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James Harrison

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  1. 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!
  2. James Harrison
    I'm pleased to say that the rebuilding effort of this model is finished- and what a beauty she turns out to be:
     

     

     
    The finishing touches were the numberplates (custom etched by Narrow Planet, and highly recommended- well worth the wait), some beading around the front spectacle plate (touched in using brass paint on a Phillips' head screwdriver) and coal.
  3. James Harrison
    Well, after a few weeks of almost glacial progress, the open third is finished.
     
    I underestimated how much work would be involved with this conversion; my previous Robinson stock being repaints and detailing of LMS period I carriages led me to think that this would be a quick little project. Wrong!
     
    I left off last time with the bodywork largely finished and the interior not even begun.
     
    I re-used the floor from the donor carriage, cutting off the compartment walls and smoothing down the floor. Then I filled the resulting gaps with offcuts of plastic sheet and to give a neat smooth top to build my new interior off of, I glued a sheet of paper down over it. This was then painted with Humbrol matt wine and the floor glued down to the chassis.
     
    The seats were then manufactured from 0.5mm plastic sheet using a method detailed in 'World of Trains', circa 1992. 1mm sheet is used to make the divisions between each seating bay (I used 0.5mm sheet laminated), then 0.5mm sheet is brought into play. A thin sliver is glued each side of the division and then another 0.5mm piece glued on top of that to give a bit of a rake to it. 0.5mm sheet was then laminated to a thickness of 1mm and glued perpendicular to the division to produce the bench seats. It was a process that in all honesty came close to boring me to tears- no need to think about it, not very interesting and needed to be done over, and over, and over again- there are 32 individual seating bays on the carriage!
     
    Once this was done and painted I reassembled the model, then decided to have a go at fitting handrails- my other stock I've noticed the doors don't stand out, so I experimented with adding them to bring a little relief to them. Brass wire was used, painted matt black (I did originally leave them in the brass finish, but thin brass wire tends to disappear against a mid-brown background).
     
    I'm very pleased with how this has turned out.
     

     

  4. James Harrison
    I've also been working on the open third, finishing off the bodywork (the major bits of it at least).
     
    This largely comprised adding ventilators above the doors and the large picture windows, and then on half of those windows adding a strip about 1/3 of the way down from the top, and then 'something' between this strip and the top of the window. The drawing I'm following is ambivalent about whether this 'something' is a solid mass of a series of tiny window slits. So I went for the easier option....
     

  5. James Harrison
    I think we're about done here....
     

     

     
    I'm sold on the idea of making my own transfers. This looks so much neater and more like what I had in mind when I set out to model an 11B.
     
    As I feared it might, the printer had a bit of a moment when printing and so the transfers were only about 95% the size they needed to be.... I had to deal with this by cutting each one in half and then accepting a bit of a fudge in the middle; this was preferable to the transfer being 2mm out at either the front or back.
     
    Once the transfers had been applied, I very carefully went over the green with another coat of brunswick green to get the model in one shade. This just left the bits of lining in the middle of the splasher to sort out.
     
    From previous experience neither brushes nor paintpens could get the necessary finesse, so I pulled out one of my screwdrivers and dipped it in enamel paint- gloss white, matt black and the closest bronze-ish colour I could match to the beading. I'm happy with how this dodge turned out but I have to admit I would not want to line out an entire splasher like that.
     
    I still need to do the beading to the spectacle plate; a roundtoit job it seems. Other than that all the loco needs is its numberplates.
  6. James Harrison
    Just a short post tonight....
     
    I was (and still am) quite happy with how the lining finally turned out on #1042. However I'm convinced I can improve still further on it- specifically around the cab and the splashers.
     
    I don't think I can go any finer with paintpens, and although I have a bow lining pen its ways have always been something of a dark art to me.
     
    A few months ago I'd bought a few sheets of white waterslide paper, so I thought I might be able to create some homemade lining transfers. I scanned the model into my computer, with a sheet of 5mm squared paper for scaling. This I think was a very good move; computers I find do all manner of weird and wonderful things to scale when you need something printed out at 1:1!
     
    I then used the line tool in Photoshop to trace over the scans, a 20 pixel line for the brass beading, 15 pixels for the black lines and 10 pixels for the white. Then the remaining space I filled in in brunswick green. Nothing new I think in my method- MikeOxon did exactly the same thing for his pre-1906 GWR Dean Goods and Stella locomotives (and thank you Mike for documenting your method- your blog posts on the subject were invaluable as I was following suit).
     
    I'll be printing these tonight, varnishing them tomorrow and I hope applying them on Wednesday evening
  7. James Harrison
    So, after a break for Christmas and the New Year, I've pretty much finished GCR #1042, with the exception of the brass beading to the spectacle plate and the numberplates, which are on order.
     

     

     
    The lining is much finer this time around and the paint finish much closer to what I wanted. I'm happy to chalk this one up as a success.
  8. James Harrison
    After a few hours' work on the model this weekend I've managed to add coal rails to the tender (scratchbuilt from lengths of plastic rod, plastic sheet and paper), the boiler bands and the outside lining to the tender panels.
     
    These photographs I've tried to get roughly the same angle as I did the previous three...

     

     

     
    John Quick's excellent book on GCR loco liveries has been an absolute goldmine of information for this model. I can see that with the number of locos I'm planning to finish in either GC or transitional GC/ LNER livery, its going to be referred time and again.
     
    The boiler bands are my usual method; a thin strip of paper with the black band lined in in ballpoint pen. I've been asked before why I don't use waterslide transfers for these and my answer is twofold; firstly the boilerband has a thickness to it that although very slight is still noticeable, which the lining transfer lacks, secondly the paper is that bit more durable and pliable and hence less likely to tear whilst being pushed around and pulled hither and thither whilst getting it into position and properly aligned.
     
    With the tender lining I went for HMRS pressfix transfers; however I quickly discovered that the LNER red lining lacked the power to show up against the dark green background. I then decided to try the black edging first; using the LNER loco lining sheet there are some black lines that have a white line to one side only and I thought that an ideal use of these on a pre-grouping loco would be to use them as they are, the white line then providing a good locating key for the red line.
     
    Wrong! The white line is ever so slightly thicker, and then the red line kept bunching up as I tried to coax it onto the black/white one, then bits of it tore....
     
    After an hour of patiently pushing the transfer around, wetting it, drying it, trying to coax it around some more, I finally lost patience. I removed the transfers, masked off a couple of lines along the tender length, and painted in the black with acrylic paint. The masking tape was then removed and the verticals painted in, then I switched to a dark red and painted in the red lines in the same fashion. When all had dried I went back to the green paint and very carefully painted over about half of the thickness of the red line (this naturally requires a very steady hand and, needless to say, a very fine brush).
     
    I think the result works pretty well. For the tender inner lining I intend to use HMRS transfers again as it's so much easier- a white-black-white line- and requires radiussed corners.
     
    As a final photograph I posed my 11B against the 'Great British Locomotives' Butler Henderson. The whole point of rebuilding my loco was to get a better representation of the Great Central's passenger livery- and it is turning out pretty well, I hope you'll agree?

     
    This is likely to be the last chance I get to do some meaningful building before the holidays- I hope everyone has a great Christmas. Here's to 2015!
  9. James Harrison
    After a month of being suspiciously quiet, I think it is time to talk about what has been going on in 'the works'.
     
    The complete rake of 5 clerestory carriages has been comprehensively rebuilt (I covered the work this involves in an earlier post). It is well worth the effort I think and much improved by now being the right colour (!) and being fitted with kadee couplers rather than the horrible massive tension locks.
     
    The fourth carriage in my GCR mainline rake has also been reteaked- this was a very quick job as the interior didn't need any work. The four carriages in this rake have also been fitted with kadees. I'm still planning to build two more of these carriages- an open third and a restaurant composite- I have the donor carriages to hand but fear this is a project that has slipped to next year.
     
    Spurred on by the success of my D6, I've taken my D9 (actually, considering it's in GC livery and in as-built condition, should that be 11B?) in hand for a rebuild. The thick boiler bands and beading have been removed, likewise the gummy glazing. I've smoothed down the paintwork a little (one of the things that has irked me is the slightly bubbly finish to the paintwork) over the course of the evening generally reduced it to a state where I'll be able to wash it all off tomorrow and leave it to air before priming it (and then seeing where all the real defects are....)
     
    I've also ordered some GCR numberplates this evening. One set for my 11B/ D9- 1042. A set numbered 5259 (hint at a future project) and a further set numbered 424 (another hint).
     
    I'll leave you to try to decode what my plans are for next year.... all will be revealed before Christmas with the 2015 Build Programme.
  10. James Harrison

    LNER D6 Part VII

    By James Harrison,

    This last week has been spent mainly on finishing the paint job and doing the lining.
     
    The loco footsteps still need doing!

     


     

     
    This last photo is pretty much a mirror image of the photo of the original loco that inspired the model in the first place (which I shall post when the model is finished).
     
    After I had finished the loco lining I came to the decision that the Revell 'leaf green' enamel alone does not make for a convincing reproduction of LNER apple green; it is too bright and, to my eye, too yellow. So I had to go back and give the loco a couple of coats of Humbrol 'apple green' too.
     
    The lining itself is a mixture of methods and mediums; for the boiler bands I cut some 1mm strips of paper and used a ball point pen to line in the black strip. For the cab sheets and the splashers, and the black/white lines on the tender and the red lining on the running plate, I used paint pens (and a very steady hand).
     
    There is still a bit of lining to do on the tender, and for that I'm planning to use HMRS pressfix lining transfers. Embarrassingly I thought I had plenty of that in my bits box; only when I came to actually appy the lining did I find that I did indeed have enough of the straight lengths to do the job, but only about two of the curved sections! So until a new sheet arrives in the post this job is on hold.
  11. James Harrison

    LNER D6 Part VI

    By James Harrison,

    Getting there; indeed nearly finished:
     

     
    A cab roof was made up from cardboard tube, rolled with a rolling pin to the correct radius.
     
    Safety valve covers were fabricated from a sheet of 0.5mm plastic; two laminations for the base and three for the covers; with a length of thin wire glued around the top edge to form a fairing.
     
    This same thin wire was used for the cab handrails and the smokebox door dart.
     
    I think that the largest job still to do now, if you ignore the painting and lining, is to build some steps for the running plate.
  12. James Harrison

    LNER D6 Part V

    By James Harrison,

    Still slowly plodding along with this!
     

     

     
    She's now gained the coaming around the cab cutouts and a tender.
     
    The tender is a Triang 2P/ 4F tender which I've cut down to tank top level then laminated around with 0.5mm plastic sheet to build up a new tank 20mm in height. Some 0.5mm sheet was then cut into 1mm strips and laid down on top of this, and given a liberal smothering of filler to suggest the flare to the tender top. Once a rudimentary interior had been built up out of more plastic sheet, the coal rails were added. I'm not yet entirely happy with the finish of the tender; it needs some smoothing down. But it is nice to see it (even roughly) in the same colour as the loco- it feels as though one last big push will see it pretty much finished. (Though this is far from the case).
     
    As an experiment, I've painted her in just Revell 'Leaf Green' enamel. Usually I give my models a coat of two of this as a precursor to a coat of Humbrol's notoriously thin apple green acrylic, but to be entirely honest I've never noticed a difference between the two. So I'm seeing what it looks like just with the Revell.
     
    Still masses to be done of course, but it is getting there, slowly.
  13. James Harrison

    LNER D6 Part IV

    By James Harrison,

    The pace has slowed down a lot over the last month or so (not that that is entirely a bad thing).
     
    Work has been getting done on the D6, just not a lot of it!
     
    Anyway I've finally managed to get the splashers and boiler to my liking and primed so from here on in (at least until I reach the lining stage) it should be fairly easy, for a given value of 'easy'.
     

     

     

     
    I ran out of model filler a few weeks ago and it was only in the last week I was able to buy some more. The new tube is a different product from what I have previously used and seems to work a little better. An interesting thing I have found with this is that you can use plastic solvent to sculpt it once it has been applied- which has helped me get a smooth finish no end.
     
    I will next be adding the frames under the smokebox and the cab roof; then into the paint shop for more primer and eventually into apple green livery.
  14. James Harrison
    Bit of progress on the Met 'E'.... actually quite a lot!
     

     

     
    The first thing I did was to build up the coal bunker with 0.5mm plastic sheet. I then added the tops to the wheel splashers using paper.
     
    Now the next thing to do was to paint the model.... two coats of Humbrol #73 provided the crimson lake livery whilst the tank tops and smokebox were painted up in Humbrol #33. The boiler was then given a wash with mekpak to smooth out the lingering roughness to the filler I'd applied earlier.
     
    Now came a bit of a conundrum. The drawing I was working off showed the loco in as-built condition, with condensing pipes from the smokebox into the tanks. However, photographs taken as early as 1908 suggest that the condensing apparatus was removed within a decade of construction.... so what replaced it? The preserved example has nothing above the tanks, and photographic evidence suggests that this was the case from the 1950s onward.
     
    However, photographs of the 1920s/ 30s show a toolbox and an air cylinder (Westinghouse equipment perhaps?) on the sidetankon the driver's side. So I decided to finish my model in this condition. Firstly I fitted a steampipe down the stoker's side, fabricated from 30A fusewire, then used bits from the spares box to fit the toolbox and air cylinder- the toolbox being a whitemetal lump from an old kit and the cylinder from an old Ratio carriage kit.
     
    Painted up again after some more filling and filing, and onto final finishing. Lining and numbering came from Radley Models- highly recommended for modellers of the Metropolitan and London Underground. Finally, a coat of stain varnish and some crushed coal to finish off.
     
    Onto the next project!
  15. James Harrison
    Whilst I have my playaround with a Gn15 loco, I'm also working on my more serious projects.
     
    Last month I alluded to how work on my hackbashed D6 had ground to a halt for want of a decent running chassis. Payday came and went and with it I was able to buy some 8mm square plastic tube.
     
    What I was then able to do was to drill 5mm diameter holes through this tube, and into these holes I fitted some bearings which are sold as spares for the Triang/Hornby 9F. I then slotted the axles through the bearings, refitted the wheels and coupling rods and gave it a test push along a length of rail....
     
    Success! I now have a very sweetly-rolling chassis to build off of.
     

     

     
    (A cruel, and slightly out of focus, close-up showing the bearings). Assuming 14mm back-to-back, and 8mm for the tube, I had 6mm to play with and as you can see it fits; though there is no more than 2mm of sideplay in the axles. No matter as I'm not intending to run the loco on trainset curves in any case.
     
    Next steps will be to fit the bogie and the pickups.
  16. 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.
  17. 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...
  18. James Harrison
    With the detailing of the front plate for the tender complete, attention turned toward getting it to move. Unlike the kit I had for 'Sir Clement Royds' the tender of this example came with a moulded-in chassis of sorts, but there was a problem. Firstly the moulding was so thick as to make it the devil's own job to fit axles, and secondly once the axles had been forced into place the tender sat too low.
     
    Looking at Sir Clement Royds to see how to overcome this problem I saw that the original builder of that model had used the tender chassis of a Triang 2P, so I decided to do the same. Luckily I had one in my spares box so out it came. Releasing the tender chassis was simplicity itself, but when it came to removing the moulded chassis of the tender it put up a fight... an hour of frustration and pain later, and having had to resort to the use of some Anglo-Saxon, I finally had a tender body that would fit on the Triang chassis. I was then able to build up a new rear bufferbeam, fit the buffers and handrails and fill in the small gap left between the chassis and the bottom of the tender tank.
     

     
    I then turned my machinations to the loco body. I've previously mentioned how the Directors had lost their side skirts by the mid-1920s, and how this kit as supplied builds a Director in, roughly, their 1913- 25 condition. I therefore had to remove the skirts.
     
    Whilst performing surgery on the tender I had found that an easy way to reliably break the resin in 'more or less' the place you want to break it, you make a series of cuts and then use pliers to break away the material between them. I found on the loco body that this method works perfectly well- it was the work of maybe five minutes to remove the majority of the material necessary and then all that was left was to clean up and form the fore-and-aft curves with a selection of fine files.
     

     
    Putting the whole ensemble together I'm pleased by how quickly the thing starts to look like a locomotive- the only major work left to do is to fit up the front bufferbeam, add the reversing lever and the loco handrails. Realistically these are pretty small jobs and so it could be in the paintshops by the middle of the week...
     

  19. James Harrison
    The announcement of the NRM Ivatt Atlantic and Model Rail 'Marne' have meant that funds for my kitbuilding and hackbashing have been severely curtailed for August. This in turn means that materials I need for my D6 have been put on hold and therefore that project has temporarily been put on a backburner.
     
    I therefore find myself starting a project for which all the necessary parts are already at hand: LNER 'Director' Purdon Viccars as she (he?) appeared in June 1928. The relevant volume of the green bible states that 5430 went into black livery in mid-1928 whilst retaining the small lettering and tenderside number; an interesting livery variation shared by only three of the class.
     
    Considering I have a D11 in GCR green, a D10 in LNER green and a D11 on order in LNER green, I thought it would present a nice quartet if this latest one were finished in 1928 black (if I have anything to do with it the quartet will be a quintet before too long passses).
     
    The kit itself is the venerable Jaycraft offering of the 1980s; not perhaps the finest of starting points but (and this is the thing) it is exactly the same kit as used for my 'Sir Clement Royds'. I want to achieve a uniform look between locos of ostensibly the same class and therefore have decided that any future D10s will start from the Jaycraft kit whilst any future D11s will be from the Bachmann stable.
     
    The first step last night was to start work on the tender- a large bulkhead was removed and replaced in plastic sheet. Obviously much attention was paid to getting the new model looking as much as possible like the first.
     

     
    As for the loco itself, no work has been done yet however cutting lines have been pencilled in for removing the skirts over the driving wheels.
     

  20. James Harrison
    Whilst work slows a little on the D6, I've turned my attention to getting a decent teak finish on my GCR carriages....
     
    .... first up is brake third 5277 in ex-works condition (I'll be trying to get more weathered patches on the next attempt).
     

     

     

     
    You might be able to see that the next in the rake (composite 5084) has also begun the process.... don't worry the D6 will be dealt with, very soon!
  21. James Harrison
    And work begins.
     
    So; we start with, as always, a donor loco....
     
    ... in this case the chassis and the body are from two different models.
     
    The chassis from a Hornby 2P:
     

     
    And the body from a Triang Jinty:
     

     
    There's a lot of hacking up involved in this one!
     

     
    But now I've begun the reconstuction process... an old Ratio 4-4-0 kit donates much of its boiler for this.
     

  22. James Harrison
    The oldest surviving loco in my collection of hackbashes is a 'lookalike' D6 that I completed a few years ago. At the time of completion I was very pleased with the result.... however as time has gone on and I have finished other, better models it has been gradually left to languish at the back of a shelf. Of course, this state of affairs hasn't been helped by the fact that since I built the model more information about the prototype has come to light.
     
    Last summer I made the decision to add a D6 to my 2014 build programme; the relevant 'Green Bible' and a copy of 'Locomotives Worth Modelling' by now being in my library means a more accurate model can be contemplated.
     
    My initial idea was to use a chassis kit designed to be used unde the old Ratio Midland 4-4-0 to build the model off of; it struck me today however that I also have a Hornby 2P chassis lying around- which is an even closer match. Handily, this spares me a lot of frustration fighting with a chassis kit- my soldering skills being comic at best (picking up the hot end being my party trick).
     
    So my current plan is to build a model of one of the superheated examples as they appeared at Grouping- there's a particularly nice shot of number 5858 in the Green Bible- using (you'll love this) a Jinty body.
     
    Yes; a Jinty. It appears that the firebox is the right length, the boiler barrel is the right length and the right diameter and that the smokebox is the right length for a superheated D6.
     
    This is going to be a good one....
  23. James Harrison
    After allowing my teak effect to dry out, I moved on to painting the solebars and the wheels.
     
    Both were painted with Humbrol #113, after which the wheel rims were painted in matt white.
     
    Moving on to the roof, I removed the clerestory and then filled the resulting hole with a sheet of 0.5mm plastic sheet, smoothed into the roof with plenty of white putty (incidentally pretty much exhausting my stock of the stuff!)
     
    I was then able to smooth the roof down and paint it with humbrol #165, with a wash of humbrol #33 over it to suggest soot staining.
     
    It was then time to fit a pair of homebrew corridor connections and reassemble the model....
     

  24. James Harrison
    Over the weekend the beading was added in 0.5mm square plastic strip. Previously I have used 1mm by 0.5mm strip and as I was applying this I thought it was too slight; however when fully panelled up I think it looks just right.
     
    I then moved on to further experimentation with producing a teak effect.
     
    Previously I have used hues of mid to dark brown matt paint, but the effect has always struck me as being too flat and too dark. With my GNR composite I went for lighter shades and even some gloss paint, and that seemed to work better. Unfortunately the paints used on that carriage were quite old and took some coercing to actually come out of the tins!
     
    So I went and bought a couple of new paints.
     
    First up is a gloss yellow (Humbrol #7) which gave me two coats to start with. Then I used a battered old brush to put a very streaky thin coat of mid-brown (Humbrol #133) over it. Most of this coat was removed almost immediately after application with tissue paper. The result?
     
    Well, I think it works.
     

     

     
    I'm now giving serious consideration to repainting my existing GCR rolling stock. D*mn, I've given myself more work to do here....
  25. James Harrison
    When I finished my rake of clerestory suburban stock earlier this year, I had a pair of Hornby clerestories left over. As one of them had been pretty severely hacked up I decided to use this vehicle for an experiment....
     

     
    The first stage was to infill the windows with milliput and white putty....
     

     
    .... when this had dried out I sanded it down and primed it.
     
    I then used a dremel to drill out the new windows, and cleaned them up with a file.
     

     
    Then I used 0.5mm plastic sheet and 0.5mm square plastic rod to model the sliding luggage doors and the beading.
     

     
    Now I believe these carriages were matchboarded below the waist (at least, I've seen one partial drawing showing that). The drawing in Dow's 'Great Central' however doesn't show this.... more research required I think.
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