Monday 14th March Doors again. When you think about it a lot of the detail in the body is around the doors. So it's not surprising that they suck up so much time. Still working on the end door tonight. The cast white metal pegs for the end door catches don't appeal to me. Not sure I can solder them effectively and not sure how robust they'll be. So I'll make replacements from 1mm brass wire. It is possible to drill a 0.5mm hole through 1mm brass wire. File a small flat where you want the hole.M
Saturday 12th March When the top doors are trial fitted over the door catch pegs in the body the top of the side door is slightly higher than the top of the body. Not much, but enough to be noticeable. It doesn't look right, and it isn't. Side elevation drawings of LMS D2134 (Official Drawings of LMS Wagons Vol 2 - Wild Swan) shows the top edges in line, and that's how it looks in photos. The brass tube supplied is true to prototype in that the prototype also had tube welded along the top edge
Thursday 10th March Not much time tonight. Cut out and clean up the parts for the side doors. 30 mins. Total 65.5 hours. ----------- Friday 11th March Laminating side doors 13, 14. They end up a bit pringle due to heat distortion. Bend them carefully back flat, or as flat as your chosen prototype. I've decided at this point that I'm not going to make the side doors open so I don't need to bother about working parts. I don't fancy my chances of soldering parts 12 in place without melting the
Monday 7th March More body detail. Won't fix the body to the chassis yet. Parts 5, 6 are the strangest, awkwardest little bits to fit. I'd never noticed them before, but a look at prototype photos shows them there. They required a little fettling to touch in all the right places. Solder paint and RSU to hold and zap them on. Corner caps 7. All easier with the body separate. That's all for tonight, and not worth a photo! 1.5 hours. Total 61.5 hours. ------------ Tuesday 8th March Looks like s
Sunday 6th March
Body details. Folding up the stanchions X3-X9 took a bit of experimentation to find the easiest way. The Hold & Fold made it easier. I found the best method was to make one inside bend, and then the corresponding narrow outside bend, trying not to change the first bend while making the second. Then make the inside and outside bends on the other side. I found it easier with the Hold & Fold set to bend over the edge (if you have a Hold & Fold you'll know what I me
Saturday 5th March The body. Wow! Part 1, the main body, is by far the largest single etched part I've ever had to work with. Folding over the top channels and the body sides and end is quite a challenge for the 5.5" hold & fold. Takes some work with steel parallels and careful thumbs to complete. Didn't need to score the top channel folds. There are supposed to be a couple of tiny tabs on the door end of the body to locate part 2. I filed them off thinking they were etch tabs. Duh! I'm
Brake levers. The wire pivot for the brake side lever isn't 0.5mm, the etched holes are too big. The holes aren't quite 0.8mm either. 0.8mm looks right to me, so drilled them through to take 0.8mm wire. Don't solder parts 53, 54, 55, 56 to the cross shaft yet. Fit the lever in position first, make sure the crank parts 48 is on the cross shaft, then align 56 et.al. with the pawl on the lever, then solder up.
The brake lever on the brake side hinders access for fitting one of the spring retain
Sunday. The dog is walked, the dishwasher is emptied, the week's shirts are ironed, ashes out of the stove, laundry hung up, chores done. Back to business. Regarding the dog walk, it felt like spring was just around the corner this morning. Cool breeze, but you could feel the warmth of the sun on your shoulders for the first time. Ground gradually drying out as well. Summer's on the way.
Don't fit parts 29, 30 yet unless you want the wheels captive for ever. I'm aiming to keep the wheels rem
So, the super stiff springs. I could modify the chassis and fit compensation; don't want to do that. I could try and incorporate an different kind of suspension: don't want to do that either. I want to retain the prototype fidelity of this model. So I'm left with the task of making the suspension work. I should add that on a different blog this subject has come up and Mr Parkins suggests that the springs are mostly cosmetic and the axleboxes allow the wheels to drop into depressions in the track
Who remembers this? Inherited from my Dad many years ago. Never opened it so I've no idea what state the contents are in. The colour on the lid is brown. Just plain brown. The Humber Oil Company - that's why 'Humbrol'.
Having measured and pondered I think spacing the bearings inboard to eliminate side play is a better proposition than sleeving the axle ends. Side control will be on the point of the axle rather than rubbing on the wheel boss face, and it reduces the amount of material that will have to be removed from the inside of the axle box casting.
To the lathe ! The lathe is an old Hobbymat I acquired many years ago. It's a bit 'amateur' as lathes go but it does what I need it to do and I've accumula
When you fit the spring seats 25 to the chassis don't fit the 0.8mm wire spring retaining pins at this point. Spoiler alert - you'll wish you didn't when we get to setting up the springs! More solebar detail. Bump stops 26. The location marking and rivet spacing on the underside of the solebar is incorrect for the folded up 26, but not a big deal. Fold them up ignoring the 'dink' in the middle. Bend the 'dink' after they're soldered on. Parts 42, 43, make sure they're on the correct sides rela
The next task is to fit the W irons to the chassis. The W irons themselves are a straightforward lamination job. There are rivets to press out on the inside of the W iron laminations. You'll never see the rivets so you can save a few minutes if you want. Look very carefully at how they are located on the solebars. The area of the W iron that attaches to the solebar is tinned to ease soldering. I found that a very little fettling was required to get them fitting perfectly. They're not easy to ho
White metal buffer housing castings are supplied with then kit. They're pretty average and there's a bit of damage to most of them. I think it's been done when the castings were drilled out for then buffer shanks. You get 5 so can choose the best 4. Its a shame because the best white metal castings can be excellent, take for example the 4mm buffer castings from Lanarkshire Model Supplies (LMS). Think I'll leave adding the castings until all the soldering on the chassis is finished.
The coupl
Further work on the chassis of the MMP 1/108 etched kit.
Parts 7, 8, 9, 10 into the chassis. Again, if you remove the etch cusp, fold accurately and don't gum up the half etch locating grooves with solder the fit up of these parts is perfect. I found it easier to put 9,10 into the buffer beam before fitting 7, 8. Make sure you get 7, 8 located accurately on the inside of solebar 4. They form the basis for the location of the axle guards later on.
Parts 13. Note that the rectangular h
I just stumbled over Dave Parkins' MMP 1/108 kit while I was searching for something else. I confess to being a wagon enthusiast. The 1/108 and its brothers and sisters are one of then signature items of my chosen period. A super detailed 7mm 1/108 in brass - how could l not buy one instantly? It was love at first sight. And here's the story...
I started on 14th Feb when I probably should have been paying attention elsewhere.
Tools for the job, accumulated over the years. Even though the
Why blog at all? I model quite a lot, on and off. I've found out how to do things over the years and solved lot of problems. I've learned a lot from reading what other folk get up to on RM Web and other sites. Maybe what I post here will be of interest to others. I hope so. If readers find anything of use here I'll be pleased enough with that.
How did I get to here? We grew up in the 60's not far from the mighty Toton and within earshot of the approaches. Distant, spluttering class 25s coul
