Adam's EM Workbench: Farewell for now

[Adam]

Thanks Jonathan, I am aware that not everyone is so open minded. Equally, I do have other things to do with my time and no feedback, sadly, will mean no update (and, more to the point, no suggestions of what might be better ideas to try next time!). Must try to get a shot with more shadow where the folds have been represented...

 

Adam

[Taz]

Adam,

 

Another lurker here. Please do continue. Anything out of the usual is interesting.

I haven't commented because I haven't anything useful to add. So carry on and one day I might be able to comment and add something of use

[SM42]

Adam

 

Just found this; intrigued and impressed. Looking forward to seeing more progress. As Taz said, nothing to add at present (other than WOW! That looks good)

Please do continue with the updates. This has started me thinking about getting the plasticard out and finding the jar under the stairs that I keep my patience in.

 

Andy

[Mark Forrest]

Another silent follower adding to the "please continue" list here too. The wagon is looking great and I'm keen to see how the hood develops as I have a project in mind which which require removable hoods.

[Adam]

Suitably encouraged, here is another shot of the near-complete vehicle. All that remains to be done is to reinforce the steps at the ends (short lengths of 0.45 brass wire) and the straighten out those lever guides. We'll see exactly how the hood has come out after a coat of primer. The centre section has been added using tissue - packaging from my current pair of Cricket boots - applied in strips secured using Microscale Kristal Klear (though any thinned PVA would be fine), which was also applied over the Milliput to fill some of the blemishes. Once primed, a bit of filler will do the job until such time as I can lay my hands on some 'Freight Brown' paint. Halfords' red oxide is not quite right...

 

 

Also getting the 'Freight Brown' treatment, as and when, is the next vehicle on the bench, a BR-built, SR-designed, Shock open which is nearly there bar a dose of bolt heads. Just as well the nights are drawing in...

 

 

Interesting vehicles these, though I confess that I only started it because I had the brake etch (Masokits) in stock. The lever guide, I think, is a spare from a Dave Bradwell NCB hopper. Having done so, I realised that dad had built a model of one of these about 35 years ago! Both of us missed the fact that the bottom plant on the ends of these was steel channel - the 'U' on the inside - so that will have to be represented using paint. In 7mm this would, no doubt, be much more obvious.

 

Adam

Edited October 2, 2012 by Adam

[Pugsley]

I'm looking forward to seeing how the sheet looks when it's painted, it looks like an extremely effective method.

[Adam]

Well here we are after a flash of primer. I've shown both ends - though even mucking around with the contrast doesn't show the corners as clearly as I might like. What do people think?

 

 

There was a noticeable join between the tissue and the Milliput sections and I've gone over this again with a touch of filler. It may need revisiting a second time, but the effect is roughly what I was after.

 

 

Adam

Edited September 29, 2012 by Adam

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

 

Nice work on the Clayhoods, especially the attention to detail with such things as the brake gear.

 

Dare I ask how the Class 74 is getting on? It looked very impressive in the posts back in January, with all the extra plasticard parts on the chassis.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Adam]

Thanks Colin

 

Not Clayhoods (not quite in my period - the tents on the clay tippers came along a bit later, though dad does have a model of the prototype version scratchbuilt as one of a batch of three when he first saw the real one, c. 1970), but that's by the by. I admit to the brakegear fetish however! The 74 is painted and fully glazed, etc., but is waiting for me to sort out the cab handrails properly and to do the route indicators. I'm in wagon mode at the minute however and the bench needs a thorough clean before I put a nearly complete model on it again...

 

Adam

Edited September 30, 2012 by Adam

[Fat Controller]

Looking very nice, Adam; given the branding, the wagons would have been used for finished tinplate coil trafic. I wonder where they worked too, as most tinplate during the period they were introduced was in sheets, mounted on stillages, wrapped in stiff anti-rust paper, and Signode-banded. These were carried in the large fleet of Shocvans allocated to the two works- I remember the rows of them at Llandeilo Junction when I used to train-spot there in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

[Adam]

Thanks Brian, that's excellent. I had wondered what on earth they were for. Given that they lacked continuous brake and the only 'traffic' photo I've seen was at Severn Tunnel Junction (by which time they had lost their branding and 'boxed' lettering so it seems that in their short lives they had managed to get themselves repainted!), I guess that it was somewhere within South Wales. Must build a few more shocvans, but there's plenty of other things in the queue.

 

Adam

[Colin parks]

Thanks Colin

 

Not Clayhoods (not quite in my period - the tents on the clay tippers came along a bit later, though dad does have a model of the prototype version scratchbuilt as one of a batch of three when he first saw the real one, c. 1970), but that's by the by. I admit to the brakegear fetish however! The 74 is painted and fully glazed, etc., but is waiting for me to sort out the cab handrails properly and to do the route indicators. I'm in wagon mode at the minute however and the bench needs a thorough clean before I put a nearly complete model on it again...

 

Adam

 

Hi Adam,

 

Forgive me for mis-naming the wagons - the clue was in the topic sub-heading of course. I had a look at your 74 in the link to your blog. The flush glazing is very good indeed. Yours is the best class 74 model I have seen - excellent.

 

What a pity these handsome locos were such unreliable machines in reality.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Adam]

What a pity these handsome locos were such unreliable machines in reality.

 

Thanks for the compliment Colin, very kind of you and given the quality of your CIG, means a lot. It's a shame about the 74s, yes, and they all went before I was born. Truth is, there wasn't the traffic left for them to justify sorting out the problems, but I agree, they were handsome things just like the 71s they were converted from but have the advantage that you don't need a layout with third rail to run them on. Not that I have a layout, nor, at the moment, the inclination to build one. Must get it finished though and I will, once these wagons are out of the way. The shock high is now complete and in primer, but here's a shot from before the paint went on.

 

 

Adam

[Guest jim s-w]

Hi Adam

 

Some great stuff here. I would echo the comments about interest but add that this is the sort of stuff that may not get an immediate responce but will be refferred back to a lot.

 

Another thing to remember is its a great record for you too. If your approach is anything like as random as mine, you will find yourself looking back a lot to refresh your memories of you did specific stuff.

 

Keep up the excellent work

 

Jim

[Fat Controller]

That 'Shock' is a lovely piece of work, Adam- I've one on my list of things to do.

[Adam]

Jim, Brian

 

Thank you both. As a lone modeller (more or less) with lots of other things to do, a bit of extra incentive is useful. Actually producing pictures in public encourages me to be a bit more self-critical than might otherwise be the case but does mean that I actually take the trouble to look at the proving pictures I've taken and to make the improvements they suggest. I accept the point about reference too. Seeing the Shochood B the other day reminded me of the elements of that vehicle which could have been better - I think that I've addressed most of these (in my own mind) with the Coil H. If anyone is encouraged to have a go at these mundane, but seldom modelled, vehicle types then that would be good too. There is more to wagon-building life than Bachmann, Parkside and Cambrian...

 

Adam

Edited October 2, 2012 by Adam

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

 

The latest picture of the shock high is very impressive - all those bolt heads! I especially admire the way you have represented the door pin chains.

 

Looking forward to seeing pictures of the finished article.

 

Colin

[Adam]

Thanks Colin. The bolt heads aren't too bad providing the light (and ventilation!) is decent and you only do a bit at a time. Having something on in the background - T20 Cricket commentary in this case - helps too. The door chains make a difference out of all proportion to their size I think, and really aren't hard to do.

 

The shock is now in a box waiting for the others I have about the place to catch up, though I have painted the underframe since I had another couple to do. It's my usual practice to hand paint underframes two or three at a time since this is much more efficient with paint - you stop when you run out (and the price of Humbrol means this is prudent as well as sensible) - and means a more thorough job - the inevitable bits you miss, and only spot later, can be eradicated prior to weathering. The same thing applies to detail painting and results in a better job all round.

 

Adam

Edited October 4, 2012 by Adam

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

 

I forgot to ask how you attached the cosmetic bolt heads on the shock high wagon. Are they just tiny slices of plastic rod placed with the tip of a solvent-dampened brush or are they inserted into pre-drilled holes? Whichever way, they are very crisply done.

 

You must have a lot of patience to hand-paint wagon under frames! I have been messsing around with a borrowed air brush this week and found that it will deliver quite small amounts of paint into tight spaces by restricting the paint flow Might be worth a try. I can see that painting a model underframe that is not just made of black plastic is a much more difficult proposition.

 

Colin

[Adam]

Hi Colin

 

The basic answer is straight out of Geoff Kent's books - slivers of 10 thou' cut into tiny cubes and stuck on with liquid poly and a very small brush. the very small brush is the important bit otherwise you get solvent everywhere which makes a mess and can cause damage. If you use a larger brush, and therefore more solvent, the cubes vanish into the ether as well which is somewhat self-defeating. When I've built the occasional 7mm wagon, I have been known the shape plastic rod to hexagonal section to represent nuts and bolts which is probably a bit extreme - and may not be accurate in any event. I'd never thought of pre-drilled holes: I suspect that this would take an awful lot longer and it would certainly be harder to correct any errors.

 

 

Oh, and I did the inside as well. I must have been alert when scribing the sides since I see that I've bevelled both the top and bottom planks per the prototype. I must be mad. Note that the plates covering the shock springs seem to have been painted in body colour.

 

 

An airbrush would be ideal for painting wagon underframes but I don't have regular access to one, in fact all my modelling is done in a rather ad hoc space. Most of my wagons are either grey or red oxide so it's easy to see the bits I've missed once primed/painted body colour which is the first phase. Rather than paint underframes black (and have the same problem of missed areas twice), I now use Humbrol 98 for the purpose - except for the odd near ex-works vehicle - as it makes a good basis for weathering and dries matt reliably. The downside is that it takes quite a long time to go off properly which isn't a huge problem but is worth bearing in mind. This isn't my idea by the way, I'm just borrowing it - it was Pennine MC that put me onto that one.

 

Adam

Edited November 29, 2012 by Adam

[Tim Hale]

Adam,

 

Thank you for sharing the build, it is rather stunning.

 

Tim

[Fat Controller]

I think I'll just give up now- this would be amazing work in 7mm, and to do it in 4mm is astounding.

[Adam]

Thanks folks - Brian don't be daft. Chris Croft's articles in the early days of MRJ show what really can be done and Evergreen strip makes the strapping very easy.

 

The reason I don't work in 7mm is because I'd have a compulsion to put all the detail on and down that road insanity lies. My productivity is low enough as it is. On a layout you don't notice the bolt heads, only the strapping. In photographs they are kind of obvious. Plastic kits, of course have all this stuff on there already so you don't need to go to these lengths unless you really want to. A steady hand, good light and patience get me most of the way there. The first is in the lap of the Gods to some extent, the second is easy enough to get and the third can be learnt (to a degree). Paul Bartlett's galleries are also vital - it is so easy now to know what should go where that I actually have the time just to copy it.

 

EDIT - I should add that what you can't see, because I didn't photograph them, are the set of reject sides which I scribed wrongly - the inside was upside down - the first set which weren't tall enough because I misread the drawing (scribing planks correctly is tricky), the mis-cut corner plates and sundry other errors made along the way. You learn from your mistakes in this game.

 

Adam

 

Edited (again) to correct my conferring messianic status on Chris Crofts. He's good, but model wagons...

Edited October 26, 2012 by Adam

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

 

Now that the wagon is painted I can see what a remarkable piece of modelling you have done. As for reject sides, I know the feeling! The main thing is being able to admit to yourself that a part isn't good enough and make it again. Also, it looks like you have added capping strips to the top planks of the sides and ends from 5 thou. plastic strip - a very delicate job that must have been. I cheated on some of my wagons by adding just the capping strip clips (a small block of 20 thou. plastic inserted in a slot cut across the top of the plank).

 

These details do show. Well, they do show when they are not there!

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Adam]

Thanks again Colin. The capping shows in pictures, but only the clips really show in reality and I remember the 20 thou' in slots from your models, it's a very effective approach, and much easier that what I did in replicating the prototype with little bits of 5 thou', but you have to know that these things should be there to worry about them.

 

Next time, I think I'll add the 5 thou' capping (secured with cyano') but add the clips the way you did it - it'll be less of a fiddle for no loss of fidelity.

 

Adam