Gibbo675

Hi James, I Haven't started the white panels on mine yet, I am though waiting for grey paint to dry on eleven boxes all of which are currently decorating a radiator to help harden the paint off. Gibbo.

Hi James, In the spirit of "Shy bairns get nowt !": Get Darius to email you the artwork so that you can print me some off along with your ones !!!! Gibbo.

Hi Dave, The transfer sheet I used for the red strip Freightliners is Railtec sheet 6503, make sure you get the 4mm one. https://www.railtec-models.com/showitem.php?id=1193 Gibbo.

Hi Paul, I've sent you a PM explaining the state of play and that I intend that soon the project will move on somewhat. Gibbo.

Hi Folks, I've been busy with the Ford container boxes, they have turned out to be quite a bit more of rebuild than at first envisaged too. I decided that rather than chop all my ford boxes up in one go I would have a go at converting one of the new ones so that if it didn't work out as planned then I only loose one box. The first job was to remove the roof which came off quite easily once given a quick scribe around the joint with knife. the next job was to make a new roof. This was done by laminating two bits of .020" plasticard one was cut 29mm X 114mm and the other 33mm X 125mm, the smaller piece locates withing the side of the box and the top piece is then a slight oversize when fitted to the box. Withe the new roof glued on I then filed off the webbing between the locating liugs on the undersides to allow a piece of .030" plasticard strip to be fitted on the underside with a 1mm edge standing proud of the box side. The strip is notched out to avoid the locating lugs Between this strip and the new roof I marked out a line starting 3mm from the door end every 5mm to which was glued a strip 2mm wide, this made up the vertical ribs. At the blank end of the box I fitted 1.5mm strips flush with the ends so that when the strips on the ends of the box were fitted the ones in the corner gave the effect of 2mm X 2mm corner posts. At the door end I cut pieces 1mm wide to finish off the framing of the doors. Once all the ribs were cured I cut back the base plate and roof filing to finish so that it is flush to the ribs. The base of the box was altered by way of strips of .060" plasticard runnng around the underside of the box set back by 1.5mm this was sandwiched by a piece of .020" forming a base plate cut to 32 mm X 120mm suitably centred. The last job was to fix data panel boards, the ones on the side are 12mm X 12mm and the on on the blank end is 12mm X 6mm, these boards fit neatly over three ribs. Shewing the new box rear left along with the four originals and the second of the new boxes front right along side two new roofs for the two boxes on order. Shewing the .030" baseplate. shewing the side profile of the new box. Gibbo.

Hi Paul, I got flooded roads and then a load of snow, beat that ! As for changing the name of your thread I wouldn't bother. Most of the threads on here don't talk about modelling in any case, they do however moan about what manufacturers ought to supply them via boxes from China, cost over levels of detail gripes or somehow talk politics and whine at each other without actually mentioning anything or anyone directly. Should these cretins actually put that much energy into modelling then they could have a goodly fleet of partly painted cut and shut stuff like I have ! Ford Motor Company 30' container boxes at my house today. I intend that they will be fully painted and a trip to Halfords got me a can of RAL 7047 especially for the purpose. Gibbo.

Hi Corbs, Why not put the turbine under the smoke box and drive the leading axle directly rather than trough a jack-shaft. That way you could leave the coupled wheels where they are and dispense with the trailing truck, also only the front truck would likely need altering. After all that is all that was done to the Princess Royal class to end up with Turbomotive. Gibbo,

Hi Folks, With all this work involving container boxes I have had another look at the Hornby 30' boxes that I converted into ribbed sided Ford boxes. When applying the Ford signs I mounted them in the wrong spot by placing them one rib to far to the left and it has niggled at me ever since so I have bitten the bullet and stripped them back to improve upon my initial effort. While I am at it as I had earmarked two more boxes for conversion and also that the decal sheets are enough for four boxes I have ordered two more boxes from Peter's Spares, at £3.98 plus postage it's not a great expense. The Ford signs are Retro Decal ones from eBay that i stuck onto .010" plasticard before cutting around them carefully and then gluing them into place on the box sides. So far I have have pealed them off and cut back and smoothed over the edges of the ribs ready for repainting. I shall in time fit a framing into the rebate at the bottom of the box and make and fit the ribs. Three things that I didn't do last time is to fit ribs to the ends of the boxes, some fine ribs to the roofs and some data panels on the sides and the ends of the boxes. As the ribs are made from .020" plasticard the box will be a slight long but it shouldn't be noticeable. Three boxes with signs removed and one to go, in the background the class 82 has had its yellow ends the BG's are moving u the queue and the last two Pullmans were masked off for the cream panels to be painted. Gibbo.

Hi Clive, Well as the A66 was closed you missed out on a brew at my house on the way past in that case. Gibbo.

Or steadying the cup should a tilt failure occur !

Hi James, With regard twist-locks the set 10' in from the ends was dropped in later batches of wagons as 10' boxes were not widely used latterly and the combination of 20', 30' and 40' boxes didn't require them. All else looks good ! Gibbo.

Well Mr Darius, I'm not one bit concerned, I raise you a Cartic-4 ! I might finish the kit and get it ready for sale one of these days. Gibbo.

What have I started ?!?!?!

Hi Stephen, You and I shall be banned at this rate ! It would seem that with such inflammatory comments you are attempting to steer the period of the topic in hand from Period 1 to Period 3. This may well have serious repercussions for the subject of which biscuit tin lid artwork we are going to argue over will be further mired into what is is and is not moot. https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/era-system What kind of biscuits did they eat in 1829 anyway ? Gibbo.

Hi Folks, I'm coming to the conclusion that the truth of the matter is that no one actually knows for sure what either the locomotives, carriages or wagons actually looked like let alone what particular shades of any given colour they could possibly have been. I wonder if there is a helpline available for rivet counters to cope with such matters ? I fear there are some on the APT 2020 thread that may be in need of such a service and that is for an example of a train that I remember seeing often enough at Preston back in the day ! Cheer up chaps, its only toy trains after all. Gibbo.