I recently finished the ratio Toad kit.
The whole thing was sprayed halfords white primer then humbrol 64 light grey. The solebar and below are revell matt black and handrails etc painted white.
I wanted to have the van allocated to Croesnewydd although I have no photos of a BR era van with this legend. The areas for black were masked and sprayed.
As @Mikkel suggested I used an HMRS sheet to construct the croesnewydd but only had the general wagon sheet
Before moving northward I picked up a bargain couple of kits from John Dutfield in Chelmsford. The subject of this blog is the Ratio toad kit bought for £3.
It is showing its age and 'requires' some uplifting procedures. I was inspired by Geoff Kent's upgrade of this kit in his 3rd book on the 4mm wagon.
The kit has a nice shape to it but the handrails along the body side aare moulded and are fairly thick. Again, this is a matter for taste and their is little value in cr
I have been working on a couple of Autos for Caia Road. This has included a comet BR(w) auto, an uplifted airfix and a Bachmann example.
I have been doing a bit of weathering and have given the airfix one a spray of muck. The roof remains loose as I need to finish some details inside.
The sides were kept relatively clean on the airfix coach
I made a bit of a mess (not in the intended way) of the Bachmann example but have tried to correct this. I have gone quite heavy
I have tonight ckmpleted decals on the Presflo kit. The wagon was primed with Halfords red oxide and then I droped the whole thing on the floor. Some detail was losr and a couple of cracks needed to be sorted. The project was very close to being binned!
But....
I persisted and I am rather happy with the decals. The colour is mixed from Mr Hobby brownds which I have never used before and , although not righyt provide a base for an interesting weathering project.
I need to p
I have fitted the Bachmann detailing part to both ends of the coach and positioned my autogear.
The result is just how I like my modelling - completely out of view and hardly worth the bother! I know it's there and enjoy fiddly plastikard things.
I am building a model of a prototype location in Wrexham NE Wales. Caia Road goods was a small set of sidings along the Wrexham - Ellesmere Cambrian branch.
Before closure in 1962 the mainstay of passenger traffic was made up of 14xx and autocoaches.
Here is a airfix coach being upgraded using the MJT detail kit...
A BR(w) auto coach I built using the comet kit...
And a bargain from Rails of Sheffield bought not so long ago...
I have copied the bits and bo
I am of the habit to start a project enthusiastically and then to gradually abandon half completed projects.
This time I am determined to complete and have powered on to complete the construction side of things...
The side pipe was attached (on the wrong side initially as is the custom) and handle attached to the hatches. The catwalk located holes were filled ready for a scratchbuilt replacement.
The side pipe is .8mm brass rod. It is linked to the gauge using fuse wire. B
I haven't used the blog section for a while and thought I would show what I have been up to this weekend.
I enjoy kitbuilding rolling stock, particularly wagons. Here are a few "improvements" I have made to the Dapol/airfix/kitmaster presflo wagon...
A few changes include...
Drilling out the sole bar mounted end steps as they are solid on the model but open on the prototype.
Some additional brake rigging detail An object which looks like a tie bar.
Lanark
This project is reaching it's conclusio and I am pleased with the results.
I opted for hand painting the body which was achieved using 5 thin coats of Phoenix Precision BR Blue. The Roof was painted humbrol 166 light grey. I failed to spot the cantrail and roof ends are painted br blue so I am currently applying coats in the correct places.
Transfers are modelmaster, the numbers being applied individually.
The body was sprayed halfords matt laquer which I
Below are some of the improvements I have attempted on the Lima LMS GUV/CCT. The coach was a chance find item in a chance find model shop on a day trip to Gravesend.
The model was in "as new" condition before an inital brake fluid bath to remove the paint. The fluid did not manage to shift everything but as I intended to file and sand away alot of tge beading detail I felt removol of the lettering and numbers would be enough.
Detail was scraped away with a brand new chi
Some progress has been made with the Lima GUV/cct.
A coat of red oxide on the the body revealed some nasty gouges where I scraped the beading away. Obviously lacked the finesse/patience!!
Imperfections were sanded, filled with revell plasto (only thing they had in hobbycraft but rather good) and further sanding.
The bogies where sprayed black, wheels popped in and sides glued on. It is quite tough getting wheels in and out without bending the frames ou
I have recently replaced the platform lights hopefully giving more of a western region feel.
The post was cut from cardboard repurposed from old sketchbooks. I have found this material gives a good representation of the concrete used for these 1940/50's lamp posts.
The lamp fitting was turned out of some laminated plastikard, mounted in a mini drill and turned to shape.
A small piece of brass wire creates the fitting . The post is painted a humbrol wood colour
So i have come to realise i have a growing obsession with parcels vehicles.
I have also been stretching my kit building muscles recently so thought i would combine the two and build the ratio kit of tge SR bogie B.
Here it is in it's unboxed state.
I have also just poured a wheat beer so progress of any kind is not guaranteed this evening.
Happy modelling for now.
I have posted bits and bobs of this project elsewhere but it has been a while since I have blogged anything and I wanted record the progress with a "lockdown" project.
Back in January I was given two Dapol LMS brake vans by my Dad. They were missing bits but he thought I might want to do something with them.
Both were missing roofs and one missing an inner door panel. The plan was to revive at least one which I did, replacing handrails and scratch building a roof.
I have a more detailed thread of this over at the modifying RTR forum but thought I would share a brief account of what I am up to.
I resurrected an old Dapol LMS van earlier this year and had one which was a bit rougher left over. So, I thought I would have a go at a more in-depth conversion.
I intend to create a reverse stanier van by making a few changes.
I have cut out the panels on the verandas and intend to fix them in reverse on the opposing sides.
Hi folks,
Have been self isolating yet again so stole some "working from home" time to get nearer to completion a project that has been hanging around for quite a while.
I bought an old Bachmann conflat wagon with A-type container over a year ago from an exhibition. I had ummed and ahhed about either buying a Bachmann one, which I knew had a detailed container but less refined wagon OR a parkside kit and cambrian container kit plus transfers.
I went with the
I have struggled to find detailing kits for my DMU stock for some time. I had underestimated how hard it would be to make simple updates to affordable models (those were teh days it seems). I recall using Howes bufferbeam details to upgrade my Lima locos as a teenager back in the 90s. Anyway, it seems craftsman kits and the like are well out of business and being unable to find Heljan sprues from the DPU 128 model i set about making my own.
I used .8 and .5mm brass wi
Here are some pictures of a spontaneous modelling decision i took recently.
I am sure i have seen this done here and before i knew it i was tearing off the door and bashing some new ones.
The doors have a huge gap at the top and oversized hinges to enable an opening action. The roof is also too thick...oh and the decals don't look right to me.
Due to slightly heavy handedness the kit doors were broken to new ones fashioned from plastikard.
As described in my previous blog post i have been improving (attempting to) a Dapol meat van kit i previously built as per the instructions. This involved scratch building some new doors.
The original paint job was phoenix bauxite weathered with powders and decalfix wash. This appeared too dark and was not helped by the oversized decals supplied in the kit.
I didn't bother stripping the paint, simply scraping away the decals and a layer of halfords grey primer over the
A couple of notes on the details.
Sadly, my local model shop didn't have lamp irons in stock. As i am prone to impatience i fashioned the upper side irons out of plastikard cutnintonthin strips and welded at a 90 deg angle. The lower one were made from brass handrails i had left over from another build.
The safety rail for the veranda is 0.3mm wire.
The vacuum pipe arrangement is made from 0.8mm brass wire and a springside (i think) steam heat pipe i had in the odds
Hi All,
As i continue to be on a very infrequent work rota i have checked off quite of few of those not so glamorous jobs i have been meaning to do for...well years really. One of my lock down foci have been a coupe of my kit-built brake vans. One of these was the very first kit i built on my "pre-return" to the hobby. i say pre-return as i had no layout, no prospect of a layout and to be honest i didn't really get back into the hobby for a further 6 or so years after i built it.
For a layout set in 1970, Templefield has been sadly lacking my favourite locomotive; the ubiquitous class 47. The hole in my loco stable was recently filled by a Bachmann 47 in the perfect livery for the era, and one that suits these locos superbly, two tone green with full yellow ends.
Lovely as it is, there is no way the livery would have been as immaculate as the factory finish and so, some gratuitous "filthying" needed to happen.
The loco was dismantled, windows rem
Evening folks,
Here are the concluding stages of some painting and weathering I have been working on. Again, as with my quick and dirty weathering blogs, I do not own an airbrush and have endeavoured to produce something comparable to the results one can get with an airbrush (but acknowledging the superiority of the airbrush).
Here is the wagon painted using different tones and modelmaster decals added. I use decalfix by humbrol to silvering as I didn't want to gloss var
Evening folks,
Completed a couple of Parkside opens recently and took a few pictures of the painting process.
It has involved a few techniques i have read about and a bit of experimentation.
The wagon is primed using halfords grey Matt spray, the body brush painted with phoenix precision pre 1964 bauxite, thinned right down.
I paint the underframes humrol dark grey 34.
I used humbrol stone colour, humbrol light grey and humbrol
Here is the completed Ration kit of the SR Bogie B van. As discussed in previous posts about the build, the kit is complex but satisfying.
I am happy with the overall impression the model gives. The weathering is as outlined in my quick and dirty weathering post.
Briefly, the body is sprayed matt and then decalfix and powders used. The underframe uses brake dust colour as well as up the body sides. These are applied more generously nearest the bottom of the
