Departmental203

Hello GWR5674 Thanks for the kind remarks there! I have a few projects on the pipeline but I will reveal these in my next update (I really am due to post one!) which should be soon. A little taster here: I have been working on a loco on the workbench as well as my usual wagons, all will be revealed in the next update. I would be interested in seeing your work, do you have a workbench thread here? As always happy modelling Jules

Very nice work Jack! Very intriguing how Fordley has gotten on and doubtless you'll be having endless fun with the shunting! Also the loader is very impressive, it's the first working loader I've ever seen in model form, although beware of the flying ballast! A few warning notices may be neccesary.... And I can understand the length issue, 15' on paper and 15' IRL can seem like two different things! My layout is only 8' long but it takes up half the room! Good luck with the rest Jack, look forward to seeing some more progress Jules

That's great Jerry! Like I say, good luck with the windows and the 166 there! Jules

Hi Jerry, What resin do you intend on using for the windows? Its the first time I've heard anyone using resin to create windows, something I may try myself in the future Good luck with the Class 166! Seems like an absolute pain in the @rse to work with! Jules

Hot on the heels from 391257 came its Loadhaul Black livieried partner 391235, which looks very similar to 391257 in terms of weathering but with a few noticable differences! I did the "brush on, thinner off" technique again for the body, however I used a 1:1:1 ratio of a mixture of Humbrol 29 Dark Earth, Humbrol 62 Matt Leather and Revell 84 Leather Brown to give a more reddish tinge to the dirt, with the same mixture on the underframe. To replicate the relatively freshly painted out EWS logo, I scratched the logo off completely using a scalpel and used masking tape to preserve the black underneath. Once the initial coat of dirt was dry, the tape was removed and a little quantity of the dirt applied to tone down the stark contrast and make it look like the logo was painted out a year or two ago. The maroon panels on the right hand end on both sides was applied with several coats of Railmatch EWS maroon, taking care to preserve the maintenance panels on the bottom, although two extra ones were removed with a scalpel. The maroon panels were also masked before the initial application of dirt to preserve their relative freshness. Again, the warning flashes, lamp brackets, grab handles and bufferbeam steps were kept relatively clean with microbrushes and thinners. Humbrol 73 Wine and Revell 84 Leather Brown were mixed in 80:20 proportions and aplied to higlight the single links and a tiny amount on the springs, with Humbrol 27004 Gunmetal used to represent grease and oil on the disc callipers, springs etc. The buffers were treated to my textured application of Humbrol 27004 Gunmetal and some Satincote varnish, which I feel is quite effective and can be discerned on the photo above. Wheels were painted with Humbrol 29 Dark Earth and wiped off to represent disc brake action. The bodyshell was varnished to protect the weathering from coming off due to too much handling. Well, that is Wagon Number 3 finished off, the possible contender for Wagon Number 4 could be.... ....this! Long-term followers may recognise this wagon and I do admit, I've taken far too long to get to this stage for it considering Accurascale announced thier version! This wagon is numbered 394385, inspired from seeing the real thing on one freezing cold winters day at Millerhill Yard and the Fox transfers EWS Gill Sans data panel was used, although due to the limited space between the ribs on early build MHA's, I had to splice the panel and do some slight overlapping to get it to fit. Axlebox colour was changed from the factory applied yellow to the correct maroon (Railmatch again) and Lankashire Models and Supplies coupling hooks were added to the bufferbeams after taking off my very crude brake hoses. It just awaits its turn at weathering but I really should get some brake disks to finish the wheels off, so it may take another while seeing me.... I also have MTA 395083 in the pipeline for weathering as well so watch this space.... Thanks for looking Jules

School is now completely out of the window (yayy!!) so I should have plenty of modelling time (in theory!) In between bouts of cycling and seeing friends, I have pushed the boat out and treated my MFA 391257 with a complete weathered finish, a first for me and I must say, it's unusually satisfying! So if anyone has the oppurtunity, by all means, give it a go!! The main weathering colour was an aprrox. 70:30 mix of Humbrol 29 Dark Eath and Humbrol 62 Matt Leather, liberally brushed all over the wagon and using a brushed moistened with thinners, taken off in certain places, focusing on the top rib to give a patchy effect and also on the side sheets to allow a little maroon to show through. When using this method, I find the longer you leave the paint on, the less control you have when removing it with the moist brush, so I'd say a bit of haste is helpful! Microbrushes were used to keep the warning flashes, maintanance panels and lamp brackets clean as per the real thing. Grease on the buffers, V hanger, springs and the brake lever itself was apllied using some Humbrol 27004 Gunmetal (Metalcote) which actually appears dark grey as opposed to black, which is not a bad thing! The buffers had the metalcote applied with a crusty brush to build texture, followed by satin varnish applied with the same brush. Finally, the maroonish higlights on the single links and springs were a mixture of about 80:20 Humbrol 73 Wine and Humbrol 62 Matt Leather, which really help those items to stand out. It was an effect copied from numerous photos of this wagon. A little finishing touch was the wheels, which were painted with Humbrol 29 Dark Eath and the paint wiped off the treads and on the outer and inner faces of the wheel disc itself to give the effect of the disc callipers polishing the wheel faces. All of this was done in 3 weeks, which may surprise some but personally, I found it quite relaxing and methodical to put on paint, wipe it off, mix some colours etc...I'm personally very tempted to do a whole loco this way, hopefully without obliterating it!! Well I can finally say for this wagon "It is finished!" .....well it only took 7 years! More posts should be coming soon as we really get into the (great) British summer, thunderstorms and all! Thanks for reading Jules

As indindicated in my last post, I was considering of making all of my OLEO buffered stock display the charecteristic shiny shanks....in fact as soon as I posted my last update, I gave both my MFA's the silver shank treatment, but I didn't stop there, to put it simply. It sparked a chain reaction involving some Humbrol 27002 Polished Alumium enamel! Now, about half of my fleet shine like proper OLEO's should! A pleasant discovery was that Bachmann's MTA/TTA and FNA's have turned steel buffer heads so some work with a scalpel later, you have shanks shining like the real thing! The rest (including the MFA's) had them painted using a small brush. I also pushed the boat a little further and added two further details to both of my MFA's. The photo below shows both details prior to painting. The top two parts in styrene are some sort of V hanger that goes across the width of the wagon, it is on Bachmann's more recent MEA's and MFA's but wasn't present on my two examples. This explaines the recess in the wagon weights of these wagons as this is where these V hangers are located. The main "V" part was made with Evergreen 30 by 40 thou strip and some Plastrut strip was cut and layered to make the base. The 4 brass steps are fetlled from thin brass scrap taken from sprues from brass carefully cut with tinsnips, and made in 4 parts, including a baseplate to stick to the wagon. These steps really did test my patience as I was making a solder joint only for another one to melt and during assembly, the thin brass snapped on one...oh bother They aren't as neat or good as the Stenson steps but I only had 2 wagons to convert and their steps suit the later underframe tooling better and only 391257 is of that tooling. However my attempts I feel help level up the wagons. If you have several to convert, by all means go for the Stensons versions as you'll have much less grief! I also added lamp brakets to the solebars using some spare lamp brackets that I salvaged from Hornby MHA's after cutting off the moulded originals on the body, these really helping to provide some interest to the headstocks and hopefully, my careless handling doesn't nullify these efforts! Well apart from weathering...finished! It has taken 7 years to get this for my two MFA wagons and my 10 year old self would have probably looked in horror seeing these wagons geeting the butcher in the workbench! Well, with "exams" (technically incorrect, it's internal assesments!) coming, I will take a little hiatus from the bench but with the prospect of a long summer, things could get interesting on the workbench so watch this space! Thanks for reading and stay well! Jules

Some very impressive work on 90047 Jerry, really brought back a few memories of this machine sleeping between night shifts at Edinburgh Waverley, on the Caledonian Sleeper before the MK5's came in Keep up the fantastic work Jules

Don't you worry Jack, you will find out in my next update....coming soon Jules

As promised, work has progressed on both of my MFA wagons although for 391257, it just involves coats of paint and varnish and the "serious" work is focused on 391235 (Black), more below: Firstly, the older version of the Bachmann HEA/MEA/MFA is missing the airbrake disributors, the first one next to the triangular suspension bracket at one end of the wagon was made from 3mm outer diameter tube with 1.5mm rod glued in, which I turned in my rotary tool and shaped it using a scapel and various grades of sandpaper to get the "stepped" shape and glued in a 1.5 mm hole drilled into the wagon. Subsequently, I found it was in the wrong position relative to the buffers , so it was cut off and reattached closer to the triangular suspension unit using 0.6mm wire as a mounting peg. The second airbrake distributor (in the middle of the wagon, next to the pivot point of the brake lever) was moulded in place but it was rather thick (like the brake levers) and projected too far out, so it was cut off and using plasticard, plastic rod and plastic strip, was shaped to resemble the version on 391257 (the later tooling). As supplied the second airbrake distributor is moulded in both sides but it is only on one side only, for 391235, it is on the same side as the air tank (between the suspension bracket and said airbrake distributor) but do check photos for the wagon you intend to model. Next, I turned to the handrake lever guides, as they are a solid moulding of plastic so I decided to open them up, initially using a drill bit then using a sharp scalpel. To smooth the rather rough finish left over from the knife on the W iron, I used a small precision screwdriver sharpened to a chisel. This allowed me to continue some of the moulded details and the end result is quite dramitic, as seen below. I found it was inevitable that the suspension links would get nicked bt the knife, so I used some thin plasticard to reinstate the detail. You may notice that the end of the moulded brake lever has been cut off, I used pieces of plasticard to form the brake lever ends. After a failed experiment of trying to turn the moulded buffer heads in my rotary tool, I gave up and ordered a pack of the excellent 2'1/2" 18" head OLEO buffers from Lanakshire Models and Suplies. They are excellent value for money at just £1.99 for a pack of 4 buffers but the only caveat is, they charge fixed amounts for P&P so it's best to order in bulk if intending to upgrade multiple wagons. I also ordered their coupling hooks as many of my wagons have them missing, including this one! With whitemetal castings, it is paramount to remove any oxidation and grease, so I used a toothbrush with its bristles cut down to gently but firmly srub the entire casting. Moulding lines were cleaned up using a scalpel and the face of the buffers were polised using sandpaper. Soon after this photo above was taken, I masked everything but the bufferbeams, buffers and coupling hook and applied a few coats of Halfords Grey primer and then painted them with Tamiya flat black. I'm now pondering wether I should paint the buffer shanks with silver paint as they're OLEO's after all but none of my rolling stock features shiny buffer shanks! I now have some more of my RTR wagons on the upgrade queue and now that lockdown is easing north o' the border (model shops opening), watch this space! Thanks for reading Jules

Coming on very nicely here Will! It will be at least 10 or so years before you catch me doing something as involved as thisso it's very nice to see this! Keep up the good work, Jules

With "exams" incoming, I have been easing it (somewhat!) on the modelling, but, I've been able to get my teeth into a couple of wagons First, I can now safely say that my red MHA 394829 is 99% complete, the 1% I recon will be the fitting of Stenson Models brake disks. You may ask, what has made the MHA almolst complete......??? Weathering!!! Despite the fact that I'm portraying 394829 as freshly outshopped from the paintshop, they totally ignored the W irons!!! As seen here. The base coat on the W irons was (eventually) settled on a mixture of Humbrol 29 and Revell 84 and even then, I had to wash them over with the latter colour once dry to dar.ken them a little more. I also noticed a few brighter higlights (on the suspension cups, brake shoes and a little on the W-irons), for which I used Humbrol 62 topped off with a bit of Humbrol Rust weathering powder. The result is quite orangey so I used a little Dark Earth powder (Humbrols) to tone it down a little but not so much to obscure the effect. Finally, a little Humbrol Smoke weathering powder represented the black (presumably oil) on the springs. A closer look at the W irons reveals the highlighting effect I've used here and I think it works well! This inspired me to tackle my fairly neglected and abused pair of MFA's (391257 in EWS maroon and 391235 in ex Loaudhaul black with EWS markings) and give them a shot of weathering. However some work was required first, which I detail here! First, the body on 391257 had some bowing along the length, so after overheating my hair dryer and making it spark (????) I tried this method: As you can see, it's quite crude but it did reduce the bowing after tightening the G clamp and leaving it for 2 days. The bowing wasn't completely cured but it reduced it so I think I'll just have to leave it at that! Turning to the underframe, some of the paint on the buffers was chipped so, I filed it all off and polished the buffers, starting from 400 grit sandpaper and finishing with a 3200 grit sanding sponge to really polish the buffers. Also, my very crude air pipes were taken off and the resulting hole filled with 1.5mm diameter rod and a chipped corner was attended to with some plastic L angle. Priming of the buffers (Halfords general grey stuff) and 4 coats of Tamiya flat black followed and some Railmatch EWS maroon on the bufferbeams Hopefully with a couple coats of varnish, the paint on the buffers will hold better (fingers crossed for that!) Next, I turned to 391235 (Black) and it was one of the earlier Bachmann MFA's with the chunky underframe and handbrake lever. So doing the same thing as @Jack374 did, I used a rotary tool to take off most of the plastic and thinning the most visible part down and finished it off with a sharp scalpel. At the same time, I removed my chunky homemade brake pipes and filled the resulting hole with plastic rod, same manner as 391257 and added some thinned down Parkside (from their 12t Fish Van) drawhooks. Apologies for the poor photo but you get the idea!!! I also noticed part of the W-iron was missing (between brake lever and bottom of underframe) and I quickly filled it with a suitable wedge of plasticard. Otherwise, it would have annoyed the hell out of me every time I saw it! There we go! Much better.....but part of the friction link suspension is missing too! I think I'll go barking mad if I tried to add it so another time perhaps??? The two MFA's are still getting upgraded so I will post another update (hopefully) very soon Anyway, stay safe and happy modelling!! Jules

Nice one Jack, I'm pretty amazed how people can understand all of this DCC jargon!!! 12V DC for me thanks Sure the locos will sound and look amazing once the business is done! Jules

Hi everybody, it's been a real while since I last updated and I have been working on a limited number of projects which I present here today. Firstly, I was able to prime both the ZCA Seaurchin and MHA Coalfish body using the excellent Halfords grey aerosol primer, best primer I've tried so far! I also got both of them painted in what should be....errrr....EWS maroon. By comparison of my kit built OCA in the same livery something was going wrong! I used a mixture of Humbrol 73 Wine Red and Revell 84 Leather Brown for my "EWS" livery but this lacked the richness of real EWS maroon and looked flat. I also tried Humbrol 73 and Humbrol 62 Matt Leather and that didn't work either! If anybody can give me a heads up on what colours to use that will be much appreciated! The strange thing is that the Humbrol 73 and Revell 84 mix did work for me but maybe I got the proportions wrong or it was because I used a white basecoat? Also, I had a good hard look at my Loadhaul YGH Sealion and realised that the dirt on the real things were mainly brown in colour and not black!!!!! In the end, I took a fibreglass brush and removed most of the weathering and it did fairly well! The top band I repainted as on the real things they faded quite quickly. I used a mixture of Phoenix Warning Yellow and Humbrol Matt White That's it for today folks Jules

Just been doing a bit of catching-up here on this thread and I must say very nice work on the locos! I especially like the weathered 90036, suppose the red can really show up dirt! Jules

These lights are looking fantastic Will! Wish I had your soldering skills already! Jules

A wee update on the current state of the workbench, it's currently full of wagons as usual! First of all a massive thank you to @Jack374 for giving me 4 of your superbly cast HAA/MHA distributors, gave me an oppurinty to try working with resin, it's quite easy to cut and file but be careful as it can be quite brittle! Here's a photo of the distributors, you can really appeciate the detail in Jack's castings and I'm grateful to him for these! Below, I present to you a comparison of the resin distributors (blue circles) against the Hornby moulded originals (red circle) and it's pretty much a flawless match! (the white patches on the distributor on the left hand wagon was poor painting by me!) As the above photo shows, my 11 rib body is complete assembly wise with all of the ribs (on sides,ends and underneath) attached and ready for a rubdown and primer. I still haven't decided on a number yet but please feel free to put up some photos of 11 rib MHA's here, after all engineers stock goes absolutely everywhere! On my Mainline blue ZCA (Cambrian kit, ex OBA type), the body had some serious lateral warping down the sides, a constant pest to many a plastic wagon. My solution was to use a hair dryer to blast a hot current of air to soften the plastic and manipulate it to shape, now the sides are reasonably straight as the photo below demonstrates. Unfortunately, silly me forgot to take a "before" photo to provide a more direct comparison! I'll tell you the warping was quite horrid and the body was 4-5mm narrower in the middle compared to near the ends! For the MHA, I don't think I'll prime it until the weather gets a little warmer as we're having a very cold winter right now! But anyway, other projects will become my main focus as I have a few odd jobs to do. Good luck, Jules

Mmmm this is looking very nice here! I am a fan of realistic catenary so I look forward to it's progress Good luck with this one, Jules

Very neat work Jack, looking great as usual! First time I've ever heard of body removal to load/unload wagons and the method to secure the weights to the chassis but hope it works out fine! Will you use a resin load or a granule load? I'm also debating about what I should load my wagons with and how I should load/unload wagons (ie at the spoil tip or virtual quarry) As always, good luck mate Jules

To all my readers, hope you had a good Christmas and New Year in spite of the current circumstances! The current winter lockdown (or holiday if you like) has presented me some time to devote to a few projects, including a very dormant project and one fresh from the brain! Ok, the former project was a ZCA (ex SPA type) crafted from the trusty Cambrian kit and modified with new sides from 40 thou plasticard (I subsequently found out that 40 thou was too thick, 20 thou would have been better) some Evergreen 40x30 thou strip and 40 thou L angle section. It was over a year since I left it, so you know how dormant it was! Now, between then and now, I have added the lower angled "skirt" portions running above the solebar between each rib using the aforementioned 40 thou L section and some slithers of 10 thou plasticard about 1mm wide and applied a liberal amount of filler. Buffers (the supplied ones) were added too and it awaits some primer. I inted this one to become DC460249. I present to you a photo of my latest project and there's no prizes for guessing what that will be! It will be another 11 ribber and will be built up in the same manner as my red MHA 394829 in the background, with styrene ribs and top strip. Livery will be EWS maroon and I'm currently undecided on a running number but 394601 is a contender due to a handwritten TOPS panel on one side although this may change if I see a nice one around! Lastly, my 156 project slowly continues with the interior mostly complete paint wise, it just needs some more blue paint. I do feel that just adding a cab bulkhead in the trailer vehicle of a Lima/Hornby class 156 makes quite a big difference and is well worth adding in my view. The seats and floor were Revell dark grey enamel and the cream bulkhead was a mixture of Humbrol Coaching Stock Cream with some white acrylic. I don't quite know the exact colour present on 156500 but seeing photos of other 156 cabs, I hope I'm not too wrong! Anyway, good luck to all of your various projects as we head into a uncertain winter period.... Jules

Hi 37114, I have read in a few Model Rail articles that bubble wrap isn't the best material to wrap models in, as there have been a few incedents where the bubble wrap actually sticks to the model and makes marks, especially if stored in hot temperatures. My advice would be to use grey foam (used in a lot of model packaging) but you could use acid free paper wrapped around the model with a few sachets of sillica gel in the box (the latter sugestion is by George Dent). I hope this may help. Jules

This is looking excellent mate! I feel this could rival Bachmann's effort quite easily at a fraction of the price too! Keep it up! Jules

Railtec do offer a set of 3D printed door lights in illuminated orange but they're not the right size to suit your requirements. I had a similar issue with a Hornby 156, I needed these lights to approximate the ones fitted on the real things. I used 2 layers of 10 thou plasticard secured temporaily to a small offcut of wood with double sided tape to aid painting and secured to the body with superglue. To form them you'll certainly need a sharp knife and a fine paintbrush. The paints I used were Humbrol Polished Aluminium for the outer frame and some Revell dark grey (as opposed to orange) for the actual glass. I hope this helps somewhat and good luck to the rest of the project! Jules

As promised, I have worked on the OAA 100023 for 2 weeks now and I have managed to craft up an underframe, mostly made from spare Parkside and Cambrian wagon kit parts either from spare kits or donated to me by a good friend, and thank you, you know who you are! Work started with the v hangers and central rod connecting them, the former were slightly modified Parkside Grampus ones, the rod was some 0.8mm steel wire. Then the brake levers were made by splicing some spare Parkside mouldings and gluing them together to make the distinctive brake levers found on OAA's (and SAA's [Steel AB's]) Used some 10 thou plasticard to strengthen the weak bonds where the cuts were made (if you look hard, you can see them!) The underframe equiptment was made from Cambrian spares, 0.6mm copper wire, 1.6mm brass wire, plasticard and plastic strip, the thin brake linkages were made by splicing thin rectangle section found on Parkside sprues for the 12 ton "Blue Spot" fish van underframe. I didn't know why they're there but it was very useful and came in handy! (The brake linkages are prominent in the 4th photo down from this text) I managed to get the Bill Bedford W irons by Tuesday, I glued them on top of a stack of plasticard with a total thickness of 80thou to get the buffer height correct. Then I realised that the springs were way too high in relation to the W iron when glued directly to the solebars. With very little supporting them, I cut them off and glued them to the Bill Bedford W Iron. Shouldn't have any stray leaf springs on this one anymore! The final jobs include adding extra weight, couplings, coupling hooks, lamp irons and weathering. Given it's been 1 and a half years to get this far, even these final jobs may take a wee while so apologies! As we really head into winter, I have some projects in mind....watch this space!! Happy modelling and stay safe Jules

Jeez, over 2 months since I last posted! How time flies! As the darker nights continue to approach, I continued with the 156, mainly focusing on the interior. (This represents 156500 when SPT refreshed it) I used Halfords grey primer from a nice new 500 ml can, I say the primer sprays and covers excellently! Some of the interior will be left in the grey primer, especially as I don't want to highlight how blocky the tables and seats are and the floor colour is a similar dark grey. For colours, the seats were painted in a mixture of Humbrol acrylic LNER Apple Green, French blue and Matt white, the table tops was some Tamiya sea blue let down with some matt white and the partitions and seat backs were originally painted in a similar mix to the seat tops, with a lot more white and a bit more blue. That wasn't sucsessful, so I recoated with some Humbrol Gloss Sea Blue, although not perfect, I felt was a better match! The driver's seat annoys me, it really needs to be placed in a more forward position to line up with the cab window, hope to (eventually) get round that! Both interiors had their cavities filled with Deluxe Materials Liquid Gravity glued with their Rocket Card glue, just to add some extra weight. The bodyshells also saw the addition of the rectangular door open lights, made using some 10 thou plasticard painted grey (as I feel that the orange "illuminated" lights are too cliched!) glued with Loctite. The second part of the update will come soon, involves some more work with the OAA, but I'll not leave you guessing for too long! Cheers, Jules