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On Ravensers Bookcase

A blog by Ravenser in RMweb Blogs

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

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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made intermittant progress and have now reached the stage shown: and The second being the recycled and rebuilt kit I originally made in my teens and which completely dismantled itself when I applied ModelStrip to it This is now a composite, with 4 first/3 third .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

February 2, 2014

0

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

September 25, 2013

4

Work in Prospect

This is one of those posts that could go on the layout blog (here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343-blacklade-artamon-square/ ) but as it amounts to a note-to-self of stock construction jobs that need doing, it's more logical to put it on my workbench thread . So here it is... I had the layout up for an extended play a couple of weeks back. Things came out of boxes that had spent an awful long time in them . For the first time I actually got round to trying to run a Civil

September 21, 2013

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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

June 22, 2013

0

steam age coaches 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 in Constructional

June 4, 2013

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Set 3 - Grouping Non-Gangwayed

Despite having two sets of coaches on the go already , I seem to have drifted into starting a third. Admittedly the LNWR set is almost done - just a bit of weathering still to do , and the new project is supposed to be a quick win.... When, early this year, I decided to use various steam era kits and bits I had accumulated to operate a steam period on Blacklade I quickly found I was very short of brake coaches. As money was tight at the time , I looked for the cheapest options to plug the ga

June 1, 2013

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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

Ravenser in Reflections

March 27, 2013

3

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

March 17, 2013

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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

Ravenser in Constructional

February 9, 2013

2

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

Ravenser in Constructional

January 25, 2013

2

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

July 13, 2012

4

The End is Nigh

Despite the silence I have in fact been doing some modelling over the last couple of months - I just haven't written it up . However this is to record that I have finally finished construction of the Ratio Van B . It still needs lettering , spot painting and weathering, and there's plenty of scope for things to go wrong in all of that, but the last tiny scrap of etched brass has been stuck in place . At least the last one that I'm sticking on - there are still a small number of tiny bits on the

June 4, 2012

0

Fools rush in

It's been a long while since anything was posted here - most of the modelling in 2011 was on the layout, where the bulk of the major work still outstanding was tackled , but some progress has recently been made on stock as I currently have a little spare time . Firstly the Ratio Van B. Work resumed last Autumn , only for me to find that that I couldn't find the etched sheet . Eventually I swallowed hard and decided to improvise. This meant fabrication of replacement door hinges from microst

March 19, 2012

0

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

August 29, 2011

1

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

January 18, 2011

0

"I've started so I'll finish...."

It's a sign of something - not a good something - that I find myself doing my New Year stock take /resolutions in the middle of January Twelve months ago I set myself a fairly ambitious programme of catch up and finish. This was tempting fate, I suppose, and Fate duly obliged, wielding a large blunt instrument. At the end of that January, my then employer embarked on a third major round of redundancies . The redundancy process and jobhunting took up most of my time and energy in the first h

January 16, 2011

0

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

August 29, 2010

1

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

August 10, 2010

0

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

Ravenser in Constructional

August 1, 2010

0

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

July 17, 2010

2

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

March 29, 2010

0

"Here's one I made earlier"

I had a bout of fitting Sprat and Winkle couplings a couple of weeks back - the vans (see below) were done and released to traffic and I duly dug the MCV out of the stockbox - quick win , low effort and another model back in traffic. I was half way through when I noticed: Remember that the shunting micro is Transitional . Airfix kit - modified without top flaps to represent a rebodied wagon. So it's out of period and can't be made in period - these rebodyings started around 1970. It wou

February 2, 2010

0

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

January 23, 2010

0

Taking Stock

It's the time of year for casting an eye over projects unfinished and unstarted, reviewing progress and considering what's been achieved, and making resolutions for the New Year. We could start with the 2009 New Year's Resolution (buried in a transfer off the old site far below): That one I actually kept, more or less. A few bits and pieces were bought - a couple of second had wagon kits, a 153 (but that was a carry over from the 2008 Rolling Stock Programme) , a Central 158 and a ch

January 2, 2010

0

Fruits of my Labours

After a rather more protracted effort than it should have been, I've finally finished the vans and here they are: From left to right , ex LNER fruit, BR vent van, and rebuilt BR Shock. And yes , the Fruit and Shock still need couplings. Unfortunately I've noticed the chassis on the vent van is not 100% square . It seems to run fine, because it's been out on the shunting plank without trouble - it was only some time later that I noticed a fractional rock when stood on a mirror. Since

December 31, 2009

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