Departmental203

Wow, Jack I'm loving the Meridian and I'm jealous of your soldering skills producing the ground/shunting signals! Oh, and good luck for that exam mate! Jules

Sorry Eddie, I missed your post. If you want, I can DM you an old Railway Modeller article about rebuilding a Lima 156's underframe. But be aware that 153's and 156's have differrent undeframe components. Anyway, thanks for the kind words Jules

Half-Full, unfortunately, I have and even shook it vigourously for 2 minutes but the results were the same. I guess it's because each can of paint is different once opened! Thanks again, Jack! Over the years, I haven't had much luck with enamel black paint in general as my last tin of Humbrol 33 turned lumpy if I recall!. I will definetly try out HMG thinners, they actually work out cheaper (by volume) compared to Humbrol's (this is from my local model shop) Cheers as always Jules

Wow, that Voyager now really looks like a Meridan! Good luck with the project, Jack, I recon it will come in handy... Jules

Thanks, Jack and Neil for the kind words! As promisded, I'm going to post Part 2 of my update, which sees me indulge in my more familar territory! I decided to revisit my Cambrian OBA, my first ever wagon kit I had built and painted back in 2015. Generally, I was unhappy about how I painted this wagon (paint layers too thick, plank colours not intergrated, inacurrate colours). So I decided to strip all of my poor paintwork and start from groud zero. I painted the ends and solebars Railmatch Railfreight Grey, which may be accurate when this wagon was brand new, but certainly not for its faded mid-2000's appearance! The paint stripper (Deluxe's Strip Magic) also weakened the glue, so I could break the ends off to make painting easier, which is displayed in the above pic. I used a mix of Humbrol enamels, 71, 110,147 and Tamiya's excellent XF-55, followed by Humbrol's Sand wash to tie the colours together. Also, the original Cambrian W iron assemblies were proving unreliable (that was my fault) so, when I damaged one of my Bill Bedford Springing W irons intended for my OAA (filed off the outer wire carriers - doh!) So I qiuckly soldered another and cut off the outer wire carriers (and another for my OAA, which I made sprung) and glued them on the original Cambrian assemblies to provide compensation. Shown below I salvaged my homemade tension coupling mounts and used 40thou plasticard and 60thou by 60thou plastic strip to make a new tension lock mount (the original mount was a piece of 40thou plasticard which projected from the original Cambrian assembly), my new arrangment is shown below. The "NEM" pocket was a piece of K&S square brass tube that can almolst hold a tension lock in position, a good sqeeze with pliers ensures it won't come out. Certainly much cheaper than buying loads of NEM pockets for my fleet of kitbuilt wagons! The view under the floor below basically retaining the Cambrian swivelling/compensated W iron setup, but with brass W irons Finally, I had a bugging problem with a tin of Revell No 8 Black, even after several days of waiting for it to dry when apllied, it would come off with some white spirit on a cotton bud (I assume it's because I used DIY white spirit to thin it!!!) Now, its sitting open so I can evaporate off as much of the offending white spirit as possible. Is this a remedy, or is this paint a write-off? Any advice/tips will be appreciated (my tip is DO NOT use white spirit to thin hobby enamels!!) I'm thinking of using HMG thinners to thin all of my enamels once the model shops are open. Cheers and stay safe Jules

These wagons are looking sweet, Phil! At least you model the 80/90's when the OBA/OCA fllets when these wagons were in (relatively) good condition, not the wobegone apperance of today (the era I'm modelling)! Currently, I'm revisiting my old Cambrian OBA and I'm painting plank by plank, which can test my already limited patience! Jules

Here comes another (huge) update - may will have to do in 2 sections due to the large number of photos involved!! Firstup, the 156, most of the underframe components are in place Sorry, it's a terrible pic but you can see the engine (green), alternator and exhaust silencer as well as the gearbox. Also, I chopped up the bogies and it dramatically improves the appearance, I snipped off the thin web sections at the front and rear of the bogies - even for the motor bogie as it still has 4 clips to the bogie (2nd pic) Added some separate footsteps from Evergreen 30 thou by 40 thou strip after carving off the moulded originals. Beware, the plastic can be brittle! Turning to the bodyshells, the only alterations were to the front end, I drilled some 2mm holes so I can glue some 2mm LED's so I can get some daylight headlights with some intergrated marker/tail lights (avalible from Direct Train Spares of Lancashire), the door colour was changed from the factory silver to Humbrol's 166 Grey, as I feel it's a good match to the grey found on the real Class 156's. The gangway cover I did several years ago - it makes a huge imrovment to the front end! Part 2 will encompass some of my wagon jobs I've been undertaken recently, that will come soon.# Happy modelling! Jules

Looking good so far, mate! Good luck on further progress Jules

A nice wee handful of projects, Jack! I especially like your ground signals which look like the real thing imo. Ok, mabye instead of the Flangeway ploughs, I'll go for the Hatton's one instead... Best of luck Jules

Hello Al, some nice little projects btw! For stripping paint, you could use Phoenix Precision's Superstrip, I believe it's in stock and you can find it here. Due to Covid-19, mail order will take a while - I'm still waiting for some paint I ordered more than 2 weeks ago! Neverless, good luck with all your projects! I've made plenty of (stupid) mistakes throughout my modelling life, so you're not alone mate! Jules

Apologies for the recent lack of updates, but I assure you, my workbench is pretty busy! As I start wrapping up the underframe project of the Class 156 (and waiting for some paint and more EMA Plastic Weld), I have tackled some of my projects that were 90% complete, but I was too lazy to do the other 10%!(My OCA mentioned below, is a prime example!!!) Firstup, the 156: 2nd coat of black paint on the motor car underframe. The trailer underframe has recived its first coat. I tried my hand with some very nice Shawplan etches of NRN ariels intended for the 20/3. I cut it down using scissors and folded it (with great difficulty!!!) using pliers, a knife and a steel rule as I have no Hold n' Fold! The roof recived some Halfords White Primer and is now getting some brush coats of Railmatch Br Railfreight Grey, which is the closest thing I have to the grey roof on most Scotrail Class 156's. I also modified one roof where the long vertical ariel, parallel to the roof ribs was removed and the ribs reinstated using an Olfa cutter. Now, some of the underframe components are getting the brush treatment-finally! Secondly, my OCA 112199 (Full EWS liverly) has all of its decals on and I have focused attention on the planked floor, by painting various shades of brown, cream and grey. I intented to tie this all togehter using a Humbrol brown wash Stay safe and happy modelling! Jules

Your weathering effects are top notch mate but if I had one critism, to my eyes the white container still looks a bit 'plasticy' a repaint will solve the problem. Otherwise, nice job! Jules

Loving it Jack! Jules

Good luck with this one, Jack! I will be looking forward to this layout's progress, I think you will end up doing better than me, frankly! I hope you keep well during those uncertain times and I believe there is light at the other end of the tunnel... Jules

Good luck with this project Ben! I will follow this with interest. Jules

Thanks for the kind words Jack. I can DM you the article if you want. I hope your modelling is also going well! Thanks, Jules

Never thought it would take me so long to post, other things such as tying up loose ends of school coursework got into the way. With the lockdown in full swing, I turned to the Class 156 has been progressing nicely. I realised that on the Realtrack Class 156, there was a small air tank between the suspension units and the fuel tank, it was made from 5mm plastic rod with plasticard glued on the open ends and sanded to make a dished end, the suspension units were made in the same way, but the dish was on one end only! The boxes in the 2 pictures above were made in the same way as the motorised unit, with a mixture of 40 thou plastic and the Hornby mouldings. The horn boxes and the autocoupler junction box behind it were made by laminating plasticard together and sanding smooth. I was pretty chuffed at my (simplified!) take on the Cummins Engine, which was simpler than it looked: more lamanations of plasticard, with various bits of plastic rod and strip for the surface details, and the flywheel at the end was made by screwing a lamanation of 2 40 thou plasticard onto the end of my rotary tool and spinning it like a lathe, worked a treat! An invaluable aid for me was an old Railway Modeller article (November 1994) on detailing a Lima Class 156, the author went well more 'whole hog' than me! Worth a read if you're thinking of hacking up an old Lima 156, if interested, please DM me. More updates soon Jules

Fantastic project you're getting on Will! I look forward to progress on this one. I'm becoming really tempted to move onto EM or P4 after seeing this from Code 100 Peco OO gauge track! Good luck , Jules

Apoligies for the lack of posts, I've been really busy and my modelling time has taken a hit recently. Well what about the 156? I've turned my attention to the trailer car as I need some liquid lead (I do not have much space underneath for weight so I need something very dense I figued Liquid Gravity would't work) so the motor car will be worked on, but the trailer is the main focus at the moment. Until I get liquid lead, that is. The butchery continues... I also set out on improving the bogies of the unit by carving out the moulded footsteps and sanding the surface detail flat and scratchbuilding new speedometer (I think) equipment. I also found washing the bogies with EMA Plastic Weld quite effective as it kills the shine and smooths the surface. Speedo (presumably) equiptment from 10 thou plasticard and 0.6 mm brass wire. The motor bogie frame suffered a fracture right at the securing clip, so out came the epoxy and it sealed the fracture. I'm not sure if it'll last though, so I pared the securing clip itself slightly with a scalpel so it's not as tricky to remove in the future Jules

Another week, another update to the ongoing Class 156 project. Mainly concentrated on chopping up the blocky underframe to something more representetive of the class (and will look more in place with my Bachmann Class 170!) I recovered a lot of the Hornby surface detail, I just needed to make it look more 3D. (The black plastic is Hornby's) The empty "boxes" are intended to be filled with liquid lead (or lead shot) as I figured this would be the only way of potentially acheiving the same weight before the conversion. I do have Deluxe Materials Liquid Gravity but I feel it's not dense enough compared to liquid lead (I think Liquid Gravity is made of iron pellets) I filled the bogie suspension resiviors with Liquid Gravity, but the eagle eyed may notice that they are positioned too close to the fuel tank and the Westcode brake unit and are placed at an angle, this is because to clear the bogies. I copied the method that Realtrack used for the aftercooler pipes (centre of photo) by using a solid piece of plastic and adding little shavings of plastic to give the impression of the pipes going around. The complex part now is the Cummins engine (giving me headaches already!) and any drawings or the like will be greatly appreciated. I will be at Model Rail Scotland with the Scottish Modellers on Saturday, with the Class 156 and some other projects. Jules

My first butchering project (as my Hornby Class 156 project has turned out to be)... hasn't been disasterous...yet!! I bit the bullet and decided to chop the block Hornby classes as an underframe on the 156, using my new multi (rotary) tool, the results haven't been too bad, but I'll have to repeat it for the other chassis and screw-ups are a thing! Here are the remmenants of the underframe and the white section is 40-thou plasticard glued and I'll cut and epoxy some of the existing steel weight plates under the plasticard section to add mass and more rigidity. The detailing I've kept for re-use on the model. I felt it would be a waste of time and resources to completely scratchbuild all of the underframe boxes (and I cannot access the Hurst detailing kit) also the surface detail on the exisiting Hornby mouldings are actually quite good, I'm just making it more 3D! The excellent labelled photos here show the positions of the gubbins underneath a typical Class 156 (not all of the details are exact for all Class 156's) so refrences to 156500 were nessesary in order to get an idea of positioning and sizes, thus it turned out a few mouldings are undersized and may be replaced bu scratchbuilt parts On the body, I've completed the painting of the front window frames, which actually makes quite a difference from the original black ones and to me, make it more like a Saltire Class 156 Finally, I had to paint the footsteps yellow, it wasn't all silver! More updates soon Jules

Fantastic job, Richard, can't wait to see your next update video. Weathering looks spot on in my opinion Good luck! Jules

The weathering (and the graffiti!) look absolutely fantastic, good work Mick! Jules

Recently, I have been working on an unusual visitor to my workbench in the form of a Hornby Class 156 It's an old 156433 and I'd removed the numbers many years ago, however the serious works has only started now. I'm trying to model 156500, which is fitted with RETB and one of the last Scotrail 156's to have been refurbfrished, a photo can be found here I started work on the interiors and as I'm modelling it prior to refurbrishment, I have kept the original seats (even though they're not totally acurrate!) but have cleaned it up, trimmed the partions and added new luggage racks which were present on most Scotrail units (its the white stack on the second photo) Apologies for the quality! I also sorted out some windows, as Hornby have incorrectly painted out the small window at the front behind the leading door on the left side on both cars, whereas, in real life, only the toilet window was painted out (there's only one toilet on Class 156's) which is situated on the right side of the unit. I found the old paint could be quite easily scratched off with a metal paint stirrer and toothpick. I used Revell number 75 (I think) which is a good match for the Hornby paint. I also added more pronounced footsteps using 20 thou plasticard to replace the very undernourished Hornby footsteps, which were barely visible. The new steps project out by about 3mm. I have painted them Humbrol 27001, Polished Aluminium. And finally something I should have noticed earlier, the front window surrounds on Scotrail Class 156's are yellow, not black as per the Hornby model. I found Humbrol 69 Yellow to be a near perfect match for its shade of warning yellow. I have masked the window and the adjacent gangway surfaces as illustated below The eagle-eyed may have noticed the modified light clusters as I have blanked off the rectangular marker to better represent the arrangement found on most Scotrail Class 156's. I think this project will keep me busy over the exam period! More soon Jules

Finally (two months overdue!), I have a working fiddle yard! This was an old cable kicking around the house, so I shortened it and soldered a plug on the other end (contained in the black housing) I screwed the plug/socket attachment to the wooden blocks I had prepared (as Jack suggested) as I'd figured out that epoxy coundn't hold on as D plugs and sockets fit on rather tightly! The wooden block in turn, is screwed on the baseboard supporting beams to give a fairly rigid unit The spaghetti under the baseboard. I tried to keep things simple, with a pair of wires (essentialy) bridging each track over the baseboard gap. I think at this point, activity on the layout will face a hiatus due to exams, well hopefully, I can keep the workbench rolling (I have a 156 on the workbench, more details on my workbench thread, link in my signature) Jules