Iain Popplewell

Crikey Compound2632 it appears you're a greater authority on the South Farne system than even I am! You're right of course, even though I got the paint formulation spot on, I forgot to put the coal in both engines. What a chump.

Don't know how I missed this thread lovely stuff all of it. As a bit of light relief a couple of my loco's; Florence No. 12 North Tees Railway circa. 3rd Aug 1913 11.30am. approx. LRM NER P1 kit adapted. South Farne Iron Company No.1. circa. 3rd Aug 1913 11.30am. approx. Adapted Consett A class Judith Edge kit.

No Ruston the livery is factual, the South Farne Iron Company, although it is not widely known, was situated on the South Farne Islands just off the coast from Middlesbrough and the county of Durham. The paint is the exact formulation as used on the 3rd Aug 1913 11.30am approx. I'm fastidious about such things. Should you wish to reproduce the above livery, Phoenix Precision Paints market South Farne Iron Company Crimson as Midland Crimson Lake. Unbelievably lucky paint match that. Earlier in this thread BarryO posted a very nice photo of a weathered loco painted by himself and built if I remember rightly by the man himself Mike Edge. Well worth a look and I venture to suggest maybe a more accurate rendition of what a Consett A class really looked like.

The overbridge scene above, just delightful. Fence posts, walls, verges and an embankment, it looks easy, but it's so difficult to get it just right. Lovely stuff.

If you're into buying things like I am, don't buy RTR. like I used to, waste of time. No get into making things for yourself, preferably in summat purporting to be "finescale". Now there's no limit to what I can buy. Last four years have seen me buy spray booths, compressors, airbrushes, drawing instruments, soldering ironsx3, fluxes, brass sheet. brass castings, wheels, etched kits, books galore, a lathe (now lathes are brilliant cos you have to buy loads of stuff to go with them.) lathe tools, dial test indicators, digital calipers, centre drills, drills, slideway oil, slot drills. No there's much more to the hobby than just buying RTR, you'll get much more satisfaction if you make things for yourself, even the simplest plasticard building will do for starters, and even better you'll get to spend a fortune on stuff you didn't even know existed when all you did was buy RTR.

I love these instructional sequences Mike, great to see how it's done. One day who knows I might get round to starting my own modest workbench thread more in the hope that people will tell me where I'm going wrong. However I did promise you some photo's of my Consett A class if I ever finished it. (kit modified slightly to represent South Farne Iron Company No.1) Front buffer beam cut down and dumb buffers added from brass strip. Chimney/ dome in lost wax and cab spectacles made up from brass tube. I like my polished brass you see Edwardian splendour and all that. This is my second etched brass kit and I can heartily recommend this kit it goes together like a dream. Hope you don't mind me disrupting your thread Mike but I expect kit makers all like to see how their kits turn out. I'm quite proud of how mine turned out.

Definitely against! No music no pop/film stars. Well maybe the theme from Thomas The Tank cos he's my favourite. Actually thinking about it maybe I'd allow the theme from The Railway Children as long as Jenni Agutter was in attendance, cos she's my favourite too.

Scalefour North never disappoints truly inspirational stuff all of it. A big thank you to the organisers/helpers, great job done once again. As for the excellent trade presence, surely no greater reason to spend the kids inheritance can exist on the planet!

Very clever Arthur, the boiler tube is caught between the top roller and a hard place ie. the slightly larger outside tube. I like it, next boiler I do I'm going to give it a try. I'm already thinking 22mm copper water pipe is probably ideal for boilers in the region of 5ft diam. in 4mm scale. Amazing hobby, railway modelling, there's always a new aspect to it.

Backing up what Mike and Jol say and on the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words this is how its done by me. What you start out with, a flat boiler and formers. This is the boiler bits from Arthurs North Eastern kits Class T1. I believe Arthur now provides boilers ready rolled in his kits, but I digress. What you need to roll that brass a G W Models roller as used by Mike. Rollers shown with a bit of smokebox cladding in this case. The allan key is used to progressively tighten the rollers equally at both sides as you roll the brass too and frow across the length of the brass. One eighth turns of the key in the latter stages of rolling. A shorter allan key may be used rather than this huge one, but this was what I had to hand. You end up with this. If the tube starts to roll as a cone, tightening the roller slightly more at the wider end should even things up. It's actually not as difficult as you might think and quite good fun. Proper engineering! The only difficult bit can be getting the last edges along the join to form a proper smooth curve and I think I'll try Mikes cardboard dodge next time. Arthurs etches curved quite nicely anyway. Oh just if you are wondering, you free the trapped boiler tube from the rollers by slackening off both allan screws. Then by removing one screw free the top roller, this allows the boiler tube to be withdrawn. Take care you don't drop and lose the concealed spring and collar though. It can take a while to find such small items on workshop floors! Jol suggests twisted iron wire, I use cable ties. Tack solder both ends and middle of tube. Then seam along with iron working from the inside of the tube at all times. The seam shown is without any cleaning up at all! I was well chuffed with it I can tell you. Having solderered a nut to the boiler former, solder it into the boiler end. Arthurs etches are spot on and it goes together a dream. Don't solder the bolt in though, not a good idea. What it all looks like after cleaning up. Absolutely lovely. Open a beer and reflect on your engineering prowess and skill. Edit: Actually in hind sight, reflect on Arthur Kimber's engineering prowess and skill, it's the kit makers that make it all so easy. Not to mention Mr G W models. G W models also do 1.5mm, 2.0mm worm pullers, Alan Gibson wheel pullers, Alan Gibson wheel onto axle presses that quarter the wheels for you! and if that wasn't all they even do a very nice set of bending bars. Buy the lot if you can they're invaluable. I speak only as a satisfied user, usual disclaimer.

So would I, no more nasty worms. Mind you I must admit Chris's gearboxes take some beating, but bevel drive in theory is a much more mechanically elegant and efficient engineering solution. If Chris can make worm gears work so good, what could he do with bevel drive!!

Nah looks a bit too exotic a livery for early 20th century Rosedale. Something a bit more moggieish like our George should do the trick. He's much bigger nowadays by the way.

Wakefield is always a good show, but I too thought the selection of layouts was outstanding this year. Personal favourite was Eaglesham lovely modelling. Spent my usual small fortune at Hobby Holidays, Wizard models and Squires. Well done to all the show organisers! I note Jamie, of this parish, show organiser for many years, is set to retire to France, happy modelling and retirement to you Jamie.

Advert in show guide gives Tel no. 07981 924174. They do not have a shop or website. Presumably will sell from home if contacted by phone.

Never in the field of human conflict was so little modelling done in so long a time, by so few. Iain Popplewell (modelling ditherer and ex fighter ace.)

So here I am 2 months later, did I ever finish that loco? YES I did! took a couple of months of dithering but I got there. Living proof that modellers block need not be permanent. Don't procrastinate just get on and do it! If I can anyone can, believe me.

Just a thought, if the garden of Eden had had a shed, Adam would have never met Eve, he'd have been too busy in the garden shed building his model railway... GOD, "Behold Adam what I have made for you WOMAN to be your companion for you said you were lonely" Adam, " Oh that's just great Lord, thanks a bunch! All I said was that I was bored that's all." " I was hoping for a train set."

And then what happened? God looked at the two of 'em man and woman, thought this is all such a bad idea, and lobbed both of 'em over the garden fence. (book of Genesis) And then if I remember rightly I think God created garden gnomes a much better idea, far less trouble!

Well I'll be, two railways carrying iron ore at opposite sides of the country with the same coloured loco's. The ironstone beds of the South Farne's were the same as the Cleveland ore-field so perhaps if Lord Ravenbeck the owner of island and mines had followed the same premise South Farne loco's would have been coloured a rather drab dark green. Thankfully they weren't, and it appears he went for the more appealing and aesthetic Crimson Lake. I wonder if he had the Furness in mind? We'll probably never know.

Thanks Derek glad you like her. She's sprayed with Phoenix Precision Paints Crimson Lake over Phoenix Precision Paints two part grey primer. How close that comes to the old Midland Crimson Lake I don't know, but as a representation of The South Farne Iron Company's red I'd maintain it's spot on.

So after touching in any paint scratches with slightly thinned paint and applying name plates it was time for varnishing. Always a nervous part of the build I find. The potential for disaster seems to me to be immense. I masked all matt areas, buffer beams and cab, polished brass areas, chimney top dome whistle safety valve. One good tip, to maintain a clean line around the base of the polished part of the chimney, mask with a fine strip of Tamiya tape, then mask the rest of the chimney brass cap using Maskol. Buffer beam dome etc masked using Maskol. This loco is the second I have varnished and again I used Ian Rathbone's recipe as detailed in his book and video. It works for me and I'm disinclined to experiment. Recipe; 1part ie. 2ml Ronseal high gloss varnish. (the spirit based varnish not the water based varnish) add to two parts ie 4ml white spirit. Use a Tamiya paint stirrer to add two spoonfuls of Phoenix Precision Paints matting agent. ( a spoonful being just the spoonshaped bit at the end of the stirrer.) I mix the varnish direct into my badger 155 airbrush cup and spray at 40 psi. This mixture and pressure I find gives a fine mist of varnish and keeping the airbrush moving, and spaying not too close to the model I find you can get a pretty decent consistent varnish coat. The final result of all this work; Conclusions; I'm quite pleased how she came out. For a first attempt at lining not too bad. The decals worked out not too bad but I feel lining the panels directly would probably give a more professional result. Big thanks to Gaf2u for the inspiration to get going. Big thanks to all who contribute to this thread especially Ian Rathbone and Coachman. Very pleased to find that you can remove and reverse your more pronounced cockups by "lifting paint". Knowing you can do this helps your confidence no end.

Having had a bit of practice lining on decal paper I then felt confident enough to line directly onto the loco tank sides. I didn't want to lose rivet detail under decal film and to be honest the decal technique had not proved an unmitigated complete success. So I pressed on, lining with my Kueffler Esser pen the pen gap set using a piece of card. The rivets proved a useful guide to aligning the rule and lines. I then "cutback the lines" as in the Rathbone video using my dividers to mark 1.5mm in from the corners and lifting surplus paint with a fine brush dampened in white spirit. Left it all to dry overnight then prepared to draw in the corners. A couple of pieces of Tamiya masking tape at each corner was used to protect the paint surface from the compass point and with my bow pen compasses set to 1.5mm radius drew in the corners. I managed to draw in the corners with not too much difficulty. I was pleasantly surprised to find how easy it was to remove the more disastrous curves with a slightly damp fine brush allowing another attempt to be made. However my new found confidence led to exuberance and I removed a couple of bits of straight line applied the night before. (moral allow plenty of time for previously ruled lines to dry.) However all was not lost for I possessed a Windsor and Newton Series Seven Kolinsky 00 sable brush, Ian Rathbone swears by them, and the mere possession of such a brush is reputed to turn any tyro into an expert! At least that's what I hoped. So I attempted to paint in the two missing bits of line, " the two bits can just be seen above at the right hand end tank corners as a slightly more matt line." As initially drawn by me the lines resembled a series of blobs and I felt all was lost, but was pleasantly surprised to find that I could tidy up the blobs into something resembling a line using the paint lifting technique.(Rathbone video again.) I had some hope that varnishing would blend the more matt patched line with the ruled line.

I then applied the decals as you would normal waterslide decals, however having cut through the total thickness of backing the decals were slow to separate from the backing on soaking in warm water. I managed to apply most of the panels OK. but I did get a problem with wrinkling. The above panel was beyond help and I soaked it with water and removed it. I then made up another panel, half scored through the backing, and obtained a much better result.

Gaf2u's earlier posting did kick me out of my lethargy, this is how I got on; I didn't feel confident enough to line initially directly onto the loco so decided to line the panels of the loco onto sprayed extra decal. Above photo shows equipment used. Bow compasses not from my Kueffler Esser set but picked up in a second hand market in Dinan France this summer. (4 euro's bit of honing and they came up lovely.) Set out the panels in pencil and drew the corners first. Calculations of panel sizes can be seen scribbled on the black card working surface top right. I set the radius of the compasses to 1.5mm seemed about right. Then I ruled in the straight lines using one of my ruling pens from my set. (see earlier post.) The thicker individual lines are for use as boiler bands. I then cut carefully and closely around each transfer with a scalpel. (once the paint has dried obviously) I cut right through the decal paper, this was a mistake, I should have only scored halfway through to the backing paper and carefully teased the transfer away from this with a thin backing of intermediate paper still adhering to it. This was to cause problems later.

Thanks Mr Kirtley800. Those engines look just lovely. What's good enough for you and Larry looks good enough for me. Crimson Lake it is then. Here's one I prepared earlier. South Farne Iron Company No.1 (circa 3rd Aug 1913 11.30am approx.) You like Mr Kirtley? At last an engine from the North East in red. Ps. Great to see you up and about again. Love your layout it's tremendous. Edit: To change date from 13th to correct date 3rd.