ullypug

Whilst the main engine and carriage sheds are in the paint shop, I've turned my attention to some of the ancillary sheds, of which there seem to be a great number. All use Evergreen sheet, either car siding or V groove. I've collected quite a few photos over the years and kindly been lent some others but it's amazing how long it takes to interpret the layouts from different shots taken from different angles. I think I've just about got it right. The slab and square block is actually the water tank slab and water softening plant tank base. The tanks are also in the paint shop but I need a few extra bits from Scaleforum next week to complete this. I've also made a start on the Great Western stable block (the GW station adjoined the WC&PR) using South East Finecast embossed brick sheet. It's been placed in the approximate position to give an indication, but there will be (surprise, surprise) a few more sheds required to complete the scene.

Have rediscovered the modelling mojo and engaged on Clevedon. Firstly, the water tank panels have been soldered together resulting in a pretty good representation of the WC&PR tanks. Does anybody know whether Braithwaite tanks were open topped or did they have a lid? My guess is the latter. Having spent a considerable time trying to work out how the various shed buildings and water tank interact, I came to the conclusion (surprisingly) that as the engine and original carriage shed were there first, that would be the logical sequence to constructing the model. So a drawing was sketched up and plastic (Evergreen Car siding) duly cut. The sides are two layers of 20thou, fixed with Limonene solvent with the planking facing outwards as both faces would be visible. Uprights, cross beams and diagonals from Evergreen strip. This shows the rough construction sequence. The rear wall has some added detail in the form of door through to the workshop. I presume the corrugated iron was a repair measure. Thankfully I have a couple of good photos taken inside the shed. I fixed the shed slab down to the baseboard with pva and constructed a rudimentary pit from 30thou. As far as I can see the pit walls are concrete, so all has been given a basecoat of Sandex exterior paint. This will be weathered after final assembly. I'm going to use air clay for the track infill to the original carriage shed. The sides for the engine shed have been placed together for the photo. Next step is to paint the shed sides before final assembly. I'm enjoying this!

Evening all No modelling updates for a while, as I've been on me holidays. Starting to get things ready for Manchester in just over a month's time, which will see Wheal Elizabeth exhibited in end to end guise for the first time. Almost all of the modifications are now complete, just the fiddle yard crate to make up. I have been trying out the various passenger stock and took the opportunity of taking a few photos. All well, though I'll try and get a little more lead in the O2 to improve traction. We also will have a blue/grey Class 108. The Class 122 Bubble Car (craftsman conversion on a lima 117 motor trailer) at the new platform Bubble car runs past the dry Class O2 30200 with P set at the platform Class O2 running through

Hi Dave. I'm certainly happy to help but I'm not really an expert. I think there are a few others with more knowledge than me. Andrew

Having decided to start on the structures for Clevedon, the question was which one? I finally decided on the water tower because it is pivotal for the engine shed complex. I'm modelling the second set of tanks. The first were an all timber affair, spanning the original engine shed road. The second was made from Braithwaite panels and was comprised of two tanks and incorporated a water softening plant. Having consulted many, many photographs, I came up with a drawing that looks a bit like this: The panels are available from Alan Gibson and to date I've spent an enjoyable few hours making up the tank sides, which are 2x2. The panels are edged with 1mm brass angle and have 1mm T section between. I'm tinning all parts pre-assembly, then using the Resistance Soldering Unit to join together. A lot easier than trying to solder conventionally. So here we have a panel under assembly. Angles and sections are mitred and filed to fit. Complete panel. Complete tank side components.

Hello and welcome to a new blog which I've created specifically to document the construction of my new EM layout, Clevedon WC&PR. Previously, bits and pieces for this layout have been lurking in my other blog, 'Tales from the Tinking Table' which has now amassed various other projects and layouts. Previous blog articles on Clevedon WC&PR are linked into the index over the right. If you're interested in Colonel Stephens' Railways and the Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway in particular, then I can recommend the following web sites WC&P Railway Group Colonel Stephens Society Colonel Stephens Museum

Thanks Ivan I had read the CLAG article, which lulled me into a false sense of security! If only High Level could be persuaded to do a chassis kit!

OK, I have reached the point where I wished I'd gone down the etched chassis route. So I'm going to stop and have a think about whether I should. Have spent the evening b*ggering about with the drawbar. All ok after several attempts to solder 2 wires the correct way round. Body put back on. Binds have reappeared on the cylinders again, where previously there were none. Hmm. I have a sneaking suspicion that something's moving around which shouldn't be. I've also decided that there are quite a few things I'm going to have to do to the Hornby body. Smoke deflectors for one. Filling the holes left by the removal of the crest another. Respray, relining, renumbering and a shed load of pipework are going to be required, which is ok but I suspect the chassis is going to be the weak link. I have an awful feeling that I could spend a lot of time fettling the chassis for it to a) not work or B) cause an awful lot of grief. Options: 1. Wait until Scaleforum and buy an escapement file. Have one last go at the cylinders. 2. Acquire etched chassis, spring all axles and do it properly. Will keep you posted.

UIlypug towers hosted the local EM group last night and so I put Clevedon up, with all the stock on (well except the wagons for the through freight trains). Should've cut out the back light from the windows but you get the idea. General shot of the shed area Coach sidings Hesperus and the LSWR rake (I know the coaches should be brown) End on shot of the layout Makes me want to put down the West Country and start the buildings...

Hi Tim. I took the assembly apart, filed a bit off each end of the slide rod and elongated the holes in the slide bars with needle files and wet & dry. I was going to get an escapement file until I saw how much they were!

I decided to fit a brass sleeve to the piston rod. It was during the exercise I discovered that the cylinder ends can be removed from the main cylinder moulding and so a cunning plan was hatched. With a bit of filing, the ends were pushed out 0.5mm allowing the sleeve to be fitted further away from the main chassis. I was still debating whether I'd need to move the slide bars out as well, but on reassembly it all seemed to work quite well. The black plasticard spacer is to push out the cylinders so they are parallel with the side of the chassis. So far so good. The rear pony truck has been refitted and the ash pan castings from Albert Goodall glued on. Starting to come together. I also took the opportunity to snap the Bachman N mogul which has emerged from the painting/weathering shop.

Enjoyable blog article. Thanks for posting. You've made a good job of the model and I like the weathering especially. Having seen what you've had to do with the CCT, I say you've got enough modelling nous to cope with Bill Bedford kits so I wouldn't avoid them completely. I've built a few over the years and haven't had any problems. You can always ask on here if you do! I use his W irons (sold by Eileens Emporium) as standard for my models and are especially useful for long wheelbase wagons. As far as setting up axles goes, I recommend the axle spacing jigs sold by Brassmasters. They do long and shorter wheelbase versions, essentially a piece of fold up brass with slots cut in every scale foot. The zero end allows variances of 3" and 6" to be accommodated. It's an essential bit of kit in my opinion.

I'm not quite getting to the point where I wish I'd gone down the etched chassis route, but I'm beginning to wonder... So, I sorted the keeper plate issue by chucking it away and replacing with a new one fabricated from double sided copperclad. The benefit being the pick ups could be soldered to the underside. Gaps cut obviously for isolation. I chiselled out a route for the pick up wires in the upper keeper plate and countersunk the hole through. Wires are 7/0.2mm. The whole thing reassembled with the bogie temporarily fitted. I think some form of spring is going to be needed, but it happily ran up and down the test track before I removed the idler gear. The slide bars have been fitted and held with cyano. Here is (as predicted) where we start to have a problem. The additional crank throw of the Gibson wheels does indeed cause a problem, which I initially thought was limited to the crosshead in the slide bar. You can see if here pretty much in its full forward position, yet the crank pin on the wheel is not yet at 9 o'clock. There's a definite movement in the cylinders, though I'm not sure if that's being transferred from the piston, or it's actually catching something inside. I'll take the cylinders off again and see where we go. Somewhat trying, but the end result I'm sure will be worth it. I've put the body on to see how it's going and it's already starting to look the part. I've also cut out a replacement tender drawbar from copperclad and will use this with the transferred Hornby bits. No photo of that though.

Surely that'll just fall between the rails on Clutton?

Thanks for the comments guys. I've used the 'half rod' approach on all the P4 locos I've built. I think I first saw it used by John Brighton. The crankpin nut will be thinned down with a carborundum disc once I've added thread locker. In my experience as long as you've 2 active threads in the nut it all holds together. You're right in that you can turn it round (at the expense of having a larger hole through the rod) if you need more space. I'll see how things go. Then there's also the option of moving the slide bars out 0.5mm either side (hence the previous sleeved piston rod ponderings) but that really is cheating!

A couple of successful evening sessions has seen the rods made up and fitted. The upper keeper plate was fitted and happily the chassis ran up and down on the test track under finger pressure and when relatively slightly sloped. Huge sigh of relief as always! I've also fitted 60 thou black plasticard overlays to the chassis block. Some bits have yet to be hacked off (rear pony) and won't be until the last moment so I don't take too much off. We're now in the realms of having to choose the prototype so this one will be Watersmeet 34030 as it was a long term Exmouth Junction resident. There were so many variances between the different engines and one of them is the knuckle position in the rods. This one will be behind the con rod which (if I've understood it right) matches the 21C101-31 engines. Others were forward, until some of them were modified. The front rod is only a single thickness on the crankpin to allow for the crankpin nut to be clear the con rod/slide bar. The Irwell Press book really is a must if you're contemplating doing one of these. It also gives a couple of very useful front end shots of the bogie. I decided I needed to do something about where I'd got to so far and added some detail from plasticard and 8BA brass studding. This configuration was one of a later series of modifications, meaning Watersmeet is going to be a 1962 condition with the cut down tender. The original raves were not cut down until 1960 according to the Irwell book. Next it's the cylinders and con rods. I'm going to use the Hornby con rod. Gibson bushes have been fitted. I've found some brass tube and will see if I need to sleeve the piston rod.

That's reassuring! I've got the Irwell Press book on the WC/BB's and it looked wide in there though I confess I didn't actually see a dimension anywhere.

Hmm, I wonder if it's possible to incorporate some form of load bearing springs to act on the top of the bogie? Wouldn't need much and a simple wiper could act on the top of the nickel silver. I did wonder whether the top of the screw could be used in some way shape or form in this purpose...

Not much progress in the last couple of weeks due to work commitments, but I have managed to complete the bogie and get the wheels quartered. The wheels trial fitted in the chassis block. I used a mixture top hat bearings and ordinary 1/8" washers to suit. The wheels were quartered using my NWSL quartering jig, which I find easier for RTR conversions than the GW Models one. I'm wondering whether to fit cosmetic sides from plasticard. I might make some up with slots than can be put in later on. I'm also having a think about the keeper plates and am inclined to squeeze the brake gear out rather than cut and shut. The original bogie is cut down the middle and a new stretcher was made from 15 thou nickel silver. The whole thing was epoxied together. I didn't bother with the cut out as per the EMGS manual as the material's so small I don't think it will be noticeable. The swing link pin was fitted using a 2mm top hat bearing for the sleeve and fixed with a 10BA nut & screw. Lastly, the cylinders have had some plasticard added to fill the void. I'm planning on shaving off the 3/4 cylinder head cover and fitting a new one. Thinking about fitting a bush to take the piston rod

I'm planning to. Did you make a new one or move the tender pin back? Both look 'doable'

Sounds good to me!

Thanks for the comments folks. Brightspark - I've got a selection of Albert Goodall parts, hopefully there are some drain cocks in there. If not, I'll have to make some. Geoff - I'd forgotten about the CLAG site. Very useful thanks.

Just like buses eh? The Van B Link here needs something to pull it and rather than start on the Finney T9, I've gone for the quicker option. I want to have something ready for Manchester in October. So this is a (hopefully) straightforward conversion of the Hornby West Country pacific, using 605 Squadron as the donor engine and following the EM Gauge Society manual sheet as the basis of conversion. First step is to take everything apart. It's quite scary when you get to this stage: Next bit is to convert the tender as it's easier. I've changed the body it came with for a cut down version. The keeper plate just comes off, you drop out the wheels, put in new ones and put it all together. Took about 10 minutes and didn't have to file anything down. Wheels are from Alan Gibson. Onto the loco and the first bit to covert is the pony truck. The keeper plate is prised off and replacement wheels inserted after a bit of filing down. I've also taken off the lower part of the ash pan as I'll be replacing this with parts from Albert Goodall (now available from RT Models). The truck has been cut back to a more prototypical shape. The keeper plate needs to be screwed back in, so a couple of holes were drilled and tapped to do the necessary. The front bogie's been cut in half (mazak I think and it made a mess) but I forgot to take a photo of that. More to follow next time.

Evening all. I've decided to break with tradition and build a kit after the corresponding RTR model appears. Usually it's the other way round The subject matter was a Ratio Van B kit that I've had in the cupboard for years. Well actually I had two but the other one's going to be sold to make way for the new Hornby one, but I digress... This will be for the Wheal Elizabeth passenger line to go behind a West Country or T9. It was built pretty much as the instructions but used Bill Bedford 8ft sprung bogies which were built once I'd worked out what the instructions were trying to tell me. It took most of the Jubilee week to build but made for a pleasant exercise. As others have said, it's an old school kit that means you have to stick about four parts together where nowadays it'd just be one moulding. Still I didn't lose any bits of hinge. It's had the initial coat of weathering but needs a final waft of gunk and some touching up here and there. I haven't bothered adding the transfers as it's going to have a very heavily weathered finish. One word of warning: I used the Roxey Mouldings etch for the bars behind the windows and treated them with gun blue. I then used Johnsons Klear to stick them to the rear of the glazing. You can just see that the bars have developed a green tinge which I'm guessing is the Klear reacting with the gun blue. I'm not that bothered about it as the windows are going to be sprayed over with the final weathering coat. Otherwise I'd be removing it all and starting again.