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James Harrison

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Blog Entries posted by James Harrison

  1. James Harrison
    This week I've managed the grand total of 3 hours' modelling time. Two hours of which was this afternoon....
     
    Nevermind, at least it means my 2013 build programme won't be exhausted by the middle of August
     
    So this is what Jutland looks like as of about 4.30 this afternoon....
     

     

     
    I think, last time, I discussed how I added the white lining on the cab using an easi-liner tool. At the time it might have appeared to some somewhat coarse (I know that's how it looked to me after I did it). However, once the white had dried I was able to add the black line to the outside, and I have to say that as a result the effect is far more delicate. Certainly this is an easier, quicker and less infuriating way of doing the cab lining than my tedious old method of little slivers of various pressfix transfers.
     
    Moving on I tackled once and for all the issue that had plagued the model practically from day one. The kit was designed to use either a brass chassis (which I haven't used, partly because of the alternative and partly because there were a few bits missing), or the Triang L1 chassis (of which I had an example through the kindness of a friend). Now naturally I went for the pre-built Triang chassis, which involved a few alternate parts below the can and the necessity of a little metal bar on the Triang chassis to hold the front end up. Now for some reason that metal bar was missing on my chassis. It's probably in one of my myriad of spares boxes *somewhere* but I've little hope of finding it without spending three hours trawling through them all.
     
    My first attempt at rectifying the problem was to fabricate a plastic bracket which glued onto the loco frames and screwed into the chassis block. Which worked very well... until the glue failed. So I turned to more heavy-duty approaches. I took a slip of balsa wood and drilled through it, and then screwed it to the chassis block and the body. This worked better, but over the course of about ten hours it sagged, pulling the drillholes out of alignment and rendering it completely mullared. So then I began thinking 'what I really need is something to put over the chassis weight to hold the body at the right height'. I'd just got hold of some milliput, so the mind began whirring.... I eventually made up a tiny lump of milliput and coaxed it into the boiler space, pushing it down onto the castings at about the point where the chassis block comes closest to touching the boiler underside. I then put the chassis back into the model. The chassis weight bedded down into the milliput (or should that be, the milliput bore onto the chassis weight?) and effectively I created a composite pillar right through the model, the effect being that the front end of the loco is cantilevered out from a solid support over the front driving wheels. It is a lot more complicated to describe than it is to do it!
     
    Allowing that to set for a few days I carried on with the model this afternoon. I had been intending to start the boilerbands and lining today, but I got sidetracked and ended up doing more painting and then attaching some of the smaller parts that have the effect of making the loco appear that much closer to completion.
     
    So tomorrow, now, the plan is to get to grips with the lining and finish painting the footsteps, which then just leaves the handrails, varnishing and weathering to do. Probably, it is fair to say, another weekend's worth of work to be getting on with.
  2. James Harrison
    There is one slight problem with my latest loco builds. Most of them have been goods engines... which is fine, I have the rolling stock to go with them, except for one crucial example.
     
    A decent brakevan....
     
    I've got three ready to run- two GWR Toads (one Dapol, one Bachmann)- but they don't count on account of being GWR- and an LNER 'D' (at least, I think it's a D....) from Bachmann. Thing is, of those three, two are completely the wrong geographically speaking, and the other I suspect may be a little too late for 1927-29. What I need, really, is something that 1) would have been seen around Marylebone and 2) would have been there in the mid-late 1920s. in short, what I need is a GC-pattern brakevan to go with my GC-pattern goods locos.
     
    The germ of the idea took my imagination a little before Christmas when I saw a Hornby DCC starter set with a large-ish LMS brakevan and a 6-wheel tank wagon. Hello, I thinks, if I take the chassis of the one and the body of the other and....
     
    Long story short I bought a second hand LMS brakevan and milk tanker, and naively steamed in thinking it would be a simple job to switch the bodies and chassis' over. This is Hornby, right- who grew out of Meccano, whose whole point was interchangability of parts...
     
    Good joke!
     
    What I actually found was that the milk tanker was held together by a long, thin screw, and the brakevan by a short, fat one. Also that the brakevan holding screw was offset by about 4mm off-centre. This needs a bit of mulling over I thought, and then I put them both away. Fast forward six months and I find myself 'not really in a mood' to press on with the B5 at the moment, and wanting something 'quick and easy' to do thoughts gravitated toward the two wagons, which by now had fallen off their shelf and to the back of the wardrobe. You may gather i might have forgotten about the issue with the screws and placement of screwholes....
     
    The first thing to do was to measure up the drawing of a GC brakevan I have, in the back of volume III of George Dow's 'The Great Central Railway'. Turns out that the LMS van is, overall, 6mm too long. 4mm of this length is in the guard's compartment. A-ha, thinks I, we'll cut 4mm out of the guard's compartment BUT we'll offset it, which will pull the screw fixing in closer to the centre of the van and avoid surgey either on wither of the screwholes. Cutting out 4mm of length actually brought the overall length down to very close to scale- it is only about 0.5mm too long now- because of the width of the sawcuts.
     
    Then I began looking at the end vestibules. These are the correct length but the thing is they are 'the wrong way around'. On the LMS van the access doorways are at the extreme ends, with a low side panel to the guard's compartment. On the GC van, it's the other way around. So I had to cut away the low side panels too.
     
    Luckily I think this is the last of the heavy surgery involved- the van has been cut up, had parts cut or filed away, and is now sitting on the table with a couple of hefty sheets of plastic glued to the inside of the centre cut. The next step will be to put milliput down the gap and then file it all down to remove all of the moulded detail. Then I can make new body sides with thin plastic sheet.
  3. James Harrison
    First off, the project down....
     
    The Ratio suburban carriage is finished. I've now got two brake thirds, another all third and an all first to either build or re-build.
     
    The project half done is the third of my LMS/GC bashes. I'm doing a composite carriage and so far have finished the interior, added the matchboarding and begun the teak finish and white roof. I anticipate that the teaking will be finished today and then I'll be able to reassemble the carriage.
     
    The project newly begun is my B5. First thing I'm doing is cleaning up the printed body. This includes cutting away the cab footplate to get it sit lower on the B12 chassis. The chassis itself, well, I've swapped out the B12 wheels for some Black 5 ones, but fluffed the coupling rod pins royally and so have had to order some more. Ah well- you can get them for £2.70 or so for a set of six on ebay- if you look for the bright green 'Henry the Green Engine' ones. I'm sure there's a joke to be had here somewhere involving Henry, the Flying Kipper and using parts of him to build a Fish Engine. The work at the moment involves filing down the motor mount too- I have to find 2mm clearance to get the body at the right height.
  4. James Harrison
    I've finished, for a given value of finished.... there is always more to do or bits to improve as and when time permits and my skills get better.
     
    So, this is how 'King Edward VII' looked when I first finished her (him?) back in January....
     

     
    Some may remember it from a post I made in one of the sub-forums describing how I bashed it from a B12.
     
    Now at the time, I was really pleased with that. But then little things started to irk me- like the wonky handrail and the lining on the cab (once noticed it couldn't be ignored). Also the boiler looking a bit patchy in places, and the splashers were too thin.
     
    Yesterday I said that the plan was to make a few small alterations, like a more robust fixing for the pony truck and replacing the handrails. Well, that was supposed to take the weekend but instead I managed to finish it all in a day. Looking at the model this morning I thought 'that looks a lot better, it's just marred by....'
     
    Long story short, I very gently pulled my new handrails off and then set-to with some fine grade sandpaper. I removed the lining transfers to the boiler, the paper boiler bands and the worst of the lumps and bumps on the boiler barrel. I then gave the boiler a bit of a repaint (1 coat of leaf green and 2 coats of apple), and then touched in areas that looked a little 'grotty'.
     
    Since building the model originally I've been lucky enough to buy a couple of good books on Robinson locomotives, and the cab front on my model was a bit weak. So what I did was to make a partial new cab front in paper and glued it to the original plastic example. I then very carefully cut some spectacle surrounds out of the same material and painted them brass. They're a bit overscale but they look the part. I also took the opportunity to replace the safety valves. I'd originally fitted a pair of Ross Pop valves but with my new references it seems that they were only fitted in the 1930s and 40s. Not good for a model of a loco in its 1920s guise. I had a Craftsman whitemetal Robinson safety valve cover in my spares box, and I fitted that instead. The visual impact of such a tiny change is suprisingly huge.
     
    The final job was to replace the boiler bands. I didn't much fancy the 'faff' of using transfers again- I can't say I was in the mood for it this morning. So I did a little experiment I'd had in mind for some time. I took a sheet of paper and marked some lines at 1mm intervals in pencil. Then I took a biro and lined down the middle of the white gap between them. The trick is to understand that the ruler needs to be offset a little to take allowance for the thickness of the black line and the body of the pen- 1.5 to 2mm is perfect. The effect when applied to the model is really every bit as good as a transfer.
     
    Anyway, here are some photos of the finished model (before varnishing and weathering)....
     

     

     

     

     

  5. James Harrison
    I've decided that before I carry on with the rest of my new projects to revisit and perfect an older one.
     
    The first project I described on RMWeb was a hackbash of a Hornby B12 into a C5- compound Jersey Lily. When I finished the model back in January I was very happy with it; but since then I've finished one or two more models and it began to look a little down at heel.
     
    The list of things wrong with it really ran to
     
    - poor cab lining
    - wheel splashers too thin
    - buckled handrails
    - no curved smokebox handrail
    - issues with the pony truck
     
    All really quite small jobs.
     
    I began this afternoon by worrying at the cab lining with a little warm water, a firm brush and a scalpel. It took a while but I was able to remove the lining transfers without damaging the paintwork. I then used an easi-liner tool to add a thin white line in gloss paint... the result of this is far better-looking than the transfers were. I needed now to add a thinner line of gloss black on the outside of it tomorrow.
     
    Moving on, I removed the plastic handrails. I was hoping to get them out 'clean'- that is, pulled out of the handrail knob without parting and getting stuck in it- but on several of the knobs the rails did indeed break and leave a tiny bit inside... damn. Undaunted I made a curved smokebox rail from brass wire, then cut lengths of plastic rod to create new boiler rails. I glued the three parts together and left them aside to set, whilst I moved on to the splashers.
     
    The splashers I decided to bulk out by using some 2 x 2.5mm plastic strip, glued to new splasher faces cut from 0.5mm plastic sheet and cut and sanded to shape. On two of them I added a further layer of 0.5mm sheet to create the brass beading. I then painted them with apple green paint and glued them to the model.
     
    On the chassis I added a length of balsa wood to create a new sturdy spacer for the pony bogie sides. I glued this into the hole created when I removed the magnet from the B12 chassis. That is now setting nicely, so tomorrow I can move on to re-attach the pony axle and the frames.
     
    It's looking a lot better!
  6. James Harrison
    Well, I've managed a few hours here and there in my evenings this week and this is how the Ratio suburban carriage is shaping up....
     

     
    The eagle eyed will see that I've replaced the Ratio bogies with Gresleys. Let me explain....
     
    Basically, I found a really nice clear image in George Dow's Great Central Album of a rake of GC suburban stock which shows the bogies very well. They are (were) quite hefty, slab sided things. The Midland ones supplied in the Ratio kit, in contrast, are light and spidery. The closest things I have to the GC design are a pair of Coopercraft/ Mailcoach Gresley bogies (about the only good part of the 'Coronation' beavertail observation car I attempted a few years ago). They roll exceptionally well, better even than some of my RTR stock. So last night I switched them over. I kept the Ratio bolsters and couplings, and used wood screws to fix the bogies to the chassis, by means of a 2mm hole through the bolster and a 1.2mm hole through the floor of the carriage (hidden, of course, under my new interior). Result? A very well-riding suburban carriage. Next steps? Adding plastic sheet and strip to the Gresley bogies to make them closer to the GC examples. I've also gone and ordered 4 more pairs of same from the Coopercraft website, a steal at £3/pair, to fit to my other Ratio stock as I re-work it.
     
    ~~~
     
    Also, the 1880s express moves forwards a little as the Hornby 4-wheelers arrive....
     

     
    I found out my old Ratio GWR 4-wheelers too... two of them are in quite good serviceable condition, so they'll be part of the express. The third is broken quite badly so i reckon I'll keep it in hand as a grounded coach when I finally get around to building a layout. My plans for these five Hornby carriages are shaping up as follows: two will be converted to full brakes whilst the other three will be merged into two longer six-wheeled vehicles. This will give me a rake of 6 carriages...
     
    Ah yes, the loco. My first attempt at a conversion/ hackbash a few years ago. It's spent quite some time on my bookshelf, hidden behind (variously) a Bradshaw's, some Discworld and a couple of Anthony Trollope novels. It looks a little worse for wear, and I'm compiling a list of things to alter on it. I'm thinking of adding new brass splasher detail, spectacle ports, an entire new tender front, new paint job, new lining and decals, separate wire handrails.... it won't be a slavish perfect model of a Stirling Single but it will certainly evoke the 'feel' of one.
  7. James Harrison
    My latest project... well.... you won't find it on my 'to-build' list.
     
    A few weeks ago I was going through one of my boxes and I found a set of Ratio 48' Midland suburban carriages I'd built two or three years ago. And I thought, 'they look appalling. I can do so much better'. So naturally I took one, pulled it apart and then got stuck, so left it alone and got on with 'Jutland'.
     
    Deciding that if I did nothing I'd no doubt lose half of the carriage, I decided to make it my next project. An attempt a few weeks ago to improve running qualities by fitting brass bearings was close to, but not quite, a disaster. Upshot is I've wrecked one of it's bogies and though ti still works (just!) I've had to order a spare pair off of Ebay this morning.
     
    The others in the set... will have their chassis' left well alone.
     
    So, what am I doing to improve the model?
     
    First off, I've repainted it in teak, or at least, closer to 'teak' than I had managed before. I've also added strips of plastic sheet to the footboards to improve the joint between chassis and body.
     

     
    My models being set pre-1928 I've decided that this carriage (and the rake it belongs to, eventually) will be finished as a set outshopped in 1924/25. Hence the ends will be teak, rather than matt black, and the carriages will carry primrose lining, rather than none whatever.
     
    I've also made an attempt to make it more GC-esque. To be fair the kit is already pretty close, if you overlook the differences in the roof shape (the GC suburban stock, both 1905 and 1911 sets, had a sort of 3-arc appearance, whilst the Midland stock had a simple arc roof). The only real change I've made to the model has been to remove the middle line of ventilators down the roof.
     
    I'm also having a go at creating an interior. None was supplied with the kit and this being a compartment coach with (fairly) large areas of glazing it's pretty obvious once you notice it. Hence I've come up with a plain, if robust, interior. Seats are strips of balsa wood and the partitions are pieces of plastic sheet. it all still needs painting of course but dropping the body shell over it you can already tell the difference.
     

     
    Once final alteration I have made, and it does work, has been to add a length of plastic strip to each side of the chassis just above the footboard. This way any differences between the level of the chassis and the level of the bottom edge of the body are disguised, illustrated here:
     

  8. James Harrison
    A friend of mine recently asked if I could do a group shot of all of my projects together. This is what I came up with.
     

     
    From front to back and left to right we have
     
    -LNER class D10 'Director' "Sir Clement Royds"- a resin kit.
    -LNER class D11 'Improved Director' "Jutland"- a whitemetal kit.
    -LNER class L1- a resin kit.
    -LNER class N5- a very heavily hackbased Hornby J83. Though all that can be seen of the J83 is the smokebox!
    -LNER class J11 'Pom Pom'- a whitemetal kit.
    -LNER class J11 'Pom Pom'- a hackbashed Airfix 4F.
    -LNER class C5 'Jersey Lily' "King Edward VII"- a very heavily hackbashed Hornby B12. Some small alterations planned.
    -LNER Class D6- a hackbashed Ratio Midland Johnson kit. Complete rebuild/ renewal planned for next year.
    -GCR brake third- a hackbashed Mainline LMS carriage.
    -GCR all first- a hackbashed Mainline LMS carriage.
     
    It's really the sort of thing that would look so much nicer as a shed scene or something- but sadly I've neither the time to build one at the moment, nor the space to keep it...
  9. James Harrison
    Way back a few years ago when I first tentatively began dipping my toe into the joys of hackbashing, kitbuilding and scratchbuilding, my first project was an attempt at the 1888 Flying Scotsman, as recreated by the LNER in 1938 with Stirling Single #1 and a rake of 6-wheeled carriages.
     
    I began with a Bachmann 'Emily' model and had to compromise right at the start by modelling one of the later Singles with plated-in splashers over the 8' drivers. I bought a few Ratio GWR carriages and attempted to convert them to 6-wheeled vehicles, a miserable failure if I'm entirely honest.
     
    Clearing out one of my bookcases earlier I came across the loco and tender. The finish is rough as heck but I think I've got something I could work with. A new paint finish, some re-working with plastic sheet and filler and applying some new decals and lining and I reckon I'd have a decent representation of the class, inaccuracies with the basic model notwithstanding.
     
    So what about the carriages? A quick Ebay search brought up a set of 5 Hornby 4-wheelers in LNER 'teak' for a decent price, and was promptly bought. I could either keep them as-they-are, or do some measure of rebuilding upon them; replacement bodies with 4 or 5 compartments and a lengthened chassis would be one option, to convert one to a full brake would be another. In fact, didn't the GNR run expresses from Retford connecting with the MSLR route to Manchester? And I believe I read that the MSLR favoured 4-wheel vehicles for the service. The same book might even have line drawings of the carriages built for the Manchester- Kings Cross workings! I think I'm forming a plan here....
     
    So let's add this project to the list. When I finally complete all of my rolling stock builds planned for this year and next I see I'll have....
     
    -4 car express formed of GC 1911 stock
    -5 carriage GC suburban rake (low roof stock)
    -7 GC suburban carriages (clerestory stock)
    -Metropolitan 'T' stock
    -Metropolitan Ashbury stock
    -5 car 1888 express
    -2 'proper' LNER teaks (possibly to be built up to a 4 car rake).
     
    Also of course
     
    -3 car Pullman express
    -3 car LNER overnight sleeper
    -6 LNER 'teaks' (either to run as a pair of 3-car sets or a 4-car set and 'strengtheners' for other rakes)
     
    This could prove a very interesting project, if I can keep the impetus up to finish it this time around.
  10. James Harrison
    Jutland is now finished and ready for the (as yet non-existant) layout.
     

     

     
    I'm not sure what more I can say about her really that I haven't already mentioned, other than the weathering (as per my usual method, done with chalk pastel). I'm very happy with the completed model; she looks far better than I thought she would when I first opened the kit nearly six months ago!
     
    Now then, what next? I don't really feel like launching into another loco right now.... I do have a couple of Ratio kits to work up that are currently in bits on the bookcase, so I guess I should get on with them before I start to lose parts.
  11. James Harrison
    I guess I've reached two fairly major mileposts with 'Jutland'. Firstly I've attached the last of the whitemetal bits of the kit. The eight footsteps were glued in place this morning. Secondly the locomotive has now been given its formal identication and lined out. I used etched brass nameplates from the Modelmaster range (I've been a very happy customer of theirs for most of my named loco projects), applied using a very sparing dab of UHU touched on the back of the 'plate.
     
    When it came to lining, I used HMRS pressfix transfers. I'm in the habit however of drenching them with water before application. Effectively this means I use them much like a waterslide decal- once placed on the model I move them around with a pair of tweezers until I'm happy with their location and then use blotting paper to remove the excess water.
     
    I used the loco numbering sheet from the same source, however with these I've finally acquired the knack of being able to press them in position. I saturate the backing paper first though so I can check up on their location before pressing down. This didn't quite work today, in that when starting the number off (I always start with the middle of the number- hence for '5504' I started with the '0') I misplaced the number on both sides by about 3mm- so on one side it was biased toward the cab and on the other toward the back of the tender (modelling the pre-1928 LNER scene I use small 'LNER' insignia on the tender with the loco number in 12'' numbers below it). I found however that by dropping a couple of brushfuls of water onto the offending decal, and then very gently and patiently working at it with a scalpel blade, I was able to lift it. It lost all of its adhesive in the process; but I was able to move it to the right place without the frustration of having to try and scratch/rub it off the model or use more of the decal sheet.
     
    I was then able to seal the model using diluted PVA. I use this because it drys to a flat matt finish, it evens out the paintwork a little (areas which may be striated or where brushstrokes are visible tend to be less noticeable afterward) and because it's what I have to hand, and it's fairly cheap. Also being waterbased and non-toxic helps avoid the 'what is that smell?' 'it's irritating me' 'why are you doing that in here' sort of comment... which is useful, being a tabletop modeller.
     
    The jobs still left to complete the model really run to
     
    - handrails
    - footplate lining
    - brass around front spectacles
    - timber around side windows
    - window glazing
    - cab interior painting
    - crushed coal in tender
    - weathering
     
    Most of which are 5-minute jobs I can do just so soon as the model has dried out.
  12. James Harrison
    There are two projects I've started pretty much simultaneously.... usually I only have one on the boil but I wanted to have a bit of a choice. The other explanation of course is that I got itchy fingers.
     
    The first project is a conversion of an ex-Mainline LMS 57' brake third into something that resembles GCR matchboard rolling stock of the period 1911-20. I've described this sort of conversion before (there's a thread on it somewhere in the 'kitbuilding and scratchbuilding' forum), and I'm planning to write a blog entry detailing the process too.
     
    The other project is my Dean Sidings resin L1/L3. This is designed to sit on a Hornby 3F/jinty chassis and when I bought the kit I thought 'I can get one of those (a jinty) dirt cheap off of ebay'. I found one, paid the princely sum of £10 for it and it promptly arrived.
     
    Turns out that the jinty has had something like four different chassis designs under the body over the last 40 years or so. And, of course, I bought one with an old style chassis, when the kit is designed for the new style. Hmmm.....
     
    The upshot is, that the body rides too high on the chassis at the front and at the back won't fit into the floor block. This was easily corrected by filing back the floor block until it would fit. Unfortunately this still leaves the problem at the front. I can't really file down the front of the chassis block- I don't want bits getting in the motor, nor do I want to inadvertantly file grooves into the wheel flanges. What I can do however is file down the resin body and form a recess that the chassis lip can sit in. Before I do that however I may just have a look if I can fit the chassis in back to front to get a closer-to-prototype wheel spacing.
  13. James Harrison
    Two projects to bring up to speed tonight. Let's start with 'Jutland'. She's been put into primer, and the gaps filled. And then she was given a first coat of green... and some more gaps found....
     

     

     
    The green is wrong of course but that's part of the way I go about getting an apple green finish. Two coats of Revell 'Leaf Green' followed by two coats of Humbrol 'Apple Green'.
     
    The other project is very exciting...
     

     

     
    A 3D print of a basic bodyshell landed on the doormat this morning. It's the body and running plate of an LNER B5/1. The plan is to add the missing bits of the body using plastic sheet, and then using brass castings from Alan Gibson for the boiler fittings. They're some of his J11 parts which can be bought as spares. The body will be fitted to a Hornby B12 chassis which will be re-wheeled with Hornby Black 5 drivers.
  14. James Harrison
    When I last mentioned my BEC D11 I spoke about how myself and whitemetal were not exactly getting on, and the various shortcomings of the material. Now not to go back entirely on what I said then, I have come around a little to the view that it does have its uses.
     
    For one thing, weight. The model weighs a ton! For another thing, the flexibility of the material is useful, to a degree, in that if parts don't match they can be 'coerced' into doing so with a bit of gentle pressure.
     
    Anyway; I've assembled the tender. Looking at the castings I noted there were no bearings for the tender axles. 'That won't do', I thought, and I reamed the axle holes out and slipped in some Romford pin bearings. Maybe not the best idea as then the axles couldn't get any purchase in the body, and kept falling out....
     
    This problem I eventually solved by making some 0.5mm plastic sheet slips 6mm x 6mm, with a 2mm diameter hole in the middle. Gluing them over the axle holes in the castings built up a rim that the axles could slip into securely. I had to add 1mm to each side of the tender in this fashion.
     
    Another little poser to get around was how to support the front of the loco body. I'm fitting the kit to a Triang L1 chassis, which is a tight fit. I made the fit eventually by removing the television interference suppressor.... as I don't have a television and the model as yet has nowhere to run I don't see that it was particularly a vital component (cue now my finding out that it was). Trouble is that the body has a bit of a tendency to slip and sit on the chassis with a nose-down attitude. I guess it would have been useful to have kept the metal 'tongue' the chassis would originally have been fitted with- there's a neat little screwhole provided for it just behind the bufferbeam.... ah well.
     
    Yes, how to solve the 'plunging' front end? I fabricated a bracket out of plastic sheet and rod, with a 1.2mm hole drilled in the rear of it (when viewed in plan). This hole fits over the drilled hole in the chassis for the pin securing the TV suppressor in place. A screw goes through that hole and secures it to the chassis, whilst the bracket is glued to the frames of the loco body. It had to be left for a few days to fully cure but (touch wood) is as solid as a rock now. It would probably have been better to have made it from sheet brass and sweat it into the running plate casting, but we'll see how the plastic one manages first.
     
    The loco and tender are now primed in matt black, so I can see the imperfections that bit better. The next job will be to fill all of the gaps, remove the excess glue and smooth the body down. One thing I will say about this kit- it had very few major parts. I think so far in both loco and tender there are only twenty components....
  15. James Harrison
    Work has tailed off somewhat dramatically this last week as I started my new job Whilst the job is great it does unfortunately mean a lot of travelling in the mornings and evenings, and an early bedtime. So the time I've got for my models has shrunk from about 4 hours each evening to 2, if I am lucky.
     
    This means I can't do larger jobs in the week (so work on Jutland has slowed right down), but I can do smaller, quicker pieces.
     
    One of which has been to fit three of my locomotives with curved handrails....
     

     

     
    They still need painting and I anticipate that when painted matt black to match the straight rails they'll look much better. I experimented this time with using some brass wire I had to hand. It was useless for straight rails but I think worked beautifully for the curved smokebox ones. I still need to fit a smokebox handrail to my N5 and my C5, however my C5 I am working up a list of improvements I can make to. Which currently runs to;
     
    - Curved handrail
    - Replace twisted handrails
    - Replace cabside lining
    - Build out splashers
    - Replace pony truck detailing.
     
    Something for next year I think.
  16. James Harrison
    Finished the first of my planned pair of GC brake thirds. It looks... fairly convincing when paired up with my all-first. Certainly enough that the missing windows aren't too noticeable.
     
    The other two vehicles for the rake are going to be a second brake third and a composite.
     

     

  17. James Harrison
    The eagle-eyed will have noticed there was something odd about the look of the newly-finished L1 in my last post.
     
    Specifically, the curved handrail above the smokebox door, a distinctive feature of Robinson designs, was missing.
     
    There's a reason why that has been the case on all of my models to date- I have never been able to get a curved rail I'm happy with. Either the curve I get is wrong, or the material breaks, or it just stubbornly refuses to bend. Usually leaving them off doesn't detract too much from the appearance of the finished model- my D10, both J11s, N5 and C5 attest to that- but somehow this time the omission was glaringly obvious. Something had to be done.
     
    What I did was to take a length of 0.5mm plastic rod and wrap it around a piece of 20mm brass pipe I had in my spares box. I then held it over a candle flame for a few seconds to soften the plastic and coerce it to take up the curve. If you hold the plastic too loose, it will part. Likewise if you hold it too tight it will part. The skill seems to lie in judging how tightly to hold the plastic to the brass, and how long you hold it near the candle flame, and how close you hold it to the flame.
     
    After about the third attempt I dropped lucky and managed to get a curve which, although it isn't perfect, is 'good enough' for me.
     
    The next step is to thread on a handrail knob and then using tweezers and pliers put in the 90-degree bends. It helps if the strip of plastic used is longer than the intended handrail!
     
    I was then able to glue the handrail onto the model- the handrail knob into the smokebox and the rail itself glued on a butt joint to the straight rails I'd applied earlier in the build.
     
    It's a small change but it really makes all the difference:
     

     
    When I get around to it and have the spare material I'll no doubt put my other GC locos through the same procedure.
  18. James Harrison
    Because the snow is finally beginning to melt the Royal Mail have managed to make their way up to my house today. Bringing with them *another* book about the Metropolitan Railway and a Hornby Patriot bodyshell (£3.99 from ebay- bargain!).
     
    No sooner had I got the package open then down comes my copy of 'The Harmonious Blacksmith' by A C Hancox and I quickly turn to page 25...
     
    ... and lay the Hornby bodyshell on the 4mm drawing on that page of Great Central Railway #1097 'Immingham'.
     
    It looks to be a fairly good match, in terms of major dimensions- a little too long perhaps but certainly closer than a B12 body is.
     
    The complete list of points immediately notable runs to:
     
    1. Running plate profile matches up pretty well.
    2. Location of firebox on running plate matches that of the B4. (that is, when the front edges of both 'plates are aligned).
    3. Firebox is about 4mm too long to the rear.
    4. Boiler barrel is about 4mm too short to the front.
    5. Smokebox is 4mm too long to the rear and 4mm too long to the front- possibility to thin down the back end to match the boiler?
    6. Cab is about right in length and height.
    7. Cab is set too far back due to point 3.
    8. Cab sidesheets are completely wrong.
    9. Splashers are in the wrong places, too low and too few of them.
     
    Nothing there that immediately puts the brakes on the project (just wait 'til I get it on the B12 chassis and watch the problems mount up now....), so this one looks a go-er.
     
    We'll start when a) the L1 (currently drying after a third coat of matt black) is finished, b) I've done my BEC D11 and c) I've finished my GC-esque matchboard brake third. Lots of work to do!
  19. James Harrison
    ....black, as the saying goes....
     

     

     
    If there is one thing that can make or break a model it is undoubtedly the paint job and finishing. I always brush paint my models using enamels or a mix of enamels and acrylics, generally from the Humbrol range though I will happily buy and use Revell paints if that is what the local model shop has in stock.
     
    One thing I have found is that it always pays to thin down the paint at least a little before brushing it on. Firstly this lessens the 'tugging' action the paint has on the bristles of the brush and thereby lessens the likelihood of finding brush hairs cocooned in the final paint finish, secondly it allows a thinner coat of paint to be applied and thereby stops finer detail being flooded out with paint and thirdly it means that when the paint dries you are less likely to find it has streaked or left brush strokes on the finish.
     
    So; let's go through the paint job thus far.
     
    It really began even before I started the model- the first thing I did was to give the resin castings a bath in warm soapy water to remove any grease, dirt, talc etc that comes with the moulding process. If I were feeling brave I'd have done this again after building the model- this time to remove fingerprints and suchlike- but I didn't trust myself not to knock the details off in so doing.
     
    I then gave the model a thin coat of Humbrol 33, matt black. I applied this with a smallish brush (I have found in the past that using larger brushes results in something of an uneven finish, or you end up with a brush that is bone dry on one side and clogged with thick paint on the other). The trick I use is to brush in long strokes working in the same direction. I always start by loading the brush up with a decent amount of paint and dabbing it once or twice on the area I want to cover, then starting in the corner of that area with the paint that remains on the brush. Once the brush is dry I turn to the first dabs and work the paint there in long strokes until that produces an even thin coat.
     
    What you end up with is a model that appears to have quite a streaky finish.... but then when it dries you have a first coat that might be too thin in places but which is generally devoid of streaks or brushstrokes.
     
    I then leave the model for a day or two to allow the paint to harden off and then give the model a second coat in the same manner as I did the first- small brush, thinned paint, long strokes.
     
    Once I have got the main colour to my satisfaction I turn my attention to the smaller areas. The only ones here are the bufferbeams. I have in the past used Humbrol 19, gloss signal red (I think)- but I think a model finished with both matt and gloss paints looks a little odd. Something to do, I believe, with the fact that when taking in the prototype you necessarily only see a relatively small part of it at a time, so the eye misses the 'this bit is gloss and that bit is matt' detail. With a model of course you see the whole thing in one go so it jumps out at you more. What I use instead is Humbrol 73, matt wine. This is perhaps a little too dark in shade for a bufferbeam but when you consider how the model is going to ultimately be weathered anyway it can also be argued that the darker hue saves having to weather the bufferbeams!
     
    Next time I'll talk about the only large jobb left to do on the model- fabricating a bunker bottom and coal.
  20. James Harrison
    I confess, a slightly embarressing situation is coming up. I should say that I studied Architecture at University, and then spent something over a year working in an Architect's practice.
     
    So you can perhaps see why it's a little embarressing for me to find it a struggle to design using AutoCAD in 3D. I've got hold of a 30-day trial of AutoCAD 2013, and it looks like I'll need all thirty of those days just to get the easier bits done!
     
    Nothing ventured nothing gained however and a slightly more considered approach this evening did yield results... albeit of a very limited sort.
     
    So; this is the beginning of my LNER B5/1. As you can see, all I have at present is a very cursory running plate (lacking any depth at the moment) and the splashers.
     

     
    I think it will prove easier to draw each component in plan view, then 3D rotate them in isometric and attach them to the model before extruding them to form the solid mesh. I think my problem this afternoon rose more from trying to draw it out as one piece than anything else... I hope.
  21. James Harrison
    Whilst the L1 build comes along nicely (I've built up some coal rails, of which more later), I've begun to consider exactly how I'm going to do my future planned projects.
     
    In the first post of this blog I mentioned I plan to build both a B4 'Immingham' and a B5 'Fish' this year. So far what I have a pair of B12s and 7mm scale drawings for both locos, plus a few whitemetal and brass castings for boiler fittings.
     
    Well you see yesterday I took delivery of a book published by the SLS titled 'The Harmonious Blacksmith', a little portfolio of 4mm scale drawings by Charles Reddy of most of Robinson's loco designs. Now the drawings are exquisite and immediately I began to question whether using my usual techniques I could do justice to them. The D9 wouldn't be a problem as that would be a hackbash on similar lines to the J11, but the B4 and B5 it was immediately apparant would require more in the way of heavy intervention and scratchbuilding. This was something I did when I built my C5 hackbash and although I think it looks good there are certain things about it that are not quite right (not that I'm in any hurry to replace it just yet).
     
    Specifically the boiler is too short, the body overall too short, the smokebox too long and sitting too far forward, the cab too big.... with the C4 I started with half a body anyway, so didn't have most of these difficulties (save for repositioning the boiler).
     
    So I began to think along the lines of 3D printing. I'm already fairly experienced with AutoCAD (I studied Architecture for my undergrad degree and used it on a daily basis), so this seems to be the way forward. I think the plan will be to design a pair of bodies that use the same attachments as the B12/3 body and simply drop them onto amended B12 chassis (both will need the bogie drawing back a little and the B5 will need the wheels replacing).
     
    The only possible drawback I can see at the moment is that of cost. I've been looking on Shapeways and at their materials and their costs, and the cheapest is $1.40 (about £1) per cubic centimetre. If this is per cubic cm of the model I can see each one would cost at least £400 (if not more). If this is per cubic cm of material used then obviously costs will be a lot lower (essentially I'll be designed a hollow body shell).
     
    An alternative I am considering (and I have just bought a cheap bodyshell off of ebay to investigate) is to use the Hornby 'Patriot' body, which already has a Belpaire firebox and 14' boiler barrel. It might be a better bet- though as I'm planning to complete my L1, my GC matchboard stock and a whitemetal D11 (knew I'd left something off my proposed build programme!) before I get to the 4-6-0s, there's plenty of time to contemplate.
  22. James Harrison

    Fiddly bits!

    By James Harrison,

    When I started off today I had a set of things I wanted to do:
     
    1. Add the external steampipe from cab to smokebox
    2. Remove the moulded coal rails
    3. Add the handrails
     
    Happily I can say I achieved all three....
     
    The steampipe was the easiest bit to do. I had to drill 1.6mm holes into the cab front and the smokebox to get it to fit, and then gently file down the tank filler cap it runs past to get a smooth fit.
     
    Moving on to the coal rails the first step was to cut down through the rails themselves to the level of the bunker both fore and aft, and the take a small sawblade and slip it down the side of the lowest rail and gently work it back and forth to make a cut. Once going I could work a little harder and get a decent amount of material out with each pass of the saw; at the same time working the saw up toward a vertical position to cut through. Once I had cut through to the underside with one little cut, I could move the saw to the vertical position and start working forward to the cab and back to the rear of the bunker. I had to do this twice of course, for both sides, and then again to cut through the rear of the rails. The front end was a little more involved as, as it turns out, the cab/bunker bulkhead runs right below the very front edge of the rails.... so I had to make that cut from the underneath of the bunker... and when it had been made I had a sizeable residue at the front of the bunker still to remove (I used a decent heavy duty file for this bit).
     
    Then I turned to the handrails.... I had thought this would be a simple operation (and to a certain extent it was) but I did struggle with needling the wire through the handrail knobs. I still have the handrails at the front of the tanks to do.... I managed to loose one or two of the knobs in the pile of the carpet (which were replaced using some plastic ones I had to hand in the spares box). I also had to make the one compromise that I always have to make- the handrail doesn't make that distinctive set of curves around and over the front of the smokebox. I just can't form the curves for some reason...
     
    The final little job I managed today was to form new safety valve levers- I did this by taking a short length of brass wire, putting a 180-degree bend in the middle and then gently with pliers putting an 'S' bend in it about a quarter of the way in from either end. Simple but effective!
     

     

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