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About this blog

Things on the workbench, or gathering dust on the bookcase....

Entries in this blog

Loco Hauled Substitute 3 - First Class Hornby?

As I've mentioned before, in my teens a CJ Freezer article turned me into a modern image modeller , and I attempted a layout set in contemporary Lincolnshire: Ghosts opf Flaxboro'   Eventually the project foundered under many problems, but I hung onto the stock and over the years I've slowly been recycling the stuff as reasonable scale models.   In the photo contained therein, you can see an Airfix 31 heading two blue/grey vehicles entirely washed out by the flash awaiting de

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Ravenser in Constructional

A Boxing Post.

I don't think I've ever done a product review on here before, but here goes....   A fortnight ago I went to Railex. Most of my purchase list was 4mm stuff, even though I don't seem to have done any 4mm for about a year because of the N gauge project (which is why my annual review and resolutions post for 2023 hasn't happened). But the previous weekenmd I went to a local show - only my second show this year - and picked up the body of a Kirk Gresley 61' full brake for a quid. Everything

Message in a Bottle - 2022

I am very late with my annual review this year, even though a stub has been in draft for several months . But rather more has been done than might appear.   The 1:72 Fairey Battle took up much of my modelling activity in the last months of 2021. A full write up is here , and it has now recieved final painting (which needs writing up..). It is already a bookshelf ornament on its stand, and I still intend to build a simple runway diorama as a test piece, on which it could be posed.

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And Now For Something Different - Into Battle 2

We left the 1:72 Airfix Fairey Battle here . Actually that's a slightly generous interpretation because all I had managed to do was to assemble the two cockpit units  and fix them into one side of the fusilage. Several issues had already come to light, though.   Since then very substantial progress has been made: in fact the kit is now assembled and part painted.   By the standards of plastic kits in railway modelling, the assembly and fit of parts in Airfix kits is extremely

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Ravenser in Non-Railway

Contain Yourself - Assorted Conflats

I suppose it is inevitable that I would want railway containers to feature on the Boxfile. I've spent nearly all my working life involved with containerised seafreight, in one capacity or another, and in the 1950s railway containers were a significant part of British Railways freight traffic. Since it represents an urban goods depot, the Boxfile is heavily skewed towards van traffic and as I've said a couple of times recently my wagon fleet for the Boxfile is light in vans. So the remedy is obvi

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And Now For Something Different - Into Battle 1

Some years ago I was in a toyshop buying Christmas presents for young relations. While I was scanning the shelves I noticed an Airfix Gift Set in a large box marked down to the absurdly low price of 10 quid. (I think it had started off at around £30 and even that may have been somewhat below the list price.) For a tenner you were getting FOUR plastic aircraft kits in 1/72 scale. most of them interesting and unusual subjects, with acrylic paints, glue and brushes thrown in . That's an absurd £2.5

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Ravenser in Non-Railway

Loco Hauled Substitute - 2 : Opening up a Lima Mk1

As I noted here the two quickest wins amongst the possible coach projects were commissioning the Bachmann Mk1 BSK and upgrading the old Lima Mk1 SK - since those two projects didn't require me to do a complete paint job.    So upgrading the Lima Mk1 it was. And after getting a fair way with painting the SK  interior (along with all the other interiors) the penny dropped that I had two Replica TSO interiors in the coach box, and conversion to a TSO should therefore simply be a matter of

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Loco Hauled Substitute - 1 : Overview

In the latter years of BR a little bit of interest was added to the DMU deserts of secondary lines by emergency loco-hauled workings. By the 1980s the Modernisation Plan DMU fleet was dwindling and ageing, while both passenger traffic and passenger services had begun to increase again. Any depot that didn't keep on top of maintenance or saw its DMU fleet racked by some infirmity of old age could easily find itself short of sufficient serviceable DMUs to cover all diagrams . This was particularly

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Letter from Lockdown

My annual review and New Year's resolutions are a month late this year - which is rather better than I've managed in the last couple of years. Not only that, I can report that that the delay is due to Making Stuff, rather than as in previous years meaning to , but not actually doing it.   I'm not saying I'm completely cured of that. Despite my best resolutions, the amount of modelling I've actually done during various lockdowns , furlough and the like has been much  less than I intende

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Ravenser in Constructional

The Worst Diesel Locos in the World? - Part 3 Trials and Tribulations

We left the NBL 21 as a nearly finished bodyshell, here . The sticking point was the need to produce flush glazing for those large curved cab windows by hand.   Finishing the loco was my first big lockdown project and turned into a bit of a fight.   It wasn't really the glazing - like quite a few frightening jobs that didn't prove as bad as I feared. I had used the Shawplan window etches as a template for the shape, traced onto an old business card. (Before I glued the etches

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"What the Hell....."

I was trying to be systematic and focussed, and work on things in good order, but while I was hunting through boxes looking for bits for the 128 the packet of handrail knobs turned up in my DMU projects box...   As noted in my "programme" posting here, my attempt to press on with the long-stalled ex LNER Toad B (an elderly Parkside kit) stalled when I couldn't find the handrail knobs. Suddenly the brake van was back on the agenda. And as I worked steadily through the things I could see

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Waste Not, Want Not

I have to confess that I've slipped off the straight and narrow (no, I'm not modelling the Nullarbor Plain as 3'6" gauge...)    The plan was that I was going to systematically work through the litter of stalled unfinished projects on the bookcase, to clear the decks , clear my head , and achieve a maximum of result for a minimum of effort . No new projects!   However I've come off the wagon, fairly spectacularly..   There were two catalysts. Firstly, there was the e

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DC Kits 128 - "If you want any more, you must make it yourself.."

I know I promised a report on the final stages of the reworked NBL Type 2 , but a start has been made on the long- stalled Class 128 parcels unit , and it's getting a little frustrating...   This posting has been sitting in draft for four years with the optimistic stub "Progress on the 128 has been slow, but like BR we're getting there" Very slow indeed... . However on closer inspection I find I am in no sense entering into the home straight with this one   The project ground

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"Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life"

The last few months have been somewhat difficult. At about the time of my last posting, my elderly mother had a fall , and I went up to Lincolnshire on quite a few weekends after she was discharged. Then there was a second fall at the start of December, and then we discovered that her cancer was terminal. I spent a fortnight over Christmas / New Year up in Lincolnshire driving back and forth across the Wolds each afternoon to Lincoln hospital to see her: we finally managed to get her discharged

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Ravenser in Reflections

"Here's One I Made Earlier" - 2

The first part of this project was written up here PART 1 but it's now more or less finished.   And there's a picture to prove it.      As it was finished a while ago some of the details are now a bit hazy but here goes... One of the centre (first class!) compartments has been retained for staff riding and this gives a long and a short tool compartment in the rest of the vehicle. Kadees have been fitted (I think they were long) and a lot of time spent touching up,

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At The Dawn of Time - Chapter the Second

In which the Author maketh a prosperous Journey towards Penydarren in South Wales - where he suffers a sudden Misfortune which leaves him stranded upon a remote Shore...   It has been some time since my initial post on this model  Part 1  when all seemed so promising.   Now, like a message sent in a bottle by a castaway washed up years later on a distant beach I suppose I should write up further developments with what is currently a stalled model.   After much internal debate

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The Worst Diesel Locos in the World? - Part 2 "Paint Your Wagon"

After a brisk start , this project seems to have gone to sleep again.    Not quite true - in the last 10 days I've actually managed to paint the bodyshell, and matters now stand thus:         I see I have managed to capture the corner where one of the window pillars became damaged and had to be repaired. It looks much worse blown up to around 7mm scale. I also haven't removed the Maskol from the handrails   Transfers are Modelmaster (someone said

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Set 4 - Modernity on the Cheap: Part 4 - A Twist in the Tale

We left this saga a couple of months back with me finding that the NEM pockets on the Hachette Mk1 were way too high, and that I therefore couldn't couple it to anything. Pro tem the Coopercraft Tourist Brake 3rd was coupled to the Dapol LMS Stanier  Composite from Set 5 and pressed into service as an improvised set:   https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/21622-baby-deltic-released-to-traffic/   I don't seem to have written up the final rounds of my bitter

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"Here's one I made earlier"

Very many years ago, when James Callaghan was prime minister and I had not yet discovered that it was possible to make model railways without using steam engines, I had a GW/LMS joint branch line. Because those were the popular prototypes. I wasn't very old but I'd discovered the Railway Modeller, and I had a pannier tank and a Hornby GWR brake third. I wanted a longer GW train but not too long, so a plastic kit for a 4 wheel GW coach seemed a good idea.   This relic survived down the

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New Year's Resolutions, Part Umpteen...

It's that time of the year when I take stock and make a plan for the year - which then ignominously fails in the next 12 months.   Twelve months ago I decided I really would finish the Tourist Brake Third. And after a lot of struggle I actually managed it - though it still needs writing up here.   The Baby Deltic was another "promise to finish" - and lo and behold it's done. And written up.   There the good news stopped.   However I have recently managed t

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Ravenser in Reflections

The Worst Diesel Locos in the World? - Pt. 1 Concept and Body

It is fair to say that the North British Locomotive Company's attempt to move into the brave new world of modern traction was an ignominious failure. After six decades as one of the leading locomotive builders in Britain it attempted to enter the diesel era via a licencing deal with MAN of Germany; but the results of this push can be classified into two groups - failures and complete failures. NBL folded in April 1962 under the resultant weight of warranty claims and lack of new orders, its fina

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Retail Therapy

Last weekend but several was , of course, Warley. Feeling a little buoyant after completing the Baby Deltic I went with a list...   It was one of those occasions when you end up buying all sorts of things you didn't know you needed until you got to the show. And I didn't get some of the things I did know I needed.   But the result of all this is a number of new projects opening up so -   - The first cab off the rank is an attempt to follow the Baby Deltic by assembl

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Baby Deltic - Released to Traffic

After a good deal of last minute panic I now have a working Baby Deltic, and here is a picture of it on the rolling road to prove it:     The Mk2 stiffened chassis also developed bend, and I stiffened it with two short lengths of brass bar araldited in place. It is now rigid and more or less straight   Fortunately for me the Hornby Ringfield motor bogie I had in stock is the final Chinese-made 5 pole unit with 8 wheel pickup. Not only does this pick up better and r

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Ravenser in Constructional

Baby Needs Some New Shoes

One of the "benefits" of a blog is that it records just how long certain projects have actually been stalled.   This is a case in point - behold I bring you the world's slowest quickie loco kit! http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-14093-baby-deltic-1/   The Silver Fox Baby Deltic has been stalled and lying in the paint-drying box for a horrifying 4 and a bit years....   I am at least now making some progress   One issue was highlighted here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/

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Payment on Account

I haven't updated the blog for rather a long time. The truth is that I've been rather quiet on the modelling front - but a bit less quiet than it appears.   Now the prospective exhibition booking has slipped into next year, I'm suddenly feeling a bit disinhibited. All the things I couldn't really work on because they weren't relevant to a BR Blue period I can now work on again. So.…   Some progress has been made on the wretched Coopercraft Tourist Brake Third this year. Unfortunately it is

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