These are the coaches after the first visit to the paint shop, lining and numbering to be done. Have you noticed they don't give you enough "W"s on the transfer sheets. I'm gonna be left with tons of left over lettering and numbering from these transfer sheets. I wonder if I can sell partly used sheets on ebay .
Rovex
Apropos of nothing in particular I was wondering why Hornby decided to model the 57ft GWR collett composite coach and get the compartment dimensions wrong. For those not in the know it is supposed to have four first class compartments and three third class. Now, whilst the division in the corridor side is in the correct place in the coach one of the first class compartments is actually the wrong size. Its got third class dimensions.
It has occured to me that this coach shares the same chassi
Those who have been following my long winded efforts to build my model railway may remember that I lifted all the trackwork following a failed experiment in securing both the cork underlay and the track using spray adhesive. The warm weather saw expansion which resulted in track lifting and the cork bubbling. As the track had not been pinned the adhesive didn't prove up to the job.
So reluctantly the whole lot was lifted and I decided that I had to start again. Well the starting was delayed
track laying has recommenced. I don't know if I've mentioned this before but following an expansion problem and an experimental track fixing method I lifted all the track on my layout and decided to start again.
This time 4mm cork underlay has been glued down with copious amounts of undiluted PVA glue. On top of this the track plan has been pasted. It was printed out on heavy duty printer paper and then pasted down with wallpaper paste. This should ensure that the track is in the right place
I have been a busy bee today and have got the carcases for both the 70 ft brake third and the corridor all third roughly cut out and glued together.
The brake is made up from three of the Hornby 57 ft brake thirds - it could probably be more economically done, the only real difference is that the luggage compartment is bigger - having three sets of double doors and a greater space between them. However nothing has been wasted as the bits left obver from the compartments from two of the brak
Heres a few photos of the concourse as mocked up.
Its made from 80 thou plastic sheet, supported beneath by 80 thou strips cut 10 mm wide. On top of this will go scribed paving to bring it up to the level of the building and metcalfe cobbles for the road surface.
And here's one of the main entrance to the GWR offices
Well, back to work
Rovex
Having discovered that my brickwork should have been white, I got my spray can out and whited out the brickwork again. Once completely dried I gave this a wash over with diluted black enamel, varying the mix so as not to give a variation in colour. Areas were washed down with more white spirit (like the front of the columns) to add greater variety.
Have also started building both attic pavilions. The arched heads were done with a 10 mm flat drill to make sure there were equal. Ordinary drill
With the aid of the annual bonus from work I've purchased teh home for Brackhampton. Its at the end of the Garden and thus allows the long suffering other half to be free of all things model railway. It was put up surprisingly quickly on Saturday and once boarded out will give approximately 21ft by 14.5 ft to fit the railway in.
Right, where did I leave that number of the builders yard
Rovex
Whilst I await some decent weather so that I can order the materials to line out the new shed without them getting soaked I've been dabbling with building the North Box for the station. This is based on the old one at Birmingham Snow Hill, which was some 50ft by 10 ft and stood on girder stilts because of the restricted site.
The basis of the cabin are some butchered sides from a number of the Hornby GWR Dunster Signal boxes, the windows whilst typucally GWR do not match those of the prototy
It being too cold to be in the shed, I have spent the day playing with Sketchup.
Opposite the entrance to Snow Hill id the Great Western Arcade. It was built over the tunnel carrying the tracks from Moor Street to Snow Hill. Originally it had a very impressive facade but this fell victim to enemy action and was burnt out. Rather than restore it after the war it was demolished and for a long time the arcade was somewhat truncated.
A modern building now occupies the site but the original a
The latest CAD ramblings.
I've been playing with the canopy parts to see if construction could be made simpler by putting all the parts together and this is the result.
I've ordered three of these to test out the modular design and see if it works. if it does I shall be selling a lot of unopened ratio canopy kits.
The eagle eyed amogst you will have spotted that one of the arms on the support has lost its detail. I don't know why this keeps happening, but it does not look like
I recently purchased an old MTK kit of Ebay of a Sunshine stock slip coach to diagram F24. I'm not a great fan of MTK kits, for those who don't know they come with the sides and roof and solebars all folded up from one sheet of aluminium and they usually have badly fitting ends.
It was described as an unknown kit but resarch before I bid allowed me to discover the coach type and for £12 I didn't think I could go far wrong. The Ebay photo suggested brass sides and so I thought perhaps the pre
Work has progressed apace, the supporting girder work has been finished including the curved bracing to support the box floor. In order to try to get these as identical as possible, 14 pieces of 20 thou plasticard (20mm by 15 mm) were glued along the edges. the shape marked out on the top sheet and then the curved bottom part cut and sanded on all 14 sheets at once. the sheets were drilled to provide the inner curve then seperated and cut and trimmed to fit and glued in place.
The relay and
This is a continuation of my topic about GWR coaches and increasing passenger choice - (very topical - lol)
I will try to put a link to the old topic when the sites back up and running - though at the moment I'm still trying to work my way round the new site - as a bear of very little brain I'm easily confused but as Basil Fawlty says "now we're in I'm determined to make it work".
Anyway with the articulated suburban stock taking a back burner for a while, I'm trying my hand at the South
Well we've been moved almost three months now and tonight was the first night I've done any modelling - althoug whether you can call daubing a bit of paint about modelling is questionable.
I've not been idle the last three months, but unfortunately other things have been keeping me busy. Including trying to sort out the garden (it now looks like the Somme - whatever happened to GroundForce - I must have a birthday surprise coming up), extending the old pond, starting a new one. Once we can a
Not much modelling to report as over the last week or so we've been moving house. This house at least is ours (well mainly the bank's) and so I can start proper modelling.
Well I could if I actually had somewhere to build the layout.
For the time being the railway is all in boxes in storage, whilst I save up to build a big shed at the bottom of the garden.
Site of the new shed (hopefully)
Till then and once the house has stopped looking like a furniture repository, I can c
The brake third is now finished, I've added the missing "W"s to the coach number, lining has all been done and the coach given a coat of varnish to protect the transfers from coming off on my fingers.
The flushglazing has been added. Rather than paint round the window frames, I tried painting round the glazing before fitting, seems to work ok. Grab handles are from Comet and seem a little on the thick side, though I can imagine any finer and they would be prone to damage. Corridor connection
Modelling progress has been non-existent for the last couple of months as I broke my thumb during some very heavy gardening. I managed to drop several stone paving slabs on it, and when the swelling hadn't gone down after a week I went along to A and E. There were very impressed with the break and I've had to have a pin put in. All in all very painful and not to be recommended.
Anyway I hope to get back to work on things soon, but with two new puppies demanding most of my spare time, things
Work has commenced on laying the pointwork at the North end of Brackhampton. I've been waiting until Hayfield of this parish (who has been very patient with me and long suiffering) had built enough of the various pointwork to allow me to lay the mainline almost all at once. I didn't want to lay each piece as it was built only to find I had miscalculated and it didn't fit. These first two photos shopw the point work for the mainlines with the trackwork leading to the eastern bay platforms.
T
Having had to lift all the track at Brackhampton due to my revolutionary track fixing technique proving about as effective as Network Rails maintenance of the Dawlish sea wall. I've been concentrating on scenic modelling whilst I save up to buy more finescale flexible track.
Latest thing I've been doing is building the platforms. The arrivals side has been started, using large amounts of wills platform kits and additional paving sheets. This has also meant I have had to have a go at the subw
I have got around to painting the model of Brackhampton (pronounced Birmingham) North Signal Box I made several moons ago. I have been unable to find any decent colour pictures showing how the box was painted in real life and the girder supports were causing me some heartache. "black" seemed too stark and dark stone didn't seem appropriate either.
Anyway, last week I was leafing through a new book of GWR structure colours in Ian Allan's Brum bookstore when I found out that some features on G
Well a pleasant afternoon which should have been spent in the garden - or at the very least doing some productive modelling has been spent beavering over my new toy - sketchup - on the computer. The results are here.
The Central girder
The intermediate girder
the valance
and all four compenents shown together - roughly
Now I shall no doubt find that what I've created is unprintable.
I've got the design of the facade finished and so thought I would share a few more pictures with you.
Its succesfully loaded up to Shapeways - though that doesn't mean much until you try to print it. As the cost of likely to be 125 Euros I'm gonna wait until their next sale. I'll share the results with you
In the meantime for those interested here is a link to one of the few images of the original
regards
Rovex
After taking a diversion into laser printing for the future city centre of my model, I've been putting my 3d skills to more currently practical use.
The station retaining wall along Livery Street has been designed and indeed printed. It wasn't cheap and the brickwork is \ little hit and miss, but I did it this way for several reasons.
1 Speed - a have a very low boredom threshold and lots of unfinished projects. This way I could get most of the wall done before I got diverted to somethi
