Recent content by Alan Bickley

I have stripped down several old car radios in my time. The motors for the cassette players are ideal, as they already run on 12 volts. I have also salvaged LEDs, micro-switches, and many other useable parts from other appliances over the years as well. Many of these I still have in "storage".

Well I would like to catch HER hiding my tools when I'm not there! Recently I have got to my worktop ready to continue with my latest project, only to start wondering why my craft knives and files have disappeared. She had only gone and put them away in one of my spare parts drawers!!!

I hit the big 3-0 a couple of months back! I'm always trying to find time to do my modelling, but I have had to sacrifice a few model exhibition visits as I'm getting married in the summer, and have to save as much money as possible. Still, with all the unfinished projects that I have...

I let out a gasp when you mentioned that you downloaded a building in HO! Surely, I thought, that scalescenes.com had all their building "kits" in OO. That was until I took a look at their site and found that they have now done US outline stuff as well. I suppose us Brits that want to do our...

"Hey, son, get down from there before you fall and hurt yourself!" Actually, they look good in either scale. A log cabin in O or a flat car or truck load in HO.

I was browsing through a model shop recently that sells R/C models only. While I was there I saw a couple of kits for a model airliner that resembled a Boeing 777. I did wonder about the scale when I read on the box that the wingspan was 55 inches.

Hmmm, well I had thought about doing a HO scale layout with a miniature railway that uses Z scale track. A model of a model, no less!

Is this what I have to look forward to?! My fiance has been wanting me to move in with her for a while now, and it's proving to be tricky for me as I have no end of projects to complete. I'm not just talking about modelling projects either! So much to do, so little time!

Okay then, I'll confuse you even more! Here in the UK, the modelling standard has been OO gauge, or 1/76 scale (Not for me, though, I'm HO through and through!). Recently there has been a shift from using OO (1/76 scale using HO track) to slightly more correct track gauges. These are known as EM...

I have a method that I discovered by accident a few years ago. I paint the desired area in a thick layer of dark grey undercoat and then put sheets of tissue paper down on it, using the same brush to flatten the paper and allow the paint to soak through. When it's dry it looks just like a faded...

Personally, I would say that it would be best to have one of the locos unpowered. It's not going to make much of a difference to the size of the train. I made a DRS minimodal trial train using a Brawa megafret container wagon set and a Lima class 33 loco at either end. I decided to remove the...

This doesn't surprise me, given the amount of stupid idiots that I have to contend with whenever I am out driving. Funnily enough, I watched a popular motoring programme on TV last night. In it, they conducted a test (I would imagine alongside transport safety officials) where they parked a...

This has been discussed at length on the message board on www.87thscale.info Personally I have been looking for the high-speed Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Disovery III models that have apparently appeared at Wal-Mart. Although the nearest thing to Wal-Mart in the UK - Asda - are never...

Hmm, seem to have posted twice! I reckon there's a glitch in my 'puter!

Once when I went to a local railway centre, I thought about doing such a project in their museum section. It would have been a showcase layout for british-outline HO. But when I chatted to one of the staff about it, he directed me to the remains of a layout salvaged from this proffessor's house...