hartleymartin Posted October 19, 2014 Author Share Posted October 19, 2014 Progress shot on the diorama: 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 19, 2014 Author Share Posted October 19, 2014 Not long after taking that picture I made the station name-board. Although I won't reveal it's name until I put it on display at the competition this weekend. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 20, 2014 Author Share Posted October 20, 2014 The platform got it's first coat of paint today. Tamiya XF-24. Whilst I still love using the traditional Humbrol enamels, Tamiya's range of paints make an excellent alternative as they are geared towards military modelling which has a lot in common with the scenic modelling of Model Railways.The platform uses scale basswood timbers for the decking, 1/4" balsa dowel for the posts and the steps are made from a starbucks coffee stirrer. The decking was assembled with "weldbond" PVA and the rest was done with Zap-A-Gap Medium CA glue. The bolt heads are made from brass lace pins. These will need a touch of rust colour in due course, and the whole thing needs to be given some texture via weathering. Hopefully I can do this before the weekend! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMR CHRIS Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Not long after taking that picture I made the station name-board. Although I won't reveal it's name until I put it on display at the competition this weekend. Hi Marty A guess at the name Hartley Vale or Little Hartley, as the location of your prototype is in a similar location a valley or two across and link to your name.?? Will be good to see you at the forum it's been a while since you have been able to attend. See you Saturday. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 21, 2014 Author Share Posted October 21, 2014 It has been a couple of years since I last attended. In 2011 I developed serious health problems which forced me to radically change everything I did life. I had to resign or quit from several things and focus on getting my health back on track. It has only been in the past 6 months that I've had a chance to look into some of my old hobbies again. Thankfully, one of them turned into a paying job in the form of becoming a church organist once again (a hobby which has proven to be very therapeutic). I always had a passion for music. From about the age of 8 to 16 I had piano lessons. Of course, like many hobbies it starts out ever so innocently and then slowly begins to take over your entire life. At least THAT hobby has reached the stage where it is now self-funding and has a little extra left over for me to fund other interests. On the station name front, I will neither confirm nor deny any guesses relating to it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 Getting near to completion for Saturday's Forum. The ballast was about half of a packet from woodland's scenics which I had laying around. I still have to put a grey wash over the sleepers and then put some rust-brown onto the sides of the rails, but otherwise it's pretty close to done. I am not sure if I should bother dressing up the sides of the display board. Perhaps I should leave it like that to show people how it was made.The basic ground scatter was the ash from a brazier which had been burning a mixture of wood and head-beads. I started with a large sieve to get the grade of material I wanted, then used a finer sieve to get the more powdery material onto the board and saved the larger grains for future use as ballast. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 24, 2014 Author Share Posted October 24, 2014 The 99% complete Brake Van on the 99% complete diorama. 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
81A Oldoak Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 The 99% complete Brake Van on the 99% complete diorama. Very neat indeed. I like the spaced wriggly tin roof that mitigates the heating effect of direct sunlight, something I don't need to worry about on my Welsh layout. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 25, 2014 Author Share Posted October 25, 2014 For the British layout, the reason for the corrugated iron is to solve problems with roof leaks. For the Australian Layout, it is supposedly to shade the roof and make it cooler, but I don't know how effective this was in practice - have you ever been near a hot tin roof on an Australian Summer's day? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
81A Oldoak Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 For the British layout, the reason for the corrugated iron is to solve problems with roof leaks. For the Australian Layout, it is supposedly to shade the roof and make it cooler, but I don't know how effective this was in practice - have you ever been near a hot tin roof on an Australian Summer's day? I have been in NSW and Queensland in November and it was rather hot. The wriggly tin is supposed to get hot, with the air gap absorbing the heat. My late father's LWB Land Rover had what was described as a Safari Roof, which was a second false roof above the roof proper designed to provide an insulation gap from direct sunlight. I'm not really sure why he bought this extra item given that the only "foreign" country it ever visited was Wales, where the problem is not excessive sunshine and heat, but rain, and lots of it. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 25, 2014 Author Share Posted October 25, 2014 (edited) And I can now reveal the name of the diorama:HAZELWOOD - a portmanteau of Hazelgrove and Carlwood on the Tarana to Oberon Branch line. I got 3rd prize for this diorama, even though I hadn't dressed it up all nice for the show. It appears that the locomotive crew have nicked off for a smoko, probably having a brief snooze in the shed in between some construction duties. The Drop-side wagon is carrying a load of ballast for some other point on the line. It would seem that the track is recently renewed, being still fresh-sawn timber. Edited October 25, 2014 by hartleymartin 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 25, 2014 Author Share Posted October 25, 2014 Photos will follow in the next couple of days. From the Aus7 Forum: 1.) Badger Airbrush Model 350 - paid $8 for it. 2.) Most (about 90%) of the detailing parts from a Sevenscal Pug Kit, included the chassis etch, wheel-sets, and most importantly, the cross-head castings. Lots of lovely bits to detail both the 14" Barclay and perhaps make a start on something like a Neilson box tank. Paid $50, but I think it's closer to $100 worth of parts. 3.) 2SE Bogies and wheels to go under the SHG brake van. - not cheap, but certainly fantastic quality 4.) Signal Box Kit (Pre-fab concrete type, laser-cut card kit) 5.) Pre-fab Concrete platform facing kit. 6.) Water tank kit to go with Pc1 station 7.) Two styles of station seats - card kit. 8.) 3 back-issues of GOG Gazette for $2 each I might mention that the platform facing, station chairs and the Signal Box were obtained via the winnings from the Diorama competition, the first-place winner very graciously deciding to give his winnings over to the other winners to encourage them in modelling. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 27, 2014 Author Share Posted October 27, 2014 ModelOKits Signal Box in grey primer. I made a few blunders with the assembly (always double-check the instructions!) but with a few minor modifications I should be able to disguise my errors. It is the same type of kit as the Pc1 waiting shed on the diorama, but this time I tried using Zap-A-Gap medium CA instead of Weldbond PVA. In future, I will probably stick with the PVA (no pun intended) as it allows you a little more time to make corrections. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 27, 2014 Author Share Posted October 27, 2014 Just seeing this picture of the South Maitland Railways brake vans, I think perhaps I don't really need to change the colour of the existing brake van. Perhaps just a black roof, buffers and running gear? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
N15class Posted October 27, 2014 Share Posted October 27, 2014 I am surprised they painted the roof black as this absorbs the heat, one would of thought more reflective colour would of been more suitable. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
81A Oldoak Posted October 27, 2014 Share Posted October 27, 2014 I am surprised they painted the roof black as this absorbs the heat, one would of thought more reflective colour would of been more suitable. My thought precisely. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
flexible_coupling Posted October 27, 2014 Share Posted October 27, 2014 I did up the HO scale one I owned many years ago (remember Lloyd's Model Railways? Sigh...) in red.... quite fetching I reckon! https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5254/5420690075_664d165c17_z.jpg Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted October 29, 2014 Author Share Posted October 29, 2014 My theory is that most railways eventually started painting roofs black because of the constant rain of soot from the locomotive. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted December 9, 2014 Author Share Posted December 9, 2014 I'm still about. I just don't have modelling time in November-December due to the double-whammy of being hit by end-of-semester examinations then the busy Christmas season starting. The hazards of being a Student and a Church Organist! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted February 1, 2015 Author Share Posted February 1, 2015 After the Christmas hiatus on model railways, I began work on an NSWGR HG Guard's Van. Grey bits are from some stock of leftover castings from the last run of Waratah Models PHG kits, white bits are evergreen styrene and the tan-coloured bits are parts from the Slaters Midland Railway coach kits. The NSWGR practice with Guard's vans was somewhat unusual in that they almost always provided some passenger accommodation. This may be in case someone needed a lift on a goods train, or in some cases if there were livestock trains, the drovers (and their horses and dogs) would be carried on the train aswell. The HG was 21'2" long on a 12'0" wheelbase, could carry up to 4 tons of general goods and 10 passengers, not to forget the all-important Guard. These vans were introduced around 1899/1900 and continued in use into the 1960s, particularly on lines with steep gradients that required a light van. The Campbelltown-Camden line was one such haunt of these vans, where trains had to climb the ruling gradient of 1 in 19 on Kenny Hill. A typical train on this line might be one louvred van for milk and one passenger carriage or a short rake of coal hoppers with the HG Van on the back.Another line was the Yass Tramway, where the locomotive was operated by one man, and the HG vans were fitted with auto-couplers and transition drawgear. In NSW we introduced Automatic couplers in the 1920s, but it took more than 50 years to completely convert to them, so for a long time we had "transition links" which were essentially a small 3-link coupling, where the last link was a large D-shackle attached to the auto-coupler. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted February 1, 2015 Author Share Posted February 1, 2015 A little more work done on it. Just after this picture was taken I added the floor to the Guard's compartment to square it up. Those grey sides were bowing in by about 1.5mm so I decided to prop it out to shape before it became permanent. The inner ends have gone on. The scale ruler is there to settle a "debate" with a friend that the van was too short. Once the outer ends are added it will be the scale 21'2" long. Quite a few of the ideas about the construction are drawn from David Jenkinson's "Carriage Modelling Made Easy" - there being no tumblehome or "cut-in" in the sides makes it quite an easy subject to model by comparison! 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Dava Posted February 1, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 1, 2015 Useful to have a Guards van with a passenger compartment as you can run a minimal mixed train, I have a SLNCR Drovers van (Alpha graphics kit) for the same reason. Good to see 0 gauge modeling is happening faster in Sydney NSW than Sydney Cape Breton at present. I completed a box van over the holiday but yet to paint it. Dava 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted February 2, 2015 Author Share Posted February 2, 2015 I have to make up the window frames for the passenger compartment and add the external ends and then the body is basically complete and ready for it's primer coat. Primer always manages to show up any flaws which need to be corrected. The roof will be made in a manner similar to David Jenkinson's methods, but I have found that laminating balsa covered with paper works best instead of hunting down some exotic wood and having it milled to profile. With the long 12'0" wheelbase, it will have to be sprung or compensated. Experience with other NSWGR wagons has shown that anything up to a 10'0" wheelbase is fine rigid, but the longer 11'0" wheelbase of wagons such as the K, KF, U and RU wagons gets a bit unstable and anything above this is a nightmare to keep on the track without suspension. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hartleymartin Posted February 2, 2015 Author Share Posted February 2, 2015 (edited) And now I've managed to get some work done on a coach side. Presenting, what will be an Independant FR coach. For years I've pushed for the local manufacturers to go for Independant Coaches, ie, ones that were not normally made up into a set. The Independant FR was one such coach which could be found anywhere on the NSWGR. They could be used to add capacity to an express, or to a local train. There is even a picture of one of these on the Campbelltown-Camden line, traditionally considered the domain of the CCA and FO type end-platform carriages. Would you believe that this is made from 7 castings which have all be joined together? Edited February 2, 2015 by hartleymartin 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Mike Bellamy Posted February 2, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 2, 2015 Seeing that coach side reminds me of the San Juan coach sides that my friend Paul Martin sells and illustrated on the EDM Models site here http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/San_Juan/Coaches/coach_parts.html Three different sides and two different roofs plus lots of other coach parts that might help you as shown here http://www.sanjuancarco.com/on3-parts-and-miscellaneous/ . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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