ChrisH-UK

On 31/08/2019 at 16:58, ianmacc said:

Search eBay for 1:71 to 1:80 Scale as search terms (but not 72 or 76 as you will be inundated!). It’s amazingbwhats out there including construction plant crawler cranes stretch limousines etc! 

 

Here are a few random vehicles!

 

 

 

 

Can anyone confirm or disprove that the claimed scale of the commando is correct, or even close? (in case pic doesn't show it claims 1:77 for "Matchbox Lesney Dodge Commando")

Three weeks later, is anyone in the UK still able to get to this page, I've tried all day and it just times out, but I asked someone in the US to check and it works fine for them. I'm guessing some sort of geoip block has been put in place.

On 13/07/2019 at 17:50, Bedlington North said:

 

The method for changing the colour by painting and wiping off wouldn't work as the full size plates weren't cast in relief.

 

 

Are you sure about that?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishrail1980sand1990s/16504719346/sizes/l

Maybe I just don't understand what relief means in this context

The Escort Kombi looks to be the same wheelbase as Oxford's XR3i, seems like it wouldn't be too hard to 'cut and shut'. I know it's a Mk3 rather than a Mk4 (apparently the Mk4 was considered a facelifted mk3 by Ford?) but it gets you closer, possibly just a little bit of cosmetic fakery  at the front end?

Does anyone know if the Kombi lift gate is the same angle at the hatchback? That would be another part that could be reused.

Are you sure that 86419 used different style plates?

Double checked, I see style was the same, background colour was changed. I have painted one set of black plates red.

Sometimes even Pete the Greek can't help you (I'll get to that later)

So I thought I'd take a couple of minutes to talk about the full-sized version. Before these machines existed the main way to get freshly maintained or newly relaid track to bed down was with the passage of trains running maybe at half line speed, maybe slower for at best, a couple of days, at worst a couple of weeks. You might be able to get away with that on secondary routes but it would be a major headache for mainlines. Plasser & Theurer did have a tamper with a dynamic track stabilising wagon but went on to produce a standalone machine -- the DGS 62 N and in 1987  produced the DTS 62 N for BR and the differences between Euro and UK specs are more than just letter substitution, the roof profile is totally different because of our loading gauge, the equipment is mostly similar with what at face value are subtle differences.

Thirteen machines were built, 10 for Intercity  and allocated to Area Civil Engineers across the regions (4 for ER, 3 for LMR, 2 for WR, just one for Scotland) 3 were for NSE, each for a different division (Southern SE, Southern Central and Anglia). At privatisation they passed into the hands of all the well known Infrastructure companies and appeared in the colours of Jarvis, Centrac, Balfour Beatty, Carillion and Fastline, it seems they fell out of favour with some as most were either scrapped or exported to Eastern Europe, the middle east or Australia. Balfour Beatty still operate their pair and one has been fitted with a pantograph for overhead line work.

They work by applying massive forces to wheeled stabilising units mounted beneath the chassis and make extensive use of hydraulics, being completely open framed there's a lot of detail to model and a lot of compromises could be made, but it's not like I had much sanity to begin with so I plan to model as much of it as I can and probably require the services of mental health professional when I'm done.

Onto this week's progress, starting with the roof.

I'd already figured I could form the profile from a single piece of styrene but decided it was sensible to do each half separately and make adjustments in the middle.  Figuring out where to score the fold lines is where my friend Pete the Greek comes in. Of all the maths I learned in secondary school I only use trigonometry on a regular basis and my Maths teacher always referred to Pythagoras as Pete Pythagoras or Pete the Greek so with the help of my Mediterranean friend I produced this.

The corner that doesn't look right above was kind of funky, it got fixed once I formed the other end and mounted it on the metal roof beams, which was a challenge, as modellers we often wish for more hands. As you see below I made use of cable ties.

Fitting the main support pillars was a faff, before I used the cable ties keeping everything lined up with both holes in chassis and roof beams was impossible, after there were still issues. The hoops I had made were too short so I had to cut them to rework them which made them wobble around, fine brass tube joined them back together which stabilised everything and made it apparent that one set of pillars was in the wrong place, which is the reason why there are now holes in one of my plastic alignment pieces. Everything else seems square so I'm happy to have got 75% correct at first attempt and 100% at the second.

Cabs have now been secured to the frame, beams still need to be secured to the cab, roof won't be fitted until most of the deck mounted equipment is in place by which time I need to figure out whether to install directional lighting and how I'm going to access it if the roof is glued in place.

Next step - more deck detailing

Which version of City of Stoke on Trent?

I'm guessing there's no easy way to narrow down if it's one of the earlier or later Commandos (to figure out which RTI cab to buy).

I also noticed the crew body has a large side window where most (but not all) I've seen have two smaller, how unusual is this?

While researching miscellaneous road vehicles in the Carlisle area I came across this https://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwatch55013/5532721576/sizes/l

Carlisle PSB with a PC in front, I zoomed in a little and it doesn't look like a Cargo or a Roadrunner to me because of cab and window shape, it appears to have a long quarter-light which suggests terrier or dodge and 1990 is surely too late for a terrier.

So I mentioned photo etch, this will come into its own when I get round to working on the underside but it definitely has a place on the top side too, in window frames, grilles, and other detailing elements. I've been working with vector graphics for 25 years so producing the basic artwork was no big deal, especially as I already had done a plan of the machine in Inkscape. Having read various opinions on RMWeb and doing a bit of research I worked with PPD and tuned things to their requirements, it took me much longer than it should have to actually get the final design submitted and checked (due to time and funds and being easily distracted).

If anyone plans to use Inkscape and convert with Illustrator to a format PPD can accept be aware, Illustrator will cock it up and you will have to fix it. Illustrator specifies a different DPI to Inkscape, unless spotted you will end up with a work that is larger than your design, and therefore completely wrong!

Here's a sample of the artwork, just a small portion of the design for the DTS with the edges of other projects just visible above and below. 

So you submit the artwork and wait for an envelope to arrive, thinking will this bit work, will that bit turn out alright, what if it's all wrong, have I made a horrible mistake?

In this case what arrived was mostly very good, a little bit rubbish and a few pieces that weren't how it was supposed to be but still worked. In the picture below the grilles on the left look fuzzy, in reality they are clean and crisp, as is the fan, but notice the square next to it, and the printed square to its' right? They should look the same, but a tiny miscalculation in line width resulted in nothing getting etched. I also lost most of the bolt detail which met the minimum requirements for the material, but that was probably designed for lines rather than dots so next time I'll go larger with them. As for the ladders, they were originally designed to fold along all the red lines visible in the artwork above. I realised during the design process there was a low chance of them working as designed but decided to go with it and see what happened, they may not be what I intended but they fold up into very nice looking things that I'm delighted to use.

Now onto the weekend's progress. 

Originally the roof supports were going to be wire hoops in line with 4 of the 6 pillars that support the roof on the prototype, connected to brass angle, but keeping everything in line proved impossible so I fitted plastic spacers to the brass angle and found this rests stable on top of the cab ends, the wire hoops will still be used, but may not provide as much support as originally planned.

And finally, the last two boxes that sit upon the deck are shown roughly in position below. The small holes in the deck are for hoses and pipework that will connect to the boxes (except the pair on the left which will be vent pipes to the roof). The big hole in the deck is a wide gauge grid/grille on the prototype and I need to figure out the best way to represent this, I'm not even sure how visible this is going to be.

Next up - pillars and roof

I got interested in the strange yellow machines back in the 90s, back then if you wanted a model of anything like that you scratchbuilt it and I was young, enthusiastic, idealistic, and I had a camera, a scanner and a computer. I took pictures and planned to build a breakdown crane, tamper, twin-jib crane, dynamic track stabiliser and more.  I made drawings and started building things.

Twenty five years on what had changed? Well you could buy kits of some of this stuff, there were RTR models being planned, and my workbench still had the same list of unfinished projects but on a more positive note, technology had come a long way with 3d printing, photo-etching, laser-cutting, so it's time to revisit things and try and actually finish something.

A cheesy title for this could have been "something old, something new, something borrowed, something yellow" so lets start with a pic of something I made back in the 90s - a Cowans Sheldon diesel-hydraulic breakdown crane.

There are parts of this model I'm really proud of, like the hand-carved cab, the outriggers, the jib, the chassis side detailing and the hook and block and there are parts that haven't quite stood the test of time.  I might make an entirely new crane at some point but for now I have other things to work on.

Currently on the workbench is the Plasser & Theurer DTS-62N dynamic track stabiliser, another model I started in the 90s based entirely on photos. I compared the built chassis to scaled dimensions and the length wasn't that far off, the width was though, so I fixed that, realised I'd overdone it, fixed it again. (It wasn't a failure of measure-twice-cut-once, there were other issues)

Here's a pic of the prototype taken at Watford Jn some time in the mid 90s

and here's the frame so far, opposite way round to the photo above, didn't think about that when I took it, and the cabs behind it, the original parts that I made modified to be more accurate, boxes on the frame are all new construction, enhanced with etched parts I designed myself and plastic parts that proved to be easier than 3d printing some tiny parts.

Next step is the rest of the boxes and the framework to support the roof.

Were there TTAs carrying bitumen (or similar) to somewhere near Inverness?

Croxton & Garry tank wagons (2-axle TUA and bogie JCA) worked to Aberdeen with products for the paper making industry, the Wiggins Teape paper mill in Corpach may have received things by rail as well as shipping its paper south.

While browsing photos of Carlisle I came upon this pic https://www.flickr.com/photos/d9006/8500552426/

In the background is a Royal Mail truck, obviously an artic, and remembering how small that vehicle area was at Carlisle station, obviously a small one. I did some research and figured out it was a Seddon Atkinson 3-11 daycab. What I can't figure out is the trailer, roller shutter door on off-side, and presumably single axle. I've checked a couple of commercials sites and found lots of tandem axle standard trailers and one or two single axle plain trailers but nothing that matches that. Help!  

Try https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Rapido-News-111---Tons-of-new-products-in-HO-and-N-scales-.html?soid=1101318906379&aid=PEZYaZImheU

SAT Model Rail have

Ex-Yeoman POA, Railtrack PNA and ARC PNA all at 11GBP, at one time this wouldn't have been a bargain, but now...

http://satmodelrail.co.uk/?s=PNA&post_type=product

Tried searching for dock blocks, keel blocks or bilge blocks and including other terms, but nothing useful appeared. However "Devonport submarine" yielded the following 

https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurehow-babcock-plans-to-decommission-uk-nuclear-submarines-4177541//featurehow-babcock-plans-to-decommission-uk-nuclear-submarines-4177541-450342.html

The shapes under the front and middle of the sub do have some resemblance to the shapes on the first wagon in the freight train photo, could the structures under the rear of the sub be the parts on the warwells? 

Only Hattons themselves can give real clarity to this. Using Woodenhead's screengrab as an example, I think 180 gets you a pre-owned sound-fitted loco, 208 gets you the same loco that has had its decoder removed and replaced with whatever their default decoder is, 318 gets you the same loco with its sound decoder replaced by a different sound decoder.

I think it's a misleading thing rather than a sharp practice. I think they could make it more apparent what is actually going on.

Chris H

11 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

On the front page the ones mentioned as sound fitted are under £200, but click on the model and go to the detail page the price goes up to over £300, something going on here methinks.

 

Mike.

Unless you see something different to what I'm seeing, it may be the result of an inflexible listing system or the accompanying text needs expanding. I picked a couple of the sound fitted locos and clicked through, the standard price was showing but with higher prices for DCC and for sound. I assume what this means is that their system is offering to fit a regular decoder or a sound decoder even though this particular item includes one? It doesn't make financial sense to remove the included decoder and replace it with another, but technically there's no reason not to... I guess.

Chris H

Whilst researching a brake van I came across this photo on the RCTS website https://rcts.zenfolio.com/electric/br/locomotives/85/hA1053B13#ha1053b13 dated 5/2/90.

The load in the first wagon caught my eye, when I zoom in it looks like 3 nosecone shapes in an OBA, if it were 20 years later I'd suspect 'spinners' for wind turbines but that's unlikely in 1990. Another thought is IIRC the 6V93 goes to Tavistock Jn, so something for Devonport? I'm clutching at straws though. Does anyone have any better info or suggestions?

Chris H

2 minutes ago, modelldoc said:

BW model no longer exist.

You can only buy some repop kits from MIlMod.

They all are in resin now.

 

modelldoc

This appeared to be someone selling old stock, but I guess it was someone who turned off the e-commerce part of their site but left the storefront active

18 hours ago, Phil R said:

Re the differences - Cumbria machine has a recessed rear cab step, also the bodywork above the lockers slopes from the rear of the cab to the back of the vehicle, on the other it runs parallel with the top of the lockers for the whole length of the vehicle. 

The also have different style lights and ladder arrangements. 

Thanks Phil,

I'd missed the rear cab step, thanks for that spot, I had noticed the sloping bodywork though, and reckon I could make that mod, I also expected to be farting about with the light arrangement. Stewartr's post has me both reassured and concerned, do I say 'stuff changes all the time' and make close enough into good enough or do I fall down yet another rabbithole of detail?

18 hours ago, Phil R said:

The Fireflash Delta 64 website is probably the most comprehensive record on the internet and is a superb reference. 

 

Which NW brigades are you interested in? 

Yep it really is superb, it first kindled my interest. It is the Carlisle area I'm interested in, and that has enough info to model virtually any vehicle. I also came across an excel spreadsheet which lists appliances for what looks like all the modern brigades. For Cumbria it goes back as far as a single T reg vehicle and gives type, reg, chassis, body, and where it was based (lots of gaps).

I thought I had found a BW model for sale, the site allowed me to place an order but didn't take any billing info, so I don't expect to see any suspicious CC activity but I don't expect to see a parcel showing up on my door either.

Seeing the announcement about RTI has got me fired up to move forward on some vehicle projects, one of them is fire engines/appliances in the NW of Eng.

Does anyone know the differences between body manufacturers for this time period or point me in the right direction? 

I'm looking at C or D plate Dodge Commandos (so RTI) and E or F plate Volvo FL6 vehicles (BW kit?), Cumbria used Carmichael bodies but most of the good photos and the BW model use Dennis bodies, to my untrained eye they look pretty similar but I could be making a huge mistake.

Volvo Carmichael (image (C) Delta64)  http://www.fireflash-delta64.co.uk/e994ahh[ak]01.jpg

Volvo Dennis (image (C) markkirk85) https://www.flickr.com/photos/26024754@N07/27993093783

I prepared artwork for PPD using a method I do not recommend - inkscape then porting to illustrator, the issue is how illustrator imports inkscape's files. Next time I plan to just use illustrator. I know across a year illustrator costs more than draftsight will, what I don't know is whether it is possible to subscribe and unsubscribe once each year.

As an alternative it's a bit cack-handed, but if they allow me to pay 20 a month for the one month I need to use the product...

2 hours ago, Spitfire2865 said:

How long ago did you send the email. Some traders may have a backlog of emails or only check it infrequently.  

The second bit about sending mail order looks to be only for those yet to acknowledge the existence of internet based payment methods.  

2.5 weeks ago, I'd hope that's long enough.

Here's the ordering page https://bethlehemcarworks.com/ordering/ maybe someone else can make more sense of it.

Has anyone ordered directly from BCW in the last 4 months? Their website appears to have been updated in that time frame but I sent a query prior to placing an order and had no response. Has anyone used paypal to pay them at any time? The website says this is possible but also says about including payment with your mailed-in order and I have no idea how to combine paypal and snailmail.

Thanks

Chris H