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pete_mcfarlane

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Blog Entries posted by pete_mcfarlane

  1. pete_mcfarlane
    I'm slowly building the David Geen E83 Toplight brake composite, the last vehicle I need for the set of 1930s GWR through coaches to serve by one day to be built ex-SER branchline. The sides were a bit fiddly to put together, but include all of the good feature you want in a kit, including the door hinges etched as a single component per door, corridor handrail spacers and separate droplights.
     
    I've deviated slightly from the instructions and have assembled the basic body before adding the end detail. I'm not 100% satisfied with the joins betweens side and end, but some filler should hide most of the 0.2mm or so gaps.

     
    At the same time I've been building this D&S LSWR long horse box. It's one of the recently produced batch sold by Brasmasters. I built the short version about 10 years ago, and this went together in a similar way with no real problems. Unlike the 16' box I managed to get all of the brake gear in place - either I've got better at soldering or the extra wheelbase gives more room to solder. It's waiting the last few whitemetal castings.

     
    I've also been working on a few odd projects. The Parkside GWR Horsebox is a Parkside kit - I replaced or thinned down the over thick footsteps, and fitted MJT sprung buffers. But otherwise it's as per the kit. Unlike the vehicle next to it, which started out as a Ratio BR Banana van. It now has a new 9' underframe using MJT parts and ABS brake gear and represents a LMS meat van. The body hasn't needed altering.

     
    I've also detailed a pair of the recent Bachmann SR brakevans These are the left hand ducket variety, which for reasons unknown have the stove chimney on the wrong side. This was removed and a replacement made from plastic rod. The axleboxes were modified, as the real thing has a wider sloping front different type to the plate front examples on the Bachmann model (I don't think many of the real thing had this type - possibly they used an atypical preserved example as a base?). This was done by adding plastic strip to either side of the existing box, and then filing the front at an angle. I fitted the brake loops, but not the strangely shaped brake shoe linkages, fitting simple plastic rod replacements instead. Bachmann having cranked theirs, presumably to clear the couplers.

     
    Lastly, and right at the end of my time period is one of the early COV AB airbraked vans. Another Bachmann model, with minor detailing using Shawpan brake pipes. Like the brakevans this will have minor touching up rather than a full repaint.

     
    April should see more work on the Toplight, a Branchlines SER luggage van and hopefully some of these models getting painted.
  2. pete_mcfarlane
    The D&S etched Chatham six wheel coach featured a few blogs earlier is now finished. The lining isn't the greatest, but it's all my own work. The yellow is Valejo acrylic applied with a cheap ruling pen, the black is a 0.1mm fibre tipped drawing pen. Lettering by HMRS pressfix and the Smoking signs in the windows are from a Fox sheet of SECR coach lettering.

    I could do with another of these, and a SER birdcage brake van to replicate a typical branchline train of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
     
    Some more wagons have been finished. Firstly a Slater's Midland cattle wagon, and a 51L Midland long low.

    The cattle wagon was a straightforward built, with only the buffers needing replacing (with MJT cast ones). The 51L long low has been covered in a previous post, and turned out quite well when painted. I think I'll do a few more 51L wagons in future, although they tend to be of fairly obscure pre-grouping types unlikely to be found on the Southern.
     
    I've also finished this trio of ABS unfitted LMS vans. These were built from the kit with only minor alterations - etched v hangers, MJT inside bearing compensation units (as I can never build the chassis quite straight) and a metal roof.

     
    And on to some works in progress. These two brake vans only need a few lamp irons and handrails before they are finished.

    The left hand one is by Cambrian and is the 15 ton version of the standard Southern van. I've tried to build the 25 ton version of this kit twice in the past, and could never get the chassis straight and level. This kit has the advantage of separate axleboxes, so you can remove the bearings and file the holes slightly to adjust things until it sits level. Once that was done, the rest of the kit was easy,
     
    The LBSC Billington six wheel van is from Fincecast and has been a long time lurker on my work bench, mainly because it's a truly awful kit. It took a lot of work to get the body square, and a new chassis using MJT compoents (and 51L LMS axleboxes, which are nearly right). Even now it's not quite accurate.
     
    And finally a glimpse of the David Geen toplight. The sides have been folded to shape, and the bollections (which are separate etches) soldered in place around the windows. Luckily I've not had the time to do anything on it for the last week, so looking at it afresh there are a few mouldings not quite soldered in place correctly. A bit of cleaning up is needed before I continue. So far I'm impressed with the quality of the etches.

  3. pete_mcfarlane
    I've been busy with other things during the last month, mainly work and stage managing an amateur pantomime (oh no you haven't....), so it's come as a surprise how much I've managed to get done.
     
    This is a 51L kit for a Midland long low wagon. It's the first time I've built a complete kit from this source, and it was rather good (although the fiddly etched brake gear was, well a bit fiddly). Apart from using some thicker Evergreen planked styrene for the floor, it's been built exactly as per the kit. And it's not often I do that.

    Next is a LNER D.120 'Pigeon van'. I bought this from D&S at the Doncaster show in 2003, which must have been quite soon before D&S stopped selling 4mm kits. It's been lurking in my 'to do' pile every since, but I enjoyed building the LCDR coach so much I decided to dig it out and build it.

    It went together well, except for the roof. This was vacuum formed, and wasn't a close match for the actual shape. It now has a solid laminated core of plasticard to hold t to shape. And after much cursing ans swearing it is now the right shape. It is red, because it's had several coats of Halford's red primer to allow me to spot all of the dents and distortions, and then fill them.
     
    Luckily a few D&S 4mm kits are available again, and I've got a LSWR Horsebox in my to do pile. Hopefully that won't have to wait 10 years to be built.
     
    The next model to be tackled comes with the option of paying an extra £12 for a resin roof. It's a David Geen GWR Toplight brake composite - the last vehicle for my rake of 1930s GWR through coaches. The roof put the total cost up to £82, so these aren't cheap but first impressions are very good. Luckily I only need one, but a complete rake of these would be a bit expensive.

    I should be able to post some progress soon - the plan is to finish it in time for Hornby announcing an RTR one in December.
  4. pete_mcfarlane
    I've not had much time to spend on modelling over the last few months, so I've concentrated on wagons. These are a lot easier to work on in small doses, and this has allowed me to finished quite a lot of models that have been lurking half finished or in the pile of unbuilt kits.
     
    These two SECR vans are from the Cambrian kit. I didn't like the axlebox mouldings or buffers, so these were replaced with MJT and ABS parts respectively. I had to keep the plastic brake gear as I couldn't find a suitable replacement for the 9'9" lift link gear on these wagons.

     
    The two meat vans are now finished - a Chivers SR van (l) and a David Geen LSWR refrigerated van ®. These are in the Southern's stone livery and finished in 1930s condition. As with the other Southern wagons the transfers are from HMRS. The David Geen kit took ages because of the fiddly brake gear, but the Chivers van was a doddle. I've now got another one of eBay to do.

    A long time lurker is this Bachmann LNER brake van in 1960s condition (when brake vans were common user and LMS and LNER vans could turn up on the Southern - GWR vans were apparently not liked).
     
    Bachmann's LNER van is basically a BR one with different foot boards, but none of the other detail differences. I did most of the work a few years ago (it's in one of the previous blog posts), but from memory the work involved replacing the axleboxes with LNER ones from MJT, new brake gear to replace the BR van type brake shows and replacement inner ends with no windows in the door (from an old Dapol kit, suitably modified). It also had new ventilators, flush glazing the hard way (from clear plastic sheet cut to shape) and plenty of reinforcing under the chassis when it started to go banana shaped. A lot of work, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

     
    The Cambrian 'Dance Hall' from the previous post is now finished. It's based on a photo of one of these vans in a recent issue of the 'Southern Way' which shows a van in black with red ends (presumably a war time livery). The 'Not to work between Tonbridge and West St Leonards via Battle' boars don't seem to be available as transfers so are currently a few crude blobs of paint. This doesn't look too bad on the finished model - I've not been able to find any suitable transfers.

     
    The Parkside GWR open is now done - not much to comment on this over the previous post, except that I managed to secure the sheet rail properly by super-glueing it to the ends. This made it a lot more secure compared to the original way of mounting it.

     
    And lastly, two ABS kits. An early LMS fitted van and an unfitted LNER 5 plank open. Both have been built pretty much as indented, except for the fitting of an MJT inside bearing compensation unit. I do this with all ABS wagons as it avoids the need to get the sides (which have the axleboxes cast integrally) exactly parallel when assembling the body. I can only manage to get the bodies about 99% square, so this is a simple cheat!

  5. pete_mcfarlane
    I bought this at the Doncaster show in either 1999 or 2000 - I'm not sure which, but it was soon after it came out. It's very much been at the back of the 'to do' pile ever since, and Bachmann have even bought out an RTR version in the meantime.
     
    Brief details of the build;
    DC Kits plastic kit - I used the plastic mouldings but ditched the detailing components as they weren't up to the standard I was after.
    Black beetle motor bogie.
    Underframe detail is a mix of Southern Pride, NNK and scratchbuilt. These units had 1951 type control gear, which isn't covered by the Southern Pride plastic underframe kit.
    Roof detail from guitar wire and SP turned lamp tops.
    End jumpers from MJT.
    NNK etched window frames.

    Since I don't have a layout at the moment, here's a couple of photos of it on my hi-tech photo display stand (which happens to look a bit like an ironing board).

    Overall I'm quite happy with this, even though Bachmann got their one out before I'd finished it.
  6. pete_mcfarlane
    I've finally finished building the David Geen LSWR refrigerator van that I bought at Scalefourum in 2008. I'm afraid that in my excitement the photo came out a little blury.

    This was a nice kit, but suffered from poor etched brake gear - most of this was replaced by MJT brake shoes and various bits off a mainly trains etch. I also added a thicker roof - the curved bit of plasticard supplied was too think for the very thick roofs on these vehicles.
     
    One nice feature of the etch was the fold up ladder - you fold up the sides and solder 0.33mm wire through the holes to represent the rungs.
     
    This will be painted in SR stone livery, in 1930s condition, Like previous David Geen wagons, a bit of a mixed bag but one that turned out OK in the end. I've got one of his GWR Toplight brakes in my to do pile, to finish of my rake of through coaches from the GWR. That looks very nice.
     
    I've also built this Cambrian SR 'Dance hall' brake van. The Cambrian kit represents the vans built after 1923 by the Southern, rather than the earlier SECR variety with a shallower underframe.

    It wasn't the easiest kit to build, as my first attempt ended up with the body not quite central on the underframe. After some careful dismantling with a scalpel it was reassembled correctly.
     
    I replaced the strange looking moulded plastic buffers with some more accurate ABS cast ones. I also fitted a MJT inside bearing compensation unit (as I couldn't get the chassis completely level) and used their cast brake shows instead of the slightly crude plastic ones.
     
    I also fitted Finecast etched lamp irons - the ones on the roof supports are less prominent than they should be, but hopefully a bit more robust.
  7. pete_mcfarlane
    I've not done much modelling over the summer, mainly due to being busy at work. But recently I'd finished off a few projects, and attacked my pile of unbuilt kits
     
    This plywood shockvan is a Red Panda kit bought off eBay, although they now seem to be back in to production again. It's been painted but unlettered for a while, so a burst of activity saw it finished.

    The later shock wagon square markings were done using the white lines that come on the HMRS wagon transfer sheet. These were used to form squares which were in-filled with white paint. The stripes on the end were hand painted - the ends are so filthy they hardly show.
     
    Another long term workbench resident was this Slater's MR van - a pretty standard build of the kit, with ABS buffers and brake gear. It had a spot of extra rivet detail added from plasticard scraps.

     
    Two more lurkers are the Parkside GWR open (left), and a David Geen LSWR meat van (right).The Parkside open was built straight from the kit as a fitted diagram O15 with sheet bar. The Achilles heel of this kit is the sheet rail - it relies on a flimsy plastic moulding at each end, and I've broken both ends during painting. It's currently being stuck together with superglue and will have a tarpaulin fitted to give it extra strength.
     
    The Geen LSWR van has featured in this blog before (a long time ago). It's a nice whitemetal kit, but I struggled with the brake gear - I found the etched components too flimsy to I substituted MJT brake shooes and parts from a Mainly Trains etch. After several years of being banished to a box it's progressing slowly again, but still isn't finished.
     
    The middle vehicle is a Chiver's SR meat van. This was bought off eBay a couple of years ago and built over a week and a half - I found it very straightforward to build although the ends were a bit flimsy and easy to bend if you are cackhanded like me....
     
    I did replace the etched brake gear with some more robust looking ABS parts. Both meat vans will be finished in SR livery.
     
    Another EBay purchase is this D&S Chatham third. It cost me £30 about a year ago, which goes to show that these kits don't always go for stupid money. A very simple build, like most of the the D&S kits I've built.

    Built as per the kit instructions, with some extra detail to represent an electrically lit example (as best as I could, given a lack of decent photos). It's based on a loose Third that lurked as a strengthening vehicle on the Hythe branch in the early 1930s, and judging by the R W Kidner photo of it at Sandgate ,was probably best avoided if it turned up in your train.
     
    If I can track down another of these vehicles, they'll go quite nicely with a Branchlines brake and a suitable ex-SER loco. There's a lovely photo of a SER B class, two Chatham 6 wheel coaches and a SER brake at Dungeness in the 1920s I'd like to replicate in model form one day....
  8. pete_mcfarlane
    Progress slowed over the Summer and Autumn, mainly due to me being busy at work. But I have managed to finish the E2, which has been lurking part finished in my box of abandoned projects since the late 1990s.

    To recap, this is a stretched and lowered Hornby body on a scratchbuilt chassis. It runs very well, which isn't bad for my first scratchbuilt chassis. As you'd expect for a model that's been worked on for years, it's not quite up to my current standards in places, but I'm very pleased with it. And it looks like an E2, unlike the Hornby original which looks dumpy by comparison.
     
    I'd quite like one of the extended tank E2s, but I'm not sure if I can face building another one this way. It was very hard work!
     
    Also based on a Hornby RTR model is this M7. Unlike the E2 this modern model required next to no work at all - the main additions were the buffers (Gibson sprung ones to replace the weird Hornby originals), new screw couplings, and a renumber as Brighton's 30055. The various end pipes were from the detailing kit that came with it. The trickiest bit was curing a spot of distortion at the front end, where the Chinese lady in the factory didn't stick it together properly. This required a spot of Mek Pak to put right.

    It's weathered as per photos of the real thing which show that the boilers got quite dirty, but the tanks sides were kept fairly clean by the shed cleaners. This was done with thinned Valejo acrylic paints and a paintbrush.
     
    I must finish my Maunsell pull-push set to go with it.
  9. pete_mcfarlane
    This was going to be a quickie - back in March. Now 8 months later one of the shunters is finished.

    It wasn't even repainted - just some touching up, followed by new numbers (of the 'wrong' type for this livery as per the prototype) and a spot of weathering. The glazing was cut by hand from plastic sheet, and looks very good, but was a real pain. I ended up doing one window an evening over about two weeks.
     
    It looks pretty good in my opinion. The 03 is still not ready for painting.....
  10. pete_mcfarlane
    The T1 is now painted, lined and lettered. It's slowly having detailed added - mostly stuff that would have been in the way whilst I lined it, such as the clack valves, tank fillers, whistle etc. The lettering is by HMRS, I also cheated and used their boiler bands.
     
    This photo shows the current state of play - sorry about the workbench clutter!

    The next step will be to weather it - then fit the handrails.
     
    The E2 is ready for priming - the last few days have seen endless pipes added under the footplate As I mentioned before, I struggled to find multiple pictures of the same loco in BR condition. So it's been done from several different photos of different engines, and isn't guaranteed to be 100% accurate (given that a lot of the pipework looks distinctly home made, especially the vacuum and heat pipes, which are later additions).

    It now looks very much like an E2, in a way that the Hornby original never did. It will have a coat of primer in the next couple of days, and then I'll see all of the imperfections, lumps of glue, dodgy filler etc.
  11. pete_mcfarlane
    The E2 is coming along nicely - I'm currently working on the replacement steps.
    It also now has the Westinghouse pump, and a lot of the pipe work that Brighton locos seemed to be cover with at the end of their lives. I've also fitted the brake gear, using a Mainly trains etch. Still to do are the buffer beam fittings and the pipe work under the footplate. It should be ready for painting in a few weeks, but now finally looks like an E2.
     
    The T1 is mostly painted and lined. This was my first attempt at lining by hand, using acrylics and a cheap Jakar ruling pen. It's not perfect, and will benefit from some more tidying up before I add transfers and the remaining fittings.

    The real E75 was in a grubby state when H C Casserley took the photographs I'm working from in 1930, so the weathering should hide any imperfections in the lining. Not so filthy that you'd write a letter of complaint to the Times when it showed up to work your train, but it clearly hadn't been cleaned for several weeks.
  12. pete_mcfarlane
    The detailed 04 has been on the back burner for a while, whilst I work on my 2012 Challenge entry, but a burst of activity tonight saw it ready for painting.

    Since the last update it has been given the extra Southern region marker lights, and various other small details. The airtanks under the footplate were replaced by some larger ones made from evergreen tube, and the various front and rear end clutter added (including extra handrails, and the rackets that hold shunting poles).
     
    Now ready for some touching up and transfers.
  13. pete_mcfarlane
    Firstly, I'll apologise for the slightly dodgy photo, showing the clutter of my work table. This is the current state of progress with my much modified Hornby E2. It now has buffer beams, buffers, and handrails. Various bits of beading have been added from Evergreen plastic strip, and and smokebox door fitted. The latter is from Mainly trains and was intended for a GWR 14XX tank.
     
    Progress is very slow, but steady. This might get finished at some point in 2012. Since taking the photo I've fitted a Westinghouse pump (a very nice cast whitemetal one, which I think came from D&P models).
     
    One of the big problems I found with this project was a lack of decent photos of the first 5 E2s. Most of the available photos of this class seem to be of the last 5, with the extended tanks. I'm mainly working from a photos of 32100 at Stewart's Lane in the early 1960s, so this is likely to end up as 32100. I'd like one of the extended tank batch as well, but I'm not modifying another Hornby model in a hurry.
  14. pete_mcfarlane
    The T1 is now mostly complete. There's still a few details to be added to the chassis, and I'm in the process of assembling a cab interior out of plasticard. This is partly guesswork, being based on some slightly murky photos of T1s the show parts of the cab and some photos of the cab of the preserved O2. I'm guessing there's some similarities, since they are both Adams locos. Photos of the ca to follow when it's done.
     
    This is the current state of the loco.

    The main hold up was getting the dome to sit correctly. This took a lot of milliput, and sanding down, to get it correct.
     
    I'm not completely sure about the brake rodding. It's a bit flimsy, surprising given how robust the rest of the chassis was.
     
    The rest of the details - handrails, cab fillers, whistle etc will be fitted after painting.
  15. pete_mcfarlane
    The T1 can move under it's own power. After the problems with the chassis on the J, it was something of a relief that it needed very little adjustment to run smoothly. Just some tweaking of the bogie pivots and some slight enlarging of the cutouts for the bogie wheels. The pickups are a bit non-standard due to the odd design of the chassis - a piece of PCB was bolted to the top of full length frame spacer between the frames. The do work.
     

    The main castings have now been added. I'm battling the base of the dome with filler to get it reasonably smooth. It wasn't the best casting ever.
     

    The inside of the cab, showing how far back the flywheel projects. I think the backhead will need to be slightly further back than it should be to hide this.
     
    And lastly, a quick update on the E2. It now has the correct smokebox saddle/cylinder covers, and I'm working on the tank top beading. The cab openings have been enlarged, and the tops of the tank and bunker adjusted to match the real thing. Why Hornby got these wrong I don't know - they are nothing to do with the dimensional compromises needed to fit their standard chassis.

  16. pete_mcfarlane
    I've finally taken some decent photos of the Chiver J class, in all it's late 1940s grottyness.




     
    I've also done some more work on the T1. Friday afternoon was spent constructing a replacement bogie out of nickel silver. I decided that the lump of whitemetal provided with the kit wasn't worth bothering with.

    The new bogie supports the rear end of the loco in a way unknown to the designers of 0-4-4T kits in the early 1980s. I had a good read of an Iain Rice article in an early MRJ, which whilst intended for a full compensated chassis is still relevant. The bogie slides in a slot to give it a decent amount of sideplay, which also involved enlarging the frame cut outs to clear the wheels (odd, considering this is designed for 1980s OO wheels with huge flanges running round train set curves). I've yet to experiment with side control springing - this can wait until pickups are fitted.
     
    All of the soldering on the body is now complete. I added a fair bit of extra detail, and then took a nice long shot so you can't see most of it. There are injectors under the cab, buffer beam detail and various other odds and ends. No steam pipes are fitted, as I'm basing this on photos of E75 taken in August 1930.

    I'm now fitting the castings. These need a fair amount of work to clean them up- most of them should be usable, but they aren't the greatest I've ever seen..
  17. pete_mcfarlane
    A trip to the local Sorting Office after work on Friday resulted in a parcel from Branchlines. The E2 chassis now has a Mashima 1220 motor and 67:1 Branchlines Multibox two stage gearbox. It drives the rear axle under the cab, and the gearbox needed a fair amount of it's sides removing to fit (and not be visible). I also had to reduce the thickness of the moulded backhead.
     
    It's pictured on my hi-tech loco test facility - none of this rolling road nonsense for my locos.
     
    This is the current state of play with the T1.

    It has a proper cab floor and front cab bulkhead, since the cab won't be full of motor, some Gibson LSWR buffers and various bits of beading attached. My fingers survived this quite well.
     
    The biggest problem were the etched coal rails - the needed shortening to fit. They weren't the easiest of components to modify with a file. Other than that it all went together with no major problems.
     
    You can also see my dodgy soldering - this wont show when it's painted......
  18. pete_mcfarlane
    A further couple of evening's work saw the boiler assembled and soldered in to place. The boiler and smokebox wrapper needed some slight adjustments to the correct shape (careful bending with fingers...) and the boiler had about .75mm filed off at the cab end to enable it to fit without pushing the front of the footplate down and out of alignment.

    It's still nowhere near finished, but I couldn't resist balancing the castings in place to get a rough idea of what it will look like.

  19. pete_mcfarlane
    Saturday was spent soldering up the T1, an these photos show how far I got:


    It was a lot easier than I epxetced. I made one modification to the body - E75 (the loco I'm modelling) had a flat top to it's cab cutouts. The kit is for the batches with an arched top, so this was adjusted with needle files. I also found that the bunker rear was too high, so it was cut down to fit - I suppose it's better to spend a few minutes with a file than finding that it was too small and having to make a replacement part.
     
    The chassis needs a bit more work than the body. These are the frames.

    A bit basic - so I'm making two modifications. Firstly, I had some Alan Gibson cast springs for the E2 project. I'll order some more for the T1 - they aren't quite correct, but will do.
    The second modification is to fill the visible part of the motor cut out with brass strip, since I'm not planning on using the Airfix 1001 motor the kit is designed around.
    The only real problem I found with the chassis was the slightly odd construction - a single continuous frame spacer sits at the bottom between the two frames and is located by various tabs and vertical pieces at the ends. Or do if the tabs aligned up with the holes in the side frames. I cut it in to two sections to get it to fit.

    I'm now waiting for a set of Gibson driving wheels. I also have to work out what to do with the bogie - the kit comes with a lump of whitemetal, and is essentially an 0-4-0 with a loosely attached bogie flopping around behind it. Apparently that's how they used to do things
  20. pete_mcfarlane
    The J is done bar some touching up of the paint. When this is done I'll take some decent photos and upload them
     
    I've (foolishly) decided to scratchbuild an LBSC I4 for the 2012 challenge. http://www.rmweb.co....-atlantic-tank/
     
    This lead me to dig out my one and only previous attempt at scratchbuilding a loco chassis in 4mm scale. It's incomplete and has been lurking in my box of half finished projects for about 4 years. I had trouble finding a suitable motor and gearbox to fit, due my liking for flywheels and dislike of small open frame motors.

    I've decided to get it finished, before staring on the I4 chassis. After a couple of hours with the Branchlines motor and gearbox data sheet/price list I reckon one of their multiboxes will do, so one is on order.
     
    The frames were drilled out using a hand held drill. Despite this it's far more free running than any of the kit chassis I've assembled.
     
    The chassis goes under this, which is not for the faint hearted.

    A Hornby E2 body stretched to scale length. I've been working on this on and off for for far longer than the chassis - about 12 years. It made use of the Hornby bodies multi part construction - the boiler and footplate were cut in different places, glued back together with plasticard spacers and then carefully sanded to shape.
     
    The tanks were extended with new sections at the front and the skirt under the boiler removed. The Hornby loco sits too high, with the drop in the frames increased - this was removed. The biggest remaining dimensional issue is the side tanks - they are 1mm too low. I'm still deciding what to do (if anything) about that. It needs a lot more work before it's finished.
     
    The other loco project I'm now working on is a Craftsman ex-LSWR T1 0-4-4 tank. This is a bit out of place with the Kent/East Sussex locqtion of my planned layout (although they did work in to West Sussex on the Midhurst branch). I'm really building it as an introduction to etched loco kits, and also to practise my soldering in case I decide to go for a metal body on the I4.
     
    So far so good - this is the result of an hour and half of soldering:

  21. pete_mcfarlane
    The loco has now been painted. First several coats of dark grey (not black) paint and a red buffer beam. The Vallejo red paint covered incredibly well - two coats were enough to get decent coverage.

    The loco is modelled on a photo in the Bradford Barton album on Wainwright locos showing it in Southern livery, but recently renumbered with it's BR number which is still pretty clean. I added the HMRS southern lettering before doing any weathering to get this effect.

    The light colour streaks (Limescale?) were then added.

    Then several coats of thinned matt varnish, tinted with various combinations of grey and leather to give a dirty effect.

    I'm not sure if the area around the new numbers was repainted or just cleaned - I masked it off and painted it black.

    And then applied the numbers. The renumbering on the real thing must have been a rush job - the lack of symmetry is copied from the photo, and they didn't bother to give the loco a thorough clean first.

    Coal was added to the bunker - before varnishing so the matt varnish removes the unrealistic shiny glitter effect that you get with small lumps of coal. I'm still using a tub of crushed coal that my late Grandfather crushed and sorted. The custard tin has a best before date of 1978.

    And this is the loco ready for varnishing, with crew (Bachmann Scenecraft), fire irons, headcode disks and a few spare lamps. The plastic driver will be less shiny after a coat of varnish. He's staring in to space, mentally composing a letter to his ASLEF rep about his cab being full of motor.

  22. pete_mcfarlane
    The 04 now has a full set of handrails and some Markits sprung oval buffers.I think the buffer heads project too far forward, so some packing is needed at their rear to reduce this.

    The Southern 03s have larger airtanks in front of the cab, compared to the ones on the Bachmann model. The replacements on my 03 were made from Evergreen plastic tube with the domed ends filed and sanded to shape from 40 thou sheet. They are glued to the cab front (as were the original ones) - the model splits in to a separate cab, footplate and bonnet which will make attaching the connecting pipework interesting.
  23. pete_mcfarlane
    Having undercoated the Loco in Tamiya grey spary paint, I added the missing rivets to the smokebox. These were done using Archer rivet transfers - basically blobs of plastic on a carrier film. I went for a vague representation rather than trying to represent every single rivet. This isn't the best photo, but if you click to view it full size, then the rivets should be visible.

    I'm now in the process of painting the loco, using Vallejo acrylic paints. The main colour is a very dark grey, rather than black, as the loco is going to be weathered quite heavily.

  24. pete_mcfarlane
    It didn't take long to reduce either loco to its constituent parts.

    The 04 was a lot simpler to take to bits, as you'd expect given how much older it is The 03 was a bit of a struggle and I damaged some of the piping from the air cylinders (attached to the cab) to the footplate (a separate casting). Not a big deal as I'm replacing these bits.
     
    This is the result of the demolition work on the 04. Moulded handrails removed, air tanks sawed off with a razor saw, and the crude attempt at the mesh screen behind the cab footsteps removed The footsteps themselves are over scale, but I decided to keep them. Scale ones would be too flimsy.
    And this is the result of a few hours work.

    New handrails fitted, and the two extra rear marker lights added from scraps of plastic. The biggest challenge with the bonnet handrails is rimming them flush, so that the mechanism will fit.
     
    So far all I've done on the 03 is fill the gaps where the coupler pokes through the buffer beam. Bachmann provide blanking plates that fit in to the NEM coupler pockets, but these can't be fitted in place permanently. I've used plasticard instead.

  25. pete_mcfarlane
    In 1986 I was take to the NRM for the first time as a birthday treat, and I bought this book in the shop.

    Brian Haresnape's BR fleet survey volume 7. For somebody who occasionally glimpsed an 08, this book was full of odd little diesel shunters crying out to be modelled. Obviosuly I didn't have the money or skills to do it back then (the less said about an attempt at a cardboard LMS jackshaft shunter, the better), so only now am I finally getting round to doing it.
     
    Two obvious candidates for a SR layout set in 1970 (which is what I'm planning on building one day) are the 03 and 04 classes. Both of these have been produced by Bachmann.

    The 03 is newer and far more detailed. The 04 is older, and has a split chassis which apparently are considered to be the work of Satan in DCC circles. I'm sticking with old fashioned DC (I have enough fun with computers at work), so this makes no difference to me. It's also a lot cruder - the windows, for example, are not flush.
     
    The work seems to consist of:
     
    2398 (03 class)
    - A new and larger air tank. The model is already air braked, but the tank is too small for the SR examples.
    - Filling the gap in the buffer beam where the tension lock coupler goes.
    - Some replacement handrails.
    - High level jumpers and extra SR marker lights.
     
    D2294 (04 class)
    - New handrails.
    - New air tanks.
     
    - Filling the gap in the buffer beam where the tension lock coupler goes.
    - Full replacement handrails.
    - Extra marker lights.
    - Oval buffers
    - New protective mesh screen around the jackshaft.
    - better windows, and some wipers.
     
    None of this is a large amount of work, so hopefully this project won't take as long as the Warship.
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