I had a a couple of locos back into the workshop for repair today. The first was a County Donegal railcar that 'needed a loose wire resoldering'. True it did. In fact I think it had been rewired so many times, the wires were too short to make new connections, so I replaced them. As the front pony truck was only held in place by the remaining wire, I repaired that as well. However, when I applied power ..... nothing! A quick investigation revealed that the motor shaft and gear were securely arald
I can't believe its nearly a year since I last posted on this blog. In the last nine months I have:
Built an incline connecting the fiddle yard to the low level section that will house the MPD. This also involved modifying the removable bridge section that carries the tracks across the doorway.
The track for the MPD has been built, laid, ballasted and wired up. The base for the MPD including inspection pits was also installed at this time.
The coaling stage/water tower was built.
As a break from working on Killybegs Station, I have been working on the large number of vans and wagons that I need for Worseter. I have been experimenting with different painting and weathering tecniques to get a reasonable representation of the variation in colour found in any train of vans. This batch (all Parkside Dundas kits) were sprayed with Halfords red primer then weathered with Railmatch acrylics. I used a variable mix of 'frame dirt' and 'roof dirt', well diluted with water, brush ap
It is pretty amazing that, while you poor guys in the UK are suffering the most horendous weather, we have clear blue skies here in the north west of Ireland.
In between working on the train shed for Killybegs, I have been getting on with building wagons and vans for Worseter. Some of these are due to see service on Clinkerford at York next year when Kempenfelt of this parish (the new owner) is hoping to run the layout in BR guise on at least one day, so that's given me an incentive to get o
I spent quite a while ruminating about how best to deal with the glazing on the train shed roof for Killybegs. The original plan was to use sheets of clear acrylic with glazing bars represented with plastic microstrip. I wasn't really happy that this would look right, so looked to the real thing (metaphorically speaking as Killybegs station building is long gone) for inspiration and eventually opted for a brass frame into which individual sheets of glazing could be fitted. For ease of fabricatio
The trainshed roof and outer wall are now one unit. The jig to hold everything firmly in place while the two parts were soldered together was quite simple in the end. 3 lengths of brass tube that were a tight fit in the square tubes of the columns were let into the board to hold the wall vertical. 2 larger diameter tubes were notched vertically to be a tight fit on the wire cross bracing of the end trusses then let into the board in a position where the foot of the rafter butted against the ins
The roof and wall structures are now finished. The next step is to build a jig to hold the roof and wall firmly in the correct position while I solder them together. Both components are too big to fit in the sink so I ended up cleaning them in the bath!
With holidays in France over for another year, the drawings finished and materials ordered and delivered, I really had no excuse not to get on with the train shed roof. Construction doesn't exactly replicate the original but it will be very close in appearance (as the trusses will be visible through the rood glazing). The main members are in brass hollow tube and have been drilled to take the lengths of 0.5mm nickel silver rod which represent the bracing. The roof will be removable which is why
Now that I have officially retired, I have more time on my hands to get back to work on Worseter, my roundy roundy layout. The fiddle yards have been in storage mode for nearly ten years while I concentrated on getting Clinkerford finished and building stock for the layout. The fiddle yard is on three boards which are hinged at the rear to allow them to be folded up out of the way against the wall. Now that Clinkerford has moved on to pastures new, the boards have been lowered to operating level
A little more progress on the 2-4-0 and it's starting to look a bit more like the prototype. However the further I progress, the more differences I pick up between the Isle of Man locos (on which the kit is based) and those supplied to the Ballymena & Larne (and thence on to the C&VBT). Most of these relate to the body. The side tanks should be taller, the bunker larger and there are lots of differences on the cab itself. As the buffers should also be a lot lower, I'm wondering if there
After goodness knows how many hours No.12 is finally finished (all bar a bit of coal and some crew). It has been a long road and one which I don't think I would choose to travel down again. However, at the end of the day she doesn't look too bad and runs quite smoothly.
In response to comments on my last blog, here is a B&W quickie showing progress on the rake to date. Two coaches are yet to be detailed and are sitting on 'bare' bogies. The last two are sitting in the cupboard! I intend to leave all the roofs to be painted at one go. Must get that embankment finished off, not to mention most of the low lvel part of the layout!
It's only a rake of nine coaches you say, shouldn't take too long. That's only 18 sprung bogies with 36 axles, 72 wheels, 72 pairs of brake hangers and 144 brake shoes to assemble. Don't forget the 36 cosmetic sides. Then there are 18 Kadees to assemble and fit (after modifying the coach ends to take them), 18 corridor connections to assemble and fit, 9 sets of underframe detailing to cobble up, 9 roofs that need all those strips removing. Numbers to be changed, bogies and roofs to be painted, s
After much blood sweat and tears the Hornby body and Malcolm Mitchell chassis have finally come together. Once she has received her new identity, Totnes Castle will be very lightly weathered. I think the Malvern Hills make a very suitable backdrop!
While beavering away on the Castle in my spare time, I have continued building locos for the County Donegal Heritage Centre.
The latest project is a Lough Swilly 4-8-0. The upper works are now pretty well finished and await the loco chassis. I am waiting on wheels for this one and, as the chassis is of the fold up variety with external frames, it can't be assembled without them!
Back in August I posted an entry on the CDR Class 5A that I had been building but I forgot to attach a pic so
Well to be more precise building an etched chassis to a Hornby Castle.
I had been waiting for Brassmasters to release one of their fold up chassis conversions for the Hornby Castle, but it seems that this has been put on the back burner while they concentrate on LMS locos. So I dug a Malcolm Mitchell kit out of the cupboard to see if I could use the chassis from that as a short term fix.
The Mitchell kit follows the prototype very closely which may be OK in 7mm but in P4 it means that cl
This weekend Clinkerford was put up for the last time at home to be checked over for its final outing to Manchester in October, after which it passes into new ownership. A sad day! I couldn't resist the temptation to take a few last shots, mostly from the side the punters don't see. Hope you enjoy them. See you in Manchester.
Having finally got around to fitting some (temporary) chimney pots, I have been waiting to take some suitable 'on location' shots of the model here in Killybegs. Unfortunately, the weather has had other ideas, so here are a couple of indoor shots to be going on with. It still looks a bit bare without the train shed but at the moment that's on the long finger as I am still building 4mm CDR stock.
This is the Backwoods Miniatures Class 5 kit with the Worsley Works kit to convert it to a 5A. The latter provides new footplate, valances, tanks and bunker which go together reasonably well although some of the tabs don't fit the slots and there is a gap below the front of the tanks. Matching it up with the original kit is more problematic, there is a poor fit between the cab/bunker/tanks, particularly in relation to height but this was overcome relatively easily. The 5A is 1'5" longer than the
Since the my last post, I have put a 'base coat' down in preparation for future 'planting'. Most of the hillside will be covered by scrub and trees in due course. The access road and platform have also received some initial treatment and the back scene has had a splash of colour added. It's amazing how just a bit of colour starts to bring things to life.
For PcnPete, I'm also attaching a close up of the track as requested.
Having been following poor Pete's tales of woe with regard to filling, I was prompted to return to 'Abergynolwyn' (after far too long a gap) and finish the filling between my own tracks using my trusted method of lightweight filler (as also used in the MPD on Bruckless Junction). This is set far enough below rail height for the rails to stand just proud of the finished surface after ballasting. I used a bit of 40 thou plasticard to to create the flangeway while the filler was setting then cleane
While looking for something else (that I haven't yet found) I did find these old pics of my Kingham Junction layout that are well over 20 years old. I wonder if it's still around somewhere! The second attempt at a back scene looks a lot better than the first, rather bright, one!
