SteelAndSoot

soon....... In other words I have almost finished designing my second manning wardle class. I have already printed off three of the 0-4-0st in the background and I have finished one and have almost finished the second. HOWEVER I will only post a picture and details about them once I have finished working on the third.

Eh I just decided to call it this for no reason other than I live here ANYWAY moving on. I haven't posted in a while for what ever reason so I might as well tell whoever reads these what will be happening within the next month or so as not to make anyone who may be keeping up with this die of boredom. 1. Tugboat fleet. I am continuing work on a tugboat fleet I have and I will make a whole blog entry about that. (if I am not lazy) Here is an unfinished one 2. Castles. I built a tiny part of a castle on one of the corners of my railway and am planning on building a full one that I can plonk down at any time to break up the background. (once again I should make a blog entry on this but I will do it in a couple weeks. 3. Class 47. I have a Lima class 47 coming in the mail and I might share my thoughts on that once it gets here. (it will probably be a tiny post as it is my favorite class of diesel) 4. EXCITING Alright. This is the big news. I have recently become a volunteer at my local preservation society (its not a railway as much as it is a ring of standard gauge track chucked around a huge field with museums , Historical buildings, workshops, lots of pine trees and an engine shed. I don't know if I should give out its name as for reasons other than it is the only "railway" close to where I live that I can drive to. BUT it has a couple of steam engines and in the museum there is a group (two people) building a model railway and they are looking for members. So yah boy (never going to say/write that again...... probably) is going to ask if I can help out. and as I have a school break coming up I will be able to head down there for every day they are in. (they are only in on Fridays and on open days for the railway. But of course school is on Friday) So I will be able to go there for three days and work on the model railway and get into the workshops to help work on and run the engines on Wednesdays and Saturdays. So yeah. Stuff. Hopefully. Maybe. Possibly. Oh and one last thing. I will be making a Topic thingy for modelling so I can post little random things that I am working on without having to take the time to make a blog post and whoever reads these and wants to do or is already doing something to do with models in general can post on. If that makes any sense.

I have made more progress on my gauge 1 custom engine and now I have got most of my school work out of the way I can crack into it and motor on in construction. since the last post I have shortened the chassis, took away the pistons and piston rods, cut and shortened the boiler and made a cab. I am going to quickly add a coat of paint so that I can figure out where things will be placed I also found out that it is the perfect hiding space for a pug I am currently feeling extremely motivated because of some recent news that I will share at a later date. I need to make sure however I might as well say now that I might be able to become a volunteer at our local preservation group. I have been approached by a member of the group to help build an engine and to help with maintenance and eventually running engines.

I found recently that we still had an old Christmas engine in our attic that had been up there for many years as we didn't have the room to set it up around the tree anymore. So I came up with the idea of "Hey if we aren't going to use it anymore I wonder if I can cut it up and make something of it". The engine itself is a battery operated G scale engine based on a american 4-4-0. I have decided to cut everything off and shorten the chassis alongside making my own boiler and cab (including everything else like funnels, domes and cab interior). This means that I pretty much have full control on how it looks and to get rid of any pressure of accuracy I am going to make it to my own design while still taking parts from other engines. The finished result will hopefully look like a cross of the Furness railway K2 and the Adams T3. It will have inside pistons and will be made to Gauge 1. As you can see if I am going to make a British style 4-4-0 the distance between the leading axle and the drive wheels is strangely large. Because of that I will have to cut the chassis in half and cut a lot of the length of then stick it back together.

I couldn't stop myself. I bought my fourth austerity tank (LNER Black with raised bunker). All of my austeritys are Hornby designs and have frozen incredibly reliable over the years I have owned them and have never broken down.

What is this app?

it has also just occurred to me that I haven't spoken about my other colliery engines or my custom models. So I will need to post some things about that.

Ok I have just gotten back from my trip to England and have got some things that I have completed and other stuff to share. I will share these in different posts just to make things more tidy and other things I need to finish. I managed to get my hands on a triang dock shunter for £4 from Ron lines (really recommend purchasing stuff from them) and decided it would be the perfect addition to my colliery group that I am working on. All I had to do was paint it and change some other features but apart from that not much changed. This first image shows the dock shunter before I painted and modified it and the second image shows how it looks after I finished working on it

Sadly my entry for the Cake Box challenge didn't go through and it didn't get put into the listings. (My wifi went down before I went on holiday and I kinda just hoped it would go through) Either way I already have a plan for the next challenge and will start on that once I get back from my holiday. HOWEVER as I am on holiday in England and am also travelling to northern Wales I am going to pick up as much second hand stuff as I can so I will be able to do some kit bashing and some scratch building. I have already bought some stuff and I can say I highly recommend the new Hornby terrier especially the Kent And East Sussex blue terrier.

I agree it is a lovely model

I will be gone for just over a month after I post this and I will try and give any updates on any new work

you can also see the first images in this entry to see the full measurements of the base

This is my measurements for the cake box challenge my entry is linked here

I will just post the proof on my blog Sorry for any inconvenience

now it is saying the single image is over 10mb

I have finished my model for the competition. The build process is on my Blog so if you want to have a look I will leave a link at the bottom. My two railway items are the track that crosses the river and a pile of sleepers sitting next to the person in yellow on the left bank. For waiting for a train I have a man standing on the right bank next to the waterwheel waving the train down. I will post an more images of the model after I have done some on the size of the diorama proving that it is within the the measurements

there are many more of those boilers and tenders around Arthurs Pass. They were used to strengthen some banks and some were dug back up and they took some metal fittings and components.

indeed

I have put blue spots on some plants to represent flowers or fruits as well as my second railway item (a stack of sleepers behind the engine on the left side. Creative I know) I have fixed the rest of the figures in place including a man by the water wheel who is "waiting for the train" and trying to wave it down. Plus some other things but not an awful lot

I had a go at making my own wagons out of balsa wood after a story one of my high school teachers told me. I wont explain the story yet unless anyone asks to hear it as it is a little boring and won't really add anything to my wagons. It took me about a week and a half to make all three (as it was my first go and I was a little slow) they run quite well and are very small. However because of the metal wheels they weigh more than Peco's SR 4 wheel wagons.they aren't the best looking things in the world but as they are very small if you view them from a normal distance they look fine. I am still very pleased with them.

Thanks, This is the first time I have made anything vertical and I am very pleased with how it is turning out

Welp I am getting close to being done on the model. I measured it last night to make sure the trees hadn't exceeded the height limit of six inches and it is exactly six inches, If the trees got any higher even by the the width of a hair it would be over six inches.I am also scratch building some 009 slate wagons to go with it out of balsa wood.

Hi Al I am on my computer the only problem is it isn't giving me the prompter to upload anything. basically it thinks I am viewing the subject

I am getting close to completion on the model. I still need to add lots more plants, a mill worker waiting for the train, a second railway item (either some spare sleepers or a crashed wagon), some people and animals and more water for the water wheel

I should have it done within the next week or two. It really depends on if we get the 3d printers working