Whilst I have my playaround with a Gn15 loco, I'm also working on my more serious projects.
Last month I alluded to how work on my hackbashed D6 had ground to a halt for want of a decent running chassis. Payday came and went and with it I was able to buy some 8mm square plastic tube.
What I was then able to do was to drill 5mm diameter holes through this tube, and into these holes I fitted some bearings which are sold as spares for the Triang/Hornby 9F. I then slotted the axles throu
Decanting the contents of the packaging onto the dining room table, what immediately struck me was both the number and size of the resin castings. They're much larger than I'm generally used to dealing with, and there are a large number of them!
Quality of the castings looks pretty good, with very little flash and no immediately obvious sign of warpage; the kit also came with a Hornby 'Smokey Joe' chassis which needed a little alteration to fit (the removal of the couplings and cylinders).
Today I visited the Rowland Emett exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery with some good friends. Somehow I managed to come away with a Smallbrook Studios kit for 'Hector'....
http://smallbrookstudio.webeden.co.uk/#/products-new/4569521214/%27Hector%27-Body-Gn15-Tender-Locomotive-Kit/3724081
Plainly, this model cannot be run on my eventual planned layout ('the train now arriving at platform 4 has destroyed the edging slabs'), and I cannot afford (in time, space or money) to set
With the detailing of the front plate for the tender complete, attention turned toward getting it to move. Unlike the kit I had for 'Sir Clement Royds' the tender of this example came with a moulded-in chassis of sorts, but there was a problem. Firstly the moulding was so thick as to make it the devil's own job to fit axles, and secondly once the axles had been forced into place the tender sat too low.
Looking at Sir Clement Royds to see how to overcome this problem I saw that the origina
The announcement of the NRM Ivatt Atlantic and Model Rail 'Marne' have meant that funds for my kitbuilding and hackbashing have been severely curtailed for August. This in turn means that materials I need for my D6 have been put on hold and therefore that project has temporarily been put on a backburner.
I therefore find myself starting a project for which all the necessary parts are already at hand: LNER 'Director' Purdon Viccars as she (he?) appeared in June 1928. The relevant volume of
Whilst work slows a little on the D6, I've turned my attention to getting a decent teak finish on my GCR carriages....
.... first up is brake third 5277 in ex-works condition (I'll be trying to get more weathered patches on the next attempt).
You might be able to see that the next in the rake (composite 5084) has also begun the process.... don't worry the D6 will be dealt with, very soon!
Work progresses slowly- however it does look more like a loco now...
There's nothing here that I've not done and described before when it comes to the bodywork- various thicknesses and profiles of plastic sheet and strip have been used to alter the body from the donor model.
I'm working on how I can secure the body to the chssis more securely at the moment- and also pondering what exactly might be done to get the driving wheels to turn with less resistance. Proper bearings m
And work begins.
So; we start with, as always, a donor loco....
... in this case the chassis and the body are from two different models.
The chassis from a Hornby 2P:
And the body from a Triang Jinty:
There's a lot of hacking up involved in this one!
But now I've begun the reconstuction process... an old Ratio 4-4-0 kit donates much of its boiler for this.
The oldest surviving loco in my collection of hackbashes is a 'lookalike' D6 that I completed a few years ago. At the time of completion I was very pleased with the result.... however as time has gone on and I have finished other, better models it has been gradually left to languish at the back of a shelf. Of course, this state of affairs hasn't been helped by the fact that since I built the model more information about the prototype has come to light.
Last summer I made the decision to
After allowing my teak effect to dry out, I moved on to painting the solebars and the wheels.
Both were painted with Humbrol #113, after which the wheel rims were painted in matt white.
Moving on to the roof, I removed the clerestory and then filled the resulting hole with a sheet of 0.5mm plastic sheet, smoothed into the roof with plenty of white putty (incidentally pretty much exhausting my stock of the stuff!)
I was then able to smooth the roof down and paint it with humbrol #1
Over the weekend the beading was added in 0.5mm square plastic strip. Previously I have used 1mm by 0.5mm strip and as I was applying this I thought it was too slight; however when fully panelled up I think it looks just right.
I then moved on to further experimentation with producing a teak effect.
Previously I have used hues of mid to dark brown matt paint, but the effect has always struck me as being too flat and too dark. With my GNR composite I went for lighter shades and even s
When I finished my rake of clerestory suburban stock earlier this year, I had a pair of Hornby clerestories left over. As one of them had been pretty severely hacked up I decided to use this vehicle for an experiment....
The first stage was to infill the windows with milliput and white putty....
.... when this had dried out I sanded it down and primed it.
I then used a dremel to drill out the new windows, and cleaned them up with a file.
Then I used 0.5mm plasti
Bit of progress on the Met 'E'.... actually quite a lot!
The first thing I did was to build up the coal bunker with 0.5mm plastic sheet. I then added the tops to the wheel splashers using paper.
Now the next thing to do was to paint the model.... two coats of Humbrol #73 provided the crimson lake livery whilst the tank tops and smokebox were painted up in Humbrol #33. The boiler was then given a wash with mekpak to smooth out the lingering roughness to the filler I'd applie
The next thing to do was to reprofile the cab roof. This was done using a dremel at a low speed; once finished lengths of plastic rod were glued to the cab sides and then a sheet of paper laminated over the top to give a smooth finish.
Work then moved to the smokebox. I needed to build up a new smokebox wrapper, and after efforts to use plastic sheet proved futile I took a length of 0.5mm by 1mm plastic rod, cut it into many 13mm lengths and then glued these around the smokebox (rather a
"That's the majority of the heavier work done, much of the remainder now is relatively minor..."
Famous last words. I laid the body back onto the chassis and found to my chagrin that it wouldn't fit!
Analysis of the problem revealed that the driving wheels fouled their splashers and the motor fouled the boiler barrel.... more surgery followed. The boiler was removed from the front 3/4 of the side tanks and replaced with paper. The splashers were cut away and then tolerances checked.
So lets make a start, shall we?
First off, this is the donor model...
First step is to release a screw underneath to separate the body and the chassis....
Then another screw comes off the chassis, taking the front coupling with it.
Out with the Dremel! We need to remove 5mm of the chassis block from in front of the driving wheels.
Then we need to do the same to the rear of the chassis, behind the trailing bogie.
Now comes a very delicate operati
I'm quite pleased with how this model has turned out:
I found that I had some small difficulty with the floor and the sides having warped slightly, however the majority of this eased back out once I had started building (I think there is a crack along the joint between the body and the solebars which is a result of this, but that's not exactly visible unless you go looking for it).
The whole model was pretty much built as-per the instructions; I swapped out the kit bogies for
The last week or so I've been working on a Kirk kit for a Great Northern 7 1/2 compartment coupe composite.
Clearly there's a lot still to do but I'm pleased with how it is turning out. I've got it running on Bachmann Thompson bogies (and, typically, now that I'm looking to get some more for another pair of Kirk kits they've sold out everywhere....)
When I first decided I wanted to model my A5 in early LNER condition, I thought that the lining would be quite an easy proposition. GCR-style lining for black locomotives was simply red panel edging and white-black-white lining, right? Well, as it turns out that is right, but when the LNER went for GCR 'style' they meant just that, the 'style'. Not the thing and the whole of the thing. Let me explain.
In John Quick's GCR liveries book there are some excellent colour panels which show ho
Most of my locomotives so far have been of what I suppose you could call the 'Big, green and named' variety:
- a couple of Directors
-a Jersey Lily
-a 'Lord Faringdon'
I've therefore decided that my next project (make that, actually, my current project) is going to be a more everyday machine. Specifically one of the large pacific tank engines built to haul suburban trains.
A few months ago I bought an A5 off of Ebay. It arrived in LNER green livery (I didn't think any of them w
Whilst building rolling stock to go with my GCR locomotives I have recently been thinking about how I intend to operate my eventual planned layout.
My thinking at present is to do as railways do, and keep my coaching stock coupled together on a semi-permanent basis. With this in mind it becomes a short leap of thought to consider that tension lock couplings, although very useful and workmanlike, perhaps aren't necessary when coupling carriages together.
Matters came to a head last wee
I'm very pleased to announce that LNER 6169 Lord Faringdon is now finished (for a given value of finished, of course).
Lining has been done by two methods- the boiler bands by cutting thin strips of paper with a black line inked in, the cab and tender sides with the paint pens (my method with them I think is improving markedly).
If I can maintain this level of finish with my planned models (and perhaps update the better of my older ones to it) I'll be very happy indeed.
Ah,
The process of painting the loco into LNER green has begun. A couple of coats of Revell 'Leaf Green' enamel and some Humbrol matt black have gone on so far.
I ordered some transfers from Quainton Road Models and they arrived yesterday, so were duly applied to my 11B/ D9 to finish the model off. Great service from QRM, by-the-by- highly recommended.
