A short news page this month – as anybody who’s been trying to contact me for the last few weeks will know, the workshop has become pretty much a 24/7 operation, to the detriment of both correspondence and, it must be said, website updates.

After considerable thought, I have started publishing the workshop telephone number on the site (it’s on the home page, 01526 328772) – until now it’s been kept a dark secret, which lets us get on with things uninterrupted “down at t’mill” as it were.  Email is still the best way to get hold of me (inasmuch as you will generally get a more thoughtful, carefully reasoned answer than the one I give if I’m watching something happening on a milling machine out of the corner of my eye). However, for those things that just can’t wait, and on the understanding you might get a relatively terse reply, do feel free to call on this number.

Among the thousand and one other jobs in the workshop at the moment, we’re busy getting ready for the London Model Engineering Exhibition held on 16-18^th of January. I’ve been visiting the London Shows since a nipper, I remember queuing up to get in with my father when they were at Wembley in the 1970s. It’s moved about over the years, Wembley, Olympia, Pickets Lock but in recent times has been held at Alexandra Palace which is a super venue. This is the first time we’ve exhibited there, we’re on stand 55/56 – do come and say hello, there should be plenty of engines to have a look at.

Self storage has become one of the great growth industries in the last few years, there seem to be garish bright yellow or blue painted windowless warehouses springing up all over the place where for twenty quid a week you can store a few cubic metres of stuff you should really take down the tip. Seems a strange business to be in, but it obviously fulfills a need.

The phenomenon now seems to have spread to Lincolnshire, and to our industrial estate in particular, where I have inadvertently become a bit of a self-storage emporium myself over the last year or two. It started innocently enough - "if I send you a cheque for the widget, stock code 1234 on your website, could you hang onto it until I/my brother/a friend of my wife's/somebody as yet unknown to me but who may one day be passing your place, could pick it up for me". Genial people that we are, the answer has generally been "yes, of course". Sometimes, given the modest cost of shipping, it seemed odd to leave an item here on the off-chance it could be collected, but who am I to argue.

more pictures of the "stockroom"
(and a list of what is coming up in the next month or two)

However, in the last year or two, things have started to get out of hand. I now regularly advertise something for sale only for it to be bought within a day or two, then left here for months - or longer. Currently on the shelves, to name just a few examples, are a complete, running (and very heavy) LNER Pacific which was bought and paid for in 2006, a steam pump and several piles of track all of which sold over a year ago and a large driving truck that I trip over daily, due to go to Somerset in 2006 but has been awaiting a much-postponed collection by its owner during a long-planned family visit to somewhere near here.

When we first moved to the new unit space was not an issue, as time has gone on the racks get fuller and fuller, at the moment we're bursting at the seams with engines, boilers, sets of castings, bits and pieces - I spent two hours yesterday simply rearranging things so that some chap could get in to see a four inch scale Showmans engine (which was behind two other four inch engines, in front of a 4 1/2 inch roller which itself is barricaded in by a pair of coaches which sold - in May…).

I've agonized long and hard about the problem, which has been brought to a head in recent weeks with one half of the premises now dedicated to the workshop and manufacturing things, increasing pressure on the "stores" in the other half. Long term solution is a new unit to be built on the land next door, which will give me half as much space again - however in the meantime "something must be done" (as they say in government).

So - in future, could I respectfully ask that all goods are cleared within one month from date of invoice. 98% of items sold from here can be shipped to your door - everything from a handful of castings in a Jiffy bag to a 3 inch scale traction engine on a pallet have gone out in the last month. Cost of shipping regularly surprises people - it's modest and often less than the cost of petrol to come and see us.

If things have to be left here for more than a month for whatever reason please let me know in advance. First month's storage is free of charge, thereafter you will be charged a flat rate of £20/month storage per pallet or part thereof for a maximum of three months. After this, the item will be re-listed for sale on the website!

I've been plumbing up the backhead on a 7 1/4 inch gauge locomotive this week, so spending a good deal of time bending copper pipe into pretty shapes. As you all know, copper gets hard as you work it. The answer is to anneal it back to soft and carry on - it often takes two or three anneals to get to the required finished shape.

I was taught to anneal copper back when I was in short trousers - heat it up to dull red and quench, whereupon your tough, slightly springy bit of copper miraculously changes back into a pliable material with the consistency of lead.

Some years later, I read that quenching was optional - a quick experiment verified (although I still do quench things simply so that I can get on a bit quicker).

This week I had a long pipe run which needed softening. Rather than mess about putting it in the hearth and getting the big torch out, I used my little portable gas blowlamp and had a go at annealing it a bit at a time. I couldn't get the whole thing hot so just played the flame on two or three inches at a time until the copper just coloured (which is a long way from dull red). Rather to my surprise it softened just as nicely - which made me wonder just how much gas I've wasted over the years getting assorted bits from central heating pipes to Triumph motorbike head gaskets red hot...

Our builder Dal was round for a few days some weeks ago, knocking a whole through the back of the engine shed wall into the stables where I want to set up a running workshop for the railway. He cut through the wall, took out a nine foot length of concrete floor with a disc cutter, then set in some tramway before knocking through an inner wall into the old carriage shed (as in horse and carriage, from the days when the village doctor kept such a thing, rather than railway carriages). He did his usual neat job, the outcome was nearly two tons of useable limestone stacked up inside which was too good to throw out, but in the way.

more pictures

Friend Martin was over a couple of weeks go, Sunday morning dawned very chilly, it having snowed overnight. After a round of Mrs P's bacon butties, we quickly made up the short section of rail required to bridge the gap left by taking the wall out and joined up the shed road to the tramway inside. This allowed us to push my large bogie wagon in right next to the stone pile, we cleared the lot in the morning and stacked it round beyond the tunnel. Putting "Molly" into steam was rather more fun than fifty trips with the wheelbarrow!

10th December 2008

News Archive

November 2008 - Rutland Railway Museum, Caradoc converted to a VBT locomotive, LittleLEC
August 2008 - Harrogate Show pictures, Martin's new engine shed, lethal steam seat warmer
March 2008 - New machining centre, solid modelling software, fixing the roof
December 2007- new lathe delivered, 7 1/4 inch progress in Dumfries, visting an interesting engineer 
 September 2007 - Holiday in North Wales, new machinery for the workshop
June 2007 - Station Road Steam at Harrogate Show, herd of Tinkerbells, Martin's railway
March 2007 - Building a garden railway competition, A Workshop in Herefordshire
January 2007 - Miniature lathes and photography, Midlands Exhibition, Churnet Valley Railway, testing small boilers
October 2006 - Updates on part-built and projects
July 2006 - Evergreens Miniature Railway, local 10 1/4 line, collecting the Pacific from Cleethorpes
April 2006 - Progress in the workshop, visit to the National Railway Museum, visit to Woody Bay
January 2006 - Moving to new units, grit-blasting my hands, shiny Romulus
October 2005 - Stamford SME, Sam starts the restoration of "Pendle Witch", Casterton Working Weekend
August 2005 - New workshop, Thurston Pacific back from Cleethorpes
May 2005 - Berkely Light Railway, dodgy boiler certificates, full-size ploughing engines at auction
January 2005 - digging
October 2004 - initial planning for the garden railway
July 2004 - Fowler ploughing engines in Yorkshire
May 2004 - Moving the workshop, a 9 1/2 inch gauge garden railway
Apr 2004 - Holiday in Shropshire & The Severn Valley Railway, LNER liveried Black 5
Feb 2004 - Refacing a Tangye slide valve, new acquisition 10 ton Aveling roller
2004 - 12 1/4 inch gauge Pacific