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Barry Ten

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  1. Barry Ten
    Following the debacle mentioned in the previous blog entry, 5MT 73049 has now been paired with the correct type of tender. The route I went down was to buy a second hand Bachmann model of 73049 itself, what I should have done in the first place, but since I'd already gone to the trouble of weathering and renumbering the original loco, I decided to swap the tender from the new model and use the old tender and new model (do keep up at the back there) for a future repaint and relining job into BR black. An additional consideration was that the BR green lining wasn't as finely applied on the new 73049 for some reason, so I thought I'd retain the older model for that livery.
     

     
    It wasn't all plain sailing, though. The tender was pristine and needed some weathering and toning down of the lining, to blend in with the earlier loco. I also reckoned that the shade of green on the tender was a bit brighter than the older model, although that might just be a function of the weathering I'd already done to the loco. Rather than dig out the airbrush, I set about using weathering acrylics, applied thickly then immediately swabbed off with a cotton bud. Disaster! The lining, and the BR emblem, immediately started to lift! I managed to back off before any more harm was done, but it was already too late to save the emblem, and the lining was now broken in patches. The weathering acrylics are quite mild so I can only conclude that I still had some cleaning solvent on the brush when I first dipped it into the acrylic pot, and enough of this transferred onto the tender to lift the printed details. However, I was still surprised at the speed with which it all started to come away. I've had this happen with two other locos, both Bachmann. In one instance, the mixed traffic lining on a 4MT began to lift just from the model being handled - again, possibly due to solvent residue on my finger tips - and I remember a similar issue with a Prairie. I've certainly not encountered similar vulnerability with the printed details on Hornby locos.
     
    In order to repair the damage, I removed the emblem completely, using Micro-Sol and a blunt cocktail stick, and then replaced it with an HMRS decal. I also used HMRS lining to repair the missing areas, which is a bit of a bodge but I really didn't feel like lifting and relining the entire tender side just for the sake of a few small areas. The HMRS stuff is a bit wider, and more orange in hue than the red-tinged lining applied by Bachmann, but I think a little toning down hopes it blend in well enough. I think the picture below shows that there's still a discrepancy in the BR green shade between loco and tender, even after weathering, but it's not something that the eye picks up quite so readily.
     
    One final touch, which I've forgotten to do, is to add a proper set of numbers to the smokebox, but that'll be attended to in due course. Oh, and I'll do something about the coal. and maybe add a tablet catcher if I can find one. All good fun.
     

     
     
     
     
     
     
  2. Barry Ten
    Some examples of 4MT and 5MT motive power on the layout, including an exciting blooper!
     
    First off, a Bachmann 4MT 4-6-0 which has been renumbered (using HMRS and Modelmaster transfers) to an S&D example:
     

     
     

     
     
    Light weathering is applied by brushing on liquid acrylics, then almost immediately swiping it off or buffing it around using cotton buds. I must admit I rarely use the airbrush for weathering these days, preferring to use brushes and cotton buds. If nothing else, it can be done at my workbench with music on whereas airbrushing needs to be done in the conservatory and is always a faff to get set up.
     
    In similar vein, below, is another 4MT, this time a 2-6-0, also from Bachmann. These were not S&D-allocated locos but they were common on the line and (at least by the photos I've seen) generally in deplorable condition! If anything, I've erred on the side of restraint with the weathering here. The cabside is as yet unweathered as I mean to change it to 76019, one of the examples known to have run on the line. These are fantastic looking locos, in my book. Powerful yet compact, in the best mogul tradition.
     

     
    This Bath-allocated Black 5 is a Hornby model from about 18 years ago, and a very nice performer. It had stiffened up after being up in the attic for a few years but soon got its mojo back. Again,
    all brush and cotton-bud weathering here.
     

     
    Finally, the exciting blooper!
     

     
    I had a Bachmann 5MT in green that I wanted to try and renumber as an S&D example. This one was airbrush weathered, incidentally, about twelve years ago. The trouble is, most of the 5MTS ran in lined black right through to closure. 73049 did get green, so I choose this one - but being a bear of very little brain, I completely missed that it's got the wrong tender. D'oh! Some rethinking will now be called for. If I'd done my homework, too, I'd have realised that Bachmann did in fact release a model of 73049 with the right tender, so I wouldn't have even had to renumber it. There's a moral there somewhere, about missing the wood for the trees.
     
  3. Barry Ten
    As seen below, there's an area of raised platform to the left of the station building that was notionally going to be a loading dock:
     

     
    After living with it for a while, I decided that I wanted something else occupying this space, in line with the parcels store at the real Shillingstone. Unfortunately I missed the boat with the Bachmann nodel of this structure (and they seem to be very scarce on ebay) so I decided to build something of my own.
     
    The basis for this wooden shed is the Wills goods store, but shorn of its wooden supports and with the sides and ends reworked to give a bit of individuality. Of course it's highly unlikely that there'd be an intact pair of S&DJR station notice boards in BR days, but, it's my trainset etc!
     
    , 
    A door was added in the the end face below, and a window removed. A safety rail was added to prevent mishaps around the low wall. The signs on the metal fence are also S&D notices from the Roger Smith pack.
     

     
    There's no rail access to and from the shed, so it's presumed it's just used as a store for station supplies and deliveries, before being loaded via the main goods shed, or taken away by lorry. The side facing the siding, below, was replaced by a single sheet of Evergreen plastic, a reasonable match for the Wills mouldings, and the two redundant windows from the ends were used here instead. The building was painted in Railmatch light stone and Humbrol mid green 101. The station building's fittings will soon get similar treatment.
     
    The LSWR trolleys are from Shire Scenes, and the etches include some nice platform benches which I'm in the process of making. I added a few weedy scraps of grass around the base of the shed on the siding side, but I'm not quite happy with them so they'll be reworked to something a bit more understated. Some manner of buffer stop will also be added.
     

     
    cheers!
  4. Barry Ten
    Work progresses on Stourpayne Marshall at an extremely  leisurely rate, interspersed with more running sessions where I can get
    some of my S&D-related models out of their boxes.
     

     
    As mentioned, I decided to replace the LSWR-style covered footbridge with a Ratio concrete one, which I felt was more in keeping with the S&D ambience,
     

     
    The Ratio kit is good value and goes together nicely. In common with the other two bridges that have occupied these platforms, I needed to build it with the steps facing in opposite directions, which meant some cutting and joining to work with the existing parts. The end result, at least, is something a little different from the standard build of the kit.
     

     
    I very much like the humdrum, low-key ambience of these concrete footbridges, in contract to the ornate structures which were here previously. The kit reminds me that I used to have a plastic Tri-ang bridge to a similar design.
     

     
    One consequence of the moving around of scenic elements for Stourpayne is the opening up of viewpoints that were not available before, such as this glimpse of a 9F on the far platform, In general the new version of the layout is more open and affords a less obstructed view of the platforms and any trains passing through, although at the cost of closing off certain sightlines elsewhere.
     

     
    The 9F, incidentally, is another S&D regular, one of the four that were transferred to Bath near the end of the line's existence. This model is an old Margate-era Hornby 9F which has been extensively tarted-up with a lowered body, new wheels and valve gear, brake shoes, and Comet detailing parts. Again tender drive, it benefits from 8-wheel pickup and a decoder, for very good slow running.
     

     
     
    A more general view of the platforms and goods yard. Some work has been done on the far platform with a hint of a greenhouse behind the 9F's firebox. This week several etches for LSWR seats and luggage trolleys arrived, so the GWR examples still in place will soon be removed.
     

     
    Taking in an even wider view, the Shillingstone goods shed now occupies the spot occupied by the removable cattle dock. The goods shed is a bit of a curate's egg, I feel, compared to the excellent model of the station. Obviously the sliding doors are far too thick and will need replacing. But from the side, the entire structure looks a bit askew, with the left-hand window opening (and associated stonework) sitting at an awkward angle. Perhaps there was some subsidence in the real shed which has been captured in the model, but since I've never seen a photo or a drawing of the structure in question, I'm not sure. The shed doesn't exist now and it doesn't show up in any of my many S&D volumes, so how the Bachmann model has been derived is a bit of a mystery, unless some some drawings were made available. In any case, it's nicely proportioned and doesn;t dominate the yard as the King's Hintock shed (intentionally) did but I feel it needs a bit of attention. Incidentally, a Ratio provender store will most likely sit next to the shed, but I removed it for this shot. Another option in the pipeline is one big provender store occupying the whole footprint of the shed.
     

     
     
    Finally, I didn't like the colours of the signal box as supplied (they're not necessarily wrong per se), so I've repainted it in stone/faded cream and green. Even though the WR took over control of the S&D, and certainly implemented a repainting scheme, many structures appear to have retained cream/green until the end, including I think Shillingstone box itself. Now at least it doesn't display the wrong name, which is a step!
     
    Thanks for reading all, and hooe this has been of interest.
  5. Barry Ten
    A couple more locos, one with an association with the S&D, the other more dubious!
     

     
    2P 40601 was an S&D regular, here represented by another Hornby loco with tender drive, and again a more than adequate runner. Again, not much has been done to this one - tender gap shortened, renumbered, lamp irons and lamps, crew, coal and a bit of weathering. In immediate post-nationalisation BR condition, there;s a nice picture in this state in one of the Ivo Peters volumes.
     
    Which makes the appearance of a rebuilt West Country on the Up Pines Express a bit of an anomaly! Even more questionable is the identify of the WC, 34036 Westward Ho, which I'm not sure is one of the class that was ever seen on the S&D. But for now, it stands in for a typical member of its class, hauling an equally representative impression of the Pines Express, which often loaded to 12 or 14 coaches. Here, 8 will be the maximum, owing to fiddle yard capacity. This Hornby WC has been weathered and had the tender gap shortened again. Two more are available, (both with sound) but have yet to be weathered.
     
    Below, a slightly tighter view of the same scene excludes the 2P's tender, so it can (just about) pass as a plausible scene in 1959.
     

     
    Cheers again, and thanks for indulging this S&D excursion.
  6. Barry Ten
    In between working on the scenic features, I've been enjoying giving some of my older S&D-related models a run.
     

     
    44422 was an S&D 4F and this model was renumbered about a decade ago, It's an old Hornby 4F with the Airfix-style tender drive. Although beyond the pale in certain quarters, my experience with these particular mechanisms is that they respond incredibly well to DCC. There's a bog-standard Hornby chip in this one and the running is quite superb, with impeccable slow stop/starts and the ability to creep around the layout at a dead crawl without interruption. About the only downside to it is that it's a little noisy at passenger train speeds, and from a low angle you can see the gears in the tender, but regarded as a rugged goods loco, with the three feet rule, it's more than enough for my needs. Other than shortening the loco-tender gap, adjusting the back to backs of the main drivers, and some weathering, lamps and crew, it's as it came - a testament to the basically sound Airfix model from the 70s.
     

     
    Rather more up to date is this Bachmann 7F. This is one of several 7Fs available for the layout, including a DJH one, but as yet the only one fitted with a decoder. I believe this one came with factory weathering. Other than crew and lamps, it's as it came. These are superb models and a boon for the S&D. Note how the 7F handily conceals the fact that I haven't yet renamed the Shillingstone signal box!
     

     
    Finally, for now, the same loco from a slightly different angle. Although I didn't mention it last time, one of the things I was most keen to achieve with Stourpayne was to model the rear of a station, in contrast to the front-of-platform view on King's Hintock. I'm sure it's a case of grass-is-greener, but I'd been missing the ambience of the station forecourt, with tantalising glimpses through fences and the opportunity to pose cars and buses.
     
    More to come in a few days. Thanks for reading.
  7. Barry Ten
    Be it through the work of Ivo Peters. Norman Lockett, or any of the other renowned photographers of the Somerset & Dorset, it's often commented that the northern section of the line was rather better documented than the southern half. Lacking the drama of the ascent over the Mendips, with generally less dramatic scenery, and fewer goods trains, perhaps it's no surprise that the locations south of the border were not so well captured. Even allowing for this, few stations were as shy of the camera lens as Stourpayne Marshall, despite having all the hallmarks of an attractive prototype (and note please the correct spelling of Stourpayne, a local quirk), with a station building in the Dorset tradition and strikingly similar to that at Shillingstone.
     

     
    All right, that''s enough made-up cod-historical cobblers, what's going on here?
     
    Hopefully, both more and less than meets the eye!
     
    Back in the dawn of time, when I started this S&D blog, which has been dormant since 2013, my intentions were clear. I was to build a new layout in a 12.x11 foot room which would be a strong nod toward Shillingstone, while incorporating aspects of one or other S&D locations in the same neck of the woods. My affection for the S&D has been nearly life-long and rooted in strong personal connections. My dad was a native of Shillingstone; my great grandfather was a porter at Blandford, and I myself was born in the week that the S&D closed. As a consequence, my significant birthdays all fall happily close to major celebratory galas at the West Somerset Railway.
     
    Having made progress on the Spring and Winter modules of my layout, both of which were intended to evoke S&D locations, I started major work on the summer module in 2012. There I made what was either a fatal error, or a lucky masterstroke: in getting a feel for what the eventual scene might look like, I plonked a pre-built model of a GWR station on the platform. Suddenly it hit me: it was going to take years to scratchbuild the S&D structures, but I already had more than enough GWR stuff to complete a reasonable station scene. The plan then took a swerve: while the objective was still to go S&D in the long-run, for the "time being", I'd use GWR fittings and run GWR stock. To aid this, all company-specific fixtures such as platforms, buildings and signals were made removable. When the time came, all I'd need to do was swap a complete new set of platforms, etc, and off I could go with the S&D.
     
    But for some reason this has never happened.
     
    As time has passed, I've been doing s bit of introspection and asking myself what was the flaw in the original plan. Eventually I realised that there was never going to be a time when I felt like building a completely new set of platforms: just far too much work for any given weekend, when I could be doing something else.
     
    So with that in mind, I decided to back off and re-think my parameters. What did I really want to achieve? After a while I decided that while I still liked the idea of running S&D trains, I could afford to be a bit "broad brush" in my interpretation of the scenery. It's not an exhibition layout and it's not being presented as a paragon of finescale modelling, just a setting in which a variety of trains won't look hideously out of place. So could I get away with using the existing platforms, including the fences, painted in GWR  light stone? The Southern used a shade of light stone for fencework, and while I'm not sure what painting instruction held sway in pre-nationalisation, perusal of photos of ex-LSWR and S&DJR subjects suggests that faded stone doesn't look out of place, especially if contrasted with lots of green. I also satisfied myself that, while wooden fencing was widely used, iron fencing shows up a lot as well. 
     
    With that settled, I decided to begin developing a set of replacement parts to enable King's Hintock to be quick;y switched to Stourpayne Marshall. The steps so far are roughly as follows:
     

     
     
    Above: the layout in GWR mode.
     

     
    Next step: swap running in boards, remove water cranes (replaced with drop-in patches on the platform) and swap the main building for a shelter. This little shelter was cobbled together very quickly using some recycled parts from my old layout Wyvant. Bachmann made a nice model of the Shillingstone shelter, but I wasn't quick enough of the mark with that.
     

     
     
    The next step sees the removal of the GWR shelter on the other platform.
     

     
    And its replacement with a new length of fencing, plugging in to holes in the platform. I damaged this bit during photography so will need replacing.
     

     
    The GWR pattern footbridge is then removed, and a newer one put in . This Ratio bridge is quite LSWR-like in its design and was in fact the original bridge on King's Hintock, before being repainted into Southern colours. The lighter shade is still GWR stone, which I think sits surprisingly well with the green. However, covered bridges were not typical of the S&D so a concrete example is likely to end up here, which will be more in keeping with the theme.
     

     
    Attention then turns to the goods shed and associated yard.
     

     
    The shed and its foreground area are removed, leaving just the long siding running the length of the platform. What to do about that?
     

     
    Nothing, is the answer. The siding remains, but it now appears to terminate at a loading dock. The rest of it runs hidden under the raised forecourt of the new station.
     

     
    To which Bachmann's Shillingstone model is added (announced long after I started work on the layout), along with Ivo's Bentley and a Hants and Dorset bus!
     

     
    One minor headache is the buffer stop at the end of the long siding, proking out from the edge of this grassy knoll!
     

     
    However,, thanks to a free gift from one of the magazines, a grounded van body comes to the rescue. I cut a notch in the hidden side of the van so that it can drop over the buffer stop and screen any sign of the rails.
     
    Much more remains to be done, of course, but hopefully these images give an idea of the plug-and-play philosophy. The signals are still GWR lower quadrant, and for the time being that;s how they'll remain, standing in for LSWR block-post lower quadrants. Luckily both upper and lower quadrant signals featured on the S&D, right up to closure, so they don't snag my eye as being obviously out of place.
     
    Thanks for reading, and I look forward to continuing with my S&D adventure ... a mere seven years later than anticipated.
     
     
  8. Barry Ten
    It may seem that I've jumped forward a bit here! Fear not, but I didn't want to dwell on my method of attacking the roofs as I don't feel I'm quite there yet in terms of a consistent approach. It's really just a question of trimming down a piece of vac-formed plastic until it fits, and the instructions do give some guidance, but I'd be lying if I said I don't find it a bit of a tricky step. It's all too easy to end up with asymmetric bits or too much taken off one side. All i can advocate is taking ones time and using sandpaper and files for the final fitting, followed by a degree of fettling once the roof is fixed in place, for which I used normal Evo-stik type adhesive. For one of the coaches, I overdid the trimming and had to butt-joint two strips of microstrip along the edge of the roof to give me something to work with again. Fortunately, though, any battle scars and uneven-ness can to some extent be concealed by the final additional of a cantrail strip, again with microstrip (and again not supplied in the kit!). I also added the additional curved rainstrips on each coach. I carefully set out these curves using measuring verniers and  a set of Napier's logarithmic tables ... er no, I just winged it.
     
    Although I intend to build another brake, I felt that the project would be in danger of bogging down if I didn't get the immediate sugar hit of seeing the rake running on the layout in semi-finished condition! So I pushed on with painting and glazing. The coaches were primed and then airbrushed with Railmatch malachite, This was handy as while I had the airbrush loaded, I was also able to respray a Bachmann Lord Nelson that had been earmarked for backdating to Southern condition.
     
    The kits came with thin glazing material which proved sufficient for each coach. It was a long and tedious job - it took me the whole of The Railway Children just to do the brake! All of the windows neeeded to be individually glazed. Once I got into the swing of it, though, the other two coaches were a little quicker.
     
    Corridor connections were fashioned using a mix of the cast bits in the kits (where provided - two of them didn't have any) and MJT bellows, which I find to be a pragmatic and workable solution for relatively little investment of time. I used to try and add a representation of the scissors bits using cotton, but I don't bother now. Finally, coupling bars were fitted to enable to the coaches to run as a fixed rake. I added a screw coupling at the front.
     
    Still a fair bit to be done but at least I can see the end in sight as they swish around behind the E1.
     
     
     
     
  9. Barry Ten
    Having tackled the sides, now comes the time to assemble them into a body. First we need a couple of ends. These are an excellent design and very easy to make, being just a single etch which then folds up into a self-locating component for both the chassis and the sides.
     
    Here's one such end (they're handed, so need to be at the right end of the coach!) with two nuts soldered in place as was also done with the bogie mounts. One very nice bit of design is two small
    tabs which fold down either side of the base plate, which in turn locate into slots in the turn-under at the base of the coach side.
     

     
    These tabs help align the ends and sides very nicely:
     

     
    Ignore the fact that I've tinned the underside of the base plate: a mistake on my part and not needed.
     
    Now to begin soldering the whole lot together. There's no getting around the fact that this is slightly fiddly but there's no limit on the number of tries you can have - the worst that happens is that you clean off the solder and have another go. I find that these locating tabs are a good place to start, so with the side and end held in alignment (I go by eye, rather than using a jig) I tack solder the tab, If this is looking good, I then apply another tack at the cant-rail level, before finishing off with a strengthening fillet of solder all the way down the join.
     
    With these coaches, the ends have to tuck between the sides - other kits may vary.
     
    Here's a soldered side and end:
     

     
    Now repeat for the rest of the coach. There are several possibilities here: you could solder up a pair of side-ends and then solder them together, or an end-side-end to which a side is then fixed. I've no idea which is best, but for these kits I've had no problem making a side-end-side, and then soldering the other end in last. Check for squareness and parallel-ness as you go, but you should be fine - I found that they were a breeze, probably due to those clever alignment tabs.
     
    It's very satisfying to complete the body - suddenly what were a bunch of flat, flimsy bits of brass have structural integrity and are beginning to look vaguely like a coach! Happy days!
     

     
    In the above pic, the method of mounting the body to the chasis should be apparent. Bolts go up through the slots in the chassis, into the retained nuts in the base plates at either end of the body. Comet use an identical system and it works well since the mounting points are usually in the toilets or vestibules, well out of the way of any interior stuff you might want to add. The ionly snag I found with the Roxey arrangement, and it's a minor one, is that the slots in the chassis all needed elongating out toward the buffers.
     
    Now the body can be test-mounted to the chassis. During the chassis assembly, a few tabs and castings will have protruded up above the solebar level and may interfere with a good, snug fit of the body, so these need to be filed back to a level surface.
     
    I haven't yet bolted the body on in this shot, but I couldn't resist seeing how the corridor third will look within the formation.
     

     
    Again, I hope this has been useful and I look forward to cracking on with the remaining tasks.
     
    Cheers!
  10. Barry Ten
    With the bogies and chassis more or less done, work turns to the body sides. There's nothing particularly tricky here, it's just 
    all a bit time-consuming and I split the work below across two evenings.
     
    Here are the two etches for the sides, with the lower etch showing the droplight windows soldered into position. I don't have
    any magic solutions for this job, which is a bit tedious! The droplights must be positioned looking at the coach from the outside,
    or else they can end up a bit off-centered or askew. Once positioned, they need to be soldered in from the other side, which entails
    turning the etch over and keeping the dropliight from moving around in the process. I tin the area where the droplight will go,
    position it, flip over, hold the droplight in place with some convenient tool such as a  wooden peg, apply flux and a dab more solder
    and go for it! Then rinse and repeat for all the other droplights, on both sides. Of course if a droplight ends up seriously out of
    register, it must be unsoldered and repositioned. I usually model one or two per coach in lowered position, which helps add a touch
    of life to the finished model.
     

     
    With the droplights attended to, the next job is to solder the ventilators onto the front of the coach side - a slightly easier job as at least you don't have to solder in from behind. Again, I tin the area and aim to apply flux  (and possibly a tiny amount of additional solder) to sweat the  ventilator into position. I've seen much neater work than my own but it can be cleaned up quite satisfactorily. The main thing is to keep the vents nice and horizontal. A peg is too large to hold them in place and allow the iron to get in, so I position them with the tip of a fine file. It's a small enough contact area not to result in any loss of heat.
     
    Incidentally I've found that if I solder in the vents first, then do the droplights, there's a tendency for the vents to un-solder. So now I prefer to do t.e droplights first, then the finer work of adding the vents.
     

     
    Next we move onto forming the coach profile.
     
    A right angle fold needs to be made along the lower edge of the side, and the instructions suggest making this after forming the tumblehome. My preference is to begin forming this fold, as shown below, then attend to the tumblehole, then complete the fold. For some reason I seem to get a crisper result that way. Again this is made with the Hold and Fold tool.
     

     
    Now onto the tumblehome, which is not pronounced on these coaches. I've had some goes with rolling bars, but for these models (perhaps because of the horizontal waist panelling) I find I'm very comfortable just forming the curve with gentle finger and thumb pressure, working along the side gently and making only small tweaks. Use the end etches as a reference for when you're getting near the desired profile. It doesn't need to be spot-on as soldering the side to the ends will take care of any minor deviations in the curve..
     

     
    And here's the finished side, with the tumblehome formed, the lower fold completed, and another fold made in the top of the etch.
     

     
    The profile is just about visible here:
     

     
    That's it for now. There are still some details to be added - door hinges and commode handles - but these can be attended to after the sides are assembled onto the ends.
     
    Cheers!
  11. Barry Ten
    As mentioned in the previous entry, I promised to document the building of my next Roxey coach kit in a series of photos, so here goes.
     
    The first thing is to have a look at the contents of the kit, in this case an LSWR corridor third. Most of what's in the box is here, except
    for a few castings and bits related to the corridor connectors, which I won't be using.
     

     
    The etches are excellent and well laid out, with no issues encountered in separating any of the bits from the fret.
     
    Note the two bogie etches. I like to start with the bogies as they can be a bit repetitive to do, so good to get out of the way. In
    addition, it's nice to have the bogies good to go when the rest of the coach comes together.
     
    I separated one of the bogie etches and removed the etched washers included within the same component. I haven't
    found them necessary with these kits but they're useful enough to go into the spares box.
     
    Step one is to punch out the etched rivet detail on the bogie sides:
     

     
    In this exciting action shot I'm using my new riveting tool. It's a pin-point Gibson axle in a pin-chuck, being tapped lightly with a small hammer. Crude, but it works!
     
    The next step is to solder in top-hat bearings. I think the ones I'm using are Romfords - I bought a bulk pack of several hundred. The holes in the etch are perfecr
    as they come, so no need to ream them out at all. I just tin the area around the hole with sole 145 solder, drop the bearing in, apply some more flux, then touch the
    iron to the etch, adjacent to the bearing. The brass gets hot very quickly so a clothes peg comes in handy for manipulating the work.
     

     
    The next step is to fold up the etch. This is easily done using a small pair of pliers - no need for specialised bending tools (yet). The etched folds can be reinforced with more 145 solder. The Roxey bogie has brake shoes built into the etch that just need folding down - fine by me and a lot quicker than the Comet ones, where the brake shoes have to be soldered in separately. I dab a bit more solder onto the brakes to reinforce the folded joint.
     
    With the etch folded, I'm also tinning the outside (and part of the inside) in readiness for adding white metal castings. Hopefully you can see where I've smeared a layer of solder around the area where the axlebox castings will go.
     

     
    Onto the axleboxes! These are invariably a pain because I've yet to find a set of castings where the hole in the back of them is deep enough to sit over the protruding bearing. The hole needs therefore to be deepened, and possibly widened, which I find to be a fiddly job. I use a drill in a motor tool, not turning too quickly or it'll heat up the casting, and then just go at it carefully. With these Roxey castings, I always seem to break through the side of one or two of the axleboxes. However, it's easily attended to with a dab of filler later on. The castings with this coach were a bit better than some of the ones in the previous two, although I still needed to drill them out. I see no reason that the holes couldn't be cast to the adequate clearance to begin with, but it seems to be a universal thing that they're undersized or not there at all!
     
    On with the castings:
     

     
    For these, we're soldering white metal to brass. Provided we've tinned the brass with normal solder. there'll be no problems. I dial my Weller soldering iron down to 6 (its maximum) to 4, and then let it cool for a minute or so. Then - using the same flux, but low-melt solder - I can solder the castings to the tinned area. A spring casting has to go behind the bogie frame on each side, and the method is the same.
     
    A footboard has to be soldered on as well (not shown). In this case we're soldering a brass part to a white metal part but the methodology is the same - just make sure the contact area of the brass part is tinned.
     
    Switching between high and low temperature settings makes for inefficient modelling, so once you get into the swing of it, you soon try to do as many jobs at one temperature before dialling up/down.
     
    With the bogie completed, the appropriate wheelsets can be sprung in very easily. I prefer this to the all-white metal type of bogie where the wheels have to be trapped in the bogie as you're building it, and are then difficult to swap. I use bog-standard Hornby coach wheels, by the way. They roll really well, are affordable, and stay on the track!
     
    Hope this has been of interest. I'll try to post another installment soon.
     
     
     
     
  12. Barry Ten
    In the last entry I dealt with the assembly of the Roxey Mouldings bogies. Having built and finished the pair, it's time to move onto the underframe. There's no set order here - you could just as easily build the body next - but I always feel I'm getting somewhere when I've got something that can be trundled down the track.
     
    The first job is to separate the main underframe etch from the sheet and remove the droplight window frames which are included as part of the same unit, which went into the two rectangular gaps you see here. Next, two folds have to be formed in either side. I've had a Hold and Fold tool for about 10 years and find that it makes this kind of job so much easier.
     

     
    This is the underside of the etch, with the half-etched lines in the inside of the intended fold. As you can see the coach is just about at the limit for the size of my Hold and Fold if the job is to be done in one step. For a longer fold, I start the bend, work along a bit, start it a bit more, hopefully ending up with something reasonably crisp.
     
    Note the very clever design of the bogie bolsters, which are ingeniously simple to set up.
     
    Moving om (below) I've completed most of the main work on the underframe. There's nothing worth dwelling over here, as it all just fits quite nicely. Footboards have been soldered along both sides using slot and tabs for location, and battery boxes, brake gear and trusses have been added. There's another battery box on the etch which I may need to add. Being just 3-sided boxes, it will probably be an idea to add a forth side using scrap etch or plastikard, althoigh I imagine it will all look all right once painted black and lost in the gloom. I make no claims for the neatness of my soldering; it is what it is but it gets the job done and evething looks fine under a coat of primer.
     
     

     
    Now onto the bogie mountings. As mentioned, the folded-up design is excellent. The only remaining job is to solder a nut onto the top of the bolster:
     

     
    This is achieved by first tinning the area where the nut is going to sit, then positioning the nut over the hole using a cocktail stick jammed through it. Reapply flux and solder with a hot iron and you should see the solder form a nice cusp around the base of the nut.
     
    Depending on the position of the nut relative to the hole in the floor, and any solder that may have wicked into the thread, you may find it difficult to put a bolt back through. Rather than force it (which usually only gets you into worse trouble) it's best to re-tap the nut. Taps and dies were a mystery to me until a few years ago, but I bought a small set from Maplins and then had a mate give me a tutorial. Here the tap is being gently eased into the blocked thread, using back and forth turns to allow it to bite into the brass and solder than clear the waste, before proceeding. My set was metric but I found an online chart with gave metric to imperial equivalents for various threads. As it happens, I've only ever used the one tap, but you never know when the others will come in handy.
     

     
    Tapping is very satisfying because the bolt will now go into the nut with no resistance.
     
    There are four more nuts to be tackled like this when we get to the coach body, but that's for next time.
     
    cheers!
  13. Barry Ten
    Over the weekend and Monday evening I pressed on with a bit more work on the Roxey Mouldings coaches I've been making.
     

     
    As covered earlier, the first of these is a brake third which I mostly finished last year, and the one on the right is a composite which I've made in the last week or so. Weirdly, the composite went together without any head-scratching, whereas I had to resort to a bit of guesswork with the brake. I was puzzled as to why this should be the case do decided to have a closer look at the contents. It turned out that the brake had been packed with the wrong instructions! Obviously they were still mostly relevant or I'd have been all at sea but I thought it odd that they made no mention of the corridor connections and left me in the dark with regard to the trussing arrangements. 
     
    Other than the fact that you need to raid the scrap box for a few vital bits (I think queen posts are part of the basic structure of a coach, so should be included in the parts, similarly with cornice and rain strips) these are very good kits that go together without any difficulty whatsoever. The parts all fit straight off the etch and there's no need for any fettling beyond trimming back locating tabs and maybe opening up a hole or slot a smidge.
     
    With the first one, I followed the guidelines about forming the tumblehome. This involves forming the tumblehome first, then making a sharp fold beneath it for the lip or ledge which abuts the chassis. As I was forming the latter, though, I found that the lower beading at the base of the tumblehome was starting to crease inwards. With the second one, I took the route of partially forming the ledge first, then forming the tumblehome, then going back and completing the fold for the ledge. This seemed to work a bit better so I'll try to keep it in mind for the next one! I'm perfectly happy with the brake but it's one area where I wanted to improve things on the next build.
     
    Both roofs are now fitted and fixed in place and I've begun detailing and final finishing.
     
    There are no seats so these will need to be provided. Again, I tend to feel that some provision for these should be in included in a kit, although I know that many kits don't. But the Comet, Slaters and PC kits I've made did include seats so I've taken that to be the norm. I think I might be able to get away with some very basic scratchbuilding as there just needs to be a hint of the seats' presence through the windows. They''re not like Centenary coaches where the interiors are easily visiblle.
     
    Hope this has been of interest to anyone looking at the Roxey range. They made some good albums as well.
     
    Cheers!
     
     
  14. Barry Ten
    The Fowler tank has been mostly completed, just needing a few details to be added/reinstated and then
    further testing before the addition of DCC control.
     
    The bodywork needed some attention. I reworked the entire rear bunker/cab-cutout to get a better/neater
    finish than had been on the original model. This entailed respraying and relining the bunker, and since I
    was about it, i also attended to some areas of bad or missing lining on the tank sides. I'd used HMRS pressfix
    lining when I did this original conversion in the 90s, and for consistency (and since it was all I had in stock)
    I carried on with it.
     

     
    I also took the opportunity to put on the earlier BR emblem, and when I redid the bunker numbers, i went up a size compared the originals, as they were slightly too small.
     

     
    Still to be added are wheel balance weights, sandpipes, cylinder drain cocks, and the usual buffer beam gubbins.
     
    Summary: a fun, satisfying updating of an older model, and one that now runs nicely, thanks to the good design of the Comet
    chassis and the effortless performance of the DJH motor and gearbox.
     
    Going back in time to pre-nationalisation days, I've also been revisiting a loco that was mostly built last year, but still needed to be lined and finished.
     
    This SE&CR E1 class was made from the DJH kit and coincidentally uses the same gearbox/motor as the Fowler tank.
     
    The basic body colour was airbrushed last year, but I didn't have the mojo to tackle the lining until I'd got my eye back in by doing the Fowler. Having
    lined locos using a bow-pen, I'm still not where I'd like to be in terms of neatness and consistency, so for Southern lining of this type I fall back on
    the cheat of using LNER waterslide lining. This comes in white-black-white stripes (at least on the Modelmaster sheets I use) so is fine for boiler
    bands but not for cab. tender and so on. But, it can be easily adapted by applying it as it is, and then cutting back the unwanted extra white
    line by use of a fine brush loaded with black, a bow-pen (easier than doing the main lining) or even a permanent marker.
     

     
    There are still a few things to do on the E1, such as front guard irons, and I've only numbered it on one side as my HMRS sheet ran out! But at least it's on
    the way to looking finished. I've since added lamp irons and buffer beam detailing.
     
    Finally, progress on a short rake of LSWR corridor coaches, from the Roxey Mouldings kits. I've got three to build, and then the option of buying a second, ,mirror-image brake
    to form a typical LSWR 4-coach fixed formation. These will be in unlined malachite as I simply don't have the skill to do Southern passenger lining to my satisfaction, much as they
    would look nice in olive. But, hey, malachite looks nice as well.
     
     

     
    Cheers, all.
     
  15. Barry Ten
    I'm surprised to see how long it's been since I've posted a blog update - doesn't time fly? Thinking back, a lot of the modelling I've done
    in the last few months either hasn't been very exciting (wiring, ballasting, tidying up fascias, that kind of thing) or hasn't been relevant
    to the blog (Mustangs, radio control etc). Not that that's stopped me before!
     
    As an attempt at something vaguely relevant, I thought I'd post a few shots of the current project, which is the provision of a new Comet chassis
    for an elderly Hornby Fowler 2-6-4T 4P locomotive, to be followed by some remedial work on the loco body.
     
     
    The story behind this model is that I've had it for about 40 years, since its original release in around 1980. Mine never ran terribly well,
    alas, being grindy and prone to stalling, and with a pronounced waddle. It was in LMS red livery which was very well applied, but when
    I returned to the hobby in the 90s, I set about updating all my older models to BR condition, and so the 4P was modified and repainted
    and relined in black. The mods consisted of filling in the rear cab cutout,, which was altered on the real locos under Stanier's tenure,
    adding outside steam pipes, and a few other details. I also added extra pickups to the chassis, but it was still not a great runner.
     
    With the old-style open frame motor, I considered it not a good candidate for DCC (aside from the running qualities) so a few years
    ago I acquired a Comet chassis kit for this class of engine. Getting the wheels then took another year or two as there has been a problem
    with Markit's supply.
     
    Last week I made a start on the basic chassis:
     

     
    It looks very weird without the other wheels and gubbins but importantly it works and was already a better, quieter runner than the original! The motorgearbox, by the way, is a DJH AM10 with 50:1 gearing. It's more than enough for my layout but as these things could get up to 80 MPH, a 40::1 gearset might also be appropriate.
     
    The next step was to add pony and bogie wheels - already looking a bit more presentable:
     

     
    In this condition I did some extensive testing and found that the model ran quite reliably once I had a bit of weight in the body. A slight tendency to derail was cured by adding more weight in the smokebox.
     
    It was then time to start adding cylinders and motion:
     

     
    In this picture, the cylinder etches are in place, with slidebars added, but nothing else. However, it's enough to establish that there aren't going to be any clearance issues with the moving parts. There's ample room for the crossheads not to foul the coupling rods, and the bogie swing is unaffected by the cylinders.
     
    One thing I did do, to help with clearance, is to file a rebate into the front of the double-later coupling rod, so that the first crankpin washer is able to sit a bit nearer to the wheels than the second and third  one. Once soldered on, the crankpin washer was also filed down as far as II dared, while still enabling it do its job. However, as mentioned, the clearance turned out to be generous. As a note, I also added one fibre washer to the front axle to restrict the side-play to the minimum.
     
    Then into the fun zone!
     

     
    Connecting rod and cross-head (with drop link) fitted. I do this one side at a time and test thoroughly before carrying on. With these Comet slide bars, I make up the slide bars as per the instructions, then do a minimum of fettling on the slidebars themselves. The crosshead, instead, gets all the major attention with files, until it's free to move the entire length of the necessary travel with no resistance. Any slight stickiness at this point tends to vanish with a drop of lubrication. Note that the connecting rod is unconstrained on the center axle, but the model runs quite happily in this condition.
     
    The lost wax crossheads are supplied over-long so need to be trimmed to length. I've learned the hard way to take this slowly, nibbling away a bit at a time, rather than ending up with a crosshead that's too short!
     
    Onward:
     

     
    In this image, the front bit of the valve gear has been fitted and tested, but the return crank is still be assembled. Again, it's a question of testing one bit at a time. Valve gear isn't that hard to assemble, compared to its reputation. The trickiest bit is settling on a preferred method to articulate the moving bits, be it rivets or soldered pins. My first two sets of valve gear were rivetted, because I couldn't get to grips with the pin method (mostly because I was being thick - see footnote below!, but the pin method turns out to be much quicker, easier and is more easily reversed if a problem occurs. With Comet gear. as here. there shouldn't be any snags because it's all well designed and works as intended. I didn't have to adjust, shorten, lengthen or do much more than adding a few subtle bends to aid clearances.
     
    The only thing where valve gear can cause a little trouble, I've found (and bear in mind I've only done five sets) is that the connecting rod can snag on the ends of the slidebars when the wheels are at 6 or 12 o'clock, or indeed both. This can be solved by a combination of adding a slight but barely detectable bend to the connecting rod, near the crosshead joint and/or filing or very slightly bending the ends of the slidebars. The desired clearance only has to be a tiny, so sometimes only a tweak is needed to get it all running smoothly. In this case I added a slight bend and then filed the backs of the skidebars - but really only minimal work.
     
    What's the white thing at the front? It was pointed out on Wright Writes that the ride height appeared to be somewhat high. So I made a jig set for the 8'6" boiler pitch, and the lower edge of the horizontal bit should line up with the midline of the boiler -- which is doesn't! After some discussion, it appeared to be the case that the Comet frames make life a bit difficult in this regard, so some modification needed to be done to lower the cylinders a smidge and get the body sitting as low as possible.
     
    Over the next couple of days I worked to reduce the body height as much as possible, within my means, while also plugging on with the rest of the valve gear:
     
     

     
    The valve gear is now complete and working. No hitches were encountered, but as always, the last major bit - fixing the return crank. rod and associated gubbins to the motion bracket, was a pain! It's not hard, just fiddly and swear-inducing. At least with this loco, the return crank doesn't get anywhere near the other moving parts, so no further tweaking was required and I was pleased with how smoothly the valve gear worked as assembled.
     

     
    And finally, a coat of paint begins to help it all look a bit better:
     

     
    However, we're not done! Work now turns to the body. When I upgraded this model to late LMS/BR condition about 25 years ago, I didn't do a great job of filling in the rear cab cutout
    or of applying the lining, so some remedial work is needed. Whether it will amount to a complete repaint and relining--job is up for grabs but at the moment I'm hoping to do some patch
    repairs, as the BR black is nicely applied. Compared to the earlier photos, you'll notice how the entire outer layer of varnish and weathering has been largely removed - mostly because it
    was coming away anyway, just by handling! I removed the rest with a cotton bud and alcohol. I've no idea which varnish brand I used at the time, but it obviously wasn't very durable. Hiwever,
    no bad thing in the long run...
     
    Hope this has been of interest so far and I'll aim to post an update on the body mods in due course.
     
    Cheers!
     
    Footnote: regarding rivets versus pins, I couldn't get pins to work for the following reason. I was thinking of forming the joint between two moving parts in an analogous manner to a rivet, which retains the two pieces but isn't fixed to either of them. What i didn't realise was that a pinned joint can (and must!) be soldered to one of the two moving parts. As soon as as I got my head around that, and stopped trying to form a soldered blob onto the pin without it being attached to either moving part, it all became a lot easier! Just use a paper space between the two bits of valve gear, plenty of flux, a hot iron, a dab of solder, and get in and out fast, and it works! The pins need to be genuine brass dressmaker's pins - I got a lifetime's supply from ebay for a few quid.
     
     
     
     
     
  16. Barry Ten
    Over the last few years I've dipped in and out of a very long-term project to create an 8-car Western Pullman set. As the model is now close to completion, and there is interest in the 6-car WR sets due to Bachmann's new version of their original Midland Pullman, I thought it wouldn't hurt to do a bit of a recap of the story so far.
     
    Back in 2007 there wasn't any hint of an RTR Blue Pullman on the horizon from any of the manufacturers, with most commentators of the view that it would be too expensive a project to be feasible. There was supposedly a kit in development, but that never came to anything, leaving only two real options for creating a realistic consist; either hunt down the rare Kitmaster models, or adapt the Tri-ang mouldings. I don't know how easy it is to get hold of the Kitmaster versions, either unassembled or assembled, but I've certainly not seen them come up on ebay in any great quantity, if at all. whereas the Tri-ang bits are (or at least were) a little easier to obtain, especially if one wasn't fussy about the condition. As is well known, the motor cars were made in greater quantities than the parlour firsts, but I still found that I could hunt down enough parlour cars to make my conversion feasible. I also noticed that, once the Bachmann models came out, I started seeing parlour cars pop up at more affordable prices in swapmeets, although by then I had enough for my purposes - in fact, more than enough.
     
    The key to the creating an 8-car rake is the use of Southern Pride etched window inserts, which are an excellent product. They just fit into the existing window recess left behind by the removal of the flush glazing/window part on the Tri-ang cars. There's a minor catch: when Tri-ang did the BP in the reversed blue grey livery, they altered the mouldings so that the windows were no longer a separate part. I didn't realise that at the time and ended up with a couple of the reversed livery coaches which initially looked as if they would not be suitable for the project.
     
    Here's a shot from earlier in the build (although still many years after I started acquiring the bits) showing how the etched window parts drop into the recesses very neatly, helping to create one of the parlour seconds which go immediately behind the power car on the WR rake. A similar etch goes into the power car.
     

     
     
    In addition to the etched windows, the model also needs new bogies and replacement ends to rectify the deficiencies in the shape of the Tri-ang car.
    Here, I was very lucky to be able to order a complete set of castings from Chris Leigh, to whom many thanks are due. As it happened, I did eventually
    substitute a Genesis casting for the nose, feeling it was slightly cleaner than the Chris Leigh one, but I was very pleased to be able to pass on the
    two Leigh ends to another modeller who was also doing a BP, so they have been put to good use.
     
    What else? Two black beetles power bogies in the motor car, and fingers crossed that it would be sufficient to shift the whole rake! 
     

     
    I just kept adding cars and seeing how it ran. As it turned out, there seemed to be ample adhesion for the whole rake, so that was one less thing to worry about.
     
    Once the basic conversions were done, work moved onto the painting - by far the most fraught part of the whole job, and an exercise in tedium if ever one were invented. My initial plan had
    been to do the whole model in original Nanking blue, which is by far the easiest option, as the white bits follow the etched parts exactly. However, once the Bachmann model was out, I decided
    I'd move the model forward and do it in reverse blue and grey livery so that it would look a bit different. The catch, which I didn't properly appreciate at the time, is that the blue part has to wrap around the whole coach, so the left and right edges of the etches need to be disguised. This necessitated a lot of filling and sanding - a lot- followed by much grumbling as cracks and iimperfections kept appearing.
     
    It looks pretty smart in just grey, but as this shot shows, there was still a great deal of work ahead of me to get ride of seams and transitions between the etched areas and the rest of the coach.
     

     
    Gradually the major issues were resolved, though, and I could move onto the application of blue:
     

     
    Followed by yellow for the ends, the addition of glazing, and the start of the roofs being painted:
     

     
    I was glad when I got the glazing in as I found that this helped stabilise the whole assembly of the etched parts and coach sides, limiting a tendency for them to flex and crack around
    the filled areas and paint seams. Nonetheless, much touching in still needed to be done to get a reasonably crisp finish. It's at this point that you start appreciating the finish on the
    Bachmann model.
     
    In the last few weeks I've had the models back on the workbench with the intention of moving them to completion, or as near to complete as I can get them at the time. My objectives
    this time were to add DCC to the power car, and some form of internal lighting for the whole rake. Along the way I also looked closely at reliability of running, adjusting all wheel
    back-to-backs and moving to the use of Kadees for the couplings between vehicles, instead of the crude method I'd bodged for the initial testing. I found that body mounted Kadees
    were easily able to cope with 36 inch radius curves (possibly tighter in places) and close-coupling can be easily achieved since there are no buffers between the vehicles.
     
    For DCC, I hardwired in an 8-pin socket so that various decoders can be easily swapped in and out, as well as a blanking plug. At the moment there's no sound but I'm intending to add this feature in due course, perhaps using suitable Hornby TTS decoders to provide a generic diesel sound and two-tone horn, without getting too bogged down in high-end sound. After all,
    no one can go out and record a Blue Pullman now, so any sound is going to involve an element of interpretation and compromise.
     
    The interior lights were slightly more problematic. I didn't want to be reliant on on-board batteries so some form of reliable pickup was going to be essential, yet at the same time it couldn't be
    too draggy. I settled on ESU digital light bars which are easy to install and cut to length. Since I'd already built the bogies, I couldn't use any fancy pickup system such as the DCC Concepts wheels. so I had to make do with my own wiper pickups. I formed these out of .33mm wire which is springy enough to do the job, but doesn't impart too much friction. Each car has pickup from all eight wheels, but it still needed careful adjustment to get the necessary reliability, at the same as not impeding free-running. I did a half-rake with no problems, but as I started on the second half of the unit, the drag factor began to rear its head. However, after some careful adjustment and lubrication (the wheels, not me) matters were eventually resolved to the point where the rake could be moved easily and the lights remained flicker-free.
     

     
    Still to be added are front and rear lights which will again be decoder controlled.
     
    I ran into a problem trying to find suitable decals for the Pullman branding - perhaps the situation is easier now. Luckily, though, I found a supplier on ebay who provides replacement decals
    for the Tri-ang units and these proved ideal:
     

     
    There's still a few jobs to be done. The roof of the restaurant cars need extra details, for which Southern Pride offer some mouldings which I hope to be able to order. The tri-ang models all use the same underframe moulding which is fine for the power cars, not obviously terrible for the kitchen cars or parlour seconds, but far too busy for the parlour firsts. I made a start on "remixing" the Tri-ang parts (cutting away and relocating) to approximate the parlour first details but this has only been completed on one of the two coaches. It's not intended to be accurate but does help convey a sense of non-uniformity in the rake. The interiors also need further attention. All seats have been added (tedious) but the kitchen cars still need the "cooking" areas built up to some degree. I also evolved my way to a neater arrangement of internal wiring as I did each coach, so the earlier ones are due to be tidied up, followed by the addition of passengers.
     
    In the longer run, to get to the complete rake, I've "cheated"  and used the unmodified parlour firsts with their non-flush glazing. I have two of the earlier cars being repainted to provide a better appearance, but to be honest it's not the lack of flush glazing that jumps out at me so much as the variation between the Railmatch colours and tri-ang's versions of them. So perhaps the existing cars will continue to be used, after a gentle respray... or I'll pull my finger out and finish the others. 
     
    For now, here's a shot of the complete rake showing how long it is, and perhaps demonstrating why an RTR version will always be unlikely:
     

     
    And here's a (very!) short clip of the complete rake running through the above scene:
     
     
    Thanks for reading, and hope this has been of interest - and of course, happy new year to all.
  17. Barry Ten
    Another brief offering of blue diesel action, since the first seemed to go down well.
     

    Heljan Hymek D7036 on the parcels service, which has gained a bit of weathering since the last set of shots. Blue sits well on Hymeks, doesn't it, especially with the white window surrounds. What fine looking diesels these were.
     

     
    Meanwhile the 08 potters about in the yard with a pair of conflats. I've no idea if these containers persisted into the blue diesel era, never mind the TOPs era, so happy to be told if they're a bit too old. for the setting.
     
     

     
    Finally, Western Ranger sweeps into King's Hintock with a rake of Bachmann Mk1s, close-coupled using Keen system couplers. The Heljan Westerns are good, reliable models in my view. I've modified the brow shape on one, but not this example, but it'll get the treatment eventually. Also still to be fitted are the brake gear, which does make a difference. The garish backscene is in the early stages of being worked on - it'll get a bit less vibrant in due course.
     
    The etched greenhouse and associated potting shelves is by Severn Models and is a very nice kt.
     
    Hope this has been of interest, more to follow soon.
  18. Barry Ten
    When the pre-production models of the Bachmann Blue Pullman appeared, I thought that the Tri-ang model held up pretty well in terms of the basic body shape and detailing. One area where the Bachmann model particularly impressed me, though, was the detailing around the power bogies, with the brake pull rods very finely modelled.
     
    My model uses Chris Leigh castings for the bogie frames, which are fine in themselves but omit any representation of the brake gear:
     

     
    Note how there not only isn't any brake gear, but nothing at all in the void between the bogie frames.
     
    Once the model was painted, the black frames didn't look too bad but I still felt that the brake gear was an important element which was missing:
     

     
    I therefore decided to see if I could add a representation of the brake gear using some low-tech bodging! There are six power bogies in the train (although on the real thing only the inner four actually had traction motors!)  the work needed to be achievable without being too time-consuming or fiddly.
     

     
    After some thought I came up with a simple scheme to detail each bogie using various bits of plastic card. The brake pull rods are 1mm square section, cut to 22mm lengths and bonded directly to the bogie frames using cyano. Once in place, they're very firmly attached. The cross members are 1mm plastic rod, cut so that they are a snug fit between the pull rods, followed by solvent and cyano. Before fitting in two place, two brake hangers are attached to each cross rod - these are just rectangles of 0.5mm plastic card with a 1mm hole drilled in their ends. Once this whole lot had set firmly, the last step was to add small triangular bits onto the brake hangers to represent the brake shoes themselves. Finally, on the front and rear power bogies only, I added a representation of guard irons - another detail which stands out on the Bachmann model.
     
    Once painted, the additional details add a bit more presence to the power bogies:
     

     

     
     
    Hope this has been of interest and thanks for reading.
  19. Barry Ten

    Blue diesel interlude

    By Barry Ten,

    Although the layout's supposedly set in GWR days, I'm not only content to run it in BR steam days, but also to push the clock forward to the blue diesel era - within a very loose timeframe that allows for hydraulics, pullmans, TOPS-coded diesels and Railfreight-era wagons to sit comfortably (or not) together. Even the odd sectorisation or green diesel may squeak in.
     
    Here a few snaps from tonight's running session, hopefully providing a change from the usual staples of Castles and Kings!
     

     
    A Bachmann Class 47 on a parcels train.
     

     
    As the parcels service arrives in King's Hintock, a Hornby 08 potters in the yard with some Dapol cement wagons.
     

     
    Before long a Bachmann Class 37 arrives with some Parkside Railfreight wagons in tow.
     

     
    It's a demotion to mineral duties for this once-proud Class 43 Warship. Going out in style, though, as the blue rather suits these locos, I feel. This Bachmann model was a troublesome runner that has been transformed with the addition of new pickups.
     

     
    The local heritage bus operator didn't get the memo to bring out something more in keeping with the period. The truth is, I can tune out the incongruous scenic elements when running the models but the camera is crueller...
     

     
    We close this interlude with the arrival of the Western Pullman service - once the future, soon to be the past! I doubt that that cattle dock would still be there by 1973.
     
    Hope this has been of interest, in a light-hearted way, and more will undoubtedly follow.
  20. Barry Ten
    Some LEDS were ordered over Christmas and once they arrived I set about adding front and rear lights to the power cars.
     
    Here's a grisly shot of the internal wiring - can you tell it's still at the prototyping stage? I'll tidy it up once I'm satisfied that the
    wiring is complete.
     

     
    It's not as complicated as it looks! Somewhere in that tangle is an 8 pin DCC socket so any decoder (or blanking plug) can be swapped in and out in seconds. I made all the lighting connections to the wires leading away from the socket, so again there's no need to tamper with the decoder wiring itself. Up front is a light cluster of three warm-white LEDS, with two arranged to shine through the main lights, and the middle one (lit in this shot) arranged for the reversing light. These lights are controlled by function 0 and reverse automatically with the direction of the train:
     

     

     
    i used translucent red to tint the middle LED  - it could still benefit from a few more coats. Another option would have been to order a red LED! By the way, these are all pre-wired with resistors so they can be used without any modification. I used 5mm types but 3mm ones would have worked perfectly well.
     
    In order to produce a lens effect, I drilled right through the front castings and then added a dab of that clear glazing solution to each light. A lot of work was then spent light-blocking the interior to prevent the light from the LEDS shining into the cab and the bogie space. 
     
    As before, here's a short clip of the unit in action:
     
     
    Cheers!
  21. Barry Ten

    SE&CR E1 class

    By Barry Ten,

    A minor update on my E1 class - see earlier entries this summer - with the main body colour on:
     

     
    Initially I sprayed the model with black, then brush painted the olive green. I've had good results with that approach in the past, finding that a good sprayed base coat can provide a basis for a very nice brush-finished top coat, but in this case it was apparent that the quality of the finish wasn't heading in the direction I wanted. Unfortunately the black had gone on with a gritty texture in places, probably because I was trying to eek out the last few squirts from the bottom of the can.
     
    So, out with the stripper. Recently I've found this stuff to be excellent for this purpose:
     

     
    It can be applied very easily with a cotton bud or similar and is much easier to work into fiddly areas than the thicker type of plastic-compatible stripper
    I've used in the past. It also works very quickly, enabling a model to be stripped and repainted in hours rather than needing an overnight treatment. In
    this case the body is metal, so (presumably) any paint stripper would have been OK, but I've used this stuff on plastic as well without problems.
     
    With the main mass of paint removed, the body was immersed in an ultrasonic bath just to loosen the last few bits and then cleaned and re-primed
    with Citadel Black. Once it had dried, I then airbrushed the main colour, which is Railmatch light olive. More by luck than judgement, this is the
    Ashford shade of olive so correct for the SE&CR. However, honesty compels me to admit that it's just the shade I happened to have in stock.
     
    The green went on well but came out too matte, which I think is due to it being over-thinned, so once I was happy with the colour density I then
    sprayed a top coat of varnish on, to act as a base for the subsequent lining. Hopefully that'll be the next step.
     
    Cheers!
     
     
     
     
     
  22. Barry Ten

    LSWR brake coach

    By Barry Ten,

    At Railwells a year or two ago, I picked up two Roxey Mouldings kits for LSWR 56 foot corridor coaches. I've just acquired a beautiful Blacksmith kit for an S&DJR coach so I thought, rather than dive in with that, I would crack on with the LSWR coaches as a warm-up exercise. This has turned out to be a good idea as although they come from different manufacturers, the coaches look to be of very similar design.
     
    I've started with the brake coach of the LSWR set, and this was the progress after a few nights. I started with the bogies, then did the sides (forming the tumblehome, then soldering on the ventilators and droplights, then forming the folded edges at the top and bottom).
     
    The chassis is a very simple fold-up design and went together quickly, at least in its basic form. The body and chassis could be then be temporarily bolted together.
     

     
    A couple more evening's work saw additional chassis parts in the form of buffers and battery boxes etc. I then soldered in the lower door hinges (one of those "was it worth it" jobs) as well as some end details. I then cut the vacuum formed roof slightly oversize and was able to clip it into place to get a sense of how it'll look when properly tidied up:
     

     

     
    A nice feature of the coach is these etched internal partitions which help add rigidity and support the roof. Helpfully, there are half-etched marks on the tops of the sides to aid location.
     

     
    So far so good - everything fits pretty well, barring the odd niggle. But there are no truss rods supplied, even though the instructions say that there should be brass section supplied. I wondered if it was a packing error, but both coaches are the same. There's also not much guidance about the corridor connectors. There seem to be enough etched parts to form a working scissors arrangement but there's no mention in the instructions and nothing to form the bellows. My plan is to wimp out and use the easier MJT bellows. The instructions were also very confusing about the bogies, seeming to refer to a different, compensated design than what's supplied. Fortunately, the bogie design was straightforward. One slight extra grumble - and this applies to just every etched/cast bogie kit I've seen - why are the holes in the backs of the axlebox castings never remotely deep or wide enough to fit over the brass bearings that need to be soldered into the main frames? Every one of these castings needed the holes opening out, a difficult, fiddly job with a small, vulnerable casting. 
     
    Anyway, I would have to say that these are rather nice kits other than the lack of the truss rodding (or chairs) but building a prototypical rake of four (they tended to run in set formations) will be quite time-consuming. I think I'll finish the first two and see how I feel!
     
    Cheers!
     
     
  23. Barry Ten

    Fun with Ratio coaches

    By Barry Ten,

    About ten years ago I came back from Warley with three Ratio Midland clerestory coach kits. My vague intention at the time was to paint and line them in full S&DJR blue livery, possibly with some minor modifcations to the bodies and roofs, just to have a semi-acceptable period-looking train to run behind my one or two S&D blue locomotives. However, time went on and I never got around to it. Eventually I decided that, if I were to go to the trouble of painting and lining a set of coaches, I would rather they were at least approximately right for the desired prototype.
     
    I therefore decided to finish the Ratio coaches in lined crimson lake as running in the LMS era, and set about painting the sides as a batch, while still on the sprue:
     

     
    The sides were brush painted with four thin layers of crimson, then allowed to dry properly before adding the yellow panel lining. This was done using gloss yellow enamel applied
    by bow-pen, neat from the tin. All the books on painting and lining say that more or less neat gloss paint should work properly through a bow-pen (unless there's a fault with the
    pen itself) and this proved to be the case. However, the paint only has to be a little off its freshness to not flow properly, and it's then that I find it very difficult to thin it back down
    to the right consistency. There is probably an argument for sticking to fresh bottles for lining.
     
    In the above picture, the lowest pair of sides has also had the black line drawn down the middle of the yellow - again after giving the yellow at least a day to harden. In this case
    I couldn't get acceptable flow from my bow-pen with my existing black gloss bottle, so I opted to use a 0.25mm Rotring pen. Personally I find using these pens a lot more intuitive
    than either a bow-pen or a Bob Moore lining pen; it's just a pity that they only take inks.
     
    The other four sides were treated similarly, and I then made a start on the assembly of the first complete coach, shown here with its roof loosely in position:
     

     
    Things were going spiffingly until I noticed something odd: all the black lining had disappeared! It turned out that just handling the coach had caused all the Rotring lines to rub off, presumably because, going onto gloss yellow, they hadn't had much to key on. Time for a cup of tea! I redid the lining, which wasn't all that harder even though the sides were no longer flat, and then went back over all six sides with a coat of satin varnish, applied carefully so as not to disturb the lining already present.
     
    Close-up of the lining at the end of the coach:
     

     
    I'm pleased with the overall effect from normal viewing distance, and it's certainly a lot better than my first attempt at lining one of these coaches, in my teenage years.  Now progress must wait as I want to add some seats and passengers before (regrettably) having to fix the roof in place. However, I am very happy with the batch-production method of doing these, and will be taking a similar approach with some LNWR coaches from the same stable.
     
    While I was in painting and lining mood, I also tackled this Ratio GWR four-wheeler composite, seen next to the brake third I built a couple of years ago. These are on the Mainly Trains etched chassis. I think there's something a bit doubtful about the overall relationship between footboards, solebar and coach sides but there is possibly some scope for getting the bodies to sit a bit more snugly onto the chassis. In the meantime, though, I need to finish two more of these coaches.
     

     
    This is what operating Wenlock's llayout, and reading Mikkel's blog, does to a chap.
  24. Barry Ten

    94XX finished

    By Barry Ten,

    A couple of snaps of my just completed 9449. The camera has cruelly picked up a couple of fingerprints in the weathering which I certainly didn't notice on the model, but will be attended to!
     
    Note also the absence of rivets on the cab step on the lower photo, which was fabricated in plastic since the tatty model I bought second hand didn't have one. I think I'll add some rivets ... so, er, not really finished, strictly, but then they never are.
     
    Cheers!
  25. Barry Ten
    Purists, look away now...
     
    The Triang-Hornby Class 37 was a favorite model of mine as a kid, stemming from a Christmas present around 1973 or thereabouts, and whenever I had a layout (we moved house a fair bit, so that wasn't always the case) the "Co-Co" diesel was always one I enjoyed running, usually at high speed, with an unlikely assortment of wagons and coaches hitched behind. It was in BR blue, numbered D6830, and I still remember the excitement of taking it in and out of its red box that Christmas. I wasn't the slightest bit interested in whether it did or didn't look like an English Electric Type 3: all I knew was that it was a Co-Co, not a Hymek or Dock Shunter. If there were other types of diesel, I didn't know about them. The model had a power bogie at one end with only two driven axles, the middle ones being represented by dummy wheels which didn't even touch the rails, whereas the other bogie had six wheels but they were plastic. The only pickup was from the two driven axles, meaning that the model had to be driven at speed to get over dead frog points.
     
    Later, tragically, the model suffered a crash to the floor and the power bogie fractured into several pieces. However my dad must have written to Hornby or sent off the Co-Co because a replacement power bogie was eventually forthcoming.
     
    Somewhere in the late 70s/early 80s I took the decision to repaint the model in BR green, presumably because being in blue, it didn't fit in with my burgeoning BR-steam era interests. The green paint was brush painted on, and then the letters, numbers and crests were hand-painted, as this was all I knew how to do at the time. At some later point I retouched the green around the hand painted bits and added HMRS lettering, a little crookedly but better than what was there before.
     
    Around 15-20 years ago, accepting the power bogie for what it was, I added metal wheels and all-wheel pickup to the rear, undriven bogie, but the result was still a bit hit and miss. In any case (as I couldn't help but notice) the bogies were the wrong type, had the steps in the wrong place, and I imagine it would be hard to convert the original power bogie to DCC. Beyond that, it wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding and my attempts at adding weight didn't make much difference.
     
    The model languished; I didn't want to get rid of it but I couldn't see an obvious way of getting it running again. I didn't fancy butchering a Bachmann or ViTrains chassis just for this, assuming either could be made be to fit.
     
    Enter Hornby's Railroad range, and the advent of a cheap and cheerful Class 37 chassis under the old Lima body. One of these was picked up at a very reasonable price, including TTS sound, and while it was a little juddery at slow speed, it was a heck of an improvement on the Tri-ang mechanism. Taking the view that it was the body of the Triang diesel that mattered to me, and which I'd invested time painting, I set about marrying the one to the other.
     
    The Railroad chassis was a reasonably straightforward fit to the 45-year old moulding, needing only the integral buffer beams sawn off at either end to give a snug fit. Inside the body, behind each door, are raised plastic mouldings which can be cut back a couple of millimetres higher to enable the body to sit reasonably low on the bogies. I also added a bit of extra weight as the Railroad chassis is really light as it stands.
     

     
    I wasn't planning to do too much to the body, but at a recent model show I snapped up a Puffers Class 37 detailing kit from a box of bits for only a few pounds, and this provided various castings, as well as etched window surroundings and new buffers. I thought that improving the windows might be a reasonably worthwhile job, especially if it could be done with only local retouching of the original paint. The existing windows were cut away completely and a large "letterbox" opened in the front, over which the etch was bonded. After fitting the etches, they were blended in with filler, sanded, and then over-painted to match the existing livery. At this point I also reduced the depth of the doors on the top of the bonnet, which seemed to stand a little too proud, this time by filing and then reinstating the top hinges with plastic strip. When I started touching up the paint, I initially used BR brunswick green but this was a poor match to the duller shade I'd used originally, so I tried DMU green instead and that was a virtually perfect match, as well as covering more easily. Once the paint was dry, the windows were re-glazed using clear plastic for the larger apertures and glue-and-glaze for the smaller ones. This took one night per end, as I didn't want to rush it.
     
    Buffers were then replaced, a screw-link coupling added and some of the buffer beam detail added using the castings. The other end of the loco will have a reduced amount of buffer detailing, but will be equipped with a Spratt & Winkle coupling hook. I don't plan to add one at the front as the loco won't ever be used for shunting or running around, just trundling through with a goods train. There are still a few things to be done - I will attend to the crooked numbers, among other things - but in all essential respects the Co-Co is now back in business, and I couldn't be happier. Of course if you want a Class 37 there are easier (and undoubtedly more accurate) ways of getting one, but I've grown up with this model, and it's still mine.
     

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