Leaderboard

Making all the poles and fitting sockets for them has kept me going for a few weeks. Chilly weather and bad light slow it all down a bit. The poles are 3mm dia dowel sanded to about 2 mm dia at the top. I doubt I could drill a 3mm hole through the baseboard square enough to make the poles stand upright so I made some sockets from spare brass tube, 25 mm long with bits of wire soldered on. The bit across the bottom acts a stop but still lets any debris fall through. That lets me use a bit of greased dowel to set the socket upright, once happy its sitting square some glue can be dribbled down the sides to secure it. When set a bit of ground cover round it and the pole looks like its embedded, but can easily be removed if needs be. A photo of the poles ready for a coat of primer. You may well laugh at the finial on the one that will go by the station building. Well, I did say these are not any old telegraph poles, these are the telegraph poles of the Caledonian railway. The Caley did put finials on telegraph poles that were in obvious public view. Painting them all next.

These photos show you the progress so far on the loco body. The footplate is made of two layers for strength, both etched: a top layer of 0.25mm nickel silver and a bottom layer of 0.4mm phosphor-bronze. To enable fitting of the buffer beams and side valances, the p/b layer is smaller, and the underside of the n/s layer has a half-etched rebate around the outside. In this next photo you see the main etched parts fitted above the footplate, comprising the cab, smokebox front and splashers. There are a few missing etched details like the reversing lever and lamp irons, along with things like handrails and pipes that will be made separately. You can also see the boiler/firebox which is made from brass tube. I first turned it down on the lathe to leave the smokebox with slightly larger diameter, facing off the ends neatly as well. Then I cut the bottom of the smokebox off with the piercing saw. I also cut a slit across at the front of the firebox and back along the centre, before bending this roughly to shape with pliers. Next we see the boiler in place for test fitting. A lot of filing and fettling was needed to get it to fit in nicely. I had etched a transverse vertical piece in n/s to fit into a slot in the footplate and form the front of the firebox. However, I found that I had put the firebox front too far forward compared to the prototype, and had to modify both the position of the n/s front piece and the brass boiler. I filled in the resulting gap underneath the latter using an offcut of the same brass tube. The next photo shows the boiler/firebox soldered in place. The smokebox front is slightly larger diameter than the brass, so will need careful filing/sanding down to fit. Before soldering the boiler on I had soldered two 12BA nuts on to the top of the footplate at the front and rear, to hold the chassis fixing screws. The photo below shows the chassis held in place by these screws for test fitting, still with its jig ends attached.

As is my wont, I am batch building again, this time two GWR Metros (amongst other things). Another blast from the past: back in the day, M&L Leisure sold a discounted pack of 2 kits a couple of which I acquired. The 633 kit in the header photo became surplus to requirements but it has donated some of its contents to this (re)build of a Wills Metro - mainly the bunker - hence its inclusion in the header. The 850 is in the roundtoit pile These are the etches for the Rod Neep kit. The chassis has been built since this photo. They are dated 1986 But I am starting with rebuilding my Wills kit. The tank sides broke of from the front valance when I dismantled it. (can't remember when that was!) Edit: you can see that I've filed off the rivets on the right hand tank side to be replaced later. I srcatch built a new footplate based on the Neep one as a template and, having fitted the front and rear buffer beams, I then decided it needed some rivets which was a bit back to front: The Wills kit is designed around the extended later bunker so the ends needed shortening as marked on the pic Soldered to footplate with bunker plonked on to check along with the cab front in progress. Now to the boiler which needed rolling (this from Nickel Silver). Again the Neep kit providing a handy template Held in position with screws. In the meantime both the chassis completed, the guard irons being the last bit to be added. and chimney attached: Currently the chassis and wheels are in the paint shop before final assembly.

Eventually I've completed my take on Gloucester 85B resident 46526 using the excellent Bachmann model as a starting point. The DMR chimney has bedded in nicely on the smokebox. Pacific Models provided the source of the smokebox door number plate. A Fox Transfers 85B shed code plate transfer was applied as well. Usual weathering techniques using Tamiya NATO Black/Brown airbrushed for frame dirt. A dusting of NATO black was used on the boiler top and tender coal bunker sides as per prototype photos. Real coal was added to the tender and the cab roof buffed to give an element of wear and tear. Crew once more were a combination of the excellent Hornby and Dapol/Airfix figures painted with Vallejo acrylics. Detail painting and dry brushing using a mix of Vallejo and Citadel paints. The tender axle boxes and steps in particular. Overall a lovely project using a cheaply sourced second hand loco. Just need to add some lamps from Modelu now. One for the Forest of Dean Project representing that lost photo of 46526 taken at Bilson Junction by no other than Ben Ashworth. Or was it Jonty Jarvis and his trusty Thornton Pickard camera?

I have finished my little coastal village diorama (22x14,5 cm) The cobbled surface is a texture is from Smart Models. I liked the colour of this one for this diorama. With an embossing pen I scribed the individual cobble stones row by row and one by one. I did this free handed, looking carefully to the texture. Every day about 10 ten rows. The visible holes are for the figures. Next job is to paint them. After I had finished the cobbled quay I glued the cottages in place and made some doorsteps. Now I had to paint the figures. Painting is done with paints from the Citadel and Vallejo range. The scene is roughly inspired by a short story The Blood Stained Pavement a short story in The Thirteen Problems of Agathe Christie. And some storytelling to the diorama. Miss Oliver, the editor of the gets a telephone call from Dermot Craddock of the Middleshire Police. He tell her about a solved crime in a coastal village in Glenshire. Some disappearances of young woman, that were some major news in the past last years, were finally solved. With his information she took place behind her typewriter and wrote an article for the Gazette.” 1959 august 28 - Scotland Yard - The Gazette.pdf

Added a few bits of wire to represent the cabling that connects sections of third rail. I've no idea how prototypical it is, but it looks ok. Reference was from photos I took of actual track, or memory and from online images. I used the wire from inside sandwich bag ties, curved into visually pleasing arrangements then primed white and later dry brushed black and white. They are held in place with tiny beads of superglue.

The model world is awash with 'shunting planks', I know, but I hope my design might be of interest to a few readers, and maintaining this diary might spur me to keep working on the layout. The track plan (9'6" x 2'6") is thus: [PICT2209 DESTROYED] The red line denotes the boundary between the two levels. Inspired by a diagram by Iain Rice, I can claim no credit for the ideas. I am working on the lower layout at the moment: [PICT2204 DESTROYED] Below is before I started track-laying, with the upper (passenger station) board, 'Atherington Victoria', balanced on timber to give an idea of design. The boxes are where buildings will be - a warehouse and grain silos on the left, and a small station building (part) on the right end of the viaduct. Hope this all makes sense. The yard on the lower board, 'East Yard', will be a B.R. blue-era general goods yard, merging into a 'Speedlink' yard depending on the stock run, somewhere on the High Weald of the South Downs (Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead, Haywards Heath, Guildford). However, as I rather like boat trains, it might be 'moved' occasionally to the Sussex coast to allow an inter-regional portion to use the station. I will post more, when I get the hang of this 'blogging lark'. Thanks for reading.

As I mentioned in my previous blog posting, the splashers on the J17 kit were designed to accommodate the most steam-rollerish of flanges, being almost 4mm in diameter larger than scale. Well I've managed to take them back off the foot-plate. file them down to size and refit them. They look to be about .5mm too large now but I'm ok with a little extra clearance for the springing. Missing from the kit, but visible on the plans and photographs were the beading around the base of the splashers (which is also around the sandboxes when we get to them). This appears to be an L section and was added as two pieces of thin slim brass. It was fiddly but worth adding I think. It also had the advantage of helping to hide the gap where the new splasher is narrower than the original hole in the footplate. You'll notice that I've also solder the cosmetic piece of the mainframe which extends above the footplate between the splashers. This was obviously now too short to fill the gap. I've cut it as the gap will be hidden by the sandbox. Boy does my soldering look bad when magnified to this size! The belpair firebox will need some more drastic work though as there is now as enormous gap to fill. That fun is to come in the future. For now I'm just pleased to have moved forwards rather than backwards. the ride height is obviously wrong as there is no weight on the chassis at present. I did consider forgetting the brass splashers altogether and just 3D printing them and the sandboxes (I may still do the sandboxes as I did on the J20) but opted to stick with the brass for strength because of the limited thickness. David

Progress will initially appear exceedingly fast because I'm trying to catch up with this blog! But rest assured that I was doing this construction in about November over quite a few odd hours. First up, here is the tender chassis assembled. The spacers are 6.4mm PCB with gaps filed in on each side, soldered on using the jig described in the previous post. The horizontal one is set slightly below the top of the frames so that there is somewhere for the solder to attach on top. The extra axle hole is for the body pivot, which I have yet to fit. It's designed to take a standard muff on stub axles, and my plan is to glue the body to the muff so that it can pivot up and down, resting not on the tender chassis but on the loco so as to put more weight onto the driving wheels. The Simpson springs are evident - made in the time honoured way from unwinding old Farish coupling springs. I don't know where else you can get thin enough phosphor bronze wire. They're soldered into the lower pre-etched holes on the frames. The upper row of holes on the frames are for the brake rigging, which you see in the following photo along with the built up body. My etch included a jig for putting together the brakes - I'll try to take a photo when I come to doing the similar one on the loco. The brakes are removable and just spring into the frames. At the moment they're joined across by 0.3mm wire, but this will have to be cut in the middle for insulation purposes, and rejoined with some insulating sleeving. Here's a better view of the body. It was straightforward except for the coal rail "gussets" (which were a right fiddle) and the flare. There are some gaps that need filling at the base of the flare, both inside and outside, and also I need to try and fill the corners. I etched the corners as a "fan" of separate spikes, hoping to fill them with solder. But that didn't work and the solder just wanted to wick down onto the tender top. Hopefully Milliput will work better. I etched holes on the rear vertical corners to hold the handrails, but haven't attached them yet. The motor will fit inside the tender, and there is just room to squeeze a 7mm diameter can motor through the top. I'm hoping to squeeze a decoder in beside the motor and I think it should be possible. Not quite sure which yet. I unwittingly cut down the available space by etching a vertical support to hold the transverse coal rail that goes right down to the floor. I'm yet to attach the tender drawbar but there is a hole etched towards the front allowing for a screw for this. I haven't quite worked out how to make this rotate from side to side at the same time as transferring the tender weight to the loco, so I need to study other people's writings to see how they have done it.

Like a lot of my stash, this is like the fisherman's knife that's had 3 new blades and 2 new handles but still the same knife. I bought the Metro kit donkey's years ago and scratchbuilt a chassis in EM. Then swiftly moved to P4 and scratchbuilt a compensated P4 chassis. Then bought a new chassis and then bought an etched kit. The original EM chassis had Ultrascale wheels which the EM Gauge Society sold at the time. I recently put the EM wheels on the scratchbuilt P4 chassis to see if they would be usable and coxed around my P4 layout. Ultrascale wheels are nice and I was loathed not to use them. Scratchbuilt P4 chassis with EM wheels: Having satisfied myself that it might work, I thus embarked on another distraction of building not one but two Metros including rebuilding the whitemetal one. I have two chassis from the Rod Neep/Perseverance stable (the etch is dated 1986!). Herewith the second on my trusty Hobby Holidays jig. This one has twin beam compensation and dummy valve gear.

An opportunity presented itself to drag the baseboard outside yesterday and take some photos in the rather dull afternoon light. At last I feel some progress is being made, or in other words, what a difference a bit of ballasting makes! I took a few more photos to show how some of the areas are finally tying together after some further detail was added. Oooh look, ballast at last! This is my own somewhat unconventional technique since the ballast in the 1840s was all over with only the rails showing. This can be a bl**dy nightmare when it comes to keeping things clear enough for smooth running. A view under the bridge. The stables with the tall Greyhound in the background. The tannery, with a little more detail added and some 'bedding in'. The somewhat neglected back yard between the Greyhound and the Tannery.

Yesterday Plywood for the sleepers arrived all 4000 of them for plain track, plus strips for turnouts. My God, this now looks a daunting task to lay all those sleepers! Then this morning I got a knock on the door and found the arrival of the baseboard timber. As travelling to the nearest decent Timber Merchant would probably be against the current Covid rules I settled on ordering the plywood online. Initially I thought about using a supplier of laser cut base boards. I then decided against this due to the track plan having some subtle differences in levels. Finally found a supplier that would cut birch ply to any size I required. Below are the pieces of my baseboard jigsaw puzzle. My aim is to cut each piece for the ends, width and sides to the correct profile, then the longitudinal pieces will fit at one depth to brace the framework. The tops can then be cut to match the profiles and track bed with all the rises and falls. Baseboard construction will not start for a few days just to give the plywood chance to adjust to our house conditions. Well that’s my plan we’ll have to see if my carpentry skills are up to the task.

If you've not seen any news, 'lockdown' in the US has been a joke. Seeing the punchline, I've maintained spending time with a friend of mine. We watch anime, play video games, and build Gunpla. It's fun! Also, I'm 30. Make your judgements. I like to have a kit for building at my friend's house. I finished that last such kit on Sunday; I broadly need to improve my photography. This was a Bandai Master Grade 1/100 Gunner ZAKU Warrior Lunamaria Hawke. Kind of a mouthful. The rouge-pink comes from the last bit. These colors were a custom scheme for a character in the series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Lunamaria Hawke. I dig it, though. Like the gun, too. I have a taste for oversized weapons on giant robots. Always fun. The kit itself was a slightly simpler offering for a MG. Still has internal frame details like other MGs. It built like one of the older kits, though. With much improved fit & flex, though. No polycaps, either. Always a plus. I did start another kit, though I started it at home for my stream; Here we have the beginnings of a Bandai MG 1/100 RGZ-96C ReZEL Type C. No name, per se. It's not actually a 'Gundam.' Plot-wise, it was a much refined version of the Zeta Gundam - an orange example I've posted before. The ReZEL is also a transforming suit. And also garishly colored. Should be fun. We'll see.

Just playing with some Irish stuff.

Been a while since I have done one of these but the new layout is coming along nicely now as I hope you have been following in the videos in the Leith Central Thread of the Forum. The change in layout has been spurred by the arrival in April of a new small passenger at Leith Central but the layout will still be updated as and when time allows, The latest update looks at the start of the scenic work but I won't bore you with another how to pour scatter onto a baseboard. Instead id like to talk this time about the service I got from olivias trains in providing me with 08720 in Provincial livery. I first enquired about this around a year ago and they slowly work through doing a prototype seeing if the livery could be applied and just before christmas i finalised the number sizes for the loco and took delivery just after christmas. The fit and finish is up to factory standards and the attention to detail and correspondence to get it exactly how i wanted it was really good. I really recommend their repainting service. Take a look at the results in the video. Hopefully ill find time for a bigger blog soon.

During the second world war the need for a goods locomotive with wide route availability at a time of scarce raw materials and labour was to provide Bulleid with a challenge. He has already voiced his dislike of the Maunsell Q class 0-6-0 (appartently stating he would have cancelled the build if he had taken over as CME soon enough). Bulleid being Bulleid, looked away from usual convention in some areas and introduced the 40 strong Q1 class. It was a powerful, reliable loco with a large fire grate and considerably lighter, by 14tons, than a comparable engine with a wide route availability. The war time constraints including the need to be efficient with use of materials and keeping weight down resulted in the use of lighter lagging that would not allow the support of traditional boiler cladding resulting the very boxy appearance, a lack of a running plate and wheel splashers and the use of Bullied-Firth-Brown cast wheels. The Q1?s greatest weakness was its restricted braking power on unfitted goods trains often resulting in the need for a head of fitted wagons. I finished building C21, pictured below, (apt for this post being the 21stTalking Stock post) from a then Little Engines Kit (it is now available from South Eastern Finecast) just a couple of weeks before Hornby surprised most Southern modellers by announced their intention to produce one ready to Run. With a cast metal body and a Portescap motor this loco is like the prototype very powerful . As you can see Bullied also numbered these locos in accordance with their wheel arrangement as Cxx ie no bogie or pony axles and just three driving axles. So seen by some as an ugly duckling, with many derogatory nicknames but viewed by others as a curious and powerful, characteristic class; make your own mind up… This is an extract from my blog at www.grahammuz.com The full entry with additional text and pictures can be read here