Well... I did miss the members’ day today – I hope it went well for all! I did manage to get my two boys up to the Bluebell railway... and that was quite nice; what they’ve now done at Sheffield Park is good... an improvement, and we had a nice run with the Std 4 and a 6 coach train... and the E4 with the metro set (looking very smart). Only disappointment was the response I got when I bought a copy of Bradford Barton Diesels in action 4 at the Bulleid shop... when they said that they donâ
A brief update: Progress has been a little slow of late, but I’ve been removing material from within the fuel tanks of the Deltic.
First of all I removed some material from the side frames so that when the webbing above the tanks was removed, there was less to drill out... and then clean up with the Swann Morten No. 11 blade (the long thin one). Plenty of material needs removing, but the look is worth it in the end.
Next time, I’d remove the inner material (for the speaker) first...
Well, there comes a time when we all hit that wall. After our local show (when I exhibited the 55s) and EMExpo last month, I felt enthused to carry on... the mojo was restored... but it didn’t last. Despite having a useful chat with Ian Rathbone (at EMExpo) the prospect of painting the loco looms over me and is seriously hampering my judgement. I’m also dithering over final details.
I’ve also spent some time setting up the Class 55 group on here (not much time doing anything, but a s
A brief posting to illustrate my photoplank that's had the ballast finished up to the retaining wall... and some foilage added where appropriate. The "men" have been repainted in a 1970s garb and my two TTAs have been fitted with 3-links, brake pipes, re-identiifed and weathered. This will do for now. [Edit: more on the TTAs through http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/35440-black-tta/page__p__376744__fromsearch__1&do=findComment&comment=376744]
If you want to see this in t
A while ago I posted an entry covering my attempts at knocking together a short photo plank upon which to pose my Deltics. This has served its purpose, but with the opportunity to exhibit these publicly looming, I felt that the display really ought to have a bit of a backdrop against which the locos could be viewed. The shelf that the board sits on is quite limited in height (95cm), and whilst this limits dust gathering, it also limits the height of any attached backscene. I opted for a brick wa
I thought that I’d just write a short report of the splendid run up and down the East Coast Main Line that about 600 of us experienced on Saturday 5th March whilst enjoying twin-Napier power it all its glory.
An early start was called for in order to get to Kings Cross for a due departure slot of 8.18... (ugh 6am at Haywards Heath - far too early for a Saturday) and after grabbing a few shots of the magnificent machine, Royal Scots Grey, left Kings Cross roughly on time before accelerating
Well, with the first of the class celebrating her (his?) 50th birthday this week (delivery to BR 28th Jan 1961) and about to embark on a mammoth 3-day rail tour. Funny to think that 50 years after delivery, 29 years after withdrawal, a Deltic will tomorrow haul a train from the NW into Euston, On Saturday, it’ll run down and up the ECML between the capitals (and I’ll be enjoying this bit), and on Sunday it’ll depart Paddington back for its NW home. Absolutely Splendid!!!! Well done Martin
Another quick update, with a few photos for accompaniment: The speedo cable has been completed using 2mm rod with a plasticard piece on top... fitted to the axle hub using a 0.6mm length of wire. The hub then has four small rod sections added to the corners, and sanded down to represent the fixings. The cable is 0.6mm brass wire, with a hollowed out 1mm dia rod piece – glued to the main hub.
A reverse construction was used for the rear unit, the plasticard piece being attached at the base
I really must find a taller driver
Cabbing it
A few weeks ago I decided to try to do something about the void that is the interior of the cabs. Normally, once the bodyshell is attached with the glazing, not much is visible, but I think that some resemblance of the bulkheads would be good to have. Then whilst browsing a well know auction site one evening I found a photograph of some 7mm Deltic cab detailing components for sale… and this formed the basis for my idea. I de-bodied one of m
Well, here’s my first 2011 progress update. So, when I last posted an update, I’d just finished the cab steps. I’ve now moved on a little and have completed (bar the brake levers) the bodywork (unless anything else crops up... and some bits will be fitted after painting such as the side window surrounds, headcode surround and ETS modules, buffers, horns (to be detailed) and w/screen wipers
So, I’ve fitted the backplates to the buffers and fitted the ladders to the nose ends (a nice l
This will be my final update this year; we’ve numerous visitors over the holiday period and thus my modelling room will revert to guest bedroom status for the duration.
Since my last posting, I’ve managed to make some progress, which I hopefully have made clear herein. Techniques employed were, as always, developed as each task progressed… learning on the job seems to be the quid-pro-quo with these tasks. Recently, I managed to secure a back-copy of Model Rail No. 124, through a well k
This morning, after clearing some e-mails, I thought that I ought to try to physically get in to the office, if, for nothing else, to collect my car that had been languishing in the car park since I left it to fly to Bordeaux on Monday. Whilst the roads seemed (sort of) ok, so that I could get back, I listened out for trains and checked on line to find that yes, First Capital connect services were stopping at the local stn, but Southern ones weren’t. I chose to go for the 11.28 to City Thames
A novice’s update whilst I'm stuck several hundred miles from my modelling room… since my last post, some extra parts were acquired from Mr Hanson’s at the Warley show, and some time has been spent fettling the body to accept some of these new acquisitions.
First of all, I acquired the new windscreen etches, but needing to cut a lot of material away to fit these dissuaded me from attempting this initially… although I’ll probably come back to these at some point. I therefore set about
Time for a final “pre-Warley†update, before some additional bits-and-pieces are acquired from somewhere within the cavernous interior of one of the NEC’s exhibition halls.
Bodyside sand container doors
Having fitted the new buffer shanks at the no.1 end, I moved onto cutting out holes for the bodyside sand filler hatches. These were cut out in the normal way, marking, drill out and file to shape. Marking was accomplished using Tamiya masking tape lain along the bodyside and vertica
I thought that it was about time that I provided a brief update covering my limited progress since my last post.
I started trying to knock up some marker light (tail light) housings to add to the bases already added. My first attempts involved some 0.8mm wire inserted into a short length of thinned 2mm dia plastic rod, which was then inserted into the chuck of my mini drill (and used lathe like) to turn it down to the required shape using a sharp blade. First attempts all failed, so a dif
The first two weeks of October has seen some distruction and a little construction in this project... but most of all there’s been an attempt at bravery in the hacking about that I’m subjecting what was a perfectly good model.... I’m guessing that the warranty is now no longer valid .
The first task tackled was that of the bonnet reprofiling... after some delicate prising out of all transparencies which generally came out with more that a little uncomfortable creaking... and removal
Some of you may be familiar with my previous postings associated with detailing and weathering Bachmann Class 55 Deltics. Much of the detailing used scratch-built components with a couple of Brian Hanson’s parts thrown in when some of his development extreme-etches were kindly provided. The Shawplan range of extreme etches has recently been expanded to include a wide variety of class 55 items to improve on the Bachmann offering and it is with a number of these items that I recently acquired at
This is going to be my last modification to these Deltics. There is more that could be done, but it'd be better to start with a clean sheet with those - and I've two more to be done (sometime), I've some bits to get from Mr Hanson, and some more exploration about what else one can get away with. This could include on the bogies, the lifting hooks and anti-sway loops (if that's what they're called?), the lifting bogie-end hooks, and replacement brake cylinders for starters. On the fuel tanks, the
Dear all. I finally got around to reducing the gap between the bogies and chassis on two of my deltics. I'v ebeen meanign to do this for a while and whilst a number of people have mentioned it, I could never find anything that showed how it was done... so here's how I did it.
First picture shows a before shot... there is clearly a bit of a gap between the bottom of the brake lever and top face of the bogie. Whilst this allows the loco to be used on layouts with 2nd radius curves - my move to Co
