Jump to content

On Ravensers Bookcase

A blog by Ravenser in RMweb Blogs

entries
87
comments
69
views
39,574

About this blog

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

Entries in this blog

Sort By

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

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

February 2, 2016

0

West Yorkshire Sow's Ear 2 - Let Battle Commence

There are so many things to sort out with this one it's difficult to know where to begin. I began with the trailer To my surprise and relief , when I removed the screws holding in place the Black Box on the underframe came off "just-like-that" , and it was empty . No messy sawing and cleaning up needed. Since the weight in this vehicle is all above the floor, there was no need to sort out alternative replacement weights. And if I ever feel bold enough to tackle my second 155 it should be pos

August 6, 2015

0

Damage Control 3 - Into Traffic

We left matters with a part-fixed Limby DMU and a mild crisis of conscience about details, identities and my general rate of progress on things in general. Happily the 101 does not add to the latter as it's now finished - despite all the little extras that kept crawling out. The first little catch was when looking at various photos in Morrison's DMU book and online. Whatever the faults of the former as a piece of scholarship (The Railcar Association compiled 9 pages of errata to it, and

July 17, 2015

0

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 in Constructional

June 28, 2015

0

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 in Constructional

June 23, 2015

0

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

April 9, 2015

0

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 in Constructional

July 14, 2014

0

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

0

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

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

As I was saying before we were interrupted...

I really must get more done this year . In fact I seem to have spent as much time taking stock as making stock. However first things first , and I'm going to try to transfer ORBC from the old forum. This is because half the projects concerned are unfinished - and it's not going to make a lot of sense if I announce with whoops of triumph that the PMV is finished and you haven't a clue as to the long-running saga of distress to this point. And I have a sinking suspicion the Bratchill 150 hasn'

October 30, 2009

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

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

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

0

Unfinished Business

There will no doubt be a proper way to do this, but I can't find a facility that allows me to store snippets of info... I don't know when Andy will be locking down RMWeb3 and whether I will still be able to gain access to old PMs, so to save embarrassment, - dimensions of a batch of PNAs , as kindly supplied by the Fatadder in May (scratchbuilt bodies, for the use of...) . I haven't actually got round to using them, mind, but perhaps this year.(It's the time of year for reviewing outstanding opr

December 31, 2009

0

Shock to the system

The small shunting plank is firmly Transitional. It may use diesels (or an honourary diesel - Y3) but it's the sort of inner city goods depot you really can't justify existing after about 1970. Consequently the modest fleet of stock for it is very traditional indeed: no air brakes here. The ex LMS fish van is meant for it , and various circumstances resulted in me acquiring and building one of the new generation Parkside kits for the BR standard 12T van . Potentially very useful for the plank

December 5, 2009

0

Troublesome Wagons

Now for a proper update (rather than transfers from the old forum) Some progress has been made in the last 2 months, though sometimes it doesn't feel that way. The two SSAs are finished , though I'm not 100% satisfied they're OK... One is in blue and is not quite as free rolling as I'd like , while the other is in EWS red and has given a good deal of trouble with the weathering. Really , I think the proper tool for the job - depositing a fine even layer of grime - would be an airbrush.

November 2, 2009

0

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 ,

October 31, 2009

0

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

October 30, 2009

0

Sometime in the last century.. ORBC

ORBC by Ravenser original page on Old RMweb __________________________________________ ??? posted on Fri May 04, 2007 5:24 pm As I'm hoping that I will actually get something done over the bank holiday weekend, I thoughtt I'd better salvage the spiel about the Bratchill 150 from the old forums. Having gone back to RMWeb2 , I was confronted by my New Years Resolutions from January last year: I must make some progress on other fronts this year. I have a lot of DCC inst

October 30, 2009

0

×

×

Create New...