Grasslands

That lorry is looking great, your HD Camera makes it look so much bigger than it actually is. What more do you have to do it. I will really have to get back into finishing mine off over the easter holiday.

It would be great to see a video (if possible). I notice that you are using a different gear box, what type is that? Shame to hear about the workbench: mine is up and running again. I can understand the issues with traction. I am yet to tackle this issue properly. I notice that the Sol-expert website are now offering off road tyres, which I might purchase.

This lorry looks really, really good mmon. I would be interested to know what the issues with the battery were. Lights would also be nice, but I thought it would be best to leave them off for my first one. How well does it run?

This video might inspire me to return to constructing my little RC Car: Watch out for the scrap crane, wow!

Over tightened screws can be a real problem. It is something I frequently find with the fixings of die-cast cars to their display cases. I would always consider drilling out the screw a last resort (granted, I don't have my sentinel yet and I don't know what access is like). I am now using two methods to deal with over tightened screws that I find preferable to drilling out: The first is to use a mini drill with a disc cutter to cut a 'flat-head' slot into the head of the rounded off screw. This allows you to unscrew the mini screw with a flat head screw driver. The second method is to use a larger screw driver (sounds obvious), but I have found that the fine carbon-tipped screw drivers are fans of rounding off over tightened screw heads. A larger screw driver allows a bit more power for unscrewing (you need one that has a fine enough tip that will fit in the mini screw head). Ratchet screw drivers are very useful for this. I am starting to wonder whether many screws that I have previously cut slots in would have come out easily with a ratchet screw driver. Hope that helps Tom

My rotating bunker British Railways version is on the slow boat from China. It will apparently arrive mid-april

My conversion included replacing the aging Bachmann class 04 chassis for the new Bachmann class 03 chassis. The new chassis is much smaller so will easily fit inside the body. You will need to pack in some areas of the body to get the chassis to sit properly. Let me know if you want any pictures of the interior of mine. Your layout and tram are lovely, by the way. Well done obtaining the Impetus kit! Very hard to come by.

So where were we? Oh yes, I remember… I was converting a Drewry Diesel Tram while filming the results (using time lapse recording). Here are the links to days 1 and 2. Here is the video: Day 3 consisted of replacing the rather small buffers on the Bachmann Class 04 with the slightly larger versions used on the tram version. The donor for these buffers was a disused set of buffer beams from my Heljan Falcon (blink and you will miss it in the first few seconds of the video). I then added some brake pipes and hand rails. I firstly fitted the plastic versions that came with the Bachmann model, but decided they were horridly over sized. I decided to cut them off so I could replace them with wire versions instead. I also fitted the small exhaust on the bonnet. The 1950s tram I am building has an exhaust pipe that is barely visible. As I have not seen any aerial shots of the bonnet I have made a guess as to what this might have looked like. A taller cylinder was attached to the exhaust in the later part of the 1950s, and I did find a pipe in my ‘bits box’ that matched this perfectly, but I forced myself to refrain and stick to my plan for a tram without a full chimney. I also noticed that the Bachmann version of the 04 has a step either side of the bonnet front that doesn’t appear to be present on the earlier tram types. I cut this off and added hand rails. I finished off by filling in some of the gaps with model putty. More to come in day 4….

Thanks for these interesting thoughts. After many tragedies I try to keep my enamel paints and acrylics away from each other, but what you have said about the thinners leaching would explain the issue. I think that there are also issues with metallic paints and topping them with something else. I am really gutted, as I really liked the colour scheme. I will endeavour to return it to glory.

Those white metal bogies are really heavy too. I am most pleased with my inability to follow instructions.

It would be great to see some examples. I think in Leader's case it didn't help it's running qualities. It suffered quite a few bearing failures.

I would agree with Jon, that Superstrip is much more aggressive than model strip. It was removing all of the colour off the label of the bottle when a small bit dripped down the sides. It was very easy to take the rest of the paint off. I would strongly advise having a clear space to do the cleaning, even a splash from this stuff will make the paint run.

Following my last post about Leader, I discovered that the paint was not fully drying and the finish had warped while in storage. It is difficult to find a paint stripper formulated to strip resin kits, they are normally designed for metal or plastic models. I sent a quick query to Howes of Oxford about their Model Strip and was advised to test the paint stripper on the underside of the body. I did not see any adverse effects, so I covered leader in the paste. I left the model covered overnight and cleaned off the paste and paint with an old tooth brush. I was very happy to see that most of the paint was removed. There was still some panel lines and crevices where paint remained so I decided to also try another paint stripper. My second attempt was with Phoenix Precision PS18 Superstrip and this stuff was quite amazing. I dipped my toothbrush in the liquid and on the first stroke of the brush, the remaining paint started coming off. The picture below is the now fully stripped Leader body. There a couple of patches of paint that remain underneath. These are where glue was used to fix in the interior cabs. The next stage is a bit of degreasing before Leader’s return to the paint shop.

A thing of beauty that is. I am attempting some lobbying of Mercian for a 4mm version of the Bagnall 0-6-0ST Victor/Vulcan.

Looking good. Here are some shots of the side skirts on mine.

There is some truth to the M7 rumour which is discussed in detail in both of Kevin Robertson's books. The initial designs were of a much smaller loco which was proposed as the replacement for the M7s, but as development continued the design got bigger and bigger There is a great picture in one of the Robertson books of two men attempting to fit Leader under a water pump. Happy to have a crack at Pledge, what type of finish does it give, satin or gloss?

Thanks for the heating advice. I think it was too thickly sprayed in places and i made the mistake of topping a metalic finish with varnish. Somwhere in my dark modelling past, I remember this being a bad idea.

Good ideas, My workbench is back in service now. It's first job last night was running in a Dapol Western on the rolling road and unscrewing some die-cast cars from their stands.

It would have been a truly wonderful sight. Sunshine lettering would be very eye catching. I Wish this model still looked like it does in the pictures. I have stripped all the paint back off it again to manage the tacky paint issue. I hope to have it back up to standard again later this year. Fingers crossed.

We now return to the development of my Golden Arrow resin and white metal kit of the pioneering Bulleid Leader (click here for part 1). Leader’s bogies are gigantic, just massive. Leader looks like the monster truck of UK locomotives. These bogies are cast in white metal and have a very nice finish. They are also nice and weighty. While reading how to install the recommended DS10 motor I mis-interpreted the instructions and installed a separate DS10 motor into each bogie. In hindsight this wasn’t such a bad idea, as leader is now a real brute on the rails. I followed the wheeling convention of some of Heljan’s diesels and put bearings around the front and rear axles on each bogie and left the middle wheel floating. This helps prevent the massive wheels from causing derailments. I installed two Lenz silver decoders (one on each bogie) and programmed each to the same ID. Trial runs showed strong running qualities, but I did need to shave away some of the higher sections of the bogies to allow Leader to get around the tight corners on Brewery Pit. Having duel motors and picking up current from both bogies means that when Leader de-rails it has a propensity to continue to drive on with the derailed bogie, so one needs to be careful. Leader often ran with all it’s vents and doors open, so I cut through the resin cast and opened up all the doors and vents. I also made some vent flaps out of plasticard. I then added hand rails and door knobs. Please note that most people fit the the vertical cab rails on the front of Leader in the wrong position. Most models have them mounted on the very front of the cab, but the prototype has them fitted to the sides and they bend around to the front. In my opinion this makes a big difference to the look of the loco. These hand rails were made from guitar string. I also added lamp irons and a whistle. The flush glazing was hand cut from thick transparent plastic. I then painted Leader with the softest silver-grey shade I could find. I used a Halfords car spray and I was very pleased with the results. I felt like I had sprayed the paint on a bit thick in places, so I decided to fix the paint with a satin gloss coat – fatal mistake! The paint never fully dried and always retained a slight tackiness. I keep my models in a metal box surrounded by foam and I was concerned that the foam might mark the paint so I wrapped Leader with a thin bit of plastic wrapping. I then discovered that the paint was still slowly moving and the paint had formed moulding lines with the patterning of the plastic wrapping. I quickly sprung into action and scrubbed away the tacky areas of paint. My model of one of my favourite engines was sullied. So at this stage these pictures are all I have of Leader in it’s (almost) final stage. A real shame. The story continues… explore my blog grasslandmodels for more projects.

I would second Nitromors, but it is a very nasty substance, don't get it on anything (including your hands). I often use it to 'reset' white metal models. I would make sure that you remove any plastic components (they will melt). Although I may have put you off a bit there, I want to stress the speed of the paint/glue strip and how efficient it is at removing glues and paint. It really is impressive.

Currently on my workbench is… well… my workbench. The workbench I have used for the past few years is a cheapo laminated chipboard job from Argos. The former office desk was forced into the role of being my modelling desk when we moved to Newbury in 2008. It has now taken a fair amount of abuse from my modelling torture kit, so it is only right that it continues in its role in my new house (until I accidentally cut in half or something or other). In my new house the desk will be up against a radiator and I already suffer frequent losses of small items to the carpet monster (that darn carpet monster!!!). I was also quite concerned that I will now loose small items down into the inside of the radiator. I decided that I would install a backing to my desk that will hopefully prevent small items from ‘pinging’ away. I purchased x3 framed cork note boards from Staples and went about screwing them onto the back of the desk. Being lazy, I decided to screw them onto brackets and let the boards hang off the desk (as oppose to cutting the boards and mounting them on the top of the desk). There was still an annoying gap between the cork boards and the desk when they were screwed down so I tacked down some white ‘L’ shaped plastic to cover up the gap. Now I will hopefully see a significant reduction in my time spent crawling under my desk looking for small brass bearings. The added bonus is that I can now use the cork to pin up instructions and notes, which will be very helpful.

I searched the Newbury store and they were all sold out. I then visited one of the Swindon stores and they only had one of the smaller ones left. I phoned my parents in Birmingham and they managed to get me the big one. It should be appearing in Swindon this weekend

I will go and investigate these cabinets tonight. I am interested in the larger ones.