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Mick Bonwick's Blog

Rails/Dapol SE&CR Diag 1424 Box Van

When tackling weathering subjects I usually start with the underparts and this is no exception, as you have already seen.   The Dullcote application has given a good matt finish for the pigment to be applied. I have used MIG Productions (now Abteilung 502) Dark Mud in this instance and although it has produced a very slightly textured finish it has not hidden the striations completely, which is pretty much as I expected.         On the other side of the v
Blacklade Artamon Square

"Which way shall I turn me?"

I have a new job, and (for the moment) most of the time I will be working from home. When I'm in the office I find myself within walking distance of the mortal remains of the Ipswich dock lines, several of whose locos feature on the Boxfile. The shops are open again. The sun shines and we see blue sky. I've had my first dose of a vaccine.    In the meantime, over the last year of lockdown, there has been time for reflection and clarification. The awkward fact is that I've made much les
Mick Bonwick's Blog

Rails/Dapol SE&CR Diag 1424 Box Van

This model will present several challenges to my approach to weathering. It is 3D printed, so there will be print layer striations to deal with, and the capillary action that I rely upon to highlight detail will, I am sure, not work very well if at all.   When Rails announced the first run of this type of model, I hummed and hahed for too long. They sold out before I decided to do anything positive about it and when the second run was announced I plumped for a pair of SR liveried ones.
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

‘Fire Fly’ class – Part Two

As I carried out my research for this project in Part One (Research), I realised just how difficult it can be to decide what these old engines were actually like!   One of the problems seems to be that, in those days, engines were hand-built by craftsmen who. perhaps, were not so keen on trying to follow a drawing but knew how things should be done!   I noticed, for example, that the shape of the firebox casing on the ‘Fire Fly’ replica is actually quite different from that seen in an
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

9
Lillian's Railway Musings

Pre-Build Ramblings and Thoughts

First blog post, hooray, I think? Not really sure what to put in this yet, more just a ramble about my current 'in-progress' plan so far for a layout, which has only really progressed to a vague idea of what i want the track layout to look like, then realising my tiny flat doesnt have anywhere near enough space after building just a basic loop of track you get in something like the standard Highland Rambler set from Hornby and being a bit frustrated by it combined with high prices of things. So,
Fen End Pit's Blog

J17 - Attempting a 3D printed boiler

I'd spent a fair amount of time trying to solder up a belpaire firebox and despite many attempts I really wasn't that happy with the results. So, as much as an intellectual exercise as with any practical expectation of success, I thought I'd try and model the firebox, boiler and smokebox up in CAD and try to print it. This is very much a 'work in progress' but the results are rather encouraging. The layer lines at a .03mm layer height are virtually invisible to my eye and will disappear even fur
Colwyn Bay Goods - 2mm Finescale

The Green Wall

Just a quick, mostly photographic, update on the recent scenic work carried out.     As described previously, the trees were made from sea foam with the trunks thickened up with builders caulk and ground foam used as leaves. The key is variation of colour and height to give a convincing look, I also painted a green wall on the backscene to ensure to reduce the amount of of blue sky showing through the branches.     And to finish up here are a few artisti
Bryn

Bryn in Scenic

4
Freshwater, Isle of Wight, in 2FS

Three Wheels On My Wagon

Having used my imagination to create a non-descript building supplies/scrap dealership at the far end of the goods yard that I have not found photographs of, I decided the business needed a better means of transporting its wares than the old bicycle. I purchased an Autocraft white metal casting for a 1930's Reliant three wheeled van. This is a nice casting, but there are a couple of omissions. First, there is no interior detail, or floor. Second, are the wheels. Representing spokes in this scale
Fen End Pit's Blog

Level crossing - now in situ.

I've been working on and off on making a level crossing for some years now. I've bounced between the electronic and purely mechanical option but finally come back to the electronics using an Ardiuno to drive a pair of stepper motors with simple micro-switches to detect the limit of travel. There is a 3D printed unit under each gate which can actually drive the gate nearly 100 degrees, this allows some over-travel in each direction to take account of the back-lash on the gates caused by there bei
Barry Ten's Blog

Paynestown: most of the track now laid.

I'm building an N version of my old 4mm Paynestown layout, in anticipation of the Sonic Models 56xx tanks. The new layout will be about half the size of the old and uses Code 40 Finetrax components for the points and plain track.   In the previous exciting installment I showed some laid and partly ballasted track. Well, hold onto your horses, because here's some more laid and partly ballasted track.     At last I've got the basic essentials done, in that
Barry Ten

Barry Ten in GWR

8
Aussie National

Across the channel part 4...

So 70001 is slowly coming together. Not perfect, but quite happy with it for what it is.  Tried adding grab-rails, but this didn't work well. Anything close to scale was extremely fragile, and my sausage fingers snapped them off again in minutes. Anything strong enough to stand a bit of handling was obviously over-scale...  There is some weathering to be done once the loco is back together, which should help to disguise the odd paint issue. I'm modelling the loco towards the end of it'
Jim Champ's "Introduction to Great Western Locomotive Development"

GWR No 34 (1890)

One of a pair of small 0-4-4T constructed under Dean, its believed for branch lines with heavy curvature. They were superficially similar in concept to the ill-starred 3521 class, but considerably smaller, and like the 3521s went through a good number of changes in their early years. They started life in 1890 as 0-4-2 saddle tanks, with the same layout of much shorter spacing between the driving wheels than between the trailing drivers and the trailing wheels. In 1895 they were altered to the fo
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

Gooch Goods – line of development

Following my recent post about research into the ‘Fire Fly’ class engines, @Mikkel remarked “I was wondering when and why Gooch abandoned the Haycock firebox for his own round topped version, e.g. on the Pyracmon class.”   my model of ‘Tantalus’   It reminded me that, when I was preparing my model of ‘Tantalus’, one of Gooch’s ‘Standard Goods’ engines, I had collected together a number of drawings by G F Bird of various engines from this class and its immediate predecessor
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

10
Jam's Workbench

Building A Paint Storage Rack

I've happily spent some of lockdown converting part of our garage into a studio so that I have more space both for modelmaking and music production.  Now that most of the hard work has been done and I've been working in the studio for a couple of weeks, I'm working out exactly what I need with regards to storage/shelving, and how to make the most of the space. Railway modelling is a hobby that seems to bring with it a lot of stuff. Too much stuff, in fact (hence the need for a dedicated room)! S
Paint your wagon

A cautionary tale

Well here’s a tale, we’ll get a back to  2mm wagons and locos soon, there’s a video in hand, but yesterday I was preparing to give a new16mm scale loco a coat of paint when I managed to drop the airbrush needle, in fact it slipped out of the mechanism when I tilted it. The thing is that usually this would be ok, the carpet is soft, the needle big enough to easily find. Not today. Being outdoors, the needle went down between the cracks in the decking. Oh how we laughed, oh how we cried.... Right
Erudhalion's Blog

Wagons and rust (and unreasonable optimism)

So, things have been moving along, although not at a particularly fast pace.   First, the loco coal wagon from the last post. It is not done yet, I've added a bit of rust and wear. The excellent pictures from Mikkel's blog (https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/11531-detail-hunting-at-didcot/) were invaluable for reference. It is all still a bit raw, it needs a wash of general grime to tone things down a bit. I'm reasonably happy with how it is coming
Jim Champ's "Introduction to Great Western Locomotive Development"

GWR No 92

No 92 is one of five small 0-4-0STs, superficially rather similar in appearance, but which were not treated as a class.  With one exception they were late 19thC Wolverhampton reconstructions of older locomotives, and probably retained few original parts.  The first of the group was no 45, built in 1880, which was a new engine, albeit given the number of a Sharp Stewart built locomotive withdrawn a very few years earlier. It had the odd feature of a cab that was only accessible from the righ
Redgate's Modelling

9MT - Body Fabrication Done (Almost)

I know it's been a while, but the weather has been good so gardening and mucking about with my car took priority.    Finally I have made the extended tank tops and filed them down to fit.  First photo shows the tops glued together and a card template I made to help with the fitting to the much wider 9F boiler.     A large file was used to knock them down to size - not one of those tiny little things that we modellers mostly prefer. Here's a shot of the body with ta
Atherington Victoria & East Yard.

'Little Brown Jobs' ; or, homage to an inspiring photo with my new VVVs.

Taking time off from theoretical musings, I have reverted to the 'wagon-load' aesthetic in the general merchandise sidings, to try a homage to one of my favourite photographs around of goods yards, by Mr Kevin Lane :       [73 005, Guildford Yard, February 1980.]   I first came across it in Michael Hymans's 'Southern region through the 1970s year by year', Stroud : Amberley Publishing, 2018, and then discovered it on Flickr.  When I have time, I must browse t
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

‘Fire Fly’ class - Research

Introduction   One thing leads to another and what, for me, started as a small project to build the interesting-looking ‘Posting Carriage’ from the early years of Brunel’s Broad Gauge railway, for the GWR, rapidly extended to include a Luggage Truck and Horse Box.   All these vehicles appeared in some of the beautiful lithographs by J.C Bourne, published in 1846. In particular, his illustration of Bristol Temple Meads Station, shows an engine of Gooch’s ‘Fire-Fly’ class headi
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

5
Atherington Victoria & East Yard.

Terminus station loco-release loop design.

Rather a dry subject, but I hope it will caution others from making this mistake.  Before cutting a single piece of wood, having designed and refined my layout to 'perfection' over the years, the passenger station throat looked like this :   Perfect! I believed.  The junction was only 'two points long', so allowing the maximum length of train either side.  Trains could depart to the left, and be un-coupled by the 'Hand of God' un-seen behind a tall warehouse.   However,
Midland Railway during the early 1900s in 2FS

Forge Gate Goods Warehouse - 1

Firstly, thanks to everyone that commented on the first post, and the wide range of thoughts, suggestions and help that those comments contained.  Its one of the aspects I do love about rmWeb, people are happy and willing to share their knowledge and help modellers to achieve better end results.  In my case, its appreciated and has spurred me on a bit.   So, as I said last time, the first module to be built will be Forge Gate Goods Warehouse.  The intention is that this will be a three
ROSSPOP's GWR 7mm Etched Kit Loco Builds

Scorpio Models 7mm GWR Steam Railmotor kit build.

With aging hands and eyesight this will be the last kit build for me as I`ve now got quite a selection of builds to play with, plus it`s time to start playing with them all.   I`ve been wanting to build one of these for quite a while and took the plunge just after Christmas.   £ 400  gets you a complete kit including wheels and a motor/gearbox kit plus all the  detail parts in either lost wax or white metal including seating parts for the passenger saloon. Scorpio supply three instruct

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