Exhill Works and other adventures in 7/8ths

[John Besley]

The first stage of the rubbish etc. Is more or less done, wrapped the loco shed / lean-to in cling film and progressively added finely sieved ash along with scrunched up leaves and some stamped leaves.

 

Then topped off with some grass clumps and other weeds, added extra oily staining in the concrete expansion joints on the yard apron and that's one area done. Added a shovel and some scrap parts.

 

 

 

 

[John Besley]

Sometimes gardening is like paleontology 

 

 

[John Besley]

A while back I built a V skip using a Binne 16mm skip wagon... This is now finished and up and running.

 

To add some depth to the body I dusted on finely sieved bonfire ash and over coated it with more primer then the rust paints went on and weathering wash's and finally a dust of track colour pigments.

 

The chopper couplings where fitted with a L bracket soldered to the coupling block and a 10BA bolt epoxyed in place, to hide this I topped up the area with more ash and fine sand as it's just the sort of place this sort of dirt would collect in real life.

 

 

[John Besley]

The coal wagon I started a while back is now finished, the drop down shoveling plate hinges up and is retained for travelling with a pin through the hole in the flap.

 

The same pin is used to hold the coal hole door up when shovelling, same way this is done on a loco to access the bunker.

 

Weathering was done with hairspray and salt crystals along with lightly sanding away the top coat to reveal the 'rust' underneath, this area was then given a touch up with a lighter cost of rust and finally a wash over with thinned down Matt black, a dust off inside and out with black weathering powder helped finish it off.

 

 

[lmsforever]

On 30/08/2022 at 23:43, John Besley said:

The coal wagon I started a while back is now finished, the drop down shoveling plate hinges up and is retained for travelling with a pin through the hole in the flap.

 

The same pin is used to hold the coal hole door up when shovelling, same way this is done on a loco to access the bunker.

 

Weathering was done with hairspray and salt crystals along with lightly sanding away the top coat to reveal the 'rust' underneath, this area was then given a touch up with a lighter cost of rust and finally a wash over with thinned down Matt black, a dust off inside and out with black weathering powder helped finish it off.

 

 

Your figures are really terrific these two look very lifelike you can imagine them discussing the foreman the big boss etc .

[John Besley]

32 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Your figures are really terrific these two look very lifelike you can imagine them discussing the foreman the big boss etc .

 

Many thanks, they are resin castings from Rob Bennett, no idea if they are still available or if he's still casting.... The one with the glasses is none other than Fred Dibnah " d'yer like that"

 

The driver of the Baldwin is from Model Earth's range - "Short Staff"

Collecting, modifying and painting them is almost a separate interest as well

 

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by John Besley

[John Besley]

Amongst other small detail tasks (such as adding vine  / ivy branches to the fence made from roots of weeds...) I've finished off the fire extinguishers with some superb waterslide transfers I had made by Railtec Transfers, these are exact copies of signage on a 1965 2 gallon fire extinguisher I have that where removed from Bristol University some 10 years ago during an upgrade of their fire extinguishers by the company I worked for.

 

The printing is so fine that you can read all the manufactures data very easily, I also added a Southern Railway no smoking sign by the battery charger - you dont want to be smoking in the vicinity of batteries gassing off during charging... 

 

 

[chuffinghell]

The detailing is impeccable 👍

[37114]

Amazing detail, a lovely scene John

[John Besley]

Bit of an experiment this time... for a while I had pondered how to create that grungy oily mess you get when a locomotive either steam or internal combustion has sat on a warm day dripping oil over the years into the ash and sand ballast mix that is present in all loco yards, following a bit of research came across the following method....

 

using some finely sifted earth from the garden so it is just dust rubbed this into the area I wanted to cover to smooth over the ash and clinker layer.

 

 

Then an application of 'wet' water with a trigger spray followed by the eye dropper of diluted PVA

 

 

leave this for 24 hours to go hard and then flood it with white spirit and thinned satin black / rust brown

 

 

 

Think it looks about right... as it has that slight wet sheen to it

 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by John Besley
Reload

[Ramrig]

Excellent work there John. That looks the business 👏

[John Besley]

Every loco shed, yard needs to have at least one old chair kicking around to stand on for thos parts you cant reach (dont let HS catch doing these days!)

 

Driving home today I thought out how to knock one up, located some spare 2mm brass tube and knocked up a small jig to form the bends on, stripped out some bell wire for the core to insert inside the tube to stop it collapsing on the bends, then cut and formed the seat support and the back frame, silver soldered the whole thing together checking that it sat right.

 

used some offcuts of 025 brass sheet for the tinwork annealed the brass sheet and formed over the framework, attached with a spot of soft solder and the jobs done - 1 - 1/2 hours work... anyone who has ever been to a village hall or meeting back in the 60 - 70's will recognise this item...

 

Next of to the paint shop...

 

[CameronL]

You need to put a pound coin in the picture to show the size. Without anything to provide a sense of scale it looks like the real thing.

[John Besley]

Ok hadn't thought of that... will do later once it's been painted

[Kevin Johnson]

John I love the chair which you have modelled. 👍

[Graham T]

Just catching up here.  Beautiful work as ever John.

[John Besley]

13 hours ago, CameronL said:

You need to put a pound coin in the picture to show the size. Without anything to provide a sense of scale it looks like the real thing.

 

Finished off the chair and here it is...

 

[John Besley]

….and it immediately got put to use before being unceremoniously getting dumped in the corner of the shed by the shrubbery...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by John Besley
Change picture

[lmsforever]

40 minutes ago, John Besley said:

….and it immediately got put to use before being unceremoniously getting dumped in the corner of the shed by the shrubbery...

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at the picture its amazing its a model ,an early picture with the chap stood on the chair it models the real thing .Your figures are terrific I really like the look of them keep the info coming,

[John Besley]

Today has been fraught with problems... for a while once I'd swooped out the motor in "The Bat" with a High Level Gears Road Runner gearbox and can motor she had run more or less OK, apart from a slight stiff legged tendency that wasn't getting any better, so about a month ago I removed the body and ran the chassis to find that one of the side rods was ever so tight at one point.

 

When unsoldering the side rod keep washers I inadvertently melted the plastic inset that the crank pin screwed into... Bother... ordered a replacement wheel and crank pins set, these arrived after a three week wait.

 

Rebuilt the wheel and trued it up on the axle and slacked off the worm gear grub screw so i could push the chassis up and down the track to check for tight spots on the side rods, opened these out with a broach and got this running sweetly.

 

Then turned my attention to the pickups, I had originally used this phosphor bronze strip, however this had a tendency to loose its form and not touch the back of the wheel sets, found a length of bronze wire and replaced the pick ups.

 

Would it run, NO finally found an issue with the insulation on the pick up strip I had used to mount the collection   wires on, this was shorting out intermittently when running through pointwork. - rebuilt the pick up strip - Sorted I now have two locos that run perfectly slowly without any problem - how long did this take? - around 5 hours all told! 

 

 

Ordered an Iain Rice book on building chassis as the next one to tackle now the above are running correctly will be a Branchlines Dinorwic Hunslet chassis for use under the Smallbrook Studio Tinkerbell

 

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by John Besley
Text change

[John Besley]

Oh the other thing I did was add some strips of lead fitted with double-sided tape do I could remove if necessary 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by John Besley

[John Besley]

Around 10 years ago I built this tower and found it while sorting out some boxes again today...still needs finishing off with some paint etc and a ladder made as well

 

This type of tower used to be the way forward on sites and on jobs at home, I wouldn't use one myself now as they are far to flimsy 

 

The feet are adjustable as they have a 10BA threaded stud inside otherwise you will need the obligatory plank of wood as well

 

 

[CameronL]

How long is it before "Exhill Works" is an animated series on CBBC?

[John Besley]

2 hours ago, CameronL said:

How long is it before "Exhill Works" is an animated series on CBBC?

 

When I have a decent video camera and mastered onestop photography... Aardman Animation style

[simonmcp]

Once tried out quite how sturdy those scaffolding towers were. My father and I were installing a new main cross beam into a flat roof double garage. We had got it nearly up to the right height when it decided to snap. The only thing that stopped the beam smashing into the Mk1 Range Rover below was said scaffolding tower. It took a lot of hammering to get the tower apart afterwards though!