Andy Siddalls Diesel Workbench

[Andy Siddall]

HI,

I have decided after a small amount of thought, that the best thing was to start a new thread for my Diesel and 'Modern' image builds. I say modern image as that is the phrase coined at the time of my prototype interest although to all intents and purposes we are talking about 70's and 80's Blue diesels with possibly a smattering of sectorisation.

I currently have a part built early Modern Motive Power class 47, which is sitting half built waiting for it's time back on the workbench to be completed, but after finishing the J69 in my steam thread, I decided that I wanted a nice gentle build of another small loco. Looking at the pile of its maturing in the corner of my cupboard I saw the DJH 03 kit. This kit was purchased quite a while ago (2005) when they were first released as an O gauge starter kit.
All I can say is that if you are looking for a diesel loco that can be built with the minimum of fuss for a reasonable price, then this may be the one.

This will be built as 03189, in BR Rail Blue vacuum braked only. I will not be fitting working lights however I do have a South West Digital class 03 chip and may try to shoehorn a smoke unit in there as well.
I also have a Bachmann class 03 that I purchased a while ago, which will be 03089, also in rail blue but dual braked as the buffer beams of the Bachmann model have all of the pipework fitted already, luckily I have the air tanks from the DJH kit to finish this one off, I will also fit this with sound using the Howes chip for comparison.

Anyway here are a couple of progress of the loco so far, total build time to date is probably 12 hours over 3 days.








Not photographed yet are the cab and footplate assembly but these are included in the build time.

This kit, so far, has been a pleasure to build and really has not required a lot of thought.

Thanks for dropping by.

Andy

[sde]

Looking good Andy,

can't wait to see more photos

as you get futher on with the build.

Regards

Shane

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Andy,

Good work here, i like it!

Will follow with interest as i might pick up some inspiration, hopefully!

Cheers,

John E.

[Andy Siddall]

Thanks Shane and John,

 

I will have to try and get some modeling done a bit more regularly but I know that work is going to get busy again in a couple of weeks or so.

 

Anyway, for now I have had another producitve day with no work and so all of the 03 components are now complete and primed ready for painting on Thursday (real work tomorrow).

I am intending to try the Howes of Oxford acrylic range for this loco and so I am awaiting delivery of some Rail Blue and early Panel Yellow. I have previously only used the acrylic Satin varnish and found this to spray very nicely.

the beauty of Acrylics is that being water soluble, the clean up after airbrushing is a lot less than that required with enamels.

 

Right, on with the progress pics, as of now the loco is bolted together in one piece with the wheels on and the motor in. My only complaint of the whole loco is the pickup method. The method provided uses small phosphor bronze strips held in contact with the wheel tread, the only problem being that DJH provide little plastic clips to attach theses to the loco and also provide insulation, they are fiddly and work loose very easily. I shall however try and persevere with these before using other methods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry but I have not yet been able to take a picture of the completed test assembly. I shall endeavour to do so before I dismantle it all on Thursday for painting.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[brian daniels]

Nice one Andy, glad to see a diesel work bench started here. I expect to see regular updates please:rolleyes:

[Andy Siddall]

Thanks Brian,

 

I thought it was high time that I got a separate thread started with the hope of finishing a few of the more modern kits I have.

 

I have the MMP class 47 to finish, along with one of their Catfish hoppers. Hopefully they will not be too far away. Also a MMP class 13 kit I have just ordered the wheels and motor for.

 

Anyhow, here is a quick pic of the 03 roughly assembled just to get an idea, pictured with an ex Southern brakevan which is being finished in Engineers Olive. Not the best pic as it was taken on a phone but at least you get the idea.

 

 

Brian, as I know that you have built at least one of these 03's, did you use the pickups as provided and if so how have they faired?

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[brian daniels]

I did use the DJH pick-ups Andy. It works ok I seem to remember. Must have an 03 race at a running do!

[Andy Siddall]

Thanks Brian, I shall stick with them then.

 

The idea of an 03 race sounds quite good, but would it be a traditional fastest first race or the more challenging slowest one to complete the course without stalling, now that's much more of a challenge.

 

My MMP 08 took over 1 Hour and 45 Minutes to complete a lap of the Hurley O Gauge Groups test track when first built! All the way around at speed step 1 without stopping, more an advert for the RG7 than anything else though, they are superbly smooth motors.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[PaulCheffus]

Also a MMP class 13 kit I have just ordered the wheels and motor for.

 

Hi

 

I would be interested to see how it goes together as I have always wanted a model of the class 13 ever since I was taken on a visit to the depot and yard by my Grandfather and his friend (who was a wheel tapper there).

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[Andy Siddall]

Hi Paul,

 

I hope that the 13 kit is the same as the 08 kit just doubled in quantity and with only one cab, I built the 08 a couple of years ago and I must say that it was a joy to build and if the 13 is the same, I quite fancy building the whole fleet .

 

I now have all of the required bits for the 13, except for sound and smoke units, these will be ordered as and when funds allow. first though I have an early MMP 47 kit to complete. This was purchased back in the mid 90's and is also of an earlier design, it has a cast resin roof, whereas now the roof is a brass fabrication on Daves kits. I have been working on the bogies today as I had started building these a few years ago and made a complete hash of one. Photo's will follow when I have something to show.

 

The class 03 is progressing through the paint shop nicely. I have completed painting and assembled the chassis and so I will get that on the rolling road tomorrow.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Andy Siddall]

Just a quick update for the weekend as not a lot appears to be happening, although I am at the stage of waiting for paint to dry before completing the build.

 

This morning I gave the chassis a good half hour run in each direction and all was fine, even if the mech is a little noisy.

 

Here is the chassis wired for DC in order to test it at the moment.

 

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Andy Siddall]

Wotcha,

 

After a weekend away from the workbench, I thought that I would ease myself gently into the week, this may be the last week that I get to do some building as I am starting back at work for a few weeks next Monday.

 

I decided to give the soldering iron a break today, so I have been touching up some paint scuffs on 08510 and finishing the painting on 03189 ready for varnishing and final assembly.

 

Anyhoo, a picture is worth some words apparently so here goes.......

 

 

 

There is still quite a bit left to do, namely, varnishin, weathering, and then seeing just how much DCC electronics and bits I can shoe horn in there. Hopefully I will have her running for the weekend as we have a club running session on Sunday.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Softvark]

Very nice - how did you do the front stripes?

 

Julian

[Andy Siddall]

Hi Julian, and thanks for dropping by.

 

The stripes were made very easy by the fact that RJH provide this kit witha full set of decals, including the stripes shaped just to fit on the nose and the cab rear. If you look at the previous photos you will also notice that I left all of the nose end and cab rear face detailing off until I had done this.

 

The 08 that you can see in the background is one of the Modern Motive Power range by David Parkins, on this kit he has rather cleverly half etched the lines for the stripes into the face, you just paint the whole thing yellow, then brush the black onto the right areas allowing the paint to run into the etch and giving a nice crisp stripe.

 

Sadly the I am not looking forward to the same on my Bachmann Brassworks 03, I have purchased a set of the Fox transfers stripes for this loco, these are just a sheet of the black part of the stripes that you have to cut to the correct shape, the other problem with the RTR locos is that all the detail is already soldered on so this will have to be cut around too.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Softvark]

Thanks Andy, having decals 'pre striped' would definitely make it easier

 

I've just built the Judith Edge 06 in 7mm and had the same issue with the rear stripes. I too used the Fox wasp transfers and left off the detail until afterwards. They went on OK but it was very tricky because you have such a large area of very thin transfer. In hindsight it would have been easier if I'd cut the transfer in two and applied each half separately - that would have been much more manageable.

 

A few dabs of Microsol also helped around window frames and rivets!

 

Julian

[Andy Siddall]

Hi Julian,

 

Do you have any pictures of the 06 to show? I have seen Brian Daniels 06 and must say that I am sorely tempted to part with the hard earned, although I had promised myself that I would get some of the backlog of unbuilt kits out of the way first.

 

I quite like the idea of cutting the stripes first and applying them in 2 halves, as you say a big sheet is quite a pain to get straight and smooth.

 

Progress on the 03 today has been the fitting of the window glass and buffers. I have now got a complete loco wired and assembled. All that remains to be done is to fit the couplings and windscreen wipers, although the latter may have to wait until tomorrow as we have a club meet tonight and I really would like to give it a run.

 

Photos to follow.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Softvark]

Do you have any pictures of the 06 to show?

 

There are several on the YMR forum but I'll post them here later.

 

Julian

[Softvark]

Not up to the standard of Brian's 06 but the model is really good to make. Michael Edge uses nice thick brass in his kits which is great to work with. It's strong and yet easy to bend and solder. Even the fold of the narrow bonnet was made easy by the internal half etching which meant it just fell into place.

 

 

The frame is fixed to the body with a number of 12BA bolts and you can separate the bonnet from the cab if required although I couldn't see a need for that myself. I made the cab roof a slide fit by soldering just the edge of the angled rainstrips so I can get into the cab should I need to at any time.

 

 

The buffers, which aren't supplied with the kit, are from Markits. Curiously the cab rainstrip wasn't supplied but a wide variety of wire for all the handrails and engine housings etc, were. I added a Mashima motor and a Roxey 40:1 gearbox.

 

After a quick clean up with the glassfibre pen I painted it with Railmatch and used a mixture of fox, HMRS and precision label transfers. Then a light weathering with frame dirt and Mig weathering powders.

 

 

 

 

 

Because I use DCC I added a Lenz gold decoder and USP power module as it's only 4 wheel pickup and I didn't feel brave enough to add the compensation - the instructions for doing so were too vague for me.

 

It runs very sweetly so I'm really pleased with it and would recommend it - especially for the money.

 

Julian

[brian daniels]

That's very nice Julian, now't wrong with the build of that. You got the wasp stripes on the back better than I did! Just don't look at mine too close. I see you have not got the lights on the rear of the cab yet though. I will get round to weathering mine soon now that I have got the Andrew Barcley worksplates on it but I have a few other projects to weather at the same time coming along on the workbench at the mo.

[Softvark]

That's very nice Julian, now't wrong with the build of that. You got the wasp stripes on the back better than I did!

 

Well possibly - but I didn't try to adjust the angle of the stripes so they aren't as accurate to the prototype as yours.

 

I left the detail off the rear until I had done the transfers - now I just need to find where I put the lamps

 

Julian

[Andy Siddall]

Very nice work there Julian,thanks for posting the pictures, the finish just captures the look of the 06 perfectly. I too must commend you on the quality of the striping on the rear, not an easy job at all. I think that this is one shunter to add to my growing collection and I will have to give Michael a call after pay day.

 

All that then remains is the need for a few mainline diesels and somewhere to run them.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Andy Siddall]

Right, herewith the (most likely) final installment in the build of 03189. I ran it on the club test track on Tuesday, and she ran really sweet until I started to have a problem with the pick ups. This was soon resolved yesterday with the liberal application of super glue to keep them in place, they are held by design by two little plastic clips which sadly were just not enough. Yesterday also involved the fitting of windscreen wipers and locking of the wheel bolts and crankpin nuts.

 

As I have now built the 03 and with the idea of clearing my workshop of part finished projects, I dug out a built and painted but not finished Slaters Conflat. This was bought with the sole intention of creating a shunt runner for the 03, even though I know that it is the wrong type (before anyone mentions:D) but then beggars cannot be choosers as they say. It had been given a coating of BR Wagon Bauxite before being mothballed and so just required the ends to be painted yellow, then striped, before adding buffers, couplings and transfers. I have not yet numbered the wagon but shall in the next couple of days. The striping of the ends was done with fox transfers shunter chevron sheet, cut into a strip and then applied in sections.

 

Thirdly, I also had a Parkside Southern 25T Brake van that I wanted to model as ZTP DS56400. For this I had to put the Vac pipe detail on the cabin sides. This has also been completed in the last couple of days with the adding of it's transfers.

This will ultimately be required for a short rake of MMP Dogfish and Catfish wagons.

 

Lastly I have included a picture of my MMP 08, 08510 Canklow of Tinsley depot.

 

 

 

 

 

That's it from me for any sort of progress for a few of weeks as I start work again on Monday until at least November. Hopefully then I will have a big push to get the MMP class 47 finished. With a bit of luck I will be up at the club on Sunday so shall try and take a few pics of 03189 in action.

 

Happy Modelling

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Softvark]

That's come out really well, Andy. And I love the MMP 08 - I think 'exquisite' is the word!

 

Julian

[Andy Siddall]

Thanks Julian, I am really pleased with the outcome of the 08.

 

510 was a loco that I regularly saw round the back of Tinsley TMD during my Sunday bike rides in the late 80's. Sadly the model has seen better days as it got dropped on it's nose a little while ago. Even though I have managed to straighten it out as much as possible it looks as though it's taken a rough shunt somewhere.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Andy Siddall]

Evening All,

 

Well it's been six hard weeks of work but i finally managed to pick up a soldering iron for half an hour today and so some progress has been made on the MMP Catfish.

This is one of those kits that I have enjoyed gently plodding along with, just adding a bit here and there as time permits, alas it is now the only thing remaining on the WB and so will be finished so that I can restart the Easybuild 108.

 

Here is a very quickly taken pic from my phone of the state of the ZEV this evening (sorry about the quality, I must sort the settings out again).

 

 

Oh yeah, don't forget it's reading this saturday.......

 

Cheers

 

Andy