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Post Privatisation witterings in N gauge

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Gronking along

I needed a break from constructing the building for Baby Laira, so have spent the last couple of days weathering up 08947 I'm not 100% happy with it. Perhaps I'm looking a little too close, and forgetting it's only an inch long. The weathering of the bodywork isn't a direct copy of this loco from the few pics I can find of it at Westbury - unique features, like rust patches etc, are copied from 08947, but general dirt is an amalgamation of several examples to give an overall look that I like.

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Not so silver bullets and a personalised 08

Hope everyone's had a nice Christmas, having worked loads in the run up and over Boxing Day, yesterday and today have provided a much needed break, and put me in the mood to do some modelling. So, after being inspired by Pugsley's silver bullet work here on the 4mm version, today I sat down and did the first of my fleet. It started out as a standard weathered model, and the techniques I played with will be used not only to customise my other three weathered wagons, but also to dirty up my shiny

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Done skipping

All good things come to an end - and this week sees the end of the FGW loco hauled diagram due to the arrival of the various 150/1s from London. The weather's not up to much this week, so here's a shot from a few weeks ago, when 67026 was on the circuit In the meantime, I *think* I've finished my model of 67026. No doubt I'll spot something out of place sooner of later though. The weathering work was covered here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/blog/360/entry-4781-skips-and-stone

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Skips and stones...fiddling with gouache

I've managed to get a bit of modelling in today, with both my dummy 67 and my autoballasters hitting the kitchen table today for a dunk in the gouache. Anyone who's not come across this stuff before - it's ace, give it ago! Gouache is a type of paint that's similar to Artist's acrylic, but able to be re-wetted and re-worked once they are dry. This makes them great for rust streaking and subtle dirt streaks for example. It was Martin (Pugsley) who first introduced these to me via a workbench thr

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TINGS comedown. HST project and some unitary thinking

After an early start and a long day yesterday, today has been a lot quieter - giving a chance to think through the theory of my 150/153 combo, and have a gander at how the 153 goes together. When I get round to actually working on this it looks like a fair amount of work, and that's without considering the FGW respray... Anyway, a couple of photos to illustrate the models. The Farish 150 is, IMO, one of the best N gauge items available at the moment, and to my eye, sadly, the 153 isn't qui

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Sprint finish

The Graham Farish 150, like its bigger brother, is a cracking model of a common unit. When it was released, a lot of comment was made about the purple engine, accurate for Porterbrook owned units I believe. However, the ones in use round here tend to have noticably bright yellow engines, and it's amazing what a transformation a lick of yellow paint and some black dry brushing makes to the overall look of the model. Additionally, the seats were painted blue, which adds a bit more interior relief.

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Smells Like Teen Spirit - part 2

Well, I guess this is what you call finished. There's the odd blip, as usual, but I'm happy to call it done. Paint is Tamiya sky blue with a drop of white, and the yellow is Railmatch late warning panel yellow (I forget the years they print on it, 88-03?), with a gloss black underframe, all given a top coat of Railmatch satin varnish to tone down and bring it together. Detail painting is mostly Games Workshop acrylic, with MIG powders for the roof weathering. I prefer to do locos in grubby condi

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59004 - ready to move the Mendips

Well, 59004 is just about done. There are one or two tidying up jobs, and the skywards pointing buffer needs attention, but apart from that it is there. The Yeoman logos are printed from my artwork by Kelvin at Red Firecracker, and are white on a clear backing to allow the blue to show through. The same effect is used on my upcoming PGA rake, to avoid trying to colour match the blue on the computer with the paint Here are some general shots of the finished model   And a couple of shots

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59004 - Identity gained

At Bristol show last weekend I collected the plates for my 59, so the loco now is named and numbered 59004 'Paul A Hammond' This gave me the kick I needed to get on and do some work on the model, with weathering started, and it now just needing windows, Yeoman logos and the weathering finishing. Here's a couple of shots of the current state of play - will add some decent ones once the loco is finished, hopefully in the next week or two! The grills are 'homebrew' transfers drawn up in Phot

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Smells Like Teen Spirit

The first bit of modelling I've achieved since Trainwest, where the 4VEP ran ok all weekend is to get a coat of paint onto the body to become 60074. Lack of modelling has largely been down to weather and workings like this: 47739 'Robin of Templecombe' passes Avoncliff with 4Z47 Gloucester yard to Eastleigh with ex Fastline hoppers for store 13/4/10 The welcome return of a tug to the Robeston - Westerleigh Murco circuit. 60096 lifts the train of empties up the gradient near the junction i

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Heading SouthEast

Today I've finished prepping stock for Trainwest, an ED got weathered (may end up on the engineers in place of the dutch tractor after the photo I found today) and the VEP is finished. It runs ok, may need some more lead added, but we'll see. If push comes to shove (no pun intended) it can always run with an ED at the show. Anyway, some pictures: The 73 was weathered following a couple of photos using Games Workshop acrylics. First up, Graveyard Earth was applied to the fibreglass panels ve

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4VEP progress

So, a little bit outside the usual sphere of operations for this blog - early 90's Southern region EMUs. With Trainwest at Melksham only a couple of days away, work is progressing well with my 4CEP. The photo shows Farish mk1s prepped to take Electra sides, with TPM ends fitted to the driving cars. The motor is from a Bachmann USA diesel picked up cheap, which it appears the TPM mk6 motor bogie frames are designed to fit. I had great fun chopping the block down with the minidrill! The chassis w

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Another hurdle jumped with 59004

This shows the current situation with 59004. While I have been working to get a 4VEP ready for Trainwest this coming weekend I've managed to slap some black paint on the underframe. Dropping it on the way in from the garage didn't help, but I don't think it's noticiable now. I must get round to getting the transfers printed, and will hopefully get the name and numberplates from Brian at Shawplan over the weekend. Then its just windows and handrails before weathering! It's finally getting somew

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Skipping along - quick update

A quickie update of some porogress - a basic airbrushed coat of weathering has gone on the underframe of the 67 and mk2s. This is Railmatch frame dirt. The loco needs patches of light and shade adding, and the mk2s need dampers and axleboxes painting in. Now they are reassembled, once this painting is done, the mk2s will get another coat of weathering, to get the coach ends, and tone down the detail painting. The loco roof and ends still need weathering too While I had the airbrush out I al

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Skipping along - progress!

Over the last couple of days I've got some decent progress in the class 67 project. First up is the work I've done to the mk2s. The BSO is the most involved, as work is needed to modify the roof vent and interior layout. The standard roof vents were cut off and filed/filled at the guard's end of the BSO. The replacements are cut from plastic strip, 2mm wide cut into 3mm lengths, not sure on the thickness though. The interior is a cut down TSO moulding, with a piece of 20thou plastic sheet cu

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Skipping along - the models

Ok, so some shots of the starting points of this project. Overview and proof of the concept The detailing bits as supplied by Dapol. On what's a 95 quid model, I'm disappointed that details don't particularly match a 67 - there's no knuckle coupler or cut lever, and the air pipes don't match the prototype. I know it sounds like a tiny niggle, but surely on a model this expensive it should be right? So on the dummy on the rear, the knuckle coupler will be nicked from a Farish 66 and the cut

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Skipping along - introduction

On Thursday I took a trip to East Somerset Models to collect my dummy 67026. I also picked up four blue-grey mk2s and some seating strips too, allowing me to throw together a representation of the Cardiff - Taunton (or Paignton) service operated by FGW. The 67s that I have (006 and 026) haven't worked together on this working (indeed 026 hasn't at all IIRC) and the mk2s aren't the right variant of aircon, but it's as near a representation as I'll get with RTR stock, and I wanted it to be a quick

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Lift Support

Well, yet again, I start by realising how long ago it was I last updated the blog. Come to think of it, how long ago it was I last did some proper modelling! At Warley I picked up a Kibri kit for a rail crane. Although not a design in use in the UK, it's similar to the large Kirow cranes in use on engineering work over here. It is an expensive kit (the £29.95 I paid was a knock down price, some websites list it at up to US$130!!!) but does go together well. I plan to paint it up in Grant Rail

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Underframe progress with 59004

Over the last two afternoons I've had a bit of fun knocking together the underframe for 59004. The finishing of the shell I've covered on old RMweb, and in a previous blog entry, and it's in this state that the model has sat since the last November or so. I had an urge to crack on with the underframe yesterday, so had to get on with it! Here are some piccies to illustrate where I'm up to, I'm not sure if I want to prime it, as that'll only show up all the slips and shortcuts even more!

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Knuckle Duster

Having picked up a handful of the new Farish MBAs over the weekend, today I thought I'd set about adding body mounted knuckle couplers to them. The outer ends of the outer 2 wagons retain Rapidos in NEM pockets for coupling to locos. The inner ends of these two, and both ends of the inner wagons have been fitted with a Microtrains coupler mounted at bufferbeam height. On the buffer fitted wagons, this represents the swinghead coupler, and the inners are fitted with a fixed knuckle, though of cou

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Slow progress with Paul A Hammond

Some of you may remember the 3D printed class 59 bodyshell I was fiddling with on old RMweb http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10057&start=234 Here is the current progress, once it's done, I'll do a proper step by step blog entry covering the shell, and also the underframe work

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Working over a tractor in a week, or maybe a bit more pt5

Well some more progress has been made on the grotty Dutch tractor. Inbetween scratching the weathering and throwing my paintbrushes out of the pram, I've attacked the underframe with some powders. They still need some work, but the variation in tone is getting there - in fact it looks a lot more varied, yet subtle to the naked eye than in the photos. Somehow I'm going to add some satin bits to the black on the underframe to give that greasy look, probably a powder and varnish mix. I'll probably

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Working over a tractor in a week, or maybe a bit more pt4, plus seacows

So, had a good session with the airbrush today, got a decent layer of brown on the underframe, and dustings on the bodyshell in the right places. It finally feels as though it is coming together now! Still need washes and powders on the underframe, but its moving in the right direction. Also gave some Seacows a dusting over with frame dirt at the same time, these had already had a series of brown and grey washes already. I've also glued on the detailing bits. Looks like they may, just, still

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Working over a tractor in a week pt3

Ok, so the model in a week concept didn't work, by the end of the week I couldn't be bothered and lost the excitement with the model. Here is how the loco looked at my attempted finish date. Please excuse the fluff and bits on the model - only just noticed that while I was resizing the fots. It looks ok in the flesh, a little less sure now I've looked back over the piccys. I'm pretty happy with the roof, but the noses and sides still need work. Talk about unsure! Next stage, is to airbrush the u

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Working over a tractor in a week pt2

Not a lot to show at this moment in time unfortunately. What there is to show I'm not happy with, having spent the morning attacking the body with various colours of Games Workshop acrylic. The fading on the roof looks ok, but the fading and dirt on the sides and nose I'm really not happy with. It looks grotty, but not in the right way. Will get on with spraying up the bogies, underframe and ploughs in the mean time though. Where's the headbanging smilie off the old forum when you need it? Ed

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