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I have been asked a few times how big and luxurious my workshop must be to do all the different things that I do, it isn't. Its a lean-to on the side of the house, the only luxury is a door directly into the house so I don't have to go out the front and in through the front door. It is 1.8 m wide, 7.2 m long and 2.5 m high on the house side. I built it myself as a timber frame, fully insulated and with plastic T&G cladding on the long side. The ends are double glazing units made to order with a normal door to the rear and a very wide one at the front, the front half doubles up as a garage for my motorcycle at night. When I fitted the wiring I planned for sockets everywhere, even then I had to add 2 more I missed, I now have 17 double sockets.

1 - The bench area is about 2.5M but has to cope with the usual clutter, tools in use and jobs partly done, when kit packing is required I have a clear up so I can spread the parts out more. The printer and pillar drill can be seen underneath with rolls of roofing lead and some empty boxes for reuse.

2 - To the left of this is a higher bench with my Hobbymat lathe and the computer tower acting as a pin board for sticky note reminders. The lathe is not screwed down, it rests on a camping bed roll mat and has never moved.

3 - Left of this is my extrusion printer and its laptop on the high shelf. The box next to the printer has a UV spotlight on top and is for curing resin prints, the box is required as a 60w UV spotlight is not a good thing to look at in operation. The device on the UV lamp bracket is a programmable timer from Ebay, it is set up to give 20, 40 and 60 seconds depending on what needs curing. I printed a box to put it in.

4 - Above the bench is an eye level test track looking more like the Penrhyn scrap line most of the time. Some are mine partly finished, some are customers but all need attention of some sort. The front track is 16.5/14mm dual gauge, the rear is 18.2mm EM gauge and the center is 12mm at the right and 9mm at the left. Yes there is a wad of money in a yogurt pot, that's to buy beer next time I'm allowed into Belgium which may be another month or 2. Above are containers with all sorts of useful bits in that I may use one day.

5 - Behind me on the house wall is the library and baskets with kits ready for posting. I have far too many tins of paint, the compressor and airbrush are there too. Below are file boxes with magazines etc. The top shelf is above head height and is 300mm deep, useful for packaging like bubble wrap, flat boxes and my bike gear.

6 - The front half is shorter and is home to my newly installed 1930s Benson lathe, vice, bench grinder behind the Yamaha YZF-R125 engine (don't ask, it has a bearing problem and I will be rebuilding it over the next week or 2, I was a bike mechanic in a former life), 2 resin printers and the cleaning area. On the shelves are all my many house tools which I would rather have there than in the cellar as power tools don't like cellars much. The door is the widest single door that the glaziers have ever made but I wanted to get the bike in without folding in the mirrors.

7 - The left printer is a Photon, on the right is a Kelant and the plastic tub between them contains the alcohol for cleaning the prints. The cut up T shirt behind the Photon is draped over it in use to keep in heat and keep out light. The Kelant has a zip up sweatshirt to do the same job which is rolled up on top in this picture. When printing I often have both printers running, parts draining on the baking tray after washing and more in or around the UV lamp box.

8 - The view from the rear showing the actual size I have to cope with and a rather enthusiastic raspberry plant. Yes it is an interesting gutter but it works and the window still opens.

9 - A high level shot showing the wide top shelf, home to my craft cutter when not in use, assorted kits waiting for me to get to them and some nasty chemicals. There are also boxes of computer cables, lathe tools and a collection of mugs. The Shapeways box far left contains prints waiting for chassis solutions, all belonging to one person.

Below the benches are metal office draw units that are ideal for storing kits in flat form, I only box a few at a time as they take up 5 times as much room that way. They also contain motors, metal for turning, spare tools and parts for the printers.

I wish I had more room as cost effective buying means bulk purchases, 1000 12mm wheels fit in a 1L container, the gear sets are smaller still but excess flat boxes and packaginghave to go in the loft, there are at least 600 of 4 different types up there as I buy in 250s. There are household rumours that I might be granted use of a spare bedroom to build a layout, probably because my better half wants to try scenery and building construction. This would be a good way of moving a lot of house tools giving me more space in the workshop, you can get a lot of tools in a room 9ft x 12ft, that's about 2/3rds the size of my workshop!

The Larger Diesel Chassis kit

I was asked by 2 Indian gentlemen for a chassis to fit an Indian Ry NDM6, a bit like our BR O8 shunter but with 4 wheels. This was to be in OO9 which I don't do often and my printed plastic ones cannot do below 12mm gauge as I can't get the gears in, too narrow. The solution was an etched chassis which I made as universal as possible.

It can be built to all gauges from 9 to 16.5mm (and wider if you ask for longer axles) and in wheelbases from 17 to 30mm. It comes complete with wheels, motor and double gearing around 33:1, wheels can be 8.5, 9.5, 10.5, 12 or 14mm and the motor can be an M15 (8 x 15), N20 (10 x 15) or N30 (10 x 20), a flywheel is provided where possible. This will suit anything from OO9 to O gauge, the frames are 64mm long but can be shortened prior to assembly if required.

The pair in the pictures were built from the test etches for the 2 NDM6 owners and are 9mm gauge, 18.5mm wheelbase with 8.5mm wheels. The 2 strips with holes are optional mounting plates, they are wider but these have been cut down. This is a simple kit with only 9 etched parts to solder.

These chassis come as 6 on the etch and all 6 were built for various people. One was assembled in a cut down fashion to fit a Shapeways Ruston for 9mm gauge and turned out really good, I think this chassis will find far more uses than I expected.

I am considering having a range of small wheels made, probably steel tyred with plastic centers, the trouble is that the set up cost is high and I don't know what is required. These would be suitable for 7mm ng, OO and HO, O-9 and any scale/gauge that can use RP25 code 110 wheels, about the same as current Hornby/Bachmann.

I think I will stick to the sizes I already do, 8.5, 9.5, 10.5 and 12mm with spokes of one kind or another. The options would be 6, 7 or 8 spokes either plain, split, curly or T shaped. Without doing a vast amount of research I don't know what would be popular so if you have a particular need, email with details including where it was used and I will add it to the possibility list.

Mold making for spoked wheels is very expensive in the UK, £1000 to £1500 per type, although using the same tyre for a different center is a lot cheaper as the middle part of the mold is about 20% of the cost. I am hoping that the Chinese manufacturers I use might be more reasonable on cost but I need to send drawings of requirements to get a price. I am open to suggestions.

There is a UK manufacturer who made some molds for 7mm ng wheels that were paid for but never went into production, I will be discussing these with him as I don't want to duplicate anything already existing, even if none were ever made.

A replacement chassis for this has been an intention for a while so I borrowed a body kit from Robin Edwards to see what could be done. I hoped to use the cranks and rods supplied in the kit with a newly acquired L shape geared motor. As you can see from the pictures it worked but there were issues, aren't there always.

The body kit is designed with a 30mm wb, the Tenshodo that used to be used was 31mm wb, which caused some fun and games during assembly. The rods on this kit were 30 and 31mm wb, one of each due to casting tolerances, on top of that the holes are slots. I printed the chassis with a 30mm wb to fit the body and manually filed the slotted rod ends to suit and soldered in some fine tube. The same tube was used as retainers to hold the rods in place. The cranks were drilled out to 2mm and fitted with threadlock, the quartering was done by eye. Amazingly it worked first time and is powerful with good slow speed performance, which is all that is needed on a De Winton.

This is a 14mm version and due to the tight clearances the chassis and gearbox uses common bushes, gauges less than 14mm are not possible. The 16.5mm version will use separate bushes. Wheels are my 10.5mm disc type with simple wiper pick ups.

I can make these to order but RTR only and the buyer will need to sort out the cranks and rods. At a later date I can draw rods, cranks and a crank setting jig to assemble it all but not until after the lock down as the etchers are closed for the duration. The chassis would be supplied now as you see above, with extended axles but no rods or cranks at a price of £50.00. When I do an improved version with rods etc the price would be around £85.00 assembled.

As I work from home, the Corona virus outbreak has not affected me or my business much so far, other than running short on toilet rolls and having to queue in the car park to get into a supermarket. Petrol is very cheap now, a shame I have no shows to go to to use some. I am having to ration my stock of Belgian beer as I won't be able to get there to restock any time soon, 3 bottles a week is just not enough.

I have all my kits and bits in stock and can still get routine parts from suppliers. Unfortunately the etcher I use has closed for the duration and the caster probably will soon. This means no etches or castings for the Alco or the new 0-4-0 chassis kits so they will have to wait until the world gets on top of the virus. My 3D printed chassis are the most popular item at the moment and fortunately I can still post them when they are ready.

I am not offering any reassurance to anyone as I'm sure you have all been reassured by everyone from your bank to the corner shop down the road, I certainly have. Be safe, stay indoors and don't mingle with anyone but those in your home and things might get back to near normal in a few months. A friend has a vulnerable Mother who she loves dearly but now cannot visit, the solution is to visit from the garden with tea and conversation through an open window. There's always a way if you look for it.

Best wishes to all - Mark, from a very depressing Medway Towns that looks like the opening sequence of a Zombie Outbreak movie.

PS .... I had a look through my stock to see where issues might arise, I have good stocks of all loco kits except the Wren (1), Joffre (2) and 1/35th Peckett (1). I am now out of Barclay chassis kits and none of these can be topped up until things get back to normal. The printed power bogies, wagons and Redlake coach are made to order and I can still get materials for them. I have vast stocks of gears, bushes and wheels as I bought them over the last year or so.

09-04-2020 - A correction to the above, I have been affected by the lock down, I am snowed under with orders, mainly for small bits and special chassis from all parts of the world. Not surprising really as all my customers are stuck indoors and want bits to get on with their current projects. I can still do most of this but I am getting a bit behind so there may be delays at times. Also as my wife is vulnerable, I am going out for shopping which takes forever with the queues outside the shops, I lose at least a day a week just queuing.

26-09-2020 - I am out of 1/35 Pecketts but have ordered more etches and castings, they will take a while to get herebut the kit should be available again before Christmas. I am out of castings for Brazils, I can supply them with the castings to follow but they may be weeks or a couple of months, who knows.

This is a good unit when space is limited and I can draw the chassis to any shape required, with wheelbases from 26mm upwards in gauges 12mm or wider. I can do 24mm wb but only in 16.5mm or wider as the wheels would clash with the motor. The main advantage of these over a Tenshodo is that they use brass axle bushes and metal gears so no undue wear or gear splitting.

These will be cheaper than the 2 stage type and are a lot easier to put together, a kit is £35 and RTR £50, if its a new drawing I will have to build the first and it would be RTR only but later examples can be kits. Wheels can be 8.5, 9.5 or 10.5mm but I wouldn't recommend 12 or 14mm wheels as it would go like a rocket and be under powered.

These will be added to the general sales list as I make them for specific prototypes. I am also working on a range of direct Tenshodo replacements, the same size and shape but slower and with metal gears and axle bushes.

Two all new items for kit and scratch builders, roller bearing hornblocks and bracket bearings. They assemble from a folding etch with a 2mm bore ball race which is held in tiny fingers and araldited in place. The left one in each picture is the bracket bearing, suitable for motorised accessories or any loco with a motor mounted remotely from the gearbox and needing a bearing. The size is 11 x 6mm and depth 2.4mm, the holes are 1.2mm spaced at 8mm. The hornblocks are on the right and fit straight into standard 6mm frame cutouts, a guide is supplied for either functional or cosmetic use. There is a fold up tag to set the height in the frame cutout and/or limit the travel as may be required. Both use 5 x 2mm double shielded ball races with a 2mm bore and have vastly less friction than a similar sized bush with no need to lubricate ever.

When fitting, the axle must be a push fit through the bearings and is locked in place with a tiny spot of bearing lock when positioned. If the axle is a bit tight, it can be eased by spinning in a drill or lathe and fine abrasive paper used to reduce the diameter a fraction. I an now fitting these ball races in my motor bogies as standard and they greatly improve performance.

Supplied in pairs of either type at £4.00 for 2mm axles only and yes I can supply spare bearings if needed.

I have recently had some failures of the small motors used in my Universal Power Bogie, this motor is a Chinese 11/8 can motor. I have sold well over 50 of these as kits and RTR and have had to replace 2 motors for customers and 3 for myself. A customer asked if the controller might be an issue so I ran his repaired chassis 6 times up and down my 6ft test track using my pulse width modulated controller, it ran well and got a bit warm. I then repeated it with my Gaugemaster type D and it didn't run as well and got quite hot.

I called Gaugemaster to discuss this and was told that all Gaugemasters are only half rectified and have no inbuilt power restrictions, this gives a raw output that small motors don't like, the larger ones can cope as they are a bigger heat sink but it will probably still shorten their life. When the motor gets hot, which it will do on half rectified power, it will keep getting hotter until it burns out and there are no power limiters to stop this. This was a bit of a surprise as I thought the problem was the Chinese motor suppliers lack of quality control when it looks like it was my Gaugemaster all the time.

Therefore I cannot recommend my smallest motors for use with Gaugemasters or any other half rectified controller. I have done some research and found that PWM controllers should heat motors more than plain rectified one but half rectified controllers heat them even more. Suitable controllers are any controller using full rectification which includes the Hornby R965, HM200, the Tech4 range, most H&Ms with the wave switch in the full position and any make of hand held unit so long as it is supplied from a fully rectified DC supply, not from AC as then the inbuilt half wave rectifier will take over.

Sorry for this but I have no say in how manufacturers design their controllers. If you have a controller that you are unsure about, ask the manufacturer, if it uses full rectification it will be fine, if its a hand held, use a fully rectified DC supply, if its an old one that's no longer made, ask others on forums, try Google or ask me.

Redlake coach

Now available in 5.5mm gauge for 16.5 mm track

Brush 4WBE

I can now supply this in 1/32nd or 1/35th scales, that's the best bit of 3D printing, just scale it up or down and print.

Barclay E class chassis

It has been pointed out to me that my Barclay chassis which is 7mm or 1:43 scale will actually make quite a good chassis for an O&K tank loco or similar in 1:35 scale. Well, I didn't see that one coming but in 16.5mm form it certainly will. I will have to try it myself.

Smallbrook ETNA

I bought an unknown vertical boiler loco body thought to be 1/35th scale on Ebay, it turned out to be a 7mm scale ETNA by Smallbrook Studios. Rather than use a Smokey Joe chassis, I printed one to fit and used my larger geared motor, 16mm spoked wheels and rods and cranks borrowed from one of my Pecketts. The result was surprisingly good, except that its more suited to 1/35th or 1/32nd scale. Its sort of an adaption of a De Winton but much bigger to fit the Hornby chassis.

If anyone has an Etna that they would like to use for whatever scale but need a better chassis, I can build these to order. You get Scalelink 16mm spokedwheels and around 140:1 gearing with an N20 motor. The drive is smooth and silent and very good at slow speeds. These are RTR only at £90.00 and take around 10 days to supply as I make the outside rods to order.

New gears, pulleys and wheels

These have finally arrived from China and they have surpassed my expectations.

The gears are so well cut that they need no running in and just work perfectly from first fitting. They are 0.4 module 13:1 ratio, the gear is small enough to use with 8.5mm wheels and the worm is actually 2mm longer than the ones in the picture, they were a test sample. Both have 2mm tight push fit bores to suit my power bogies where they will be standard fitting from now on.

The wheels are 10,5mm blackened steel but still conduct electricity, on turned plastic bushes with 2mm brass pin point, brass blind or steel blind axles. They are supplied loose so that I can choose the axle and they push on dead square every time, unlike some plastic centered wheels I have had to use lately. They are also perfectly concentric as they are CNC machined. I have these wheels in 12 and 14mm now at the same price.

The pulleys are much as my previous ones, no real changes there. The large one is bored 2mm and the small one 1mm, ratio around 2.8:1.

All these are available separately, a gear set £3.50, 2 pulleys with 2 O rings £2.50 and wheels £2.50 per axle.

The bottom picture shows the new wheels at the back, my previous ones in the middle and Gibsons at the front for comparison.

WEP Soldering Station

Found by chance while looking for something else on Chinese websites. It turns out to be the best iron I have ever owned, mine has been in use for over a year now and I still can't fault it.

Its variable from 90 to 420 degrees with a temperature lock switch to avoid accidental adjustment, has the fastest warm up time I have ever seen, 0 to 360 degrees in around 20 seconds, It also does not loose temperature when soldering, even on a large piece with the biggest bit.

It comes with a sponge tip wiper, a brass shavings tip cleaner, a solder reel support (not shown), 5 assorted bits and has a sleep function that lowers the temperature after 10 minutes of inactivity. Extra spare bits are universal to most Chinese irons and come in packs of 11.

I have sold several now and highly recommend them. The irons come from a European warehouse so supplies are quick but the bits come from China and can take a month to arrive so I try to keep a few packs in stock.

The wholesaler has increased the price of the station by £3.00 so I have had to as well, sorry about that.

WEP Soldering Station£45.00, 11 bits £10.00

Soldering Station with 11 extra bits £53.00

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Locosnstuff

News items

24-11-2020 The Alco is finally available

A virtual tour of my workshop

The Larger Diesel Chassis kit

Water pick up Hoses

Small wheels

Wrightlines De Winton chassis

Covid 19

Special offers at EXPO NG

New RTR loco

Brush Battery Electric

New Power Bogies

Hornblocks and bearings

Controller Issues

Panama Canal Franco Belge 0-4-0T

Other scales

Redlake coach

Brush 4WBE

Barclay E class chassis

Smallbrook ETNA

New itemsFor Sale

Bagnall P51 4WPM

New gears, pulleys and wheels

Axle bushes

WEP Soldering Station

Locosnstuff is owned by Mark Clark at 12 Adelaide Road, Gillingham, Kent, ME7 4NJ, UK

I can be contacted at borsig1958@gmail.com any time or on 01634 575081 before 8pm