I fear getting bogged down again in a discussion where eventually nothing happens short of wasting a lot of time.

Its also come to my attention that there have been sod all photos on here in the last couple of weeks, so here we go to alter that with 'whats on my workbench/layout'

First up, cast W10 or W11 wagons on the J underframes. I've simply removed the headstock's (to be replaced at a later date) to allow for the longer top



Another 3 J tops waiting for me to solder up the under frames. Also the R1 waiting for new bogies, and the Ugas (having had weight added) waiting for new lids.

This of course is all going to be held up by a load of wood to stack and fishing later in the day.

That time of the year again

Today the blog turns 4.

'Its all a bit much really'

I'm not sure how much that is in Internet years. at least several generations.

I've just had a quick look back to a year ago at the progress I've made. The layout is coming along at a 'solid' pace. nothing spectacular, just steady increments. I've had some bush tram distractions, which still threaten to build into a fulling fledged mini layout. Not much has happened in the loco building stakes (I've noticed that if the Ew project was stalled it would still be moving forward faster than it is at the moment), but some massive strides in the wagon building (entirely due to the efforts of cabbage and Am_fet).

So, I still have yet to get bored of this blogging lark. I was a bit surprised to discover just who does turn up here for a regular dose of stupidity and average modeling.

Aims for the next year? Build a couple of Freemo modules (and we as a group either need to have a discussion about this, or i can just set the rules and you can all like it or lump it), build a few more wagons to actually assemble some trains. Build a bit of scenery and a few buildings, and the fiddle yards at each end of Paekakariki. Oh, and continue to push more of you out there to sit down and build a model or 2.

All sounds reasonably simple doesn't it.

Enter the Journal....

Am_Fet thinks its his turn to write:

I arrived at work nice and early this morning to find the kind library pixies had left this on my desk:



(I was slighltly surprised at the depth of periodicals we receive at work when I started, so promptly signed up for a few...)

Anyway, onto the journal. First up, another superb photo on the cover from that jandaled behemoth, Barry Fitzgerald. Boy, can that man work magic with scenery. Back cover is more work from boy wonder Grant Morrell, this time with a Bc wagon.

Inside are a 1:160 "impressionist" layout using RTR from Scotland, Peter Ross pontificates endlessly on digital cameras, Diode matrix route control for all you techies, some gorgeous photos of Middleton yard in 1927 before colour was invented, and Les Downey's remembery's (including walk shorts!). The main article from Crosado is a detailed look at a highway overbridge at Opaki....and before you scoff about a "non-train subject", these bridges are everywhere and its a very welcome article.....in fact, it would make a nice scene for those MMW modules...

In the news section comes the show stopper that Online Models is coming up for sale as Ken Cousins looks to retire....how this ends up effecting our biggest scale will be watched with interest. Also included is our own Graham Baker's obituary and the obligatory bumpf to round out the mag.

Verdict? Well, not much there for repeated pick-up-and-read's and some of the articles looked a bit like hard work to get through if they weren't your specialty. Having said that, the overbridge article is a classic (although I cant see many agreeing with me!).

(All these opinions are my own and are not necessarily the opinions held by Herr Druff and all those at MD Publishing Worldwide's headquarters in Zurich.)

And the results are...

The numbers have turned up from the competitions and since I said I would, here they are.

First up, the 2 vans (all grades out of 20)

30' 1889 guards van.
Skill 15.5
Complexity 12.75
Conformity/fidelity 12.5
Finish 13
Total 53.75 (67.19%)

47' guards van.
Skill 15
Complexity 13.25
Conformity/fidelity 13
Finish 12.5
Total 53.75 (67.19%)

These 2 entries were supplied with no supporting information. Also both have a wire coupler on one end and someminor flaws in assembly.

Uga
Skill 14.5
Complexity 12
Conformity/fidelity 13.5
Finish 12
Total 52 (65%)

This model was supplied with a journal with the plan and a photo I worked from. might have hurt me a bit

Finally, the J sheep wagon
Skill 16.5
Complexity 14.5
Conformity/fidelity 17.5
Finish 15.75
Total 64.25 (80.31%)

Again, this was supplied with the relevant journal article.

So, what does this tell us all? I think that the lack of historical information hurt me a bit. The finish I'm not too sure about, weathering is very subjective. I could have had a crack at decals for the numbers, but life is a bit short.

I'd be interested to see how Kiwibonds Dx would score in the cutthroat locos section.

Sunday morning

Well, a week after the convention and I should really be getting out into the shed, all fired up to start on the projects that need to be moved on.

-I need to do something about the lack of trains on my layout. This means building more wagons, and also as an off shoot, building a fiddle yard or 2 (well, definitely 2). I've been putting 2mm bogies together, which just remind me how poorly designed they are, although most of it will be down to old technology. I need to add to the single j sheep wagon that I have, but can't for the life of me locate the 5 etched under frames that are supposed to be on my bench.

-I've been pondering about the finer nuances of the new modular end plates, and have decided that thinking about finer is not my forte. It just revolves around using Peco vs NMRA wheels. Non of the old British stuff is NMRA standard, and its only been in the last few years that they have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 1970's. So, can we accommodate all this or should we all just bite the bullet and do something new. Now before anyone pipes up and says 'but I have all this track etc that I can't use', I'll point out that I have 2 1/2 years invested in a 12' layout that in all likely hood won't be able to connect up, and if it could, would be rather limiting to the things that could run on it, so I'm not overly worried either way. I'm intending to build something different entirely, and try out some new techniques for doing things. There will also be people asking questions about how we join them electrically, how XXX won't work and how we really need YYY. Others then pipe up and ask about ZZZ. Keep going on this, and the discussion merry circles the drain until everyone collapses exhausted, and nothing happens.

I guess that the only way forward is to ignore this and just build a couple, and see what works and what doesn't. I'm not expecting a fully formed modular standard to appear before anything happens, it will be based on what works and what doesn't. In my experience, any well thought out plan on first contact with reality tends to get mugged in a dark alley and left bleeding behind a dumpster.

And that extends to all the modeling hurdles that I seem to be faced with at the moment. I just have to stop over thinking things and just go and do it. I wonder if the First bank of Cabbage accepts Pay pal....

A request

Somehow we forgot to take any photos of Paekakariki at the convention. If anyone has some 1/2 way decent pictures could they send them to me?

Convention report part III; where to from here?

Today some philsiophising type stuff. over the 4 days I was lucky enough to have conversations outside the convention area with a wide variety of people. A fair bit of this was down to the 'local' knowledge' of the fine dinning establishments on Cuba st, but also the high caliber of dining companions that I tend to attract, and Barry Fitzgerald (who at least this time round didn't wear jandles). A US prototype modeler pointed out something that I had completely missed, that it is actually a modeling event for all modelers in New Zealand. From the coverage 9and indeed the entries ) I had always felt that it was an NZR convention with add-ons. The flip side was that the layout tours were predominantly American, with the opinion that one of the tours was one of the highest overall standard tours that the modeler had been on.

Competition trophy's. Some thinking (which I agree with) is that there needs to be some rationalisation of the trophy's. Its rather confusing that models with high grades in particular sections don't 'trophy' by the simple reason that they are in the 'wrong' scale or 'wrong' prototype. I'm not sure why this bugs me so much, as I don't feel I'm an overly competitive person (wargaming aside, which I play simply for the game , not to actually win), but I do enjoy entering the competitions simply to see how my modeling compares with others. Its also comparing the primarily scratch built or kit built NZR models with British kits or US highly detailed RTR. Now I'm not suggesting doing away with some of the trophy's, but maybe stretching the categories for their award outside 1/64.

Another topic was the future of the hobby. This is a bit of an old chestnut, but still topical. One thing that I did notice at the convention was that there were not that many younger modelers coming through. At about 40 I would have been in the lower age section. The problem goes further than getting people into modeling NZR, but getting them into railway modeling at all. Lets face it, its not a cheap or easy hobby. I've been working on Paekakariki for over 2 years now and there is still a lot of work to do (thats a bit of an understatement). How do you keep a new modeler interested for that length of time. Sure there are shortcuts, but they are only really available for track, or for locos and wagons, for those with money. It was also pointed out that we can get too insulated in our own wee niche and don't look at the wider picture. Here at Motorised dandruff we have spent 4 years showing that making models is not that hard, that everyone makes mistakes, and hopefully encouraging you all to actually have a go.

Well, that's a bit of a ramble, but I guess all the main points are there, maybe. Open to the peanut gallery for comment..