7mm Birmingham Moor Street

More topside details added. The copper piping isn’t perfect but then it would seem it rarely was in the prototype so I left it slightly irregular. The body was then cleaned up and dried for the camera. Nickel silver (real name German silver) is a joy to work with.

 

mmm, it’s apparently Chinese, and as we know, doesn’t contain silver, so I’m not convinced about the “real name”

as ever, Wikipedia is a fount of knowledge, if not wisdom!

Nickel silver - Wikipedia

Loco’s looking good
Atb
Simon

 

German silver is called Neusilber (new silver) in Germany.
(missing detail in the wikipedia article)


Michael

 

And some of us also know it as 'white bronze', which is a bit closer to the truth...

You can call it what you like, as long as it can be defined, ideally to a metallurgical specification.

Steph

 

Personally I never found any advantages over brass. Dunno why.

 

Merry Christmas!

Relative quiet from Moor Street but some modelling has been achieved, though not on the Pannier. The David Andrews’s Castle has seen some additional work on the loco chassis and body. I’ll report after the Christmas holiday but over on the Castle thread.

 

Merry Christmas!

Simon

 

A rather brief entry last night without explanations. The Pannier was set aside mainly because the next bits to be added are rather more fiddly than usual and my hands are all bu66ered up by too much gardening. There is a good reason for the hard labour which I won’t disclose just yet, but no, it does not involve any track laying!

So I reopened the David Andrews’ Castle and tackled some very fiddly additions! There really is no logic to my loco building

However, as I have several kits open it has occurred to me that I might tackle all the back heads at the same time. This idea came about while looking for pictures on line to assist the back head layout on the Castle. Along came a photo from Masterpiece Models’s Hall so I tagged it for when I start my Finney7 Hall. But why not build all the back heads at the same time? Castle, Hall, 47xx, 51xx and 74xx? No, I won’t mix up all the castings!

Well it’s time for a midday Christmas snack. This year it’s Roast Beef at dinner time for a change! No Turkey left overs for the next 2 weeks.

 

Very quiet since Christmas but some progress made on the Castle and now I am focussing on two Finney7 4000 gallon Collett tenders, one in brass for the 47xx, one in nickel silver for the Hall. I had forgotten that I had started punching rivets on the Hall after I bought the kit 2019 Guildex. Anyway, this post is just to prove that something is going on. No chance of returning to France for months in my opinion, so still making up kits here in Hampshire.

One extra observation, I do prefer NS to brass! And as most would agree, WM castings simply suck! Particularly the axle box and spring hangers.

 

The trouble with white metal casting is anyone thinks they can produce them. I had some experience of casting on the machines at GEM in Rhos on Sea, but it wasn't until a friend of mine in Coventry (of engraved plate fame) passed my brass patterns on to a jewelry maker that I saw what whitemetal castings should look like. Miss-latch and shrinkage were minimal and detail was pin sharp. That was in the late 1990's.

 

Larry

I agree with you. Jim McGeown at Connoisseur makes his own castings and they are fine. I have been known to replace WM castings with brass from Warren Shephard and Laurie Griffiths. Should they have been in the kits box? Probably yes.

 

If anyone is wondering about what I actually doing on various loco and coach kits, the truth is I have become completely undisciplined. I am picking up and putting down various kits with too much regularity. So it is best not to add a short description to the Hall, the pannier, the 47xx or various coaches.

So I am busy but not really capable of adding a lot to WT until I have something to show.

But there is progress!

 

As this my main WT thread I’ll put this news here, just the once.

I am not renewing my GOG membership

With very few exceptions all my friends are here.