Having built a set of five Parkside two-ton Festiniog slate waggons, I set about working out how to join them together. I intend to run them in a semi fixed rake, so in a block that can be shunted as one, but can be altered lengthwise in the fiddle yard. Either end will have a standard Bemo-style coupling, the operating end will be a Paul Windle (when I can find them!) and the other end is simply the moulded one from the kit.
For the rest of the couplings, I have fitted the 'buffing/coupli
Earlier this year I purchased a Gramodels Warflat from the Doncaster show, and I've finally got around to putting it together (after eventually getting the wheels for it) and I must admit, it's a nice easy build and certainly is well detailed. The one piece resin cast deck/solebars needed a soak in some hot water to straighten it out a little (but nothing major and that could've happened with it being stored amongst other bits and bobs for quite a while!) The whitmetal castings for the bufferb
Whilst looking through my collection of wagons, I discovered my old Hornby 'Red Arrows' box van, which I'd forgotten all about (bonus!) I took a look at it and thought it's make a colourful and unusual addition to the fleet for Whitborough, so I set to work improving it slightly. The modifications went as follows:
1. Remove tension lock couplings and mounting pegs
2. Fill resulting hole in frame
3. Remove moulded buffers (mainly because one was damaged) and replace with brass ones, from
Now that the warm weather is approaching, apparently, the modelling 'season' should be coming to an end. Hmmm, not likely! I've been tinkering with details for Scrayingham, my 009 layout, and decied it was about time to weather the buildings a bit.
First up is the water tower.
This is the standard Wills SS34 Stone Based Water Tower kit, built by Bexx, my better half! It has stood, unpainted for around a ear now, so I thought 'why not?'. With my layou being set just North of York, it
My P-way box van has now been painted and numbered, I'm just waiting for the couplings to arrive so it can be properly finished! It's pictured in the headshunt of Scrayingham with a couple of the other P-way waggons, the rest of the train so far is a pair of bolster waggons which will have a load of spare rails (once I get some sorted out!)
J
After digging out my BR blue 35005 Canadian Pacific and looking at various photos online, it became watertight that she ran with an extension to her tender. A few photos of the modifications are visible here...http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/96518-Hornby-merchant-navy-announced-formerly-facebook-leak/page-14&do=findComment&comment=1804977
So far, my progress had entailed trying the air tanks (to use again) and making a start on the extension frame.
I
A quick (but rather visual) update on what I've been up to lately stock-wise...
Fisrt of all in 00;
Renumbered my Bachmann 03 to 03089 (a York machine) now awaiting weathering and a sutable runner truck
Parkside Grampus (unfitted) bought at Warley and already painted/decalled and just awaiting a load of ballast and some filth!
Parkside LNER Lowfit, found in my stash and built in an evening session, now awaiting BR paintjob
Parkside Coal Hopper, built and awaiting bo
As I've been moving house I haven't had much chance for modelling, in fact I haven't done any that is railway related. I haven't even put Scrayingham up yet! Fortunately there is sace in our 'spare' room for my modelling desk and asociated paraphenalia, along with my layout to stand so I can work on it so hopefully in the near futre there'll be some updates on it!
The house is not too far from the racecourse in York so Easter weekend was not without my annual trip to the show. I picked up
I thought I had a topic on either here, or indeed the old site, but it would appear not, so I shall bring you up to speed. I managed to aquire a rather cheap Lima Class 60, from a certain internet auction site, and thanks to a number of members of this forum, and some trade stands at exhibitions, have cobbled together a set of detailling parts. It was originally in Railfreight Grey with LoadHaul markings as 60050 Roseberry Topping, but with EWS vynils over the logos. I had originally intended
Yesterday I had a session building Paul Windle couplings, so my box van is now operational (the heights do need a bit of tweaking though).
I've also made a bit of progress on my various bits of Festiniog stock; Worsley Works push-pull driving trailer Carriage 111 has had some more work done on it's interior, also a Worsley product, Carriage 104 is now all in one piece barring the roof (which is cooling after being annealed as I type), and Parkside open carriage 37 is awaiting passengers
For quite some time I've been intending to upgrade my Chivers 'Harlech Castle' to an outside framed version, using the newer Farish 08 chassis. I eventually bought one earlier this year, and it has been sat awaiting attention ever since. The whitemetal body had been originally fitted to an old inside framed chassis, which was a bit dodgy in its running qualities, being rather old, with minimal pickup. A few weeks ago I set about dismantling the body (it was unly superglued, so easy enough to
While watching the build up to the Belgian Grand Prix this afternoon, I prepared the new platform surface for Scrayingham. I had scraped all the previous ballast platform surface away earlier (and hoovered it up so I don't get in trouble!). So I set about with a paper template and a sheet of Slaters brick embossed plastic, the same as used in the goods shed area which is supposed to be locally sourced brick, afterall the Sandhutton line did serve the brickworks at Claxton, and that formed a larg
It's taking shape, the cylinders have been fitted to their backplates and the lower body valances are progressing. My fingers keep getting a little bit hot, but it hasn't caused me to throw anything across the room in agony yet! There's something very pleasing about the smell of hot metal when creating a locomotive, it's almost like it's a real one! It's not long now until the wheels go on and that's when the real test of my chassis starts. The axles turn in their bearings now, but once the whee
After purchasing an Oxford VW Golf Gti at the York show over Easter weekend, I thought that I would modify it a little into one which has been 'improved' by its owner.
The first task was to dismantle the car, which was very easy thanks to the two screws, front and rear. Once I was inseide, work could begin. The first modifications were to the chassis. The hubcaps were drilled out to represent alloy wheels, and a small slice of plastic rod for the centre-nut. The moulded exhaus
Well it's been a while since I built any stock for Scrayingham (see the layout topic), and after sorting out some un-needed 'N' gauge stock to sell on, I decided to have a play with a Peco van chassis and some plasticard.
The waggon I've started is a box van which will fit in as part of my p-way train, for stores and tools etc. Below are a couple of photos from the construction thus far (about 24 hours so far, including a shift at work and some sleep!) The main body is made from 1mm plastica
I've finally got the second set of footboards in place, and it all looks rather smart and ready for a clean and lick of paint...
This was until i popped the bogies in to see how it looked with them in, and discovered that there is next to no clearance between them and the supports for the footboards, and not a lot of room for adjustment! I can probably loose a bit off the bearing's ends, but that isn't the only conflicting area! I'm really not too sure if I've gone wrong somewhere,
This week has seen a bit more progress on the Empress Van. I have reshaped one of the ducket pieces to match the profile of the coach end and re-soldered the ducket side piece to it. After a test fit, it is a lot better than it was before, still not 100% accurate, but it will actually go together with minimal re-shaping. I have also fitted the footboards to one side of the underframe and it's now really starting to look like a Manx vehicle with the bogies almost hidden behind them! A start h
Afetr a bit of a hiatus while my attention was focussed on getting Whitborough Quayside ready for its exhibition last weekend, the Empress Van has been on a back burner. Now, however I can revisit it and hopefully make a bit of progress!
The bogies have gone together, and there is quite a bit of sideplay between the bearings but they aren't too sloppy. The cross-members are in place and need a little trimming flush with the sides.
Some fettling was required to get the bogie mounts to sit
Well, I've finally bitten the bullet and begun a journey into 12mm gauge as well as 009 (and 00!) My first foray is a Roxey Mouldings Isle of Man Empress Van. I ordered it a week or so ago and this morning it dropped through my letterbox. I do intend to build a second set of bogies for the vehicle so that I can also run it on my 009 layout (after all, the Ffestiniog have a number of carriages built on ex-IoM underframes, so there is almost a premise!)
I've never built a Roxey kit before
I have started construction of Festiniog Cariage 22 in it's current guise with large windows, as opposed to the earlier wooden panelled and smaller windowed body style, for more details, see here http://www.festipedi...iki/Carriage_22
I have the Worsley Works etches for the wooden body version, but, at present the newer body version is not available. Using the etches as a guid for the windows and overall dimensions, I have begun construcion in plasticard.
I intend to use Parksid
I have had a bit of a play with creating the teak effect on the First Open using one of the methods suggested on this forum (a quick search proved rather fruitful and interesting!) That of a painted base coat (in this case Tamiya XF-4 Yellow Green) followed by a number of coats of wood stain (Ronseal Antique Pine as recommended by Wordsell forever), depending on the condition of the coach dictates the number of coats. The pictures below demonstrate the appearance of the coach over three coats.
A bit of progress has been made over the last week or so, although one of the coach bodies (the Brake Third) suffered fair bit of damage while I was trying to dismantle it, so this has now become a source of spares and will eventually become a tarpaulin-covered siding filler!
I'm now left with the Open First and Open Third which have had the paint stripped form the bodies (mostly) and are almost ready for their first undercoat. The roofs still require a bit of attention, as some of the tor
A few years ago (around ten I suspect ) I built a few Kirk kits, rather badly! I have decided that I'm going to have a go at renovating them and hopefully end up with something a little better looking and also useful!
They are an Open First (crimson & Cream), Brake Third (maroon) and Open Third (maroon) and were all built without interiors (except the internal partitions) with rather tight bogies and other problems (gangways on backwards is one of the major problems ) so they are g
A recent house move has almost halted my building progress, but fortunately, I took my tools and some brass with me on holiday this week (to Primrose Valley, Filey, North Yorkshire) and of an evening did a bit. Both kits are from the Mercian 'Knightswork' range, and are the FR Closed Van (Side Door) and FR Carriage Wagon.
Both kits go together pretty quickly, and are easy to fettle to get smooth running out of them (I'l be adding some weight to them now I'm home). They come with wheels and
I've been busying myself painting figures of late to populate my layout. They are, so far, a mix of Slaters and Aiden Campbell figures painted with acrylics from the Tamiya and Games Workshop ranges.
A number of seated passengers have been fitted to my carriages, Aiden Campbell whitemetal ones in Festiniog semi-open 'Tourist Car' No.37 to ad weight, and slaters in the Talyllyn 3 compartment, as it has a whitemetal underframe and enough weight. My two 'teak' coaches already have passengers fi
