New Years Resolution; finish those half made kits.

[relaxinghobby]

My new years resolution is to finish those half made kits before I start to build new ones, and not to buy any new ones.

 

First off this cardboard kit for a horse box from Alphagraphics, These are just a printed piece of cardboard you have to cut every thing out your self. The card is about 1/2 mm thick.

 

The glue has spoilt the printed finish, But I was going to paint them anyway

 

Wedging the sides as they where bowing in a bit then I'll add internal bracing, all material is cardboard.

[relaxinghobby]

This old Hornby Doublo 1 plank wagon, or is it a flat wagon caught my eye at a club exhibition bargain stall.

The wheels seem very fine for 00, as good as modern RP25, that will match my PECO code 75 layout I thought and snapped up the bargain. So with the addition of some Evergreen planking sheet, some old kits bits and pieces, voila! It's ready for painting. No need to add weight, it's diecast. In this case I think the voila took about 2 months.

 

 

 

The brake gear is a bit fragile as it bits joined together, so the brass wire is there to hold it all

together.

Edited January 22, 2016 by relaxinghobby

[Mark Saunders]

The real Resolution is not to start another one that will add to the pile of started kits!

 

Mark Saunders

[Flyingscotsmanfan]

Funnily enough I have a very similar resolution. In order to get a head on everything I've had to enter every model I own on a database, with notes on what needs doing and what's already been done.... As I use 3 link couplings there is a surprising amount of my models I still need to fit them too!

Though I have bought one more kit last weekend but that's already built and had the first coat of paint.

[John_Miles]

It took me a long time but a few years ago, I came to the realisation that it took me a lot less time to buy a kit yet than it did to build them. I then looked through my cupboard of half built and not yet built kits and worked out that I would need to live to a very good age to have enough time to build them all. So I have stopped buying kits and gave some to friends - thus passing on the problem to them!

[ELTEL]

One down, five to go!

[mike morley]

I once got into the habit of 90% finishing a kit then thinking "I need a break" and putting it aside and going on to something else.

The trouble with that, I later realised, was that when I eventually went back to the model I'd often forgotten what still needed to be done. After several near-fiascos I primed and painted a guards van and was half way through applying the transfers before realising I hadn't fitted the handrails.

Now I make a point of getting all projects to the same stage (usually priming and painting, which I do in batches) before putting it aside.

 

And it still goes horribly wrong on a regular basis . . .

[Sasquatch]

Building rolling stock has become my favorite pastime. Needless to say many items reached various stages of construction and completion.

 

What I did was to make a spread sheet listing the stock down the left hand column and the tasks in order of construction across the top on a A4 grid paper.

Proceeding to complete every item on the sheet and ticking all the boxes as I went.

It works!  Many new items to run on the layout was my reward.

Now I need to do another sheet.

[cheesysmith]

You know it's bad when your spreadsheet comes in a folder of its own. My dad, OTOH, had collected all his loco's into one little booklet. I was looking at this today to see what I could "borrow" and it came in over 20 pages.

 

I have a simpler system. Any kits not completed to the painting stage get put on a shelf in the living room in front of my railway books. Impossible to ignore when you have a pyramid of 21ton hoppers awaiting handrails.

[sharris]

I have a simpler system. Any kits not completed to the painting stage get put on a shelf in the living room in front of my railway books.

SWMBO might have something to say about that!

[Kenton]

 

The real Resolution is not to start another one that will add to the pile of started kits!

 

I'm addicted to opening boxes and caressing their brass contents.

When I can't open my own I took up opening other people's.

There is no known cure. I am just weak willed at the sight of another unopened box.

Most usually get to the finished unpainted stage, when thankfully they are taken out of my hands and no longer fester around the workshop. I can then get on with opening another box ... and another one ... and another just so I know that everything is there to start building one day.

Some of the boxes have been opened many times and found lacking, but it is reassuring to know they are still there, still shiny brass and tempting.

 

Then there is always ebay to add more to the collection.

 

Good luck, but remember "resistance is futile".

[relaxinghobby]

Kenton makes the innocent process of model railway kit building sound scary.

 

Meanwhile I've had a lapse in my resolution to finish one kit at a time.

 

I've been away and took an “away kit” with me to do in the long dark winter evenings, a bit of hands on modelling is always relaxing. I had this old Cambrian kit for a 12 ton mineral, one of the old ones with pre-printed sides. I popped in some wheels and bearings in my away box, a strong little tidy storage box given away by BRM a few years ago, very handy for a 4mm wagon kit, a few basic tools and glue. When I got it out the chassis parts where missing, taken long ago for some other project I guess but don't remember. So it had to wait for when I got home again and could hunt in the old biscuit tin of spares.

 

So here goes, the browny mauve bits are old Ian Kirk I think, left over Cambrian break parts, grey buffers from another kit and the buffers had to be built up.

 

 

 

I've just noticed I've forgotten the break handle.

Edited March 1, 2016 by relaxinghobby

[relaxinghobby]

I prefer to build up the under frame separately, to get it spaced correctly for the wheels to be free running and at right angles to the body. Sometime the sides can be slightly different and if glued be hide a buffer beam they can end up forming the top and bottom of a parallelogram and the chassis crabs sideways slightly.

 

So the two side frames are glued to strips of plasticard and them their exact distance apart and position can be established on a flat surface, a cross piece glued in holds everything in place and when the glue has dried it's all transferred to the underside of the body.

 

[relaxinghobby]

Some more work done, added some weight but my super glue has set in it's bottle so I stuck the metal bits down with paint.

I found another kit waiting to be weathered. The insides are dry brushed grey ready for wood effect brown to be artfully applied.

These old Cambrian kits have nice interior detail, rivets and doors etc.

 

 

[relaxinghobby]

Keeping to the theme of this thread, which is becoming harder. More models are started or old ones

rediscovered, especially when waiting for paint to dry or the glue fixing a critical part to harden and make a strong joint.

That's when it's tempting to take out another kit.

 

This cardboard horse box is turning out to be a particularly difficult one there are always problems with it. This is the second attempt to make a roof, if the curves aren’t good the look is spoilt.

 

 

 

[Mark Saunders]

The real Resolution is not to start another one that will add to the pile of started kits!

 

Mark Saunders

 

 

  I'm addicted to opening boxes and caressing their brass contents.

When I can't open my own I took up opening other people's.

There is no known cure. I am just weak willed at the sight of another unopened box.

Most usually get to the finished unpainted stage, when thankfully they are taken out of my hands and no longer fester around the workshop. I can then get on with opening another box ... and another one ... and another just so I know that everything is there to start building one day.

Some of the boxes have been opened many times and found lacking, but it is reassuring to know they are still there, still shiny brass and tempting.

 

Then there is always ebay to add more to the collection.

 

Good luck, but remember "resistance is futile".

 

I confess this picture proves resistance is futile (newly started)!

 

However on a plus point three projects have been completed!

 

Mark Saunders

 

[relaxinghobby]

The new years resolution of finishing a model before staring the next has slipped a bit.

At the weekend I bought a wheel less beaten up Mainline tanker for £2, I though that I

could quickly and easily repair that and I've got some spare wheels. That's the trouble these

just jobs, one can only do one thing at a time and whilst mending this I was not working on

the others.

 

 

Bachmann reduced to a kit of parts. PECO kit nearly finished.

 

 

 

Another attempt at the cardboard horse box roof, I used pre-shaped rooves, I put damp

card onto a suitable former, in this case a wine bottle. Taped it down and left it to dry,

it takes up the curve of the bottle. I'll trim the roof to fit, there are two layers.

Edited April 6, 2016 by relaxinghobby

[relaxinghobby]

 

 

Sticking to my New Years Resolution is proving to be really hard. That’s to work on one model at a time until it's finished, before moving on. It's easier to work on two or three at a time, because often you have to have another to do whilst waiting for glue or paint to dry. Here's one I made earlier and painted, years earlier then stopped.

 

I've just transferred and varnished it. HMRS transfers based on page 34 of London and South Western Railway by D. L. Bradley. A standard goods wagon with cupboard doors and tarpaulin rail, a detail which keeps breaking off, don't know how to solve this problem.

 

[cheesysmith]

As to keeping the tarpaulin rail in place, i drill a hole into but not through the end of the wagon, and make the rail from a bit of wire, bent to shape, and make sure the size of the rail keeps itself in place due to the spring effect of the wire, if this makes sense.

[pointstaken]

I am finishing my kits, so sticking to MY New Year resolution. Just finished Walthers "Water Street Freight House". Next is the "Medusa Cement Company".

 

 

Dennis

Edited April 4, 2016 by pointstaken

[sharris]

Another attempt at the cardboard horse box roof, I used pre-shaped rooves, I put damp

card onto a suitable former, in this case a wine bottle. ...

 

Do you have a suggestion as to the size of the wine bottle, or should much experimentation be encouraged?

[relaxinghobby]

reply to sharris

 

Too much experimentation causes drowsiness.

It seemed to me that a standard wine bottle was about right, could also use a food tin or even

a china mug if it is even enough.

There is a little flexibility in the cardboard so the bottle or whatever you use for a former only has

to be a few millimetres near to the right diameter.

[relaxinghobby]

A bit of non wagon work, wiring up a 3-way point and fiddle yard. So I've put the photos over on the Layouts section.

 

[relaxinghobby]

 

Another "I'll just do this quicky job".

It won't take long ! It won't interrupt the flow of other projects.

No it will take longer but modelling optimism trumps experience again.

 

I picked up this wagon, ready made with scale wheels but with a broken W iron.

I think it is from a Slater's kit of a 10 ton 6 1/2 plank wagon, suitable for a pre grouping layout.

That thing on the right is an old Tri-ang container, it's too big to fit into a small wagon of this size.

What type of wagon would it ride on ?

[relaxinghobby]

 

Unfinished project nearly finished.

 

This Bachmann 0-6-2 was bought for a good second hand price, I though it would provide a good donor chassis for an older type suitable for my pre-grouping era railway, perhaps one of the Welsh Valleys heavy 0-6-2 tanks that became a sort of standard type for hauling heavy coal trains in that region after the coal mining boom in the 1890s. So I took it apart to see how I could modifie it? And there it lay for months, in a box, such a project would seem to be too large and complicated for now, maybe later? Lots of others to complete first.

 

As for now I've given it a quick paint job to make it represent an ex-mainline loco sold into mineral line use along with a Jinty model.

 

 

Looking grotty and neglected enough?