These two were built at least 18 years ago. I recently rediscovered them in Mum's attic and now they reside in my display case.
I think that the kits need no introduction, there must be thousands of these on layouts up and down the country!
Despite their shortcomings I'm still rather pleased with them, otherwise they'd have been sold on as part of one of my semi-regular purges. The blue one was built first and the red dropside came later, its interesting to see how my modelli
I have a pair of Judith Edge Ruston 48DSs on my workbench, one for myself and one for another RMWeb member.
The kit comes complete apart from paint and pick-ups, something unusual for a loco kit but very welcome in my mind.
The main etch is shown below;
This covers all of the main variations of the class, apart from n.g. versions, having alternative cab sides and bufferbeams as well as windows, early locos had square framed widows, on later locos the corners were rounded off.
Last year at ExpoEM North I treated myself to a London Road Models Resistance Soldering Unit. Yesterday I decided that it was about time that I set it up.
Opening the box reveals a big grey unit, a couple of leads, some carbon rod and a set of instructions. The big grey, rather heavy, unit has two leads coming out of the back, one with a mains plug on it and the other with a footswitch on the end. The two other leads plug into two of the four sockets on the front of the unit, different combinat
I've had this kit for over twelve years. Its for Resilient class diesel loco, built by John Fowler in the 40's and powered by either a 3 or 4 cylinder Fowler-Sanders diesel engine. Three 2' gauge locos worked at Alpha Cement at Cliffe-at-Hoo two of which still survive, one at Amberly Museum (the loco this kit was based on) and the other at Armley Mills in Leeds. Some were built to 3' gauge, one worked at Marland in North Devon and another at Dinmor on Anglesey. The Dinmor loco still survives and
Finally finished off my Coles Crane tonight, 14 months after starting it.
It didn't really need a lot of work to finish, a coat of varnish, some couplings and rigging. The 3 links were supplied with the kit although I lost one hook, easily replaced as it was supplied with Exactoscale hooks, which are excellent. The hooks and links were treated with Birchwood Casey 'Super Blue' before fitting. Rigging, with black cotton (supplied) is fiddly. The cotton is held in place under the rear of the body
Whilst putting the Fowler Resilient together I also built this dumper truck, I like to build two white metal kits at the same time to get the most from the epoxy glue as I always manage to mix together more than I need.
The kit contains 18 white metal castings and some basic written instructions. However theres no drawing or photo of the finished item so some head scratching was needed as to how some parts fit. For example the fuel tank and exhaust needed some thought. A look in a Langley Model
I found this, my only piece of O gauge stock, in Mum's attic whilst nosing around up there last week. Its a Peco kit for a 16T mineral with bottom doors. I built it over 15 years ago at a guess. If I remember correctly the kit went together extremely well. Buffers and drawgear are sprung, as is the running gear with working springs moulded in a soft plastic. As I haven't posted anything in this blog for a while I thought that I'd photograph it and post the pics here. And here they are;
The kit comes with a multi-stage 108:1 gearbox, designed specifically for this loco. Its etched in nickel-silver and is used with a Mashima 1220 motor. The gearbox is easy to fold up and assemble but cutting down the motor shaft caused problems, see here.
A pic of the gearbox;
And a couple of pics of it in the frames;
You can just make out the idler shaft and gear for the 'Illusodrive' jackshaft (the flycranks aren't physically connected to the con. rods but are driven of
Footsteps now added;
These are made from 5mm x .3mm brass strip, folded up using a scrawker and a square needle file to make some fold lines.
I thought about open steps backed with mesh but went for solid steps, partly for simplicity and partly for ruggedness.
Couplings are RT Models 'Harrogate Gasworks' type. These have a nice heavy fabricated base, not unlike those used on some NCB underground locos. The back face of the coupling base needs to be filed flat before use. The buffer
A long time ago I started a High Level Kits RSH 'Husky' (click on the tags above for the relevent entries). The project stalled through a lack of wheels, the kit is designed to use 10mm Sharman wheels which are no longer available. I've decided that its time that this one was finished, so today I've taken a brief break from building Rustons to sort out an alternative wheelset.
I'm using Gibson Lowmac discs, slightly oversize but I can live with that, which of course need holes drilling for c
The inner frames are etched in one piece and form the working heart of the loco, holding the axles and gearbox in place. They can be built rigid or compensated. Compensating this loco is so easy that there's little point in building it rigid.
The instructions suggest fitting the lead axle bearings in place before folding up, I chose to fit the bearings after folding to make holding the frame sides secure for bending easier;
Not everything goes as planned... Note the section above the b
Inspired by recent posts from 46444 I've dug out my Dapol Austerity and done a little more work on it.
The undersize dome and silly little water filler have been replaced by RT Models castings, as has the chimney as my model came with the fibreglass type that was used on underfeed stoker fitted locos. Other RT Models parts fitted so far are replacement etched bufferbeam overlays, which help reduce the overscale width of the bufferbeams, and coupling rods which complement the Gibson wheels ni
Here's a drawing of the chassis frames. Apologies for the quality!
The chassis sides were made from .025" brass strip, chosen over .016" to make filing easier and for a larger bearing area for the front axle.
Spacers for the EM loco are Gibson and for the the OOn3 version I made my own from strip, 7.5mm wide.
Bearings again are Gibson and are only fitted to the rear driven axle, small bearings on the OOn3 and large bearings on the EM version. (Gibson do 2 sizes of 2mm bearing).
Note the co
I replaced the pick-up wires on the EM chassis this afternoon with longer wires which apply less pressure to the rims. The old wires were too short and stiff and prevented the front non-powered wheels from turning. Thanks to Buffalo for the tip (a pint is owed). Here's a photo of the new revised pick-ups;
If only my electrical soldering was as neat as my brass soldering...
And here's a shot of the loco on my test track, actually a piece of old bent C+L, in the kitchen. The running i
One of these arrived in the post today. I'd seen it on Eileen's Emporium's site and thought 'that could be usefull'.
I've rarely seen these mentioned on here.
Here's the etch, note the different baseplates for different gauges;
Cut out and folded up;
And soldered together;
And in use;
Usual disclaimer.
I hope someone finds this interesting/usefull.
Paul.
I now have a running chassis. I've put my own loco to one side for the time being to get my friends one finished.
Pick-ups are 1mm x .15mm phospher bronze strip soldered to copper clad sleeper material;
It took me ages to decide on the best way to arrange them, and then I tried different widths and thicknesses of phospher bronze before I was happy.
The pick-up wires aren't soldered to the motor yet as this one may end up being fitted with a DCC chip.
Here it is bolted together
On the workbench at the moment is an A1 Models etched brass body kit which I'm going to mount on a Farish 03 mechanism.
The kit is designed for the Bachmann 6w switcher chassis, however I feel that using the inside framed jackshaft driven 03 chassis will give the loco a more British feel.
The body kit is designed to fit straight onto the Bachmann chassis with the body removed so I've made up a brass footplate to marry the etched body and Farish chassis together.
The footplate is made fr
I've added the bonnet top and cab roof and started filling and sanding the body ready for painting. Some of the detail castings have been added, the sandboxes (but not the pipes yet) and axleboxes. The bonnet top details (filler caps, exhaust, air filter) will be added after painting as will the brake column in the cab. Some pics;
I've also added the couplings, the kit gives you a choice of sensible 009 Bemo type couplings or scale buffer blocks and link. I went for the scale optio
I've made up the High Level 'Rustler' gearboxes for these two locos. They are etched in nickel silver and come complete with 2mm axle material, brass bearings and plastic spur gears and a brass worm. Instructions cover two sides of A4, including some very clear exploded diagrams. Reduction is 97:1.
The gearbox is made up of two main parts, the main part that holds the motor and a swing arm that transmits power to the rear axle.
Here is the main part, in the flat on the left, and folded o
Still slowly progressing through the paint shop is my Judith Edge Steelman Royale. The black areas of the frame have been sprayed and the whole frame gloss varnished. The bufferbeams have been wasp-stiped, using Fox transfers, and another coat of varnish applied. The loco will be have a gloss finish as these locos were kept extremely clean. A pic;
I still have to start on the bodywork.
My JPG Models dumper truck is finished;
Before weathering I sprayed the model with matt v
A package arrived in the post a couple of weeks ago from Robert of RT Models containing the test etch for a simple chassis designed to power a Ruston 48DS, either the popular A1Models kit or the rarer Impetus kit.
Its designed to be very simple to build and to use a High Level Slimliner+ gearbox with a Mashima motor.
Here's the nickel silver etch;
And folded up;
The drive is to one axle only, the other features simple compensation, the axle pivoting on the 'V' and running in
As both locos are almost ready for the paint shop I'll share some thoughts on the build.
My aims with this project were;
To build a 3' gauge Ruston,
To see how far I could go with detailing the A1 Models kit,
To build my own slow running compensated chassis,
To build a 48DS with the correct wheelbase with the right amount of daylight under the frames.
(The EM loco wasn't originally planned, I decided partway through that it wouldn't take much extra effort to build a second loco).
I'm happ
The smokebox door, like the rest of the loco, needs a bit of work.
The first job was to carve away the numberplate, not really needed on an industrial loco..., and the moulded dart. The moulded hinge is huge and ugly so that came off as well, leaving a couple of small pads to mount a length of .025" Evergreen rod on, and for some reason there are rivets on the hinge straps which the prototype lacked so they came off as well.
The front handrail is set too high so I filled the moulded holes and
I've started painting my A1 Models freelance diesel.
First of all I treated the bare brass with Carrs Metal Black, which didn't take very well, then gave it a coat of Phoenix Precision aerosol etch primer (I prefer not to put etch primer through my airbrush). After that had dried thoroughly I undercoated the model with Revel acrylic white;
Note that the base for the orange beacon has been glued to the roof, after the etch primer and before the white undercoat. Etch primer can affect so
I've fitted the derail beams (easier than it looks), side window surrounds (filigree thin but again easier than I thought), steps and resin filler caps. I didn't use the supplied sandboxes as they were too wide and would interfere with the tails of the sprung buffers so I knocked up some from plastic. The loco now weighs 55 grams, I might try and fit a few more grams of lead in yet. Still to fit are the brakes, but I'll do that while I'm giving the body a coat of primer.
A final look at the
