luke the train spotter

Ahhhhh. Ok I see now. Looks good. That brass kit looks great!

Very nice. : ) I've always liked the idea of modelling electric narrow gauge but I don't think it would look right on my planned layout. Building the catenary system must be tricky!

Looks good. A nice easy transition into etched brass loco kits.

So I have completed all work on the box car so I can put my full attention on the network rail hst but firstly here is a picture of the completed box car: Next up is the work I have been doing to the hst in preparation for the repaint. The hst cars in modelling are 43062 (currently in use) and 43154 (not part of the hst anymore) . 43154 will be in tow so after I stripped the paint down and primed it, I cut out and filed out the emergency coupling door. This was achieved with my dremel drill and some sand paper. I then modified the chassis with a small hand saw and glued in a slim line nem pocket coupling. To complete the idea that the hst was being towed I added in a laser pointer and an emergency door. Both were made from 1mm plasticard and poly cement. The laser guide thingy (very technical term!) was successful and looked good so I made one for the 43062 power car as well with the inly difference being that I glued it on before the initial coat of primer. With that done both cars received another coat of primer. I spent a good part of my time yesterday designing and scaling the down the transfers and here is a picture of the test print on normal paper just laid on top of the power cars for a snse of scale. So that's everything prepped for painting! Will be exciting to get some paint on the power cars and I will continue to update you on any more progress.

So update guys. I visited my local DIY store yesterday and saw that they had some scrap (but not in bad condition) pallets that they were going to burn. I asked if I could take one and the said yes. So now I have the base of the baseboard for free. I will top it with some wood from a skip hopefully but if not mdf isn't that badly priced.

So this post is all about my rolling stock (except locos) and currently I only have one wagon and no coaches. This wagon was scratch built for £5 (including chassis, couplings and wheels). The sides were built out of will pasti card wood sheet. The wagon is of a very basic freelance design and in the future I would like to scratch build a short set of coaches, a flat bed car and a break van to complete the very short freight rake. Du to the size of the layout, I don't want to have to long trains otherwise they will dwarf the scenery. Again if you have any questions or comments I am happy to receive them and answer any questions. : )

Thanks! I've never come across them and one of those bodies will definitely be my next 009 loco. If I had been aware of them before I built my current loco then I would probably have gone with one of those kits. They are very well priced!

Here is a picture of the kind of completed box car. The pictures shows the good side as I messed the transfers up for the other side. I will make some new ones and install them tonight.

So first of all, lets talk locos. My current narrow gauge loco was scratchbuilt by myself from a £12 Kato chassis and some scrap 1mm plasticard. This is all held together by poly cement and super glue. Total costs for this loco is £13.50 . It was painted in humbrol no2 with a grey roof and red buffer beam. The engine grills are painted in just normal black acrylic. Here is a picture of the loco. If anyone has any questions I will be more than happy to answer them.

Yep. You got it!

Transfer test print for the box car a success!

This layout will be quite small as I plan to build it on a adapted pallet I can hopefully pick up for free from the tip.

Here is a link to my new 009 layout thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/125317-009-micro-£100-budget-challenge/

So welcome to my new thread where I will be building a 009 layout from scratch for a very tight budget of £100. This is my first proper 009 layout and it will be a very basic continuous run with maybe one point to store rolling stock. I hope you are interested and there will be more updates to follow. Thanks.

I will make a separate thread for the 009 one as it is the complete opposite to this thread. In that thread I shall build the layout from scratch and keep a running total of ALL costs.

So I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I've spent this months budget on another project I'm really passionate about is my narrow gauge 009 modelling. I've decided that I would like a simple loop layout so I've bought the track and planned the baseboards and track plan. The good news is that I will have a fair amount of time to work on the new modern image layout. This includes repainting and making the transfers for the flying banana and a kind of funny side project which is the repainted box car. If you cast your minds back to a couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was repainting a "Fine Fish" box car into network rail yellow. Now since I'm making my own transfers I can ummmmmmm.... adjust the wagon branding so I will have a notwork fail wagon complete with the slogan 'not improving your railway' . Just something funny to put on the layout and to add a bit of interest.

I have looked at getting super clue there so next time I will give the glue a try and post my results when I get round to it. I do also get all my pva glue from there as you get 500ml for £1. I'll keep my eyes out for some brushes too. They seem to have quite a decent diy section.

So a quick update on some purchases: • I have ordered a pack of 1k ohm resistors for the hst lighting and I will order some leds soon • I have also ordered a sheet of a4 inkjet waterslide transfer paper. This only cost me £1.49 for a single sheet so I will see how these transfers go before I order any more paper • Continuing with the budget theme I payed a visit to the all famous "Pound Land" and managed to pick up a spray can of grey primer paint. I hope this will do as it is only cheap stuff but if it does work then I will probably buy some more for more general model work. • If you didn't already know but I've managed to arrange the use of an air compressor for my airbrush that I can borrow for the respray. I have another question regarding the method of making the transfers. Does it matter that I put gloss varnish onto the transfer paper over normal varnish? Thanks.

Yes I have stumbled across that website before and I have used some of those kits before such as the booking office and oil drums. I have looked into their platform kit but the tarmac surface texture just isn't quite convincing as the scalescenes one so I will probably go with the scalescenes one purely based on that. I am always impressed by these kits and the complex visualization that is required to create them.

Hi Gary, I really don't mind if anyone posts pictures in this thread as I think that they can inspire other modellers. You mentioned that your signal box was built out of cereal packets and so are the platforms on my current layout. Here is a picture of them with a pannier in platform 1a and 1b with 2 gwr b set coaches: The brick on the side is brick paper from Metcalfe which I got cheaply from my local model shop. The top of the platform was just a grey paint. For the new layout, I plan to use the scalescenes downloadable platform kit that only costs £1.99 .

To try and meet the £100 budget I spend a lot of time sifting through the internet and old model railway magazines picked up cheap to source many cheap and basic ways of modelling. All the buildings and structures on the layout will be scratch built out of plasti card and brick/texture papers. I have used this method for my current layout with all the buildings being scratch built by myself with there being only one kit which is a heavily modified and repainted Metcalfe kit. This is a signal box that has been re-roofed, repainted and had an interior scratch built out of plasti card. Nothing like getting side tracked.

I was a bit uncertain because plastic seems to repeal water but everyone else seems to say that it works so I shall do that.

Cheers Gary. I think I shall use water as I don't have any acrylic thinners and I really can't afford any in next months budget.

Another question I have is what should I thin my paint with? The paint I will be using is a water based acrylic paint so should I use enamel thinners to thin the paint down or water? Thanks.

So I have managed to arrange a time when I can borrow a friend's air compressor to spray the coaches into the network rail yellow livery. Does anyone know the required thickness of the paint that I need for the airbrush?