Jump to content
 

JamieR4489

Members
  • Posts

    623
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by JamieR4489

  1. And, up until recently, '19 had a Kylchap exhaust designed by Chapelon for the owner, Charles Newton (no connection to the namesake of 60005) and a RH&DR style chime whistle! I, too, visited the GCR gala and had a fantastic time. Even though I'm an LNER man, I couldn't deny that the Modified Hall made the best noise. 92214 will be withdrawn on the 25th February. Jamie
  2. It's fair to say modelling took a back seat last year. My motivation was very low, I think caused by various problems I encountered with the B7 and O4. My interests have moved towards 12" to 1' railways but, now that they're closed for a few months, I'm hoping to get back into modelling. The Tiny is now finished and the end is in sight for the Black Pig, although I do want to replace the coal plates as I'm not happy with my scratchbuilt plasticard versions. They'll be replaced with brass which should make them much sturdier. I've had to replace the bogie wheels with some under-scale ones as the originals kept fouling on the cylinders and motion bracket. That's not the fault of the kit, the instructions say that it is designed for a minimum radius of 2' 6" and a lot of my layout is tighter than that. @65179's thread on GCR tenders alerted me to the fact that the steps should curve inwards whereas I'd made them straight so I carefully bent them to approximately the right shape. At the start of November, Kernow Model Rail Centre were doing a flash sale that included Hornby's revised A1s. These had been on my radar since they were announced but I could never justify the price. For £100, it was a bargain. The smokebox lamp iron was very wonky and firmly glued but I've extracted and reattached it without pinging it across the room. I've added the parts from the detail bag, painted the smokebox hinge straps silver and toned down the firebox LED (which I see as being a gimmick, anyway) with a blob of black paint. It will eventually get renamed, weathered, etc. Hmm, I've just noticed that the front bufferbeam is dropping, I'll have to take a look at that. Regards, Jamie
  3. The most obvious difference is that the bell wasn't fitted until March 1938. Other than that the only modifications would be to paint the handrails silver. DoC's were painted blue in 2013 because to take them back to bare metal would have required the removal of the asbestos lagging.
  4. I really like that second photo of '28. The M&GN train on the left frames it nicely and disguises the end of Spital Bridge. Jamie
  5. Thanks for sending that, it gives a good idea of the colours of the embankments and the station building. I would guess that the Down platform was taken out when North Junction was remodelled around 1962/63 but the Up platform appears to have been demolished a few years before then. I'm not sure when the station building disappeared. Regards, Jamie
  6. One of your wagons loved the trip to Ely so much it decided not to go back home with the others...
  7. Many thanks for an excellent day, yesterday, Tony. We all certainly enjoyed ourselves. Thanks, also, for your kind comments, constructive criticisms, and new pony wheels for the O4 and for the Flying Pig kit. I read the instructions last night and quickly put everything back in the box! It was very selfish of Mr Ivatt to design a loco that is so difficult to make a model of. Regards, Jamie
  8. A very enjoyable day's operating and nattering. Here are a few snaps I got while being Shedmaster. 5429, 3276 and 2580 wait to go off shed with 4498 now taking coal, having just arrived and been turned. Red Leader was hopping between Yard and South boxes at this stage and Jonathan is in his usual spot in South Fiddle. Plenty of wagons to see, here, and no less than 3 C1s. Adam was manning North Box in the afternoon while Neil and Graeme worked North Fiddle. Jamie
  9. Good evening Tony, My surname is Rands. FWIW, I was 14 when I made the K2. I'm looking forward to visiting you next week. On the subject of metal/woodwork, I was fortunate that my secondary school had an excellent variety of tools and machines that we could use as well as teachers who were genuinely keen to help me and push my learning a bit further. When it came to picking my GCSEs, Engineering wasn't originally an option for me as it was seen as being a course for 'less academic' students. It took a fair bit of pushing to get me and several other students of similar ability on the course. Regards, Jamie
  10. Ah thank you! I should have known that as I had a good look round 506's tender at Barrow Hill last year. The first one is about 3mm deep and is plain on the rear. Jamie
  11. Right, here's your starter for 10: A fairly nondescript piece with half-etched lines about 5-6mm from each end. I thought this would be easy to identify as it's a more complex shape but it's stumped me so far. Jamie
  12. I'll see what I can do tomorrow... The kit certainly provides the wider bulkheads, tank rear and front coal plate and the hopper shaped bunker for the self-trimming tenders.
  13. One sudden brake application and the crew are met with an avalanche of coal! Mind you, at least I wouldn't have to bother with any bunker details. I had a feeling I'd read that it was supposed to cover all types of Robinson tenders, so thanks for confirming that. It's hard to tell how accurately the kit could represent each type because, as I've mentioned before, the one I got was incomplete. There are also a few parts where I have no idea what they represent! Such are the joys of not having the instructuons. Regards, Jamie
  14. Thank you very much, Simon, I hadn't appreciated the differences in brake standard positions and didn't know about the running plate flair. The kit is the Perseverance etch. It was incomplete when I got it and the etch had some holes where it looks like coalguards used to be. The shorter ones are the same length as on locos like J11s. Current plan is to do 5072. Regards, Jamie
  15. Thanks Jonathan, Yes, that's the plan. The B7's tender is the primitive (no slots or tabs!) Perseverance etch by Rod Neep rather than Mike Edge's version that I think is supplied with the G-Train kits. Jamie
  16. For a few months, now, my workbench has been looking more like Gorton than Doncaster... At the Ely show, I bought a couple of locos from Jonathan Wealleans, who was disposing of a collection from a deceased modeller. There was a good selection of LNER items and I picked out a K's O4 and a scratchbuilt D2. The O4 was initially dead but when I opened it up I found this was due to a broken soldered joint from the motor terminal to the pickups. With about 5 minutes work, the loco was growling around Tuxford North (it had a K's motor) but seemed to lack torque. A fairly light train was enough to stall the loco on tighter curves. I replaced the original motor and gears with a High Level gearbox and Mitsumi motor taken out of my Nucast Q1, which I rarely use as it's too early for 1938. I can't remember the exact gear ratio but it's quite high so the loco has a prototypical top speed and will now pull a house down thanks to the whitemetal body. While I had the frames stripped down, I took the opportunity to fit brakes. The frames are battleship-thick brass so a minidrill was employed to avoid being there all day. The frames weren't quite tall enough to reach the bottom of the body (initially, I thought the body was sitting high but the ride height is perfect) so I added some 1x1mm plasticard to the tops. The body needed far less work, the only major job being to change the chimney from the original Robinson type to something more similar to the later LNER Gorton pattern from the spares box. The steps halfway along the running plate were bent and broke when I tried to straighten them and it was only after I'd spent a while drilling and pinning the remains back together that I realised these steps were removed in the early '30s; they've now been taken off the model, as well. I'll need to add a snifting valve and then I can touch up the paint and decide on an identity. I'm afraid the flangeless wheels will be saying for now. The person who built this decided to mount the pickups on top of the frames and you can see that the front one (which I've since tweaked) has popped out from behind the wheel. I haven't had much of a look at the D2 yet but the detail is fairly basic in some areas. More importantly, however, it looks like a D2 and the chassis seems OK, although I will replace the K's wheels and motor. The tender may get swapped for a spare I've got to save spending time detailing the original. It's a saturated loco so it will make a nice comparison alongside my superheated LRM model. The tender of the B7 is coming along nicely now. I've had to make quite a few new parts as the etches were incomplete and there's still quite a bit to do. The coalplates, which I thought would be OK, turned out to be too short for a 4000g tender and I don't have any brass or nickel silver of the right width so they'll be made from plasticard, as will the cover for the water scoop mechanism running along the side of the bunker. I've got some whitemetal axlebox castings but haven't yet compared their likeness to GCR ones. Regards, Jamie
  17. I think that's unlikely as the original deflectors were shortened when the second pair were fitted.
  18. And German deflectors! There are have been some superb pictures here recently, the 2 of 60049 from this morning are particularly good, IMHO.
  19. Good morning Tony, 4673 is a Graeme King resin body and tender on a modified Bachmann K3 chassis. One day I'll get round to lopping the front NEM pocket off! Regards, Jamie
  20. Good evening, Yes, I'm still working on Tuxford, although no progress on the layout itself has been made for about a year now. I've been concentrating more on the rolling stock as I've discovered that I don't really enjoy scenic modelling. Regards, Jamie
  21. My guess is that it's from 60532 as I believe that loco has had a replacement tank during its most recent overhaul.
  22. Thank you for your kind comments, Tony. I'm glad you enjoyed the show and that the catering was up to scratch. Thanks again for having a look at those locos, Jonathan is still adamant that they worked when he tested them! Regards, Jamie
  23. I'm pleased to say that the last of the signals for Wickham Market is now finished and waiting to be planted on the layout (which will be at the Ely show on Saturday, by the way) Progress on the B7 is still glacial but now that the weather is better, I've been able to spray the chassis and get it running. The tender has also been started. It's a Perseverance kit I got from the late Graham Varley's boxes of scrap etches he donated to the Ely club shortly before he died. There are no instructions but it's fairly easy to work out how it goes together. The kit can be built as either a self trimming or a standard tender and I've gone for the latter as the longer coal plates for the self trimming type were missing from the etches. I'll have to scratchbuild bits like the water scoop mechanism cover. The boiler still isn't glued down and the smokebox door is just blu-tacked on hence its slightly jaunty angle. Brakes have been added since I took the photos. Regards, Jamie
  24. Progress on the B7 slowed a bit a few weeks a go due to a few distractions: Firstly, I've been interested in the Hornby Live Steam range of models ever since I found out about them which was just as Hornby were discontinuing the range. Seeing the OO Live Steam Club at a few shows recently made me think it was time I finally got a set and an affordable, second-hand Mallard was duly bought. The loco had only been lightly used and, after a bit of hesitation, sprung into life. It is recommended to learn how to use the loco with it on a rolling road so I set up this makeshift one. The second distraction was the decision to take the Ely Club's new exhibition layout, Wickham Market, to our show this year with the intention of it being, more or less, scenically complete. For my part, this meant finishing the signals. Three of the ones I made several years ago just needed motors fitting so I tackled these first and then built the last signal needed for the layout. This signal is now ready for painting. When I got back to the B7 I discovered that the cab roof didn't fit correctly and after a discussion with LNER4479 I realised I'd fitted the cab front too far forwards. Dismantling the cab and rebuilding it sorted the issue and this weekend I've been able to progress with fitting the cab handrails and the splashers. To fit the boiler, you can either file the bottom of the firebox so it sits on top of the splashers or file the tops of the splashers back so the firebox sits between them. I chose the latter option as it will look more prototypical. Here, the boiler and cab roof are just placed loosely on the model. You can also see the signal in the background. Regards, Jamie
  25. Just a quick update on the B7. I've made a lot of progress on the bodywork with the footplate formed and the cab started. I did have a bit of a problem with the raised section over the cylinders as the jig didn't seem to make this section high enough for the valence fillers to fit but I got there in the end by tweaking the jig. It's very possible I didn't bend it up accurately enough to start with. Here I've just plonked the boiler in roughly the right place. It needs a bit of filing at the back to fit properly but the instructions do say that it is produced overlength and needs to be trimmed. Regards, Jamie
×
×
  • Create New...