Here's an interesting project which has definitely proved to be fun and satisfying so far.
As I mentioned on Tony Wright's thread, TW kindly offered me the chance to have a go at building a complete kit in a box for the Airfix Schools class, together with a Craftsman chassis and motors, wheels etc. As far as I can tell the kit (at least as packed) dates from 1986, so definitely a throw-back in some respects, but still perfectly capable of being built to a useful standard with little modifica
Self-explanatory, really! Two coats of Precision GWR green brushed painted on an undercoat of Games Workshop Chaos Black, and I may add a third layer. Hopefully the worst of the pitting has been taken care of; there are still a few blemishes visible in the photo but they're not so apparent in real life, and I think once the model is finished and decorated, there'll be enough "bling" to take the eye away from the remaining imperfections.
Next I'll order some plates and see if I can get "Great
Updates on a couple of loco projects here.
The Cambrian 2-4-0T was one of the locos absorbed by the GWR and given the Swindon treatment. Although I've no particular intention of modelling the handful of rural lines on which these three engines operated, I still thought it would be a nice little loco to own, especially given that 2-4-0s in general aren't very common on layouts.
A couple of years ago I bought a package kit containing white metal body parts, a chassis, motor, gearbox and wh
Over the week I finished most of the work on the Rhymney Railway brake van, followed by painting, glazing and attachment of the roof.
I'm very pleased with the way this characterful little vehicle has come out, even though it tested my abilities once or twice and there's the odd bodge to get to the finished result. In one or two cases I really should have followed the instructions, instead of surging ahead convinced I knew what I was doing. In more competent hands, I'm sure there would
Quite literally in this case - raising the lighting bar.
When I built the lighting support for the summer module, I set it at the same height as the spring and winter modules, both of which had (in my view) worked quite well in terms of framing the scene. But something wasn't quite right. I rebuilt the summer module's lighting arrangement at least three times over the years, but it never sat well with me, and finally the penny dropped - it was too low. The module is much longer and deeper th
It's possibly a sign of age, but I still tend to think of Hornby's long, corridor clerestories as the "new ones", as opposed to the shorter models which appeared under the Tri-ang days. The earlier versions do have their uses, but when the longer models were announced - 1981 I think - they looked destined to set a new standard for reasonably accurate, panelled stock, suitable to run with the likes of Hornby's 4-4-0 County class or Dean single. Alas, when the models appeared, the moulded panels o
Inching its way towards completion is this Dragon Models kit for a tiny Rhymney Railways brake van. I purchased the kit a good few years ago, at what I think was the last Rhondda model show - 2008 or 2009? I fancied adding a bit of variety to my GWR trains and this vehicle and a slightly larger Taff Vale brake van from the same supplier looked like they'd fit the bill nicely. As it happened, every time I went near either kit I got a cold shiver of terror, for on closer examination they looked to
Following on from the last entry, I assembled the pre-painted sides and found after some minor tweaking found that they sat nicely on the Mainly Trains chassis. I don't want to attach the body to the chassis permanently at this stage, so for now I just used the plastic floor from the Ratio kit to provide some means of centering the body without it being fixed in place, with the floor being cut and glued to the etched underframe so that the body drops neatly into position.
The coach is p
A few years ago I acquired several Ratio GWR 4-wheeler kits, along with the Mainly Trains package for an etched chassis. The original plan had been to build a short train of 4-wheelers for use on Paynestown, perhaps representing a miner's train in the early nationalisation era, but I never quite got around to making the coaches and eventually the layout was sold on. Nonetheless I always meant to have a go at the coaches and this week I finally found the mojo to tackle the etched chassis.
The
After the travails of the first 70 foot coach, I was hoping for a slightly easier time of the painting - but it wasn't to be!
This was the sorry state of affairs a fortnight ago:
The model had been primed and then sprayed with GWR cream, followed by careful masking and an application of brown. All looked good - until I started removing the masking tape. Great wodges of paint came off, right back to bare brass! After some cussing I decided that there was nothing to be done but to res
Just a quickie here to show some progress on the reworked "spring module", which to be honest is looking a lot more like early summer than in its earlier manifestation, but perhaps no bad thing as at least it's less miserable than the actual summer...
Track was reballasted, which went well initially then horribly wrong, when the black card I'd used under the track in places, to shim the C+L, reacted with the dilute glue and began to stain the ballast a fetching shade of dark blue! After much
Here's a quick snap of recent progress on the block of French buildings I've been fiddling with over the last year or so:
There's a bit more of a write-up here:
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/110098-regions-et-compagnies-card-kits/
I thought it was time for an update on the Blue Pullman project, which has been grinding its way toward completion through most of the spring and summer (so far). I can safely say that this has been one of the most demanding modelling projects I've ever attempted, with most of the last few months being taken up by a seemingly endless cycle of priming, filling, sandpapering, priming, filling ... all to achieve the neat finish I was after, with an absence of visible transitions between the etched
Following on from the corridor third, I thought I'd crack on with an accompanying brake coach to the same 70 foot style:
I've since added corridor ends and a few more roof details but the main build was basically done within just over a week of very relaxed modelling time, compared to the much longer genesis of the first coach. Mostly this was because I'd done the other one recently enough to remember my mistakes! I also had no trouble figuring out the assembly logic, and was able to bu
You couldn't get much further from a Toplight Third or Blue Pullman than this, but a change is a good as a rest and this big box of pieces has been gathering dust in my attic for far too long. Although it's not a railway project, its a subject that's very dear to my heart, and it'll draw on a range of familiar skills to get it done.
The Polar Lights 1/350th Enterprise kit is justly regarded, being both huge, well designed, and for the most part very accurate. The kit is based around th
You couldn't get much further from a Toplight Third or Blue Pullman than this, but a change is a good as a rest and this big box of pieces has been gathering dust in my attic for far too long. Although it's not a railway project, its a subject that's very dear to my heart, and it'll draw on a range of familiar skills to get it done.
The Polar Lights 1/350th Enterprise kit is justly regarded, being both huge, well designed, and for the most part very accurate. The kit is based around th
I always feel like I'm on the home stretch when I put primer on, and hopefully that's the case here, but as always putting a flat coat on a model reveals all sorts of issues and imperfections that must be dealt with before thinking about the main colour. I suppose that's the point of it, though - better to find out these things now, while they can still be fixed with more filler and sandpaper!
Nonetheless, the primer does start tieing everything together and if nothing else, as here, I think
Over the week I've been adding more cars to the Western Region, mostly quick work because I already had a large number of bogies assembled. I've also been developing a simple but (hopefully) reliable coupling solution, which consists of a simple hook running from one car to the next, bearing against the inside face of the headstock. A bit of trial and error has been necessary as I wanted to get the coaches as close as possible on the straights, while allowing just enough clearance for curves.
Here's another brief update on progress with the Western Region Blue Pullman set.
Otther than the incorrect bogies, the Triang parlour cars are a fairly accurate model of the first class type, which are correct for the Midland Pullman. However the WR sets also included two second class cars with different window spacing, and which ride on two types of bogies.
Fortunately, the windows are easily taken care of with the Southern Pride etched inserts, which are a perfect fit in the rece
Prompted by the burst of progress on the FFA/FGA sets, I thought I'd dust off another long-stalled project, this being an attempt at producing an eight-car Western Region Pullman set. I started getting the bits for this together long before the Bachmann model was announced, and I must admit although I carried on the with the best of intentions, the arrival of Bachmann's Midland Pullman did take the wind out of my sails a bit, in that it's a superb model which definitely (for me, at least) scratc
Back in October I posted an entry on a card kit I'd made for a French corner-style cafe, entitled La Passerelle:
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/257/entry-16720-la-passerelle-a-french-card-structure-in-ho/
I've since added another pair of buildings to the block, using another Regions et Compagnies kit, this time for a pair of linked buildings:
I've also added lights into some of the rooms, shown separately here as I need to add some more wiring connection
I bet you'd all forgotten about this, but it's been back on the bench for some final work including droplights being painted, glazing added, and roof and ends painted. There are still a few small castings to go on the ends, as well as working bellows, and I've still yet to add the door opening handles. Then I have to devise some coupling solution which is more a case of choosing one of the several incompatible methods I use on different items of stock.
Corridor side (my favorite side, for so
With a five unit rake to populate with containers, I ordered fifteen boxes from C-Rail Intermodal. Five were already painted in Freightliner livery, but the other ten were unpainted boxes in two styles, with and without advertising panels. I also ordered two identical sets of older-era decals, and have now set about painting and decal-ing the models.
At least with the decal sheets I have, there's more scope for using the boxes with panels, whereas only one of the transfer sets (that for AJCL
I finished re-aligning the attachment points for all five wagons of the initial FFA/FGA rake and am now carrying on with preparing the unpainted container shells. In the meantime, I'm getting a feel for how they sit on the rake, and how the wagons line up. I spent quite a bit of time filing and packing the bogie pivots to get everything level and consistent between the units, but it's quite sensitive to which way around the bogies are, as well as being exaggerated by curves and minor track undul
Here's most of the complete backscene in a more or less finished condition, and this time under proper layout lighting. I waited until now to put back the lighting beam as it severely restricts access to certain areas of the module, and I wanted to get the fiddly stuff done first. However, it's not too hard to remove it if needed. Compared to the previous shots, I did some more toning-down with white washes, as well as starting to add some transitional details. Now that the lighting's in place,
