In an earlier post in my blog, I described construction of a GWR Tilt Wagon, based on a photograph in a Forum Post by Wagonman. I also reported that, when Sir John saw it in North Leigh station, he commented that it might just hold all his daughter's hat boxes. So, I now call it my 'Hat Box'.
At the time of my earlier entry, I had designed and built the basic body and started adding some of the detail. Completing the rest has been a very fiddly task, using lots of rivet strip (from M
Five years ago, I came across JCL's splendid thread about the Silhouette cutters at an appropriate time for dropping heavy hints before Christmas. This resulted in my acquiring a 'Silhouette Portrait' machine and loads of ideas for making my own coaches and buildings.
It proved very fortuitous since, only a few months before, I had decided to return to railway modelling by re-furbishing my old small layout and turning back the clock to the 19th century period. The cutter was a great
In a previous post: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-12531-milk-churns-and-siphons/
I mentioned that I had tried painting a GWR wagon with Farrow & Ball 'Rectory Red' paint.
To re-cap, this colour is described by the manufacturer as Vermilion mixed with Lead Oxide, to make it cheaper. It seems to me that could be a plausible formula for the red used during the 19th century on GWR wagons.
Because it is difficult to compare colours accura
Most of my entries in this blog, so far, have related to locomotives and rolling stock. For most of us , these are the key elements of a model railway and involve a lot of scratch or kit building, since very few pre-grouping (and especially pre-WW1) models are available as RTR.
Now, I am starting to think about scenery aspects and have realised that there is something of a paradox when 'turning back the clock'. We tend to think of 'older' as meaning 'quainter' and more 'weathered' wh
When I started this blog, a year ago, I wrote that my aim was to follow the conversion of my existing layout to an earlier time-frame. In practice, I seem to have spent most of my time designing and constructing new stock, while I have done relatively little to the basic framework of the layout itself. So, for this post, I decided to make a start on some 'backdating' of the layout scenery. Fortunately, static features of the landscape tend to change much more slowly than vehicles: I often notice
I had intended to wait until my carriage truck was complete, before writing another post, but various events have introduced delays, so here is a 'work in progress' report. . Some of my readers seem to like my 'off-beat' approach to modelling and this one also has some unusual features!
It all began when I saw a box of 'extra long' safety matches on the supermarket shelves. I had been looking at a drawing of an early wooden-framed carriage truck (1866) in Janet Russell's book on 'Gre
My first post in this series described how I produced a working drawing for a model of GWR No.184. Now, it's time to consider the tender and, for this, information is less readily available. Wet and windy weather has kept me indoors, so that progress has been rather quicker than I had anticipated.
The various photographs of No.184 show it partnered with a variety of different tenders, so I decided to try to model the tender shown together with its 1893 re-build. I have not found a br
Although this may seem a short post, it represents a very big step for me! I had been seriously concerned that I would not be able to construct a chassis with sufficiently well-aligned axles, within the constraints of my own abilities and my lack of any real workshop facilities - just a desk and Dremel drill on a stand.
My work-desk
When one builds a kit, the designer has already made lots of difficult decisions for you. A scratch-builder has to think out eve
Photographs can be very cruel! Looking at the photo of the handbrake ratchet in my previous entry, all I see is the huge tab, which I have not filed smoothly. It's invisible in practice but not on the photo! It's a real test, to subject modelling to this type of scrutiny.
My favourite weapons for removing those pips, as well as flash on white metal, are emery nail boards from the pharmacy. They're cheap and disposable, and don't get ruined by white metal, so saving my precious needle
In my previous post, I described a little about the location of North Leigh station on the branch line to Witney, originally planned in 1849. For some reason, this line was omitted from Bartholomew's 1/2inch map of 1903 but I have restored it to its rightful position, in order to show the location of the station and its proximity to the tunnel through the ridge of high ground between North Leigh and New Yatt.
The later, cut-off, which allowed trains to run directly from the Worcester
Oil lamps are continuing to prove awkward!
Following an appeal for help from the forums, I have established that the small circular fittings, adjacent to the lamp tops, are plugs to fill the apertures left when the lamps are removed for trimming and filling, rather than oil fillers, as I had originally thought.
I've now drilled the roof of my U29 model, to take the lamp tops and have another small problem to solve! Since the roof slopes down from the sides of the cleresto
Part 4 already, and I've not actually touched any metal yet! My thanks to all who have given encouragement by their 'Likes' and a warning not to expect any 'model engineering' in this thread - it's more like cut-out scrap-booking - but I enjoy it and it might lead to a working model.
Since my last post, I've re-visited the cab area, so that it can accommodate the rear pair of drivers. On my paper model, I've cut slots in the front of the cab and floor, to allow for the 14.4mm back-to
For the last couple of weeks, I have been dealing with various track issues and tidying up bits of scenery, none of which makes for very interesting blog writing! I noticed, however, in Mikkel's workshop thread some comments about Witney blanket trains, which reminded me of a photo that I had seen of a GWR 'Queen' class 2-2-2 heading such a train. This seems a rather unlikely combination but I eventually tracked the photo down to Colin Maggs' book "The Branch Lines of Oxfordshire" (Amberley, 201
When I decided to base my layout around the never-built line to Witney through North Leigh, it was simply a whim, derived from a map shown on Martin Loader's website about the Fairford branch.
As I have got 'drawn in' to the scenario, I have begun to learn more about the area and have found, to my surprise, that some of my 'fiction' is closer to the truth than I thought. My layout incorporates several 'features', including a quarry, saw-mill, and.lime kilns.
From s
I have mentioned in some recent posts that I intended to work on the scenery of my layout and, in the course of doing that, I found some problems with the narrow-gauge track, where it climbs from the station area, up over the main line towards the quarries.
What followed has been a frustrating few days, when my little railway has been showing its age! I suppose it is hardly surprising that some of the track is giving problems, as it was first laid in 1979.
Th
I have written before in this blog about the Wilcote family, whose activities formed such a large part of the social life of North Leigh in the late 19th-century. Any regular readers will know a little about the younger daughter, Blanche, but her sister, Amy, was a far more serious character.
Like any well-educated young lady of the period, Amy enjoyed practising her artistic accomplishments. Remarkably, some of her work has survived and come into my possession, so I am fortunate to
On a number of occasions over the years, I have posted comments indicating my dis-satisfaction with the ‘Mainline’ Dean Goods that is currently serving on my North Leigh layout. It’s really too late for my period, with Belpaire firebox and other details that place it long after the turn of the century.
My model Dean Goods at North Leigh
I have recently been following Mikkel’s conversion of a ‘Belpaire’ Dean Goods into an earlier ‘round-top’ version and have thought o
I know that this is a model railways website but I also have no doubt that many people visit because they enjoy looking at the photos of other people's layouts. Thus, it is inevitable that photography plays an important part in communicating what we are doing. There are lots of excellent photos on this website but I thought that it might be of some interest to show some of the techniques I use when photographing my small layout.
The word 'photography' is derived from two Greek words
It's been a cold, wet, dull, Spring and I have been finding it difficult to gain much inspiration for modelling. I got somewhat bogged down in the intricacies of what Amy Wilcote calls those 'old broad gauge things'. I have, however, been enjoying viewing the splendid work shown by other modellers, in various threads on this site. So, in an attempt to get my own ideas flowing, I have been wandering around some of the less familiar parts of North Leigh.
The creamery is not a very attr
I had hoped to have moved a lot further with No.184 but, unfortunately, have made a very elementary mistake! I knew that one of the problems with 00-gauge is that it is, in fact, a narrow gauge, with implications for fitting the boiler, etc., between the wheels. I think this had lulled me into a false sense of security with the outer dimensions, but these do become rather important in the case of an outside-framed locomotive with outside cranks! I 'got away with it' on my earlier scratch-built '
It's been a while since my last entry in this blog - lots of summertime activities getting in the way of modelling! I've also had that common modeller's problem of having so many things to do that it's been hard to decide where to start.
I'm afraid that I have, once again, ignored Blanche's petulant pleas for new dresses and got down to the more mundane task of building a tender for No.184. I produced an outline drawing for this tender by starting from a side-on photograph of what ap
My photo alongside might look similar to the final one in my previous post but is, in fact, the result of a complete re-build, in an attempt to correct at least some of the mistakes I'd made!
I'd already found some of the problems in trying to adapt real drawings to an 00 gauge model, in that the wheels fouled the diagonal members of the chassis. Then, when my grease axle boxes arrived from 'MJT' (after 15 days and well within the 21 days maximum), I found that there was insufficient
My first post in the Forums was in July 2013 while I started this blog a little later, in August. I've not been doing much modelling recently, since other activities take up most of my time during the Summer months, but I do spend time thinking "where next?" and also taking stock of the past year.
A year ago, i had just started trying to re-create some late-19th century "atmosphere", while knowing rather little about how things were actually done. Thanks to the patience and help of m
I've been reading the thread started recently by Robin2 on "Why have moving trains on layouts?" - ( http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/78169-why-have-moving-trains-on-layouts/ )
There've been lots of interesting and thoughtful replies and it has made me think. On the one hand, I couldn't build an engine without wanting to make it work satisfactorily and, on the other, I don't run trains very much but do enjoy setting up various static scenes for photography. I do find
I am grateful for the patience shown by my followers, while I have been wrestling to make progress on 3D modelling, against a background of many distractions!
In my previous post on this subject, I described my progress in understanding how ‘slicer’ software turns a 3D computer model into a file suitable for 3D printing. This enabled me to make a few test prints by downloading 3D models from the web.
3D printed carriage from downloaded STL file on the web
