The backscene has grown a little bit more vegetation, the fences are temporarily positioned to check the look and the greenery has extended. Carved a couple of blocks of foam to form the dip in the scenery to the front.
Need to let it all set then fit the point motor in the yard before I can progress the scenery any more.
Meanwhile the Gresley full brake has finally received its LNER lettering and numbers, a mere three months on.
So the forestry commission moved in last night to deploy the first wave of trees. More and a few bushes are needed, plus a bit of paint for some of the slightly more luminous and cheap trees. As there will be about forty trees in the end its all from the cheap end of the market or special offers!
The class 20's are an It's N Gauge respray, one of which is going to end up as the sound system shortly.
I thought I'd start with NN3 trackwork on the basis that I was doing the first test build with a roller gauge and no jigs, along with no experience. I figured that however dodgy it turned out it wouldnt be totally amiss as an industrial narrow gauge siding. It's also using Z standards so its a good deal more forgiving and coarse spec than 2mm trackwork proper.
I have learned several things
- that the ends of the rail are sharp and next time I should cover them in tape so less blood is in
I've been working on the UFO pile over Christmas and finally got around to painting the 2mm scale 51' full brake I built earlier in the year. It wasn't something I felt too confident attacking as it's a fairly complex livery.
Still need to find suitable decals and to glaze it, but it's slowly getting there
Just got back the first castings from a first adventure into actually making new white metal casting masters.
(forgive the lousy image)
The master itself is layers of brass to build up the levels, plus top detail layers all then glued firmly together with the help of a vice.
Actually its an X-Fish
Test etches for converting the N Gauge Society sausage van & stove-R chassis into the LMS van in question. I've just glued it together quickly and dropped the roof loosely on top to check it fits - still need to remove the battery boxes (no electric eels in transit clearly) and add the bracing along the bottom of the axles.
I picked up a box of interesting bits a while ago and in the bottom were some bits of etched EMU stuff and white metal. One is a BHE 2-EPB the other a bit of a mystery. The bag it was with contained a BHE 2HAP underframe white metal set, four sides and some what appear to be BHE plastic roof/floor/sides etc.
Only it doesn't seem to be a 2HAP because its shorter than Mark 1 length and the windows are wrong (no big windows) for a Southern 2HAP. It seems to be an SR species 2EPB which is intri
Some old Bill Bedford sides that were kicking around, Ultima bits for most of the rest. The roof is a cut and shut of a longer one so eventually I ought to move the brackets. I've just ordered the bogies for it from 2mm SA shop, which fortunately carries the non-Gresley bogies used under these full brakes.
And a quck unusual angle photo down the platform of Aeonian Hills. I really must get the oil lamps wired up next time I'm doing wiring work..
As part of continuing the Ultima resurrection I needed to test build the bits so I spent a bit of the bank holiday assembling the pantry third because it looked interesting. I've now discovered it only ran in a pair with another coach so I guess I'm building one more etched Thompson than I originally planned. Looks ok to me although I need to fit partitions and the like. Plus the buffers are a bit of a guess. I've not found a definitive reference as to whether it should have oval or clipped buff
Assembled and given an initial coat of paint it still needs some tidying up and glazing, as well possibly as doing some minimal interior work.and detailing with pipework etc
It really ought to be lined out but its way beyond my skill level and I suspect any attempt to do that would make it look worse not better
I got distracted (again) adding another experiment to the corner of an etch sheet, which I've now been assembling (and editing with scissors a bit as I goofed a couple of bits of the design on the first go)
Some of the terrier photos I've always loved are the tiny terriers dwarfed by the biig Marsh 'Balloon' trailers. I wanted to do the first ones - the 'classic' shot of the originals with gangways, but in the absence of good enough drawings I moved on a couple of diagrams.
The solebars need finishing and I am currently pondering the buffer beams. The real lightweights had a most interesting buffer beam arrangement that isn't going to be trivially replicated with a bit of styrene strip.
(and a 24/1 with some paint on it)
I've started on a BR Blue Class 24 which is going to be turning into a 24/1 and getting various details fixed on the way (notably the annoying error in the roof lines)
This started off as a Mill Lane Sidings ferryvan but is getting turned into the conversions done on them for use as curtain sided vans.
The weathering on the sides is all done digitally (which is why the ends are not weathered yet). The rest will get weathered once I've attached all the other parts and painted them (roof, underframe etc)
Done a bit of filling and painting work so 10203 is beginning to take shape. Still need to sort out the battery box further and fit the handrails, folded headcode discs and the other grilles. Then of course paint the chassis/battery box silver.
Having finally got a bit of modelling time I've also started putting the cab roof profile onto 10201 and 10203. Trying Daz clay this time to see if I can get a better finish than will milliput.
So far the finish seems nicer but its a right pain to get Daz to stay stuck to anything while being shaped, that or there is a trick I don't know !
Bit more time working on the Thompson over lunch. Botched up the underframe out of some Ultima bits, a proper version of this is going to need some tweaking but most of it works out as is.
Now what colour should the interior be ?
I've also finally resolved the problem of the 57 with split gears. After various circles with parts and service suppliers who said they couldn't get the bits for it and that they were not available, plus no email response from Bachmann I eventually phone
I've been playing with the vinyl cutter and Thompson stock. As the Thompson stock is very similar in ends and profile to the Mark 1 it seemed a perfect thing to use the clear plastic shell from the Farish Mark 1 coaches for. Especially with new better Mark 1 coaches on the way.
The coaches were drawn with the gimp and then pasted together using a small program which assembles them and generates three images, one is a colour printed sheet which is like the coach sides it reads but with areas
LB&SCR 7ft wheelbase dumb buffered ballast wagon - amazingly some of these survived into grouping.
Tester for a 52ft Thompson
Starting work on a 'Continental brake'
It's now got an underframe, roof vents (doesn' t match the sides but its just a tester) and bogies on. No battery boxes yet. I've got some similar ones but I'm digging around for good shots/drawings of the actual Maunsell boxes so I can etch accurate ones.
Good to see rmweb slowly recovering
In the meantime I've mostly decalled the 02
and am also part way through painting and decalling a Carl Peplow resin 47 shell I had lurking in a drawer.
and the Maunsell coach project is slowly getting there. This is a test build with the underframe, sides ends and roof. Couple of small errors to fix on the underframe etches but nothing serious. Need to fit the bogies, underframe and roof vents next, see how it looks.
I've been rather busy and come holiday time busier still as I've been taking all the kits I seem to have acquired and building them. At the moment my desk is occupied by a Worsley Works 02, and 10203 which I'm currently attempting to produce.
I've also got a part built SHT Peckett but just discovered there are multiple versions of the Bachmann 0-4-0 US dock tank and that I've got the wrong one. Grumble.
