Haphazardous 00 modelling. A slow workbench topic

[Trains&armour]

Hi,

I thought I'd start a new topic instead of updating my blog, as I decided I don't really like the way a blog works. 

(my old blog can be found by clicking on the link in my signature)

 

And what to expect of this topic? Well, nothing really much...  Most of the time....

 

I'm a quite chaotic person by nature and have a lot of interests, so sometimes more than a month will go by without any modelling activities. And if I do do some modelling I tend to start in a hurry, buy lots of stuff I think I need, do some research (and find out I don't need half the stuff I collected...), lose interest halfway, start on something else, will find an old project I suddenly decide to finish, etc. Hence the title of this new topic. Be prepared!

 

And what will i be building? Everything to do with 00, or more precise, 1-76 modelling. A lot of it  will be railway related, but just as much of it will be military modelling in 1-76. Most of it will have a bearing on my planned, 'soon to be realised', layout. (again, follow the link in  my signature) but then again, some won't.....

 

As an example, a while ago I bought this:

 

 

And you might be pardoned for thinking this has absolutely nothing to do with 00 or railway modelling.

But you would be wrong. (except for the 00 part, as this is 1-72.... But I chose to ignore that, close enough..). In a convoluted way, this has to do with my planned layout, Aberdovey and the Cambrain coastline in the period 1940-1945.

As it happens, during the war the Dovey estuary was used for training, among others, DUKW drivers. (http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/wales/archive/bbc-north-west-wales-tywyn-arthur-caley.pdf) And as mentioned, they had a LCT, landing craft tank, moored in Aberdovey. That did it, I wanted, no, I needed a LCT model. And this is the only plastic Injected model on the market in the (almost) correct scale.

Small problem, it's an American built and designed craft. But thanks to google I soon found out a couple of these were lend-leased to the Royal navy. The chances of one of these ending up in Aberdovey are small, true, but In my universe it happened.. 

One of these days I'll build it, and the build will be posted in this topic. But not now.

 

For my first project on here I will start simple. A wagon!

Edited November 10, 2016 by Trains&armour

[Trains&armour]

Never buy a secondhand, build kit on the internet!

(Unless the seller has uploaded lots of high-res photo's showing the model from all angles)(or if you need spare parts...)

 

This is what a friend of mine bought. (gwrrob, here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69664-a-nod-to-brent/page-815#entry2435873  )

Doesn't look too bad, does it?

 

Long story, but eventually it ended up on my workbench:

 

Looks reasonable from this angle

 

Perhaps not totally straight

 

Lets do a front view:

Ooops.. And before you ask, yes, my workbench is straight and level....

 

Any sane person would say bin it! But not me, I like a challenge. And besides that, I'm an archaeologist. I 'unbin' stuff for a living, carefully cleaning, describing, dating and painstakingly restoring my finds. So why should I treat my hobby any different... Let's go for it!

 

Paint stripper:

 

 

Cleaned up nicely. Some damage done, but stripping paint from plastic models is not a gentle process....

 

Deconstructing:

(seems the carpet monster managed to get hold of one of the buffers)

 

Now the rebuild can start. 

 

More to follow....

Edited November 10, 2016 by Trains&armour

[Mikkel]

Congratulations on your new thread    Two interesting projects to start with. You were wise not to bin the 4-planker. As it's from the now defunct Coopercraft range it is rapidly becoming harder to find, and this kit is among the more popular and sought after already. 

 

There is an issue with this kit worth checking out. Have you seen this thread, especially posts 9, 12 and 13:  http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/73776-gwr-four-plank-wagon-from-coopercraft-kit-gwr-one-plank-wagons/

[gwrrob]

What kind of idiot buys that heap of junk then.....

[Trains&armour]

Congratulations on your new thread    Two interesting projects to start with. You were wise not to bin the 4-planker. As it's from the now defunct Coopercraft range it is rapidly becoming harder to find, and this kit is among the more popular and sought after already. 

 

There is an issue with this kit worth checking out. Have you seen this thread, especially posts 9, 12 and 13:  http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/73776-gwr-four-plank-wagon-from-coopercraft-kit-gwr-one-plank-wagons/

Thanks Mikkel. And yes, I did find and read the thread.(I did my research beforehand this time....). Some good advice there, which will be followed.

[Trains&armour]

More cleaning, removal of flash, glue residues and some attempts at repairs:

 

 

Found some useful stuff in my spare part's box as well.

 

Repairing the damage done to the inside of the wagon was only possible with filling the damage  with putty and sanding it flat afterwards. But now the inside plank details of the wagon has gone. Should I re scribe them or just hide it with a load later on?

And I think I will replace the DCI brake gear with the brake handles on the sprues I found, turning it into an diagram O21 instead of an O5. I also followed some of the advice on Mikkel's thread and removed the top 2mm of the solebars and the brake parts.

Edited November 12, 2016 by Trains&armour

[bgman]

What kind of idiot buys that heap of junk then.....

Oh! I resemble that remark! )

 

Arfer Bake

[MarkC]

Great job being done there - there are so many examples of abused kits appearing on the Bay of E

 

At first glance, I thought the title was "Hazardous OO modelling" - I had visions of it being something along the lines of  "Extreme modelling - I constructed a *Q Kits offering whilst abseiling down Ben Nevis" sort of thing...

 

*other 'challenging' vendors are available

 

 

 

*wanders away to book an appointment at opticians...*

[57xx]

There is an issue with this kit worth checking out. Have you seen this thread, especially posts 9, 12 and 13:  http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/73776-gwr-four-plank-wagon-from-coopercraft-kit-gwr-one-plank-wagons/

 

It's not just that particular kit, the magical missing plank affects all the GWR opens they produced (well at least all the ones I've made and that is most of them).

[Trains&armour]

 Re scribed the planking:

 

 

Now I've gone this far, I might as well add some boltheads on the inside...

[Trains&armour]

It's not just that particular kit, the magical missing plank affects all the GWR opens they produced (well at least all the ones I've made and that is most of them).

Not only the opens. Just checked my stash, and all wagons with a 9 feet underframe have the same  problem, as these parts are from the same mould in all of these kits. Like in the V5 Mink van:

 

 

Less of a problem here, as it's a closed wagon, but still...

 

And now I've 'unearthed' this kit, maybe I should start building it  as well.

There is a photograph in the GWR wagons bible, showing an V5 in almost original state in 1947.

 

Atkins, A.G., W.Beard and A. Tourret, GWR Goods wagons, Oxford 2013, p. 377 plate 505

 

Some repairs are visible, and what I like best  is that one of the original strip diagonals has been partly repaired/replaced with a piece of L section. Will try to replicate that in my build.

[Ben Alder]

Archers rivet transfers are the easiest way to represent bolt heads, much less brain destroying than squares of plasicard....

[Trains&armour]

I always have some handy...

 

 

[ChrisN]

Just found your thread, and followed it to your layout thread which I had seen but somehow forgot about and did not finish.  All very interesting and I shall watch and follow.

[hayfield]

I do similar things with badly made whitemetal kits, though I guess much easier to remove the paint and degrade the glue in a caustic soda bath. Again new to the thread and looks to be very interesting.

 

How do you un-stick the joints please

[Newfish]

Good luck with that Armageddon kit. If you want some Royal Navy transfers Dan Taylor has some.. 

http://www.dantaylormodelworks.com/ 

 

Interesting theory about being a chaotic modeller, I think we all suffer from that as I've always got about a dozen projects on the way. 

I've always fancied having ago at Britannia halt the Americans used it for loading landing craft on the build up to D-day. 

 

kind regards 

 

Jaymes

[Trains&armour]

I do similar things with badly made whitemetal kits, though I guess much easier to remove the paint and degrade the glue in a caustic soda bath. Again new to the thread and looks to be very interesting.

 

How do you un-stick the joints please

I use either oven cleaner or caustic soda  to remove paint from plastic models.They both work well on plastic, but caustic soda will also weaken the glue bond, just as with your  whitemetal kits. But this only works on models that have been badly constructed and glued in the first place. A carefully prepared joint (degreased, no paint residue and test fitted) glued with a good quality plastic solvent like Mekpak will not weaken no matter what you use as a paintstripper. A sharp hobby knife and some (carefully!) applied brute force is the only option then.  On the other hand, well constructed models don't usually need rebuilding.

[Trains&armour]

Good luck with that Armageddon kit. If you want some Royal Navy transfers Dan Taylor has some.. 

http://www.dantaylormodelworks.com/ 

 

Interesting theory about being a chaotic modeller, I think we all suffer from that as I've always got about a dozen projects on the way. 

I've always fancied having ago at Britannia halt the Americans used it for loading landing craft on the build up to D-day. 

 

kind regards 

 

Jaymes

Some luck will definitely come in handy when building an Armageddon kit. I've built several of their kits and they don't exactly build themselves..  Nice subjects, their kits are dimensionally reasonably accurate, but almost all are produced as  short run models, meaning that a lot of the detail is on the soft side, with a lot of flash and a less that satisfactory  fit.. But they are often the only game in town and hey, who doesn't like a challenge...

 

(Well, I could of course have bought  a £200 + millicast LCT  resin kit. Fantastic quality though)

[ChrisN]

Jan

Have you seen these?  Or the Airfix 1/76 DUKW?  Not a landing craft or probably as good as they were probably made when I was a young lad.  Just a thought.

[Trains&armour]

Jan

Have you seen these?  Or the Airfix 1/76 DUKW?  Not a landing craft or probably as good as they were probably made when I was a young lad.  Just a thought.

Hi Chris

I do have several Airfix and other armour models...

Part of my stash. And a challenge: spot the DUKW. There are actually two in the picture...

 

The DUKW was a good model for it's day and, with a little care, can still be build into a nice model.  And indeed it has one huge advantage over it's more modern plastic siblings.. As you say, It's in 1-76 scale!

[ChrisN]

Jan,

You do appear to have one or two unbuilt models there!     I thought I had a few.  I am desperately trying not to buy anything that I am not going to make in the near future which at my rate of modelling may be in the next twenty years.

[Tony Teague]

Amazing stash!....and I thought that I had a bit of a backlog!!

Tony

[ChrisN]

I also assume then that you know about Milicast and MMS.  I particularly like MMS for military figures not in combat that could easily fit on a railway.

[Trains&armour]

I also assume then that you know about Milicast and MMS.  I particularly like MMS for military figures not in combat that could easily fit on a railway.

I've got some...

[57xx]

Bottom row, in the middle, on the wall. Can't see the other one.