pete_mcfarlane

Hopefully photos should b working again! They were there when I did the original post. Honest! I'll check out the Cambrian kit when I see one. There are vast numbers of conversion possibilities

Slow progress over Christmas, due to other distractions (food, beer etc) but I've managed to get some LER wagons completed. I bought some old 3H LNER 6 plank wagon kits off Ebay as these seem to be well regarded. In the end they turned out to be pigs to build - the quality of the detail is first rate, but assembling them was a nightmare as the corner joins didn't mate properly and endless filing and filling was needed! The one on the right was built as per the kit as a Darlington built example. The one on the left is the Doncaster example with a difference shape of end L stanchion. This was achieved by glueing several layers of 10 thou plasticard over the existing moulded stanchion, trimming the excess off when dry and then filing the new angle. A third kit had it's underframe replaced with one from a Parkside lowfit, to give a 10' wheelbase fitted example. I've now discovered that ABS do a kit for these, so I don't feel quite as smug as I originally did :icon_rolleyes: The cattle wagon is a Parkside kit (for the fitted version) modified in to a 9' wheelbase version, using MJT and ABS components. Sadly I couldn't think of a way of making it go banana shaped like the real thing did due to their weak underframes.

Thanks - I knew they were somehow different from the Austerities, but obviously forgot exactly how.

I thought those were an earlier Hunslet design and not strictly speaking "austerities".

A1 should do some suitable turned brass horns for the 73 - I've used their horns on my SR EMUs. I'm surprised that nobody does a set of cast replacement underframe gear for the Lima/Hornby 73. It does make a massive difference.

This evening I fitted couplings to the Dapol ex-Wrenn, ex-Hornby-Dublo banana van. Looks good for a 50 year old toy! Also finished tonight is another of the Parkside BD containers, in Crimson with lettering from an ancient Modelmasters sheet. This is the latest state of play with the Shock open. It's now on it's wheels, using the solebars supplied with the kit. These were glued to the underside of the plasticard floor and carefully lined up (since there are no moulded lugs to position them against). The shock springs are the very basic ones that Parkside provide with their kits (including lots of non-shock wagons, so I had some spare). Now ready for buffer beams. The chassis of the LNER brake van has been detailed. It has had: LNER axleboxes - MJT. they don't do these as seperate castings, so the combined axlebox/spring castings had their springs cut off. Axleguards modified to RCH type, by carefully opening out with a scalpel. New 2 rib buffers - modified MJT Single shoe brakes - again MJT The trussing removed, as this is wrong for the early LNER vans Various spurious holes filled. A lot more work than I initially thought!

He jumped ship to MRJ when it started - there are quite a few of his articles in the early editions. An epic conversion of Lima GWR railcars in to a 2 car set and a class 73 detailing article spring to mind. All beautifully illustrated and well worth tracking down.

Yes - it's one of the Smiths wagon sheets. It was given a light dusting of Carr's grey weathering powders to tone it down a little bit.

I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. It's a conversion of a Coopercraft kit to the fitted version, except that the one modelld seems to have lost it's vacuum fittings but kept the Bauxite livery. Based on a photo in "Pre-nationalisation freight stock on BR The wagon sheet cover's up a bit more of the new ironwork than I'd have liked. Never mind.

Finished a few more vans tonight - the two Parkside LNER plywood vans from the new version of their kit, the hybrid Ratio body/Parkside roof SR van and my second go at the LMS type Plywood van using Parkside sides and Ratio ends. I'm especially happy with the SR van as the replacement roof makes it look like the real thing, something the original kit doesn't really do. The new LNER van kit looks pretty good as well - full marks to Parkside.

The shock open progresses slowly. I cut down the ends, leaving some of the buffer beam behind to represent the floor. The body was then assembled around a floor made of planked plastic sheet, as the drawing in BR wagons (and photos of the full length non-shock version of the prototype) show a wooden floor. Finally, 40 plasticard was added underneath to represent the (quite thick) outside of the floor on these wagons. This was done in 3 sections to avoid having to cut out bits to clear the metal strapping. It is now setting with some plastic spacers to keep the body from bowing inwards. The only real difficulty I found with this work was getting the 3 sections of each side to bond firmly back together, as they are very thin. I think I'll leave it for a few days to fully set, to avoid any warping in the future. The LNER lowfit is now painted, and loaded with an LMS DX container that featured in it's unpainted form way back on the old site. LMS wagons suggests that these painted "slate grey" - the lettering is from various sources, but I did leave some of the smaller instructions off. My eyes went a bit wonky after doing the full LMS name using indvidual letters...... The two cattle wagons are done as well. Hopefully this picture shows the differences quite well - the one with modified strapping is on the left. I'm quite happy with these, even if Bachmann now do a RTR version. I must do a 12T van one day, and maybe a ferry van with an underslung "urine tank"

My Bachmann model came numbered as 178705. There's a photo of this van in the 1950s in several books (including the Peter Tatlow Pictorial record of LNER wagons) that shows it as having a plain door with no windows. This seems to have been the case with most of the LNER vans. The model comes with a 2 pane window in the door, which appears to be correct for some of the later LNER vans with concrete end weights and underframe trussing. These still have fixed side lamps and different handrails and axleboxes from the model. I suspect the model as it comes is a classic case of combining details from different prototype batches to produce a model that is wrong for all of them.:icon_frustrated:

Not much has happened on the wagon front recently as I've busy battling an Ian Kirk 2-Bil kit. I have managed to finish this Parkside LNER lowfit. The only major change I made was to use AS buffers. The replacement axlebox cover is due to these being seperate moulding and likely to fall off if you don't use enough glue This BR pipe wagon is another parkside kit. It took ages to pluck up the enthusiasm to do the 8 door springs. Bending up little bits of metal strip is not my idea of fun. Otherwise a nice simple kit. The replacement buffers are from 51L And now for a couple of works in progress. I've been meaning for ages to have a go at converting the Parkside LNER pattern steel open in to a BR diagram 1/031 shock wagon. The body of these is the usual 1' shorter, with a study of photos and the drawing in BR wagons showing that I had to remove 6" (2mm in 4mm scale) from either side of the door. The sides were cut in to sections with a razor saw and mitre box. And then glued back together. The other side has yet to be done. I've also removed the wooden chalk board from the side as the shock wagons (or at least the one I'm modelling) didn't have these. The second wagon is a Bachmann LNER Toad brake van. Or at least claimed to be on the box. Basically its a BR van with shorter footboards and no end weights, having many detail feature wrong for the LNER van. Wrong axleboxes, wrong (double) brakeshoes, wrong handrails, underframe trussing, windows in the end doors, wrong lamp irons, and no fixed side lamps spring to mind. I'm slowly correcting these. I didn't anticipate this much work when I bought it.

Looks good! I've got some of the Replica glazing to try out in my DC Kits EPB unit.

I've left the roof for now and have done some work on the underframe. The truss rods are from NNK and are much better than the kit's crude plastic mouldings or trying to make these out of L section brass. They are preformed and solder up in a couple of minutes. They are designed as a complete unit (presumably to fit the chassis of their own EMU kits), but as this made tem too wide for my chassis I removed the central section before glueing them in place. The underframe castings I'm using are Branchlines, or at least came in their packet. They are a bit crude - far cruder than other Branchlines castings I've seen, so I'm wondering if they are actually Phoenix. As you can see from the photo below, they need a fair bit of cleaning up as the moulds were pretty worn and the two halves out of alignment. One oddity is that the castings include some V hangers. The preserved unit at Shildon has these, but they aren't shown on any of the drawings I've got and I've not spotted any in photos of the units in service. I'm wondering if the preserved unit has been modified at some point whilst it was still operational - more research is needed in to the underframe gear.

A very nice looking 4-REP! Please carry on posting - I must get round to building the SP Mk1s I've got in the cupboard.....

After a bit more work this weekend, the roof detail is now revised to match the photos of 2101. I've still got to do the junction boxes at inner ends - the Branchlines castings seem a bit small so I'll be making my own out of plastic strip. An order is going in the post to the SRG for some of the earlier pattern buffers.

I'm planning on doing this unit in BR Green circa 1960. I'm still plodding along with the roof. I spent a long time this afternoon trying to work out how the cables connect to the junction boxes at the end of the roof - some of them turn through 90 degrees and run down the coach end, whereas others go in to the junction boxes. After some head scratching I now think that there are at least two different roof layouts on the "production" 2-Bil units. 2010-2116 seem to be close to all 3 published drawings I have (MRC/Branchlines/King). These have offset torpedo vents. 2117-2152 have an alternative arrangement with the torpedo vents down the centre line. I was planning to model one of the later units, as these have the self contained buffers. So I'm now going to do 2101 as there a couple of shots of it's roof in Alan Williams' "Southern Electric Album". So I'm off to find some suitable spindle buffers. I should have done my research more thoroughly before starting. I also placed too much faith in the Branchlines detailing instructions, which have you build a unit with features from different batches.

I'm still plodding away with the roof. This is the current state of play: The ventillators are some very nice NNK castings. The periscopes are from Branchlines, and the electrical cabling is a mixture of plastic rod and wire (mainly steel guitar wire, with some brass for the short cross cables) on Southern Pride turned supports. There's still quite a lot to do on the roof, but having drawings and some decent photos helps quite a lot compared to the EPB.

EMU workbench by pete_mcfarlane original page on Old RMweb __________________________________________ Comment posted by number6 on Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:13 pm Enjoying your rapid progress as usual Pete! As Dave says the bowing of the BIL is the biggest pain - make sure you make the floor rigid or it will go banana shaped before you can say "roof conduit". Is the unpowered pick-up bogie basically the same design as the powered but just without motors? I used a spare pair of white metal power bogie sides and forgot about it. Now I'm beginning to wonder again! R __________________________________________ Comment posted by dasatcopthorne on Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:24 pm Re the leading trailer bogie. No, it's different. It's of a lighter construction but heavier than a normal trailer but still 8' 9" wheelbase. Dave __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:34 am dasatcopthorne wrote: I was prepared to live with the lopsided roof (dome end) but when I fitted two sides to the floor and they bowed in at the top, I'd had enough. I'd not looked at the roof yet, but I see what you mean about the dome. I'll have a go at reprofiling As for the bowing, the sides are really thin to give a continuous rebate for the glazing which doesn't help to make them rigid. The edges of the moulded floor aren't at 90 degrees, which doesn't help either. I'm still pondering whether to build down from the roof (with a separate floor) or up from the solebar (with a detachable roof). The latter will give the top of the sides more strength. number6 wrote: Is the unpowered pick-up bogie basically the same design as the powered but just without motors? I used a spare pair of white metal power bogie sides and forgot about it. Now I'm beginning to wonder again! dasatcopthorne wrote: Re the leading trailer bogie. No, it's different. It's of a lighter construction but heavier than a normal trailer but still 8' 9" wheelbase. Dave This is one of the reasons I stalled on building the kit for so long - finding a suitable replacement trailer collector bogie to match the other replacement bogies. I couldn't face having 3 nice whitemetal/brass bogies and a horrible plastic one. Many years ago somebody explained to me about about the different methods of injection moulding plastic - I seem to remember there's a cheap lower pressure process that gives less detail with softer plastic. Presumably this is what is used on these kits as they are very soft and lacking in sharp detail, especially compared to the DC kits ones. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:36 pm I've finished detailing the ends - mainly using the Branchlines castings, with some bits of fuse wire and plastic. I reckon some of the castings are a little of the big side - the jumper cable on the left hand side is too long for starters so there's no room for the lamp iron on that side. The overall effect is OK though. The buffers are ABS. I bought some Branchlines ones, but the heads didn't seem quite the right shape - more like those on the earlier spindle buffers which were oval rather than an elipse. Using these buffers means I'm doing one of the last batch (2017-52) which were the only 2-Bils to have them. Windscreen wipers deliberately left off until after painting and glazing. __________________________________________ Comment posted by dasatcopthorne on Wed Jul 22, 2009 8:49 am Looking good. Dave __________________________________________ Comment posted by dasatcopthorne on Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:46 pm Pete. Here's a few pics of my effort at an ex-Tyneside Epb. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:51 pm Not much progress today on the Bil. These are the short sections of sides around the cab door, which are moulded separately. For some reason (strength probably) the driver's door goes down the bottom of the side, rather than stopping short so that the door cab be opened inwards. A few minutes with a sharp scalpel and needle files fixed this. Dave: Thanks for uploading the Tyneside photos - it looks fantastic. __________________________________________ Comment posted by dasatcopthorne on Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:07 pm Fantastic? Mmmmm But thanks for that. This is one of my older units, probably build in the mid 80's It has the rubbing plate from the bottom of the Hornby gangway connector, and oval buffers just pushed into the original Hornby buffer shanks. The reason being is that the end has been re-shaped from the Hornby Mk1 coach that the unit is based on. You probably recognise the Hornby roof as well. Some pics of converted coach ends appeared in the following post viewtopic.php?f=5&t=39513 Dave. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:44 pm Tonight I got a boring job out of the way - drilling the holes for the door handles. This I did by making a jig out of scrap tinplate to drill the holes. I've also attached the ends to the floor, having first cut out the space for the motor bogie from one of them. The floors needed a bit of work with a file to straighten out their edges so the sides will be at the correct angle. I've decided to build from the floor up with a separate roof. Starting to look like an EMU. __________________________________________ Comment posted by number6 on Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:25 pm Pete - how do you do those cable clips either side of the headcode box? I think the jumble of stuff on the front is looking really good. R __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:33 pm number6 wrote: Pete - how do you do those cable clips either side of the headcode box? I think the jumble of stuff on the front is looking really good. R Sticky tape! Tamyia paper based masking tape cut in to thin strips - it seems fairly secure for now (a wash of solvent helped) and a few coats of paint will secure it for good. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:31 pm The body is now assembled. Firstly I added some reinforcing strips inside the door sections, so that the sides would line up properly. Then I attached the sides. 24 hours later when everything was set hard, I added the ends. I'd have like to have a removeable interior, but this doesn't seem to be possible due to the need to fit loads of bracing to the body to stop it going wonky. The Interior mouldings that come with the kit are generic ones that bear no relation to the real Bil interior and so were modified. Before: After: The composite interior had one third class compartment removed and another cut down to form the coupe. The spare compartment was then added to the third class moulding to give the extra compartment needed for the driving trailer. Bits of plasticard have been added to the ends for the toilet section, and then they were both reduced in hight to give roof for the cross bracing. The plastic used for these mouldings was horrible and brittle and the odd bit shattered on me, so they are now a bit rough in places but hopefully this wont be obvious when they are in place. Speaking of horrible, I've started on the roof. 5 thou plastic has been added to reprofile the flattened bit of the dome to try and get it symetrical. I think the most difficult bit is going to be battering the roof in to shape, so that it fits properly on the body, __________________________________________ Comment posted by 5Bel on Sat Aug 01, 2009 9:17 am Hi Pete, The Bil looks great. It's good to see someone else doing one. Mine took me about five years to finish!! I have built two now and they both had the bow mentioned. I used cross bracing at the top of the bodysides to cure mine on the second one. One tip I could give is to sand down the rainstrip on the roof. This gives a much more prototypical profile. DC Kits are going to re-release this kit this year so I can see myself going through the process all over again. Keep up the good work. Cheers Ian __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sat Aug 01, 2009 12:04 pm 5Bel wrote: Hi Pete, The Bil looks great. It's good to see someone else doing one. Mine took me about five years to finish!! I have built two now and they both had the bow mentioned. I used cross bracing at the top of the bodysides to cure mine on the second one. One tip I could give is to sand down the rainstrip on the roof. This gives a much more prototypical profile. DC Kits are going to re-release this kit this year so I can see myself going through the process all over again. Keep up the good work. Cheers Ian I'm trying to avoid spending years on mine! Given how many of these kits get sold it's odd how few you see made up - perhaps people give up on them because of the various problems. I've tackled the bowing with lots of cross braces. It's now setting. Next step is to fit the remaining partitions. I'm making my own partitions out of plasticard, as the ones supplied with the kit are about 1mm narrower than the seats I think I'm going to remove all of the roof detailing and replace with Evergreen strip. __________________________________________ Comment posted by ferries2008 on Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:07 am Morning, Thanks for the shared info and photo's Pete, Tracking your posts.....dt... __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:59 pm Progress has been a bit slow, due to the roof needing lots of work. I've added the remaining compartment partitions. Now for the roof. I removed the moulded on detail including the very thick rainstrips. These make the roof about 3mm too wide Untouched roof above, modified one below. I then filed the ends and underside of the roof to make them fit properly. This took a while, but eventually I got there. As you can see, the roof is a couple of milimetres longer than the side. Some trimming is needed. The thickness at the ends also needs reducing a bit more. This is the current state of play with the front. The strip around the front is being increased in thickness with plastic strip. As supplied it is too narrow on one side, and the front end is asymmetrical. Still working on this. The roof has had a coat of white primer to show up any imperfections. Lastly, I've assembled the brass inners for the NNK trailing bogies. After the problems with the slop on the collector bogie wheels, I packed the bearings out with brass washers (from an MJT inside bearing etch). This cured the problem. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:29 pm As per my last post, the roof took ages. It needed a lot of sanding and filing to get it to fit and to make it symetrical. Both are now done, and the driving trailer is mounted on it's bogies. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sun Sep 20, 2009 9:34 pm The motor coach is now on it's bogies as well. The mounting cradle for the black beetle is just a piece of plastic sheet, packed out from the floor by a couple of strips. I discovered the hard way that the fuse boxes cast on to the Branchlines side frames are over scale and project above the top of the side frames. I had to cut them off to get the coach to sit at the correct height - I'll replace them with NNK ones later on. To make marking out the roof easier I've scanned in the Branchlines drawings, played around with the size to make them fit roof (including widening them to take the curve in to account) and printed them out of self adhesive paper. Next step is to drill out the holes and fit the various cable runs and fittings. __________________________________________

EMU workbench by pete_mcfarlane original page on Old RMweb __________________________________________ ??? posted on Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:25 pm edmac wrote: Looks great Pete , hows the EPB coming along ? Ed No progress on the EPB I'm afraid. Far too many projects on the go at once __________________________________________ Comment posted by ferries2008 on Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:22 am Morning, So what are your other projects,are they all 3rd.rail? __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:20 am ferries2008 wrote: Morning, So what are your other projects,are they all 3rd.rail? Wagons mainly at the moment - I'm trying to clear down my backlog of unbuilt/half-built kits: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30428&start=25. I've got a bad habit of starting stuff and not finishing it for ages __________________________________________ Comment posted by Ian Fisher on Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:03 pm That is some nice work there well finnished too. Have you thought about sending an image to Charlie? Ian __________________________________________ Comment posted by ferries2008 on Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:48 am pete_mcfarlane wrote: edmac wrote: Any updates Pete ? Nearly done - just a few more windos to go an some final detailing:DCP_3922.JPG http://www.therailwaycentre.com/EMU%20p ... 9_railblue Morning, Pete, This is only photo i;managed to find mlv. in overall blue.......maybe for your epb __________________________________________ ??? posted on Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:46 pm I managed to find this one after I'd painted mine blue/grey! http://www.flickr.com/photos/trevs_trains/1793866880/ One day I'll do another in blue. __________________________________________ Comment posted by edmac on Tue May 05, 2009 4:39 am Have you finished the EPB yet Pete ? __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue May 05, 2009 12:30 pm edmac wrote: Have you finished the EPB yet Pete ? 'fraid not. It is slowly working it's way up to the top of the pile of half finished models. I will get it done before Bachman bring their one out in 2015..... __________________________________________ Comment posted by ferries2008 on Fri May 08, 2009 4:47 pm pete_mcfarlane wrote: edmac wrote: Have you finished the EPB yet Pete ? 'fraid not. It is slowly working it's way up to the top of the pile of half finished models. I will get it done before Bachman bring their one out in 2015..... Hello,Sorry Pete....you got the date wrong...its 2115.....regards...dt... __________________________________________ ??? posted on Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:17 pm The MLV is now finished - not the best set of pictures as I'm still getting the hang of my new digital camera. Hopefully I should have an update on the EPB in a week of so. In the meantime, here's some detail photos of a real one that I took at the East Kent last year. __________________________________________ Comment posted by divibandit on Thu Jun 11, 2009 1:53 pm ferries2008 wrote: Morning, So what are your other projects,are they all 3rd.rail? Wagons mainly at the moment - I'm trying to clear down my backlog of unbuilt/half-built kits: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30428&start=25. I've got a bad habit of starting stuff and not finishing it for ages Yes I know that feeling! I have an MLV half-built as well, not to mention a 205 DEMU. Started to convert the over-length Lima BG into a GLV using the Mikes Models EMU ends, way before DC came on the scene. Steve __________________________________________ Comment posted by ferries2008 on Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:09 pm

EMU workbench by pete_mcfarlane original page on Old RMweb __________________________________________ ??? posted on Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:49 pm A couple of DC Kits EMUs on my work bench. The MLV was bought at Wakefield a couple of weeks ago. Basic construction is now complete (in 2 weeks, which must be a record for me). Now awaiting underframe and end details. I'm planning on using the Southern Pride underframe mouldings in place of the etches that comes with the kit. I've always thought that the quality of the cast and etched details that come with these kits is a lot lower than the excellent plastic body mouldings. Power is from a Black Beetle with a dummy beetle added at the non-power bogie end. This involved hacking an extra hole in the floor. I also ended up hacking out the moulded well in the floor at the power bogie end, as this was too shallow and made the unit ride too high. Even now I'm not convinced about the ride height. It could also do with a good scrub to get rid of all the dust from sanding. Most of the moulded on jumper detail is removed and will be replaced with Heljan mouldings. To be finished in 1970 condition, ideally as the blue liveried one, or possibly green with small yellow panels if I can find a suitable photo. Otherwise it will be bog standard blue and grey. Next up is a 2-EPB. I bought this when the kits first came about about 7 years ago, and it's been slowly progressing. There's nothing actually wrong with the kit itself. The main issue is that the 2-EPB units had 1951 type control gear, and I'm struggling to reproduce this. The etched underframe detial that came with the kit isn't brilliant and the Southern Pride mouldings are for 1957/1963 type control gear, which has some major differences. Some of the underframe gear is adapted from SP mouldings, and other bits are scratchbuilt. I'm not happy with the quality or positioning of some of the bits (especially the scratch built resistance banks after looking at the photos) so more work is needed. The other problem I'm having, as you can see from this photo is getting the roof electric cabling straight. I'm using the SP turnings and brass wire, and it's a nightmare. This is my second go and its still very wonky __________________________________________ Comment posted by michael delamar on Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:05 am being a bit harsh on yourself there, they look great Mike __________________________________________ Comment posted by Miss Prism on Fri Dec 07, 2007 1:36 am pete_mcfarlane wrote: The other problem I'm having, as you can see from this photo is getting the roof electric cabling straight. I'm using the SP turnings and brass wire, and it's a nightmare. This is my second go and its still very wonky Use guitar string, Pete. It won't solder readily, but it will lay straight. __________________________________________ Comment posted by rich_eason on Fri Dec 07, 2007 1:11 pm The other method I've used with sucess is to use very fine Evergreen rod. Easy to stick where you need too and if you wish to thread it through small upstands a slight dab with mek will be enough to hold it in place. For straight runs where you are not bothered with visible air beneath the pipe work then tack the starting end with Mek and using a steel rule as a guide continue to stick the rod down making sure that the steel rule does not come into contact with the Mek. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:14 pm Thanks for the suggestions about the roof cables - will give them a try. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Dec 18, 2007 11:48 pm No progress on the EPB, but the MLV is getting there. End and body detail now mostly complete. I've used very of the DC Kits parts for the underframe - most of it is from the Southern Pride underframe set, with a bit of scratchbuilding. From photos the underframe equipment on these units seems to be a bit of a minefield as it changed over time. At no point did it include giant self tapping screws though - I forgot to screw them back in before taking the photos. End pipes are Heljan ones which are designed for a 33/1 so need a bit of tweaking. I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with the ride height, but that the bogie sideframes were too close together. This is because I glued them straight on to the stretchers on the side of the Black Beetle units (which are set to HO spacing?). Padding them out with bits of 40 thou plasticard seems to improve the appearance no end, as there's no big gap between the body and the bogies. I've also discovered that these units had at least 3 different arrangements of the battery box covers. The kit represents the most recent (as preserved) so I've bodified them with plastic strip to represent the in c1970 condition. The main remaining task is to detail the bogies. The only thing I'm not happy with are the buffers, which are Comet extended Mk1 buffers (as this MLV will be used to pull parcels stick). The moulds look very worn and I was lucky to get 4 usuable ones out of a pack of 12 which is unusal for Comet as most of their castings seem pretty good. They were the only extended Mk1 buffers I could find though. __________________________________________ Comment posted by Dagworth on Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:28 am Miss Prism wrote: pete_mcfarlane wrote: The other problem I'm having, as you can see from this photo is getting the roof electric cabling straight. I'm using the SP turnings and brass wire, and it's a nightmare. This is my second go and its still very wonky Use guitar string, Pete. It won't solder readily, but it will lay straight. I've never had any trouble soldering guitar string. Solder paste makes it even easier though. I use guitar string for all my OHLE. Andi __________________________________________ ??? posted on Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:09 pm Dagworth wrote: I've never had any trouble soldering guitar string. Solder paste makes it even easier though. I use guitar string for all my OHLE. Not being musical and knowing anything about guitar strings, what type of string do you use and what diameters do they come in? Pete __________________________________________ Comment posted by keefer on Wed Dec 26, 2007 8:34 pm the 'plain' electric guitar strings are usually steel and are usually referred to in 'thou' sizes - can be bought individually in sizes from .008" up to (i think) .020" or .022" strings any thicker than this tend have a winding wrap over a steel 'plain' core - these are 'wound' strings and tend to be from about .018" upwards (these are the type which look like they could be use for vac. brake pipes!) - these tend to have a steel core wire, with steel, stainless steel or nickel wrap just go into a music shop and ask for electric guitar strings - when asked for the size just say 'a twelve' for a .012" or whatever - but for .018" or more, make sure you ask for a 'plain' as these come in 'wound' as well hth __________________________________________ Comment posted by Alex on Fri Feb 08, 2008 9:38 pm Perhaps Bass guitar strings would make good vacuum pipes... __________________________________________ ??? posted on Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:05 am The MLV is now almost ready for the paint shops - just needs a few slightly wonky details adjusting. Being able to view digital photos of models is a big help, as it lets you spot things you'd otherwise miss. Like the wonky lamp iron The slightly iffy Comet buffers have been replaced with some much better ones from ABS. The various etched window frames are from NNK, as are the cast fuseboxes above the shoe beams. Big one of these to NNK for the quality of their parts -the window frames in particular are first rate, easy to cut away from the fret and needed no cleaning up. Details like Buckeye couplers, handrails and vacuum pipes to be added after painting. I've had no luck in tracking down photos of the blue one, so it will be blue and grey. One tip to anybody building a DC kits EMU - you can improve the front end appearance by filing down the edge of the roof to make it less thick and closer to scale. I used a half round file, and the filled any gap between the roof and the body with filler. Another thing I've noticed about the DCK front end is that all three window rainstrips are at the same height, when on a real EPB based unit the middle one is slightly lower, which is quite noticeable. This was corrected after I added the etched window frames by adding new rainstrips above the outer windows. __________________________________________ Comment posted by Phil on Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:43 am That MLV is looking really good. __________________________________________ Comment posted by mines a pint on Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:48 am Alex wrote: Perhaps Bass guitar strings would make good vacuum pipes... read an article where these were indeed used but it must have been over 10 yrs ago, assumed things might of moved on since then. I'm with Mike on his first comment, even with the wonky roof pipes I'd be incredibly pleased with the results so far. __________________________________________ Comment posted by michael delamar on Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:56 am looking great now, well worth the extra effort go on paint it green you know you want too btw, whats with the small insulated piece of track on your workbench? Mike __________________________________________ ??? posted on Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:25 pm michael delamar wrote: btw, whats with the small insulated piece of track on your workbench? It's for testing kit built loco chassis. The idea is that if they can run over the short bit of dead track without stalling, then all of their pickups are working OK and they can cope with any dirt, dead spots etc that they'll encounter. Not really needed for testing EMU motor coaches though. __________________________________________ Comment posted by edmac on Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:44 pm pete_mcfarlane wrote: The MLV is now almost ready for the paint shops - just needs a few slightly wonky details adjusting. Being able to view digital photos of models is a big help, as it lets you spot things you'd otherwise miss. Like the wonky lamp iron MLV 1.jpgMLV 2.JPGMLV 3.jpg The slightly iffy Comet buffers have been replaced with some much better ones from ABS. The various etched window frames are from NNK, as are the cast fuseboxes above the shoe beams. Big one of these to NNK for the quality of their parts -the window frames in particular are first rate, easy to cut away from the fret and needed no cleaning up. Details like Buckeye couplers, handrails and vacuum pipes to be added after painting. I've had no luck in tracking down photos of the blue one, so it will be blue and grey. One tip to anybody building a DC kits EMU - you can improve the front end appearance by filing down the edge of the roof to make it less thick and closer to scale. I used a half round file, and the filled any gap between the roof and the body with filler. Another thing I've noticed about the DCK front end is that all three window rainstrips are at the same height, when on a real EPB based unit the middle one is slightly lower, which is quite noticeable. This was corrected after I added the etched window frames by adding new rainstrips above the outer windows. Have you finished your MLV yet ? Ed __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:49 pm edmac wrote: Have you finished your MLV yet ? Ed Nearly - I wasn't happy with the glazing, so now I'm flush glazing it the hard way using plastic sheet cut to shape. This is a bit boring and takes ages, as my patience is only up to a couple of windows at a time __________________________________________ Comment posted by Gallows Close on Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:21 pm pete_mcfarlane wrote: The MLV is now almost ready for the paint shops - Hi Pete, Just seen your thread. The EPB looks really good, (as does the MLV ) but I have a question. I notice that you have drilled out the holes for the door handles and handrails, as well as fitted the roof cabling. Do you intend to paint the model with these details in place? or would you fit them later... Same goes for the door hinges. Please show us the result when it comes out from the shop. Cheers, Chris. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:37 pm Gallows Close wrote: Just seen your thread. The EPB looks really good, (as does the MLV ) but I have a question. I notice that you have drilled out the holes for the door handles and handrails, as well as fitted the roof cabling. Do you intend to paint the model with these details in place? or would you fit them later... Same goes for the door hinges. Depends - the stuff that is the same colour as the underlying body (roof cables, end handrails etc) will be glued in place and painted in situ. Stuff like door handles that are a different colour will be stuck on after painting but before the final coat of varnish. It also helps that the EPB will be plain blue - the MLV is blue/grey and needs most of the side detail left off to allow for masking. Hope this makes sense. __________________________________________ Comment posted by Gallows Close on Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:00 pm pete_mcfarlane wrote: Depends - the stuff that is the same colour as the underlying body (roof cables, end handrails etc) will be glued in place and painted in situ. Stuff like door handles that are a different colour will be stuck on after painting but before the final coat of varnish. It also helps that the EPB will be plain blue - the MLV is blue/grey and needs most of the side detail left off to allow for masking. Hope this makes sense. Yup, Sure does. The only thing that would worry me would be painting the roof cables - especially by air brush. Do you have a method to stop the paint 'gathering' on the cables? Also, whilst I agree on leaving off the door knobs and grab handles, but have you ever had any trouble re-locating the holes? Thanks for your reply, it is of much interest as I will be painting something similar in a few weeks, Chris. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:35 am Gallows Close wrote: Yup, Sure does. The only thing that would worry me would be painting the roof cables - especially by air brush. Do you have a method to stop the paint 'gathering' on the cables? Also, whilst I agree on leaving off the door knobs and grab handles, but have you ever had any trouble re-locating the holes? Thanks for your reply, it is of much interest as I will be painting something similar in a few weeks, Chris. I don't use an airbrush, so have never had this problem. You do have to be sparing with the paint when brush painting detail like this though. I've never had much trouble finding the holes. Most of them end up partially clogged with paint, but can be found and cleaned out with a pin (or the .5mm drill used to drill them originally). __________________________________________ Comment posted by 5Bel on Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:23 am Hi Pete, Excellent work, good to see another 3rd rail modeller. You say that you are flush glazing with clear plastic cut to shape. Have you tried Replica flush glazing, all you do is cut the bar out of the windows and the new glazing just slots in. It's even easier now that he does a pack for his own MLV. If you want to see some results look at my 4mm workbench thread. It really does make a difference. Replica also do suburban flush glazing which will fit the 2EPB and they do interiors which can be made to fit easily. Keep up the good work, Cheers Ian. __________________________________________ Comment posted by edmac on Sat Jan 31, 2009 6:20 pm Any updates Pete ? __________________________________________ ??? posted on Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:05 am edmac wrote: Any updates Pete ? Nearly done - just a few more windwos to go and some final detailing: __________________________________________ Comment posted by edmac on Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:40 am Looks great Pete , hows the EPB coming along ? Ed __________________________________________

DC Kits Class 71 by pete_mcfarlane original page on Old RMweb __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:42 am Finished my Class 71 this evening. I bought it at the Derby show in April 2006, so this must be one of my quickest builds ever Apologies for the slightly ropey pictures but I'm still working out how to take photos of models with my ancient digital camera. It's a DC kits resin body and whitemetal bogies. This is a really good kit - quite basic in places but generally accurate with plenty of scope for adding detail. I replaced the underframe gear as I wasn't too happy with the brass etching supplied. I also detailed the bogies to add as much of the piping as possible along with the steps and fitted cab interiors. The bogies themseleves are cast metail with a small DS10 type motor: I know DC kits have moved away from this design, but the quality of the sideframe castings is first class and a lot better than the resin ones that come with the class 74. The bogies ran fairly well from the start and only needed a bit of tweaking to get smooth performance. It also has the correct spoken wheels. I've only got a short bit of test track, but it doesn't seem that powerful. Mine is only going to move a few parcels vans, but a full length Golden Arrow is probably out. I've tried to represent the slightly tatty and faded look that these locos had in their later years. I suspect that not having much work, they didn't accumulate much mileage and so weren't overhauled and painted that often. The grilles were very fine mouldings so I painted them first with a thin coat of Dark grey, and then masked them off with Humbrol Maskol. This preserved the sharpness, as they didn't get clogged up with the body colour. The body colours were mixed with a fair ammount of white to make them look faded, and the blue was selectively rubbed with car body rubbing compund an a cotton wool stick to give the streaky look. The inspiration for this is a photo of a completely knackered looking Class 74 in "Southern EMUs in colour". __________________________________________ Comment posted by Phil on Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:27 am Fantastic job Pete, well done. I can just imagine that on the Eastbourne papers with a few SR CCTs and a BR GUV. Nice !! __________________________________________ Comment posted by Adam on Sun Nov 18, 2007 11:15 am An impressive job that. The bogies are definitely my favourite element - Are they the correct wheelbase on the 71? Those supplied with the 74 exasperated me to the extent that I cut the spring/bearing mouldings of them and scratchbuilt the rest, likewise with the rest of the underframe. The improvement is really obvious, as it is with this model. I like the fact that you've taken the time to put in the traction motor cables on the sideframes which are so distinctive on the real thing (and the 73 an 74 too for that matter). These are a bit of a fiddle to do but worth every minute I think. Is that 2x DS10s or just the one?!! Adam __________________________________________ Comment posted by lapford34102 on Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:16 pm Hi, That is very nice Edit - did you use the kit glazing or do your own - I've a 74 to finish....... Cheers Stu __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:01 pm Thanks for the nice comments. Adam wrote: The bogies are definitely may favourite element - Are they the correct wheelbase on the 71? Those supplied with the 74 exasperated me to the extent that I cut the spring/bearing mouldings of them and scratchbuilt the rest, likewise with the rest of the underframe. The 71 has the correct wheelbase, as presumably it's a bespoke motor bogie for this kit. Unlike the 74 which has a Black Beetle 2mm too short (I dont think they do them long enough). I got halfway through scratchbuilding some new bogie sideframes for my 74 along the lines you've outlined, but then I got sidetracked by something else... The bogies are by far the weakest part of the 74 kit Adam wrote: Is that 2x DS10s or just the one?!! Only 1. There is (or was - I've not seen these kits on their stand for a while) an option to buy a second motor and gears. lapford34102 wrote: Edit - did you use the kit glazing or do your own - Both I didn't like the vacuum formed glazing provided that much as it suffered from the usual curved effect around the corners that you get with this type of glazing. I glazed the side windows with clear plastic cut to shape and held in place with Crystal Clear floor polish. I chickened out of doing the front windows as they are an awful shape, and the front glazing supplied wasn't that bad. __________________________________________ Comment posted by 10800 on Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:06 pm Very nice Pete - what's the pantograph like? Did it come with the kit or did you source it separately? (Any photos with the pan up?). __________________________________________ Comment posted by Adam on Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:13 pm Thanks for the answers - Mine has the bogies from a Bachmann Warship and a big Mashima can motor, so that isn't an issue. You might find this thread useful: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php? Adamp=16777&highlight=#16777 __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:33 pm 10800 wrote: Very nice Pete - what's the pantograph like? Did it come with the kit or did you source it separately? (Any photos with the pan up?). It's a sommerfeldt pantograph, which is not 100% accurate as it has a single contract strip rather than 2 like the prototype, and different cross bracing. None of this really shows when its down (the alternative would be to run the loco without a pantograph as sometimes happened). I suspect that nobody does a correct one. It came with the kit. In fact the kit comes with everything you need to build a basic OO gauge model except glue, paint and solder. Mine is stuck down so no photos of mine with it up I'm afraid __________________________________________ Comment posted by 10800 on Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:39 pm pete_mcfarlane wrote: It's a sommerfeldt pantograph, which is not 100% accurate as it has a single contract strip rather than 2 like the prototype, and different cross bracing. None of this really shows when its down (the alternative would be to run the loco without a pantograph as sometimes happened). I suspect that nobody does a correct one. I think you're right Pete, which is a shame (unless Judith Edge or No Nonsense are up for it). Camberhurst (see link below) will need a couple of these (and a couple of Boosters) and it would be nice to consider a DCC-controlled motorised pan for entering and exiting the goods yard. __________________________________________ Comment posted by Supaned on Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:13 pm Pete , Thanks for posting the pics - fantastic finish on the HA, I really like the knackered appearance , if my DC 74 comes up half as good I'll be happy. I especially like the additional bogie detailing. Rod: First time I've read of your layout idea , but I really like the thought of 70s and 71s - not something you see too often (Hull MRS excepted!). The DCC pantograph idea is great , there should be ample room in the bodyshells to fit this. __________________________________________

That's a good looking EPB :icon_thumbsup2:

??? posted on Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:26 am A few more wagons finished tonight. I've also been playing with my camea to try and get better results. These were all taken on long exposures, with the lights turned off and a handheld torch as the main light source. The LMS lows are all done - Chivers kits for the long lows and scratchbuilt 10' wheelbase ones. The one in LMS bauxite is intended as a runner for a rake of wagons carrying timber. I've made a start on loading these, using thin wood strip from Sainsbury's camembert boxes (idea pinched from one of Geoff Kent's books). I know these should be roped down, but I can't see a way of doing this and still have the load removable. This work is going slowly as I don't want to get fat from eating loads of cheese The scratchbuilt BR built GWR plywood van is now complete and has turned out pretty well. There are one or two places where the sticky labels have come away slightly from the plasticard body, but these aren't obvious in photos. I'm wondering if printing on to thin paper and then attaching this to the plastic by flooding it with solvent would be a cheaper and more durable way of getting the printed drawings to the plastic. More experimentation is needed. The bolt heads on this and the two LMS lows are Archer transfers. These have turned out well and are a lot easier than using little bits of 5 thou plastic! Lastly, a Bachmann mineral repainted in to early 1970s grot to match a Paul Bartlett photo. It has been partially replated, and the new bits painted freight brown and the rest left in rusty grey. I used the salt weathering technique for the rusty bits, which were then masked off and the rest of the body painted brown. __________________________________________ Comment posted by timlewis on Tue Apr 21, 2009 9:04 pm pete_mcfarlane wrote: A few more wagons finished tonight. I've also been playing with my camea to try and get better results. These were all taken on long exposures, with the lights turned off and a handheld torch as the main light source. Very nice selection of wagons: you certainly get through making them at a rate of knots! You must have quite a train (or trains) by now. Experiments with the camera seem to have paid off too: later pictures are noticeably better than earlier ones. __________________________________________ Comment posted by Pennine MC on Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:25 pm pete_mcfarlane wrote: Lastly, a Bachmann mineral repainted in to early 1970s grot to match a Paul Bartlett photo. It has been partially replated, and the new bits painted freight brown and the rest left in rusty grey. Pete, if it's this shot, then I think the new platework is actually reddish rust; I'm not saying replated wagons were never patched with Freight Brown but I dont think it would have been common. Dont want to sound like I'm picking fault here tho, I love this thread BTW I've seen much mention of these Archer rivet transfers - where would I get some from? __________________________________________ ??? posted on Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:00 am Pennine MC wrote: Pete, if it's this shot, then I think the new platework is actually reddish rust; I'm not saying replated wagons were never patched with Freight Brown but I dont think it would have been common. Dont want to sound like I'm picking fault here tho, I love this thread BTW I've seen much mention of these Archer rivet transfers - where would I get some from? That's the one I used - it hadn't occurred to me that early 1970s workmanship was so dodgy that they left steel mineral wagons unpainted. Good thing they don't carry anything corrosive... I got the transfers direct from Archer http://www.archertransfers.com/catSurfaceDetails.html. Paid with Paypal and they took about 5 days to come from the States. I think the postage was about $2 __________________________________________ Comment posted by Fat Controller on Wed Apr 22, 2009 8:33 am pete_mcfarlane wrote: Pennine MC wrote: Pete, if it's this shot, then I think the new platework is actually reddish rust; I'm not saying replated wagons were never patched with Freight Brown but I dont think it would have been common. Dont want to sound like I'm picking fault here tho, I love this thread BTW I've seen much mention of these Archer rivet transfers - where would I get some from? That's the one I used - it hadn't occurred to me that early 1970s workmanship was so dodgy that they left steel mineral wagons unpainted. Good thing they don't carry anything corrosive... I got the transfers direct from Archer http://www.archertransfers.com/catSurfaceDetails.html. Paid with Paypal and they took about 5 days to come from the States. I think the postage was about $2 This replacement of lower sides and end doors was the norm for unfitted mineral wagons of the period- it was done as quickly and cheaply as possible, usually at small wagon-repair facilities, as the wagons were going to be scrapped within the next few years anyway. Sometimes the vehicles were properly primed and painted, more often they weren't, but the paint BR used for wagons at the period was often pretty useless anyway. The coal, most notably stuff like anthracite duff, was fairly corrosive, especially where it stuck at the bottoms of the sides- towards the end of this period, Coedbach was using straw to line the bottom of the sides and doors to try and avoid most of the load being lost. __________________________________________ Comment posted by Pennine MC on Sat May 09, 2009 6:19 am pete_mcfarlane wrote: I got the transfers direct from Archer http://www.archertransfers.com/catSurfaceDetails.html. Paid with Paypal and they took about 5 days to come from the States. I think the postage was about $2 Thanks Pete, I've only just remembered I asked you that __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sun May 31, 2009 5:50 pm A while back I mentioned that I was short of containers. I've since started to build some to make up for this. I had problems with this Parkside FM container as I couldn't find a decent close up photo to copy, so a bit of guesswork was needed. The lettering is from a Modelmaster sheet, although strangely all of the made up numbers seemed (if I've read Don Rowland's book correctly) to be for the plywood version rather than matchboarded as per the kit. These are Parkside (the longer type BD) and Cambrian (type A) and were built straight from the kits, although the Cambrian ones needed quite a bit of filing of the corners to get them to go together properly. Now waiting painting. I've also restarted work on a couple of Maunsell coaches that have been sitting around for years waiting to be finished. The first is one of the later open thirds with sliding vents. It started out as a Phoenix kit which was pretty horrible. I replaced the roof with a Kirk one to lose the strange pressed rainstring, reprofiled the ends (which seemed to be a GWR type that sloped in towards the top) and built a new underframe. The windows were carefully filed to reduce the thickness of the ventilator frames. Underframe details and bogies are Comet (these later Maunsell ones had the same battery boxes/dynamos as Bulleid coaches) and door details are NNK. It looks OK but I'm not 100% happy with it. I'm not sure if there's an easier way to build one of these. It will go in the centre of a rake, which is why the paper gangways extend out so far in this picture. A lot easier was this Roxey Nondescript brake, although it too has had a lot of work on the underframe, and some Comet bogies. I thought the original Roxey underframe detail looked a bit weedy, and replacing it ensured that all of my coaches had a consistent look. Hard work, but when I started on these we didn't have a decent RTR Maunsell coach to pinch the underframe from. Now being painted. And partially stripped down and repainted after I gave it a coat of SR freight brown by mistake instead of green (the joys of red/green colour blindness ) __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:30 pm Sorry about the slightly iffy quality of some of the following photos. My trusty 7 year old Kodak camera packed up, and I'm still getting the hang of the replacement. My old one was a lot easier to use - such is progress in the never ending quest to make technology more difficult to use than it actually needs to be. Speaking of old, I bought this Dapol 5 plank open with my pocket money at the Grantham rail show in 1988 (when it used to be at the Town hall). It's been dug out, fitted with a new MJT/ABS/Evergreen channel chassis and some body detailing, and is now a Southern built LNER 5 plank wagon. I bought some Parkside parcels vans as part of one of their cheap show deals about 5 years back, and now I've nearly finished one! An LMS CCT, which I've compensated with MJT inside bearings. The chassis detail on the kit was a bit sketchy, so I've replaced the brake shoes with MJT ones, linkages from bits of wire and the J hangers with some nice castings from Comet which are a bit more heavy duty. Buffers are Gibson sprung, which will be fitted with MJT heads to represent the strange squared off oval buffers the real thing had. I forget who came up with this idea, but I read it on the forum I've since fixed the wonky cross bar between the brake shoes The next two are both from Cambrian and belong to the LMS. The D1667 open was a doddle, and has the usual underframe refinements. The D1664 was a lot more "fun". The ends were about 1mm too short, and had to be extended downwards so that the bottom of the buffer beam lined up with the bottom of the solebar. The lower end detail had to be replaced to hide the extension. I also added triangular corner plates at the lower corners (these seem to have been added fairly soon after building), the brackets between the solebar and the sides and made the end strapping deeper by adding plastic strip (it looked too shallow compared to photos). The roof was a bit thick, so I made a new one from tinplate covered in some self adhesive fabric from Crafty Computer paper http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk/ProductDetail.asp?ProductID=9&CatID=10 which when painted gives a slightly rough canvas finish. Despite (or perhaps because of) all this extra work, I did quite enjoy building this kit. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Jun 09, 2009 10:18 pm And some more! This LNER Extra Long CCT is from the same batch of Parkside kits I bought ages ago. Pretty much as per the basic kit except for MJT inside bering compensation and their sprung buffers (with the heads filed down to get the cut off type used by these vehicles). I also glazed it before the final coat of matt varnish, to try and get the effect of filthy windows. The LBSC car truck is finished as well - in early BR condition and loaded with a Classix Austin. The car had it's windows masked off with maskol and a couple of coats of matt varnish to stop it looking shiny and toy like. It should really be roped down but I wanted it to be removable. Or was too lazy depending on your point of view..... __________________________________________ ??? posted on Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:28 pm I've been clearing out some of the long term lurkers on my work bench. This is an LMS DX type open container. It's based on the Parkside kit, which is sold as an LNER design but it's actually an RCH standard type. It need two main modifications: - Replace the securing rings on the side with fuse wire rings. - Replace the fragile plastic hoops with some more robust metal ones. This was a real pain, and the new ones are slightly wonky even after some tweaking. They are a lot more robust though, which is good. The next container is a scratchbuilt LMS FM insulated one - based on a plan in LMS wagons volume 2, and a photo in Vol 3 of the 4mm wagon. There's a little bit of guesswork in places (the drawing is a bit vague and the one in the photo was loaded in to a 3 plank wagon so the lower parts is obscured) but I'm happy with the result. The projections on the roof are for the lifting shackles, which will be fitted after painting. Lastly an LSWR stone block wagon. Converted from a Cambrian 1 plank PO wagon as per a suggestion on their web site. It has deeper solebars (plastic strip) and new running gear. I cut the ABS axleboxes and springs from their W iron casting and mounted them on MJT etched W irons - this looks a lot better, and I think I'll do this on all LSWR wagons in future. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:23 pm Finally finished the LMS Plywood van It took ages to paint as the matt humbrol varnish I used kept drying with whitee patches. Now I know why this normallly happens (moisture in the atmosphere or insufficient mixing of the matting agent) but other stuff spayed at the same time (and often in the same pass of the can) was OK. It's done now anyway and I'm pleased with how much better it now looks compared to the standard Parkside kit. It's a bit rough in places because of all the hacking about, but passes the two foot test. There's another one of these in the pipeline which shoulldd be a bit more refined. The two cambrian LMS wagons are now painted as well. I'm quite pleased with the way these have turned out. __________________________________________ Comment posted by lbsc123 on Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:21 pm Looks good Pete! Love the look of the cartruck it looks far better than many kits I've built. Do you by any chance have a layout to run all this lovely stock on? Cheers, Will __________________________________________ ??? posted on Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:36 pm lbsc123 wrote: Do you by any chance have a layout to run all this lovely stock on? Not yet I'm currently living in a rented flat with no space for a layout, so I'm concentrating on building stock. The plan is to build a layout based on a freelance location somewhere on the Kent/Sussex border where the LBSC and SER meet. Period will be from mid-1930s to 1970, which lets me use a wide range of stock on the same layout (as large parts of the Southern seemed to avoid any infrastructure changes during this time - even keeping their Southern railway signs). __________________________________________ ??? posted on Thu Jul 09, 2009 8:19 pm I've finished painting the Southern built LNER 5 plank wagon, in 1940s unpainted condition. I'm quite pleased with this, especially as it started out as a fairly crude Dapol model The first of the containers is now done - a Parkside BD in 1960s tatty bauxite. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:14 am Somehow I forgot to take a picture of this GWR Felix Pole 20T coal wagon before painting it. It started off as a Colin Ashby kit - bought just before he retired and the kits went in to limbo. The body was very good - nice thin sides are quite unusual on plastic kits of steel mineral wagons. The chassis was poor due to knackered tooling, so I replaced the solebars with plastic section and used MJT axleboxes/W-irons. There then followed much fun making all of the brackets that attach the body to the chassis I used the salt weathering method again, but very lightly to give the impression of lots of little patches of rust. This Southern Maunsell corridor first is one of the first Hornby models, repainted in to post-war Malachite green and with a bit of detailing. Well, mostly "undetailing" as I removed the alarm gear from one end (it had it at both), the extra set of door hinges on one of the doors (?!?!?) and the horrible metal steps from the corners of the chassis. The latter were massively over scale and badly assembled. These were frankly bizarre - they are presumably overscale for strength but could easily have been left off. Scale replacements would have been too fragile and the coach looks OK without them. The BR totems on the windows were scratched off with a fingernail and replaced with HMRS transfers. I couldn't remove the Hornby door handles in a way that they ccould be re-attached after painting, so I ended up replacing them with etched Roxey ones. And I added the cream patches on the corridor partition using bits of sticky label painted the right colour. __________________________________________ ??? posted on Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:05 pm I'm now clearing all the half built wagons from my workbench with a vengance! An Airfix lowmac I had as a kid. The moulding for attaching a lorry were carefully removed and filled and scale wheels fitted. It's had a few extra details on the ends, but I chickened out of replacing the over thick axleguards. This Coopercraft GWR 7 plank wagon has been modified to match one pictured in "Pre-nationalisation fright wagons on BR" which has different ironwork around the doors and steel channel replacing the lower planks on the ends. The latter modification isn't a good idea on Coopercraft wagons, as the floor is about 3mm too high so the inside looks a bit odd. A canvas sheet will hide this. Another Banana van, this time a Dapol body on a Red Panda body. I was impressed with the quality of the body - it's a 50 year old Hornby-Dublo tooling and it put some of the iffy models coming out of China these days to shame. The chassis had to go as it was totally wrong, and as for the livery.... Some minor modifications to the ends, and I've added the chalk boards to the sides. The Red Panda brake shoes looked a bit weedy and were replaced with 51L cast ones. These may be a bit on the chunky side, but look OK. They were moulded in pairs lengthwise accross the wagon so you can use them with rocking W Irons (nice idea) and needed cutting down for OO (a minutes work) A real dogs dinner - Ratio body mouldings, with a spare Parkside CCT roof (much more accurate than the ratio roof) and a parkside chassis. It represents one of these vans towards the end of their lives after it had aquired vacuum brakes. Another Parkside LMS Plywood van rebuilt with a set of Ratio ends. A couple of Airfix BR cattle wagons, picked up new and untouched a few years ago before the Bachmann ones were announced. They were fantastically well moulded and yet managed to be nightmares to build. Even fitting modern scale wheels was a pain, but I managed it in the end so they run a bit better than the one I built when I was 10, which had the 2 part plastic wheels They needed a lot of work around the doors to replace the toy like opening ones. The one on the right has had it's diagonal strapping replaced to represent the alternate pattern used on some of the 8 ton vans. The one on the right has new axleboxes cut from a spare Parkside chassis. Lastly, these two Parkside LNER vans were much easier and needed virtually nothing doing except for a few detail changes to match the examples I chose to model. Fantastic kits! __________________________________________ Comment posted by Pennine MC on Sat Aug 01, 2009 6:09 pm Intersting selection as ever, Pete. I also came to the conclusion that a Parkside roof was the way to go with the Ratio SR van; I found it doesnt fit perfectly but the gaps are so small as not to notice - and yet the improvement in shape is so significant. I'm very much with you on the 'nana van also - for my money, it's easily the best of the old HD SD series __________________________________________