I’ve been travelling the M6 the last twelve months, a motorway I knew little about.
Most motorways seem to have their own style of services, and on the M6 it’s those over-bridges containing noisy, cramped food outlets and at Forton, the (mostly abandoned) “observation lounge” reminiscent of a set for a Gerry Anderson puppet show. Whoever thought they were a good idea? The 1960s were truly, a different time...
One worthwhile innovation is that Travelodge have apparently
Progress at last (for me): I have stuck on the top of each of the Hornby sides a strip of 40 thou (1mm) black plasticard to imitate the slotted strip that is on the top of the Hachette SK sides into which the roof clips. And indeed it does and the coach holds itself together, like the original -amazing! Needs a little bit of trimming to make sure everything lines up and sits tight. Now I need to cut holes in the Hornby interior to give clearance to the bogie pivots and the close coupler cams
By way of completion of an old blog entry: Before my house move I started constructing an interior from scratch for a Bachmann maroon BSK that I'd bought at Expo EM as a 'spare' without an interior (well, not quite true, it had a TSO interior!!). I described how I'd built the interior but I didn't post photos of the completed job. so here are some external views of the almost complete coach, re-wheeled in existing bogies to P4 (to see how that runs).
The complete coach from the cor
An O Gauge HUO hopper from Accurascale is the next challenge.
The first thing to do is to choose the colours that will be used for this, and another seven to follow. Each of them will be tackled as a separate task, in the hope that the completed set will all look similar, but definitely not the same as each other. The plan is to use Revell no. 84 as the basis for the rusty look, MIG pigments Dark Mud and Track Brown for shading in corners and around edges, Railmatch Sleeper Grime fo
The old rust application is now finished. Greater volume of pigment (although still only small quantities at a time) has been applied in corners and at edges, and now it is time to add a different tone of rust where more recent corrosion is taking place. For this stage I am using MIG Dark Mud. Once again, small quantities at a time and gentle application, building up the effect gradually.
You'll have noticed that there is plenty to do on the underframe.
Evening all,
Aside from the BV kit posted earlier this week, I mentioned I was hoping to do further works on the layout having taken the 4 days off work. Am happy to report some good progress has been made.
First up was acquiring a Digikeijs DR500 which James at DCC Automation had suggested to me last year as I was worried about continually plugging and unplugging the wires on the Uhlenbrock Daisy between layouts. One of the great things about this bit of kit is that it h
Having been keeping an eye on bcnPete's foray into 7mm squeezed into a small space (see his work on his Wenford blog), this got me thinking about whether I'd like to do something similar in the scale. Since Rosevear is likely to be a slow burner, Par Moor is just a little side project that will focus more on rolling stock than buildings. This layout will also serve the purpose of scratching an itch that I've had for a long time, which is to build scale models of the Port of Par locomotives; Alfr
I have been busy trying to solve the running problems on my 517. thanks to help on one of the forums I managed to get the thing rolling freely - so all seemed well. Until.....I realised I had manged to strip part of the idler gear in the gearbox which made it lurch as teeth engaged then didn't. Ah well - new gear on its way thanks to Chris at High-level kits.
To compensate for the slow progress I made a few more card buildings. The more I do of these the more I enjoy them but at the
Out come the filbert brush and the MIG pigments.
Track brown is the colour to be used here, for the older rusted areas, and is applied small quantities at a time to build up the deposit where appropriate - mostly corners and edges of panels. By restricting the volume of pigment on the brush some really subtle effects are produced, implying the beginning of holes to come.
Most of the main line(s) have been ballasted over the Easter period using Geoscenics 00 gauge ballast that looks about right to my eye. It's been glued with the standard watery mix of PVA into which I'd stirred some grey paint mix to tone down the appearance. The remaining ground has been textured with ordinary sand and painted dark grey. Further work will be done to add patches of grass/weeds etc.
The WD and the Black 5 have recently been weathered by "Grimy Times" and look great! A
I've had an itch for a long time. An itch to model a canal interchange shed; I'd initially looked at the still intact Chillington Wharf on the west side of the Stour Valley route from Wolverhampton High level.
Photo by D.J.Norton
I came across this picture in the steel terminal's office whilst I was given a tour of Chillington Wharf by staff showing pre-nationalisation activity with bolsters and opens with the sort of loads which would come from a rolli
On with part 2.
With first floor inner walls in place (and dry), they were trimmed to height.
End wall veneers were added next.
Test fit of tank.
Adding the exterior detail..
And finally for this part, fitting the tank (roof will be fitted at a later stage).
Till next time..
TBG
The random (failed) splattering of the hopper interior has now been treated to a wiping by thinners-dampened 1/2"flat shader. I attempted to keep the wipes vertical because that is the direction water would take any dirt and dust that it encountered. It is quite probable that any effect thus produced will be entirely obliterated by whatever is to follow, but, just in case. . . . . .
This was followed by an airbrushed application of very thin Railmatch Weathered Black - plenty of thi
As I was feeling Loco'd out, a client brought me something else to build - a Timber Tracks GWR Coaling Stage.
Initial impressions, it's a big kit - in fact Mum when she saw the box assumed it was 3 kits!
First up the instructions guide you in easily, with the relatively simple task of building the tank - in fact this shows the way the whole construction of the kit will go (layers)..
Next up is starting to bui
Railway modelling has been quite an emotional rollercoaster over the past couple of years. So many projects come up then quickly get scrapped. Th problem is that I push myself to build a layout that I have in my head but then I find myself not enjoying it or face an obstacle and that'll be that. I've built some layouts that I am so proud of, Chalk Lane being my first and Leahurst Green being the largest so far, but I feel as though I can't get the motivation to build one from start to finish. Th
This layout will be titled "Rosevear" and will be a fictional clay drying works siding, set in a flexible time period from 1965 to around 1995-2000. The approximate geographical location will be the Bugle, Bowling Green, Rocks area. My goal with this layout is to capture the "feel" of clay country without modeling a real location, something easier said than done it's turned out, but I think I'm finally making good progress.
The track plan will be fairly straightforward, and broken down into
A major milestone has been the starting of buildings for my layout. The first major structure is obviously the platform which has the station building and the signalbox sitting on (or more accurately in) it.
The prototype platform has had a lot of work on it since closure and there is quite a lot of subsidence along the length now. Over the length of the platform the brickwork is no longer consistent in terms of the construction, I'm working on what I think is a logical design - hop
I have built a Faller kit for an industrial shredder. According to the Faller website (my translation from the German), this is
"a plant using using rotary mills to chop and shred waste containing metals, and featuring exhaust air treatment. Conveyor belts take the waste material through the different stages of treatment, including pre-sorting, screening, separation, compression and crushing".
So more of a scrap metals processor than a mere shredder, and for me quite inte
Some people keep their diplomas, certificates and Oscars in the smallest room; I just make do with a small ever-revolving library. I'm sure I can't be the only one can I?
Anyway, a shot of three books coming out of the reading room neatly summarise what this project will be about.
Last night’s modelling was an attempt to try and finish off the Manor body, adding transfers to the buffer beam and tende, along with the etched names & number plates (Modelmaster).
I am very pleased with the end result, the colour makes a huge difference (so I think I will have to make a start on respraying my Hornby locos to match).
Of course there is one major omission, I have forgotten to add the handrails! I will clearly have to glue them in place, but will try
The paint used for the rust spots was enamel, so was easily removed with white spirit. The approach was to place a few drops on the bristles of a 1/2" flat shader brush and then wipe the brush downwards from the top edge of the body, all the way round the hopper. The eventual effect was to remove most of the thinned application but leave the first application of unthinned spots, and leave vertical streaks of residue. Although irritated at the original look, I'm fairly happy with the situation no
This is Liliput's 140.C from ten years ago or thereabouts, in 1:87. The real thing was made by North British in Glasgow and shipped to France in 1916 as part of an order for the French artillery (see Wikipedia article).
I acquired this one recently. It did not run well; very hesitant, and prone to stopping with the gear in the same position on each revolution of the driving wheels. I dismantled it and found numerous interesting features, any one of which would probably be enough to p
Evening all and hope you had a good Easter,
My 2mmFS mojo seems to have dried up at the moment so the good thing about having a 7mm layout means I can switch focus I also have this week off work so I hope to do some more on this layout.
This entry concerns one of the pieces of rolling stock acquired some years ago as part of the fleet - A Slaters 7mm BR Brake Van. I haven’t made any kits for some years and it seemed a good project to begin this weekend, ahead of the week
I knew an XTC reference would bring John B around to the Meeting Place.
Actually I really fancy a Barnum and wondered if one could be easily kitbashed from the Branchlines parts and other donor bits. It'd look great pulling my Big Express but I'd have to keep an eye on the tender, as I wouldn't want to have a Train Running Low on Soul Coal, obviously. If it didn't work, though, I'd have no choice but to smash it to pieces under a Rein of Blows (although I'd have to go next door as th
It is quite a "clever" kit - the laminated cardboard for the pulleys works well and the colours look good too. I expect a plastic kit would cost a lot more to make.
Hello Rob!
Absolutely; there are definitely advantages to making mock-ups, and one of the many great things about doing so is that there are different ways of doing it; all practically free. That's not to say there is anything inherently wrong with making things up as you go; there's not a project that goes by without something having been made up out of nowhere. However, perhaps it's the apparent perfectionist in me that dictates things will likely go smoother if I put the effort into the pla
I knew an XTC reference would bring John B around to the Meeting Place. Actually I really fancy a Barnum and wondered if one could be easily kitbashed from the Branchlines parts and other donor bits. It'd look great pulling my Big Express but I'd have to keep an eye on the tender, as I wouldn't want to have a Train Running Low on Soul Coal, obviously. If it didn't work, though, I'd have no choice but to smash it to pieces under a Rein of Blows (although I'd have to go next door as th
It is quite a "clever" kit - the laminated cardboard for the pulleys works well and the colours look good too. I expect a plastic kit would cost a lot more to make.
