Big progress on small things…
Entry posted by James Hilton
1,080 views
Well my parallel modelling in G-gauge (http://ejklr.blogspot.co.uk) and 009 continues (http://paxton-road.blogspot.co.uk), albeit at a reduced pace with a busy time at work and an even busier time at home (my second child is due in about 4 weeks)…
It does seem a long time since I wrote on RMweb so in the style of Jon020 here is a bumper update. The Worsley Works (WW) kits are cheap, well designed but really are ‘scratch aids’ in that you get a body, possibly a roof, possibly a chassis and the motorisation/rolling chassis and other details are left to you. It’s a great balance of modelling – that with time and patience can produce a really excellent result. In a world of near mm perfect offerings in OO from Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol and the like it’s refreshing to work in a scale where true model making is still very much the norm, against the dumming down of the skills required by increasing standards in ready-to-run locomotives, rolling stock and now even ready-to-plant buildings!
The Wasp…
The ‘Wasp’, the standard gauge re-gauged inspection saloon that resides (albeit stored at present I believe) on the Welshpool and Llanfair (W&L) is now looking pretty complete – still some way to go (more on that later). I can’t quite remember what stage I’d got the model too in my last blog entry? After putting together the chassis and body in brass, fitting the KATO tram chassis I moved onto body detailing. I started with a 40thou plasticard roof, scored down the centre (on the reverse) and gently bent into a mild ridge. This was superglued to the brass flat roof on the WW kit, and the gaps at each end filled and shaped with Milliput Superfine. On the chassis the sandboxes were scratchbuilt from 10thou plasticard, very fiddly but worth it for the accurate shape, and sanding pipework added from 0.4mm brass wire. Other chassis details included some old staples for the foot steps and plasticard and brass rod offcuts for the battery box and exhaust pipe. In addition a few bits from the ‘junk’ box (I think from a US outline multiple working detailing set) were used to represent the valves and taps. On the body I added L section plasticard to represent the door runners, off cuts of sprue shaped to be a headlight at each end and then 0.4 and 0.3mm brass rod gently shaped to represent the windscreen wipers, and 0.4mm brass rod used for the handles.
When complete a coat of primer transformed the meddly of parts into a coherent whole – and showed the promise of the basically ‘right’ character of the original WW scratch-aid kit. I left the Halfords Plastic primer to dry for a few weeks before applying Humbrol paints for the body colours. This started with matt yellow on each end, this was then masked with B&Q precision masking tape cut to the right size (using a scalpel and a metal rule on a small sheet of glass from an old clip picture frame). I then airbrushed on lightly the matt black – which means you get really sharp crisp lines and no build up of paint against the masking edges. Once dry the ends were masked and I applied the dark green body colour.
You should also notice the wonderful etched brass works plates on each end – these are from Narrow Planet (www.narrowplanet.co.uk) and are painted by brushing on quite sparingly onto the plate whilst it’s on the fret, letting it dry a little (say 5 minutes for an enamel like Humbrol) until it goes tacky and then turn it upside down and polish on a piece of clean white paper – this gently removes paint from the raised surfaces. Then cut them out and gently burnish the edges to remove any paint left on those… They were affixed with a spot of Superglue on each end.
This model is now ready for detail painting (headlights, wipers etc), then I’ll seal it with varnish. Then the order of tasks needs working out but I need to fit glazing, paint the interior walls, fit a engine cabinet, seats and driving controls and a gentle weathering of the chassis and body.
…and the Viking…
I did intend originally to progress these models separately but the Worsley Works (WW) Isle of Man (IOM) Schoema kit very quickly caught up with the progress on Wasp. This model also utilises a KATO tram chassis, and I last posted on here as the basic WW parts had all been fitted and I was about to move onto scratchbuilding the remaining parts.
The prototype is of German origin and has typically a lot of chassis detail and a high running board. There was no way to escape this and provide only minimal detailing – the quality of the body etches were crying out for going to town on the chassis as well. Before starting I got together some plasticard round sections (an Evergreen variety pack I think) as working in plasticard can be quicker, although less robust.
I started with the axle boxes – and found some white-metal castings left over from my OO days – these are S-kits ones cut from the Bruninghaus spring units I retro fitted to my old Bachmann PNA 2-axle hopper wagons. I then framed these with some L-section plasticard with TINY fillets of 10thou plasticard. This was a maddening job but well worth it on the finished model – I could only manage 10-15 minutes at a time on this job! These were fixed with Superglue to the brass chassis.
The damper units were put together from some L, U and round section plasticard from Evergreen. The dampers are just two diameters of round section glued together. These were constructed off the model, and fitted after the brake reservoirs and pipework were fitted. The brake reservoirs (different sizes each side) were fabricated from round tube plasticard and the ends filled with white Milliput Superfine. The banding on these is just plastic microstrip from Slaters. The pipework on the chassis is from 0.4 and 0.7mm brass wire. These parts were Superglued to the brass chassis, and then the damper units were fitted, also secured with Superglue. The small valves next to the larger of the two reservoirs were from a Hornby Class 31 detailing pack that I had in my ‘junk’ box, and the brake hoses each end are, I think, Heljan examples from the Class 33 detailing kit.
In contrast, the bodywork needed a lot less work. The handrails were fashioned from 0.4mm brass rod – and used Gibson short handrail knobs along the bonnet, and I added an A1 Models turned brass horn on the cab front sheet. The ventilators on the bonnet top were from the N-gauge buffers on the KATO tram chassis and the exhaust stack is just a piece of round section plasticard.
Applying the Halfords Plastic primer totally transformed the model and showed the level of detail I’d managed to work into the chassis to good effect. Whilst I had the matt black paint in the airbrush from painting Wasp I also painted the chassis and underside of the body on Viking. This was carefully masked to paint the buffer beams, again airbrushed with a mix of Humbrol orange and red to give a faded colour. Unfortunately I damaged the front step handrails at this stage, so these now need re-fitting. I’m considering drilling small holes in the footplate to make them more robust. Once the red was dry I masked the chassis and buffer beams and then mixed up a custom blue from Railmatch Regional Railways dark blue, Intercity silver grey and Humbrol yellow, and applied this with the airbrush.
The next step with Viking will be to apply some gloss varnish to the edges of the buffer beams where I intend to add white chevrons, then detail paint the cab window surrounds and touch in other parts like the vacuum brake pipes before giving the model a coat of matt varnish. I can then fit the glazing, the roof and apply some weathering.
I’ve ordered some 009 Greenwich couplings that will also be fitted to this model.
So there you go – a bumper update – I hope you’ve enjoyed reading. More regular updates can be found in my blogger blogs (see the intro paragraph), and now I’m pondering whether to build a micro 009 layout to use these models on…
-
9
6 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now