Chuffnell Regis

[Graham T]

Yes that sounds about right Rob (don't know about CR Mk II though, which may move somewhere else in the country...)

 

I've added transfers to the latest two cattle wagons now.  I've used Pressfix on the LMS wagon, and the waterslides that came in the Slater's kit for the ex-MR one (which even includes some rather nice plates for the solebar).  I put a layer of clear gloss varnish under the waterslides, and was expecting to need to spray matt varnish on after, but I think I might not have to actually.  I'll see how it looks in daylight.

 

Just a shame I cocked up the build of the ex-MR wagon and somehow managed to get the buffer beams too high!

 

 

 

You might have noticed that there is no tare weight on the the Parkside wagon - I'm afraid that concocting tare numbers from Pressfix transfers was beyond me today 🙂

 

[BWsTrains]

2 hours ago, Graham T said:

I don't suppose I'd ever really run a train that long into Chuffnell R (in its present form, anyway), but I just fancied putting all the cattle wagons together to see how they looked!

 

But your mention of the cattle market does remind me that I still need to come up with a back story for the layout...  

 

In that regard, to quote from the usually reliable http://igg.org.uk/rail/7-fops/fo-cattle.htm 

 

"Cattle were sometimes moved as a block load up to the end of the railway's involvement in this traffic in 1975 but most cattle wagons travelled in small numbers attached to goods trains (occasionally to passenger trains on branch lines, these had to be XP rated vehicles of course). They would generally be found together at the locomotive end as this meant the loco could take them directly to the cattle dock on arrival where the animals could be fed and watered. Also, as cattle wagons were often fitted with vacuum brakes, marshalling them at the head of the train, whether full or empty, meant their brakes could be used.

 

A small terminus such as CR inbound cattle would presumably be either coming to a Local Market or for fattening up before taking to slaughter (same reference)

 

At Kingsbridge (1928) the aerial photo shows fairly large cattle docks and 5 cattle wagons in the siding (plus perhaps a Beetle or two). More on this shortly over on UH.

Edited November 12, 2023 by BWsTrains

[Graham T]

Thanks Colin, I’ve dipped into that reference before - it has some fascinating stuff.

 

[57xx]

On 11/11/2023 at 16:48, Graham T said:

Which has got me thinking that the grey on the LMS wagon (last one in the train) is actually too light.  I'd be interested to hear what others think, but I'm inclined to splash some slightly darker grey on it.

 

It looks fine to me. If it is a recently outshopped wagon that shade of grey would be pretty damn close for anything paint pre 1935.

[Graham T]

There was a rare and welcome ray of sunshine here this morning, so I took a quick snap of the station building.

 

[Andy Keane]

Looks very nice indeed - have you tried focus stacking at all?

[Gopher]

Graham - A lovely reminder of how bloody good your scratch built station building is.  I love the brickwork and the chimneys.  I think you said you modelled it on Rowden Mill in Herefordshire.  I also keep getting drawn to the excellent brickwork on the platform face.   A lovely scene  - spot on for rural Herefordshire

 

I think CR2 will have a hard act to follow   

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, Andy Keane said:

Looks very nice indeed - have you tried focus stacking at all?

 

I did tinker with it a little bit Andy, but without a great deal of success so far.  It really is something that I should try to get my head around.

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, Gopher said:

Graham - A lovely reminder of how bloody good your scratch built station building is.  I love the brickwork and the chimneys.  I think you said you modelled it on Rowden Mill in Herefordshire.  I also keep getting drawn to the excellent brickwork on the platform face.   A lovely scene  - spot on for rural Herefordshire

 

I think CR2 will have a hard act to follow   

 

Thanks Clive.  It is indeed modelled on Rowden Mill, a lovely little building that's been preserved as holiday lets.  The platform brickwork is just some Scalescenes papers.

 

Watch this space for CR Mk II!  If it turns out as planned I will have to make a new station building, as I don't think this one will be big enough...

 

[Neal Ball]

13 hours ago, Graham T said:

 

I did tinker with it a little bit Andy, but without a great deal of success so far.  It really is something that I should try to get my head around.

It makes a difference to photographing the layout….  It’s a slow process though, even more so as I use the DSLR and a tripod set up. I shoot 11 shots in RAW and get them processed in Serif Afinity.

 

It takes a while, but generally the results are worth it.

[Graham T]

For a change of pace I've made a start on one of the Wheeltapper toplight kits.  Blimey.  Did somebody say challenging?  I already managed to make a snafu of the supplied floor, so have had to make a replacement.  So far I've got one end finished and fixed to the floor along with the aluminium extrusions that make up the solebars (?) and the lower part of the coach sides.

 

 

The corridor connections are made up of some flexible black plastic, embossed to show the framing, that you have to cut out and then fix to the etched brass outer end frame.  That was a barrel of laughs as you can imagine.  I couldn't get the inner face to hold its shape, so added some plasticard stiffeners on the inside; hopefully they won't show once it's all painted black.

 

The other difficulty has been in finding the best adhesives to use.  I have some UHU contact adhesive, which would probably be good for some of the parts, but it refuses to come out of the tube without leaving seemingly endless strings of glue everywhere.  The kit uses plastic (of various kinds), aluminium, etched and turned brass, and whitemetal - so getting all those to stick to each other has driven me slightly batty.

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Graham T

[cctransuk]

20 minutes ago, Graham T said:

For a change of pace I've made a start on one of the Wheeltapper toplight kits.  Blimey.  Did somebody say challenging?  I already managed to make a snafu of the supplied floor, so have had to make a replacement.  So far I've got one end finished and fixed to the floor along with the aluminium extrusions that make up the solebars (?) and the lower part of the coach sides.

 

 

The corridor connections are made up of some flexible black plastic, embossed to show the framing, that you have to cut out and then fix to the etched brass outer end frame.  That was a barrel of laughs as you can imagine.  I couldn't get the inner face to hold its shape, so added some plasticard stiffeners on the inside; hopefully they won't show once it's all painted black.

 

The other difficulty has been in finding the best adhesives to use.  I have some UHU contact adhesive, which would probably be good for some of the parts, but it refuses to come out of the tube without leaving seemingly endless strings of glue everywhere.  The kit uses plastic (of various kinds), aluminium, etched and turned brass, and whitemetal - so getting all those to stick to each other has driven me slightly batty.

 

 

Superglue!

 

CJI.

[Graham T]

Yes, that’s what I’ve gone for.  The gel seems to work better for this.

[Graham T]

A little more progress with the toplight.  I've finished the second end and trimmed the corners of the aluminium roof.  I was pleased to find that everything more or less fits together, so far.  The instructions call for adding all the underfloor detail early on in the build, but I'm leaving those for now as I'm pretty sure I'd just break them when bodging other bits of the kit.

 

I did make a start on the bogies, but don't have any low melt solder to fix the brass frame to the whitemetal side castings; I suppose I could use CA gel, but I wonder if it will give a strong enough bond?  So next step will probably be to do the interior.

 

 

 

[Graham T]

I got all the interior partitions and seats assembled today, and have just finished installing them.  I think some trimming and fettling will be required to allow the roof to fit properly.  That will be a job for tomorrow.  I also need to figure out what colours to paint the interior; @Neal Ball could you give me some pointers please?  I know that third and first class seats are different colours (blue and green respectively I think?) but am not sure about the floor and wall colours.

 

 

It's probably about time that I gave the workbench another blitz, by the look of things.

 

[Schooner]

2 hours ago, Graham T said:

It's probably about time that I gave the workbench another blitz, by the look of things.

 

Given that it only takes a quick glance to see your workbench, I reckon it's a bit keen to talk of tidying up just yet. You'll make the rest of us look bad worse!

[Neal Ball]

11 hours ago, Graham T said:

I got all the interior partitions and seats assembled today, and have just finished installing them.  I think some trimming and fettling will be required to allow the roof to fit properly.  That will be a job for tomorrow.  I also need to figure out what colours to paint the interior; @Neal Ball could you give me some pointers please?  I know that third and first class seats are different colours (blue and green respectively I think?) but am not sure about the floor and wall colours.

 

 

It's probably about time that I gave the workbench another blitz, by the look of things.

 

I agree! Leave the work bench alone, it looks perfectly acceptable to me!

 

Choice of colours…. If only I could pop downstairs, I would be able to reel off the list of Vallejo colours I’m currently using….. but unfortunately (for this conversation purposes) we are in the MoHo, making our way back to the UK.

 

Looking on line at the colour chart, I reckon the blue is Royal Blue 70.809

The Gold is possibly Yellow Ochre 70.913

Compartment walls are left white

Corridor partitions are Mahogany, which I can’t see on the chart I’m looking at: https://acrylicosvallejo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CC070-Model_Color-Rev17-baja.pdf

 

If you can wait a couple of weeks, I can tell you exactly!

 

(Does the kit include corridor partitions?)

 

[Graham T]

Thanks Neal.  I'm not worried about being too accurate, as you won't be able to see much of it anyway!  (And there's no guarantee yet that I'll be able to build the coach well enough to run it on the layout either...)

 

The kit does include the partition, which is I guess a mahogany-ish colour.

 

 

So, royal blue for the third seats.  What about the first?  What is the gold for?

 

2 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

I agree! Leave the work bench alone, it looks perfectly acceptable to me!

 

Choice of colours…. If only I could pop downstairs, I would be able to reel off the list of Vallejo colours I’m currently using….. but unfortunately (for this conversation purposes) we are in the MoHo, making our way back to the UK.

 

Looking on line at the colour chart, I reckon the blue is Royal Blue 70.809

The Gold is possibly Yellow Ochre 70.913

Compartment walls are left white

Corridor partitions are Mahogany, which I can’t see on the chart I’m looking at: https://acrylicosvallejo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CC070-Model_Color-Rev17-baja.pdf

 

If you can wait a couple of weeks, I can tell you exactly!

 

(Does the kit include corridor partitions?)

 

 

[Graham T]

Oh yes - what colour would the floor be?

[Graham T]

Fettling the compartment partitions until the roof was a good fit took quite a while...

 

I found a photo of a preserved toplight (though without the corridor partition), so have - sort of - taken the colours from that.  My rendition is (a) slapdash and (b) probably too bright, but I think once the sides and roof are on it shouldn't matter...

 

 

 

The ends still need lamp irons and handrails adding, but they are too fragile to put on yet, I think.

 

[Neal Ball]

19 hours ago, Graham T said:

Thanks Neal.  I'm not worried about being too accurate, as you won't be able to see much of it anyway!  (And there's no guarantee yet that I'll be able to build the coach well enough to run it on the layout either...)

 

The kit does include the partition, which is I guess a mahogany-ish colour.

 

 

So, royal blue for the third seats.  What about the first?  What is the gold for?

 

 

First class seats would be a subdued Gold - if they had been trimmed in the 1930’s I can’t recall what colour they were beforehand.

 

19 hours ago, Graham T said:

Oh yes - what colour would the floor be?

It would have been a beige(ish) linoleum.

 

 

[Graham T]

Thanks again Neal.  As you may know, patience is not my strong point, so I went ahead with a combination of what you were able to tell me, some reference photos, and what the instruction sheet provided (that's where the green seats came from).  I could repaint the offending parts, but with even just the roof put in place, it's hard to see the interior; once the sides are on as well I don't think anybody is going to notice.  And there are sure to be lots of other inaccuracies anyway!

 

[Graham T]

I fitted the corridor partition this morning, using Glue and Glaze.  There's a bit of interior paintwork to be touched up here and there.  Next step is to drill the holes for the roof vents, which is taking some time...

 

 

 

[Andy Keane]

And no doubt a few well positioned passengers?

[Graham T]

Quite possibly Andy, yes.  Haven’t decided yet.