Sylvian Tennant

Just a quick post to show some updates I have made. I have made up some lamp brackets from plastic L strip also the brass rear steps were fashioned from some brass... (obv) I has spreayed the whole thing with grey primer to highlight any areas that needed more attention (of which there were a few). I'm just waiting to get some more filler to work on the smaller areas. Whilst I am waiting to purchase that have also made some brake gear to give the chassis a little bit more depth, and added vaccuum pipes and steam heating which I beleive was given to J39s... I think! Progress isn't too fast but it's coming along!

Im keeping my eye on you boyo

Well, I've managed to sort out my issues with the white metal kit. Also contacted Mr Alexander (twice as I relaised there were a few more bits missi9ng I hadn't noticed before) and on both occasions he was very helpful and issued the missing parts. Top service Anyway, I have rectified the wonky issue by filling at the axel holes and had a bit of a struggle desopldering and fettling the offensive part but it is not visably noticable now. Also I'm umming and arrhing to use some Bachmann tender wheels or the ones I was supplied with. The main reason being I don't think J39's had spoke wheels. Anyway So far I have filled in some noticle imperfections with the castings and sanded them down and now I have added some of the brass bits such as tender steps, handrail knobs and brake standards etc etc. I will add some hand rails later and then it should be ready for priming. I'm going to leave the buffers, air reserviour tanks and the tool/store boxes until at least the model is painted/weathered.

Cheers for the heads up. Ive had to do abit more work on it tonight due to the type of Tender I wanted to depict. It's something I wasn't expect but has been quite enjoyable to fathom out and I think I've sort of worked on the twist though it still there just hopefully not as noticable. Hmmm, Ill have a look.but I cant remember seeing any. As soon as Ive got a chance to I add another blog. Apart from that the service has been really good.

So I'm back onto trains with my latest project, an updated J39 from Bachmann. I'm also doing one of my many unfortunatly ventures into soldering... I have a Dave Alexander 3,500 gallon tender kit. I accidently put it together a little wrong which ended up having the superstructure being a bit twisted which required a resoldering and alot of "Malcolm Tucker dialogue" until I was relatively happy with the outcome. The othe rissue was with the locomtive not helping matters by being a little lop sided. I'm happy though, to continue as it is. Finally, my inexperience with whitemetal is very apparent. there's a fair bit of fettling and filing to do as I noticed the tender body actually looks a little like a sitting dog which, when I looked at it showed that the chassis block axel ports need some slight fettling. Anyway I'll keep you up dated on the progress. however, as any one built this kit before? or similer kits by Alexander models. If so, do it come with any steps? mine seems to not have but the instructions show steps on the chassis and rear of the body?

I remember getting the Dambuster's Lancaster (my next door neighbour when I was a child armed Manchesters and Lancaster in 207 sqn). So the Lancaster has been a long favourite of mine. Unfortunatly my lancaster never survied by childhood exploits though I may wish to build another again. Was that a West Wings kit Devondynosaur? I think that would be a great idea. I appreciate that this is a model railway forum but I can't see why we should show off our non railway exploits!

Okay... so it isn't, what you gonna do? Recently, I've been a bit inundated with railway modelling which is good, but I felt the need to do something else. Hence I remember as a student I bought a shed load of kits which I had left in the loft! Unfortunatly some of them (although unbuilt) and lost some parts which is a shame as I'd really like to do them. You never know... one day I might get the bits to finish a few off. Anyway back in the saddle I felt I should have a crack at one of my favourite aeroplanes of all time from one of my favourite kit manufactuers of all time, in one of my favourite scales of all time. The Airfix, 1/72nd scale, Hawker Hurricane Mk1 The kit itself is very simple and rather enjoyable to build. I would suggest to anyone taking a first time crack at an aeroplane kit take a seriously look at getting this or their spitfire kit. I tend to not like using alot of after market stuff and refrained to keep near enough all of the kit together. I also want the control surface to repositions which involved alot of scoring along the think (but easy to cut through) plastic I crafted a simple interior from plasticard, rod and strip and painted it up. The flaps were given plastic strip ribs and painte dinterior green like the cockpit. Putting the model together revealed some areas to been filled with miliput which wasn't too hard a task. The propeller and undercarriage were painted and assembled next. Unfortunatly when I came to sanding it down I lost some of the detail with it being raised (I wasn't too bothered by this detail error, unlike other modellers) but overall it wasn't a big issue. I love the Black/Sky undersurfaces which was surprisingly easy to do as well with the help of tamiya masking tape. The paint job all around wasn't too great but I'm not planning to take it to a show... this was followed by the camouflage upper surfaces. I hand painted the cockpit (removing stray paint with a cocktail stick once dry and added the kits decals (which aren't great but will do) I drew the panel lines on with a pencil and I painted used ammo ports after this I varnished the model before they the ports dried with actually worked out because the streaking added to the weathering. The whole thing was finally put assembled before weathering which included dry brushing dark stains around the exhaust, gun barrels and radiator. Finally silver paint chips were applied with a cocktail stick. Nearly all the paints I used were hunbrol and so far, I'm quite happy with it... train stuff will follow soon

Top marks man.

Top work on the 94xx man! In fact top work on the 45xx too... you can have it in any colour you want, unless PMP say he wants it black, then you really haven't got much of an argument. Sorry

Why thank you, I've had them lined up, they look quite good, I've love to do a longer train (as they were about 30/40 wagons in real life) but compromises must take hand. Plus I'm not building another 20 of them just yet!

Right so finally, (I hope) my tanker train is ready to roll. I was a bit annoyed with some of the older club members when I first brought my tanker train which at the time was complete. I had spent alot of hard work and time into getting them ready. I will admit to using the same wheels as the kits which was a mistake since they didn't go well with the smp track. But I felt that their critisam wasn't very constructive unlike other memebers whyo were happy to dish out advice. Anyway, b****y rant over. I went away huffed and puffed, felt better, remained with the club and go on with life. Alot of you are already aware of the brake vans and intended barrier wagons to which I have added some extra weight to aid adherence to track. I still wanted to have my tanker train running at the next exhibition so I wasn't going to consign these tankers to the cripple yard. I puruchased some parkside dundas wagon whells from the york exhibition and have fitted them to the tankers. Also as I am planning to run them as a block rake I have fitted some simple loop and hook coulings to majority of the rake with only two dedicated outer wagon reciving NEW pockets from Chivers to fit some Bachmann tension locks. I re-added some under frame detail which I had removed previously for the old couplings (I wish I had, had the hindsight to relasie the trouble I was going to go through) and painted it all up. I also touched up the paint work too as there was some chips and scratches whilst they were in storage. As you can see the new couplings have closed the gap between the wagons but they do still go around 2nd radius curves. As soon as I can get them on the club layout I'll show you them with the 9F.

I just thought I share with you my latest purchase. I'm not moving away from anything (maybe my house but that's a different story) but I have been thinking of largers scale for a while and here's the start Anyway, that's yer lot, until next time chaps

Yeah they're really handy tbh. Especially if you have issues with painting small letters and numbers (Which I tend to have) I did paint on "No buffer" on one of the wagons though after I rubbed the transfer off by accident.

Geez thanks guys. Yeah now I come to think of it maybe it would have been better to have done that devon. I think it was just trying to find the space to fit "Peterbrough" which forced me to go there! I'll keep that in mind for the future though. I must admit that I did cheat for the chalk marks and Model Master do a nice three sheet pack with destinations, instructions and warnings for wagons. These I did use. The only issue I had, and found a begger to disguise was that the varnish wasn't as proective as I had hoped. Maybe I should have left it dry longer (I left it a minimum of 24 hours) or it was now going dud but when I rubbed at the weathering to expose the chalk writing some of the varnish peeled away and took the transfers off. So just be aware guys. I used Humbrol Matt cote, and matt varnish. The matter varnish seemed to have worked better for this job. But thnak you for your kind and very helpful comments chaps, I'll leave you with those lniks you've asked for... the top one is the link to my general modelling blog which should contain everything you've asked for the others a more specific to this project. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/645-sylvian-tennants-achieve-of-pants/ http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/645/entry-9381-odds-and-bods/ http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/645/entry-9551-the-march-towards-completion-continues/

Unfortuantly time is against me and I beleive I've posted the process of getting these wagons done before, if not, I may do it later. Anway I shall just put up the finished products as the processes and the weathering is pretty much the same as I have stated before. Please do ask questions if you would like to know more and also feedback would be greatly appreciated. Now off to be a poncy actor

The 9f is my beloved railroad update

Cheers guys, you;ve actually got me thinknig there AJ247! I wouldn't mind doing a micro layout based around a small part of a depot.

... as my girlfriend calls it! anyway Sorry, I've been really busy at the moment and even now, I'm readying myself for a three night comedy show. I'll blatently plug it too, again. http://www.facebook....57209164384831/ But as well as the match truck, I've been budy with a club project. A Peco OO gauge turntable, anyway, this had been built up and mechanised long before I came to the club and what with the old layout taking priority it remained missing for upwards of 5 years. Anway it returned and after some major issues with the mechanism were rectified it was handed to me to do my "magic" or "ruin it" or whatever! Anyway... The turntable bridge was updated by plastic "t" stripe giving it a supported look, followed by two shoulders the vac tanks I had decided to put on in my "wisdom". I also added a vac hose for logical reasons. The vac tank were just some pink tube with the ends filled with milliput and files, sanded and beaten to shape. Alot of the latter ensured. Both the well and bridge was primer grey with the bridge then being painted dark sea grey. Unfortuatly I don't have any pics of the intermiate process of painting and weathering... just the finished product. The Turntable was given some very heavy weathering along with Humbrol gloss cote for to represent water, some cooky flock to represent that pescy weed and grass problem infastructure gains and coal to represent... coal! Anyway it's nearly finish, all that is needed now is the mechansim to be readded and for the rest of the layout to get finished! Your thoughts guys?

Sorry, I've been really busy at the moment and even now, I'm readying myself for a three night comedy show. I'll blatently plug it too. http://www.facebook....57209164384831/ Anway back on topic. This was my most recent commission for a friend of mine. It was an unpainted Dapol conflat which he wanted to be a match truck for a class 03 he bought from Bachmann. You know the nice faded blue one. He basically said "Go to town with it" so I did. I added vac pipes and air brake pipes made from guitar strig and brass wire respectively. I also scratchbuilt some chocks which, though inaccurate once I had done my post updatre research!, look okay and give the model a bit more life. The weathering is pretty much as standard... however the model was primered white and given a coat around the edges of that new humbrol rail colour stuff which worked quite well to be honest This was followed by humbrol black which was hand painted on. I didn't know if anybody would do transfers and I wasn't brave enough anyway and the initial idea of taping the sides didn't go too well so basically the black marks were marked up with pencil and I went straight to it with only those for guidance!. Finally along with the chock I added some spare bits from the loco iron irons pack from springside and some lamps from said manufacturer. Anway enjoy

You;ve answere dmy question too, thank you so much