Nick Mitchell

Those who know how to paint locomotives will be able to tell me that I'm doing this in completely the wrong order, but after waiting 72 hours for the green to harden, I went for red as the next colour in the end. I figured it would be easier to mask the buffer beams to spray the black than the other way round. In hindsight, that might not have been such a good call, as everything that would have been black ended up being masked off (along with the green) as I sprayed the red paint. I think I was worrying about the red covering any black overspray, but it has covered the green on the rear buffer beam with no problems. On all the locos I have painted fully so far (ok - both of them!) the livery has been black, and the buffer beams have been brush painted in after an overall coat of gloss black. Using thinned red paint on a black buffer beam has allowed a natural dirty look as a good base for further weathering. For Beatrice I wanted something cleaner, so masking and spraying was the order of the day. Well out of my comfort zone, but I think I've got away with it. The paint is Humbrol gloss red, thinned 1:1 with white spirit. While I was at it, I sprayed the coupling rods red. There are a couple of other red bits on the loco (rods under the tank on the right side, and a few bits in the cab) but these will have to be brushed in much later on. There were a couple of places along the bottom edge of the bunker where the red crept under the masking tape (which was Tamya), but this was easily removed with a brush moistened with white spirit. Looking at the photos now, I can see the brush tip caught the top of the vacuum stand pipe. Better painters than me would do it all by brush, but I want to spray as much of the black as I can to get an even coverage - especially of the smokebox and chimney. Some parts of the footplate will almost certainly need to be brushed in though. The masking will be interesting...

Rolling off my workbench this evening were the last few wagon wheels of a batch which will be bound for Shop 2 imminently. These are plain disc wheels on 12.25mm axles 3-hole disc wheels on 13.7mm axles, and represent my contribution to a larger order from the shop totalling 1100 axles. They are being assembled in various dank caves across Yorkshire and neighbouring territories where Trolls are rumoured to have established socially-awkward-distanced dwelling places. These are following hot on the heels (or should that be hot boxes?) of another 1000 axles sent to the shop last month. I don't know who is building all these wagons, but I look forward to seeing some of them complete...

Last night I had a go at putting the gloss onto the green bits. I'm using gloss so that painting any lining or transfers will be much easier. If you get the light right, gloss paint does highlight all kinds of defects and blemishes. Once complete, I will give the whole thing a coat of satin or matt varnish - but that is in the far future. For now I'm happy with the way things are progressing. The finish isn't the smoothest, but at least it isn't gritty and I think I've managed not to leave shadows behind handrails and boiler furniture. The paint mix was 2:1 humbrol gloss brunswick green : lime green. It looks a bit lurid in these photos, but in natural light to the naked eye it appears quite a bit darker. I didn't bother masking the bits that won't be green other than the inside of the cab. I haven't decided whether I'll spray the red or the black next. In either case I will leave it several days for the green to go really hard before masking up.

I was spraying inside (masked up and with with a filter booth). The central heating has been cranked up the last few weeks, so the paint, air and model were not cold. In his famous book (my copy of which is now autographed ) Ian Rathbone says when he followed Precision's instructions to let the paint down 1:1 with activated thinners, all he got from his airbrush was cobwebs. I follow his recipe of 1 part paint : 2 parts activated thinners : 1 part cellulose thinners All I can think of is that maybe my paint has thickened in the jar over time and now needs thinning even more. It is hard to tell as it is incredibly gloopy to begin with. Glad to know I'm not the only one who occasionally suffers from this! At least it isn't necessarily a total disaster.

I had my airbrush out earlier this week and gave Beatrice a coat of etching primer. All my recently found confidence (well, confidence may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I had become slightly less terrified) disappeared when I inspected the results close up. Poor Beatrice looked like she'd been left in a spider-infested shed for a hundred years: the dreaded cobwebbing had visited me once again. I thought I had done everything the same as the previous time I used this primer (Phoenix Precision 2-pack), but something was obviously not right. Things turned out to be not quite as bad as they might have been. A vigorous scrub with a camera lens brush removed most of the cobwebs, and there was a reasonable coat of primer stuck to the model underneath them. The more stubborn cobwebs were carefully removed with a combination of tweezers, cocktail slicks and a tiny screwdriver. A blow over with compressed air, and this is what I was left with: I think it is good enough to put a top coat over. In these pictures I have spotted that one of the lamp irons has broken off, and the rear-most handrail pillar under the tank on the driver's side has come loose and pushed in. I think I'll put a lamp where the broken iron is once she's painted, and the handrail knob will have to be glued from inside the tank. I primed one of my plate wagons at the same time as I did Beatrice to use up the paint in the airbrush cup. Obviously this was before I had noticed the cobwebs. The result was similar. If you want to see what these cobwebs are like before removal, zoom in on this:

Have Bachmann been reading this thread? I've just seen their announcement today that 45604 Ceylon in experimental green is to join the OO Branch Line range. I really hope they don't release an N gauge version - not until I've painted mine at least. Below is a screen grab from the announcement video - I think the green looks a bit dark...

Below is a photo of the most recent small batch of these I built a few years ago. Obviously this was taken before painting began, but as of today they're still in primer... They are straightforward to build, but not entirely fool-proof: I started this batch while demonstrating at an exhibition, and managed to build one of them "inside out" as I was distracted chatting to visitors. The beauty of soldered construction is that even really stupid mistakes like that can be easily undone! I have another 5 tucked away in my gloat chest (the word "box" no longer does it justice)... I think they may have to be added to the this year's wildly optimistic wagon-building programme.

More power to your elbow with this etch design. I'm still putting off taking the plunge... there are too many hobbies within this hobby of ours! Not modelling related, but I had the pleasure of firing one of the Backworth RSH saddletanks similar to the one in your photo - No. 47 - when it visited Embsay 5 or 6 years ago. (Maybe your next etch design could be for one of these?) Alas we don't have a rake of coal trucks, but I did manage a rare outing on a goods train with it:

Many tasks in 2mm are fiddly by definition. Whether or not something is too fiddly is a question only you can answer. Others have demonstrated that transfers and bow pens are both viable - as are Rotring-type tubular pens. I haven't lined a 2mm coach myself yet, but have drawn inspiration from this thread.

With glue? (Loctite for the crank pins and Araldite for the balance weights)

I'll see them weep bitter tears when they subsequently fit a return crank for some yummy outside valve gear. Then I'll offer to lend them my T-Shirt...

Could they be a PECO point motor shaft extender? I'm going back decades, but seem to remember something with a PL-10 point motor - like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143774500829

The Masterclass LMS 17'6" chassis went together nicely. I don't think these are available at the moment - maybe now that the Chivers kits are becoming available again, they will be reintroduced? I have one more tucked away to go with a Chivers LMS tube wagon... one day! In the photo below, you can see the difference between the springs I cut off the etches as being too skinny for the type of wagon and their cast replacement. These were superglued in place after all soldering was completed. To the underside of the wagon I have added tubes for Electra couplings, and coupling hooks from the 2mm Scale Association etch. These have been trimmed to length so that when butted up to the coupler mounting boxes, they protrude an appropriate distance form the plastic headstocks. A thin slot has been sawn in each buffer beam to accommodate the coupling hooks, which will in their turn centre the chassis under the body. Also visible in the photo below is the restored door spring. The only other tweak I made to the chassis etch was to add an extra little bracket over the reversing lever where it is joined to the small V hanger. The body has been epoxied to the chassis, and the cast buffers affixed by the same means. So there's another wagon ready to join the queue for the Paint Shop, and my expanding collection of assorted long lows / plates. Two wagons made in one week??? Something is wrong here!

Yesterday, on a whim, I raided my gloat box to find the Chivers D.2069 body kit I mentioned in the previous post. The mouldings are really fine, but as with nearly all plastic kits, the thickness of the sides is way over-scale. Also, being made to 1:148 scale, it is too long and too wide. There are three potential approaches to a kit like this - 1) don't use it; 2) build it as intended and don't worry about the discrepancies; 3) spend ages trying to adapt it. Anyone who knows me will be in no doubt as to which approach I will take, as off I go on another modelling tangent. I wanted to see if I could make something that would sit alongside my 1:152 etched plate wagons in terms of scale and also general fine-ness. Thinning the sides was the first job. I did this by chamfering them over the height of the body so they are just over half the original thickness at the top. Below is a before and after photo. I have lost the moulded bolt-head detail on the inside, but on balance, I think the overall thickness of the sides are far more noticeable than the interior detail. The plastic is very flexible, so getting an even thickness over such a long side was not particularly easy. I think it came out OK in the end. Next job was to tackle the length of the side, which needed to "shrink" proportionally over its length by 1.25mm I have a razor saw with a blade 0.3mm thick, so took 4 strategically placed cuts vertically up the sides and glued the bits back together with Mek. The arrows in the picture below show where the cuts were made, tucked up against the door pumpers to make them less obvious. The top edge of the side was held against a steel ruler while the solvent did its work to make sure the modified side ended up straight. The width of the wagon was only 0.4mm over-scale. Rather than narrowing the end pieces, I thinned the sides a bit more where they overlap the ends. The ends did need chamfering, however, to bring the planks closer to scale thickness. The integral buffer beams looked like wooden planks rather than steel channel, so I filed a wide slot in the end to suggest the channel. When assembled it should fool the eye. The floor (which usefully has the battens moulded on) needed reducing in length and width to fit its reduced circumstances. I overdid the shortening at one end, and have a slight gap that will be easily filled with a sliver of microstrip. Fortunately, I had the foresight to remove the moulded ridges from the underside of the floor (there to align the plastic underframe components of the original kit) before assembling it, to give a smooth flat surface for the etched replacement. So, the ultimate question - does the modified plastic body stand comparison with the etched one? And was turning a half-hour job into a couple-of-hours job worth it? For me personally, I think the answer is "yes" on both counts, although many people would be happy not to bother. Having built a few 1:148 wagon kits in the past and put them on finescale underframes, I have always been a little bit dissatisfied with the scale discrepancy when viewed alongside true 2mm scale wagons... and wagons are the sort of thing that tend to get mixed and matched in trains. In an Illustrated History of LMS Wagons Vol. 1, the dimensions given are 27'0" outside the end planks for the D.2069, and 27'0" inside the top angles for the D.2083 steel vehicle. The comparison shot below shows my plastic surgery has come out spot on, and the scars have healed quite nicely. Looking at the picture now I notice one of the door springs has snapped off, but it will be easily replaced. The Masterclass chassis I have lined up for this wagon fits perfectly length-wise, once the fold-down ends have been removed. Below is the inner chassis unit folded up and tested in position for fit. Of course being designed to fit under N Gauge kits, the wheelbase will be a scale 18'0" than 17'6". Pragmatism dictates I'll have to live with this discrepancy. Besides not wanting to take any chances with its free running, I'd have to start worrying about the brakes and everything else. These D.2069 wagons were effectively a shortened version of a much more numerous earlier design which also had a 17'6" wheelbase, and consequently look like the wheels are too close to the wagon ends anyway. The sole-bar overlays are considerably longer than the chassis sides, to allow for it to be used on a variety of wagons. They will need trimming back. They feature a half-etched representation of the channel, which is not my preference, but underneath the overhang of the body it will be hidden in shadow. On the one photo I have access to of one of these wagons, it is impossible to tell whether there are any brackets connecting the solebars to the underneath of the body, so I guess anything goes detail-wise in those murky depths. I know the saying "never model a model", but I haven't found any photos of models of these wagons on-line that feature support brackets or ribs. The drawing in the book referred to earlier shows no underframe detail either. One change I will make to the chassis, however, is to replace the springs and axleboxes. The etched springs attached to the solebar overlays look a bit too undernourished when compared to photographs.

It has been a while since I did anything wagon-wise, but that changed when some etched wagon kits appeared in my Christmas stocking. Jumping straight to the front of the (rather long) queue were a pair of LMS Diagram 2083 Plate wagons (welded construction) from the Stephen Harris stable, looking suitably tasty. As one would expect from Stephen, these kits are bristling with cleverly thought out ways of representing lots of fine detail. There is a fair amount of work involved, but the bits fit together perfectly, and they are a joy to behold both as a flat etch and as a completed model. After an afternoon and a couple of evening sessions, the first of these is complete, and the second is not far behind. I've taken a few snaps in case anyone is interested in seeing what's involved in these kits - the whole range is available to drool over on the 2mm Association Website. The first bit of cleverness is how the two sides build up in one operation to give the plate/angle construction effect: The floor is also in two layers, incorporating the door hinges as protuberances, which double-up as locating tabs for the sides: The inner ends fold up from the under-layer of the floor, and it is impossible not to get everything lined up nicely: The underframe is equally ingenious, and in two parts. The "inner" part features the functional W irons (there are plate overlays included if desired, to represent the later BR-built batch) and the brakes: The outer layer features the channel sole-bar, and a natty means of getting all those strengthening ribs in perfect registration by installing them as pairs in slots across the underframe: When joined together, the two halves make a really sturdy underframe unit. Once the body is added (and with the central supports added to the underframe, the alignment of the body is automatic) there are lots of little details to add. The only parts which are not in ay way self-jigging are the 14 battens on the wagon floor, each a separate strip. I'll admit they were quite tedious to solder in place, being careful to get them square and correctly spaced, but that is the price of being free to position them in whatever pattern suits your particular prototype. The ends of the wagon fit neatly in place, flush between the sides, with vertical ribs fitted separately. Even these have thin protrusions which locate in holes in the folded-over top lip of the end piece, so they are guaranteed to be correctly positioned: The buffers are Association 2-rib brass castings. Some on the sprue were a bit warped and slightly out of register, and have required the attention of pliers and a file. No springs or axle-boxes are included as part of this particular kit, so I have used some cast whitemetal 2-bolt ones I had in my bits box. The springs have the right chunkiness about them. For the second wagon, I think I might order some of the new 3D printed versions from Shop 2 to try out. For now, the completed wagon can keep my Nigel Hunt etched Diagram 1680 plate wagon company. Hopefully this one won't have to wait seven years before it gets painted! I think somewhere in my gloat box I have a Chivers plastic body kit and Masterclass chassis etch to build yet another type of LMS Plate wagon, Diag. 2069...

I'm not surprised the fireman doesn't fit in the cab - he must be quite big-headed from all the compliments on his efficient firing technique... there looks to be plenty of coal left in the tender after such a long trip

The real 6' 1 1/2 " me fits nicely in the cab of the real Beatrice, with all my excess weight (thanks, Tim!). It is Great Western engines where you really have to breathe in to fit through the cab doorway...

While I'm in the neighbourhood, so to speak, I'll take the opportunity to bring you up to speed with progress on a loco that has appeared on this thread before. It is more than 3 years since I visited Little Bytham, when Tony took some lovely photos of a few of my locos (see this post). One of those locos was an ex-LNWR 0-6-2 Coal Tank, built from etches shot down to 2mm from the London Road Models kit. Rather like the Hunslet 16" (see above) there was a lot of fiddling about required. These "shot-down" etches are closer to scratch-aids in many ways than kits in the traditional sense, as many of the ideas about how they should be built don't scale very well. Anyway, after an embarrassingly long time, earlier this year (before I made a start on the Hunslet) I finally finished off all the detailing on the Coal Tank and painted it. For a Victorian locomotive, there is a surprising amount of fiddly little detail which all needed to be fabricated from lumps of brass and bits of wire. I had started off with several commercial castings for the boiler furniture and tool-boxes, but they were all grossly over scale, so I ended up re-making most of them. The splasher-top sand-boxes are all that remain, considerably diminished. Here is the complete loco prior to painting: With the cab roof off, it is easier to see the detailed interior (as well as the back end of the motor). The bunker contains stay-alive capacitors. The decoder itself is concealed within the ash-pan. At the left had end of the picture below is the rear truck, which is a genuine radial truck, rather than a pony truck as provided for in the original kit (and which couldn't be made to work in a 2mm context). The body has been painted (Precision 2-pack etch primer, then Humbrol gloss black, both airbrushed) and had Fox transfers applied. A nice easy livery! When I get the airbrush out next week to start painting the Hunslet, this loco will be weathered. Nick.

I wish my not as neat was as neat as your not as neat! The whole thing is coming along splendidly.

Good evening, I hope you don't mind me posting something a little off-piste here. I know the frequenters of this thread like seeing things that people have been making, so I thought I'd share a few pictures of a 2mm finescale locomotive I started during the first lockdown, and have just completed (apart from painting) - which is good going for me. The loco in question is a little industrial Hunslet 16" 0-6-0 saddletank. It is going to be a "modern image" model of "Beatrice" as preserved in working order at Embsay railway where I volunteer as a fireman (hence the anomalies such as the steam heat pipes). The basis of the model is a set of etches from Judith Edge, photographically reduced from their 4mm scale kit. Quite a few adaptations have been necessary to make the chassis work as a split-frame 2mm version. This has included extending the main frames to build an integral gearbox, and making the bottom half of the boiler part of the chassis. There were no castings with the 2mm version of the kit, so the chimney, dome, safety valves, whistle, smokebox door and tank and sandbox filler lids are all my own turnings. The buffers have been adapted from some commercially available turned brass offerings. I also needed to scratch-build a some of the other details, like the representation of the weigh-shaft and balance weight, plus the tops of the slide-bars and piston rods / trunk guides between the frames, and also the back-head detail. Parts of the chassis had to be painted at the construction stage so that I could line the frames(!!) before fitting the wheels. The top half of the model will be heading into the paint shop next week. Some general shots: The motor is a Chinese 7mm coreless affair, similar to the ones Graham Farish currently use in their N Gauge locos. Gears and wheels are from the 2mm Scale Association. Most of the mechanism is hidden, though the gears protrude slightly into the bottom of the cab. A tiny CTElektronik DCC decoder (I'll wash my mouth out later, Tony!) fits into the top of the tank, and I even managed to squeeze in a couple of 330uF stay alive capacitors. These stick up into the bunker. This sort of electrickery really helps with the reliability of virtually weightless 2mm tank engines. In this next shot you can see where I've had to cut a slot in the firebox to accommodate the end of the worm. A well-placed driver and fireman should disguise it. You can also see that I have lost the guard iron from the back of the frame. This will be replaced before I do the final bits of painting on the chassis. I also need to add sand boxes and delivery pipes, but these will be painted off the model and glued on. I toyed with the idea of using human hair for the whistle cord, but mine isn't long enough. In the end I used 0.15mm phosphor bronze. I think it looks about right, and it certainly solders more easily than hair... Finally, the obligatory coin of the realm, to prove how really tiny this model is. Happy Christmas one and all! Nick.

Good idea. I was thinking it would be quite nice if we could arrange for Modelu to attend a 2mm event to do some scanning - once that sort if thing is allowed again.

I have been busy making the boiler backhead. Because the shape of the firebox is waisted at the bottom, I was able to cheat a bit when making the basic shape. I started by turning a profiled disc in the lathe, then filed off a segment at the bottom and area in the centre to clear the parts of the mechanism which protrude into the cab. For the regulator, which has a curve in it, I used a piece of .3mm nickel silver wire, bent to shape, then the central section was squashed flat in a vice. The backhead-mounted injectors are 0.45mm copper wire bent and twisted to shape. Here they are in the initial stages of forming: With various soldered onto the backhead, I am trying to create an impression rather than a 100% accurate impression. There is plenty of detail that I have missed off, but I think this looks busy enough. Here it is epoxied in place in the cab: Once the roof is in place, it is hard to see the detail, but it is important to see that there is something there: The last bit of detail in the cab is the handbrake. I twisted a loop in the end of a piece of 0.25mm steel to form the vertical shaft, and bent up another bit of wire for the handle. The real one is quite spindly. I slipped a short length of micro-bore brass tube over the bottom end, where in reality there is a rubber boot to prevent coal dust getting into the mechanism. The functional couplings (Electra droppers) have been added, as has the whistle cord. The smokebox door has been glued on, meaning the top half of the loco is just about complete. I still need to attend to that pesky missing guard iron on the chassis, but the body is now ready for the paint shop. I doubt I will be able to get anywhere near the finish of Valour, and I'm already regretting my choice of livery... From this angle, the aperture in the backhead is rather obvious, but I'm hoping a well-placed crew member will disguise it.

That certainly has the wow factor. Absolutely stunning.

That is what I would do for steel plates. Out of curiosity, I had a look on Paul Bartlett's website, and found a photo showing wooden chocks nailed to the floor of a lowfit: (These images are not copied here, but the URL is inserted. Right-click, copy image address to get to the original) I've seen a picture in a book showing chocks like this preventing round(ish) steel billets loaded across a plate wagon from rolling back and forth. Here's another one with much more substantial planks arranged to secure a rather different sort of load: Finally, this picture was posted on the Hornby forum, and is the only one I can find on-line showing Plate wagon loaded with steel. They are obviously not plates, but the lumps of steel are just plonked in there.

The caption just describes it as "a train of loaded plate wagons". It doesn't look internal user to me. The plates in question must be over an inch thick, and I suspect quite heavy.