Churminster & Stowe Magna, Southern Railway

[45568]

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/141429-oo-works-announce-drummond-lswr-k10-4-4-0-small-hopper/

 

Any interest to you Tony? (and Kiwi Jack P. may also be interested!).

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

[Tony Teague]

On 20/01/2019 at 07:03, 45568 said:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/141429-oo-works-announce-drummond-lswr-k10-4-4-0-small-hopper/

 

Any interest to you Tony? (and Kiwi Jack P. may also be interested!).

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

 

Thanks Peter

 

I had not seen this announcement which is interesting; I may well order one but I do have a K10 in my collection - following an epic build by DLT from a dreadful old kit (which you may have seen):

 

 

You can see the build on DLT's thread starting at: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2359-dlts-sr-locos-adams-t6-by-jidenco/?p=2966316

 

Tony

Edited November 6, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Jack P]

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/141429-oo-works-announce-drummond-lswr-k10-4-4-0-small-hopper/

 

Any interest to you Tony? (and Kiwi Jack P. may also be interested!).

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

 

 

I certainly am interested! Thank you Peter.

 

DLT's build is amazing, and the finished product will probably be better than the RTR version!

[DLT]

By complete contrast, T6 no.684 returned today from "extensive rebuilding" at the DLT works and now actually runs under its own power!

 

SJPIMG_20190119_11454002190119.jpg

 

Another big thank you to DLT - I had certainly written this loco off as a complete disaster, but will now add a crew and some weathering so that it can join the operational fleet.

 

Tony

 

Hi Tony,

 

Hope it is satisfactory, how is the running? 

You may be able to squeeze more lead into the loco bodywork to improve pickup and pulling power, and pickups on the tender would help as well.  However, the tender was nicely built, and I didnt want to disturb it!

 

All the best, Dave.

[Tony Teague]

Hi Tony,

 

Hope it is satisfactory, how is the running? 

You may be able to squeeze more lead into the loco bodywork to improve pickup and pulling power, and pickups on the tender would help as well.  However, the tender was nicely built, and I didnt want to disturb it!

 

All the best, Dave.

 

Hi Dave

 

Running very sweetly and I will now weather it.

I'll see if some more lead will go in easily - the tender is also incredibly light and could do with some but as you say, it may not be easy to get it in there without disturbing it too much.

 

Best wishes

 

Tony

[Tony Teague]

Its been a while - but I had a week away and so it seemed, did RMWeb, anyway there has still been some slight progress.

 

 

The focus has had to revert to the area between the over-bridge just beyond Churminster Quarry round past Churminster shed, station and goods shed, Wadleys Brewery and the Southdown bus garage, as I have rashly agreed to allow this area to be photographed before the end of the month.

 

 

I'm sure that I will never regard it as finished but I'd prefer it to be in as good a state as I can make it - the camera is sure to show up all of the defects!

Having spent many hours looking the wonderful Little Muddle thread, I realised that I had a serious deficiency in the shrubbery department, so I have started by installing further trees to the "grassy knoll" opposite the brewery.

 

 

It would probably now benefit from some undergrowth but whether I shall have time for that, I doubt! Nevertheless I think it is an improvement.

 

 

I have also spent some time titivating the goods yard, but it is certainly not complete

 

 

The siding that runs into the brewery can now be better seen

 

 

The small crane on the goods shed dock is now servo operated; it turns through 90 degrees from the platform over a flat bed truck and will have a container suspended from it.

 

 

 

I took the view that swinging the container over the tracks was just asking for trouble!

 

I am now having fun fitting shackles & chains to the container; painting of the crane is not quite complete.

 

I will aim to post a further update soon.

 

Tony

[Tony Teague]

Having praised KNP's layout "Little Muddle", I was privileged yesterday to be able to pay a visit, along with my good friend Mick Bonwick, and see the layout 'in the flesh' - and if anything it is even more stunning that comes across in the pictures!

 

 

I managed a few pics of my own, but they are not as good as Kevin's, so if you have not visited his thread, please take a look at it:

What is particularly impressive is the level of detail, bearing in mind this is in 4mm scale - look at the harbour wall:

 

 

This is certainly inspirational and has given me a few ideas that might change what I was thinking of doing next back at home!

 

Tony

 

 

[Tex 'n' Taz]

Hi Tony, I have paged your layout once before but have returned via KNPS' site. I agree with Kevin that you cannot have enough trees but, in the case of your grassy area by the brewery is about right for the scene. Perhaps a low wire fence or stone wall to say that this is private land. I doubt that an area of parkland would be so close to an industrial zone. Crown land perhaps? again this would be less wooded and not densely filled with undergrowth. In my own observations, heavy wooded areas occur on the outskirts of towns or areas that are left unkept like KNPS' manor house and uncleared country areas.

 

A very impressive layout Tony a true credit to your skills and to what we would all love to achieve. I started my layout back in last May and have yet to start posting, have been layed up the past two months due to illness. None the less here's an area that l had the same problem with. Also, I see SR power creeping in on my GW tracks.

 

Added to favourites, will follow with interest,

Tex.

 

 

Crown land

 

[Tony Teague]

7 hours ago, Tex 'n' Taz said:

Hi Tony, I have paged your layout once before but have returned via KNPS' site. I agree with Kevin that you cannot have enough trees but, in the case of your grassy area by the brewery is about right for the scene. Perhaps a low wire fence or stone wall to say that this is private land. I doubt that an area of parkland would be so close to an industrial zone. Crown land perhaps? again this would be less wooded and not densely filled with undergrowth. In my own observations, heavy wooded areas occur on the outskirts of towns or areas that are left unkept like KNPS' manor house and uncleared country areas.

 

A very impressive layout Tony a true credit to your skills and to what we would all love to achieve. I started my layout back in last May and have yet to start posting, have been layed up the past two months due to illness. None the less here's an area that l had the same problem with. Also, I see SR power creeping in on my GW tracks.

 

Added to favourites, will follow with interest,

Tex.

 

 

Crown land

 

 

Hi Tex

 

I like what you have shown in your picture, and think I agree with your conclusions about the "grassy knoll".

Now that I understand how Kevin does his wire fences, perhaps I should give that a try on this area.

I'd encourage you to post when you are feeling up to it - I have learned a lot from the comments that I get on here.

 

Best wishes

 

Tony

[Tony Teague]

I have not posted a progress update since mid-February as unfortunately my wife has been quite unwell since then, nevertheless I have not been idle and have managed to fit some modelling in between other responsibilities.

 

In the meantime Churminster has been photographed by an esteemed photographer from a certain magazine (my lips are sealed, but it begins with H....) - of which more in due course.

 

Having got Churminster to a reasonable state for photography, I intend now to switch my focus to Stowe Magna where a lot remains to be done, including unfinished items, and those that were done more than 10 years ago and need re-working to bring them up to scratch.

 

Before starting on that I have been weathering more locos, I have my first brass coach kit in build, plus some brass sides to fix to a Hornby Maunsell donor to come up with a kitchen / buffet car that they don't (yet) offer.

 

Last week I took delivery of one of the new Hornby Terriers; I used to think that the old, ex-Dapol model was pretty good and well detailed, but once you put the two side by side, there is just no comparison (new model left, old model right):

 

 

I suppose that when you consider that the old one is now 30 years old, the improvement is less surprising:

 

 

But the cab height, chimney height, boiler front are changed, and even the side tanks look to be a different shape:

 

 

When it comes to the steam pipe on top of the boiler and the brake rodding, there is just no comparison!

 

 

I had thought that I would not bother to upgrade, as I have several of these, but now I have seen the difference I think there is little choice!

 

Tony

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Jack P]

On 02/04/2019 at 05:15, Tony Teague said:

I have not posted a progress update since mid-February as unfortunately my wife has been quite unwell since then, nevertheless I have not been idle and have managed to fit some modelling in between other responsibilities.

 

In the meantime Churminster has been photographed by an esteemed photographer from a certain magazine (my lips are sealed, but it begins with H....) - of which more in due course.

 

Before starting on that I have been weathering more locos, I have my first brass coach kit in build, plus some brass sides to fix to a Hornby Maunsell donor to come up with a kitchen / buffet car that they don't (yet) offer.

 

 

Tony,

 

Firstly my apologies for the ill health of your wife, All my best for a speedy recovery.

 

Exciting times that the Layout will appear in a magazine! Do you know a date yet?

 

I have also been toying with the idea of building some restriction 1/0 stock on Hornby maunsell donors, where did you get the sides from, and how are you getting along?

 

Jack

[KNP]

Sorry to hear about your wife's ill health and all the best for her recovery.

 

Great that the layout will appear in a magazine even though it only begins with 'H'...….hmm puzzling over that one.

Look forward to tracking that down...

 

 

[Tony Teague]

Thanks for your good wishes Jack, Keviin

 

The Maunsell sides are from Bill Bedford / Mousa Models; having never tried the replacement sides approach, I got some initial help from Andy Sparkes / TheGreenHowards who has a bit more experience than I, and I now have both sides for the first coach fully made up with door handles, grab handles etc and bent to shape. I am a bit nervous about how much plastic to cut away on the donor body but I am taking advice, proceeding slowly and will post some pictures once I am confident that I have not totally screwed up

 

No idea on publication date - I have yet to finish providing some words to go with the pictures - which look very good!

 

Tony

[Arun Sharma]

Greetings Tony - Looking forward to reading the article - Can you let me know when idc it comes out?

[Tony Teague]

1 hour ago, Arun Sharma said:

Greetings Tony - Looking forward to reading the article - Can you let me know when idc it comes out?

 

Certainly will!

Tony

[DLT]

10 hours ago, KNP said:

Great that the layout will appear in a magazine even though it only begins with 'H'...….hmm puzzling over that one.

Look forward to tracking that down...

 

Err, H&E Magazine? (Google it)

 

Seriously, I hope your wife is on the mend Tony.

Cheers, Dave.

[thegreenhowards]

9 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

Thanks for your good wishes Jack, Keviin

 

The Maunsell sides are from Bill Bedford / Mousa Models; having never tried the replacement sides approach, I got some initial help from Andy Sparkes / TheGreenHowards who has a bit more experience than I, and I now have both sides for the first coach fully made up with door handles, grab handles etc and bent to shape. I am a bit nervous about how much plastic to cut away on the donor body but I am taking advice, proceeding slowly and will post some pictures once I am confident that I have not totally screwed up

 

No idea on publication date - I have yet to finish providing some words to go with the pictures - which look very good!

 

Tony

Tony,

 

Good to see you’re posting again. Send my best wishes to Rebecca.

 

Did you manage to sort out some brass strip for the hinges? As for cutting away ...be brutal! The plastic that’s left gets in the way of glazing, and you only need to leave enough to provide a minimum of support to the brass sides. It’s a good idea to retain the bits which which fasten the body to the chassis if possible, but sometimes that’s part of the glazing and has to be replaced.

 

Good luck.

 

Andy

[Tony Teague]

4 hours ago, DLT said:

 

Err, H&E Magazine? (Google it)

 

 

That's the one!

[Tony Teague]

1 hour ago, thegreenhowards said:

Tony,

 

Good to see you’re posting again. Send my best wishes to Rebecca.

 

Did you manage to sort out some brass strip for the hinges? As for cutting away ...be brutal! The plastic that’s left gets in the way of glazing, and you only need to leave enough to provide a minimum of support to the brass sides. It’s a good idea to retain the bits which which fasten the body to the chassis if possible, but sometimes that’s part of the glazing and has to be replaced.

 

Good luck.

 

Andy

 

Thanks Andy

There was a long pause but I have just got back to it - I shall be bold & brutal!!

[Tony Teague]

So today I was bold & brutal as promised!

 

I hacked away at my Maunsell donor coach with the Dremel, and have made significant progress.

 

To start from the beginning - I bought several sets of Moussa Models' Maunsell Buffet car sides just before Hornby announced their Maunsell buffet - s@ds law!

 

So, never having done a 'sides replacement' on a coach before I spent some time with Andy (thegreenhowards) so as to pick his brains and learn from his experience; during my visit we started to work up the detail on one of the sides and later, well much later, I completed the pair:

 

 

I chose this pair of sides because they are for a d.2659 Kitchen / Buffet coach which is different to the one that Hornby have recently produced.

 

I also had a suitable donor in stock, in that the windows of one of my Hornby Maunsell's had managed to turn chalky white, and despite remonstrating with Hornby they had done nothing about it:

 

 

Here it is after minor modification:

 

 

Once I realised that there was no going back, I attached the new sides to the donor, and things started to look better:

 

 

Every single roof vent and the water tank was in the wrong place, plus the kitchen area needed some new vents; I made up the missing bits from plasticard:

 

 

Finally I gave the whole thing a dusting of Halfords grey primer, although there is certainly some filling, rubbing down, and minor adjustment required in certain areas before I would regard the body as anything like finished:

 

 

 

The underframe will also need some attention and the addition of some extra gas bottle holders etc - but overall I am happy with progress so far on my first attempt at coach side replacement.

 

Tony

Edited November 10, 2022 by Tony Teague

[thegreenhowards]

Tony,

 

That looks very good, the bodysides are commendably smooth and the roof looks convincing. The only significant issue I can see is the join between the body and the roof, which is always a problem. I tend to have a couple of goes at filling and filing before I’m happy. If anyone on here knows a trick to speed this up I’d love to hear it.

 

Happy modelling!

 

Andy

[Jack P]

Tony, 

 

That looks fantastic! I would be well pleased. It is a shame about the windows going white - did you happy to use any super glue inside the coach at all? I know that some glues will fog clear plastic in a similar fashion. 

 

Also, would you be able to explain where/how you cut the ends to make sure that when the replacement sides were added, the coach remained the right width? (I hope that makes sense!) I only ask because I've just ordered some replacement sides myself - so any tips you may have would be appreciated!

 

Jack

[Tony Teague]

18 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Tony,

 

That looks very good, the bodysides are commendably smooth and the roof looks convincing. The only significant issue I can see is the join between the body and the roof, which is always a problem. I tend to have a couple of goes at filling and filing before I’m happy. If anyone on here knows a trick to speed this up I’d love to hear it.

 

Happy modelling!

 

Andy

Andy

You are right - that join is a butt joint between the vertical brass side and a thin, flat-ish plastic strip which forms the underside edge of the roof moulding; I found it hard to get this completely flat through the whole length of the coach and then the varying width of the coach (with indented doors) adds to the problem.

My picture was taken after glueing the two together but before filling and so you can see some gaps as well as some dried glue that has oozed out; I have since filled the former and smoothed or removed the latter but I suspect that this will always be the weak spot.

I will rub the filler down a bit today and see what else needs doing before I give it a further waft of primer.

Thanks for your early help on how to go about this conversion.

Tony

[Tony Teague]

14 minutes ago, Jack P said:

Tony, 

 

That looks fantastic! I would be well pleased. It is a shame about the windows going white - did you happy to use any super glue inside the coach at all? I know that some glues will fog clear plastic in a similar fashion. 

 

Also, would you be able to explain where/how you cut the ends to make sure that when the replacement sides were added, the coach remained the right width? (I hope that makes sense!) I only ask because I've just ordered some replacement sides myself - so any tips you may have would be appreciated!

 

Jack

 

Jack

Oddly, the windows only went white on one side of one coach in what was a set of three, and no, I didn't use glue of any kind on or near the coach, so why it went is a mystery - however, I have been able to replace it in the 3 - set.

This particular kitchen / buffet is narrower at one end than the other because of the indented end doors, so yes, I had to remove some material from both sides at that end which is pretty much slab sided, whilst the rest and the other end has a slight tumblehome.

I'm afraid it was a bit of trial and error really and at the end some filler was needed to get one side completely straight, so no clever tips I'm afraid!

I'll post some further pics once I have fettled the coach a bit more, as well as detailing the underframe.

 

Tony

[Tony Teague]

I haven't mentioned the "missing locos" list for a while but back in December I did post a picture of a new Shapeways loco body that I had taken delivery of - for the ex-LB&SCR E5-X.

 

 

JavierL who designed this, as well as the E6-X body that I have assembled and is already running on Stowe Magna told me recently that he has now completed the design for the E4-X to fit the Bachmann E4 chassis, and so I thought that it was high time that I got on with the E5-X build!

 

 

So finally, I have made a start, and here is the rolling chassis - from an SE Finecast E5 chassis kit:

 

 

Next to add are the pick-ups, motor and gear box.

 

Tony

Edited November 10, 2022 by Tony Teague