Adam FW

I’d certainly be up for taking part, I’ve had a plan for a Hornby 0-4-0 on the back burner for quite a while now and a Santa’s express loco just waiting for its date with a hacksaw. I agree with others, probably best to stick with the Hornby 0-4-0 starter locos, don’t think it matters whether it’s a pug a holden or one of the others as it will add to the variety and help keep it as an accessible challenge

Belatedly here’s the rest of the Railwaymania Manning Wardle 0-6-0st kit build log with the cab, tank and running board sub assembled the tank and cab could be glued together sandwiching the valves and pipework between them, the running board was screwed down to the chassis to keep everything flat and level and the top and bottom halves of the kit glued together after the glue was dry I clear coated it which ended up too glossy so a matte coat was added afterwards. The windows could then be glazed Real coal was then added to the bunker and the loco was ready to go to better match the prototype the top of the cylinders should be rounded off and the tank offers space for ballast and a dcc decoder

Carrying on with the colliery screen buildings, it took me a lot of experimenting on some old mock-up screen buildings to choose a colour scheme and decide on how old and delipidated I wanted the wooden walls to look. I settled upon a plain brown colour in the end to keep the layout looking muted I also experimented with paint chipping to expose the bare wooden colour below to age the building like the rusty roofs, I tried the 'hairspray' method but found it pretty uncontrollable and made the building look like it was abandoned in the wild west rather than the old and tired look I wanted so decided to just scuff the top coat instead For the proper buildings the completed roofs were masked off and the walls base-coated in an old wood colour (beige) then I roughly picked out individual planks in a variety of colours to make the final top coat look more varied. My sister thinks it looks like a clown house, and I don't disagree Once that had dried I laid down some thin top coats of brown with the airbrush. Other than the beige all the colours used were Vallejo airbrush paints, compared to the mig paints which also work with an airbrush straight out the bottle these were much more translucent and more of a wash than a paint which was unfortunate as a lot of paint ended up being used to coat everything evenly As you can see in the image above I used a scalpel to add some nicks, and cuts into the walls, I wasn't happy with how this turned out in the end and it didn't look very realistic but did at least stop everything looking too uniform After the paint had fully dried I scuffed it up with various bits of sandpaper to make it look older and rougher They still need some weathering but that's them done for now, I've decided to weather, add moss and plant growth etc to all the buildings in one go to make sure it all looks consistent rather than doing it a bit at a time and still have Pat's engine house and loco shed to paint up Finally a few days after painting these I was wondering around a local model shop and for sale was one of the Knightwing buildings, built, painted but unmodified. I prefer my rust effects but it was interesting to see the instructed build on it's legs rather than my cut up version

Here's the first part of the brief build log for the Manning Wardle kit I designed, starting with the loco variants, 2 chimneys are included the first one (grey in the CAD model) is a pretty standard Manning Wardle Chimney as fitted to Merevale/John Robert, the second conical one (shown in yellow on the CAD model) was fitted to Adjutant, I used the conical chimney for my build firstly I cleaned up and sanded the larger components, these come loose (ie: no need to free them from the 3D printing support material) and then cut free the smaller detail parts from the raft using flush cutters and sanded them to clean up the nubs where the supports were. I then glued the little springs into their pockets on the running board The wire pieces can be bent to shape and handrails glued or soldered together Everything was then sprayed in primer, I waited for it to dry and sanded back any rough spots or visible print lines and primed it once more. Each piece was then top coated in black, red or green for my loco's livery. I tend to put the parts on kebab skewers with blue tack to more easily spray paint them, though it does end up looking like Vlad the Impaler has been hard at work Parts can then be detail painted and sub assemblies put together such as the boiler backhead and running board Just make sure the paint has had long enough to dry before handling the parts or this happens, and if you're really daft (I was this daft) you make the same mistake with the later clear coat and have to try to smooth out fingerprints without making everything worse Hand rails can then be glued into place I'll finish up the build log with a second part in the coming days

Hello Nick, I don’t have a drawing or any dimensions of the Q class to be able to say anything definitively. If you have some details of the loco send it to me in a message and I’ll compare it to the CAD model beyond the obvious stuff like the different wheelbase and cylinder arrangement 2 differences stick out, the front sheet of the cab appears to be closer to the door opening so presumably the cab is smaller on the Q class. In addition the chimney looks taller than the John Robert style chimney included in the kit (but not fitted on my model) though this would be easy to modify there’s also some minor differences such as the holes in the steps, toolbox and sandbox locations and the shape of the running board where it meets the buffer beam

It's been a long time coming but I'm pleased to show my latest creation, another outside cylinder Manning Wardle 0-6-0ST, But unlike my earlier model of Burwarton, this one will be available as a 4mm scale 3D printed kit in conjunction with RailwayMania.net. The kit is based on Adjutant and Merevale/John Roberts and is built to fit on a OO gauge Hornby B2 chassis. I've built my model as Adjutant with it's distinctive tapering chimney but a second standard chimney is also included in the detail pack along with some spares of the springs and pipe fittings just in case of any mishaps This model is a bit of a step up in detail, complexity and part count compared to the earlier Avonside and Hudswell Clarke kits I designed and was a little more challenging to build with the curved handrails, water valves, separately printed springs and the blower pipework needing some care and attention. But as with all my designs the separately printed pieces make sanding, finishing and painting far easier than if it were left as one solid block and @Corbs (who can be blamed for any typos) has spent some time creating a set of build instructions to assist I may spend some time over the next couple of nights doing a brief build log (if I have enough pictures) but if not, here's a photo of all the printed parts excluding some of the spares

Carrying on from the rusty corrugated iron engine shed I decided to do much the same for the roofs of the mine screen buildings but reducing the amount of silver and upping the rust to make it look a bit older I wanted the lower half of the taller building to be a bit different so decided to paint it in a typical industrial pale green, again plenty of rust was added along panel lines the wooden walls will be done after this all dries and is masked off to prevent overspray

one thing I wanted on this layout was an inspection pit and small industrial loco shed, I picked up Peco inspection pit kit and after starting with a small pit and length of track behind it but decided instead to run the inspection pit to the end of the siding and have it partially covered by the engine shed. I painted the kit so that it looked like dark stone/concrete with rusted track supports I really struggled to find a suitable loco shed, most are too big and heavily built for what I wanted, I was aiming for something built relatively quickly and cheaply rather than a permanent stone structure. To begin with scratchbuilding was the obvious route to take but considering it's small size and my Elegoo Saturn 3D printer was now working I decided to experiment with designing a loco shed to 3D print using one of my locos to help scale everything The shed is designed to look like a steel structure with Wills sheets slid into slots on the print, these would be the corrogated iron pattern and painted to look rusty. The first one printed well but I decided that it was too large and I wanted the cross braces to be visible on the outside. The second print was much better, giving more clearance to the neighboring track and still being big enough for a J94 Austerity to just about fit inside After practicing on a few spare pieces of the corrugated iron I decided to airbrush a rough rust pattern over grey primer and then mist on a silver coat more rust was then airbrushed on top after some tinted silver was painted onto some panels to offer some colour variance, then the rivets were picked out in a medium rust colour and more rust paint dabbed on with sponges to give some texture meanwhile the frame was painted black with some light rust added as well and it all slotted together I'm very happy with how this shed has turned out and the use of 3D printing on larger items has been interesting to experiment with, I'm not sure if there's going to be any other opportunities to get 3D printed structures onto this layout but who knows

It's been a long time since I posted an update to the layout on here but work has been progressing slowly. Firstly I modified a Knightwing Mine Top Buildings kit for use as the screen buildings, the larger of the 2 buildings was cut down and reshaped so that the narrow gauge line could run through it, the other one has an altered base to clear the standard gauge track The design for for the standard gauge track work was finalised and features 2 lines under the screen building, a pass around the screen building, 2 small sidings (1for an small loco shed, the other for the canal dock) and there will also be a single track extension off one side of the layout and a double track one out the other on smaller removable baseboards, it's all glued together with plasticard strips so that it can be lifted out and worked on in one piece, this helps me out as and makes the wiring, weathering etc easier but I need to be careful not to bend or damage the track lifting it out. It will be secured in place once it's all wired up. In total there will be 6 points though 1 is a more complex 3 way turnout, all will be live frog to help my little industrial locos run smoothly With the basic trackwork sorted holes were then drilled into the foam baseboard for the point motors to fit into. Had I known the drill I used would make such a mess of the foamboard I would have done this another way in hindsight The holes were covered over with thin plasticard panels with hole punched into them for the point motor tabs and pin (I know the pin slot runs the wrong way in this picture) I also laid down some colour for the standard gauge baseboard and the rock wall behind it, it needs some more blending in but I wanted the messy bit done before I laid the trackwork. Finally for this post (though more has been done on the layout besides this recently) I weathered the track using my new airbrush with it's battery powered compressor allowing me to paint outside when the weather's nice. All the sleepers had a coat of sleeper grime then the rail sides and other metals bits a coat of dark rust and medium rust. I still need to slip in some sleepers under the track joints but these have already been painted

Excellent work, I have a bit of a soft spot for these locos having 3D printed it's sister loco Burwarton earlier this year but I'm very impressed by this build, I'd have never guessed where all the bits came from without your list

Another update to an old project. With me being too cheap to buy brass safety valves I’ve been waiting for a model fair to pick up some cheap old loco bodies and nick the metal detail bits off them. For some strange reason there’s not been many model fairs recently, no idea why so Florence has been sat unfinished waiting for some safety valves So I went to a model fair at the three counties show ground earlier today and managed to pick up some cheap locos bodies for parts and to practise weathering. The safety valves from this Blue Diamond Hornby 0-4-0 have already been glued onto Florence and I think they fit rather nicely

Thanks for the suggestion, probably better than my first thought of replacing the conflat body with with a 2 or 3 plank wagon

I've been spending some time working on older projects and after a long period of sitting waiting for me to get round to it, I’ve finally done some work on improving how Sirapite runs. It now has some much needed additional pickups courtesy of a conflat wagon from a Hornby Ruston which has been wired in with a little 2 pin connector, the wagon is attached with some cut down kadees which could be much better aligned but it works nicely and gives a big improvement in running quality compared to what it was like before. Currently there's only a connector at the front of the loco but I may add a second at the rear so the the wagon can be at either end The loco still needs some more weight, likely it will get this from a cast metal crew and squeezing in some more lead shot which should further improve running, in the meantime I also want to add a load to the conflat but don't have anything in mind what it will be at the moment

Thanks, From what I could figure out from photographs Burwarton is very similar but a bit shorter than Merevale/John Roberts with different cab proportions and a different running board. The piping I put on this model was carried over from a completely different loco that’s yet to be built so that’s one other difference. In the opposite direction the smokebox better matches merevale than burwarton as I had to make it wide enough to pass over the B2 chassis block So it doesn’t quite match merevale but I like making variants of my designs so watch this space

It’s been a long time since I last posted on here. Unfortunately a family member passed away not long after I finished dubsy so modelling hasn’t been much of a concern for me for quite a while. So here’s a model I was working on months ago but kept quiet about. It was a test bed for me to try out different techniques for assembly and try to push my modelling (both virtual and practical) and 3D printing forwards a bit more. So compared to earlier models this features pipework with printed valves and connectors, separately fitted springs on the running board, more complex bent wire pieces and some other bits and pieces which may make an appearance on future kits The loco is based on a pair of Manning Wardles, Cleobury and Burwarton with some detail differences vs the prototype to suit the Hornby B2 chassis and so I could better use it as a test bed and use existing parts I’m chuffed with how it came out needing minimal sanding and it went together very nicely. The pipework out the front of the cab was incredibly fiddly though and I did break a couple of the 3d printed connectors

I think it's the grip and surround for the trigger mechanism off a naval gun, there's a few similar items listed on google images as naval trigger mechanisms and they seem to have the same connectors on the underside but a different mounting face You can see something similar on the back of this 37mm Maxim https://www.morphyauctions.com/jamesdjulia/item/50927-1-397/

here’s some more shots including it sat next to a B2 peckett for scale

It's been a long time since I've put any of my work up on this thread but here's my first Polly-bash, it's a detailed Triang Polly body fitted to an Electrotren 0-6-0 chassis. The body came off ebay, it had already been repainted and some detailing had been done such as replacing the buffers and front hand rail. Step 1 was to clean the old paint off, this was done with the Dettol method which was messy Sadly this revealed some damage that I hadn't noticed on the ebay pictures, part of the cab roof was badly warped, I filled this in a bit to hide the worst, I then sanded off the smokebox dart, filled in the bottom of the cab windows with styrene, moved the front steps, used milliput to fill in the screw hole in the bunker, replaced the split pin handrail knobs and did some sanding. I also braced under the cab with styrene and fitted a captive nut to secure the chassis to everything was then primered and then fully painted, the green is Rover Applejack green from a halfords spray can and the rest is brush painted acrylics, I've recently invested in an airbrush, once I'm confident enough with it I'll weather Polly hence why it has no glazed windows at the moment During the build I also experimented with another chassis I was working with, the Dapol B4 which fits quite nicely if anyone needs inspiration for a different polly-bash variant

Thanks Rob I think I used a image of that loco during restoration with the crane sat on a pallet on the floor to figure out what the top of Dubsy's crane might look like I do need to make some attachments to hang on the hook and I quite like the look of that square bucket in your photo Speaking of Australian crane tanks, quite a few worked in Australia, I really fancied modelling one of the big 0-6-0 versions from Hawthorn Leslie, one of which is preserved at the Delhi Railway Museum in India but I think others worked in Australia and Ireland, being broad gauge locos they have a lot of presence which didn't translate well to oo gauge when I roughed one out in CAD, it looked very top heavy and unstable. I may go back to it at some point as I think I stand of chance of fitting some RC gear into it which Dubsy with it's Dapol B4 chassis prevented

Thankyou both for your interest When I started this project I had no intention of selling Dubs crane tank kits knowing full well it wasn't scale accurate and although not as complex as Sirapite to build, Dubsy has taken a fair amount of manual finessing, this is the sort of thing I'm happy to work as a one off with but I wouldn't normally want to put out onto the market as is. That being said I have agreed to print a second for a friend and wouldn't be averse to producing some more as commissions ie: printed on request rather than readily available like my Hudswell diesels and 0-6-0ST Avonsides from Railway Mania. If you are interested feel free to message me about it, but I would need to put in some time and effort to figure out how many prints it takes to produce a single kit to work out a price.

It’s taken longer than I wanted but Dubsy is finally built after a last minute disaster with some matte varnish which made the model look really chalky until I over sprayed it with satin instead. As previously mentioned due to using the Dapol B4 chassis as it's base, Dubsy is bigger than it should be but still looks the part IMO. I'm very pleased with the crane, it can be rotated fully for posing though the chain and gears are fixed I want to figure out a way to stop the hook flailing about so much, inertia doesn't scale so it swings about too much in travel, if anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions, currently I'm thinking about dabbing some glue between the links to fix the dangling chain in place or maybe a small amount of thick grease to provide some resistance. Beyond that I just need to order some Dubs builders plates to finish it up,

Thanks It varies, most of the increase is in the length, the B4 was a relatively big 0-4-0T and I'd estimate my dubsy is about 15% longer than it should be, sadly the Dapol chassis is pretty complex otherwise I would have cut it down Other than length the overall height is around 2-3mm taller than it should be, mostly this is to account for the large B4 wheels and needing to cover the motor with the boiler which forces the cab and crane up to maintain the overall look. One of the many benefits of modelling this on CAD is that should a more suitable chassis become available or I make a custom chassis in the future I can adjust the 3D models to suit it rather than starting from scratch

There was a bit of a cock up with the left had tank for Dubsy, I managed to break the hand rail knob whilst drilling it out for the hand rail so needed to print and paint a new one which took a while as the green spray paint takes ages to dry. Both tanks are also filled with lead along with the crane to give some weight to the model Sadly I've misplaced the reverser lever and so I'm having to paint up a spare, this has stopped me from gluing on the cab on and finishing the model off but the cab is now painted and assembled ready for fitting

I now have a plan for the layout, I'm going to extend the lower tracks through a hole in the right hand side of the layout onto a fiddle yard or traverser, on the top level with the oo9 track this will now extend through the LHS of the layout and possibly loop around to join up with RHS of the track giving a loop for continuous running. The intention is for it to look something like this with the cyan track being outside of the main layout and ideally being removable To lay the ground works for this I've been removing some of the existing scenery on the layout, the rocks here are a mixture of papier mache and DAS clay I then roughly laid out the oo track work to see how it looked, I'm pretty happy but will give myself some time to think about it with the track in place (using short straights in place of flexitrack) before cutting holes in the back scene The old mockup colliery screens remain but will be replaced with a modified knightwing mine buildings kit

It took a bit of experimentation but I printed some hooks I'm happy with for dubsy after being unable to find a suitable white metal one but these printed ones are unfortunately quite delicate I've now got quite a lot of dubsy painted up, here's some of the painted parts drying after the first coat of colour I wasn't happy with the green, the shade was a bit too minty so it was overpainted changed in the end, the new green took a long time to dry so I pushed ahead with building up the black parts first Once the paint was dry I assembled the gears onto back of the crane, filling it with lead weight in the process I then glued the crane together and test fitted it onto the boiler