Haven't been here for a while. Work and life getting in the way and all. Here's another new project, and quite a big one by my standards. An 8F in S7 from the MOK etched kit. I won't do a step by step account, there are a few excellent blogs out there already. I'll just post a few pics now and again and explain some of the things I encounter and choose to do differently.
The first model railway locomotive I ever had was a Dublo 8F. The first serious railway book I ever owned was London Midla
Painting and finishing. Quite few stages to this, and it takes some explaining. So here goes...
Once upon a time painting was by hairy stick; black underneath, grey body, decals, and maybe a rinse with dirty thinners for weathering. Brushes got ruined poking matt black enamel into remote corners of the chassis and the enamel thinners gave me a headache. Can't say I enjoyed that part of the job. Martyn Welch's landmark book on weathering, the availability of many more good colour photos in pu
A Stanier brake van from the Slaters kit. BR unfitted brake van from LMS diagram D2068. Number M731497, one of the last brake vans built to this design. Built in the period 1949-1950 and entered service with the M prefix under British Railways ownership, so it says in LMS Wagons vol 1.
Mostly standard Slaters but I've added the label clips to the body near the verandah ends where most vans seemed to have them, and I changed the curved rain strips to the straight type. There are etched works
Here's a small project for the Christmas break. A BR 24.5 ton welded steel mineral wagon to diagram 1/115 in P4. I built one of these years ago when I was starting out in P4. It was pretty much pure Parkside with compensated W-irons wedged underneath. Time moves on, and the Rumney Models etched chassis kit designed to sit under the Parkside body offers a much better solution. I'm building an early 1/115 with 1' 6" spindle buffers, oil axleboxes and single door springs. The kit makes provision
It's railway modelling, but then again it isn't quite. I'm a great fan of Colin T Gifford's photographs so I thought I'd have a go at 'doing a Gifford' on some 7mm models I've been working on. Evening drawing in at a country station. Old hand and new recruit contemplate a wagon that's ended up in the wrong place for tomorrow morning's shunt.
You could almost run a caption competition for it couldn't you?
"Well young 'un, if tha' wants to move it then tha'd better find t
You'll have noticed from the frequency of blogs that a lot of projects are getting completed while I'm on summer leave. Apparently one's quality of life is increased by doing lots of things you like. In which case I'm right on it. Here's another long term project brought to completion. The side tipping wagons are from the splendid RT Models etched kit. The Hunslet 50t 325hp diesel hydraulic is from the Judith Edge Kit, which I bought at an exhibition in Burton some years ago. I designed and bui
I'm on summer leave for a couple of weeks. Time to decompress and do some modelling. My instinct is usually to start a new project, but I have a number of things on the workbench that I thought I'd better complete first, like the Bradwell kit for the Charles Roberts NCB hopper. So here it is complete. The NCB transfers are from on old Kemco sheet, but I note that Fox also do a sheet for NCB now.
Following on from the entry about modelling and 3D printing some springs and axleboxes for a Stanier brake van, here's the end result, a scruffy, well travelled unfitted van. It'll look just right waiting engine and brake in the colliery sidings.
The brake van was built from a Pocket Money Kits brass etch (PMK 00/31) that I acquired a long time ago. There are RTR Stanier vans available now, but I enjoy building things more than buying them. The springs and axleboxes are a distinctive featu
I think this will be the last entry on this subject, having started back in February. It all got done within a year, which is good going for me. Here's the picture of the finished model. In the end the salt weathering didn't work out very well. A lot of the salt crystals come off during airbrushing, so for any decent rust pattern you need to start with lots and lots of salt. Much more than you'd think. Because of that it's difficult to create the pattern you want. It's kind of random. Plus ther
Fits and starts. After a determined and productive period of modelling earlier in the year real life (work, gardening, hospital appointments (not mine), dog, keeping air in bicycle tyres, more work etc) has seeped back in somewhat and I haven't spent as much time at the workbench. Modelling has been happening but it's not been much to shout about.
The S7 test plank - since the last entry on the subject I've got bogged down rather on the brick retaining wall. Getting the wall built was easy e
Having torn up the old 0F test track, thoughts turned to creating an new length of track in S7. The idea was simply to find a suitable plank and lay a length of straight track to run S7 stock along. Well, I did find a plank, sort of, and then things spiralled out of control. After a few minutes with the table saw I had a 1.5m length of 18mm ply which seemed like a good start. Considering the weight of some 7mm stock I thought it might be a bit bendy when supported at each end across the workbenc
I eventually got around to modifying the CAD model to increase the size of the rubbers. Output the STL file, and back from Modelu came the first 'production' batch of springs and axle boxes.
There was a tiny bit of fettling to fit them to the brake van model. The axle box and springs were modelled to exact prototype dimensions. Well, as exact as the original LMS drawings - who knows what adjustments or liberties were taken in the real world of 1920' - 1930's manufacturing? I wouldn't b
I'm afraid to report that this line in no longer remunerative, and, following the closure, will be lifted. And that's the end of the old 7mm 0F trial section. The rail has been lifted for re-use. the track was made from C&L plastic sleepers and plastic chairs, and interestingly when I simply pulled the rail off with a pair of pliers the chairs remained in place on the rail and the chairs parted company with the sleepers.
Bye bye 0F. Hello S7...of which more anon.
Cycling home from work through a hailstorm and icy rain today was rewarded by the arrival in the post of a 3D printed sample from Modelu. It is a 4mm 3D printed spring and axle box set for a Stanier brake van. This is something I've been thinking about for a while. One of my occasional projects is an etched brass brake van kit from Connoisseur Kits. Fairly straightforward etched brass stuff. I got to the stage where all I needed to complete it was to fit the axle box and spring castings. Now, th
Here's my first Modelu driver painted. The photos are a cruel enlargement of a 4mm figure.
Where the Modelu figures score is that they are modelled / scanned from real life so the proportion and pose is entirely natural. That shows up very well against most of the existing proprietary moulded or cast figures I've seen before. I don't know what the resolution of the scan is but at this size the figures lack a little facial definition. That makes them difficult to paint convincingly. You'll se
Looking at the High Level Kits Loadhauler gearboxes now. First up the plain Loadhauler. The motor sits very low in the boiler. Theoretically there's clearance, but in reality I'd want more than that. And the back of the gearbox intrudes into the cab through the backplate. So that's not going to work.
Next is the Loadhauler Plus that has a swivelly extender section on the end. With the extender level it won't fit, but with it rotated 20 degrees the motor is raised clear into the boiler and
Who remembers Impetus? From the Golden Age of locomotive kits. Vanished more or less without a trace. I think the range of kits was sold to somebody else but never re-introduced. Shame - I wish I'd bought some when I had the chance. I was skint in those days, and that's the nature of cottage industries I guess.
I managed to obtain the 4mm Hunslet 15" kit from a wanted advert in Scalefour news a few years ago. It's been one of those 'get round to it' projects. I just got round to it!
Thursday 31st March
Fitting body to chassis, as DB says, requires some careful chamfering of the top of the solebars. More chamfering than I'd imagined. Be careful you don't chamfer all the way through the top edge. You need to include the top of the inside V hanger in the chamfering, gets right in the way. Also check the inside slope of the brackets 10, 11 and the tabs that the brake hangers are soldered to. Needed to make tiny adjustments to the length of a couple of the body side ribs. Ev
Monday 28th March The body at last. The perilous origami of hopper body folding is illustrated in the photos. A few of the first folds can be made with a Hold & Fold, but mostly it's careful bending with fingers and thumbs. Take the time to get each joint sitting exactly in place without having to be pushed together. Easier soldering and no burnt fingers. It's a job for the 40W iron. When the tacks are on and everything is aligned then zip up all the joints with a lot of flux and a hot cl
Dave Bradwell 14t Steel Hopper (Charles Roberts) 4mm P4
This has been loitering with intent around the workbench for a few months. It's for my eventual, maybe, sometime colliery layout. I'm building up a collection of NCB internal user wagons. A real mixed bag of knock about, retired stock. Industrial wagons aren't that common as models so I was very pleased to come across this from Dave Bradwell. I'll probably build a couple more, but this one was to see how it builds. I've been getting so
Tuesday 29th March
Time for the rust base coat. I’ll use Humbrol enamels for this. It will sit on top of the etch primer and hopefully adhere well enough not to come off when the top coat is scrubbed to remove the weathering salt. The real test, as always with brass, is whether the primer sticks to the brass - it’s going to be a mess if it doesn’t. I’ll start with a dark brown, old rust, pretty much all over, but with some density variation. A lighter red brown on top of that in patches. And
Monday 28th March And so to painting. I'm using Railmatch 1 pack etch primer onto the brass, black for the underframe and inside of the body and grey for the outside of the body. I buy the etch primer in the 125ml tins, and I drop a couple of M8 nuts into the tins to mix the pigment when I shake the cans. I'm using an Iwata Revolution airbrush between 20 and 30 psi. The instructions for the primer suggest adding 20% of the specific etch primer thinners for airbrushing. That's not nearly enoug
Sunday 27th March The BA die for the buffer shanks hasn't been delivered yet. I really want to get on to the finishing and painting during this short Easter break. So plan B on the buffers, drill the shank and retain it with a wire pin. Buffer housing castings fixed with epoxy after scrupulous cleaning and degreasing. Don't want them to come off in the cleaning tank. A little epoxy squeezes out around the joint, but no bother, it can be scraped off when set. The housings are fitted with the sh
Thursday 17th March
I think I'll return to the long ignored buffers. The body to chassis union can wait a bit longer. Chemically blacken the buffers. The buffer heads should be 1' 6" from the headstock, or 10.5mm in 7mm. The springs seem a bit stiff again with too much preload at the correct buffer length. With no experience of 7mm I'm guessing of course. Ages ago I bought one of those bags of 200 assorted springs, and by luck I have 4 matching springs that fit and have a lower spring rate.
Wednesday 16th March
Coming back this evening and looking with fresh(er) eyes, the X21 rings don't look right. Too flat, where the prototype is a thin wire ring. I'll replace them with some rings made by winding 0.3mm wire round a 1.5mm drill bit. Here we go again, but it gets easier every time. A career in jewellery beckons. Yes, that looks much better. In cleaning up with a glass fibre brush I dislodged one of the grab handles. Better now than during painting. So make another and solder
