westernviscount

And the inside... With the deliberate mistake of ballasting the centre of the bridge before building the central girder.

A few pictures of the girder temporarily stuck to the layout.

I had another cock up with painting and lost a bit of heart in the prpject so 1458 remaines unfinished. I have though had another go at the painting and lined it out. I need to finish the cab roof grab handle and put coal in the bunker next.

A bit work work on the bridge. I have joined the upper panel section to the lower girder. The panels had decorative beading on the faces which I am assumimg were still in place in the early sixties. The inside had angled L section

A quick follow up on my previous post. All painted and decorated. Croesnewydd wass assembled from an HMRS pressfix sheet. Neat enough and in my opinion satisfying the 3 foot test. Light weatheringusing an enamel wash and light airbrushing of made up dirt colour. What was the point with excellent RTR? Lamps and couplings to follow.

Thanks Mikkel, I am very happy with the completed model. Yes, I actually enjoyed the construction of Croesnewydd which is just at the outer edge of my concentration and patience levels!

I recently finished the ratio Toad kit. The whole thing was sprayed halfords white primer then humbrol 64 light grey. The solebar and below are revell matt black and handrails etc painted white. I wanted to have the van allocated to Croesnewydd although I have no photos of a BR era van with this legend. The areas for black were masked and sprayed. As @Mikkel suggested I used an HMRS sheet to construct the croesnewydd but only had the general wagon sheet so the Y was cut from HYBAR! I weathered with a black enamel was and sprayed the solebar and beneath with a mix of revell black and brown. Lamps and spratt and winkles to follow.

I think shoe horning gatekeeper or rivet counter into a youtube video title does wonders for views and likes. I honestly have not come across the mythical rivet counter but I have come across plenty in the hobby who seem hell bent on proving it doesnt matter very much to them and nor should it to anyone else. This is why I haven't got a youtube channel because I too would spend more time ranting and less time modelling. Having Rmweb is bad enough ;-)

Another rivetting evening... I have started the upper pa els of the bridge. These will have decorative frames added later. The two sections held together by hand.

So I have watched a couple of youtubers getting very upset about rivet counters. They seem a bit like a weekend golfer missing a put on purpose to prove they dont take themselves too seriously. So, with this in mind and fully schooled in the ways of not counting rivets I decided to...count some rivets. In all seriousness (is that allowed these days?) I am starting work on the bridges for Caia Road. The rivets, after counting, are lightly punched on the reverse of some thin plastikard using a scribing tool I picked up in the range for £1. They are not perfect but I enjoyed counting them all and am pleased with the outcome so far. :-)

Thank you Mikkel. Yes, the appeal of this type of modelling is that it is cheap and occupies the mind. As I say, I was inspired by the Geoff Kent book. Having said about the cheapness, I am thinking of getting some "croesnewydd" transfers made for it. I know Geoff hand paints his lettering!! Never going to happen!! :-)

Yes, but not at the end the paint ran out. ;-)

A bit of wagonery for Caia Road. An old ratio kit uplifted ready for paint...

A classic ratio kit given a bit of attention. Thought some folks might be interested. Happy Easter everyone.

Before moving northward I picked up a bargain couple of kits from John Dutfield in Chelmsford. The subject of this blog is the Ratio toad kit bought for £3. It is showing its age and 'requires' some uplifting procedures. I was inspired by Geoff Kent's upgrade of this kit in his 3rd book on the 4mm wagon. The kit has a nice shape to it but the handrails along the body side aare moulded and are fairly thick. Again, this is a matter for taste and their is little value in critiquing what I assume is a 40 odd year old kit. As ever, all handrails are scraped away using the scalpel. I am not very knowledgable about diagrams etc etc but Geoff points us in the right direction to what needs changing. The vertical L section on the sides of the cabin stop short for the type of vehicle being modelled. It is not a fault of the kit. These were extended with pladtikard. The end windows have sloping upper and lower cills so were scraped away and replaced with shaped plastikard. The footboard brackets are replaced with .8mm brass rod at the ends and .5mm brass for the central bits. On closer inspection of the prototype I think these might be made for L section. The new handrails are made from .45mm rod mounted on L section brackets made from brass section. The L section is drilled with a .5mm bit and the protusion length marked with pen. Then I fettled the piece to be mounted into the body with a mini cutting disc. The veranda doors or gates are not right and to model them open you need to build your own. This was made from .5mm plastikard cut into the frame shape of rectangle with diagonal brace (see the door on the far siee above) this was laminated with plastikard scribed with planks and .33mm wire used for the handrail. A new step was also built from plastikard. Inside the veranda a new brake handle, sander lever and bench were made. Underneath, sanding pipes were made from .8mm and .45mm rod. Brake gear was partially represented in .45mm rod and staples shaped to form the safety loops. Lanarkshire buffers finish things off nicely as usual and brass tube chimney re-sited on the roof. This will be painted unfitted grey and will join the Caia Road roster. Cheers for now. David

Excellent work here Mark. I think I might have one of these knocking around also. Might try and unearth it.

A bit of progress with the trackwork... I sprayed the track tonight which has really moved things along. I notice a little copper clad sneaking through but the overall colour blends the trackwork together. A bit of ballasting later in the week I think. Although I ran out of paint a foot or so from the end of the layout!!

My daughter used to deliver Woody his Stetson hat using her Thomas and a bogie bolster. Also a bit of 4 year old painting! Lovely stuff. Can't ever get rid of this! Yes, I helped with the face.

Hi David, Apologies for slow response. I used car spray paint from The Range. They are called hycote and the colour is ford rosso red. I use halfords red primer first.

Thanks Captain. Do you have any special procedures for motorised points? I havent had many problems in the past but wondered how others go about things.

Thank you Captain. I am unsure at this point bit I have seen excellent results using the method you describe. I am going to start painting the track next I am there. Do you jave a preffered method? I am toying with airbrushing with acrylic which I have not done before.

A flavour of things to come... Some wagons shuffled into place to mimic one of the few pictures available of Caia Road. I spent the evening removing the webs between sleepers ready for the track to be painted and ballasted. The fun bit!!

Thank you Steve. Now the trackwork is fully operational (death star like) the modelling can get going which will hopefully see tge layout transform a little steadier. Up until now it has looked very much the same for many months.

This has been a "just get on with it" piece of modelling by my standards. The addition of the back blinder sees the signal arm permenantly fitted into the spindle. It has been a nice piece of learning too as I had no idea how a back blinder should be positioned on the signal. The lenses were cut just bigger than the apertures and set in place with thinned gloss varnish. The fronts were varnished also as the instruction recommend. The operatimg wire is .3mm I think amd blackened with a permanent marker. The blance weight and lever operate the signal arm very nicely and the signal finds its level using the lever crank. Very pleased with it all...except that finial. Talk about splodging the paint on.