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About this blog

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

Entries in this blog

Set 2 - We're Getting There....

I haven't posted much recently in my blogs - but some modelling has been going on in dribs and drabs over recent months   The two Ratio ex MR suburban coaches which are to form Set 2 have made intermittant progress and have now reached the stage shown:     and     The second being the recycled and rebuilt kit I originally made in my teens and which completely dismantled itself when I applied ModelStrip to it   This is now a composite, with 4 first/3 third . Passengers have been pai
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Set 2 - MR suburbans : Part 1

For my next trick, as they say, I have a pair of Ratio MR suburbans. These are intended to form the second set of steam age coaches on Blacklade   The reason for selecting these is simple. In my early teens, before discovering modern image modelling , I perpetrated several Ratio MR coach kits . The best of them, replacing my first attempt at a kit , was this gruesome object . It's also pretty well the only one to have survived . I remember I was quite pleased with this at the time     The
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Set 2 - A Conundrum

This is a quick posting , just to record that there's been a bit of progress with Set 2 since I last reported on it , but mainly in the hope of flushing out some info to resolve a problem that is delaying progress:   Here is the underframe of the Brake 3rd (the composite is identical) - I have played about with contrast on the image so you can see the framing . Posed on it is a Comet LMS battery box casting     Two problems are immediately apparent . Firstly, the battery box casting is j
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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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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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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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Reflections

Retail Therapy

Last weekend but several was , of course, Warley. Feeling a little buoyant after completing the Baby Deltic I went with a list...   It was one of those occasions when you end up buying all sorts of things you didn't know you needed until you got to the show. And I didn't get some of the things I did know I needed.   But the result of all this is a number of new projects opening up so -   - The first cab off the rank is an attempt to follow the Baby Deltic by assembl
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PMVs, wagons and a Pacer

Now to try the third part of the old ORBC. This contains several things I'm still working on or have only just finished...   ORBC - Ravenser   http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2497&start=50&hilit=ORBC"> original page on Old RMweb   __________________________________________   posted on Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:30 am   Time for a bit of an update. Contrary to appearances , there has been some progress on the modelling front.   The Parkside PMV is painted ,
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Payment on Account

Just before Christmas , Mallard60022 started a thread on "The first models I am going to build in 2010 are.., which you can find here: 2010 model promises   As I said in there, I seem to have posted rather a lot of implicit promises - or at least pointed memos to self - just below in this blog. And as Mallard60022 has recently posted shots of his efforts to redeem his own pledge, I suppose I ought at least to post an installment payment...   Well, for starters , the Walrus is done. Not paint
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Payment on Account

I haven't updated the blog for rather a long time. The truth is that I've been rather quiet on the modelling front - but a bit less quiet than it appears.   Now the prospective exhibition booking has slipped into next year, I'm suddenly feeling a bit disinhibited. All the things I couldn't really work on because they weren't relevant to a BR Blue period I can now work on again. So.…   Some progress has been made on the wretched Coopercraft Tourist Brake Third this year. Unfortunately it is
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Paint Your Wagon

My attention span has obviously atrophied and my focus suggests an eye test is required urgently. In short , rather than pressing vigourously ahead with the van B, I've become side tracked into finishing two wagons.   The Walrus has been the subject of long-standing lament round here. In a fit of mental aberration I decided to paint the thing - only to find that it is clearly determined to fight me to the death. A first coat of my home-mixed tin of "off-black" produced a distinctly thin cover
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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

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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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Reflections

New Year's Resolutions, Part Umpteen...

It's that time of the year when I take stock and make a plan for the year - which then ignominously fails in the next 12 months.   Twelve months ago I decided I really would finish the Tourist Brake Third. And after a lot of struggle I actually managed it - though it still needs writing up here.   The Baby Deltic was another "promise to finish" - and lo and behold it's done. And written up.   There the good news stopped.   However I have recently managed t
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New Year's Resolutions (version 8.1)

It's that time of the year again when I contemplate the modelling cupboard, and mortality and start muttering bits of Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress".   Virtually nothing has been done on the modelling front since I got back from Gaydon on 11th October. Post-show exhaustion, helping on the DOGA stand at two large shows , the DOGA half-yearly, a busy time at work, minor controversies , other interests, the run up to Christmas and being away with family during it have seen to that.   The only
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Motley Assortment

It's about time I posted some stuff I've actually done, rather than grumbling that I've not got much done. These wagons were done in September , but I've not got round to posting them till now. A mixed bag of elderly wagons on their last legs...   Exhibit A , as they say in court, is a down at heel Walrus, unaccompanied by a Carpenter:     I have to confess that I've tweaked the photo very slightly in Microsoft Digital Image 2006, to compensate for the effects of flash , though the adjust
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Reflections

Message in a Bottle - 2022

I am very late with my annual review this year, even though a stub has been in draft for several months . But rather more has been done than might appear.   The 1:72 Fairey Battle took up much of my modelling activity in the last months of 2021. A full write up is here , and it has now recieved final painting (which needs writing up..). It is already a bookshelf ornament on its stand, and I still intend to build a simple runway diorama as a test piece, on which it could be posed.
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Marking Time

This is by way of a holding entry - because of a difficult period at work I've not managed to do any modelling for about 6 weeks, and consequently there's been nothing to report. I was really hoping to make some serious progress on the backlog this year , only life comes along and throws a spanner in the works...   However I did manage to get to Ally Pally this weekend, and while I was there managed to purchase some laser cut flush glazing for the Bratchill 150 from Shawplan. I gather these a
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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

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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
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Ravenser in Constructional

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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

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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

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Later the same century...

This one's gone wrong somehow - try the link   http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2497&start=25" page on Old RMweb   Comment posted by russellwar on Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:34 pm <br /> <cite>jim s-w wrote:</cite> <br />No, you fit the glazing after the paint. You do need to cut your own but there is a small overlap between the etch and the hole. I have asked a lazer cutting company about the costs of getting windows cut - if its viable i'll let you
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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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Good Intentions

This posting should have been called New Year's Resolutions but that posting was cancelled due to a shortage of serviceable rolling stock and delays to the inbound service.....   I'm still trying to clear the decks of projects started last year, before starting anything new . However one small project - a rework of an old Mainline GW Mink to supply a van for parcels tail traffic for the steam stock - has slipped through the net and is now at the weathering stage.     Still outstanding is
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