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About this blog

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

Entries in this blog

"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,

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Ravenser in Constructional

"Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life"

The last few months have been somewhat difficult. At about the time of my last posting, my elderly mother had a fall , and I went up to Lincolnshire on quite a few weekends after she was discharged. Then there was a second fall at the start of December, and then we discovered that her cancer was terminal. I spent a fortnight over Christmas / New Year up in Lincolnshire driving back and forth across the Wolds each afternoon to Lincoln hospital to see her: we finally managed to get her discharged

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Ravenser in Reflections

2018 - Deja Vu ?

It's that time of the year when I survey the state of the bookcase and the cupboard and post over-optimistic ambitions for the year's modelling....   At least this year I'm sitting down to contemplate at the start of January, rather than the middle of February, which I suppose is progress. There's also the fact that I need to write up some of 2017's output for the blog.   After a pretty patchy year things took a sudden leap forward when I realised I didn't have to wait for a

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Ravenser in Reflections

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

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Ravenser in 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

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Ravenser in Constructional

News and Parcels

I've made a very slow start on things, but there is some progress to report with the Ratio Southern parcels van.   I've seen some adverse comment about this kit on here - notable Roger Chivas' remark that having seen somebody build one he went off and designed an etched brass kit because it would be so much easier. Given that most people are frightened by etched brass [I'm not saying they ought to be, just observing factually the way people actually react] this makes it sound like the

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Ravenser in 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

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Ravenser in 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

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Ravenser in 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

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

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Ravenser in 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

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Ravenser in 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

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Ravenser in Constructional

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

Troublesome Trucks

When I built the tea-tray in which to mount the Boxfile, I had the naïve idea that replacing the damaged track and sorting out the track joints between the two files would solve all the 'file's running problems.   Unfortunately what it actually revealed was that there were problems with the stock. A replacement Tenshodo rejuvenated the Y3, a little running in helped the Knightwing shunter - and then it became painfully obvious that all was not well with the wagon fleet.   An

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Ravenser in Operational

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Baby Needs Some New Shoes

One of the "benefits" of a blog is that it records just how long certain projects have actually been stalled.   This is a case in point - behold I bring you the world's slowest quickie loco kit! http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-14093-baby-deltic-1/   The Silver Fox Baby Deltic has been stalled and lying in the paint-drying box for a horrifying 4 and a bit years....   I am at least now making some progress   One issue was highlighted here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/

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