The traditional wagon tarpaulin is one of those irritations of the modeller's life, but there are some good techniques that can reproduce these and the real thing is, after all, simply a large piece of rectangular treated canvas. Rather more complicated - and very common on wagons built or converted for the carriage of steel coil from the mid-'60s onwards - are the tailored sheets, not to be removed from the wagon and effectively considered part of the vehicle, which hug the shape of the three s
For those of you that don't follow the UK Standard Gauge Industrial Railways sub-forum I thought that posting some details from this week's kit-build might be of wider interest. The subject is RT Models's new kit for the standard gauge Hudson spoil tipper whose purpose, like its narrow gauge cousins, was to take spoil - usual colliery over-burden or other waste - from point A to the tip, or elsewhere for disposal and/or reuse. Some collieries used them in some numbers, Betteshanger in Kent for e
When this machine has featured in an earlier thread Mike Edge kindly pointed out some details I should have spotted earlier which needed correction, notably the safety vales and the chimney. He was also kind enough to supply replacements from his own kit, at a very reasonable price, and, following a second strip down, here is the state of the engine halfway through the paintshop. Note the improvement made by the new chimney.
A full list of the work undertaken appears below:
Strip [pha
It's a long road, coming towards an end. That end, of course, being a completed, working, and now painted, locomotive. After the application of a coat of LMS Crimson Lake:
Following detail painting and reassembly, it looks more like this and it's still not quite finished:
By way of a summary, more details can be found in the UK Standard Gauge Industrial part of the forum, or in this earlier blog.The deviations from the kit as designed were:
New bunker back (the original
Cold weekend days in January have their uses. Last Saturday, for example gave me enough time to sort the numbering and glazing out on my DC kits/Bachmann Warship based 74. It still isn't finished, of course. There are little things to do like windscreen wipers, headcode blinds, cab handrails, touching up and weathering left to do, but the impression of what the finished machine will look like is there I think.
Most of the windows are simple rectangles with droplights for the cab and cab
A small update. Last night I managed to fret out a new motor bracket from nickel silver sheet. This will be screwed onto the chassis frame once I've arranged some means of dampening any vibration, almost certainly the judicious application of silicon sealant under the bracket...
While I had the parts to hand, I removed the flywheels from the big 1824 in preparation for fitting them to the new motor. These have been 'modified' (or butchered) to leave sufficient space to get the univ
Yes, this is the third blog in a couple of days. Don't expect it to become a habit! Some of you may remember this from RMweb mark 3, but since that's offline at the moment, I've popped up some constructional pictures on this thread (for those that like that kind of thing). Here's a sample:
It has to be said that not a lot has happened since that point. Until now, that is. The model has been painted and is in its proper livery, but is awaiting lettering and, in particular, glazing. Why n
Knocking around the workbench is this vacuum fitted iron ore tippler - a more or less 'straight' build of the Parkside kit with some added detail. I'll spare you these details since similar things appear elsewhere on this blog and elsewhere on the forum, but the reference pictures are from Paul Bartlett. The prototypes started in iron ore traffic but moved on to stone in fairly short order and are best known for operating out of Merehead, while some of their unfitted sisters ended up working coa
And so, some months after this (though it was primed shortly afterwards and a different chimney fitted):
and this:
Christmas has brought about this. The full gory details (and some gratuitous Ebay related musings) can be found here and in this earlier blog entry here. All in one piece (albeit briefly), it's been taken apart for final painting which will have to wait until I've bought some suitable paint. Reassembly following painting is one of those stages of model making which
It is always nice to actually finish something or, in this case, a couple of things which complement one another. In this instance, a long-term project and a quickie. The long-time workbench resident is this little Fowler diesel from the - long unavailable (move along, move along) - Impetus kit which, despite some idiosyncrasies of design which don't really wash these days - whitemetal flycranks anyone? - makes into a nice machine. The full-ish details of its progression to finished model can be
Plastic wagons can be remarkably durable beasts and only rarely can one be said to be beyond repair. My first attempt at one, an original Parkside Grampus, was not an ideal choice, in part because of the nature of the prototype with its intricate baskets to hold the removable end planks when not required on the wagon and the design of the ends in three, prototypical bits located on poorly mould pins and holes. This may be why the body still isn't entirely square. Not entirely Parkside's fault, i
The joy of cobbling together 'traditional' wagons is that there are so many similar processes which, once you've worked out how to do them come quite quickly. As I've noted before, having mundane bits in stock means that you can progress quickly while the mood takes you. Making one set of couplings, for example, can be a hassle. Making 6 sets at one go only really takes half as long again as making 2 pairs, so why not make an evening of it? So, along with the Coil carriers mentioned earlier, I'v
These wagons, designated Coil S, were converted from pre-nationalisation and early BR built wooden-bodied Highs some time in the very late '60s or early '70s - I'm not sure precisely when - and are the kind of prototype I like: relatively obscure, but interesting conversions of 'ordinary' wagons that might be seen in pairs or threes without shouting 'oddity', or, moreover, stand much of a chance of turning up in kit form.
They also lend themselves to batch production, though the 'batch', in
After something of a hiatus, I've returned to the Bagnall which has now reached the rolling chassis stage. Having replaced the slidebars with a set which actually reach the motion brackets and adapted the motion brackets so that there is actually something for the slide bars to attach to. The slidebars are made from some of the fret which held the frames, some nice, chunky - but probably still underscale - nickel silver. I think the modifications to the original kit design are now complete!
Source: Preston Docks Bagnalls
For those of you unfamiliar with the prototype, the idea is that the build should result in something which looks a bit like this, but with a Giesl Ejector:
The body is now complete (see the thread over in the 'UK Standard Gauge Industrial Group') and primed, but I haven't any pictures of it in it's current state. I acquired some rather nice nameplates for it at EXPO EM (from AMBIS Engineering), so it will eventually bear the name 'Carnarvon'...
We
A long time ago (over a year in fact) I reported progress on a - mostly - scratchbuilt Shochood B which stalled pending thonghts on how to tackle the hood. In the end, I took a look at what the military modellers do - since tarpaulins turn up on softskins all the time - and used Miliput for the ends and tissue over a former for the remainder. The tarp's on these vehicles were tailored to fit neatly over the top and were always with the wagon which carried branding to that effect so using tissue
Or, in English, 'Llewellyn the Engine' (with apologies to the late Oliver Postgate). It is now some time later and finally, it is finished, as much as anything ever is. If only the weather had been a little better then these photos might have come sooner, and been more respectable. Still, I'm quite pleased with it and I hope it's been worth the wait. The real thing looked like this: http://www.flickr.co...57626051884553/ and more shots can be had here, courtesy of George Woods.
The [almost] completion of a project which I started on the old forum and which has been continued over here, but now has a coat of paint. Obviously, it's a bit clean at the moment and the (prototypical) livery is somewhat garish but some work-in-progress shots are probably overdue.
The weathering has commenced but will stop short of the condition the prototype ended up in:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52467480@N08/6454506387/in/set-72157628278328931/lightbox/
You'd never k
A pair of vehicles from the backlog. A Cambrian SECR 2 plank ballast open and an ex-traffic LMS Medfit (Ratio) in use with the engineers per now no longer available Paul Bartlett picture. All the lettering is by hand using Humbrol enamel and a 000 size brush. This is definitely the hard way, but provided a good match for the lettering in the photo.
The majority of weathering is with fairly thin washes of Humbrol 62, 64, 100, matt white and metalcote gunmetal for some of the oily bi
A few recently completed wagons. Two of the 21 ton VBs are now done in contrasting styles, one fairly tidy and the other contrastingly scruffy. I've been experimenting with tinted varnishes (Humbrol Mattcote with Humbrol matt 100 or leather (62) blended with Metalcote Gunmetal and a touch of matt white in this case), applied with a brush rather than an airbrush since I don't have one to hand. This is built up in thin, transluscent layers with varying amouts of tin to get the colour balance I was
Just a quickie from the ongoing (painfully slow at the mo') Austerity project. A new, scratch-built backhead from scraps of plastic, brass wire, fuse wire, copper wire, bits of scrap etch and some etched details (Mainly Trains regulator handle, London Road Models handwheels). The funny looking gauge glasses are copied from here: http://janford.fpic..../p50833431.html
There should be a few more bits of pipework but in the depths of the cab and with a crew in the way, what's there will be
Look, no pictures! As ever, the really useful detail shot emerges after I've done all the hard work. This picture (albeit reversed) shows a fitted 21 tonner being tipped and, happily, the kind of end detail I had to guess at. Thankfully, I guessed more or less right...
Adam
Something from while the forum was off-air (which is why you get two blogs in a day). Next off the rank is this Hop 21VB/vac’ fitted 21 tonner/HTV (if you insist). So many descriptions for what is a relatively simple vehicle. Another variation for Sharpwit, if he’s watching.
This is based on the excellent Parkside kit for the unfitted version, which is much the same, albeit with different end struts and a vac’ cylinder bolted on. It’s easier to go this way than to add more ribs to th
In the last few days, I’ve been attempting to finish these Chivers 21 tonners, along with painting a few other vehicles – it makes sense to take the lid off the paint as few times as possible; if you have four wagon underframes to paint without an airbrush, this is a good time saving solution. You keep going until you run out of paint, and allow to dry rather than doing the whole thing at once and having a lot of paint you then don’t use. The tin thus goes further and lasts longer. Given t
Leaping ahead with the Shochood, all the detailing, both of the body and chassis is now complete, though as the first photo shows, I've kept the detail to where you can see it. Planning ahead is important here, as is keeping the reference books open on the right page. My copy of Bartlett et al now seems to fall open at about thihis point! The perils of not paying attention will create more work later. This is why the second MDV I built has a replacement plastic end; I assembled the body the wron
