Only the one photo in this entry I'm afraid; however there has been something of a metamorphasis...
Still awaiting a new reversing lever (on order), nameplates (in the spares box), safety valves and whistle (ditto) and boiler bands.
Quite an improvement!- I'm staggered how lowering the body by a matter of 1 or 2mm has improved the appearance so much.
With the loco suitably lowered on the chassis, I was able to start thinking about rebuilding had been wrecked. The firebox was easy enough- an overlay of paper covered the hole.
With the valances, I started by tracing the scale drawing I'm following, and then comparing this tracing with what I actually have on the model. What with how it had originally been put together, and the donor parts used, means that the cylinders are set too far back, which in turn means that the valances have t
A few years ago I bought a hackbashed model of an LNER B3 via Ebay, and, after fettling with it a little, left it at that.
I feel that the time has now come to do a more involved rebuild to bring it closer to the prototype.
Now, previously, I had this.
The body sits too high on the chassis and the front end frames are completely wrong.
After a fair bit of surgery and a lot of remove material, to the extent of cutting out the top of the firebox and removing the splashers
After a week of fairly ticklish work, I've completed the external strapping to both sides.
All of it done with 0.5mm plastic sheet. I think I'm crosseyed now. The plan for tonight is to look at both ends, which mercifully are much less work.
Another 'I'll get around to it one day' project left over from last year....
I've wanted a couple of these imposing examples of rolling stock for a few years; more than anything else to go with the Fish Engine I built.
Idly browsing Ebay about this time last year I bought a pair of GWR Siphon H vans quite cheaply, thinking at the time that they were close enough to build easily into convincing models of the fish vans.
Errr.... nope.
They're too long, too high, the roof profile
Right, GCR wagon transfers have arrived so I guess my next quick project will be to finish the three covered vans and two opens. This then will neatly lead on to a rebuild of my GCR 20-ton six wheel brakevan.
Meanwhile, these last few weeks I've been repainting the second of my 11E Directors, #430 Purdon Viccars. I've perservered with my homebrew cabside lining and I think got an improved result. With further practice of course it will get better yet.
Now my next
I have *finally* gotten around to finishing a few things, and taking photographs...
First up:
Parker 48' all-first. Now completed! The roof arc isn't quite right, but luckily matches the later Edwardian stock, so I don't have to go back and do it again. It does however mean for the other three carriages of the same basic type, I have to reconsider how to form the roof.
The Christmas Project:
A trip of archaic covered vans, for which I had to completely re
I have spent the last few weeks working on the interior and the roof...
The interior was built a plastic false floor. Compartments were likewise built of plastic, and the seats were built of balsa.
The roof was built on a flase ceiling. Two thick pieces of styrene strip (2mm square) were run down the length of this as a pair of keels, and then the roof itself is a sheet of paper pulled taut and fixed with UHU. On the corners I need to break out the filler and sort out the little gaps
I've reached the point where the carriage looks substantially complete but needs fitting out internally and a roof adding!
The beading below the waist was done in 0.5mm styrene strip and the panelling above was done in 0.5mm styrene sheet.
Teaking was done using Humbrol enamels, paying attention to the fact that GCR teak is much darker and richer than LNER teak. It's been done in matt paints but when finished and given a satin varnish it will come up nicely.
A few weeks ago I started work on some GCR Parker stock... to briefly recap. The original donor vehicle is a Triang 'Caledonian' carriage that was a good 50mm too long, had the wrong detail at both ends and the wrong roof profile. The windows and the compartments can be worked with but the windows require attention as they're too small. I cut the carriage sides up and rearranged them to get the window layout I needed, then used a file to widen the windows to something approaching the right si
This last week I've taken delivery of a couple of engines. (You know how it is- you go months without buying an RTR model and then three come along at once...)
First off a Pollitt 4-4-0 express engine from the 1890s, from an old DJH kit. It has a rather curious metallic paint finish which I'm in two minds about. On the one hand it has been nicely done, on the other it rather jars when placed against a loco in the right livery.
Secondly a Pollitt 0-6-0 goods engin
About a year ago, I was able to buy a Triang Caledonian composite off of Ebay for a few pounds. It had been painted brown and lettered LNER and it looked vaguely North Eastern, which was what originally picqued my interest.
When it arrived I thought that the sides looked well enough but was disappointed to find it was fitted with BR Mk.1 ends, roof and undercarriage, so it went onto a shelf whilst I had a think what to do.
Whilst idly flipping through my copy of George Dow's Great Cen
It's finished!
I did a little research on the internet but couldn't really find much about livery details for WD rolling stock, beyond that they were painted grey. I did find a few photographs of preserved narrow gauge wagons, but to my eye (your mileage may vary) they look too dark. Eventually I painted the van with Humbrol #64, mid-grey. I chose this colour on the basis of nothing stronger than this is what the likes of Airfix and Trumpeter call off for their model dreadnought
In odd moments when locos have been drying (and my recent experience of Humbrol is that it takes a lot of drying), I've been working on a Smallbrook Studios LSWR/ ROD road van.
A few weeks ago I put up an appeal for information as to whether any of these (which were apparently allocated to the GC) ever appeared in GCR livery, which led to a couple of interesting discussions and the conclusion that they *probably* retained WD markings throughout their time on the GC. So I have decided to bu
I seem to be getting on a roll with backdating and repainted all of my ex-GCR locos into proper full-bore GC livery.
I have just completed repainting a Jaycraft model of class 11E (LNER D10) 'Sir Clement Royds'. I originally built this model two years ago and finished it in pre-1928 LNER green; now it is finished in GCR livery, which I think suits it better. Odd how we perceive certain liveries to suit certian classes better than do others.
It seems that the application of water
When I last spoke about this model, I'd had a bit of an accident involving Humbrol Clearcote (emphatically not recommended), which necessitated scrapping the practically-finished paint job on "City of Lincoln", as well as a fair amount of bad language and relegation of the model to my museum of mistakes.
Happily she was to spend only a few weeks mounted on a plinth there, and after a few weeks' more worth of work on her she's now finished (of course keeping the Humbrol Clearcote well away f
As well as adding to my collection of finished GCR-condition engines, thoughts are beginning to turn toward the rolling stock to go with them. I've already built up a small collection of pre-1923 private owner wagons, waiting their turn to be built, but before them come a brake van.
Somewhere in my stash of kits waiting to be built I've got a Smallbrook Studios LSWR road van diagram 1545 / 1549 (dia.1549 being 2'' wider and built for the ROD). The kit instructions say that after the war t
The next thing to do with Gerard Powys Dewhurst was to touch in the paintwork in the areas which had received attention. A few coats of signal red on the buffer beams, some matt black on the new buffer I had to build and some crimson lake on the tender frames.
Then it was time to glaze the cab. I have found quite a useful product called 'glue 'n' glaze', which as it's name suggests can be used either as an adhesive or as a glazing material. It looks rather like a more elastic PVA glue,
After the debacle last weekend with 'City of Lincoln', I decided to put that locomotive on the 'shelf of terrible mistakes' for a short while and get on with something else (something more productive than burning down the Humbrol factory in revenge, that is).
So I sorted out my GBL 'Butler Henderson' and set about converting her (him?) into a running model.
The first step obviously is to take the model apart and then consider how to get the running chassis to fit. The GBL model breaks
There sat 'City of Lincoln', to all intents and purposes completed and needing only a coat of varnish to be finished.
I've recently bought a bottle of varnish from a (previously trusted) brand, which was reasonably priced, claimed not to turn yellow, water based, dries within 30 minutes and doesn't smell, and I decided to try that. With minutes of coating the loco, the varnish had turned a creamy, milky shade. It then dried and turned into a white, flakey powder that completely coated the
It is starting to feel like I'm on the home straight with this model now.
The loco itself is being lined out, I only have to add the red lining around the cab edge to finish it off. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that full GCR livery is, at the moment, beyond my skill level and beyond what I can reasonably achieve, so I've simplified it a little. Unless you get right up close to the model, you can't tell. Besides, I work to the 2' rule.
The loco now needs the last
It may seem like things have gone very quiet but I have been busy (honest)!
There just hasn't been any progress really worthwhile talking about yet...
So when I last wrote about 'City of Lincoln', I had just broken the model down to it a number of subassemblies (body, chassis and tender) and was about to put the lot into paint stripper.
After a few days sitting in white spirit I was able to remove the vast majority of the original paint finish; I found two variations of GCR livery a
Hot on the heels of the Great Central-liveried 'Immingham' (see the loco challenge forum for details), straight onto another Robinson six-coupled monster. This time a Class 1 of 1913, GCR #424 'City of Lincoln'.
Why City of Lincoln? Simply as a reminder of the three years I spent living there as an undergraduate.
The model is a K's whitemetal kit which I bought pre-built off of Ebay, already finished in GCR green but as #427 'City of London'. An easy renaming/ renumbering job you might t
After a very long gap in building a Smallbrook Studio's Rowland Emmett loco, I caught the bug again after a weekend spent riding the Welsh Highland and Ffestiniog railways in July.
A few weeks' work has therefore brought my 'Hector' close to completion. I decided not to go for the full whimsical treatment the kit allows but rather for a closer to 'scale' (hahahahahaha) appearance. This meant the more outlandish parts were left off and the loco given a more sober paint scheme.
Origina
