Airfix/Dapol/Kitmaster engine shed

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Looking good, a nice juxtaposition.

IMHO you should have changed the end wall, or at least got rid of the fan, still screams out Airfix engine shed to me, but I suppose there's an element of Triggers broom that creeps in if you change too much!

 

Mike.

[Il Grifone]

A goods shed wouldn't need either the fan or the louvred roof. Locomotives were usually (always?) prohibited from entering the shed, so there would be no steam requiring dispersal. How you'd eliminate it using the kit, I'm not sure (a shallower roof pitch?).

[brian777999]

The fans are easily dispensed with but the louvred roof will be staying as it would be too much trouble to get rid of it now. Anyway, I have seen similar things on all manner of older industrial buildings. I was initially thinking of having the rail line run through the shed. The platform would become a loading bay for trucks. Perhaps I should go back to that idea ?

 

Update : this is an old engine shed that has been converted to a goods shed after steam was phased out  .

Edited September 29, 2020 by brian777999

[SR71]

As someone who has one of these on the shelf to build this thread has got me thinking. How prototypical is the fan?

 

It would be electrically powered? How many sheds when built would have had power, particularly a small one like the airfix one?

[Steamport Southport]

Electric? 1880s. Certainly commonplace by the turn of the century.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_UK_electricity_supply_industry

 

May have been different if your engine shed is in a remote area though.

 

 

 

Jason

[PatB]

One way of hiding the wires might be to use copper foil/tape stuck flat to the inside walls/roof and painted over. Or you could use plain copper conductors, suitably positioned and routed, to represent the 4mm scale electrical conduit that would be feeding the lights in reality. 

[brian777999]

Evergreen make a 3.2mm square tubing (4.5mm diagonal). The wires should fit inside that easily so I think I might buy some and give it a try. It is not until you try to light a building do you think about where the wires will go !

 

 

Edited September 30, 2020 by brian777999

[Enterprisingwestern]

5 hours ago, brian777999 said:

Evergreen make a 3.2mm square tubing (4.5mm diagonal). The wires should fit inside that easily so I think I might buy some and give it a try. It is not until you try to light a building do you think about where the wires will go !

 

 

 

If you use enamelled wire you don't need to hide it in tubing, it quite unobtrusively hides in corners covered by paint.

 

Mike.

[brian777999]

Do you think the sides and ends of the engine shed come out of the moulds bent/warped or does this happen during storage and transportation ? If it is the latter, then perhaps being packed in cardboard boxes would be better than plastic bags. 

Edited October 3, 2020 by brian777999

[Mark Saunders]

54 minutes ago, brian777999 said:

Do you think the sides and ends of the engine shed come out of the moulds bent/warped or does this happen during storage and transportation ? If it is the latter, then perhaps being packed in cardboard boxes would be better than plastic bags. 

not sure but it could be the quality of the plastic is not what it used to be!

 

Rather strange that Airfix in its latter days opted for boxes rather than bags as used in the past! 

[Steamport Southport]

I think the quality of the plastic is the problem. The issue of warped models started when they began using recycled plastic.

 

 

Jason

[Enterprisingwestern]

50 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

I think the quality of the plastic is the problem. The issue of warped models started when they began using recycled plastic.

 

 

Jason

 

Lima managed quite well with recycled plastic back in the day, although it was on the brittle side if you tried to do any work on it, as opposed to the soft soapy plastic used nowadays.

 

Mike.

[The Johnster]

Re quality of plastic; I assembled an impulse buy Kitmaster cattle wagon this evening, or most of it; about an hour's work tops to finish it later on today.  The last one of these I built was in about 1962 I think, and I vaguely recall having trouble with the doors.  All parts straight and square, and very credible for such an old tooling, but there was a good bit of flash, some of it in awkward places.  I used Bachmann wagon buffers recycled from their wrong length LMS cattle wagon, and will be using the couplings from this as well.

 

I thing the venerable toolings mean that there is more preparation work needed on parts than there used to be, but the finished article should be acceptable and is still pretty good value.  Of course, the shed has larger flat pieces and this may be part of the reason for the warping, but my general feeling is that this is more likely to be caused by poor storage somewhere.  When I say preparation work, I mean removing flash and dry fitting parts to check the fit.  All the holes on this model, in the ends for the vac pipes/bags, the door and ramp hinges, and the hole that all cattle wagons seem to have in at least one of the top doors, no idea what it's for, needed attention with drills to open them out. and the buffer beam holes for the buffers would have as well had I use them.

 

The buffers are very much the weakest link, horrible overthick blobs that I don't remember being that bad back in the 60s.  I know standards were lower then, but even so...

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

The holes in the doors were for staff working inside the wagon with the doors closed to be able to open the door from the inside.

The blobs masquerading as buffers is probably down to mould wear, they've been in use for 60 years plus, they don't make 'em like that any more! It's interesting to compare a proper Airfix kit from back in the day with a current offering, soapy plastic, acres of flash and rounded edges abound nowadays, the reason I buy the old kits.

 

Mike.

[Colin_McLeod]

2 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

It's interesting to compare a proper Airfix kit from back in the day with a current offering, soapy plastic, acres of flash and rounded edges abound nowadays, the reason I buy the old kits.

 

I agree.  IMHO it's worth the extra few pounds to source an original Airfix kit. 

[brian777999]

I have painted the brickwork and I am now letting it dry thoroughly before giving it a coat of clear Microgloss Matt. I will then attempt to give it a very thin wash of light grey enamel paint which will hopefully stay between the bricks simulating the mortar. Not having done this before, I am not very confident that it will work with this kit. On some kits the bricks are very pronounced and the the joins between the bricks are very deep but on this kit the joins are very shallow so I am not sure if the end result will be very effective. Try it and see, I suppose !

[Enterprisingwestern]

5 hours ago, brian777999 said:

I have painted the brickwork and I am now letting it dry thoroughly before giving it a coat of clear Microgloss Matt. I will then attempt to give it a very thin wash of light grey enamel paint which will hopefully stay between the bricks simulating the mortar. Not having done this before, I am not very confident that it will work with this kit. On some kits the bricks are very pronounced and the the joins between the bricks are very deep but on this kit the joins are very shallow so I am not sure if the end result will be very effective. Try it and see, I suppose !

 

There's always weathering if all else fails, works for me!

 

Mike.

[The Johnster]

21 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

The holes in the doors were for staff working inside the wagon with the doors closed to be able to open the door from the inside.

Obvious when it's pointed out; thanks Mike!  

 

The kit is complete and being painted; went together with no problems whatever despite nearly 60 years in production and lower quality plastic!

[brian777999]

Update : basic painting is complete. Next steps are a coat of clear, mortar wash then weathering. I will install lighting at some point after the mortar wash is done. I am still thinking about how many LED's and where they should go. Suggestions are welcome.

 

Note : for anybody building this kit, it would be much easier to paint doors and window frames before gluing into position.

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

Lights. There wouldn't be that many or too bright. But they'll tend to be where people are doing work such as near the doors/loading area.

 

 

 

Jason

[brian777999]

I tried the light grey mortar wash last night with very a thin turps based paint but it did not turn out well. As I suspected, the mortar ''cracks'' between the bricks are not really deep enough on this model. It was a bit of a curate's egg but more parts were bad than good so I have re-sprayed the whole thing and I will have to paint the window frames and doors again. Not happy !

 

Perhaps others have had better luck with a water based paint  for the mortar? I  think that this effect  would work well when the spaces between the bricks are a bit oversized. It would be good in O gauge.

[Antony Farrell]

Could you do the reverse, paint the mortar first then dry brush the bricks?

[brian777999]

I don't think that would work for the same reason : the mortar gaps are too shallow to dry brush the bricks. If anybody has done this successfully on the Dapol engine shed then I would love to see some photos.

[Il Grifone]

Mortar gaps aren't very deep on the real thing.

[brian777999]

14 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

Mortar gaps aren't very deep on the real thing.

 

I quite agree. The mortar gaps on this model are probably accurate but on some other brick sheets they are  oversized and much deeper than they should be.