Project no.1 - Work begins!

Work started on 'Project no.1' today, the Black Dog Mining Co 'Mite' loco…

According to the instructions 'The first step is to drill the four dimples in the footplate with a 1mm drill bit' (to locate the roof supports) and this I eventually did after an hour of rummaging in boxes and muttering expletives… Knowing that I have a set of micro drill bits is not the same as knowing where it is!

Anyway, holes duly drilled, five-minute epoxy mixed up, five-minute epoxy removed from clumsy fingers and the first kit parts were glued together. This is where I left things today…

Project no.1 - Black Dog Mining Co 'Mite'

Project no.2 - Wooden Flat Wagon

In June I joined (re-joined actually) the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association (7mmNGA) at their annual exhibition in Burton-upon-Trent and purchased a copy of the society's 'Going Minimum Gauge' handbook.

A wooden flat wagon is one of the modelling ideas… Using a Peco N gauge wagon chassis and a handful of those wooden coffee stirrers that every railway modeller I know squirrels away by the handful.

Given that my 'Project no.1' will need something to pull and that my box of potentially useful bits and pieces contains both a suitable chassis and numerous coffee stirrers I'm going to build one, something along these lines…

Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway 'Top' wagon, Irton Road Station, 10/7/14

This is one of nine four-wheeled wagons used by the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway's permanent way department. Eight of the wagons have removable bodies (tops) for ballast carrying (as seen above).

Project no.1 - Black Dog Mining Co 'Mite'

This will hopefully become the first loco for an O-9 (7mm scale, 9mm gauge) layout that's currently in the planning stages. It's a simple enough looking kit but given my ham-fisted nature I'm sure that it's still possible for me to muck it up!

Project no.1 - Black Dog Mining Co 'Mite' - The kit

Steve Bennett's 'Black Dog Mining Co' produces a range of loco and rolling stock kits for O-9 that are available from Pepper7 and I've had this example on the shelf for a year or two…

Power will come from an N gauge Bachmann Plymouth Diesel Switcher chassis 'which is very simple to convert to a four wheeler' (according to the kit's instructions… I won't be bothering with this, the extra pair of wheels will barely be visible…)

Livery-wise I'm currently thinking military olive green with yellow buffer beams… We'll see.