Jonathan's Modern Image Workbench (3D-printed class 323 EMU, class 156s, 3-car 144s, a 141, 4-car class 465s)

[JDW]

I have to admit I'm not altogether convinced that using bits from a 153 would be that useful, as lots of it seems different. I've never sat and compared/worked out how many parts could be used, though, so could be wrong.  Here's a comparison I grabbed whilst in the loft earlier:

 

 

I'm wondering if a 150 might be a more suitable donor.

 

I also tried producing logos for the ZDAs by using a good side on photo and cropping/scaling and printing but I think more work might be needed, as well as a new ink cartridge.

 

 

 

[JDW]

Also, prompted by a visit to the Doncaster show on Saturday, the National Power 59s are finally being renamed/numbered - I had intended to do this ages ago but misplaced the nameplates, so having bought a new set decided to have a go.

 

Never having removed a printed name before, I started by practising on what would become 205 'Vale of Evesham', as the longer new name will cover the old easily. Removing the number from the end was easy with the back of a scalpel blade.

 

But I tried a few techniques on the nameplates and frankly made a mess. I started by trying the same technique with a scalpel, and various others but in the end removed the masking tape and used a dab of thinners on a cotton bud. I'll have to try and touch in the blue where I've damaged it, hopefully it won't be too noticable.

 

 

I also used a bit of a cheat to give more depth to the underframe details by painting the gaps matt black to give a better impression of separate parts.  Before & after:

 

 

Finally I ordered some cosmetic buckeye couplers to replace the representations of screw links supplied with the detailing parts.

[JDW]

A chance find on eBay led to the purchase of some rather neat non-working drop head buckeye couplings, which will finish the National Power 59s nicely - it's quite noticable on the real thing, compared to the 59/0 and 59/1s which just have screw links.

 

 

 

No idea who they were made by originally, the seller (anyone here maybe?) couldn't remember the manufacturer. But very handy nonetheless.

[JDW]

For a slight change from 59s I've had a Regional Railways 142 for years - it must be around 20 years old by now, and has had some mods already such as the interior painted, DCC fitted, and the two cars wired together for better running.  But this has always been my least favourite of my 'Pacers' as the livery looks wrong, with too much yellow on the sides, to match the moulding lines. So having bought some suitable colour paint I thought I'd get on with trying to sort it out. As luck would have it the blue is a perfect match. I'll just do one cabside first, and the rest if it looks ok. Before:

 

 

With blue added:

 

 

I hope the lower silver-grey matches as well as the blue...

 

I'm not looking forward to trying to extend the thin blue/white stripes though!

 

[JDW]

...as expected, the silver-grey wasn't such a close match but I'll wait and see how it dries. I suppose it's better than yellow. 

 

[JDW]

And after a few more dabs of paint, the roof has had some grey added, and the moulded "couplings" replaced with better ones from a Hornby class 153.

 

 

I'll leave it overnight to let the paint dry properly before masking for the white and thin blue stripes.

[d winpenny]

More great work, 

 

david

[JDW]

I wouldn't go as far as "great", David, it's hardly James Makin or Newbryford-Mick standards, but thank you anyway!

 

The white and blue stripes have been painted on the 142, so the ends are pretty much complete. The more I look, though, the more I think I need to address the pale blue stripe. It is a shade too dark, and doesn't extend around the door recesses or inner ends. If I can find a suitable blue I will have a go.

 

The gap between vehicles has been filled with simple curved black card. Not the most realistic but it fills the gap and doesn't interfere with movement over reverse curves.

 

Otherwise, all that is left is to adapt/fit radio pods to the roof.

 

 

Edited February 17, 2019 by JDW

[JDW]

Not a lot has happened recently, other than having two decoders give up, one rather spectacularly with a bright flash and lots of smoke.  Not sure how it happened, but it was well and truly fried.  The other was one of two fitted to a second Hornby Northern Spirit class 142 which I bought second hand.  Unlike my original NS one, which had one motor and traction tyres, this one had two motors, hence two decoders, but never worked well so the decoder going in one car prompted me to get on with converting it to an unpowered trailer unit. 

 

The job itself was pretty easy, I had some spare motor housings, so it was just a case of remove the whole motor/wheel unit and fit empty ones.  I swapped the wheels for finer Hornby coach ones, and fitted a shim to keep them centred, but other than that not much to do, and it can easily be converted back if I want to sell it.  Just need to work out a reliable way of coupling the two together.  I'm not sure pairs of NS liveried units would have been common, considering that only a handful carried the livery, but it looks quite good.

 

The 144 centre car is finally just about complete apart from painting.  It was put on the back burner as a result of lack of skill on my part when it came to the electronics and rewiring the couplings, but thanks to some inspiration thanks to @Jack374's mention of ceramic wire in answer to another poster's question on his workbench thread, I'll hopefully get that running properly soon. 

 

And spurred on by another RMWebber, this time @Gibbo675's build of a couple of LEV prototype railbuses, I decided to have a go at a 141.  I decided to have a go at creating one shell first, and ordered some Hornby 142 parts from Peter's Spares and Leyland National components from Peco. It should be fairly simple apart from the cab doors, I have an inability to cut/scribe plasticard squarely.  If it goes well, I'll get hold of a cheap 142 to provide sufficient parts for a full unit.  I'm undecided whether it will be finished in WYPTE red/cream or as 141118 in Serco red/grey.

 

Lots of text, sorry, hopefully pics will follow soon...

[JDW]

So, I've made a start on a 141 as mentioned above, just going to complete one body to start with and see how it looks.

 

 I drew out a rough plan to see where I'd need to cut to make the best use of the Hornby parts

 

Then cut up a 142 shell to form a 'kit' of parts, which then needed trimming and filing along the cuts to get them square. The remains of the door on the left were cut out and replaced with a window bay from a spare shell. I took care to remove the door buttons from some pieces, but leave a couple in place next to what will be the new door.

 

After much trimming, narrowing and filing to match the roof, the Hornby 142 cab is starting to look like a 141. Progress so far:

The long rear sections and roof pod are just taped in place to allow me to measure the roof. It looks like I'll need to use two Peco roofs per coach, in order to hide the joing under the roof pod. 

[JDW]

A couple more pics, the first shell almost done but I need some thinner plasticard to finish the lower panels. I don't have a chassis for it yet so will have to try and pick up a cheap 142 on Ebay for chassis and glazing. (I didn't buy one straight away as I wasn't confident I'd be able to make a decent job of it, but it's looking about as good as an MTK one, which is better than I expected!)

 

 

 

The inner end needs a little tidying up around the top, the front still needs light clusters installing and lower panels shaping, then a coat of primer to see how bad it looks...

 

 

[cheesysmith]

I have a MTK kit,  and some Hornby 142 tucked away to do the same as you. Does anybody have the measurements of the cab front? Need it to compare to the Hornby one. Is the extra width in the windows, the gap between them or the edges? 

[JDW]

Yeah I've thought about doing one of those before, and the 140, and if one had come up cheap on Ebay I might have done.  Thankfully it didn't!  Maybe it's time to dig out the kit and get cracking!  The sides look OK, but the front looks too flat (OK, mine might not end up looking great either, I admit!) but I'd be tempted to try grafting a better front using parts from the 142 onto the MTK sides.

 

The reduced width is a bit from everywhere. Following @Gibbo675's lead here...

 ...I removed basically all of the material between the windows with a razor saw - done by eye, cutting just outside one window frame, then slicing the thin strip off that separates the two windows and rejoining, trying to leave just a very thing strip of yellow between the window frames. The rest of the width reduction comes from the sides, which were filed flat and the corners made more rounded, using the destination screen panel and roof from the Peco Leyland National kits a guide for the final width.

[cheesysmith]

You mentioned the lights, use the ones from the bus, as the 141s did anyway.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Free to a good home.

 

Should you want any of the parts send me a PM.

 

All pieces are now gone.

 

Happy Hunting,

 

Gibbo.

Edited June 29, 2019 by Gibbo675
All Pieces are now gone.

[JDW]

That's a very kind offer, I'm OK for bodyshells though - I'm needing chassis, motors and glazing now!  I've got my eye out for complete units going cheap on Ebay etc, now I've convinced myself that I can actually construct the body! You have enough parts there for something like the 2 car demonstrator that went to Thailand/Malaysia...

[JDW]

Just a quick phone pic, not much progress really on the 141, but have started assembling the second body, as well as fitted the front lights to the first one. Still need to scribe the panel lines between the light clusters, which I'm not looking forward to.

 

 

I suspect the Peco Leyland National roof is a little tall, it looks a bit out of proportion, too late to change that now though. I've left the bottom of the cab for now, mainly for strength while I cut out the lights, but it still needs re-shaping and the "front bumper" fitting. 

[Ragtag]

The Peco kit isn't particularly well proportioned - nevertheless it's looking good!

 

Have you tried a Pirate or EFE roof for comparison?

[JDW]

Thanks. I haven't, I think if I did another I'd look at one of those, it's a bit late for this one now though so I'll stick with it.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Jonathan,

 

The front end has the look of the 141 even if you think it looks too tall, painting may well give it a different look and alter its proportion that way perhaps. My rail-busses seem to have stalled in the last few weeks but hopefully I shall get on with them soon enough.

 

Gibbo.

[JDW]

Thanks Gibbo. It does look like a 141, that's true. And as you say paint will change how it looks. The bigger issue is when you put it next to other stock - the Hornby 142 looks way too tall, and this will be the same height. Not a major problem of course, and it'll hopefully look ok when it's done. 

 

I know what you mean about things stalling, happens to most people I suspect.

[JDW]

Not much has happened of late, but one body is complete. I still think it will be much too tall, I'm thinking that I'll invest in a Realtrack chassis rather than Hornby which should at least make it sit better as well as run better, even if it costs quite a bit more - although considering that most Hornby 142s seem to go for £60+ on Ebay anyway, its not that much more for a new Realtrack 144.

 

 

 

[Guest MM1991]

11 hours ago, JDW said:

Not much has happened of late, but one body is complete. I still think it will be much too tall, I'm thinking that I'll invest in a Realtrack chassis rather than Hornby which should at least make it sit better as well as run better, even if it costs quite a bit more - although considering that most Hornby 142s seem to go for £60+ on Ebay anyway, its not that much more for a new Realtrack 144.

 

 

 

This is what RMWeb is all about for me, folk actually doing to something rather than bleating about x, y and z not producing an a,b or c!

 

Well done and the same to all others who just get on with it!

[JDW]

So, because I felt like I don't have enough unfinished projects, I thought I'd start another "easy" "quick" one. 

 

Any guesses? Slightly inspired by some others on here who have been prolifically slicing up DMUs of late, I thought I'd try something different...

[Gibbo675]

6 minutes ago, JDW said:

So, because I felt like I don't have enough unfinished projects, I thought I'd start another "easy" "quick" one. 

 

Any guesses? Slightly inspired by some others on here who have been prolifically slicing up DMUs of late, I thought I'd try something different...

Hi Johnathan,

 

I have no idea as to who you refer, anyway my rail busses involved slicing up some bus kits and  some bouncy, uncomfortable, goods wagon mounted, buss derived contraptionary otherwise know as 142's.

 

Glazing fitted to my contraptioanry last evening so they are coming along.

 

Gibbo.