Leaderboard

Earlier this year I came into possession of a Proscale Princess which was originally built by Alan Sibley. The model,46200 Princess Royal, was DC with a Portescap motor and I have converted it to DCC for use on Barrow Road - not strictly prototypical but I like the model. Alan obviously was sparing in his use of solder to assemble the kit as I had to re-attach a lot of small parts which fell off when I breathed on them!!! Hope you like the video 46200 Princess Royal

I made a brief video of the layout showing a few trains running. David

Southbound Freight passes Watford on the Up Slow Line. Harrow & Wealdstone looking south. Passing the Depot at Watford. North end at Watford looking south. Northbound Sleeper service and Freight exit the tunnels at Linslade. Approaching Harrow from the south. Must be the Peak hour, as the Stanmore Branch DMU is formed by a pair of Cravens 105s. The Widnes to North Wembley BOC Tankers head through Harrow on the Up Slow Line. A green liveried 40 plods south at Linslade. North and southbound Cement traffic passing at Harrow. A busy few moments at Harrow. North and southbound Parcels traffic pass on the Fast Lines while a northbound Freightliner passes a 304 heading south on a Birmingham to Euston (via Northampton) service. A Dagenham to Halewood working heads north alongside the canal at Linslade.

So on with the build, I'll keep the commentary to a minimum.. Resurrecting some elderly Tamiya XF-4 (Yellow Green) from the 1990's. White Tack to do the wavy camo line. Gloss Clear Coat (Tamiya X-22) applied. Chosen Decal Scheme (above) and applying the decals (below) Semi-gloss coat applied. First time using a metalliser paint on the drop tanks. Last bits ready to add. However the P-47D needed to get dirty first and another first - using a Flory Models Dark Dirt Wash for the first time.. I also applied the wash to remaining parts.. Final assembly and weathering begins. Finished and the final reveal (and the return of the Shackleton MR.3 Cameo) Till next time James

It's another shake and bake Armour kit from Tamiya and no it wasn't going to be green.. Box Art: Instruction's and chosen scheme (Winter Camo) - on the box, not in the instructions. What's in the box. The build, paint and weathering - she went together extremely quickly (no surprise there) The reveal photo's and the cameo of the next build (which by some quirk of fate, the first part of the blog entry is already up (oops). Till next time James

As hinted at in part 4, the decals were going so well and then it came to the wings and silvering appeared everywhere! After several days work and a lot of X-20A Thinners, I got rid of most of it. And finally the wings were glued in place and that's the way she sat for the next 5 weeks till work resumed.. Yep the dark dirt wash is back.. Props assembled and front undercarriage installed. Sitting on her undercarriage (and she's no tail sitter) Wheels on On her wheels Airfix to the rescue Props painted, nearly there. Ready for her final reveal.. And an out of this world cameo.. The final reveal.. And then there was three.. That's all for now (finally James

Further work on the buildings continues with the 'new' sand dryer building, which from aerial photos in my my possession was built in the late 1940s . I found a stock of old Formcraft bricks which I decided to use to build the front with it's pillars and use slaters english bond sheet for the remainder. On reflection this was probably not my best idea as it took rather longer to build than anticipated. My first attempt at adding 'sand' by using talc did not convince so I raided that grand daughters covered sand pit - with permission - a borrowed a cup full. Next building project is to clad the arches of Barrow Road with Wills coarse stone........

I’d actually lost the fence ‘wire’, but found it as I cleared the desk at the weekend so finally ticked off another job. The fiddle yard was landscaped as you can see a large part through the bridge arches. Fence needs a coat of paint and the red oxide doesn’t take well to the girders and the coaling station was recommissioned as well. Thanks for looking.

For several months I've been thinking that I just need to do a little bit more to the west end of the Camerton layout then I'll be able to post a new entry on the blog. Looking back at the previous entry (way back in February), though, I reckon I've made a fair bit of progress so it's well past time for an update. First an overall 'warts and all' photo where you can see the yard and, beyond the bridge, the station area is covered in modelling materials. I'm also beginning to make progress around the station but that will be a subject for a future entry. The third section beyond the station is still sitting in the garage in raw pink foam so it will be a while before I get any further at that end. The first major development was the completion of the road bridge, a 4mm plywood base covered with Scalescenes brick paper together with some home-made papers for the quoins and the large blue brick wall capping. I've also made a start on the road surfaces using chinchilla dust over a grey base but, as can be seen, much remains to be done here. The yard surface is mostly Carr's ash ballast. Other folk have commented on its dark colour even when the glue has dried. I reckon it looks fine for a wet day, but ash was typically much lighter when dry. To try to capture this I've been rubbing in grey and white powders to give plenty of variation across the area. The effect can be seen here though the appearance to the eye is closer to the lighter shades in the photos. Nevertheless, I think I need to do more as the real Camerton yard was probably a mix of ash and the local white lias and other limestones. Another development visible in the photos is the static grass cover with some clumps of hanging basket liner for rougher vegetation such as brambles. I've been quite pleased with the results that I've been getting from my home made grass machine. It struggles a bit with the longer fibres, but the overall effects are quite pleassing. I've been using blends from a range of grass colours and lengths, mostly Noch 'wild' and 'meadow' types in lengths from 1.5mm to 12mm, together with a few Mini-Natur 4.5 and 6mm types. The intention is that some of the surrounding areas are quite overgrown, but the GWR permanent way crew has been doing a good job of keeping the grass short adjacent to the lines and working areas. The entrance to the yard now has gates. These were made from sections of Ratio fencing with added hinges and other details together with carved wooden gate posts. There are few photos showing the original gates and none show any detail, but there is just enough to indicate they were similar to the yard gates at Monkton Combe which, fortunately, have been photographed more often. The gate photos above also give a good impression of perhaps the most time-consuming feature to be added so far, that is the fencing. The posts are all cut from 1.6mm square brass then blackened, painted and planted. The bit that took the time was making the typical GWR strainer posts at each end of a row of fencing and at strategic points along its length. These are such a characteristic part of the GWR lineside that I felt they had to be included. EZ Line was strung between the strainer posts then glued to each of the intermediate posts. Usually there were six or seven strands of wire in these fences, but I've left out the two lowest runs which would probably be hidden in the grass. The rail-based strainers are made from lengths of BGS bridge rail with all the necessary slots cut to aid bending and holes drilled to accept the wires. As supplied, the rail is a simple 'T' shape without the characteristic hollow profile of the prototype. Fortunately, at this scale the hollow underside is only visible in places, so can be represented by a simple cut with a razor saw. The next photo is just clear enough to show the details of an unused (and undrilled) example of the bracing pieces. There's much work still to do. More vegetation and a few trees, road surfaces, a yard crane, a corrugated hut on the platform, signals (which I'm working on), turnout operating units, tie bars and rodding, ... Finally, for now, a view through the bridge towards Hallatrow. Nick

Over the last couple of weeks I have managed to get the valve gear completed and also add some cosmetic pieces like the drain cocks and drain cock linkage and the balance weights on the wheels. I also managed to complete the tender chassis thanks to an order for the wheels from Alan Gibson (thanks Colin for the excellent service). The loco has done a few miles on my DCC Concepts rolling road (to which I added a 3D printed block to support the bogie, looks better than a pile of plywood!) There is a little clip on Youtube of it all running Given I'd never made Walschaerts valve gear before I'm pretty happy with how this has gone. The kit from Dave Bradwell has been great fun to put together, I've had a few problems (mostly of my own making) along the way and Dave has been incredibly patient and helpful via E-mail and the Scalefour forum. I've got some cosmetic pieces to do on the locomotive, the kit includes replacement brass footsteps and, of course, I have to take the whole lot apart again to paint... Many more hours of play-value. David

The next building on my list is the brick built shed next to the ash plant which I believe housed the plant control equipment. The model is made from plasticard with overlays of Slaters english bond brickwork. The ladder rom the ground to the roof of the building together with the longer one to the platform on the ash plant are scratchbuilt using 1mm x 0.3mm nickel silver strip whilst the steps are 0.45mm wire. The mortar course is a wash of black acrylic which is then sand back to leave the a nice finish for the bricks. Photo Copyright Robin Whittle Robin