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James Harrison

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Blog Entries posted by James Harrison

  1. James Harrison
    A few months ago I bought a Hornby Railroad 'Flying Scotsman' on Ebay. I already have a 'Flying Scotsman' and as it was my first engine (at the grand old age of 4!) and bought by my grandparents, I have something of a sentimental attachment to it.
     
    But I don't really want a pair of Flying Scotsman's, and of course the Hornby offering shows an A1 in about 1934/35 condition.
     
    The answer came when I found a photograph of #2555 'Centenary' in as-built condition in 1926.
     
    The first step was to look around for an appropriate tender. I found a Hornby GNR-pattern tender top on Ebay for the princely sum of £2.99, the only drawback being that it was moulded in a dark navy blue colour.
     
    I then used T-cut to remove the name and number from the loco, and replaced the former with etched 'plates from Modelmaster. I then used HMRS transfers to replicate the lining on the cabsides.
     
    I removed the tender body and test-fitted the GNR example. It fits pretty well but I think will need gluing into final position. I've begun to paint it, using Humbrol apple green acrylic. I've got the shades to more-or-less match but it still needs a couple of coats to get a decent finish so it may well lighten or darken before it is finished....
  2. James Harrison
    Decanting the contents of the packaging onto the dining room table, what immediately struck me was both the number and size of the resin castings. They're much larger than I'm generally used to dealing with, and there are a large number of them!
     
    Quality of the castings looks pretty good, with very little flash and no immediately obvious sign of warpage; the kit also came with a Hornby 'Smokey Joe' chassis which needed a little alteration to fit (the removal of the couplings and cylinders).
     
    The new resin cylinders need drilling out to a depth of around 16mm (the first 5mm are pre-drilled), and this has to be done carefully to avoid breaking out through the side of the cylinder. I used a 4mm drillbit in a dremel set to a fairly low setting, and went very slowly checking every 30 seconds or so to make sure I was drilling true.
     
    I'll be using UHU throughout to assemble this model; I've already attached the cylinders to the running plate and slipped this into position on the chassis.
     

     
    One thing I will try with this model is to step back a little from the cartoonish whimsy and try instead for a more 'serious' model; at the moment my thinking on this is leaning toward a livery based upon the pre-1906 GWR scheme with brunswick green, indian red and lots of copper and brass.
  3. James Harrison

    'Hector'- Part 2

    By James Harrison,

    Work is progressing slowly with 'Hector'- in part this is because I'm using gloss paints for the model. Ordinarily I use matt or satin finishes but with this one being that much larger than my usual creations I felt that it would benefit from a gloss finish. Which in turn means that the paints take that much longer to dry and set (the red on the frames taking two or three days to cure properly).
     

     

     
    I'm starting to get a good idea of how he'll look when completed!
  4. James Harrison
    Today I visited the Rowland Emett exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery with some good friends. Somehow I managed to come away with a Smallbrook Studios kit for 'Hector'....
     
    http://smallbrookstudio.webeden.co.uk/#/products-new/4569521214/%27Hector%27-Body-Gn15-Tender-Locomotive-Kit/3724081
     
    Plainly, this model cannot be run on my eventual planned layout ('the train now arriving at platform 4 has destroyed the edging slabs'), and I cannot afford (in time, space or money) to set about buying more Emett-esque models and building the Far Twittering & Oysterperch.
     
    So I'm considering making it a model of a model...
     
    I always find at railway museums that there is at least one large scale model of a locomotive in a nice big glass-and-wood case; I always think how nice it would be to own one. What I think I may do with 'Hector' is to build him, then build a case for him with a length of 16.5mm track and a brass plaque on the front...
  5. James Harrison
    After a very long gap in building a Smallbrook Studio's Rowland Emmett loco, I caught the bug again after a weekend spent riding the Welsh Highland and Ffestiniog railways in July.
     
    A few weeks' work has therefore brought my 'Hector' close to completion. I decided not to go for the full whimsical treatment the kit allows but rather for a closer to 'scale' (hahahahahaha) appearance. This meant the more outlandish parts were left off and the loco given a more sober paint scheme.
     
    Originally this was going to be influenced by the pre-1906 Great Western livery, but then I decided to go for a deep red. I think this was a good decision, the loco seems to wear it so much better.
     
    Anyway; some photos.
     

     

     
    There are a few little bits and pieces I still want to add, then the real fun begins- either finding or building a decent glass case for it.
  6. James Harrison
    Last time I showed how I'd hacked up a B12 and a Patriot to form the basis of a B4 'Immingham'.
     
    I think we've turned the corner in that we've started to fit the bits back together, though there is still an awful lot to do...
     

     
    The firebox clearly needs bulking out, and then the retained running plate needs cutting down and reattaching, and the cab needs reprofiling....
  7. James Harrison
    There were three ex-GC 4-6-0s on Ebay this evening and I came away with one of them.
     
    The other two were a B6 and a 'Sam Fay' (which I was also bidding on but lost in the last 5 seconds )
     
    Anyway, I ended up with a B3 or 'Lord Faringdon' class.
     

     
    There are a few things with it that are suspect and I'm sure I can improve. I'm considering giving it a new chassis, new cab sides and a new paint job at the very least, and at the end of it I'l have a nice and certainly unusual addition to the loco stud. But I doubt I'll get around to it before the end of next year....
  8. James Harrison
    My model 'Lord Faringdon' arrived last Saturday and although I don't anticipate doing any major work to it for at least a year, I have made a start of sorts in that I've replaced the bogie, driving wheels and removed the huge coarse motion brackets....
     

     
    It already looks much improved, but clearly there is a lot of work to do! I'm currently pondering how I can lower the body on the chassis without doing too much of a hack-job on either body or chassis.
  9. James Harrison
    I seem to be getting on a roll with backdating and repainted all of my ex-GCR locos into proper full-bore GC livery.
     
    I have just completed repainting a Jaycraft model of class 11E (LNER D10) 'Sir Clement Royds'. I originally built this model two years ago and finished it in pre-1928 LNER green; now it is finished in GCR livery, which I think suits it better. Odd how we perceive certain liveries to suit certian classes better than do others.
     

     
    It seems that the application of waterslide decals on the tender has upset the PVA coat I give my models as a low-cost low-risk protective layer; this looks worse on the photos than it does on the model, and I know from experience that a second coat of PVA will put it right.
     
    The lining I did myself as an experiment; usually I draw it up on photoshop and print it, but this time the printer decided to have other ideas and it didn't go to plan. With three sets of tender and cabsheet lining on the one print, I was loathe to waste the paper and ink so I worked with what I had. I masked off the lining and painted it on by hand. For a first effort I think it is perfectly serviceable, and I anticipate the method will improve with practice.
  10. James Harrison
    I was reading the June issue of Model Rail last night and thought the feature on modelling the London Underground was superb. The first of the trackplans in particular I found interesting, as it basically shows a station throat and a bit of a station in a space 7'6'' by 2'. It planted the germ of an idea...
     
    My ideal model would be of Marylebone in a 'what-if' scenario of joint LNER/ Metropolitan operation. In the real world of course the ex-GC shares tracks with LU as far as Canfield Place, two miles from Marylebone. But what if the Met shared tracks with the GC all the way down to Marylebone's buffers?
     
    My idea is that Marylebone itself would be completely 'shared'- that is, Met trains would be allowed access to all platforms and all four running lines. Obviously, this couldn't be the case for the whole route- for one thing, only the Met could operate services to stations between Marylebone and Amersham under the terms of the joint agreement. The answer clearly is to split the four tracks into two for the GC and two for the Met at the first available opportunity.
     
    To my mind the point that this would happen would be at the end of the tunnels out of Marylebone- in real life where Finchley Road station and Canfield Place are.
     

    Canfield place by Duke of Chalfont, on Flickr
     
    Now my plan I've titled Canfield Place to differentiate it from the real-life Finchley Road. Left to right we have, at the rear, the four tracks from Marylebone split to two sets of two, with a Met station on the 'bottom' pair (GC expresses and goods trains would take the straight tracks behind the station, GC suburban trains might run through it but wouldn't stop). At the left hand end of the station, a pair of purely cosmetic lines split off from the joint- running down to Baker Street.
     
    Limited in operating potential? Yes- but as say a diorama for photography, or as an addition to a larger scheme- it has interest. And it would be a good testbed for scenery before launching in to Marylebone itself. Now if I can just find a 8' by 2' soace going spare....
  11. James Harrison
    Hot on the heels of the Great Central-liveried 'Immingham' (see the loco challenge forum for details), straight onto another Robinson six-coupled monster. This time a Class 1 of 1913, GCR #424 'City of Lincoln'.
     
    Why City of Lincoln? Simply as a reminder of the three years I spent living there as an undergraduate.
     
    The model is a K's whitemetal kit which I bought pre-built off of Ebay, already finished in GCR green but as #427 'City of London'. An easy renaming/ renumbering job you might think, but of course it's never as easy as that (at least, not when I'm involved). There are a couple of little changes I want to try and make, such as amending the route the wiring takes from the pickups on the tender to the motor in the loco (at present it couldn't be more obvious if it was painted fluorescent green with flashing lights and a bell). I was also struck by how thick the painted finish was, so I've stripped that off back to bare metal to start again.
     
    So to start I separated the chassis and the loco body, which left me with this
     

     

     

     

     
    And then the bodies were put in paint stripper and left for 24 hours, before the lifted paint was removed. This revealed that below the GCR livery was another version of the same, and then grey primer, and then LNER green, and then some more primer. No wonder I thought the paint was a bit thickly applied!
     
    I put the model back into the stripper for another 24 hours and then set to again, this time getting much more off. After much patient work with sand paper, files, tweezers and a glass fibre pen, I have the model about ready for priming.
     

  12. James Harrison
    It may seem like things have gone very quiet but I have been busy (honest)!
     
    There just hasn't been any progress really worthwhile talking about yet...
     
    So when I last wrote about 'City of Lincoln', I had just broken the model down to it a number of subassemblies (body, chassis and tender) and was about to put the lot into paint stripper.
     
    After a few days sitting in white spirit I was able to remove the vast majority of the original paint finish; I found two variations of GCR livery and three of LNER, plus two coats of grey primer below all of that.... no wonder the paintwork looked a little thick!
     
    Once it was all cleaned off and dried out, I repainted the model in GCR green livery. Firstly a coat of grey primer, then two coats of Humbrol gloss Brunswick green enamel and two coats of Humbrol matt Brunswick green acrylic. The dark brown/ crimson splashers are Humbrol no.73 enamel, over a coat of Humbrol satin mid-brown.
     
    Now came the puzzler! Coming to put it all back together, I found that the body didn't want to go squarely back on the chassis. Then I found that the loco chassis didn't have any pickups fitted- hence the obtrusive wire back into the tender, where the pickups lived (what an odd set-up). I decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to re-chassis the loco, and picked up a Hornby RailRoad Patriot chassis- the wheel spacings and sizes are pretty much a dead match for the Sam Fays. I then had to remove a large amount of material from the underside and inside of the boiler to get it to fit right, but managed it eventually.
     
    So, as of tonight, this is what I have...
     

  13. James Harrison
    It is starting to feel like I'm on the home straight with this model now.
     

     

     
    The loco itself is being lined out, I only have to add the red lining around the cab edge to finish it off. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that full GCR livery is, at the moment, beyond my skill level and beyond what I can reasonably achieve, so I've simplified it a little. Unless you get right up close to the model, you can't tell. Besides, I work to the 2' rule.
     
    The loco now needs the last bits of lining applied, cab handrails, reversing lever, nameplates and numberplates.
     
    The tender is a bit more involved, as the original plastic chassis it was fitted with broke apart.... I would have needed to do something with it anyway as it sat too low on the track, and I had a spare Jaycraft resin Director tender to hand which when paired with a Triang 2P tender chassis sites at the right height. So I now have a K's whitemetal tender in my spares box, and a Jaycraft tender running behind the loco. The 2P tender chassis has to be extended a little at the rear, which is why there are no buffer or drawbar fittings yet. I've also got to line out and add handrails to the tender- more work required here!
  14. James Harrison
    When I last spoke about this model, I'd had a bit of an accident involving Humbrol Clearcote (emphatically not recommended), which necessitated scrapping the practically-finished paint job on "City of Lincoln", as well as a fair amount of bad language and relegation of the model to my museum of mistakes.
     
    Happily she was to spend only a few weeks mounted on a plinth there, and after a few weeks' more worth of work on her she's now finished (of course keeping the Humbrol Clearcote well away from her this time!)
     

     

     

     
    The lining on the cab sheets and the tender isn't quite right, but is close that I can live with it. In any case, I know where I erred so for the next loco through the works (Sir Clement Royds) I won't make the same mistake.
  15. James Harrison
    Suddenly the model starts to look like a locomotive again, rather than a pile of scrap....
     

     
    What I have added here, if you can't see from the photo (damn plastic sheet being white and the photo being backlit!), are the splashers. Interesting fact is that the radius of a £2 coin is pretty much bang-on for a 4mm scale version of the splashers- so just draw around one and then measure 6.5mm down from the edge and cut a straight line, bingo!
     
    I cut the splasher faces from 0.5mm plastic sheet, and backed these onto a laminate of 2.5mm plastic bars, to bulk them out enough not to look wrong when matched up with the cab. They were then simply glued straight to the splashers on the donor model, and given a coat of model putty to blend them in.
     
    The splashers over the rear drivers of course are more involved as they fair into the cabsides. Here I again lucked out, because I found an old Edwardian propelling pencil with a radius that matches that of the curve from the splasher to the cabsides, and also the radius of the curve of the cabside down to the running plate. Again these were cut out from 0.5 sheet and glued to the donor model.
     
    It's certainly gaining that graceful Robinson appearance now.
  16. James Harrison
    No paint on yet but we're nearing the point where we'll need o break out the brushes!
     
    Frustratingly I cam to fit a few parts tonight and couldn't find the materials... the steampipe down the drivers' side of the boiler needs 1mm plastic rod (I had a few odds and ends of this stuff left after my first GC clerestory carriage, but between putting it away a few weeks ago and coming to use it tonight it has done a disappearing act) and I need to buy ome new handrail (on order from an Eba supplier).
     
    Boiler fittings are from the Craftsman range of whitemetal castings and I'm very happy with them. I think actually this is the third or fourth model these particular parts or at least the chimney and dome, have been fitted to- a pair of scratchbuilt Directors (since scrapped) and my first iteration of a Jersey Lily, I think.
     
    The front bufferbeam was a little involved- it comes off of a Hornby Patriot, if you can believe it! It had to be cut free from the Patriot moulding, then filed and cut down further to suit the B4, and then needed drilling out to accept the buffers- Robinson round pattern whitemetal castings, again from Craftsman.
     
    Anyway; photos!
     

     

     

  17. James Harrison
    I've made a fair bit of progress since last time:
     

     

     
    Let's start with the tender.
     
    Believe it or not, I've managed to re-use the B12 tender... I had to saw the chassis into three, and then use 2mm square plastic strip to lengthen it and also give the appearance of the tank being lower than it actually is. The tank itself was sawn in half and the fake coal sawn away (along with all of the top of the tank). I was then able to insert a 7mm length of plastic sheet between the two halves and then overlay 0.5mm sheet over the tank sides to commence th transformation. I've taken this a stage or two further and added more 2mm square strip, around the top of the tank sides, so that eventually I can run some milliput along the tank top to get the curved outer edge to the tender.
     
    Moving forward onto the lcoomotive proper, One thing I have done is use 0.5mm sheet to give a homogenous edge to the running plate. Plainly it still needs work but already it looks better for losing the 'three-penny bit' effect along the edge of the running plate. I've used 0.64mm plastic rod for the steampipe along the boiler, but personally I think this looks too small- short of replacing it (a real chore now that the only model shop in Birmingham that I knew to stock 1mm rod has closed down), I'm not sure what I can do about this. Boiler bands have been added from paper strips.
     
    It looks much better just for being painted up in primer- even if this does bring out all of the gaps and rough edges- but then again that's why I've painted it!
     
    Next step(s) clearly will be to get the rougher bits sanded out and smoothed down.
  18. James Harrison
    A few weeks since the last update and I'm pleased to say the model is, for all intents and purposes, finished!
     

     

     
     
    The model was painted using Humbrol acrylics and Revell enamels. The apple green was made up using a single coat of Revell 'leaf green' which was then given three coats of Humrol 'apple green', because the Humbrol colour is so thin as to need a bit of help to get a decent deep colour.
     
    I found some Hornby handrail on that well-known internet auction site and used a wire bending jog to get it to bend to shape. It is not quite right but a lot closer than previous attempts....
     
    I always have problems when it comes to lining. Boiler bands and long straights are no problem, but when it comes to cab cut-outs.... This time I experimented a little. The boiler bands were made up by myself, a biro line on a length of white paper cut to size, rolled and glued into position. HMRS pressfix was used on the tender. When it came to the cab I used a paint-pen. After a few attempts I eschewed the black edging and just put in the white inside line (if good enough for Hornby....)
     
    As I couldn't find nameplates for 'Immingham' anywhere I opted for one of her un-named sisters, so this is no. 6103.
     
    Overall I'm very pleased with how it's turned out- and even contemplating replacing both my 'Jersey Lily' and 'Fish' engines with locos built using the same method of hack-bashing.
  19. James Harrison

    "King Edward VII"

    By James Harrison,

    And another one in GC livery! This took longer than planned, partly because I decided to do some work on the chassis (to stop the wheels and pickups binding against each other) and partly because for three weeks the kitchen table had the kitchen sitting on top of it. Which put a definitive stop to any modelling work.
     

     

     

  20. James Harrison
    Four or five years ago I bought a Dean Sidings L1 kit, which I built and finished in mid-1930s condition and livery as that was my period of interest at the time. (The construction of that kit was one of the first projects I documented on this blog, if anybody feels like going hunting up the original build- the photos have long since been deleted but it was a simple enough build).
     
    Of course, since then my interests have moved back 15 years or so, soI decided that it was about time my L1 became a 1B.
     
    The majority of the work is a repainting job; there's a lot of lining to be added. But before I could do that, I had to add a feedwater heater. I distinctly remember when I bought the kit it came with a whitemetal casting for one; however my failure to find it this morning maybe hints that at some point in the last four years I decided I had no use for it and threw it away. So I had to fabricate one from scratch.
     
    Fortunately it's not a particularly complex shape to form; a short length of 2mm square section plastic strip, filed to a concave arc on one face and then topped off with a few short lengths of brass wire, is a suitable replacement.
     
    That done, I gave the loco a new coat of matt black paint preparatory to lining out.
     

  23. James Harrison
    So, this evening my first task was to complete the 1B. This amounted to adding the loco number to the bunker rear and painting the safety valves and whistle in brass.
     

     

     
    Then, that done, I remembered to take a photo or two of my previous project- the GC 4-wheeler all first carriage.
     

     
    And then I was in a position to start a rake of CDC Models Metropolitan Ashbury carriages I bought a few years ago, which have been hiding in the rainy day pile since. I'm considering lettering them as Great Central stock; not a step I'd consider too far fetched considering the last survivors spent many years being hauled behind ex-GC motive power on the Chesham shuttle.
     

     
    So so far I have cut the windows out and painted the resulting white edges.
  24. James Harrison
    Most of my locomotives so far have been of what I suppose you could call the 'Big, green and named' variety:
     
    - a couple of Directors
    -a Jersey Lily
    -a 'Lord Faringdon'
     
    I've therefore decided that my next project (make that, actually, my current project) is going to be a more everyday machine. Specifically one of the large pacific tank engines built to haul suburban trains.
     
    A few months ago I bought an A5 off of Ebay. It arrived in LNER green livery (I didn't think any of them wore apple green?), which didn't really suit the loco.
     

     
    So, what to do with it? A bit of research in the relevant Green Bible found a few rather interesting photographs of the mid-1920s, with these locos in LNER black with GCR pattern lining. Which I think is how I'm going to finish this model.
     
    This is going to be quite a quick little project. The loco is sound in construction and sufficiently detailed to please me- I don't intend to make any major alterations to it. It's just going to be a repaint (he says.....)
     
    Anyway, I've already given it a few coats of matt black to start off.
     

  25. James Harrison
    When I first decided I wanted to model my A5 in early LNER condition, I thought that the lining would be quite an easy proposition. GCR-style lining for black locomotives was simply red panel edging and white-black-white lining, right? Well, as it turns out that is right, but when the LNER went for GCR 'style' they meant just that, the 'style'. Not the thing and the whole of the thing. Let me explain.
     
    In John Quick's GCR liveries book there are some excellent colour panels which show how the GCR lined their locomotives, and my first action was to pull the book out and look them up. Red panel edging and white-black-white lining. Now to find a locomotive that actually wore that lining in LNER ownership.
     
    The relevant green bible was consulted. The only loco of the right date and livery photographed there is #5165, caught at Neasden in 1926. Problem with this loco is that it is fitted for oil firing.... and my model isn't. But even though the loco isn't suitable, it still poses a problem. Let's look at the lining. Yes, it's GCR style. However, let's look a little closer. Boiler bands.... white-black-white. Panel edging... red. Panel lining.... red-black-white.
     
    ....
     
    Wait, what?!? What about the white-black-white panel lining?
     
    Clearly more investigation was required. E M Johnson's "Locomotives of the Great Central Railway" was consulted. Volume two yielded a nice photo of an LNER built A5, but it had the wrong cab for my model. Volume one brought up two photos of roughly 1923-24 date. Both have GCR-style lining, both have red boiler bands and white-black-white panel lining.
     
    Handily, one of them is firmly dated to 1923/24. LNER #7, built February 1923 and renumbered 5007 a year later. So, this is the identity (and livery) given to my model.
     
    I think she wears it very well.
     

     

     
    As is my usual fashion, lining was drawn using paint pens and HMRS pressfix transfers supplied the lettering and numbering.
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