I've been working on a chassis and detailing kit for a Bachmann Ivatt class 2 2-6-0 tender loco for several years now with my friends from Brassmasters. Progress has been sporadic but we recently received another set of test etches from PPD and this time we got two copies, one is being build by one of the Brassmasters team using the full Easi-Chas approach using the Bachmann motor and gears and mine is being built using a High Level gearbox and motor. This later option allows you to fill in the
The station waiting shelter on platform at Clare is an attractive '1865 style' medium building. The building currently has a sign in the window which says 'coming soon - model railway' but I don't know what is planned or who is building it. Platform 1 by the way is a now a very pleasant little cafe which does a damn good bacon roll.
I've been trying to refine my technique for making these because I felt that the quions (the raised brickwork) on the previous attempt was a little too m
So Phil asked 'Could your gadgetry print wagon bodies' and attached a photograph of a Cavan and Leitrim 3' gauge 4-plank coal wagon and a 2D drawing he'd made. Well I couldn't let that challenge go could I? Over the course of the festive season we have bounce various images and drawing back and forth as I hopefully got closer to the prototype. Photographs are somewhat elusive, I don't think many people who got to travel on the C&L bothered taking pictures of mundane old coal wagons. This one
A few more printing projects over the last week. I found some nice pictures on the internet of the same sort of tortoise stove I'd seen at Thelkeld. The hardest bit to model up was the 'Celtic rope' design around the top, mind you I'm not sure drawing tortoises is my strong suite. The text around the top is tiny, the letters are .8mm tall and are have .25mm of relief. That they are visible once printed is nothing short of miraculous. I couldn't actually make out the text on the raw print and it
An order to Modelmaster produced suitable transfers for the 16t minerals I've built up over the last few months. The plaintive requests on their website asking for people not to bother ringing them to chase order were unnecessary as delivery was 4 days!
The ease of not having to put every b£$"d% number on individually is certainly a major advantage if you are like me and don't really mind if the number isn't exactly correct. I had no problems getting them to float to the position I needed an
Inspired by Roy Link's model documented in The Crowsnest Chronicles and at the request of a user on 'another well known Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling Online forum' I modeled up the weighing equipment to go into a weighbridge hut. I'm quite pleased with the result and it captures the prototype pretty well. I was amused that the drawing in Roy's book didn't actually match the model he'd built and I opted to cheat with a design for the scroll-work found for me by Google.
First a couple
Thanks for all the comments and ideas on this project both on and off this forum. I'm getting the ideas to jell now, trying to balance all the features I want with practical considerations such as size and construction effort.
I was originally considering something which would give me a couple of options, on the left we had the inside of the shed/workshop and then on the right we had the outside of the building with the gable end. This idea would be about 3' x ~1'6". The Thelkeld she
As I had to take the chassis apart to solder the brake hangers on (they were too close to the wheels for comfort) I opted to paint the chassis while everything was accessible. The frames were brush painted with some enamel primer and the a coat of Humbrol matt black, which amazingly dried matt. I then picked out the valve gear with some Humbrol gun metal to give a slightly shiny look of steel. A quick blast of acrylic railmatch 'frame dirt' has toned it down a bit.
Another task completed wa
I've managed to build the platform starter for the Up line following the description of making a tubular post signal in Mick Nicholson's Constructing and Operating Semaphore Signals (Booklaw publications 1999) I'm pretty pleased with it, particularly the coloured 'Crystal Klear' for the lenses. It still needs the lamp fitting which is why you can see the colours from the rear. Operation is via a servo controlled using a MERG servo4 card (which also gives me bounce).
Having positioned t
A trip to Thelkeld gave an opportunity to get some more inspiration for my 16mm photo-plank. It was a rather windy and rainy day and being out-of-season trains were being operated by a Hudson diesel giving Sir Tom a rest.
The shed doors were shut against the wind and the sky 'somewhat overcast'.
A request in the office and the helpful folk were more than happy to let me take a look inside. Before going in I took a look at the inspection pit which is covered over by
So I managed to put the chimneys onto the station building and don't they make a difference! I had made myself more work by cutting the holes in the roof based on the plans I had of Lavenham station from Jas Millham. It turns out that Lavenham had considerably more ornate brick work than Clare and the bases of the chimneys were quite a bit large. I don't know if this was the local builder interpreting the plans he was given differently (trying save money on his contract?) or if they might have b
Last week I finally managed to get back on to doing some scenic work on the main layout, I was waiting until I had both platforms cut and assembled and that was waiting on getting the platform 2 building built. I managed to get the track through the platforms painted and ballasted and then the basic ground works cut in polystyrene, scupltamolded and painted.
This evening I drove a few trains around to celebrate. The Brush Type 2 arrives with the pickup goods while the Cravens DMU wa
Over the last week I managed to make up a number of tiny pieces of nickel silver into lots of rods with complicated names.
The radius rods and expansion links comprised of about 24 little bits of metal.
These fitted into the motion brackets ok and didn't foul any of the other parts I'd made up already.
Next up were the return crank and the eccentric rod. The return crank needed to be tapped to fit over the crank pin on the centre axl
I had a first go at weathering the Ferguson tractor. I don't really have much experience with weathering vehicles and even less experience with Vallejo acrylics. I think I'm fairly happy with the outcome but would welcome your opinions. I do note looking a the prices of tractors on Ebay that I have added a couple of thousand to the price by weathering it as it would appear that you pay less for a 'restored' tractor than you do for a 'barn find' by about £2000.
I've started making a lathe for my model workshop. Boy does it have a lot of pieces! I've still got the gearing on the drive end to do and the bracket which holds the top set of pulley wheels. I'm not slavishly copying this photograph but trying to make something which looks lathe-like.
The main bed of the lathe worked out to be too big to print on the Anycubic photon in a single piece so, as it was a relatively simple shape and could be sanded easily, I printed it on my
After several weeks and lots of help from RMwebber UAX6 I now finally have the Type A and Type B telephone exchange completed. For such relatively simple building there are some subtle details which are quite difficult to get right. The slight 'pagoda' look to the hip roof of the B and the little tiles on the quoins of the smaller Type A.
There a a few very interesting websites with lots of photographs of different exchanges and these have lots of photographs of similar buildings fro
A fair amount of fettling got the boiler to a decent fit around the splashers. I also enlarged and elongated the holes for the washout plugs, soldered a piece of scrap brass behind them and then drilled this with a hole into which a tiny length of nickel silver about .8mm square was soldered to form the bolt.
I adjusted the upper part of the frames to match the drawings and the boiler length by taking them off, re-drilling and positioning the handrails and then putting them back on agai
Last night and tonight I made up some Brassmasters etched windows for the warehouse. I think these make quite a difference. Next step is probably going to be working out how to do the roof. One the one hand I fancy doing something with a pitched (maybe hipped) roof, but on the other I'm concerned how that might look given that the backscene means there would be no straight lines.
I think this calls for some cereal packet mock-ups!
David
I've made some good progress on the Dave Bradwell B1 chassis. I fitted some pickups, made up the brakes and then refitted the pickups as they conflicted with the brakes! This got me a chassis which could move under its own power from the track. I then spent a good few hours fettling the slide bars to get the crosshead casting running smoothly.
This was quite entertaining and the result was pretty good, the lower part of the slidebar is just pinned together by the 4 lengt
In my previous blog entry I talked about using planning records to help research buildings at Clare. These have certainly help but what has helped even more is the advice and assistance from another RMweb contributor. Uax6 immediately recognized two small builds as Type A and Type B telephone exchange buildings and was able to give me loads of information regarding their construction. The 16 page 1950's tender document informing contractors the requirements to build one of these buildings was fa
While waiting for Eileen's to delivery a replacement soldering so I could continue on the Dave Bradwell B1 I made some more progress on the goods shed.
This morning I cut a load of post labels for slates and then this afternoon I painted the basic brick and slate colours on the building.
I need to wait for this paint to really dry and harden before going to the next stage with Wilco fine filler. I also need to paint the various engineering bricks and s
One of the photographs I have of Clare shows a row of bee hives on the bank next to the line. I modeled a bee hive up and printed them out on my Anycubic photon. Bear in mind that these are 6mm x 8mm, so pretty damn tiny.
I need to paint them but the row looks the part I think.
No I am NOT going to produce 4mm scales bees!
David
I'll deal with the crisis of conscience first.
Friday night was spent looking long and hard at the loco body trying to work out if everything was square. The trouble with a curvy footplate is you have nothing solid to gauge anything else off, I can see why some manufacturers build the curved valancing into a fold-up square etch so you can have something flat to work on. After much soul searching I've decided that while there are a couple of bits which aren't exactly perfect the chance of get
Last night I spent an hour or so making up the cab floor and the splashers for the inside of the cab....
Then I looked at what I'd made and thought, hang on, how are a driver and a fireman meant to stand in there, let alone swing a shovel or reach a regulator. Then I realised that the splashers were of course made to clear an OO gauge back-to-back so were by necessity about 4mm closer together than they were meant to be according to the drawings I have. Unfortunately the only choice was
More drawing and laser cutting and the Platform 2 building is coming along nicely.
I've now cut the complete building in 3mm MDF and painted it the base brick colours. The best approach to keep the quoins clean and crisp seems to be to 'grout' the main shell with the fine filler I use in the mortar before applying them. The cream coloured quoins don't show the white mortar much anyway and the Vallejo grey wash I add afterwards seems to blend things together nicely.
