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About this blog

Tavistock GWR - a 2mm finescale blog by John Brenchley

Entries in this blog

2mm LMS Vans - A tale of Two Vans

It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly 5 years since I last wrote a blog on this forum and actually, most of the work I’m about to describe was completed about 9 months ago. I recently decided that in order to make my wagon fleet more representative of the Big 4, I needed some LMS vans.  The Association shop sells 3 plastic body kits that are suitable for my era - a twin pack from the N Scale Society and a single 2mm scale version. I was concerned that the N Scale versions would look to

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

A Selection of 2mm Scale Open Wagons

Since my last post I’ve been trying to catch up with the backlog of unmade wagon kits that have been sitting in my “to do” box for far too long.   Before giving some details and final pictures of each wagon, the above picture is a fun little test for the wagon experts among you – can you identify the wagons with only a coat of grey primer? They are all constructed from the 2mm Scale Association plastic body kits with the appropriate etched chassis.   Well – how did you get on? The DC1 and DC

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

2mm Scale GWR Diagram AA16 Brake Van

What with a change of job and one or two modelling projects either stalling or taking longer than expected, it’s been a while since I last posted on RMweb though I didn’t realise till now that it was over 18 months.   Having recently finished the paint job on a couple of GWR wagons and taken some final pictures now seems a good time to add a blog about the diagram AA16 brake van.   Detailed notes on the construction of this David Eveleigh designed etched kit have already been written up by G

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

2mm Midland wagons D299 and D305 - finishing off

Before painting and lettering the two Midland open wagons, I spent quite some time studying Essery's Midland Wagons Vol 1 looking for examples in LMS livery.   I eventually decided that the majority of the 3 plank D305 wagons built with the shorter brake lever did not have either side brakes with levers on the right but in fact only had brake blocks on one side . On the opposite side, there was a lever at the left hand end which operated the brakes via a cross shaft.   Although the model wa

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

2mm LNWR diagram 88 van - finishing off

Since reaching the stage shown at the end of my last blog on this wagon, I did not make much progress while working on other projects but I continued looking for photographs, particularly of wagons in LMS livery.   At this point, my modelling took on rather masochistic tendancies as I realised from photographs that there seemed to be some sort of beading either side of the corner framework and also near the bottom of the wagon side. This seemed quite noticeable but was not allowed for on the

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

2mm Midland van D257

As the weather here in Perth, Western Australia has been too hot for me to use an airbrush outside, I decided to press on with making another of the 2mm Scale Association's kits and wait for cooler days before painting all the LMS vehicles in one go.   This one was for the Midland Railway's diagram 257 van. The date on the etch is 2007 so it has been around for a while and I have noticed examples of completed vans in pictures elsewhere on this site but I am not sure if anyone has posted any d

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

2mm Midland wagons D299 and D305

Having almost reached the painting stage with the LNWR van, I decided that since it was to be painted in LMS livery, rather than get the air brush set up for just one model, I might as well build the two Midland wagons that had been sitting in my "to do" box for a couple of years and finish them in LMS livery as well.   The 2mm Scale Association kit for these wagons comes with a plastic sprue containing the sides and floor for both a 3 plank and 5 plank open in the same double kit. An etched

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

2mm LNWR diagram 88 van - the chassis

The etched nickel silver chassis that comes with this kit is similar to the standard chassis type that is now being sold by the 2mm Scale Association for use with a variety of wagons - correct variations being available to suit each region, wagon length etc. It is great to have these accurate kits available as it avoids having to make compromises that used to be forced on me when I started in N scale with kits being stretched or shrunk to fit an incorrect Peco chassis.     On the left is t

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

2mm scale LNWR diagram 88 van - building the van body

I’ve had one of the 2mm Scale Association’s etched kits for the LNWR diagram 88 van for quite some time and as a change from laying roof slates on my model of Tavistock’s train shed roof, thought the Christmas and New Year holidays would be an ideal time to make a start on it.   The kit is etched entirely in nickel silver and has been described by several people as “challenging”. The main reason for this is probably because of the extremely delicate nature of the etched strapping overlay as c

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

Tavistock roof - one side now complete

Over the Christmas break, amongst other modelling projects, I've continued with the roof slates.   Having reached the top of the skylights/dormers, before adding further rows of slates, I needed to add ridge capping to each of the 6 skylights. Photographs do not really show this clearly but I assumed it would be lead capping fitted over a thin rod. I had some 9 thou steel guitar string left over from the roof trusses so used this, supergluing short lengths along the top of each ridge. For th

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

Tavistock - continued slate laying

My idea is to report progress on a weekly basis but that presupposes that I have actually got somewhere in the last week. Obviously, slate laying is a slow process as I am still on the first side but the worst is probably over as I've got past the skylights. It was tricky to lay the slate strips round these because of the angles but the rest should go a bit quicker now.     The framework for the skylights had to have a coat of dirty light stone prior to laying the slates as I would not be

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

Starting work on the roof slates

When I joined RMWeb and posted some pictures to a gallery (3 Dec 2011) I had reached the stage where the train shed roof for Tavistock was structurally complete but needed the slates added to it. The picture attached shows the roof as it was last Saturday.     The slates I have used in the past on the station building were produced by Ian Barefoot under the trade name of ClearSolutions and are printed as sticky labels on good quality paper. As these worked very well for the building roof,

John Brenchley

John Brenchley

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