Interesting UK site for Scratchbuilders

[CraigH]

http://www.clag.org.uk/

Just ran into the above site. It's the Central London Area Group (CLAG). I was looking for electrical wiper ideas for my On3 2-6-0, NPC #13.

Boils down to this: Years ago I was into wooden ship modeling and found that the Brits are probably the best when it comes to model engineering (scratchbuilding and high end modeling). The CLAG site has some fantastic references and technique we can all learn from.

The site also has a great listing of links to manufacturers, parts and supplies...most for Non-U.S. equipment but I'll bet there's some material that's very adaptable.

Enjoy!

CraigH

[John Coker]

Craig, Thanks for this link to a useful site. One big difference is that Brit/Euro/Aussie modelers BUILD model locomotives. Loco kits are still popular overseas. Us Yanks drifted away from scratchbuilding motive power in the late 1950s to late-60s. Reason ? Brass models. Just kitbashing brass models became accepted finescale modeling here. I took on a Pacific Coast Ry. 2-8-0 kit from Railmaster (NZ). Though the kit could be built up fairly quickly, to make it look right took lots of time. I started building a Backwoods Miniatures (UK) Climax. Even though this is a small model, it is very time-consuming! Part of it is some of our English speaking frineds use different terminology and if you know anyone who has written intsructions, it is difficult to make them sequential and describe intricate procedure. However, I bought several more Railmaster kits, amnd though some will take a little redesigning to make them good models, they will be fun to build and result in unique models.

[Ed Weldon]

Here's another interesting UK site and two sources I've bought from recently:
THE SCALEFOUR SOCIETY
http://www.scalefour.org/map.htm

Alan Gibson -- source of interesting loco mechanism parts
http://www.scalefour.org/ag/index.htm
Takes Major US Credit cards and ships via air at reasonable rates

Nigel Lawton – Source of small motors and sub miniature belts and pulleys with potential for critters and railcars in small scales
http://www.nigellawton009.com/VeeTipper.html
Takes Paypal and ships via air at reasonable rates

Ed Weldon