Jump to content
 
  • entries
    87
  • comments
    69
  • views
    39,600

About this blog

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

Entries in this blog

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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

4
Constructional

Loco Hauled Substitute - 2 : Opening up a Lima Mk1

As I noted here the two quickest wins amongst the possible coach projects were commissioning the Bachmann Mk1 BSK and upgrading the old Lima Mk1 SK - since those two projects didn't require me to do a complete paint job.    So upgrading the Lima Mk1 it was. And after getting a fair way with painting the SK  interior (along with all the other interiors) the penny dropped that I had two Replica TSO interiors in the coach box, and conversion to a TSO should therefore simply be a matter of
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

2
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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

4
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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

5
Constructional

"What the Hell....."

I was trying to be systematic and focussed, and work on things in good order, but while I was hunting through boxes looking for bits for the 128 the packet of handrail knobs turned up in my DMU projects box...   As noted in my "programme" posting here, my attempt to press on with the long-stalled ex LNER Toad B (an elderly Parkside kit) stalled when I couldn't find the handrail knobs. Suddenly the brake van was back on the agenda. And as I worked steadily through the things I could see
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

Waste Not, Want Not

I have to confess that I've slipped off the straight and narrow (no, I'm not modelling the Nullarbor Plain as 3'6" gauge...)    The plan was that I was going to systematically work through the litter of stalled unfinished projects on the bookcase, to clear the decks , clear my head , and achieve a maximum of result for a minimum of effort . No new projects!   However I've come off the wagon, fairly spectacularly..   There were two catalysts. Firstly, there was the e
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

DC Kits 128 - "If you want any more, you must make it yourself.."

I know I promised a report on the final stages of the reworked NBL Type 2 , but a start has been made on the long- stalled Class 128 parcels unit , and it's getting a little frustrating...   This posting has been sitting in draft for four years with the optimistic stub "Progress on the 128 has been slow, but like BR we're getting there" Very slow indeed... . However on closer inspection I find I am in no sense entering into the home straight with this one   The project ground
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

"Here's One I Made Earlier" - 2

The first part of this project was written up here PART 1 but it's now more or less finished.   And there's a picture to prove it.      As it was finished a while ago some of the details are now a bit hazy but here goes... One of the centre (first class!) compartments has been retained for staff riding and this gives a long and a short tool compartment in the rest of the vehicle. Kadees have been fitted (I think they were long) and a lot of time spent touching up,
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
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
Ravenser

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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

2
Constructional

Set 4 - Modernity on the Cheap: Part 4 - A Twist in the Tale

We left this saga a couple of months back with me finding that the NEM pockets on the Hachette Mk1 were way too high, and that I therefore couldn't couple it to anything. Pro tem the Coopercraft Tourist Brake 3rd was coupled to the Dapol LMS Stanier  Composite from Set 5 and pressed into service as an improvised set:   https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/21622-baby-deltic-released-to-traffic/   I don't seem to have written up the final rounds of my bitter
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

"Here's one I made earlier"

Very many years ago, when James Callaghan was prime minister and I had not yet discovered that it was possible to make model railways without using steam engines, I had a GW/LMS joint branch line. Because those were the popular prototypes. I wasn't very old but I'd discovered the Railway Modeller, and I had a pannier tank and a Hornby GWR brake third. I wanted a longer GW train but not too long, so a plastic kit for a 4 wheel GW coach seemed a good idea.   This relic survived down the
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

Baby Deltic - Released to Traffic

After a good deal of last minute panic I now have a working Baby Deltic, and here is a picture of it on the rolling road to prove it:     The Mk2 stiffened chassis also developed bend, and I stiffened it with two short lengths of brass bar araldited in place. It is now rigid and more or less straight   Fortunately for me the Hornby Ringfield motor bogie I had in stock is the final Chinese-made 5 pole unit with 8 wheel pickup. Not only does this pick up better and r
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

4
Constructional

Set 5 - Quick and Slow: Part 1 Quick (I hope)

After a long while contemplating the idea, I finally bought one of the Dapol LMS coaches in CKD form . I prefer CKD form as it's a little cheaper, and as I'm going to work on the thing I am saved the trouble of finding out how to dismantle it. The intended victim is a CK in BR Blood and Custard   The CK seems to be the pick of Dapol's ex Mainline Stanier coaches - Coachmann's expert assessment is here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67996-making-use-of-Dapol-lms-coa
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
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
Ravenser

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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

2
Constructional

Set 4 - Modernity on the Cheap: Part 1 (of 256 weekly magazines)

Over the last few years I've been very consciously trying to rein in my spending on the hobby, and reduce the pile of stuff in my cupboard. Money has been tight at times, and a couple of short periods of unemployment have brought home to me that I have accumulated an awful lot of unbuilt kits and bits over the years, and that I have made very limited progress with building them.   "Don't buy - build!" has been the watchword.   I'm afraid that my good intentions have not been
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

West Yorkshire Sow's Ear - 1 : Diagnosis

I have two Hornby 155s sitting in the pile of stock boxes   One is in Regional Railways livery. I've had it for at least 15 years and it's never run. It was meant as material for converting into 153s to support a proposed club layout project which never happened   The other is in West Yorkshire red and white . This was acquired as a modest priced placeholder for a later club layout project (which got as far as running bare boards and some scenery before it died ). It has a de
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

Damage Control - 1

I had good intentions, but somehow a 101 didn't feature in them...   I've got a 101 - I've had it for years. A Limby 3 car 101 in blue/grey was one of the things acquired in the RTR buying spree when I started building Blacklade a few years ago. Being ex Lima and a dowdy Modernisation unit it was rather looked down on as a quick placeholder. After all Bachmann would no doubt displace the Limby model with a splendid state of the art model in a few years   Then the power car to
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

2
Constructional

NRX Van

Next cab off the rank is yet another project that was supposed to be a quick win - and hasn't been.   In a moment of weakness at Peterborough show a few years ago I bought a Replica Mk1 BG in Transpennine livery . They were being discounted to a tenner at the show, and it seemed too good a bargain to pass up. After all a Mk1 BG is the archetypal modern image parcels vehicle , and I didn't have one for Blacklade.   After I got home I decided that it was a bargain I might have
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

Set Two: Finishing Off

In the absence of better information, I reworked the underframe as proposed, sawing the Comet LMS battery box castings in half in then X-Acto mitre box, and plating the cut ends with 20 thou plasticard. The Comet vacuum cylinders were also installed , though possibly they could have been filed down to sit a bit lower. The completed bogies were fixed onto the composite and I had two completed coaches. They've come in at 110g all up: slightly more than the intended 100g (25g x 4 axles) , but a sat
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
Constructional

Finishing Off - Set 1 and the Met Bo-Bo

Just to round off a couple of projects - and prove that I do occasionally finish things as well as starting them, here are some hasty shots of the Met Bo-Bo and the Set 1 coaches at the DOGA AGT . Two coaches proved a little too much for the card loco , though one was easy enough - at 100g+ each this is not too surprising             This one was taken in it's working environment before weathering and lettering - also before I fitted gan
Ravenser

Ravenser in Constructional

0
×
×
  • Create New...