Ian Smith

In order to try to rekindle a bit of modelling mojo, today I have been playing trains having a running session on Modbury. Whilst running a few trains, I also took the opportunity to video a few of the movements. After an hour or two of editing, the result has been uploaded to YouTube : Thanks for looking. Ian

Stephen, Yes, there are sliding covers within the framing on the lower body sides. If I do add limewash, I will have dribbles from the slats in the upper body and around the doors and also the sliding covers in the lower body. I have always assumed that the whole of the inside would be treated not just the lower half. Also, my assumption is that it would have been “splashed around” with something like a broom - indeed I have modelled a wheelbarrow of limewash with a broom leaning against it on my cattle dock! Because I mix my red shade, there is always a small variation within my wagon stock, which is further varied by weathering. The image containing the 4 plank wagon shows it to be fairly brown in digital format (it doesn’t look quite so brown in the flesh). Ian

Very little modelling has taken place over the last few months, but over the last couple of days (having seen Richard Brummit's post on his latest "Beetle" (diagram W4)) : I finally decided to do some work on the one that he so kindly gifted to me at the Portsmouth exhibition. On getting it home, I had already removed the 3-link coupling hooks that he had fitted so that I could replace them with DG couplings. In that guise it has happily traversed Modbury over the last couple of months or so. Below is a photo that I took at Portsmouth : The model as provided by Richard One of the things that I felt Richard's model lacked was any form of rain strips or cross strips on the roof. Having searched my library for photographs of the diagram W4, I really only found one dated in the late 1920's that showed the roof properly, and that had full length curved rain strips, however the diagram in Atkin's showed cross strips above where the side uprights were (similar to the contemporary W1, W5 and W3 cattle wagons). I therefore decided to put narrow strips of masking tape across the roof to represent these and then repainted the roof in a mucky grey colour. Unfortunately, as Richard had absolutely no idea what shade of "Red" that I dreamt up for my GWR Red wagons, the shade that he had chosen (whilst perfectly plausible and probably a better choice than my own) was somewhat at odds with my own rendition! With that in mind, I elected to mix up a little of my own colour and applied a wash of it to try to bring the red shade closer to the other red wagons on Modbury. Doing this also had the advantage of toning down the bright white of the transfers too. Finally, I attempted to weather the lower portions of the sides and ends (and underframe) with further washes of Precision Paints Frame Dirt and Humbrol 110. The following photos show the wagon at home on Modbury Vacuum cylinder side Non-vacuum cylinder side Finally a comparison with one of my dirtiest red wagons. Overall, I am really pleased with this addition to my goods fleet, and it makes an interesting addition to my cattle train - Thank you once again Richard!! The only thing that I am really unsure about is whether these "Beetle" cattle wagons would have received the lime wash disinfectant treatment that normal cattle wagons received until the 1920's. My assumption is that they would, but trying to find photographic evidence is proving tricky - therefore I will leave as is for now. Thanks for looking Ian

Thoroughly enjoyed the Portsmouth exhibition!! With just Steve and myself operating for the day, I don't think either of us managed to get a good look at the other exhibits. However, the short time I spent away from Modbury proved that the show was an excellent one with a variety of good quality layouts/scales on offer for the public. Unfortunately, within the first few minutes of running it was noticed that my Dean Goods had an intermittent short, so we had to deploy John Russell's somewhat out of period Collett Goods for the day, but it is such an excellent and reliable runner that we'd have run it anyway!! I didn't manage to take many photos of Modbury (and unfortunately none at all of Nigel Ashton's wonderful Drwys-y-Nant), but here are the few I managed : An overall view of the scenic section before the public were allowed in. Steam Railmotor just departing towards Newton Abbot. Once again, the SRM attracted a lot of interest and favourable comment. 517 tank in charge of a short cattle train departing Modbury. Prairie (later 45xx) draws a short Plymouth bound pick up goods over the embankment into the station. A closer view of Prairie and leading wagons of Down Goods train. Finally, fellow 2mm Association member and friend, Richard Brummitt, provided me with a surprise gift ... A rather beautiful "Beetle" - a diagram W4 Prize Cattle Wagon. Richard said that he took my artwork for the W1/W5 cattle wagon and amended it. I think that is a gross understatement as the only bits recognisable from my original work are the ends and the drop flap side door!! He has 3D printed the body, and "cobbled together" the running gear from various bits of etch. The result is simply stunning and to say that I am thrilled is an understatement - Thank you Richard!! Unfortunately, because Richard uses 3 link couplings (!!!!) on his stock I wasn't able to run it on the day as it will need a set of DG's fitting. Thank you for looking. Ian

Panic not Stephen. It’s only the last exhibition for this year. Currently, it should be at Loughborough and Swindon next year. Ian

Just a heads up. My train set, Modbury, will be making its last appearance of 2023 at the Portsmouth Model Railway exhibition on Saturday 18th November (Admiral Lord Nelson School on Dundas Lane, Portsmouth, PO3 5XT). Ian

Thank you. On my screen it's the same. The actual building has a footprint of 32mm x 24mm - I should have included a suitable coin of the realm in the photos 😆

Well, "Yeovil Pen Mill (South) Signal Box" is finished (apart from adding a nameplate), although "Yeovil Pen Mill (South) Signal Box" on a single plate won't fit the space available!! Therefore, I need to ask Laurie what he feels might be a suitable alternative - I can't remember ever seeing a signal box plate being shown that had two lines of wording (but then not many locations would have needed that anyway!!) Anyway, for now I'm not going to do anything. Anyway, the previous instalment left me with just detailing to do really. So in short, the interior has been dealt with - an instrument shelf added behind the front windows, an armchair added with a driver/fireman sitting in it having a conversation with the "bobby" who has a cup of tea in his hand. None of which is particularly visible even when the internal lighting is lit!! The down pipes have been added - from the poor photographic evidence we have I couldn't really tell where these were so I've put one near the front right corner and one near the rear left corner. The pipes themselves are bent up pieces of 0.5mm diameter nickel silver wire. The fixings are from a doubled up loop of thin copper wire, the ends of which being twisted together and the whole soldered in place on the pipe, the twisted tail then fits in a suitable hole in the wall/framing of the box (having first threaded on a small patch of 0.010" plasticard to represent a wooden block fixed to the wall to which the downpipe fixing could be screwed). Once fitted in place, the roof was offered up and any excess pipe carefully filed off so that the gap between gutter and top of pipe was minimal. With the interior detail added, the roof was permanently attached with canopy glue (used because it dries reasonably quickly but isn't as instant as superglue would be). Once dry, the flashing around the chimney stack was added and painted in light grey. One (of the many) details that we are unsure of is whether there was any sort of extension on the non-step end of the box - the large scale maps of Yeovil Pen Mill that Laurie shared with me seem to show that the box footprint was not a simple rectangle, but there was a (varying size, depending on the map) extension of some kind at the rear left corner. I elected to offer Laurie a choice (neither of which could be right!) of a small coal bunker or a wooden lean to privy/store. Both of which have a small peg on their bottoms which engage in a hole in the signal box base to provide a positive location. The coal bunker I constructed as a brick extension (although because the only embossed brick plasticard I have is English Bond, I had to make the walls 1.5mm thick so that the headers on the outside face would be sensible. I decided to give the bunker a corrugated roof. The privy/store was constructed to be a wooden construction rather like a shed (again with a corrugated roof). The door has 0.005" hinges fitted, and a latch handle from a bit of fine bent wire with a thumb lever from a flattened piece of the same. Finally, a few photos of the finished item ... Thanks for looking. Ian

Thanks Gerry. Yes, it is quite small - a footprint of 30mm x 24mm (1.25” x 1”). These small boxes are personal favourites of mine too, I much prefer the earlier small paned windows. This particular one being a “type 2”, which photographically seem to be quite rare (excepting the preserved one at Didcot). Ian

This post simply contains a couple of photos of Pen Mill signal box in its current state : The next task is to complete the interior of the box (instrument shelf mainly). The exterior still needs the safety bars fitting across the windows, and the down pipes from the guttering. Thanks for looking. Ian

Progress with the Pen Mill signal box seems pretty slow by my usual standard, not that I have a lack of enthusiasm, just life generally getting in the way! Anyway, progress is being made and this post will show where we're at ... We left the previous post with the ceiling (with gutters) and the hip roof having been formed. The two were united, then the process of slating the roof was attended to. I printed a grid of slate sized boxes onto a sheet of printer self adhesive label, then cut the grid up into strips of slates. What will be the exposed lower end of each slate was cut through so that each slat looked separate when the strip was stuck to the roof. The roof structure with the slate strips applied. The lead flashing between the facets of the roof is in the process of being added, having first glued lengths of 0.3mm brass wire along each joint. The lead flashing was prepared from more self adhesive label : The flashing being prepared by forming the roll-over over a length of 0.3mm brass wire by pressing down each side with a pair of tweezers. Once the roll-over had been formed, the length of adhesive label was cut to length and the excess at the corners trimmed of at 45 degrees. With that done, the backing was removed and the flashing stuck in place over the brass wires on the roof corners. Once complete, the whole was given an application of runny super glue to ensure that the slates and flashing were securely fixed together and to the plasticard roof underneath. When all was fully dry, the slates were painted overall in a mid-grey colour, with odd slates picked out in a slightly darker shade, and the flashing painted in a lighter grey. The outside of the gutters were painted in GWR Dark Stone, the soffits below the gutters painted in GWR Light Stone, and the inside of the gutters painted in Precision Paints Frame Dirt (although any generally mucky colour would have done!) The completed roof structure. I have since touched up the flashing in the near corner where I caught it with Dark Stone. The eagle eyed may have noticed that I put end caps on my guttering - these are simply bits of 0.005" plastic scraps that are cut to profile once fully dry. With the roof essentially finished (although I will put flashing around where the chimney stack protrudes through the bottom rows of slates once the roof is finally stuck in position), it was time to move the main structure on. The first thing was to paint the upper part of the box in the GWR Light & Dark Stone shades as appropriate : The painters have been in, and the glaziers have also started their work. Also evident is the small LED that I have fitted to illuminate the interior should Laurie ever want to. The LED is a particularly small one which supposedly runs off 12v (with a suitable resistor) which I purchased from some stand or other at an exhibition a few years ago. In order to fit it I had to drill firstly down the chimney stack then up into that hole from the locking room (forward planning would have been a godsend!!!), I elected to run the +ve lead down the corner of the room into the locking room as it was hard enough to thread the -ve lead down the small hole I had provided! It was originally my intention to form the windows as I had for my Modbury signal box - with frames cut from sticky label, but trying to cut the arches for the locking room windows proved particularly challenging as the label was apt to tear or fray as I tried to cut out the shape. I therefore decided to cut the frames from 0.005" plastic sheet which allowed very small slithers to be sliced off to correct the arc of the window frame tops. The glazing bars were formed by scrawking the bars on a sheet of thin cobex (from the Association), then covering the grid with white ink and once dry buffing off the excess on the panes with cotton buds. The frames were attached to the cobex with DLimonene which doesn't appear to have affected the transparency of the cobex at all. The following 4 photos show each aspect of the box now that the glaziers have finished and all of the windows have been fitted : The front of the box. As can be seen it is a warm day and the bobby has opened up all of his siding windows to let in a bit of fresh air. The reality is that my panes of glass were very marginally too narrow such that when the frames were set side by side the inner and outer frames did not overlap each other enough! The locking room door end. The door was simply formed by overlaying a fretted out 0.005" piece with the panels in on a 0.030" backing. The door knob is less than 0.5mm diameter (with a 0.3mm shaft that is glued in a hole in the door), and was a simple turning operation with files and a mini-drill. The rear of the box. The windows in this face of the box do have their frames cut from a self adhesive label as they were the first to be fitted. Having done the locking room window frames in 0.005" plastic sheet I elected to do the rest of the windows in the same fashion. The ladder end of the box. The upper storey door has a basis of thin cobex (glazing bars as per other windows), with a fret of door panels and window frame of 0.005" plastic sheet. The sign on the door is simply a piece of black painted 0.005" with edge and "writing" scratched in with a needle. Having reached the limit of photo upload, I will draw this post to a close. Thank you for looking. Ian

Apologies, you are quite right. I originally viewed the post on my phone (so the image was quite small). Looking again at a much larger image reveals that what I saw as a brass shade is indeed painted a brown colour. Being a post 1900 modeller I am used to seeing (or imagining I’m seeing) Indian Red frames, Iron Duke is clearly sporting a lighter brown rather than Indian red. Ian

First, May I also thank you for starting this thread and for the effort involved in your experiments. Secondly, the thing that jumped out at me with regard to the Iron Duke photo experiment is the tone of the frames - in colour they are clearly polished brass (as are the tops of the splashers), however when the filter is applied the splasher tops still look polished bare metal however the frames look completely different looking painted rather than bare metal! Ian

My thoughts regarding the size of the mounting plate is that the larger size was necessary because the coaches were originally built with oil lighting (a much larger fitting) requiring a larger hole in the roof, so converted coaches needed the bigger plate to cover said hole. Unfortunately, when I built my coaches in 2mm I neglected to notice this, so all of my gas lit coaches (all single pipe) have a small plate. There we’re a couple of articles by John Lewis in early BRJ’s on coach lighting. I will see if I can find them as I know there were drawings included. Ian

Steady progress on the Signal Box ... Firstly, the bank of levers have been assembled and painted : The left hand one is for the detonators, so really needs white chevrons on it - rather than trying to paint these on I may firstly try just scratching off the black paint to reveal the white plastic below! Secondly, the steps have been constructed and attached - well actually, they were built up in situ : First, the two side rails (stringers) were cut to shape (from 0.020") and attached, ensuring that they were vertical and parallel. Once these had fully dried, the treads were added from strips of 0.015" - to ensure that they were at a consistent spacing, short lengths of 0.040" square strip were used as spacers (as can be seen in the photo). Once the step was pretty dry, the next one up was cut and fitted. Needless to say this took a few hours overall as I wanted to make sure that the step below was secure before the next one up was added. Once all of the treads were in place and fully dry, the railings were added, firstly, the top and bottom newel posts were fixed in place (the bottom ones having had their tops cut diagonally at the same angle as the staircase), these and the handrail being formed from Evergreen 0.030" square strip. Once the posts were fully dry, the handrails were added, then the central posts were cut and fitted (again with their tops cut at the angle of the staircase). Finally, strips of 0.010" were fitted half way up the newel posts. The final bit of progress is the start that I've made on the roof. Firstly, a rectangle of 0.030" was cut to represent the soffits around the roof and also to provide a flat base plate to build the rest of the structure upon. Once happy that all of the edges were perpendicular, some little noggins of 0.040" square plastic were fitted to the underside which engage within the "ring beam" of woodwork forming the top framing of the windows. The guttering was then added using my normal method of gouging a 0.8mm round groove in the edge of some 0.030" plastic sheet. This is done with the non-fluted end of a 0.8mm drill in a pin chuck. Once the groove has been made, the sheet is turned over and a razor blade scraped along the edge of the sheet (where the groove is on the other side!) to form the underside of the guttering. Once happy, the guttering is cut from the sheet with a bit of land to allow fixing in place on the base plate. The roof "base plate" showing the pieces of 0.040" which engage snuggly within the "ring beam" of the main structure. Also evident is the underside of the guttering. The top side of the roof "base plate" showing the guttering in place. The roof base fitted in place on the main structure. The next task was to form the hip roof. This was cut from 0.030", and was surprisingly simple to execute (although I did mock it up in thin card first to make sure that my calculations of angles gave me the shape and size I wanted. Although I ended up with a hip roof of the correct height, when it was tested against the guttering on the base I discovered that it was very slightly too short (the guttering stuck out a bit too much on one end). Rather than re-making the guttering, I elected instead to lengthen the roof! This was accomplished by simply welding on a sheet of 0.015" onto the triangle at one end of the roof, and once dry cutting and sanding it flush. The next task will be to unite the hip roof to the roof base and guttering. Then I will cut some slate strips from sticky label and get those fitted. Then it will be painting the woodwork before finally making and fitting the doors and windows. Thanks for looking Ian