Newton Regis. Workbench wanderings through the 1920s and 30s the Great Western Way

[Neal Ball]

3 hours ago, longchap said:

Having discussed some airbrushing on the Small Metro kit build thread, I'm posting my airbrushing notes, prepared using my notes from two Pendon courses and subsequent experience. I use enamel paints for spraying for reasons mentioned in the notes, but much applies to acrylics, which are also covered, just not in so much detail.

 

Hope they are of some interest and if you have any useful comments / techniques / observations to share, please feel free to post and discuss here so we can all increase our knowledge and expertise.

 

Best,

 

Bill

 

230328, Airbrushing notes for enamels, RevA.pdf 179.04 kB · 9 downloads

 

Excellent guide thanks very much Bill

[longchap]

Taking some time off building maintenance, my thoughts turned to trying something new on my workbench, so following my increased confidence with loco building, I dug out one of the 517 Class locos bought from eBay in 2019, as a partly constructed M&L kit.

This is what came from Ebay:

 

 

 

.  .  . and this was the partly constructed element:

 

 

The good news is that the kit came with wheels and motor and having taken the wheelsets out, inserted some long jig axles and measured the wheelbase at the ends of the driven axles on both sides of the chassis, the unit has been constructed squarely, phew, as when I see those screw in spacers, I start to wonder about the set up accuracy.

 

The basic chassis is a single brass fold up etch, the same methodology as my unstarted M&L 633 Class, so I was keen to understand it further before starting that kit. The wheels of unknown origin are rusty, hopefully recoverable and are insulated due to having plastic centres into which only two crankpins have been fitted, there being no others in the box, so plan B will be used. I’m not a fan of open frame motors, since they collect lots of unwanted debris and as I’ve successfully used a High Level Kits motor and gearbox with my small Metro, I thought I’d see if a similar combination might fit here.

 

 

After removing the projecting bearing shanks from inside the frames and cleared and polished the inside faces of the bearings with my 1/8’’ parallel reamer, the Metro’s HumpShunter gearbox slotted in comfortably enough and the wheelsets turned freely, so I’ll order another gearbox, although I’ll also see if my unmade spare gearbox (not sure which type) will fit. Fortunately, these HL gearboxes are a joy to build and are very quiet, almost silent in fact, in operation.  

 

Those screw in spacers were removed and will be replaced with appropriately folded and soldered brass sheet, while the spacer holes will need soldering up and filed flat before chemically blackening the chassis.

The lead fishing weight resting on the front of the chassis was necessary to keep the front drivers on the track due to weight of the motor, but shouldn’t be necessary once the body is in place.

 

Finally for now, the comparison between two eras of 4mm chassis technology is interesting:

 

 

 

The 40-odd year old 0-4-2 Class 517 is in brass, with the newer 2-4-0 Metro is nickel-silver and yes, I know they’re head to head, not line astern! Sorry about any confusion.

 

Have fun,

 

Bill

[longchap]

I’ve been busy at the workbench quite a lot this past week, although only have a little to show for it, such is the nature of loco building, where finessing the fit and finish of small parts takes an inordinately long time than one would imagine, particularly for this novice loco builder, but I’m much more confident now with this aspect of the hobby and am enjoying the experience.

 

In the process, my loco building toolbox has grown due to the particular nature of different processes and the usual suspects have expanded to include alignment jigs, sets of needle files and cutting broaches, wheel press and pullers, piercing saw, bench peg and different size blades, marking and measuring tools to name a few, but not forgetting the x3 headband magnifier which is absolutely essential when working with such small components.

 

Today’s task was to strip the chassis of wheels and coupling rods, shape and finish the rods, fit the driving wheel balance weights and start fitting the brake gear. Hm, sounds easy enough, but working with big hands and tiny parts took and age. The balance weights were the easy bit and thankfully to plenty of prototype photographs form Russel and GWRJ Vol 4, they were soon glued into correct place, after some fettling to better fit the curve.  

 

Unfortunately, there are four two-piece shoes and although they get faster to fabricate as more are made up, to total time was over a couple of hours, as part of the cutting out and filing down to shape resulted in them pinging off the workbench onto the floor (original ancient tomette clay ties with deep joints and as no spares are included on the etch, they simply had to be found. I stopped the profanity following the third escape attempt, just accepting the facts of life with tiny parts!

 

This almost in focus and cruel larger than life close-up, shows how the small size of the etched two piece brake shoes need careful handling and positioning with some 0.45 mm diameter wire and a tweezer clamp, in order to be laminated together with CA.

 

 

Finally, later this afternoon, the following “Flyaway Four” were ready to mount:

 

 

This is the state of the workbench after today’s modelling, with most of the tools packed back into a seven drawer chest, so looks remarkably tidy ready for Sunday. Thanks to a clock from a 1936 Austin7, I knew to pack up for the day to go and feed the cats and make a cuppa tea and I’m currently watching an early black & white episode of Dad’s Army.

 

 

Tomorrow is another day.

 

If you say so Miss Moneypenny.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by longchap

[Neal Ball]

Lovely story there Bill.

 

I foolishly thought when setting up my model railway room that having a tiled floor would make finding small items easier…. Sadly it’s not the case… they still ping off at a pace, never to be found again.

 

This week it was a part for the airbrush, but thankfully I did find it.

 

Good to hear your Metro tank is coming along, have you had it running yet? Once you have, all of a sudden you will find the rest falls into place.

 

The only thing I’m waiting for mine is the number plate from Steve at Railtec - due any day soon 😎

I like the scene of domesticity, in your last paragraph…. The only thing that’s missing, if you have Miss Moneypenny, included, then the cup of tea should be replaced with a single malt 🥃

 

[longchap]

Many thanks for your kind comments Neal.  Fortunately, as my confidence has grown with this build, it's become a pleasure to turn Radio 4 or R4 Extra on in the railway room and happily while away the hours, as the Metro emerges from the decreasing number of parts in the box.

 

It's not run on the track yet, although it's passed the rolling down the slope test just fine, with no binding of the rods and today, I put the High Level gearbox into the chassis and attached a 9v battery to the HL iron core motor and it ran very sweetly and very quietly and it made me smile.

 

I've been building both chassis and body up in tandem, so completion may not be too far off.

 

The pinging of parts has always been a well known railway modellers' issue, but when it comes to precious tools like a quality airbrush, I took a further mitigation measure and acquired one of those colourful Iwata airbrush service trays. Made of rubber and with an exploded view of a cutaway brush (looking just like an Eclipse), it provides a safe place for servicing and the rubberised texture seems to keep things in place pretty well.

 

Best,

 

Bill

Edited May 20, 2023 by longchap

[longchap]

Summertime means little to no modelling due to clients and spending almost all the time outdoors, but from time to time, its good to spend half an hour at the workbench:

 

 

 

Alan Gibson door darts are fiddly little blighters to fettle and fix in positon, but after a couple of retrivals from the floor, all is glued into place.

 

 

[longchap]

Well it had to happen sooner or later, the first primer and base coat ('tire black') on the Metro. Black is the one colour I never use by itself, except for white of course.

 

 

Tire (eyuk), tyre black, looking faded by the heat, is good for the backhead base coat, which with a closed cab, will later have a run-in with some  powders rather than a pass of mist from the airbrush. I'm thinking of a billy can on the fire door shelf (below the cut-out) for the tea, fashioned from some sprue and fuse wire. One can only try.

 

 

Now this must be the reason why I need a 3x Opivisor these days! One of a pair of hand wheels to be fitted with spindles and mounted either side of the backhead on the spectacle plate.

 

The bride says it's time for beer and pizza soon, so I better find a clean tee shirt and go fetch fresh pizza from down't road.

 

Bon app all.

 

 

 

 

 

[longchap]

It’s always a relief when the primer coats start going on, as things are progressing along towards the finished stretch. I’ve just remembered that I forgot to fit the rear cab spectacle plates / coal bars, so will have to scrape some primer off!

 

 

I have not fixed the boiler / tank top plate on yet, as I want to ensure everything runs perfectly before securing the top permanently. This next wide angle close up looks rather scary, but is useful to indicate where more filler is required to the vertical tank seams and below the smoke box door.

 

 

Back to the chassis next to fit pick-ups and find a spot for the decoder, possible in front of the gearbox, or in the smokebox, it being a very small Zimo.

 

 

[longchap]

Ah that's better. Etched brass coal rails by Mainly Trains, as thin as baking foil, so requiring caution and subtlety to shape, not to mention good quality Swiss made files.

 

 

Now 33deg, so no more railway time today, maybe not tomorrow, but live music this evening just around the corner.

 

Be cool chaps.

Edited July 7, 2023 by longchap

[longchap]

More grey loco

 

Today proved to be one of those frustrating days when for every step a project takes forward, actual progress is rather more so in reverse. Bumox.

 

I thought I’d progress the Metro chassis by stripping it down and blackening it with my  bottle of Birchwood Casey 'Super Blue', but could I find the darn thing? After looking through more storage boxes and cabinets than I knew I had, no trace of it, just some Brass Black, which I can still confirm works very well on brass and I won’t bother with the rest of the sentence.

 

To console myself, I decided to take at least some modelling pleasure by fabricating a steam lance valve for fitting on the front of the smokebox and as I went to drill the hole for it, I noticed that the smokebox door had somehow slipped and was now glued on crooked! Double bumox. Nothing for it but to gently ease the door off and reset it, which was successful in a relatively speedy way, so little damage to the profanity account.

 

 

I also started thinking about painting the bodywork, particularly those parts partly obscured by the running plate mounted springs, so think it best to spray the boiler off the body to get decent coverage.

 

I’ve now shaped the chimney to the smokebox profile, having found some new 20mm diameter metal curtain rods to sand it over, but don’t tell the bride that one is a tad shorter than the other now. The safety valve cover is also ready to go, being a brass casting, since the Finecast white metal unit was too far gone to save and I’m still working on the dome, but I'll probably need to remove the fixing spigot, to fettle it the same way as the chimney, once I find something of the right diameter to use as a sanding block.

 

That’s my tuppence worth for now and I hope that the Super Blue (it goes black, honest) turns up soon, otherwise I need to find a gun shop.

 

Comming soon . . . green loco, with a hint of black.

 

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by longchap

[Neal Ball]

The humidity has been off the scale today, so no railway working today at Henley. Instead a nice lazy day in the garden.

 

Have a good evening,

Neal.

[MrWolf]

I'd have liked a lazy day in the garden, but:

 

A: Don't have a garden.

 

B: Spent a very hot day clearing a fallen tree.

 

Luckily, we managed to get everything wrapped up before the monsoon about 4pm. 😎

[Neal Ball]

8 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I'd have liked a lazy day in the garden, but:

 

A: Don't have a garden.

 

B: Spent a very hot day clearing a fallen tree.

 

Luckily, we managed to get everything wrapped up before the monsoon about 4pm. 😎

Unusually for a town house in Spain, we have a very private back garden. A lot of houses are built as a “Quad” with only a garden in one direction and some space down the side.

Its makes it nice to disappear down there on a Sunday afternoon, to escape!

 

Thankfully no monsoon here yesterday.

 

Back to Bill’s Newton Regis….

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

Back to Bill’s Newton Regis….

 

Good plan.

 

Sometimes, we can't see the progress until we either take some photos or go to the trouble of writing down what we've done.

 

I'll pretty much guarantee that if you go out and buy some more gun blue (Our nearest gun shop is long gone.) the first thing you will see when you return home is the gun blue you thought you'd lost....

 

I don't think that there's one of us who hasn't fitted something perfectly level and then discovered that it has moved to an annoying / hilarious angle. I think that it operates on the same principle as the above.

 

I can see progress in the picture and it's certainly more than I have done at Project 517 in the last six months!

 

Bash on etc.

[longchap]

On 10/07/2023 at 10:09, MrWolf said:

 

Good plan.

 

Sometimes, we can't see the progress until we either take some photos or go to the trouble of writing down what we've done.

 

I'll pretty much guarantee that if you go out and buy some more gun blue (Our nearest gun shop is long gone.) the first thing you will see when you return home is the gun blue you thought you'd lost....

 

I don't think that there's one of us who hasn't fitted something perfectly level and then discovered that it has moved to an annoying / hilarious angle. I think that it operates on the same principle as the above.

 

I can see progress in the picture and it's certainly more than I have done at Project 517 in the last six months!

 

Bash on etc.

 

Thanks Rob. I made it to the nearest gun shop a few days ago to find they only had one blueing solution and it was for use on steel and the chap insisted that it would not work on any other metal, so at 26,50€ a pop, it seemed like an avoidable expensive experiment, so I’ve set about a more extensive search for my original bottle. Nothing yet, but am resisting the urge to order another Super Blue on-line, as I prefer chemical blackening to painting for chassis. 

 

Back to some little progress, as I've everything in primer now and all holes drilled for handrails and whistles, so it's said handrails, lamp irons, front spectacle frames and fire iron hoops to fettle and fit, before the airbrush comes out to apply livery colour, but only when these high temperatures and humidity levels become realistic to get acceptable results, so maybe some weeks yet to wait. This is likely to be hopefully my longest ever loco build, as I started it back in March and have several others in the stash.

 

 

The roof is one of the simpler body parts, yet illustrates how even a small part can take two days to prepare for colour coat. First task was to fill the original rectangular whistle rebate, wait overnight for it to set, roughly sand, apply a thin mist primer to help guide the final fine sanding the next day with 800 grade wet and dry to a perfect roof profile, then drill out the two 0.9mm holes for the brass whistles and the four 0.5mm holes for the handrails.

 

The roof, tool boxes and tank fillers will all be sprayed off the loco and fitted once the livery is applied to the body shell. Meanwhile, I’ll fit handrails, hooks and lamp irons before spraying and hopefully will soon find the chemical blackening fluid for the chassis !

 

 

 

[longchap]

Ta Da .  .  .

 

 

Nod nod, wink wink, say no more.

 

Although I did try a Plan B, just in case .  .  .

 

 

Etch primer and a day later, matt black, which looks okay, but will do an abrasion resistance test in another day, plus try out the Super Blue on the reverse side of this spare nickel silver etch.

 

 

[longchap]

Featuring a weekend of what makes you feel happy, followed by how to get your chassis black

 

Workload had recently increased from very busy, through extremely to simply having to escape for an evening with friends, wine and music to avoid insanity, while we would get back to work on Sunday in preparing all accommodation and gardens for our busiest week of the year and 15 000 visitors to our charming village.

 

Thankfully, Saturday saw us out with friends, more than sufficient wine, song and dancing and then we met this group of boisterous Australians. It turns out they’re a touring post-punk all girl band from Melbourne and their driver was a luthier, also into old bikes and cars and we got on well. So rather than working on Sunday, we enjoyed a lost day with the “Moody Beaches” and some more good friends at ours where the laugher, music and chat was so very welcome and we made some interesting new friends.

 

The guitar maker played a couple of my guitars, unused following a bad broken wrist a couple of years ago and together with the girls, have inspired me to take them up again. All round, a very enjoyable lost day!   

 

As for modelling, I’ve finished my experiments with chassis blackening and now have my way forward. After experimenting with application technique with Super Blue, despite on-line forum advice of this product being good for nickel silver, I’ve found it unsatisfactory for the Metro etches, as it wears off rather easily.

 

Chemical blackening, looking okay and would be even better when weathered, but .  .  .

 

I’m so glad I experimented and the sample shown in the previous post of metal etch primer, followed 24 hours later with matt black for metal surfaces, stood up well to abrasion testing, so will be adopted. I’ll post a photo of the chassis once painted and reassembled, hopefully before too long, but not before we get through the next couple of weeks.

 

Have fun 🙂

 

 

[longchap]

Absolutely no modelling lately due to a bunch of old car people staying to take in the village race weekend, so a collection of old cars scattered around the courtyard, with much fun enjoyed by all, including Bella cat and I got a trailer for my little Austin reserved for collection a little later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My old pal Bernie (Citroen Traction Avant) managed to get our Austin 7 Ulster going, following an anoying electrical gremlin and we had a brace of similar others staying with us, then we found this lovely race prepared Renault parked outside our wine bar which looks rather fun.

 

We have a few days between visitors next week, so hopefully can get the Metro chassis painted.

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by longchap

[MrWolf]

That looks like a very enjoyable weekend!

I grew up around Austin Sevens, although I have never owned one, only its replacement, an Eight from 1947. I also have a soft spot for the Renault 4CV, that one one looks like it could get you a lot of tickets ...

I've recently come across a couple of Panhard Dyna X84 models from 1950 & 51, both unrestored. The owner is willing to swap one for the right vintage motorcycle.

So I've been asking around! 😃

[longchap]

The sunshine we had this morning, reminded me of enjoyable past summer activity, as I pruned some adventuristic climbing roses back down to manageable proportions, while contemplating the winter months ahead. The colder seasons means a return to indoor activity, particularly the railway, so I ran through the strict priorities, then contemplated throughout the afternoon on what I really wanted to do!

 

Like most of us, there are a couple of projects to finish, mainly a coach kit bash into a Clifton Downs set and of course the motive power to move it. The driving car and the Metro tank are well advanced and will be back on the bench next week, while a Pannier, now without top feed equipment, waits in line for the paint shop.

 

 

 

However, before I dive back into any of the above, I want to clear the baseboards and complete the layout wiring and control panel, so I can fully test the trackwork and finally run some trains. This is particularly important following today’s communication that Swindon are sending a couple of railway inspectors to the Newton Regis branch at the end of the month, so I better get moving and meet some progress targets!

 

Don't panic, but tidy that bench now !

[Graham T]

Good to see this thread coming back to life 🙂

[longchap]

Thanks Graham, it's good to be back 😁

[MrWolf]

Good to see you back and on with the railway, even if it does remind me that your Clifton Downs set project is further advanced than mine! 😆

[longchap]

28 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Good to see you back and on with the railway, even if it does remind me that your Clifton Downs set project is further advanced than mine! 😆

 

It's a great project to get stuck into and from one of my favourite model rail magazines from the 70s. I thought I'd tackle the more difficult driving car first, so the trailer should be a breeze by comparrison. As usual, I got intrigued with reseach and have enjoyed adding as much detail as practical, while learning more GW history.

 

I'll clear the baseboards tomorrow and tidy up in readniness for wiring the second of the two branch boards, then assemble the control panel and then the fun can really begin.

 

Sounds like a doddle !

 

[longchap]

I had one of those annoying “where did I put it” moments the other week, only rectified yesterday, when I found my copy of Iain Rice’s chassis construction book. I remember using it in the railway room and then in the bedroom for late night reading, but could not find it when it was needed. So frustrated was I, that I bought a very cheap, well used and workshop smelly temporary replacement, only to find my original the day when the other was delivered! Mr Murphy strikes again.

 

I'm even more determined now to build a permanent railway room next year, then I can transfer my ever growing railway library into it, so will ever more know where all the books and magazines are, probably.