Chuffnell Regis

[drmditch]

4 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Thanks for the confirmation.  I do actually have some bauxite paint!  Thanks also for the link to the conversion, but I think I'll stick with building "out of the box" until I'm a little more expert...

 

I'm sure that (having been following your fascinating thread for several weeks and despite it being the 'wrong railway') you have all the expertise required!

[Graham T]

In a little break from mauling things on the "workbench" I spent some time swearing at three link couplings playing with trains.  Here we see 3F 7524 trundling into Chuffnell Regis with a mixed goods.

 

 

 

Back to the bodgery!  Or is it the Bodgerarium?

 

 

[Gopher]

50 minutes ago, Graham T said:

In a little break from mauling things on the "workbench" I spent some time swearing at three link couplings playing with trains.  Here we see 3F 7524 trundling into Chuffnell Regis with a mixed goods.

 

 

 

Back to the bodgery!  Or is it the Bodgerarium?

 

 

Love the top photo Graham.  Brilliant sense of depth, and your scratch built buildings  are superb.  What can I say three link couplings and point rodding  -  serious respect.

 

Clive 

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, drmditch said:

 

Yes indeed. The vacuum -fitted vehicle should have pipes, and should be painted in bauxite.

The problem with the Parkside kit is that it represents a 9' wheelbase vehicle, and by 1938 the majority of the surviving LNER- built cattle wagons would be 10' wb.

If you are prepared for a little work it is a fairly easy conversion as in ...... here.....

 

I haven't double checked but I think that by 1938 fitted cattle wagons (even those of the GW) were common user.

 

 

 

That was very informative and gives me ideas for as one of the LNER fans put it: ""interfering " with models in a way unintended".

I might just include a few such cattle vans as I grew up very much in LNER territory.

 

Any excuse!

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

In a little break from mauling things on the "workbench" I spent some time swearing at three link couplings playing with trains.  Here we see 3F 7524 trundling into Chuffnell Regis with a mixed goods.

 

 

 

Back to the bodgery!  Or is it the Bodgerarium?

 

 

 

I'll second @Gopher's compliment, the station throat makes the layout look very large too.

 

Surely it's "Bodgatorium"?

[Graham T]

25 minutes ago, Gopher said:

Love the top photo Graham.  Brilliant sense of depth, and your scratch built buildings  are superb.  What can I say three link couplings and point rodding  -  serious respect.

 

Clive 

 

TVM Clive.  I can't take credit for all the buildings though - the signal box is from Intentio (a lovely little kit), and the platelayers hut is also from a kit - can't remember who by at the moment.  As for the point rodding - that's from Wills, and although I'm quite pleased with it, I'll probably replace it with something finer on CR Mk II.  Couplings?  Some days I have no trouble at all with them, and other days they drive me batsh1t crazy!

 

 

[Graham T]

2 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

I'll second @Gopher's compliment, the station throat makes the layout look very large too.

 

Surely it's "Bodgatorium"?

 

Danke schon von W.

 

Ref the bodgerarium, bodgatorium, etc.  Must buy a Latin textbook 🙂

 

 

[Graham T]

In other news, the cattle wagon is coming together reasonably well.  The instructions leave a bit to be desired, in my opinion, though.  Perhaps I've been spoilt by too many Airfix and Tamiya kits in the past?

 

I found some vac pipes in the spares box, and fortunately also have some metal buffer heads from 51L, because the ones in the kit are, to use a technical term, cr@p!

 

 

 

Just as well the Clarke station building is there to identify this as part of the GWR...

 

 

[MrWolf]

I don't think that Google Translate covers dead or even minority languages, which is a shame.

 

I got "Bodgatorium" from "Moratorium", which is a real word as any fule kno.

[MrWolf]

Buffers on plastic kits are a pet hate of mine. I think that the plastic kit companies are in cahoots with the people who make expensive metal buffers and some of those need as much fettling as the plastic ones.

Ratio managed it on some models, Slater's also have nice metal buffer heads, it's not going to cost the earth to upgrade or to offer metal buffers as a sideline - are you listening?

 

I hate the buffers on certain makes of kit where there's a tiny housing collar to clip off the sprue and glue onto the buffer shank / feed to the carpet monster.

 

As for the instructions, I think that a graphic design company called Vaig & Schitt does the drawings for pretty much all model railway kit manufacturers.

 

I have said it before, I originally aimed at being a technical illustrator and can create some proper military kit style assembly instructions for a very small fee which will not only make the job easier for the experienced, but encourage new modellers to buy and build more kits...

 

Not that any of the makers read our comments!

[Graham T]

4 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I hate the buffers on certain makes of kit where there's a tiny housing collar to clip off the sprue and glue onto the buffer shank / feed to the carpet monster.

 

 

Those are a particular peeve for me too.

 

[MrWolf]

They are why I was provided with the "ping tray"...

 

Oh and three link couplings!

[Mike_Walker]

H&A Models sell some nice turned buffers which fit neatly into the moulded shanks.  I use them all the time.

[Graham T]

Well that's turned out to be a rather productive day.  The LNER cattle wagon is now complete, save for couplings and gluing the roof on, which I'll do after painting the interior and priming.  I fitted a lead weight inside with superglue, then tackled the buffers.  The shafts of the metal buffer heads need a 0.5mm hole drilling in the buffer shanks, which was beyond me, partly due to the plastic ones in the Parkside kit being tres spindly.  Fortunately the spares box came to my rescue once again.  I'm sure the shanks I've used are wrong in all sorts of ways, but they look ok to me!  So here's the wagon next to its GW brother.

 

 

Next thing to be given the coup de grace was the pagoda hut.  With the light and dark stone finished, I painted the roof with a mix of Vallejo black/brown and white.  I was hoping to have something just a shade warmer than bog standard grey, but I'm not sure if I like the result or not.  I deliberately left the colours poorly mixed so that there would be some variation on the roof.  The paint isnt fully dry yet, so I'll see how it looks in the morning.  The hut will get a touch of light weathering too, of course.

 

 

Wanting to make a bit more of a dent in the kit stash, I then started on a Cambrian GW steel open wagon.  These kits have a feature that is an absolute boon for someone like me, who has a complete inability to build anything at right angles ...

 

 

What a lovely idea isn't it?  So, construction continued "at pace" (I hate that phrase - typical governmental weasel-ness; pace doesn't necessarily mean fast!)  Anyway, I was able to get a fair bit of this done tonight before deciding that enough was enough for one weekend.  Time for a wee dram 🍻

 

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Graham T

[MrWolf]

That's all looking really good and yes, definitely a productive day.

I'm trying to put my fingers in my ears when anyone mentions cattle wagons at the moment!

I might just have to buy a big bag of buffers from H&A though.

 

The pagoda hut bodge is absolutely great, it's just the kind of thing that I enjoy doing and looking at it I instantly think of the black and white picture of the original.

 

Those Cambrian one piece chassis are a really good idea, unless of course you do what I did and snap off one of the W irons. I'm still not sure how I managed it. Ham paw at a guess.

 

[Nick C]

18 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I don't think that Google Translate covers dead or even minority languages, which is a shame.

 

I got "Bodgatorium" from "Moratorium", which is a real word as any fule kno.

It does do Latin - how accurately I don't know!  Esperanto too...

 

It's got a few minority languages too - Basque, Corsican, Scots Gaelic, Hawaiian, and quite a few I don't recognise...

[MrWolf]

How about Gobbledegook?

 

Or Unwinese as it's also known...

[Graham T]

Now there’s one that I am fluent in!

 

[JustinDean]

I’m just going add a +1 on the H&A buffer heads having just used them. Way nicer than anything else I’ve used so far. 
 

 

Jay

[Graham T]

I'm back in the thick of it with work today, but took a minute to plonk the pagoda hut and fencing in place.  I think this will look more or less right (I'll try to get things actually straight!)  You can see that I made a slight, ahem, faux pas, when I drilled the holes for the gate to the end loading bay.  They were drilled about a million years ago, when I had some other gate in mind.  A dab of filler should sort that out.

 

[Graham T]

1 minute ago, JustinDean said:

I’m just going add a +1 on the H&A buffer heads having just used them. Way nicer than anything else I’ve used so far. 
 

 

Jay

 

I still have some left from 51L, but will definitely take a look at H&A when I need more.  I seem to remember they have all sorts of useful little bits and pieces on their site...

 

[Graham T]

I've now added the bodywork to the Cambrian steel open.  I'm no expert on these things, but it looks to me as if the kit has been created out of some old and not very crisp mouldings (brake gear and so on), with the addition of some new - and very crisp - sprues containing the body panels.  Anyway, it also contains those tiny little collars to fit over the buffer shanks (!), and the buffers themselves are a bit meh, so they'll also be replaced with turned metal items.

 

 

The one piece chassis is great - makes for a beautifully free-running wagon (that shows up how far from level Chuffnell Regis is, when it happily goes wandering off on its own...)

 

 

[Rowsley17D]

Some of Cambrian's moulds are worn out. Some of their current kits are better than others.

[Graham T]

I have their 6-ton crane in my stock of kits to build, but am leaving well alone for now as I've heard that it's a bit of a so-and-so to put together.

 

[Graham T]

The steel open has been finished this evening, and I've also given the pagoda hut some light weathering.  A thin wash of back all over, and some green on the roof, nearly all of it then wiped off with cotton buds.  A few small bits of rust were added, but not too much.  A couple of small spots of pure rust coloured paint, and then some thin washes of the same colour to show stains underneath running down the ironwork.  Or that's the idea anyway!