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Ian's 7mm workbench - recent photos


Hal Nail
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This thread covers my efforts to build, detail and weather stock. Many are for an intended layout set in the St Blazey era c1957/8 but I often divert to something I fancy doing.

 

Inspired by Brian Daniel's fairly recent detailing of his Heljan 33, I've ordered some of the JLTRT spares he used and am also doing a conversion to the original silencer and exhaust arrangement. I was intending to make a bit more progress before starting a thread but having contributed a photo elsewhere earlier and immediately got useful feedback, I thought it might be worth putting a few shots up now.

 

I found enough photos on line and in various books to estimate the size of the hole relative to the roof grills with the intention of using the piece I removed from the roof to form the silencer, mounted on a flat plasticard base.

 

Having drilled, sawed and chiselled out the roof piece, all of which would doubtless have been easier with a cutting disc, I rubbed down all the mould lines on the roof and cab window pillars (I'm trying to avoid repainting the green at the moment although the prominent lines at each corner do grate) and carefully paired or filed off the roof clips. Having cleaned up with very fine grade wet and dry I'm hoping it is all sufficiently invisible but am holding off the temptation to prime to see how smooth it is until I'm ready to paint it properly. There should be rivets all round the edges of the roof panels, and there is far too much depth to the panels themselves and the roof grill surrounds but I can live with these issues.

 

At present the only steer I have on the exhaust hole is from the newer 00 model and I'm wary of modelling from a model - if anyone knows of a published photo that info would be appreciated. I'm also not clear how "deep" the hole around the silencer actually was.

 

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Hole lined and silencer mounted on a bit of plasticine to see what it will look like. I might actually fabricate one from scratch rather than trying to even up the original piece, especially given its depth will need building back up anyway.

 

(cant find exact photos)

 

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Quite a bit of rubbing down later, including much fettling of the silencer, which has been built up and filed down again numerous times and I've got it sitting evenly. Need to drill a hole and add the two side steps and that bit is done. Relieved the removal of the roof panel clips has left a clean finish. Body wise that's about it. I've got some JLTRT replacement wipers and also cab hand rails although I'm not sure the latter are any better than the Heljan attempt. Will be adding the fuel tank cut-outs and narrowing the tanks as well as moving the bogie springs inwards: mods which been done many times elsewhere.  

 

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A bit more progress passing through the paint shops. I re-filled and rubbed down a couple of areas after the first coat and gave it a second dusting (Halfords plastic primer). I've got some replacement windscreen wipers from JLTRT and will improve the headcodes but that's about it for the body other than caking the whole thing in grime. Chassis mods will involve narrowing the fuel tanks and moving back the bogie springs.

 

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Having looked at a few photos it seems it was always scorching in that era so I thought i'd have a go at opening a few windows.

Before I fix them in place it would be helpful if someone could tell me were they held in position by straps - in which case I need to take care to line them up rather than have them all at completely random heights.

 

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I used to travel in one of these when I was young (Diagram D109 if I am not mistaken). The droplights could be right up with the bottom rested on a ledge (which is how my Mother preferred it), right down (how I preferred it) or in an intermediate position held by a hole in the leather strap hooked on to a brass pin. Looking at the photos of carriage interiors in my Russel Appendex 1, all the straps shown had 6 holes. So yes the droplights had set positions but quite a few. So you can model yours in a fairly random way.

 

Ian.   

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Actually, looking at the side of your carriage, I think it is actually a diagram E140 - the fifth compartment is a 1st - D109 has all third compartments. Photo of an E140 on page 148 of the appendix one. The number W6975W ties up with this putting it in Lot 1455 of 1931.

 

The interior shots are from page 172 - very useful.

 

Ian.

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Actually, looking at the side of your carriage, I think it is actually a diagram E140 - the fifth compartment is a 1st - D109 has all third compartments. Photo of an E140 on page 148 of the appendix one. The number W6975W ties up with this putting it in Lot 1455 of 1931.

 

The interior shots are from page 172 - very useful.

 

Ian.

 

Yes it's an E140 from the Bodmin pair - variants on the same theme though! 

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Something I noticed on my set was that the interior lighting shone though the plastic body. I'm thinking a coat of paint on the interior would help prevent this...but what colour?

 

Some sort of wood paneling colour (maybe applied over a black base)? When repainting the seats to tone them down a fraction, I didn't find it easy to get paint coverage but I was going to disable the lighting anyway on mine - I might use it on my bike as i'm pretty sure its brighter than my expensive fog lights!

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Yes, the interior lighting is IMO overly bright. Might use it for lighting the layout instead!

 

I think the tail lamp, with its very bright light and clumsy fitting, Will also be removed on my set. Probably replaced by a scale lamp from Modelu.

 

How easily did the coach come apart?

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How easily did the coach come apart?

 

Wasn't too bad - although I'm not massively looking forward to doing another 3 lots of windows! 

 

There are screws all along the bottom edge of the sides holding them to the underframe. The screws down the center line just hold the plastic interior in place so you don't actually need to undo them. 

Ends are fixed to the sides with a tiny screw at the bottom lug- I didn't spot this until after Id popped them apart (you have to take the seat off the inside of the end to see it).

The hardest part is getting the "tail lamp bracket" circuit board out in one piece - I snapped mine trying. Might be safer to snip the wires and reconnect later.

The windows are spot stuck so i used a combination of a sharp knife to start and, once I inevitably lost patience, carefully applied brute force!

 

I do like taking things apart though: I should get a job with James May really.

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I rather glibly stated earlier I was going to do the usual bogie mods to recess the springs. This turned out to be slightly harder than anticipated although has speeded up considerably with practice. The top photo is as bought (which if nothing else has identified that the mystery part will launched across the room the other day was the speedo cable). To get the side frames off - which are blocked by the D shaped piece hanging down from the chassis itself, I originally released the bogie undoing the retaining piece shown in photo 2. It didn't dawn on me at this point that I was about to move the springs to completely block access to these screws. Photo 3 shows how to avoid this by simply levering off the chassis side piece! Cutting the springs off the bogie requires a blend of care and crude language but remounting them is simple. My methods have become increasingly less sophisticated and by No. 4 I simply welded several slabs of crudely cut plasticard together and filed down to size after it had set. While it was all apart i did a lot of fettling to the side frames which, as supplied, taper towards the front and add to the generally undesirable low relief effect - not really apparent in the photos but filing things so all edges are perpendicular to the face, does improve things to the eye. I will, at some point, probably drill out the low relief inside brake hangers - oddly the outer ones are separate pieces mounted in line with the wheels but not the inners.

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I sold my Heljan 33 on in the hope of JLTRT supplying a 33 with original exhaust, but they didn't cover the original unfortunately. Looking at yours, including the bogie mods, I should have kept mine :-( 

Nice work, also I have a B set, so useful, information, thanks!

 

Richard

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I've done the same mods to the bogies on my 26! Makes a world of difference.

 

Just noticed your avitar - I spent a happy afternoon snapping one of them (or similar) on the Stony Point line some years ago!

 

Meanwhile I've got a bit of paint (Halfords' Ford Burgundy which is darker and richer than the photos make it look) on the other side of the B set. And taken it all off again and got some more on, but let's not go into that. I will need to matt varnish it eventually but having got a finish I'm happy with, I'm frightened to go anywhere near it at the moment.

 

The windows need more work (I brush painted them having sprayed onto some scrap plastic) but by the time they are weathered will be fine and I can pick the better ones anyway as modelling them open you get two out of each window.

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Just noticed your avitar - I spent a happy afternoon snapping one of them (or similar) on the Stony Point line some years ago!

 

Hi Ian, Its a Victorian Railways B class builtin 1952/53, what you would have photographed on the Stoney Point line would have been an A class which we're a re-build and re-engine of B class loco's in 1984/85. The Stoney point was still hauled the first time I went to Australia but there we're also still B's & S's working to Warnambool for WCR so I didn't go down there!

 

A60 at South Gellong in 2009 I think:

4199955910_f0c8223e5e_z.jpg?zz=1A60 Geelong by endoftheroad, on Flickr

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