(OLD) STL's NG desk

[SomethingTrainLover]

For anyone reading this: Sadly in November of last year my twitter account was permanently banned cause Twitter false flagged one of my tweets as violating their rules, what this means is that ALL the photos posted to this thread no longer show up. While not necessarily lost, it would be grueling to repost every single wip photo that hasn't been uploaded via my current account. I won't hide this old thread, but I'll be keeping it as an archive for the written aspects of the posts. A new thread will eventually be started, as of writing this April 2021. Maybe.

 

Decided to start up a separate thread for my 009 stuff to make it easier for others it may interest to find and see. For those unaware, I mainly model The Railway Series, which in this topic means the Skarloey Railway and Mid-Sodor. I'm mainly focusing on doing the Skarloey rn. 

So Welcome, please feel free to give feedback, thoughts, etc.

Edited April 22, 2021 by SomethingTrainLover

[SomethingTrainLover]

Starting this thread up, a recap of what went into converting my stock Bachmann Rheneas into a more prototypical form. I of course acquired the NP Dologchifcation kit for this conversion.

 

I started off by dissembling the model and went straight for that admittedly terrible funnel. Started by cutting off the funnel and then using a grinding bit on my dremel to get rid of the rest of it and the base, then drilled out a new hole. The funnel was fitted, with some excess of the model and funnel being chipped away at.

The model was then stripped completely and the new cab included with the kit built, This also required some grinding away at the coal load in the right hand bunker, which i chose to keep cause...reasons. I also primed and painted the cab, making sure that I liked the red I got to represent the Skarloey Railway's red in the books, it's darker in pics but in most lighting it's pretty bright. I also fit the etched smokebox front plate. The body then followed the cab in priming and painting.

I wound up stripping the bodyshell a few times, whether it be after priming and/or painting due to major chips.
I had acquired an Ertl Rheneas toy a year earlier at a flea market, and before this major conversion had already taken the face of the toy, given it's a far better representation of the character from the original TVS Season 4 models, and in turn the books. I also temporarily added the kit handrails and whistle to see how they looked.

Of course, would't be one of my builds without some sort of disaster...So here's a disaster: At this point, my general inexperience with assembling kits like this had started to go a bit wrong, this being the cab. I hadn't really added the roof correctly...at all. I glued the roof before actually bending it to the contour of the cab, so it wasn't exactly resting neatly, nor was the top vent and small traces of glue surrounding it. There was also the fact that I hadn't painted the roof, so i had to paint it black with the rest of the cab bar the coal rails being red. Oh and the coal rails dropped off at the rails and front section that bends near the front of the bunker. What was the real disaster was that it wound up crushed. Won't go deep into the details but some yelling was involved. However, the back section of the cab survived. So I got a bit innovative.

The rear tank was cut free from the remains of the back of the cab, so now I could have as built condition. You also may note that I had started painting the smokebox and side sections black as needed, along with the running board and cylinders now being painted up.

Eventually, another Dolgochification kit arrived and learning from the first build, I assembled the cab fairly quickly, minus roof and vent, which were both carefully bent to the contour's of the cab and glued together and painted separately. It was at this point that I forced myself to add the kit splashers and remove the stock ones. the cab and splashers were quickly primed and sprayed red.

Compared to a stock Bachmann Skarloey

Eventually, January 2019 came and I finally made myself get back to work on Rheneas after about a month doing nothing on him. Granted i was away at University and then away for all of Christmas to New Years, but still, it was time. I managed to pick off another usable part of that Ertl Rheneas, the sticker nameplates. They were in incredibly good condition and at this point the Ertl Rheneas had given up it's smokebox for another project i was working on, and I'm not kidding about that. I also painted the cab window lenses brass and the coal rail black.

Then I started the part I had been holding off on...the lining. This was my first time ever using waterslide transfer decals. So I got to work. I also finished up the actual smokebox itself and added the cab roof proper.

And soon after I added everything else, bar the westinghouse pump, still need to get to that, from the kit and finished any paint daps and touch ups. And skipping forward about a year, with the number plates and letter decals being applied, along with using glue n glaze for the windows, here he is:

 My RWS Rheneas, with a sneak peak at the next engine that will be addressed on this thread :

Opinions, feedback, thoughts, etc. are welcomed and appreciated.

[peterl]

Are the faces on permanently or can you remove them?

Peter

[SomethingTrainLover]

36 minutes ago, peterl said:

Are the faces on permanently or can you remove them?

Peter

Swappable with the respective smokeboxes.

[SomethingTrainLover]

So after I had Rheneas, mostly, finished, I moved on to getting Skarloey done. I started by cutting off rid the metal slab in the cab so the forward cab windows could now actually be windows. The smokebox hand rails were then filed down and the molded knobs were used as guides to drill out holes for some proper ones. Once the holes were deep enough I filed and sanded down the rest of the molded piece. The knobs themselves are Alan Gibson short knobs with the handrail wire off an HO engine. 

The model was then stripped, and using the molded tank handrails as a guide, I drilled out two holes for new proper ones, the wire used also came from an HO engine.

After these holes were drilled out, the molded handrails were sanded down till the tank was smooth, bar the rivet detail of course.

The new handrails were carefully bent to length and shape, using pics of Talyllyn as a guide. I had noticed that others modeling Talyllyn using the Bachmann Skarloey have had a tendency to make the handrails stick out quite a lot, nothing against these models of course, these conversions almost always tend to turn out brilliantly, but I did want to avoid it. This meant constantly checking the length against the body and accounting for the tank weight that the body sits upon. After the handrails were firmly lined up and glued, Tamiya putty was lightly added to the holes to fill any gaps between the wire and the holes, before being sanded smooth.

The model was then primed and painted red.

The rest of the model was carefully painted through spray and brush techniques. Once the body itself had finished painting, it went off for lining.

The running board itself was still in the midst of being repainted.

 

This was followed by using water transfers to represent the painted name, as in the books, this was a 4 hour or so process cause the letters just didn't want to stick.

Like Rheneas, the face was replaced by a far superior one from an ertl toy. The handrails were then primed and painted and here he was as originally finished:

Not long after this step, I decided to attempt to copy a few others and give him a decent cab interior. This didn't entirely go to plan, and adding brass inserts was abandoned, with the now visible metal weight instead being painted, but a 3D printed backhead was added

Thankfully, I was able to acquire a NP slimline kit and after a couple days of fiddling and taking it slowly, Skarloey finally got his new cylinders and motion, and he's far better off with it.

Of course I also fitted the included works plates and took order of 2 sets of etched number plates from NP, one for Skarloey and the other for Rheneas.

As always, thoughts, comments, opinions, etc etc. welcomed.

[SomethingTrainLover]

So following Skarloey's completion, I decided to take a note from Luke aka Expl_Cookie,(I recommend checking out his twitter @Expl_Cookie for Talyllyn and very well done RWS modeling, especially his own SR collection), which was to buy another bodyshell and convert it to an earlier spec, namely, 1860's as built and delivered. Now he had done the aforementioned build and circa 1930s era, the latter taking heavy inspiration from how Talyllyn looked during the same period. I decided to just do as delivered...for now. 
Anyway, I ordered a shell and running board from Bachmann's parts department and got to work, much of it exactly the same as I had done to my "modern" shell. So the cab plate was cut, cab mostly gutted, smokebox handrails filed down and a proper one added. The main difference was that I completely sanded down the tank handrails with no wire ones to replace them. Body then went through the normal priming, painting, transfers. The spare running board was put through a bit more, the splashers were cut off and excess plastic removed and the left hand sandbox was cut off and then filled in with a piece of styrene and tamiya putty. It was then painted. Lastly I had some spare wire which I bent and cut to the correct size and painted to make the cab rail.
The end result was, I think, pretty good:

I had mentioned previously that I did prepare a back tank with no cab so Rheneas would also be able to be in as built condition, as can be seen:

For now, Skarloey and Rheneas are done, bar varnishing which I keep putting off. I do however eventually want to get another shell for each of them, given their liveries are, by all means, their 1860s ones. In the books they've been seen to have carried the same liveries but the corners are straight edged, not indented. Either that or I go at Rheneas and Skarloey's main shell and attack the corners of the lining and add new sections of transfers to make them straight edged.

[NeilHB]

Lovely stuff Tom. I really do like the 1865 versions of Skarloey and Rheneas - very well done! 

[SomethingTrainLover]

Well It's been a while. So let's just start off simply, the coach stock.
Bachmann's Red and Blue NG coaches are in fact accurate, if anyone is unaware at this point, to their respective TR prototypes, Red is accurate to Coach 1-2 and Blue to Coach 4. So of course that would make them accurate to the SR equivalents. As such, I picked up 2 reds and one blue, to make Coach 1 "Agnes", Coach 2 "Ruth", and Coach 4 "Lucy". This was a relatively simple conversion, all coaches were sprayed with a coat of Tamiya primer and then painted into the Skarloey Railway's standard coach livery in the books, blue with cream/white/light biege/light tan. Interestingly I have found that of the models of done of them, I'm one of the only people to have done it with the full cream surround as  per the illustrations, most others going for full blue ends.

As seen in SR Brakevan No.9 "Cora", built from a Rodney Stenning Ex-Corris Brake 6 kit. 

Now here's where some of you may groan; the faces. I decided to take after a couple Japanese modelers, who were using the sticker faces that go on the coaches from the Thomas Plarail Capsule range, course it's near impossible to find an untouched one for any decent price, but many with them applied and in very good nick for cheap. 2 different ones were bought, and the faces cut to size and then peeled off the toys. There were then applied to Agnes and Lucy. Now mind this is more of an experiment and prototype, I have a few ideas going for any future faces, and that's also why the face is a bit messy on Lucy. Issues with the communication cord detailing wasn't considered. I do plan to eventually replace the face of course, and ideally find away to make them easily applicable and removeable.

They also have received their respective SR stock numbers, Agnes No.1, Ruth No.2, Lucy No.4 and Cora No.9.
 

I also need to replace the glazing in the coaches, that's the result of the fumes from the glue not having an escape and building up as it dried.
Currently still need a Meridian Models Coach 3 and Brake 5 kit to complete the full "vintage" set and I'm currently awaiting for a package that contains them to arrive. 

[Font T]

It all looks absolutely fantastic, and you’re obviously very talented.

Have you had issues coupling the carriages together like others have reported?

[SomethingTrainLover]

11 hours ago, Font T said:

It all looks absolutely fantastic, and you’re obviously very talented.

Have you had issues coupling the carriages together like others have reported?

Only some. It’s only an issue with the blue coaches tbh. Looks like the reds were quickly modified before being sent out, as the coupling hooks are sanded back, no completely, but noticeable enough and enough to actually make a difference. Given I only have the one blue, and it’s all I need, it’s a none issue right now

[SomethingTrainLover]

Now I am well aware that Railway Series modeling certainly isn't to everyone's taste, so I present this commission I recently completed.

It's TR Old Lady
Dolgoch

The engine received a full application of the NP Dolgochification kit, and the livery is one inspired by the red livery Dolgoch wore prior to her current one. 

The initial plan for the livery by the owner was to use DTBmodel transfers, which I quickly found were unacceptably fragile and just godawful. As such the only ones used were the cylinder lining and the left hand splasher. Mind the sheet didn't even have various small parts of the livery included. So I talked with the owner, god the masking tape and my calipers out and bordered the entire thing by hand. Then I used .35mm white lining from Fox Transfers and lined the entire thing out, also by hand and including all the small parts of the livery ommitted by the DTB sheet. I was lucky to have a small straight strip along with the one full sheet I did have, cause I used all the straights. So dire was the amount of lining situation that or the smaller straights, I cut the small straight sections off the larger corner pieces. The boiler band lining was also absent, so I decided to just add plain black ones, which isn't entirely inaccurate as in one of the variants of this livery Dolgoch lacked the white lining either side of the black boiler bands. 
Of course, I also painted the wheels black and rods red and I decided to reuse the model's original whistle piece, carefully cut the base down to size, painted it, and then glued it on the right of the dome, making sure it was just visible when looking out of the right hand spectacle window.  The original box was then modded to take the new additions and it was sent back to it's original owner. 
Of course before I sent it off, I had to take a few pics ;P.

“However, small railways generally have small accidents. The wagon will need a little repair, but The Old Lady goes right off to work again”

And of course, some with the her twin, The Gallant Old Engine

[SomethingTrainLover]

And now back to our usually scheduled modeling. 
So a few weeks ago I was able to acquire a complete, but damaged Meridian Models Talyllyn Brake 5 kit. The damage was from the guy who i bought the kit from, who cut off all the stubs on both side pieces if the model. For those who don't know, you're only supposed to cut off ONE side of stubs on each side piece. So after a bit of work, I replicated and replaced the missing stubs with styrene substitutes, which were then filled in and smooth. The model was then built and painted in sections before I wound up with this:
Skarloey Railway Stock No.5 "Beatrice"

https://youtu.be/DipMOgG9-vs

With Beatrice now down, my focus goes to Coach No.3 "Jemima" and getting her built.