Wheeltapper Competition 2011

Photographs by Paul Wright
The Wheeltapper is broken down in to many Categories:

1. Steam Locomotives UK
2. Steam Locomotives non UK
3. Diesel/Electric Locomotives UK
4. Diesel/Electric Locomotives Non UK
5. Passenger/Non-Passenger Coaching Stock UK
6. Passenger/Non-Passenger Coaching Stock Non UK
7. Freight and Engineers Stock UK
8. Freight and Engineers Stock Non UK
9. Road Vehicles, Boats, People, Animals etc THE ROBBIE ROBINSON AWARD
10. Scenic Models: Buildings, Trees, Signals etc THE JACK KINE TROPHY
11. Dioramas & Figurines
12. Okehampton 7mm Wagon Project, THE DEREK TURNER TROPHY
13. CHAIRMAN'S CUP

The Wheeltapper Trophy will be awarded to the best model out of all the above classes.

This years Wheeltapper Competition took place on Friday the 11th of March. When invited guest Geoff Kent came along to Judge the models on show and then to come up with the overall winner. Geoff is one of the country's finest Plastkard modellers and has a number of claims to fame. He is responsible for the wonderful model of Blakeney - exhibited at Railex a couple of years back, and is closely involved with the Retford project. He wrote the 3 Wild Swan books on how to model goods stock and has produced some wonderful road vehicles from scratch as well. These number, the Thorneycroft bus and milk lorry at Pendon.

Mick Moignard (right) receiving the Wheeltapper Trophy from Geoff Kent.

D&RGW K-27 #462 HOn3.

#462 is modelled as it was at the end of its career, late summer 1949, worn out from years of hauling ore, beans and potatoes on the RGS and D&RGW in southwestern Colorado. It's a reqorked Mountain Models Import diecast and brass model. The rework was mostly standard brass modelling tecniques, making up new or modified brass parts, pinning them into the diecast parts and attaching them with superglue. This included moving the clack valves, redoing all the steam, air and sand lines on both sides of the boiler, under the cab, and modifying the front and centre running boards. A new whistle was fabricated from rod and tube, and soldered into brass dome castings. The sand dome was embellished with the old manual sanding lever sticking out at the base, and a flanger blade - a tiny snowplough - was attached to the front truck, with the air operated lever assembly on the front deck. The tender too got various extra details, such as brake piping on the right side, and a new ladder at the rear, as well as patches on the sides. These were done with thin, smooth surfaced paper, riveted along the edges with a suitable pounce wheel and held on with thinned white glue. All the new brass details were chemically blackened before attachment to the loco, and all the workon the diecast parts werer also blackened.
Paint is a mixture of the original factory finish, airbrushing, with weathering by airbrush, drybrush, washes, Rustall and powders. The tender is carefully coaled with scale size coal, and empty at the end of the day.
#462 hass DCC, lights and full sound, including synchronizer cam.

Photographs, by Paul Wright unless stated otherwise
Below are a seletion of models that were entered by other club members for the competition.

Okehampton 7mm Wagon Project/Derek Turner Trophy
The Robbie Robinson Award
Chairman's Cup