I've been a bit busy fiddling with dodgy electronics recently but haven't produced anything worth adding to the blog (yet). However I have also found time to build another Dave Bradwell brake van chassis so thought folks might like to see a picture. On the left is the completed one from last year, on the right the one I've just finished. I decided to do a slightly different version of van, this time with the shortened foot boards. These kits really are enjoyable to put together, a bit fiddly in
So the E4 got some transfers and looks a lot better for it. I have then picked out the various brass fitments in Humbrol metallic paint and finally given the loco a light covering of Humbrol matt varnish before adding a light dusting of Railmatch Frame Dirt.
I'm quite pleased with the results, it has blended the areas where I'd had to retouch the black nicely.
Left to do are the crew, the buffers and enough coal to get from Cambridge to Marks Tey and back.
As a half painted loco
I usually only blog about model railway stuff but I hope you'll excuse this little ramble because it does include some pictures of trains! After a significant number of years and now the kids are both big enough to look after themselves my good lady wife and I had our first foreign trip. The boss wanted to 'do' some Christmas markets and we settled on Berlin. We'd never been and as she had spent 5 months behind the Iron Curtain in Moscow just after we started going out it seemed an interesting d
Not much happened on the Stour Valley over the past couple of weeks as I slowly prepared for the East Anglia Model Railway show in Kettering. I was invited at comparatively short notice to fill in for another layout. Several of my usual crew weren't available but I was luckily able to persuade (press-gang) KH1 and Nawty Quay to come and help out to bolster the team. Thanks also due to John and Michael for their help too.
Over the period of a couple of weeks I was able to work through
So, this one is a bit detailed and has a few ramblings.... Sorry
Some modellers are very clever, they come out with perfectly formed designs, work tirelessly to bring them to fruition and produce superb pieces of work first time. Some practice 'slow modelling', being superbly organized, only getting out the tools and materials needed to for the job in hand and breathing deeply while wielding their scalpels. Much respect it due to these folks, if you feel you fit into these categories
As today wasn't too cold I managed to get out to the laser-cutter and cut the the two sheets of ply needed to make the cassette shelf for the fiddle-yard. This is a single board nearly 6 feet long which is held on the wall by some ply brackets. The shelf is now on the wall and I am really happy with the result.
I also managed to get the point to my fictitious 'mill siding' laid. I've used the new Peco bull-head rail joiners to join the point to the plain track here and they are exc
Work on the lathe continued, I had several more pieces to model up and a couple of changes to some of the first attempts at detail parts. The final CAD drawing looks quite attractive.
To those who think 3D printing is 'cheating' I think I should point out this was more of 'home kit production' as the lathe has almost 30 separate pieces. The parts almost filled the build plate on my Anycubic photon twice over and each print job took about 4 1/2 hours.
I got th
I have been making some more coal wagons for a friend's Irish project. The first attempt were slightly too narrow because some idiot (me) got the dimension wrong on the 3D model. Having fixed that we now have a models of 3 different types of wagon and the beginnings of a coal train. The wagon chassis department is apparently working at peak capacity assembling etched underframes.
The 3 wagons are subtly different, one design has two doors in the middle while the other two have a pair
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
My son bought me a little present for my birthday, a tiny video camera. It fits nicely on a flat wagon and conforms to British loading gauge in 4mm scale. The inevitable result has been a Youtube video showing a run through the station.
It shows up my dodgy track building rather well and I need to get better with the video editing software to fix the colour balance a bit better. I did try the 'black and white old film' effect which is really rather fun but I thought I'
Given that I have now got trains moving I thought I'd put up a bit of video to show it.
I've also managed to fit the first uncoupling magnet so I can play about with Alex Jackson couplings. While most of my old stock has them fitted some need a bit of adjustment and some need the magnetic droppers replacing as they aren't the right length. Still I can shunt a train up and down and break it where I want so I'm happy.
Hope you like it
David
I spent most of this afternoon with soldering iron, files and a 'hold and fold'. My 'Traction Ears' now slide smoothly in my 'Traction Horns' and even the job of dismantling the Bachmann chassis and modifying the gear drive was only made difficult by not being able to find a sharp drill that could cleaning cut the rather soapy plastic of the bogie easily. So far I am vary impressed with how this is going together and I'm looking forward to the 'rolling test' to see how the springing works.
This weekend I had a good few hours to do some concentrated work on the layout. The track on the main boards is coming on well and the two points at the right hand end of the loop got finished off. There was nearly a disaster here which took a bit of working around. I had made a small mistake early on with the very first board I built. I had carefully laser cut all the pieces of framing and then assembled them and stuck them to the bottom of the baseboard. Unfortunately I put one piece on the wr
Thanks to some encouragement from one of my friends this week I got around to trying to layer some additional grass textures on the cutting sides. I used Peco Scene Layering Spray which worked pretty well, it doesn't seem to colour the existing grass but holds the next layer of static grass securely. Getting different lengths and colours of grass fibres makes quite a difference to the overall look.
The pickup goods approaches the overbridge on its way from Clare to Caven
Well the time came and I finally took the plunge.
Sometimes you just get to the point where you need a fresh start so last week I carefully removed and dismantled all of the 'jigsaw' boards, stripped off all the under baseboard electrics and got back to a clean slate. I would like to state for the record that this was not purely because the editor of Scalefour news had asked for some words! In fact, as I took things apart I realised just how amazing it was that anything ran on the layout at
I modeled up the alternative battery box which had the peaked roof rather than just a flat top. I also completed the second chassis, which had a couple of little modifications over the first version. This time I added the spring tags onto the High Level hornblocks and added supports for a length of sprung steel wire. The result is that the axles are now properly sprung. As the sprung wire connects electrically to the hornblocks and the wheels I used it to feed power up to the motor. I've also m
The last few days have been spent putting a hipped roof on top of my Scalescenes constructed goods warehouse. As I've built the various units I've been developing the method and thought people might be interested in the order of construction which worked best for me.
First up is a general picture of the building I've been putting the roof on. This is a railway owned goods warehouse positioned next the a viaduct on my North-East London 'Empire Basin' layout in P4.
The shape of t
Some time ago my Lister stopped working during an exhibition, it was returned to its stock box in disgrace and, in the absence of any exhibition outings to provide the impetus to repair it, there it had stayed. However a birthday present of a copy of 'Picking, Packing and Processing of Peat' by Paul Webb published by the Moseley Railway Trust spurred me into action. It contained too many nice photographs and drawings of Lister locomotives for me to ignore the overdue repair. Dismantling the lo
Or in other words all 16 ton mineral wagons might look the same at first but they are not all equal.
In this case we have a slope sided 16 ton mineral from Parkside , a standard 16 ton with morton brakes from Airfix and finally on the right a fitted 16 ton with the longer wheel base, tie rods between the W-irons and a somewhat rusty bauxite livery.
All I have to do is remember to couple the fitted wagon next to the locomotive to increase the brake force available.
David
After another entertaining Friday evening the valve gear is complete. I realized I had jumped ahead of myself in the instruction and missed the brake-hangers which need to be added and then have the central bit cut away, before the final part of the valve gear can be soldered in place. The result looks pretty fiendish, but it really is just an exercise in soldering lots of laminations of nickel silver together.
When you put the body on you obviously can't see most of it, but I think it
I've been doing a lot of test running over the last few days, running trains around at ludicrous speeds and watching what falls off where then trying to fix it. I've also had various older bits of stock out and been working over issues on them.
So out of the draw came the old faithfully Gibson J15, powered by a small portescap with an extra idler gear. I tried shunting wagons in and out of the coal siding and it kept stalling so it was out with the cotton buds and lighter fuel. Just
Friday night meant a meeting with friends and the handing over of a length of 22mm diameter brass tube freshly purchased from Eileen's Emporium. I'd decided fairly early on that I wanted to replace the rolled etch in the PDK kit with a length of tube and I think I've made the right choice. Although the etch was rolled the fact that it had a number of holes already etched in it when it was rolled had meant that the curve wasn't completely smooth, also as it was still about 5mm larger in diameter
In case my 16mm musings made folks fear I'd been loosing interest in the P4 I wanted to show you that I used the last few days to make some more uncouplers for Alex Jackson couplings. I thought I'd put some pictures on here to show what I'd been up to.
The uncoupling magnets are made from two 3D printed parts with a plastruct tube insert, that gives a freer sliding movement that just making the 3D printed 'plunger' fit directly in the hole. The printer is not particularly well tuned
I've started another substantial building on the layout, this time it is the railway owned goods warehouse. The idea is that this is a building with the track at viaduct level and a road entrance at ground level. The upper floors being used for storage. Construction is based around the use of Scalescenes brick paper and arches together with Brassmaster's etched windows.
Please let me know what you think. I'm wondering if I can find a way to write 'Great Eastern Railway' in the brick wor
