Whats on your 2mm Work bench

[martin580120]

Having managed to make some time over the last few days in between the festivities, I've continued my forray into modelling thr Caley. First up, a couple of Diagram 22  8 Tonne mineral wagons - made from Jim's etches. These are the first fully etched kits I've completed. Quite fun to put together and excellent instructions. I've got some cast axle boxes to add, but they're at home and I'm occupying a corner of the Mother in Law's kitchen, 200 miles away. There's a couple of bits I'm not quite happy with, but I suspect it'll get better with practice.

 

Second is 45' Third Compartment Coach from  Worsley Works. I've got another couple of these to work on. I'm waiting on the coach book from the CRA dropping through the door before thinking about the internals and underframes/bogies - I have a cunning plan but need to see some drawings with a scale. (If anyone else has had similar and had their own cunning plans, I'd love to learn from others experience/mistakes etc.)

[Donw]

In my view the most noticeable thing is the lack of compartment walls. So before starting assembly I use the ends to get the right shape on a pice of card you then only need to trim off the thickness of the brass for a template. How much further you want to go depends alot on how close up you view your models.

 

Don

[richard i]

It is 2mm finescale. So I would expect seats and armrests ashtrays and mirrors and…..

richard.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, richard i said:

It is 2mm finescale. So I would expect seats and armrests ashtrays and mirrors and…..

 

... removeable, launderable antimacassars in the firsts.

[martin580120]

3 hours ago, Donw said:

In my view the most noticeable thing is the lack of compartment walls. So before starting assembly I use the ends to get the right shape on a pice of card you then only need to trim off the thickness of the brass for a template. How much further you want to go depends alot on how close up you view your models.

 

Don

I have some 10 thou plastikard I was planning to use to make compartments, it's all just 200 miles further North than I am currently. I also wanted to wait till I've sorted the underframe before putting anything particularly melty into the frame.

 

2 hours ago, richard i said:

It is 2mm finescale. So I would expect seats and armrests ashtrays and mirrors and…..

richard.

I do have some of the seating strip from the Association, and some cheap N scale figures from eBay. I was thinking about seats and passengers, Might not be 100% accurate but from a normal viewing distance it will hopefully be effective.

[Caley Jim]

5 hours ago, richard i said:

It is 2mm finescale. So I would expect seats and armrests ashtrays and mirrors and…..

richard.

The late John Boyle's etches for 45ft CR coaches had ashtrays (only in1st class) and droplight leathers!   To my shame, I chickened out on these!   I only fitted compartment divisions, but with the lower part appropriately coloured.  The material I used was some stencil paper I had which was a nice light brown colour.

 

45ft first

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

19 hours ago, martin580120 said:

Having managed to make some time over the last few days in between the festivities, I've continued my forray into modelling thr Caley. First up, a couple of Diagram 22  8 Tonne mineral wagons - made from Jim's etches. These are the first fully etched kits I've completed. Quite fun to put together and excellent instructions.

 

Thanks for the comment on instructions, Martin, however I obviously didn't do a good enough job in making clear which way round the body fits on the underframe as the end door should be at the same end as the brake block.  I.e. looking at the side with the brake, (as with the eft hand wagon in your photo), the door should be to the left, the end we see.  I'll have to have another look at the instructions and see what I can do to make it clearer.  

 

Jim

[Nig H]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... removeable, launderable antimacassars in the firsts.

Blast,

 

I just paint mine on.

 

Seasonal greetings to all.

 

Nigel Hunt

[martin580120]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

Thanks for the comment on instructions, Martin, however I obviously didn't do a good enough job in making clear which way round the body fits on the underframe as the end door should be at the same end as the brake block.  I.e. looking at the side with the brake, (as with the eft hand wagon in your photo), the door should be to the left, the end we see.  I'll have to have another look at the instructions and see what I can do to make it clearer.  

 

Jim

Could very well have been in the instructions and incredibly clear Jim.

 

I've an awful habit of misreading them or reading them, thinking I understand them, carrying them out then going "that doesn't look right..." only to go back and see I should have done something differently.

 

A bit of a nuisance in modelling, a bit of a liability when I was an explosives chemist...

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, martin580120 said:

, a bit of a liability when I was an explosives chemist...

At least you would go out with a bang!    

 

Jim

[Yorkshire Square]

The glacial progress on Hull Bridge reached fever pitch in the last few days - I actually did some modelling!

 

Skylights (?) were drawn, printed and fitted to the train shed and the whole was then treated to some painting and weathering. I've also been delineating the station area with various walls, buildings and ramps:

 

 

[DuncanFogg]

Martin,

 

 

This is how I tackle interiors, although I only have a photo to hand of a corridor coach. It is tempting to make brass partitions for a brass coach but the whole thing becomes quite heavy, so I agree with using plasticard. I find the Association coaching strip quite thick when it comes to older stock, so tend to use it now for first class and a simple wedge of plasticard plus seat for third. I am sure the eBay fashions are wrong for the 1930s but all you really see is a human-like shape through the window.

 

Duncan

[Bryn]

 

This seasons project was a rake of Stephen Harris 45T tanks. Various types of walkways and chassis details. The blue parts are custom 3D prints from Missy from my own art work.

 

 

[EHSUK2001]

On 29/12/2021 at 16:25, Yorkshire Square said:

The glacial progress on Hull Bridge reached fever pitch in the last few days - I actually did some modelling!

 

Skylights (?) were drawn, printed and fitted to the train shed and the whole was then treated to some painting and weathering. I've also been delineating the station area with various walls, buildings and ramps:

 

 

 

[Caley Jim]

I managed (just) to get the couplings fitted on the two pig iron wagons and bogie before 'The Bells' last night. 

 

 

 

 

Still weathering to do and the lettering is pretty c**p, but it looks not too bad from 3ft away, especially if you take off your glasses and screw your eyes up! 

 

I'd like to have them loaded, but the only photo I've found of a loaded pig iron wagon is of a model, which shows the pigs just in a heap and we all now the old adage of not modelling a model.  I can find plenty about pig iron, but nothing on how it was loaded in wagons.  Can anyone help?

 

Jim

[Yorkshire Square]

I think you're being a bit harsh on yourself Jim - if my lettering was anywhere near that, I'd be happy.

 

What is unforgivable, though, is drinking Bells...  

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

I'd like to have them loaded, but the only photo I've found of a loaded pig iron wagon is of a model, which shows the pigs just in a heap and we all now the old adage of not modelling a model.  I can find plenty about pig iron, but nothing on how it was loaded in wagons.  Can anyone help?

 

There are a couple of late-1880s/early 1890s photos of wagons loaded with pig iron at Cinderford in the Forest of Dean here:

The pigs are mostly stacked on end in the background, though with some stacked in alternate crossways layers. In the wagons, they're loaded lengthways. There are two piles crossways across the wagons, with a gap in-between at the middle. Given that the wagons are 15'0" or 15'6" long internally, it looks as if the pigs are about 6 ft long. 

 

Now what I'm looking for is a good way of representing the pigs (in 4 mm/ft scale), noting that they are rough on three sides but smooth on one - the top surface when they were cast from the sow. Also, what colour should they be? How quickly would a surface layer of rust form? Iron grey or rust red?

[Caley Jim]

Thanks, Stephen.  These pigs are much larger than I had imagined them to be.  Once things return to nearer normal I must go over to Summerlee Museum (on the site of Summerlee Iron Works) and see what they have.

 

Jim

26 minutes ago, Yorkshire Square said:

What is unforgivable, though, is drinking Bells...  

I wasn't drinking 'Bells', it was actually a nice Balevenie Malt with which I brought in the New Year.  For the avoidance of doubt, 'The Bells' is what we up here call midnight on Hogmanay.

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Thanks, Stephen.  These pigs are much larger than I had imagined them to be.  Once things return to nearer normal I must go over to Summerlee Museum (on the site of Summerlee Iron Works) and see what they have.

 

Series of photos here - NE England. Date is unclear but they're stated to be from glass plate negatives.

 

And @billbedford comes up trumps as ever:

Also @wagonman, Westbury, looks much the same as Cinderford:

That's enough iron pigs for now.

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Compound2632

[Caley Jim]

Thanks again, Steven.  I knew I'd seen that CR photo somewhere recently, but couldn't think where it was.  Got it saved now as it has at least one wagon number on it.  How to model them has been puzzling me too.  Perhaps square section styrene with two corners scraped down and then cut into random lengths around 5-6ft long?  I would imagine ow much rust was on them would depend on how long they had been lying and how damp conditions were  Rust needs the presence of water to form.

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

Perhaps square section styrene with two corners scraped down and then cut into random lengths around 5-6ft long?  

 

I'd been thinking of plastic kit sprue but mostly it's too regular. Perhaps if distressed by attacking with a file or skrawking blade? Possibly too big for 2 mm scale, though.

[Caley Jim]

Judging from the various photos (and BTW, that on of the two men loading CR wagons was in Mike Williams' book, on the page before the one on which the drawing and photos I'd been working from - Doh!! ) I estimated that pigs were around 5-6ft long and 4½-6" in section.  I therefore took some 30thou square styrene strip, gently scraped two adjacent corners to slightly round off one face, and cut it into random 10-12mm lengths, with a few shorter ones, by nicking one face and breaking the pieces off.  I then made a little 'tray' the width of the 6T wagon from scrap etch sheet edge, dropped a pile of strips (not too neatly) onto it, roughly levelling them off at one end and flooded them with solvent from a dropper.  They were left for 24hrs to harden and then sprayed with grey primer from a rattle can.  When that had dried I lightly dry brushed them with a darker grey followed by an even light dry brushing of rust colour.  Finally they were generously dusted with dry grey powder colour mix.  I'm reasonably pleased with the results, though one pile are perhaps a little on the long side.   In this photo they are just sitting in the wagon and will be glued in with Easitrac glue.

 

Jim

[tapdieuk]

Many projects  have been worked on over the hoildays, but the J13 has made through the paint shops.

Lots I still could fiddle with on the chassis, body and paint job, but on to the next project (after couplings).

Full marks to Fox transfers, they drop though the letter box almost next day after placing the order. That gave me the kick to get it sorted. 

The basic white metal body bought from the local model shop. A Jinty fine scale replacmenr chassis, lamp irons (the rear ones still look cast after a coat of paint) and sanding linkage added. Hand rails carved off and replaced with wire and hand rail knobs 

GNR not really my thing, but its a chunky freight loco.

I would have liked to have ago at the two tone Green with lining. 

Not withstanding all the faff with masking and lining, chosing the right shades of green etc. It looked ok in grey primer.  The Internet says GNR locos were painted grey during WW1 and Fox did the transfers. 

 Plenty of room for a chip and no need for extra weight, although there is room in the tank. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by tapdieuk
Spelling

[Argos]

Over the Christmas break I managed to tackle a job I've been putting off for a while. A few years ago I bought a watchmakers lathe in need of a bit of TLC. Over time I've got it properly set up and working and have gradually invested in various parts (you can spend eye-watering sums on these if you are not careful!).

 

All my turning to date has been done with hand gravers, and whilst I have produced some loco domes and chimneys in this manner it is a slow process and difficult to make repeatable, multiple components.

 

I did invest in a cross-slide going (relatively) cheaply (also on need of some TLC) and whilst I'd got this working satisfactorily I couldn't find a tool holder that fitted. So, over the holidays I set too and turned and filed down one I had until it fitted, then with some shims found I could use some 3.5mm lath tools available commercially (this saves grinding your own, difficult when you don't possess a grinder!). 

For practice I turned up a couple of button gauges for 5'3" Irish gauge (10.5mm).

 

 

My attempts are shown here. The ones at the back were early attempts turned using hand gravers, at the time I only had some very cheap Vernier callipers and managed to leave them way over-size rendering them quite useless. The ones on the foreground were turned using the cross slide and are much nicer, however one is just (0.05mm, 2 thou!) too thin so will need to be re-done.

I'm quite happy for a first attempt though!

[Tomsontour]

Recently completed one of the new shake and bake easy build points for Wayne at finetrax, a really nice simple product to put together, and one I feel is really going to open up finer track for us n gauge modellers

 

 https://youtu.be/ibQGfNXOj30

 

Have made a video to show just how simple it is, if I can do it anyone can

 

All the best

Matt