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About this blog

Things on the workbench, or gathering dust on the bookcase....

Entries in this blog

Troublesome Bogies

This is by way of a short bump or plea for help , sparked by a few comments in the MBA thread.   One of the wagons I'm currently working on (or should be instead of typing) is the wretched Walrus. An ancient kit from deceased estate. As I mentioned somewhere down below , the bogies as supplied are unbuildable. I can't get them together for modern wheels ,. The only way forward I've found is to use some A1 Models H- frame etches.   The bogies are GWR Plate type, and even this approach is a bo
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7

Keeping up With the Pacer

I promised someone I'd post a few notes over the weekend on some of the bits I'd been doing to the Pacer ; it's Monday, I haven't, so here we go.   I've assembled and fixed in place the rear trailing wheel assembly. Unfortunately its not absolutely spot on: I reckon the hole is about 0.35mm out to one side. I've made one attempt to drift the hole sidewards with a file , and stuck in a scrap of 40 thou plasticard into the recess above to take the thread , and drilled it out. However this doesn'
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5
Constructional

The Worst Diesel Locos in the World? - Part 3 Trials and Tribulations

We left the NBL 21 as a nearly finished bodyshell, here . The sticking point was the need to produce flush glazing for those large curved cab windows by hand.   Finishing the loco was my first big lockdown project and turned into a bit of a fight.   It wasn't really the glazing - like quite a few frightening jobs that didn't prove as bad as I feared. I had used the Shawplan window etches as a template for the shape, traced onto an old business card. (Before I glued the etches
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Ravenser in Constructional

5
Constructional

Loco Hauled Substitute 3 - First Class Hornby?

As I've mentioned before, in my teens a CJ Freezer article turned me into a modern image modeller , and I attempted a layout set in contemporary Lincolnshire: Ghosts opf Flaxboro'   Eventually the project foundered under many problems, but I hung onto the stock and over the years I've slowly been recycling the stuff as reasonable scale models.   In the photo contained therein, you can see an Airfix 31 heading two blue/grey vehicles entirely washed out by the flash awaiting de
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Ravenser in Constructional

4
Constructional

Letter from Lockdown

My annual review and New Year's resolutions are a month late this year - which is rather better than I've managed in the last couple of years. Not only that, I can report that that the delay is due to Making Stuff, rather than as in previous years meaning to , but not actually doing it.   I'm not saying I'm completely cured of that. Despite my best resolutions, the amount of modelling I've actually done during various lockdowns , furlough and the like has been much  less than I intende
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Ravenser in Constructional

4
Constructional

At the Dawn of Time - Chapter the First

In which the Author discovereth a Cardboard Box in the Study which recalleth his Childhood; and subsequently journeys into the Western-most Parts of Great-Britain.....   A few years ago I saw a reissue of the Airfix kit for Trevithick's locomotive in a shop. I had one of these as a child, when I was too young to have any real understanding of how to build it: I recall some attempt was made at it, though it certainly never got as far as any paint, and one or two cogs and bits survive so
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Ravenser in Constructional

4

Baby needs some new paint....

I'm feeling annoyed.   As mentioned I've started work on a Baby Deltic - a Silver Fox kit I picked up cheap secondhand at a show in January. It really should have been a "quick win": just paint the body, hack and assemble some RTR components I already have and there we are - a new Type 2.   I want it in 2 tone green (as it will spend most of it's time working with steam stock) and it will become D5901 - which became an RTC Derby loco, allowing me maximum excuses if it appears on a north Midl
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4

A Small Parcel Arrives

A very long time ago, in my teens, I tried to build a layout. It was my first diesel layout and it was definitely modern image : not only was it BR Blue , it was contemporary. For some reason I decided I wanted some parcels vans and I duly bought a pair of Lima BGs and a pair of Lima CCTs. These things have been lurking in boxes ever since the half built layout was abandoned and dismantled (Several years in Australia, followed by university , didn't exactly help progress)   Several decades la
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4
Reflections

Winter Wonderland

This post is partly to link back to the card Met Bo-Bo, which has certainly been on my workbench and bookcase even if it got a seperate thread of its own: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/63781-elementary-my-dear-watson/&do=findComment&comment=832586     It is now even more finished than before - the shoebeams are on, and a good deal of time was expended on the DOGA test track at Ally Pally trying to make the thing run. With very indifferent results until
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Ravenser in Reflections

3
Non-Railway

And Now For Something Different - Into Battle 1

Some years ago I was in a toyshop buying Christmas presents for young relations. While I was scanning the shelves I noticed an Airfix Gift Set in a large box marked down to the absurdly low price of 10 quid. (I think it had started off at around £30 and even that may have been somewhat below the list price.) For a tenner you were getting FOUR plastic aircraft kits in 1/72 scale. most of them interesting and unusual subjects, with acrylic paints, glue and brushes thrown in . That's an absurd £2.5
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Ravenser in Non-Railway

3

Back in Business

I've had a fairly strenuous 6 months, involving being made redundant at the end of May . Thankfully I found a new job and started work again just three weeks later, but as all my time outside work was taken up with pursuing avenues for future employment no modelling got done at all. In fact very little else got done at all , with the result that I've spent the last 6 weeks in catchup and clear-up mode, and only now am I getting to the point where I really ought to start doing some modelling agai
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2
Constructional

Set 1 - Pt 2 : Stumbling towards finished bodies

I've made further progress with the bodies, though it hasn't been without problems and blemishes , and I'm afraid the all third is definitely going to be the inferior model of the two. However the brake composite is thus far (fingers crossed) going pretty well   All the sides have been fitted,without any further damage to paintwork. I then moved onto fitting seats, and here I made a blunder from sheer ignorance.I dug out what turned out to be almost all of a packet of Ratio coach seati
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Ravenser in Constructional

2
Constructional

Loco Hauled Substitute - 1 : Overview

In the latter years of BR a little bit of interest was added to the DMU deserts of secondary lines by emergency loco-hauled workings. By the 1980s the Modernisation Plan DMU fleet was dwindling and ageing, while both passenger traffic and passenger services had begun to increase again. Any depot that didn't keep on top of maintenance or saw its DMU fleet racked by some infirmity of old age could easily find itself short of sufficient serviceable DMUs to cover all diagrams . This was particularly
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Ravenser in Constructional

2
Constructional

At The Dawn of Time - Chapter the Second

In which the Author maketh a prosperous Journey towards Penydarren in South Wales - where he suffers a sudden Misfortune which leaves him stranded upon a remote Shore...   It has been some time since my initial post on this model  Part 1  when all seemed so promising.   Now, like a message sent in a bottle by a castaway washed up years later on a distant beach I suppose I should write up further developments with what is currently a stalled model.   After much internal debate
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Ravenser in Constructional

2
Constructional

The Worst Diesel Locos in the World? - Part 2 "Paint Your Wagon"

After a brisk start , this project seems to have gone to sleep again.    Not quite true - in the last 10 days I've actually managed to paint the bodyshell, and matters now stand thus:         I see I have managed to capture the corner where one of the window pillars became damaged and had to be repaired. It looks much worse blown up to around 7mm scale. I also haven't removed the Maskol from the handrails   Transfers are Modelmaster (someone said
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Ravenser in Constructional

2

The Worst Diesel Locos in the World? - Pt. 1 Concept and Body

It is fair to say that the North British Locomotive Company's attempt to move into the brave new world of modern traction was an ignominious failure. After six decades as one of the leading locomotive builders in Britain it attempted to enter the diesel era via a licencing deal with MAN of Germany; but the results of this push can be classified into two groups - failures and complete failures. NBL folded in April 1962 under the resultant weight of warranty claims and lack of new orders, its fina
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2
Constructional

Butchering a Meat Van

I've been fairly quiet for a few months, partly because of work getting on top of me . But after finally managing 2 weeks holiday , having previously not managed more than an odd day off since I started the new job just over a year ago , I'm feeling human again , and I'm trying to resolve some of the various unfinished projects .   One small project is nearly there - an ex GW MICA meat van.   At present the main vehicle available for the cold store on the box file is a Blue S
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Ravenser in Constructional

2
Constructional

Set 4 - Modernity on the Cheap: Part 3 - Plywood Horror

This is the story of a cheap and nasty kit for a cheap and nasty coach. Actually that's a little unfair - to the prototype   In recent years Coopercraft , like the Cheshire Cat in Alice , has been slowly fading away. Two or three years ago, before matters reached the final stage of a Smile Without a Cat, I purchased a couple of kits from their stand at Ally Pally.   One, the Kirk non-gangwayed LNER 51' full brake was a decent kit, and was built some time ago.   The
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Ravenser in Constructional

2
Constructional

A Decent 31 - Finishing Off

31 415 is now finished - I've done rather more modelling than blog-posting in recent months.     Much of the finishing seemed to be a question of paint   I made a serious mistake with the noses and used Railmatch pre1984 yellow acrylic for the first coats. Nothing wrong with the shade , but I got a dreadful tar-brush result. Much careful/desperate rubbing down resulted , with fine emery boards and a little nail block someone directed me to , that has 4 different surfaces
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Ravenser in Constructional

2

A Decent 31 - The Basics

Having decided on a target loco (31 415 , MR then BS) http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-14486-a-decent-31-prototypes-and-problems/ and with an Airfix body in hand , what needs doing?   Firstly, remove the numbers and symbol with surgical spirit and a cotton bud. Next , a swift appraisal.   The Airfix model was state of the art in it's day, but that was 35 years ago. Still, many competent judges seem to rate the moulding highly in terms of basic shape   The body sid
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2
Constructional

Set 1 - Under False Colours - Pt.1 - Overview

Having rashly flung down the gauntlet and declared I'm thinking of running a third , not terribly authentic, period on Blacklade to give an airing to the bits of steam era /green diesel stock I seem to have acquired, I've actually made a start in the form of a pair of Ratio kits: two of the LNWR kits to be precise. The twist is that these will actually constitute the ER's contribution on the coaching side, until I lay my hand on some Kirk kits.   I've rather fancied the Ratio LNWR coac
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Ravenser in Constructional

2

DC Kits 128 - Bodyshell

[This is my third attempt at posting this - both the previous two having been wiped and returned to an incomplete draft entry by the software correction]   Progress so far is shown below . Put simply - we have a bodyshell.   I'm not sure it's absolutely perfect but as this project boils down to a bodyshell on a Replica MLV chassis with trimmings, it's a decent start.     Bodyshell assembly has been slow . You get four half-sides, two cabs and a roof. The roof has to be cut to length , a
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1

Safety Valve

This is by way of a moan... I'm trying to sort out various bits-and-pieces jobs, and one is to replace the Bachmann/ESU 3 function 21 pin decoder in the 150 , which doesn't support advanced consisting, with a rather expensive TCS 1344 21-pin decoder that does. I have no need whatsoever for 6 functions - it was just that 21 pin decoders are few and far between, and a DMU that won't work in multiple is rather a nuisence on a layout where operational interest is supposed to be boosted by joining an
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1

Filed under box van

I've been building stock boxes : one last weekend and one this. And here are the results: which is the air braked box and the steam age stock for the shunting plank.   There is absolutely nothing original about this - the idea was taken from Chris Ellis' book "Next Steps in Railway Modelling" , published a couple of years ago, in which it is credited to Stuart Robinson. The construction should be obvious from the photos - take one box file (price 3 quid) , rip out the spring clip and i
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1
Mercia Wagon Repair

A Boxing Post.

I don't think I've ever done a product review on here before, but here goes....   A fortnight ago I went to Railex. Most of my purchase list was 4mm stuff, even though I don't seem to have done any 4mm for about a year because of the N gauge project (which is why my annual review and resolutions post for 2023 hasn't happened). But the previous weekenmd I went to a local show - only my second show this year - and picked up the body of a Kirk Gresley 61' full brake for a quid. Everything
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