I bought this at the Doncaster show in either 1999 or 2000 - I'm not sure which, but it was soon after it came out. It's very much been at the back of the 'to do' pile ever since, and Bachmann have even bought out an RTR version in the meantime.
Brief details of the build;
DC Kits plastic kit - I used the plastic mouldings but ditched the detailing components as they weren't up to the standard I was after.
Black beetle motor bogie.
Underframe detail is a mix of Southern Pride, NNK an
This was going to be a quickie - back in March. Now 8 months later one of the shunters is finished.
It wasn't even repainted - just some touching up, followed by new numbers (of the 'wrong' type for this livery as per the prototype) and a spot of weathering. The glazing was cut by hand from plastic sheet, and looks very good, but was a real pain. I ended up doing one window an evening over about two weeks.
It looks pretty good in my opinion. The 03 is still not ready for painting.....
The detailed 04 has been on the back burner for a while, whilst I work on my 2012 Challenge entry, but a burst of activity tonight saw it ready for painting.
Since the last update it has been given the extra Southern region marker lights, and various other small details. The airtanks under the footplate were replaced by some larger ones made from evergreen tube, and the various front and rear end clutter added (including extra handrails, and the rackets that hold shunting poles).
Now read
The 04 now has a full set of handrails and some Markits sprung oval buffers.I think the buffer heads project too far forward, so some packing is needed at their rear to reduce this.
The Southern 03s have larger airtanks in front of the cab, compared to the ones on the Bachmann model. The replacements on my 03 were made from Evergreen plastic tube with the domed ends filed and sanded to shape from 40 thou sheet. They are glued to the cab front (as were the original ones) - the model splits in
It didn't take long to reduce either loco to its constituent parts.
The 04 was a lot simpler to take to bits, as you'd expect given how much older it is The 03 was a bit of a struggle and I damaged some of the piping from the air cylinders (attached to the cab) to the footplate (a separate casting). Not a big deal as I'm replacing these bits.
This is the result of the demolition work on the 04. Moulded handrails removed, air tanks sawed off with a razor saw, and the crude attempt at the m
In 1986 I was take to the NRM for the first time as a birthday treat, and I bought this book in the shop.
Brian Haresnape's BR fleet survey volume 7. For somebody who occasionally glimpsed an 08, this book was full of odd little diesel shunters crying out to be modelled. Obviosuly I didn't have the money or skills to do it back then (the less said about an attempt at a cardboard LMS jackshaft shunter, the better), so only now am I finally getting round to doing it.
Two obvious candidates
The Warship is now finally done. I expected this to take a few weeks when I started it last year, and its taken the best part of a year.
A spot of playing around with Helicon focus produced these black and white images, taken on my 2011 challenge Diorama entry. I'm not sure what a Warship is doing on a South Eastern section branchline, although it does have an interregional parcels headcode. Possibly it took a wrong turn at Reading.....
To sum up what I did to get this far:
New w
After a month with virtually no modelling, I've managed to get an evening's work in.
This is the state of 816 - all missing windows have now been glazed (the hard way using plastic sheet held in place with Johnson's Klear), buffersand couplings fitted and generally tidied up.
I also removed the cab interior light. For some reason Bachmann have fitted a light to illuminate the leading cab - not very prototypical.
Replacing the glazing in the headcode boxes (and painting the frames) makes
This is the current status of 816.
Not the best phot, and the body is only resting on the chassis. Painting is now complete, and it needs the bodyside windows and headcode box flush glazing and various other minor tasks doing. And I've just noticed that the marker lights as still masked off.
The biggest challenge is going to be that A1 buffers, and these have a threaded tail which is retailed by a small nut. I'm trying to figure out a way of retaining the buffer heads in a way that stops
Not much progress recently, with work, holiday and most of my spare time spent on my challenge entry. I have made a start on weathering the Warship.
This is the result of several thin coats of varnish with a hint of dirty brown/grey added. I've also copied some of the oil/diesel on the underframe panels from a photo of the real 816, along with the dirty patch at the very top of the yellow end which all Warships seemed to get.
This is the current state of play with 816. I've kept the Bachmann body colour (it's actually moulded plastic rather than painted) and some of the lettering, but have repainted the noses and touched up parts of the blue. The grilles have also had a coat of dirty grey. This still quite a lot of touching up to do.
The biggest transformation has come from painting the moulded headcode boxes surrounds black - the boxes now look the correct size.
D816 is one of the examples that retained or were refitted with multiple working jumpers. These have been made from a scrap of plastic and some thin wire.
I've also added the odd footstep under one of the buffers. This came from the etch in the Craftsman detailing kit for the Lima Warships (which claims to cover D813-870 - but actually only covers the class 42 unless you ignore all of the class 43's detail differences ).
It needed some modifications to fit, and one of these etches ha
After some thought, and a few minutes with a file I've carefully reshaped the "brow" over the windows.
I think it now looks a lot more like a Warship, although the front is now looking a bit sorry for itself with various splodges of copydex and filler. This is the current state of play after a couple of hours work tonight.
New handrails (the ones under the window now have the central pillar), replacement lamp irons (Shawplan) and beefed up headboard clips (plastic strip). I also re
Fitting the cooling fan over the DCC blanking plug turned out to be simple - I removed the lower 5 layers of the etched hub (which isn't visible) and it now fits nicely. It's held in place with tape in this photo.
Buffers from A1 now fitted at one end. These have plasticard mounting plates, and tiny some tiny etching from Shawplan to represent the chequer plate steps on their top.
I've never been 100% convinced by the Bachmann's Warship's front end. After spending some time comparing it
Thanks for the comments about my last post. I'm very much looking forward to using these Shawplan/Extreme etchings bits.
This is going to be 816 when it's finished. Eclipse is something of an odd choice for a warship name - the last HMS Eclipse having been sunk in 1943. I'd have thought that Eagle or Exeter would have been better choices for a Warship name starting with E. Wikipedia says that the ship cost £246,664, which seems very reasonable compared to how much these things cost today.
Another detailed Southern Region locomotive on my workbench- this time a Bachmann Class 42 Warship. This has been lurking on my bench for a which, but the purchase of some fan etchings from Shawplan last weekend will hopefully speed things on.
I'm doing 816 in blue (using the Bachmann D812 as a base). There are a limited number of Warships that can be produced from the Bachmann model without major work. It's suitable for the D814-832/866-870 range (except for D830 which had a differen
I managed to get some better photos of E6001 in my parents' garden (not having a garden of my own I had to borrow one...). Apologies for the paving slab background!
Slightly poor photos taken at half eleven tonight, but I've finished the class 73. It's in early 1970s condition, as per this photo.
Finished using HMRS transfers. I'm rather pleased with the result, but at the same time happy that I only want one 73/0 as the underframe needed an awful lot of work. Hopefully the 73/1 will be a lot easier when I get round to doing a couple of these.
I bought this kit at an exhibition at the old BAe site in Hatfield in Autumn 1996 (my last year at University!). So sometimes kits from the great kit mountain do get built, rather than sitting forever in the cupboard or endlessly changing hands on Ebay.
Now at last it's finished!
The only thing I'm not 100% happy with is the fit of the roof - it's OK, but not brilliant. I'll work on this on subsequent 2-Bils, as I've been buying up a stock of the kits now that they are (temporarily?
The 2-Bil is nearly done - here's a photo of the very rudimentary interior, which uses Preiser figures and the original Kirk seats (one of which is wonky and has since been stuck back in properly!).
I've also wired it up. I fitted Steam Era's wheels (as used in their Black Beetle) to the trailing bogies. These are only insulated on one side, so each trailing bogie picks up current from two of it's wheels. By soldering wires to each bogie frame and interconnecting the two coaches using a conne
Some pictures of the detailed Hornby 73 - now with lots of bits of wire and plastic attached to the bogies to represent the various cables etc. The 73/0 has vast numbers of cables on it's bogies, far more than the production loco.
The roof mounted horns are from A1 and are soldered to a mounting plate to hopefully make them a bit more robust.
It's taken a lot of work to get this far - the 73/0 looks superficially similar to the 73/1 but there are a huge number of detail diffe
Here's another photo of the 2-Bil motor coach.
Buffers heads now added, using the Slaters rams and some spare plastic heads of (almost) the correct shape left over from a Southern Pride Mk1. The heads were glued to the rams and reprofiled to the correct shape. Not exact precision engineering but they look OK.
Since the photo was taken I've made a start on glazing the motor coach.
Progress has been a bit slow of late.
The 2-EPB is still in the paint shops. I had problems getting a good finish on the varnish, so it is being rubbed down and repainted in places. Much cursing and a vow never to use Humbrol Matt Varnish spray cans again. This particular model seems to be doomed to take much longer than it should do!
The 2-Bil is painted (bar a bit of touching up) and ready for final assembly, glazing etc. I'm quite pleased with it.
The 73/0 E6001 is progressin
Firstly, a look at the bits I didn't use for the Bil! Mostly underframe parts and interior partitions. It shows how "basic" this kit is when so much has to be replaced.
And a quick update on the EPB. Now painted and having grab handles (etched from Southern Pride) stuck in place using Johnsons floor polish. This is a bit boring and so is progressing quite slowly.
The Modelmaster transfer pack for the 2-EPB is a bit odd, as it includes first class stripes and "1" characters for the doo
I finally tracked down some suitable square shank buffers for the 2-Bil. They are Slaters GWR coach buffers, and are sprung. Not cheap but very nice.
This has spurred me in to finishing this unit. The inner ends have been detailed with various bits of wire and plastic (not the best photo as the roofs aren't attached and the toilet fillers aren't properly attached yet),
The worst bit was doing the toilet filler pipes - I hate bending bits of wire in umpteen different direc
