Marty's O Scale stuff

[hartleymartin]

Maroon has a personal connection for me, being one of the colours for my High school and my College.

[hartleymartin]

Found an old picture of the Barclay from when I purchased it on ebay.

 

Edited September 30, 2014 by hartleymartin

[Barnaby]

The Green & the Blue have just come from the paint works and need a little more of the details adding to bring them to life, ie name & work plates, lining, a good lube and have become a little work stressed and maybe a driver.

I like Green locos.

 

Regards

Edited September 30, 2014 by Barnaby

[hartleymartin]

I'm seriously thinking of just making life easier for myself and going with a straight weathered black.

 

The painting process will then be:

 

1.) Spray Grey Primer

2.) Spray cab interior (light tan colour - will paint backhead seperately before attaching)

3.) Mask cab interior, spray body in black

4.) Spray bufferbeams in red, then attach to footplate.

5.) Spray finished, rebuilt chassis in primer then black all over.

[81A Oldoak]

There is green and then there is green. The first shot shows the first decorated sample of the Ixion Hudswell Clarke. We thought it was too, well, Percy, so we changed the specification. The second shot shows the production version, which was basically Humbrol Matt 80 Grass Green. Instead of messing about with Pantone numbers, I simply sent the factory a swatch with the Humbrol colour. The third shot shows the livery  for the re-run of the Hudswell Clarke that we hope to have delivered before December. Finally, I have attached a photo of the blue liveried 2nd engineering prototype. We dropped this in favour of the plain black version when I heard a mother exclaim to her young son, "Look! Thomas!" when the loco was running on a layout at the local Romsey MRS show. I still have this unique model. Perhaps we should auction it off?

[hartleymartin]

After seeing the Forest Green version of the Hudswell Clarke, I'm starting to wish that I had not started repainting my black one to green!

 

The Manning Wardle is staying black though. She'll be done up as NSWGR No. 1021

 

I'm starting to think that the Barclay should be black aswell, to represent NSWPWD No. 78, but I only have one not-too-clear picture of the prototype.

Edited October 1, 2014 by hartleymartin

[flexible_coupling]

The "Thomas" blue one is quite fetching actually... although I quite understand your backpedalling on that colour choice!!

[hartleymartin]

Perhaps a darker prussian blue would have looked better.

[hartleymartin]

Digging through some boxes of miscellaneous stuff I found a pair of brass frame spacers for O gauge, so I just need to purchase some brass or nickel-silver sheet to make the side-frames. I'm lead to believe that Nickel-silver is better as it takes solder and paint more readily than brass.

 

In the on-going saga of the rebuild of the 14" barclay I disassembled the chassis today and set to work cleaning up the wheels:

 

Top left is a finished wheel, top right is one straight off the axle. The original builder brush-painted this model. The paint was thick, uneven and lumpy in a few places. Perhaps no-one had introduced him to the range of Tamiya Spray cans which I use extensively these days. I didn't bother trying to clean the spokes, as I was uncertain how the glass-filled plastic would survive chemical paint removal. I went with scrapers, files and a brass wire brush to clean up the steel tyres and the whitemetal counterweights.

 

The more I work on this locomotive, the more I'm starting to think that I should go with a plain weathered black paint job, using Tamiya "Rubber Black" I've previously used this colour on smokeboxes and carriage roofs.

 

[hartleymartin]

Just did some calculations for the new motor/gearbox combination which I'll be putting into the Andrew Barclay.

 

With a 54:1 ratio gearset and a Mashima 1824 spinning at 9,200rpm at 12 volts no load, the theoretical scale top speed of the barclay will be just over 21 scale miles per hour. I imagine with the mass of pewter for the body, the actual top speed will be a bit slower. This isn't a problem for me, as I intend to run this as a shunter.

 

To fit this lot into the body, I'll probably have to get a friend to reduce the side of the flywheel a little.

Edited October 2, 2014 by hartleymartin

[hartleymartin]

Whilst digging through boxes and bags of bits I finally found the buffers I needed to complete one of the wagon projects. This is a Slater's Midland Railway 3-plank dropside wagon, lightly modified to resemble a similar wagon which ran on the NSW Govt. Railways. I have seen one or two photos of such a wagon. I think a construction photo from the Dorrigo Line shows such a wagon behind an N67 class "Aussie Terrier." I bought this kit a few months ago second-hand from a local hobby shop. I doubt that the previous owner ever opened it up. There is also a 5-plank MR wagon from slaters which bears a strikingly close resemblance to a high-sided NSWGR D wagon which used to be stationed a Picton with an ancient radial coach as the emergency/break-down train.

 

The kit is basically assembled as per normal, but brake gear is only on one side and Turton buffers have been substituted for the MR ones which are now on another under frame that I've been building. It just needs primer, paint, weights and the coupling links to be added and it will be finished. The buffers are non-sprung whitemetal/pewter ones either from Ian Lindsay Models or from O-Aust. They've been in the big box of bits for so long I don't know where or when I acquired them! This wagon also has non-sprung couplings. I realised too late that one needed to attach the coupling hooks with the spring and split pin BEFORE assembling the wagon body. I have simply added some blocks of styrene and epoxy resin glue to hold them in place. I do normally try to fit sprung buffers and couplings, but this isn't always possible. The inside of the wagon body was painted Tamiya XF10 Brown. Most probably because I got bored a while back and wanted something to do. It will be sprayed all over dark grey.

 

[hartleymartin]

Looking at it now, I should probably have left off the English brake gear and modelled the later style with a hand wheel and westinghouse air brakes. However, I think that when I started this model I intended it to be used on a Colonel Stephens style light railway layout like "Witts End." Oh well, when I get around to purchasing a MR 5-plank wagon to dress up as a high-sided D wagon I can do it.

[hartleymartin]

Now for something just a little different: *edit - larger picture*

 

A New South Wales Government Railways SHG Brake Van under construction circa late 1950s condition.

 

75 of these vans were built in the late 1920s, it seems primarily to run behind livestock trains. The two passenger compartments allowed for up to 18 passengers, with each compartment having a small lavatory attached. The guard's compartment also carried up to 4 tons of general goods and originally had a small ventilated compartment which could be used to transport the drover's dogs or a coffin if need be. There were also two end windows in the Guard's compartment but these were boarded over during the early 1950s and at about the same time the "dog compartment" was generally removed.

 

From 1963 about 40 were converted to BHG vans by simply replacing the 2SE bogies with 2AE types to allow them to run on fast goods trains after the standard gauge link had been opened between Albury and Melbourne. Prior to this date, everyone had to get off the train and all goods had to be trans-shipped because NSW and Victoria operating their railways on different gauges - the famous "break of gauge" problem which plagued the railways of Australia since the 1850s.

 

This is an early O-Aust kit, which came from the old Ron Fox range, dating from the 1970s. The original Ron Fox kit did not have the correct bogies, generic American ones generally being used, and the underfloor detail looked nothing like the prototype. By the time it became part of the O-Aust range, the later style 2AE bogies were available (as they were used under other types of wagons in the same range), but the incorrect battery boxes, etc were still present.

 

The bit parts are cast in urethane, but have been known for many years to have had problems with not being flat. The general solution was to bathe them in hot water and then let them cool on a sheet of glass, but the castings could still warp. Just visible through the windows is some of the 6.3x2.5mm styrene sections (I nearly used an entire evergreen packet!) which I glued to the backs of the castings in an attempt to keep them flat and square. They also provide extra gluing surface to make the joins more secure.

 

There is still lots of work to do. I have to obtain the correct bogies, assemble the sprung buffers, and basically build everything from the floor down from new. The supplied floor doesn't sit square and I have doubts about it's strength. At this stage it seems likely that I will scratch-build a new one in styrene, perhaps using some brass bar or angles to make it dead stable and add a little bit of weight. I will most likely keep the chassis and body as two separate items to be held together with screws through the floor.

Edited October 9, 2014 by hartleymartin

[hartleymartin]

Here is an interesting little project getting a little further along. I decided to build a model which mimicked the construction of the prototype and in materials. I have not used scale nuts and bolts as this would send me blind. It has been quite fun putting this model together in wood. I think I'll be using a lot more "scale lumber" when building models in the future. It is a composite of several prototypes. See if you can guess what it is based on!

 

The top-left panel will eventually be identical to the bottom-left one. Getting a clue as to the potential prototype?

 

Edited October 11, 2014 by hartleymartin

[switcher 1]

Brake van(?)

[hartleymartin]

It's a Brake Van all right, but this one is an "inspired by" rather than a "model of" the brake vans found on the private coal railways of the Hunter Valley Coal Fields.

[hartleymartin]

There is the Aus7 Forum at the end of the month (Australian 7mm Scale Modeller's Group) and there will be a small diorama competition. So here is the early stage of the diorama I am working on. It was originally 800mm x 400mm, but I found out that the size limit is 600mm x 600mm, so after these shots were taken I cut 200mm off the end to bring it back to the size restriction.

 

The station building is a standard Pc1 Design from ModelOKits. The short platform, yes modelled off the prototype was build from sleepers on timber piers. The platform is built using scale lumber for the frame and decking, 1/4" balsa dowel for the piers and the steps are made from a starbucks coffee stirrer. The bolt head detail are brass lace pins driven through the wood with a pair of small pliers. The track will be hand-laid to "Pioneer Standard" with 60lb rails represented with Code 100 rail and the timber sleepers at a scale 3 feet apart. These "Pioneer Lines" functioned largely the same as the British "Light Railways" they had a speed limit of 25mph and in some sections restricted to 8mph. They had short, light trains, the curves could be as sharp as 4-1/2 chains radius and the ruling gradient was 1 in 25 (yes one-in-twenty-five!) The locomotives used on these lines dated from the 1870s and were 0-6-0s built on the Stephenson long-boiler design. The maximum load hauled up the ruling gradient was just 100 tons, which was about the same as 4 loaded wagons and the Brake-Composite HS or HCX carriage which ran on all trains.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2014 by hartleymartin

[hartleymartin]

The Diorama is based on this rare photo of the prototype. These insignificant stations were very rarely photographed. Thankfully the waiting shed was a standard design, and a couple of photos soon revealed the details of the tiny 16'-long platform! Why 16' long? That's twice the length of standard NSWGR sleepers which were used to make most of the frames and the decking.

 

[hartleymartin]

More on the brake van. The body was assembled and the roof went on today.

 

[hartleymartin]

The Brake Van is built almost entirely out of wood with brass detailing components and pewter axle-boxes. There is probably about AUD$10 of wood in there, and the various detailing bits I had stockpiled over the past 10 years. Most of those components could also be made from brass strip and wire. The bolts through the chassis are in fact brass lace pins bought for about AUD$3.50 for a box of a couple of hundred. It turns out that if you pick a simple prototype, scratch-building isn't that hard.

[flexible_coupling]

Marvellous brake-van... presume you're going to solder up some brass for the distinctive end balconies? 

 

I rather like your diorama idea. A small loco (X10 2-4-0T shuffled into a different part of the state?), an SHG and an S truck and you've got a full train - and appropriate sized station!

[hartleymartin]

The Diorama is only 24 inches long. At that length it won't even hold the prototypical 19 class and HS carriage which was the shortest train to run on this line! I had originally made it 800mm long to accommodate this, the idea being that the track would be at the back of the scene with the platform and building in front of the train.

Edited October 14, 2014 by hartleymartin

[hartleymartin]

The Brake van was not originally intended to be a CHG. I might make another one some time to the proper dimensions. I had originally started with the idea of making either a PD&SWJR or and RVR Brake van, but these have external framing and metalwork which take a lot of time and effort to model. I would have probably made those out of styrene strips, but this proved to be a much more interesting project. As it stands, it will make a nice van for a Colonel-Stephens light-railway style layout.

[Dava]

I like the brake van & effective use of wood.As there is no stove chimney, does this mean there was a primitive beer-cooler inside, so the brakesman could enjoy a tinny seated on the end balcony? Just a thought & look forward to seeing the diorama develop. Coincidentally there were rough & ready coal lines using British equipment in Sydney, Nova Scotia where I now live most of the time. Long way from Sydney NSW!

 

Dava

[hartleymartin]

There will be a stove and chimney in there eventually. I plan to buy something in cast pewter to add some weight to the model. I'm having second-thoughts about making this look any more like a CHG. Perhaps I'll put some boarding up on the verandahs about 3 scale feet high and then have the brass wire roof supports. Will also save some work in soldering.

 

After building this model, I realised that building a proper scale CHG wouldn't be that hard, so I will eventually get around to doing that. For now, this is the Longe Road to Witts End Brake Van No.1

 

Witts End is the terminus on a light railway, coming off a minor mainline station called Longe Road. So there is the Longe Road to Witts End Light Railway.