Dave at Honley Tank's Blog

Dave,

Good to see you're finding modelling opportunities. You could make a little more time available by not clearing stuff away. After all, it's not cluttering up the house. Obviously, you're a tidier modeller than I am!

An interesting approach to your Lima mechanism wheels, although I'm not too keen on the appearance of brass wheels (the tread remaining bare metal). How does it do for keeping clean/collecting dirt?

Dave.

Hi Dave,

" Obviously, you're a tidier modeller than I am!"

 

If you went in the workshop right now you would not say that!; I can barely move.

However I do tend towards returning tools, stock, materials etc to their normal storage places. If I don't I won't find 'em next visit!!

 

Brass wheels:

It's about twenty years or more since I made the first set and those were left plain brass at the tyre. I can't say that I notice the colour of the tyres when running and I don't remember any averse comments from others. Since those early days, most have been nickel plated which gives a closer impresion of steel; this may also improve electrical pick-up, but it is not a pleasant process; nasty chemicals and fumes - would only do it outside!.'Shan't do it for the Lima.

 

For my own thoughts, diesel wheels are so small and fairly well hidden inside a bogie, the chance of noticing the trye colour is virtually negligable. Certainly I have dificulty getting all wheels on the track 'coss I can't see 'em!

 

We went through real (Delf-- Oops!)  Delph last week - how's the model going?

 

Dave

Slowly! The only real progress recently has been the hand embossing of all the cobble stoned area in the goods yard and the coal drops - a very laborious and time consuming process. Now I'm pondering how best to paint them. From my recollection. cobbles in the NW were a sort of buff greyish brown colour, quite light coloured when dry.

If you have such elements on your layouts, I'd be happy to hear how you coloured them.

Otherwise, I've been ploughing on with more locos

Dave.

Cobbles,

The cobbles on Birch Vale were originally a purchased product in embossed card and pre-coloured; - make unknown, but I was never happy that they looked prototypical to the area.

When I started on the scenery of Bowton's Yard' (I might finish the scenery one day!) I made a rubber casting of a section of hand embossed plaster. Unfortunately I used air-drying latex. This is an easy process; - simply paint the master with release agent (fairy liquid works) and then paint all over with the latex. Allow to dry between  about 5-6 coats and you get a reasonable but frail mold. I managed about twenty casts from the one mold, certainly enough for both layouts, but now it has degraded and is no longer usable. I would make the mold in the air setting rubber used for white metal casting if I were to repeat.

The idea of using plaster (plaster cast type not decorating type) was to over come the problem of joints in the cast slabs- I left a 'cobble-width' space between slabs, filled those in and hand-embossed the filler when it dried.

The other reason for using plaster was the final colouring.

You've got the colour description right; I'd say "mucky buff";- its mainly local sandstone I think.

I flooded my cast plaster with a watery black mix and when dry, one or more coats of matt varnish, which dependent on make, will dry a bit brownish; if not add a touch of buff paint to the varnish. The black highlights the cobble joints.

Good luck with it.

Dave

When I was converting Lima diesels to P4 (all of 20+ years ago!) I turned the Lima brass wheels down and fitted Alan Gibson coach wheel tyres, removing the excess material from the wheel back up to the tyre rim and refitted them on the original Lima axles.  I found that only a thin spacer (20 thou?) was needed to maintain meshing.  On the gear fitted wheel a bit more care was necessary as the 'sprocket' is fitted right up to the back of the wheel - in fact, it may be moulded as part of the insulation, I can't remember now!

 

Paul