Didn't get much chance to do some modelling last night, but did get some paint on the Narrow Planet plates
Just got to seperate them from the etch without damage now
I did try to get the shed and number plates with white lettering by painting them white first then black and wiping off. Sadly this didn't happen for me.
Looking at the loco the build plates will need to go on before the deflectors.
Detailing has started on the bodyshell, the Comet Britannia/Clan/Duke detailing pack has been opened and the following added so far:
Smokebox dart
Safety valves
Clacks and feed pipes
Vacuum ejector
Steam manifold
Carriage warming valve
Injector steam valves
Here's a quick shot of the right side of the firebox showing the pipework so far.
A few more evenings to go with this one then it's the deflectors and footsteps. Once these are done then I think I will be in a position
well, for now at least.
All the main components are in place and plumbed up
Handrails and the regulator linkages next then it's probably deflectors.
The chassis needs revisiting as the lubricator supports are still missing and I'd like to add the sandbox filler tubes and possible a sandbox or two between the frames - all fixed to the boiler lower. I've plenty of exhaust steam pipe left to add a representation of it emerging from between the frames up to the running plate
Well, there was a bit of frantic activity on the chassis front ahead of last Saturday's Member's Day. I decided that before I go any further with the chassis I had to prove that the live outside faces of the PCB frames with pickups soldered directly on behind the wheels would work.
I'd never seen this before and frankly was a bit of a flight of fancy spurred on by the fact I have loads of spare PCB material left over from JZ sleeper panels.
First effort, straight Pb wire about 8mm long a
One of the reasons for lack of progress on the Duke is that I've been distracted constructing what has turned out to be a multifunction rig for shows and home.
I've been wanting a programming track when exhibiting for some time, as I have at least one loco still running an R8215 decoder that resets itself to 3 when a short occurs. I have had to seek out a friendly trader or other layout who can reprogram the chip for me. Sociable though that is, I really wanted to be self sufficient.
I'v
Whilst waiting for the deltics to turn blue I've spent some time on the "loco coal" wagon for Summat Colliery. As I said before I've followed David Spencer's article in issue 06 of Hornby Mag (loosly) and have arrived at this:
Real coal over a lot of lead make it a heavy little wagon now, so should run well at Warwick/Nottm/Mansfield shows.
I think a little bounce sprayed weather black on the underpinnings should finish it off
Who would have thought that I would have heaped s
got the lettering done on the other side this lunchtime, so 'tis done
Going to leave it for a few weeks for the transfers to "set" then I will start the weathering. I'm going to use a combination of the techniques described by David Spencer in Hornby Mag Issue 6 and bounce spraying the underframe. I'll take it slowly as this little wagon has took a lot of time so don't want to mess it up in the weathering stage 😃
HMRS transfers arrived in usual speedy fashion so here's the wagon nearly finished in it's pristine Summat Colliery PO livery
There's a bit more black painting to do then it's going to have a nice photshoot before I attack it with a fibreglass pencil 😏
It's number 88 - a nod towards the days when I was involved with a motorcycle race team and club, we always used #88 whenever possible (two fat ladies .....)
One can (well, not all of it!) of Halfords Ford radiant red later and we have this:
The intention is to do a "Summat Colliery" version of this little wagon from my childhood home town
Must get an order off to HMRS for some black shaded lettering etc, it's starting to be quite a pricey wagon 🤑
Basic construction is done on the Parkside wagon. I've fitted the Bachmann NEM pocket mounts - took more fiddling than I expected to get the height right. I ended up carving off the vertical projections off the mounts and then cutting back the underframe bracing until the correct height was achieved - silly me for expecting that they would just fit 😏
Here's a pic of the underframe prior to priming
and here's it resplendent in red oxide primer
Picked this kit up at Wycrail along with some Bachmann NEM pocket coupling mounts. The wagon will hopefully end up as a severely distressed wagon on Summat Colliery used to ferry loco coal from the screens to the coaling stage.
Anyway, following half an hour's work this lunchtime we have this
buffers and couplings yet to fit, will rob a couple of NEM pocket couplings off Summat's 16 tonners to position the pocket mounts. I want to use the NEM pocket couplings
Rivetted the eccentric rod to the expansion link tonight, and much to my relief, it works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbxUvWMP5Ck
now for the conbination lever .....
I've made a start sorting out all my parts. Prompted by the upheaval of completely re-doing the office/study, including the new desk you see in the photo, I have spent a small fortune on storage boxes.
The one below is one of the larger ones, I will have five of these. Also I have bought nine smaller ones that will fit into one of the new cupboards in the study.
Resolution #1: Never again will I once a kit/project is built keep all the spare bits and bobs in the kit box whilst the e
Managed to get the left hand side rods soldered up last night
and here's a shot showing how they are articulated
The photos are very cruel in showing up the joins etc. They don't look this bad in real life. I will put some more work in with the files and 1000 grit before they are finished though!
I've also fitted the motor/gearbox to the chassis. There is a problem here because as designed there is no side play in the Comet gearbox or drive extender. Result is that as it st
The Dart Castings crew turned up this morning, handy that, as last night I finished the weathering. Here's a snap taken in my new 30 quid photo booth with my trusty X-10 Mini cameraphone
Just got to paint the crew and stick em in and it's done. Now for that article for MR .........
Here's a quick snap of the Sentinel as it stands this lunchtime
All I need to add is the "RA 1" lettering (will have a dig around in the transfers box tonight) and then it's varnish time
I am going to have a go at oil finishing the steel buffers, not done this since school, but I have a blowtorch and some nice dirty engine oil - what can possibly go wrong
One advantage of O gauge is there's just more room for DCC silliness like this:
That's a Lenz Standard decoder with nearly 10000 uF of StayAlive capacitorage - should be unstoppable
Well, the castings from Meteor arrived as promised and mighty fine they are too. I ended up with quite a few spare bits including 5(!) buffers, a round chimney, a cast roof vent and what I think is the internal chimney.
Some modifications were needed to fit the model though. 5mm was removed from the height of the filler and the driveshafts tie bars had to be lengthened - I guess the Lima chassis has a wider wheelbase than a prototypical Sentinel. Here's how I did this:
First I cut off th
So another lunchtime passes and the basic superstructure of the Sentinel is done
I've also fitted the Lima drive unit to two new 6BA nuts soldered to the floor of the loco, here's the good old ringfield with all the supression gubbins removed as this will be DCC controlled. Note big red spacers cyano'd to the chassis
Ride height is about right methinks, I've set it to the buffer height of a Parkside TOAD brakevan and also scaled off an old photo of Isebrook, both came out
More progress!
The solebars were bent to shape using nothing more than a vice and two steel rules as bending bars then they were joined to the buffer beams using 188 deg solder. The angle plates were then added using 145 deg solder. You will see from the photo that the ends of the angle plates stuck out beyond the edge of the buffer beam - soon sorted with a file!
This assembly was then fitted to the superstructure and the buffers added.
Starting to look like a Sentinel now
Rapid (for me) progress today.
The bends went really well, after much agonizing and worry over getting these right they just fell into place using a 3.5mm rod held in the vice and the brass bent over it using my fingers.
Soldered to the soleplate using 145 deg solder it's starting to look like a Sentinel now
Now, here's where I have had to "modify" the kit as there seems to be two variants of the Lima 0-4-0 drive unit, one a central ringfield and another with the ringfield over
Well, I wimped out on using the lining pen and resorted to HMRS sheet 22 - I will find time to practice with the pen sometime, but didn't want to delay this build any longer and I had a spare used sheet lying around ...
Buffer beam red next then out with the satin varnish
So the crew climbed aboard (driver needed his right leg amputating below the knee to clear the motor) and I've added a little coal around the door bottoms and chassis ledges to simulate spillages during loading.
Not sure how prototypical this is but is made me smile last night
So here's some snaps ahead of the photoshoot for the MR article
So, that's it, on to the next project - rebuilding the L&Y Pug I bought from Scanman ages ago - the chassis is already s
It had to happen, didn't it? It always is the way with my projects, start out with a quick and dirty build and end up counting rivets (more of that to come!)
So thanks (I think) to Robert Thompson of RT Models for supplying lots of detailed photos of Isebrook, I have started getting far too detailed for my own good!
What I assume are linkages to the sanders (?) have been added from scraps of etch and 1mm 10 thou brass strip
The roof has received it's rainstrips and I have s
These chaps started to look smart last night - Dart Castings finest "leaning out" figures
I've got their boots to do and then a good dirty wash before installation. I think I will need to build small platforms for them to stand on as the doors of the Sentinel seem quite high. Hope they look ok once installed
