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
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
A commission one this, for our local vicar and follows on from the Golden Arrow Crosti 9F that I did for him. The loco was in a very sorry state, it had not been put together very well, although the finish was not bad. Quite a lot of the original detail parts were never fitted (blower tunnel etc) and It had suffered at the hands of someone else who had attempted to add weight and get it to run on trainset curves.
So the brief was to make it look and run as well as my Golden Arrow 71000.
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
Basic rivetting is complete on the 7mm Sentinel and sealed under satin black. I am going to add the extra detail on the cab and tank sides but not today
Next step I suppose is to start to get to grips with that Bob Moore lining pen or wimp out and use HMRS pressfix ...
Made a start today on the rivets for the O gauge Sentinel. Using Archer's transfers for the first time. I'm the first to admit that the spacing is too close, but the prospect of adding each rivet individually was too daunting to contemplate!
So I'm going for a general "look" of a rivetted loco rather than prototypical fidelity. What I am trying to say is I'm not a rivet counter yet
I've given them a quick waft over with satin black to seal them, pretty pleased with the effect.
Well, I've finally managed to get Pete Harvey's excellent etches soldered together and fitted to the Sentinel, and mighty fine they look too!
Just need to do some final fettling with a glass fibre pencil and then it's primer time. Should have it in satin black for the Member's Day.
I had a conversation with Pete Harvey of PH Designs at the Derby Show about getting some brake gear sorted for my Warren Shephard Sentinel. Well, yesterday this dropped through the door
It all goes together like this:
Superb quality as ever from Pete, going to make the rest of the kit look a bit basic
Soldering iron at the ready .........
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
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
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
Well, spring seems to be a popular time for my random scribblings.
The 2-8-2 is scheduled to appear in the next Model Rail - May issue out April 19th and yesterday Mike at Hornby Magazine confirmed the Duke of Gloucester will be appearing in the June edition (HM60) out 11th May
Well, after a false start when it all went together crooked I dumped it in boiling water and started again. This time I ignored the instructions and built the body box up first using my nice magnetic corner jigs then fixed the soleplates/W irons on after.
I'm just waiting for some more parts from ABS, mainly the side door bottom planks to make the sackbarrow bottoms and then it's time to start painting.
Thanks to Adrian at ABS for his help and all the guidance and advice offered on
Some of you might have seen my appeal on the forum for information on an ABS Models kit that I bought off Ian Morton at the Mansfield Show.
The box states GWR 10 ton 4 plank diagram O.21. It became immediately apparent on opening the box in earnest that this was no 4 plank wagon. What followed was a sometimes lively discussion about what I had bought. But when I sent some photos of the castings to Adrian at ABS he confirmed I had most of a diagram O.23 with Morton brakes. There's a lot of sp
Heard from Model Rail yesterday that the 2-8-2 will feature in the next issue!
Can't wait now until next month, there's also going to be a superb pic of it taken by Chris N on Catcott Burtle too
As promised some snaps of the Duke on Summat Colliery at the Syston Show. I took advantage of the sunlight on Sunday as you can see.
and finally, late in the day the ultimate express loco met up with possibly the ultimate mixed traffic loco
Some of you might have seen in my status updates that I've been fiddling with Summat Colliery's resident shunter "Harry" this week.
He's received a small Stay Alive capacitor pack to his ancient Lenz Standard (not Plus) decoder and I've now turned my attention to the outside.
I started adding some real coal to the bunker, and then went a bit mad sprinkling coal dust and a few large lumps to the footplate.
Needs a quick waft with some matt varnish but I'm pretty happy with the im
No, not vanished, varnished
Two coats of fresh PP satin varnish applied by 6 quid eBay airbrush, used just under half a tinlet, so the thinned varnish went back in the tin for next time
Will let it harden off overnight then commence assembly. After that it's coal, weathering (light!) then glazing and crew. Decoder will be a TCS-DP2X
Yes,
I've finally got round to finishing the lining on the Duke of Gloucester - prompted by Narrow Planet sending me the proof for the plates which have now been paid for and will be away at the etchers soon.
As soon as the plates are painted and in place the whole loco will be varnished then I can get it back together for an ex-works photo shoot. It will probably get a "2 weeks into service" weathering after that.
I also have a DJH example in for refurbish, well, rebuild chassis wis
I received the plates for the Duke of Gloucester Saturday morning, Narrow planet have done a fantastic job, etching using thinner brass than for the 2-8-2 which has allowed a much better detail for the works plates etc.
Here's the nameplates fitted
I'm still trying to get the rest painted with white raised text etc, might not work due to the thinness of the etching, but I'll give it my best shot.
My large tin of pre-thinned PV72 satin varnish went off, maybe in the cold of the o
Well, work on the Duke will be suspended as I've run out of bits!
The ex-JE etched deflectors will be posted out next week, so I'm told. Chris at Golden Arrow is chasing his supplier for the missing buffers - he already has the cylinder drains.
So I thought a few pics of the current state of play might be a good idea.
I still havn't sorted out the cab details yet, although I have found a pair of Hornby crew that will do fine. Big question is how to fabricate the
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
It's been a while, as pointed out by Pete Harvey. Well, I've been busy exhibiting and building by Powercab PCP panel/rolling road setup, but I have managed to get the RHS lined up
keen eyes will notice that I have brushed some pre-thinned PP satin varnish over the running plate lining to beef it up ready for me to tackle the other side ........
Whilst waiting for the urge to do the lining I've continued making the crew's quarters a little more like the real thing.
Working to this pic
I've finally arrived at this:
Oh and the crew are painted too, just need some black pastel to grubby them up
Well, the Duke is ready for lining. All the detail painting is done including some picked out pipework and the cab has a few touches of paint around steam pipes and the gauges are picked out in white with black pointers.
Tender is also ready, so there's really no excuse not to get the pressfix out is there?
