relaxinghobby

Bright chrome wheels, the Dapol ones need a bit of toning down, I've use some of the body colour here which is a very thin paint. The body has had two coats by brush, Brown Revell Enamel Matt 84 a little bit on the dark side for LSWR chocolate perhaps ? Back to the wheels, to darken them up in the past I've tried gun blue and other chemical treatments, but that can leave the tyres with a rough surface. A cheap method is to draw on them with a permanent marker pen, solvent based like a Sharpie or similar. The internal user passenger van is a bitsa from an Airfix cattle wagon at one end and a Cambrian Shark ballast brake at the other. A spare coach door in the middle. Roofs are Humbrol Enamel grey 196 satin thinned down with WD40. Might need another coat.

Back to the Cambrian Kits LSWR Van C115. Now it's all done and all details glued on and with the ballast added its up to 30gram , or 31 or even 29 g. The electronic kitchen scales can't quite make it's mind up. I suppose when you are weighing out cake mixture 1g here or there does not matter. Ballast is odd screws fixed with superglue, scrap iron just like what they used to ballast brake vans with. Yet to fix couplings. I standardise on the Bachmann miniature bar and hook. They are un-available at the moment, a hen's teeth situation and getting pricey. Maybe it's time to devise some homemade ones using bent wire and other scrap box gubbins but they must be compatible with with all my Bachmann fitted wagon kits, I don't like the similar Hornby as their hooks are too long and not quite 100% compatible. I find these Cambrian kits the most difficult of all the kit makes to build, definitely a craftsman level jobs. Mostly due to little positive positioning of parts to one another. I struggle and have often to pull the sides and floor apart and try again. And re-reading the instructions to see if I had misinterpreted them the first time around. Buying second hand wonky ones cheap and rebuilding them confirms to me that other modellers struggle with them too. Much as I admire the wagon building threads over on 7mm and particularly the S gauge scratch builds of airnimal, I run out of patients with all the tiny details. Here on this kit C115 the LSWR bottle shaped buffer bodies and buffer head rings are so tiny, impossible to hold with fingers and difficult to hold the cone shaped buffer bodies with tweezers they keep pinging off to disappear across the floor. Wasting time hunting for them. Maybe I should go n gauge or the new PECO TT? Less detail. Or gauge 3 parts big enough to see and hold? Finally done through. Ooo-eer look at all that flash and lumps of glue, the terror of close ups. There was a problem with the brake molding on one side, it was too long and rubbed against the wheels, I had to cut off one shoe and glue it back on about half a millimetre back to allow free running. You can see a strip of white behind the brake lever, I misunderstood the instructions and carved off the thee little nubs on the sole-bar to support the brake lever and brake hanger molding. So something had to go back on to support it all. The metal handrail got bent it can stay like that to represent a used and care worn van. It's the first time I've built one of the Cambrian kits with the new all in one floor, solebars and W-irons. Much easier than the old multiple bit, try and line it all up system. Markits 2mm square ended and shouldered bearing cups, just popped in, spot of glue. Dapol wheels.

More detail and roof doors.

Picture of prototype here Small brake van from the Wenfordbridge and Bodmin railway created after this old picture when the W&B R was still an independent and isolated railway. So it had it own standards, for instance lower level for buffers and smaller wheels it seems from this ancient photograph. So we have here the Lima H0 GWR van. De-verandered and re-roofed. The original planking was kept unchanged and some vertical strips added from Evergreen for the heavy framing. I can't remember what chassis I used, not the Lima one. It looks like a widened narrow gauge one. And 10mm wheels to keep the hight lower. From the photo of the original it has always confused me how the guard gets in and out. the doors are at the end but there does not seem to be a platform, he would have to jump down straight onto the track, hazardous when done between the buffers.

The Lima yellow van. In 00 it's outside dimensions match drawing in Alan Prior's book on old wagons and trains, page 50. Layer up the sides with Evergreen planking sheet and their cut strip. Chassis cut down the middle and glued back wider so that some Dapol metal wheels can fit. These bigger wheels also bring the buffer height up. Layer, layer, layer. Doors have come out a bit wonky, they are leftovers from a cattle wagon scratch-build. Getting the tapered end stanchions tapered is difficult, they are built up from two layers of slightly triangular pieces of 0.5 mm card. So small it is difficult to get all the little parts to nearly the same size. Once they are firmly glued on I hope I can gently file down so they match.

The coal wagons are about 2/3rd of the Lima H0 mineral wagon. About 2/3s chopped off and a new end, the sides sanded flat and wider planks scribed on. These are about the least pure Lima here solebars and W irons and springs are from a Ratio kit chassis and brass etched strapping from Mainly Trains, buffers from Dart Castings I think. South Wales coal wagons are the prototype, how did they get away with the shorter than RCH specified 7 foot 6 wheelbases. I have not attempted the busy sign writing found on these wagons yet. Included is a Cambrian Kits 10 ton wagon kit of the early 1900s RCH pattern for size comparison. The brake van is from drawings on the Plymouth, Devon and South Western Railway web pages. Scribed Evergreen plastic sheet is glued around the basic box like body of the Lima H0 British Railway brake. This gives a very near fit to the drawings, The chassis is the Lima brake again cut into quarters and reassembled so it is wide enough to take some Dapol 12mm wheels, and shortened from the middle. This shot shows the details better especial the very thin planking on the brake van.

Most of this train is of Lima origin and has featured else where on this forum but the pictures of their construction have gone in the great photo storm that annihilated them in April. The loco which must be on some sort of running in trial as it does not have all it's handrails of even buffers yet. It is an H0 4F with some larger wheels from a Hornby Jinty and a larger plasticard cab so the 4mm crew don't bang their heads. Contriving to be a sort of late 19th century generic 0-6-0, possibly inspired by early engine designS of Robinson, maybe the locomotive Shannon of the Waterford and Limerick Railway or Parker's 0-6-0 of the Great Central Railway J9.

Thanks for bringing to our notice the written description of the Railway Clearing House pattern for wagons in the 1880s. Handy for the modeller of that era. Here are some illustrations of my efforts. Handily the Lima H0 wagons are a good size for a basic box to glue some scribed sheeting to to make some of these smaller wagons for 00 scale. Nearest the camera is a Cambrian kit of a RCH wagon of the later and larger early 1900s pattern, 10 ton variety.

Now the roof is on, it's a bit fictional as after looking all over the internet there are no good pictures that show the roof and roof doors. So the hinge length and position is a guess. The sole bars had to be pulled of, lucky the glue takes a good week to really set. I used Tamiya Cement. I had them too close together so there was not enough room for the metal W-irons. The hinges will be cut back later when the glue is hardened.

With this forum closed down for a few weeks or what seemed as long as a few weeks when it was only just a few days I realised surfing was just something I did late in the evening instead of going to bed or doing some actual modelling. Also following someone else’s projects and builds had become a sort of pass time instead of getting out the plastic and glue and doing some modelling my self. So here is some modelling I hate the marking out I can never get lines straight and at right angles or in the correct place, no matter how hard I try, rulers, set squares, compasses and pencils are never quite accurate when in my hands. So struggling to learn a computer drawing package was worth it all the straightness and right-angled-ness and perfectly centered arcs are done for you by the electronic machine. Printed out and on thin paper, glued with Pritt-Stick or some cheep supermarket equivalent, tacked to a sheet of plasticard we are ready to do some real scratched building. Now all I need is a metal straight edge and sharp knife, a heavy craft knife like a Stanley as it is much easier to hold than a tiny scapula. Wagon and it's raw material 20 thou' plasticard or 0.5 mm to the metricated, every thing is built up from thin layers of this, those dumb buffer are just multiple layers. There is a round ended version of the pent roof wagon the ends modified by hand as I was cutting out the card. Not as neatly done as the all pure machine drawn templates. The wagons seem a little bit big after I glued them together and looking at the size in the flesh on the bench in real 3D life. Perhaps I had made the drawings over scale, something that is easy to do working our the drawings and parts out on a computer screen. Here they in comparison to two kits a Cambrian pre-grouper and a Slaters Midland Railway 5 planker. The corner joints look worse than they are because of the shadow cast from the sideways light. And finally in this report adding surface detail. End stanchions built up from triangular layers of 20 thou' again, a template on the home made computer drawing. Corner brackets and iron work represented with strips of ultra thin plasticard, with rivets pressed in with a needle. The only source of which I can find is coffee cup lids, different makes are different in thickness’s and style. Some are concave or have too many designs and printing embossed on them to be very useful. From the days of yore I found this plastic wagon strapping from Kenline a long defunct kit manufacturer and provider of wagon parts. This little beauty is nearly used up now, cost 24p originally. I found 2 packets once and never seen any since. This sort of thing is found in the box of odds and ends at the exhibition table next to the box of wonky kit built trains.

Recycling some old Cambrian kits I got for cheap out of that box of bargains that appears at every club and second hand stall at model fairs and exhibitions. The wonky kit bargain, Cambrian in particular are difficult to bring all 4 sides floor and sole bars and buffer beams together, that’s 9 pieces all to be lined up and set square requires a high degree of skill and understanding of how the kit designers intended things to be. Unless it's all done exactly when you put the wheels in they either bind or when, after several hours of carefully gluing and waiting between stages for the glue to harden you go to test the wagon and roll it across a flat surface it just rocks and skids side ways. OH......... deary me. I struggle and from the amount of wonky kits I find I see many other kit builders struggle too. With that fact in mind I applauded Cambrian kits introducing their new one piece chassis, molded floor and sole bars and W irons. Now they are all made perfectly square and the axles holes lined up for you. These particular ones came with PECO plastic wheels running directly in the axles boxes, runs quite smoothly but not as good as metal wheels running in metal conned bearings. An upgrade needed. Picture badly aligned kit parts see the floor, buffer beam end join. Kits usual come apart easily, the more wonky they are the less contact area between the miss matched side so the glue is less effective a gentle bit of twisting and apart they come. Kit reboot, as the film makers say take the original components and try reassembling them again. It might be better this time.

LSWR van Cambrian kit C115 00 As the kit build proceeds I can't leave the original kit alone the way the manufacturer intended. I've filled in the chassis sides to represent wooden ones and also glued fillets of plasticard to the bulk out the bottom corners. Going for the older wooden chassis look. Wooden buffer beams look much thicker from the side than the thin ones of the kit which represents a steel one. Reinforced the sides with bulkheads to make the van less likely to flex inwards by the squeezing action of a hand picking it up. Also a length of sprue glued along the top as a ridge support for the roof. Van Kits always seem weak in this area compared to ready made models and need careful handling so the rooves don't pop off. The roof moldings are very thin and flexible maybe too fragile but the edges look fine and realistic, a play off between looks and durability. Unfortunately this leaves the van side to roof contact area for glue relying on minimal contact, sooner or later the glue gives up. So my solution is this stiffen the sides and build up more support to the roof, The roof on this kit is very plane no vents or rain strip is this how they where on the big railway back in their day?

How well is the site working at the moment? If this image is still here this evening I'll post an explanation of this kit.

My model slowly coming together is now on it's wheels. Now does the profile look old enough? I've used short lengths od K & Sbrass tube to hold the end of the axles in. these are some old wheels from early pinpoint days and have longer axles than the current type which easily fit in the old Hornby chassis. I've glued theh brass in with Kids glue PVA from Wilkinsons so ther is hope

Edwardian has a better spy button than me...... from his entry above.

I wish I had the image enlargement system they have in spy moovies. You know when in the spy headquarters they keep on enlarging the photo through the office window of the guy sitting in a chair reading a secret document. Zoom in and keep on zooming in. Press the special button and the fuzzy picture resolves into a perfect image and they can read the words on the document. I pressed my button on the Richmond picture and got this. The tank looks to be wider than the chassis and there is some sort of structure supporting it at the ends? and with smoothing button.......

Tank end: this is the look I am going for. I saw it somewhere in a photo of an older tanker. The end of the tank is much narrower than the chassis that it sits on. On more modern designs the tank is as wide as or wider than the chassis. I'm going for the skinny version. Also I wanted big chunks of timber holding the tank in place. You can see the old Hornby wheels lying about they are hollow and come in two halves. Once the metal axle is pushed out they fall apart. Somehow I've got to fiddle in some new wheels and axles. In reply to Phil and his wagon photos in the above post. The roding on the rectangular or cuboid tank must be there to hold the end structures together and I would think it needs to be straight. The answer is to find a good picture of such a tank from above. Do any survive? They have a rectangular tanker wagon in a museum in Scotland, does that have one such rod ?

More timber framing made up of glued together coffee stirrers, then some wires added to represent rodding that's seems to be a feature of early tankers in old photos. The wire is copper with the electrical insulation stripped off. A tiny slither of the plastic insulation sheaf represents nuts. The tank is a Tri-ang TT3 one so smaller than the usual 00 ones. The turret looked too small so I replaced it with the end from a plastic biro body which looks about the right size. Painted up and screwed to the chassis. Straps from slithers of leftovers from a metal etch, could have used wire I guess but I wanted a flat look. One end glued in and when the glue is set it will be time for the other end.

In the post above where Tom Burnham recounts a tail of a private engine travelling around the railway system, long before the age of the private car and fast tarmacadammed roads. A private loco would be great. I think I would like something a bit more luxurious than opened cab Gazelle, perhaps something more akin to Drummond's Bug. That had a short coach compartment built in and could reach speeds of over 70 mph. In modern times perhaps a self propelled maintenance vehicle or a refurbished self propelled parcel coach like they had on the Southern Region?

Thanks to AdamsRadial for the heads up on the Jaywick seaside railway with their live steam miniature Great Northern Single. First photo found on flicker the other is a thumb nail from a Youtube video. The search engine Duck-duck-go found these quickly. photo from -trainsandstuff- found on flicker photo website. Video posted by T Hutchinson Railway looks to be about 18 inch to 2 foot so n-gauge could represent it on an 00 layout, with n gauge stock?

The trials of adapting something from second hand, you don't know what's been done to it, for instance what type of paint did they use? Can't shift this Fire Engine Red, been in soak for 48 hours in dishwasher powder solution. The red is a very thick red. It's swamped the rivets and other detail not like model paint but more like treacle. Unlike the thin, even and well behaved crimson Humbrol that went quickly. I looked up paint stripping techniques for kits and locos here on RMweb and came up with my own contribution from years ago, amongst others, it's funny how you forget. So the combined lore of RMweb modelling says Dettol can cause a sticky mess and caustic soda cleaners do the trick, I had hoped the dish washer powder solution I'd been using was caustic soda but it just seems to be the much weaker washing soda.

Many of my models never get finished, particularly the locomotives are never get properly finished, usually I can't get them to run, even wagons can sometimes refuse to roll, an easy task you would think just to get a wagon kit to sit square and run true but not for me, not always and some end up non working and half finished at the end of the scrap siding. Like this 0-4-2 based on the first loco sent to Australia. The chassis and wheels are all plastic cut down from an Airfix prairie kit, it happened to be the correct wheel base shortened by cutting the ends cut off, the same for the footplate. The boiler began as a cash-till roll tube with a fire box built up from strips of plasticard wrapped around it. It was intended to be a boiler wagon load, being delivered to a loco works perhaps. Now with a smoke box from an Hornby 14XX it sits on this loco and the flat topped dome is some plastic innards from a Biro. The cab is from post card , a try out of a design drawn up on the computer and printed out onto thin cardboard. A home made fold up kit sort of thing. Unlikely to ever be motorisable it has become a modeled scrap derelict. It used to have a companion the little Airfix pug, a heavily painted red one with missing valve gear. It has now gone off to the workbench to be improved and motorised.

A some what belated reply to jburgt Scale drawing of the Bachmann chassis block, here fitted with 12mm wheels the original comes with 18mm diameter wheels. Since we are here a progress report on the Hudswell Clark card body. None. Compared to the earlier plastic model which was just a get-it-to-look-right model I was trying to make an accurate one. There are many discrepancies to get the body to fit the chassis block, as these added up to a less accurate model I sort of lost interest and the card was getting tatty it is no way as robust as plastic or metal. With normal handling corners are being bent, sides squashed and it's not going to be very heavy which will effect running. This has all discouraged me and it went back into it's little box.

Yes, this is entirely possible. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/149610-airfix-chops/&tab=comments#comment-3902259

Surely you mean 1890s vintage ? A lovely example of one of the most typical types of engine on British Railways, big in it's day but tiny by the 1930s. By comparison with newer engines. Once a mainline engine later a small loco pottering around branch lines. I've never placed mine next to the new models of similar classes of these engines, the Hornby of Oxford Rail Dean Goods or Hornby J15. For a size comparison I bet the O1 is the smallest. I never noticed the screw in crank pins. They blend in OK I bet they are invisible at half a metre, don't worry.