A slightly longer term project that has made some progress in the last week is a partially (well, mostly) scratchbuilt Shochood B. These seem mainly to have been used in conjunction with steel products (they were all initially branded 'Empty to' for Port Talbot or Newport (Mon) from new), and later many found their way into engineers service under the codename 'Dace'.
It's a wagon type I've always rather liked, and since Bartlett et al contains the drawings... Some time ago, when I was buil
Now comes the really fiddly/interesting bit. The working parts of these ladles are very simple. The chain used to tip the ladle runs through three pulleys. One at each end of the wagon and another mounted on one side of the ladle itself
The pulleys themselves are rather nice turnings mounted on castings which need a little bit of preperation (and some care as holes need drilling - a bit of 80 thou' plastic between worked for me. The pulley attached to the ladle was fixed to a swinging link, her
First, an update with progress on the ladles. The wheels as supplied are not quite to the correct pattern (this is detailed in the instructions). Who knows, some one, somewhere might want to do something similar so how I did it is shown, and described in full, below. The wheel as supplied is originally meant for 4mm scale narrow gauge, has a recessed face and six holes. We need a flush face and 8 holes. I used Miliput to do the bulk of the job.
Once this was fully hard, I levelled off
And now back to wagons. I've managed to acquire a couple of these whitemetal kits for slag ladles, used to dipose of the by-products of the blast furnace. Rather specific as rolling stock goes, and surprisingly small, but dad and I have a couple of suitable locos, and they're a little bit different (to say the least!). For those interested, there are a few shots of the process here, together with the drawing and photo's of the wagon that the kit (from Clarke Kits - it is no longer available), is
The big AEC shown earlier in the blog is now all but finished, though it needs a dose of weathering. Painting road vehicles is a slow job,even when the end result is a simple, one colour livery such as that used by BRS. Partly it's the different sorts of detail (particularly chrome) which isn't normally associated with railway vehicles and partly because they're usually a bit cleaner - for a road haulier, their vehicles are as much bill-boards as hardware - not sparkling necessarily, but probabl
Hopefully, this photo should show the arrangement of the representation of the brake gubbins slightly more clearly. A bit untidy perhaps, and I'd like to say that the next one will be better. The next one however will be the earlier 1/119 variant which had a slightly more conventional twin-cylinder (one big, one small), arrangement with a changeover lever.
A bit like this one:
http://80srail.zenfo...a98d2#h1db78de6
Just don't ask when...
Adam
Loathe as I am to use a TOPS designation for a wagon, this is one of the relatively few occasions where the wagon type is fairly obvious! While the basic kit is pretty good, accurate and well engineered, also including many of the things plastic wagons sometimes lack, there are a few things which can be improved or extra detail to be added. The usual things like grab handles on the end door are easy enough though the sides and ensds are a bit thick, thinning them down a bit is straightforward.
The latest 'work-in-progress', well, more completion of outstanding works really is this LNER open. A fairly standard LNER vehicle, derived, I think from a GNR design with a wooden underframe and AVB. In this case - since dad built one years ago - I adapted it with steel channel ends following a David Larkin photo. I'm not sure whether I'll follow the photo and finish it in engineer's olive green or as a traffic vehicle in bauxite. All irrelevant until it gets a bit warmer in any case...
In other news, another long standing project nears completion. Those of you who remember issues 40 and 41 of MRJ (Hursley and Winchester Chesil), might not recall the real inspiration to my ten year old self, Geoff Kent's two-parter on scratchbuilding commercial vehicles.
This AEC mk V 8 wheeler based around a Road Transport Images cab and wheels (scratchbuilt chassis and flatbed) will be finished in the bright red of BRS and lettered for its Cardiff depot, reflecting the large number of suc
A few shots of the loco as it now stands - on its wheels. The trials of running in are still to come and having no powered track at the moment this won't be until Christmas. Anyhow, this is as it stood a month or so ago before a coat of primer.
Note that the chassis wasn't complete there. A couple of evening's work has now seen back-scratcher pick-ups fitted and the motor installed along with a trial fit of the rods and brakegear (rods removed for the moment now that the bushes are
The only modelling I have actually managed to do in the last few weeks comes in the form of completing and priming this Austin box van. The light wasn't really up to work in progress shots, not that a touch of filling and rubbing down makes impressive viewing! It does reveal my approach to priming/run down/undercoat however. With resin kits this is quite important as however good the castings are, the odd pinhole bubble is all but inevitable, so after a (very) thorough wash, a thin coat of grey
For the full gory details of how we got this far (click here and read on - assuming of course that the old forum will let you). In the meantime, a few edited highlights (if that's the right word).
This is my second austerity, the first was fairly common finescale stuff, a Dapol RTR body on a Perseverence chassis. I'm quite pleased with the end result which looks like this:
Of course, having built one, you need another and it should be easier because the reference material is in hand
This project formed the last entry on the mk 3 version of RMweb, so here it is again. What we have here are a collection of Road Trasport Images modules assembled to form a representation of a particular vehicle, in this case, an Austin K4 box van from the early 1950s owned and operated by British Railways. It turns up in innumerable pictures of Yeovil Town station from the '50s and '60s, and should make for an attractive model. In any case, it'll make a change from all those die-casts.
