Cricket, and psychology

Posted on 17/09/2016 by admin

I had an excellent day playing cricket yesterday. Actually, it does’t sound much, 11 runs, but it was very good, for me.

I opened the innings for our side – facing the first ball – with a target of about 112 I think. We had an opening partnership of 43, off about the first 15 overs (out of 35). We weathered the storm of their opening bowlers, and not only could I defend, but this innings for the first time I managed the transition from pure defence to starting to attack. I managed to pick the bad balls and hit them, whilst picking the danger balls and defending. A few really good shots gave me confidence. A nice square cut for two (I was disappointed it didn’t reach the boundary, it was hit cleanly but along the ground) and my first four. Actually I have this vague recollection of accidentally edging a four a couple of seasons ago, but that doesn’t count.

Nick was there to see me bat, and says it looked good. Even Dave Hadden, who is a very harsh critic, said that I played some good shots. When I was out, it was to a pulled shot which went up in the air and was caught, but by that stage we had laid the foundations for what proved to be a successful run chase, and I either needed to accelerate the scoring or get out of the way of someone who could.

So I was pleased. Ridiculously pleased. Even several of the opposition (a really good bunch of blokes from Glenmore Park, many from “the subcontinent”) said I had batted well.

So what had changed? Actually in some respects I think it is that I hadn’t been practicing so hard, and so in a bizarre sort of way didn’t feel quite the same pressure to show results!

I can hardly walk today, though, for my aching muscles.

Stanier 8F in ScaleSeven – part 22: Mechanical lubricators and their pipes

Posted on 03/09/2016 by admin

I’m beginning to wonder just how obsessive/nerdy I can get.

On my recent visit to England (see John’s ‘blog), we travelled behind one of my beloved Stanier 8Fs on the Scarborough Spa Express. I took pictures of the engine, and noticed many details that would be useful for my model.

Amongst these were the mechanical lubricators and their pipes. They were all cleaned and nicely polished, and so were a quite prominent feature on the footplate of the locomotive. In working life they would probably have been grimy and not noticeable, I suppose, but now I had seen them, I felt I had to model them accurately.

The MOK kit comes with the two lubricators, but not with the pipes which go from them. So I had to somehow make the pipes from scratch. Stripping some mains cable I found multi-strand copper wire with which to make the pipes. Each strand was about 0.2mm thick, so approx. scale for a pipe 8-9mm across, which seemed about right. However, how to make them into the beautiful fan of pipework was not obvious, to say the least. I tried soldering the wires to the lubricator castings, but apart from clogging everything with solder, well you can imagine how successful that was. I then tried soldering the wire strands into ribbons six wires across, intending to use lower-melt solder to attach them to the lubricators. However I couldn’t solder the wires together over a short enough length then to make the elegant curved sections onto the castings. Lots of burnt fingers and strained eyes.

This is how I eventually did get something approximating to the desired appearance.

Click to enlarge.

First I found some thicker copper mains cable, and flattened a section out with a hammer, evening its edges up with a file.

Next I cut a small section of this cooper strip and folded it over the necessary number of strands of 0.2mm wire and hammered the folded copper strip together to hold the wire, applying a tiny amount of solder to keep it all fixed. Then I could bend the curves into the ends of 0.2mm wire and separate them to go up to the lubricators.

The one in between the two lubricators had to take ten wires/pipes, divided to go different directions, of course!

The fixing strips were then used to attach the pipes to the footplate, in a position so that the curved pipes are coming from the sides of the lubricators.

The other end of the multiple-wire constructions help to hold the curved ends in place when soldering, and can then be bent into shape to represent the lubricator lines as then do down or across the chassis – a few travel across to the other side over a chassis cross-member, and are visible from above.

Was it worth all the trouble? I don’t really know, but it is satisfying to have succeeded, so if the painting eventually makes it invisible, i may just have to be content with that.