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Barry Ten

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Blog Entries posted by Barry Ten

  1. Barry Ten
    I've posted a few updates on my Blue Pullman project over the last couple of years, but I really thought I ought to get my a*se in gear and finish the thing! One of the sticking points (other than the boredom and laziness instilled by a very repetitive, drawn-out project) was a lack of suitable decals, but on a recent ebay search I found that suitable British Rail style "Pullman" lettering was now obtainable, so over the last weekend or two I've cracked on with some of the jobs that were still to be done. These included:
     
    Adding bogies to the trailing power car
     
    Completing glazing of all units
     
    Completing interior work on all units
     
    Tackling some of the underframe differences between units
     
    General tweaking of couplings etc to ensure reliable running
     
    It's not all done yet! I've begun reworking the underframe details, but I'm taking if carefully one set of vehicles at a time, and so far I've only made a good start
    on the parlour firsts. I've also still to add the kitchen car roof detail, as well.
     
    Nonetheless I am very pleased with the look of the semi-finished article, and it''s a relief to find that the power car has no trouble shifting the complete rake.
     
    This is the undriven end. At the moment a couple of raw Tri-ang bodies are standing in for the parlour firsts, while I finish the painting of the intended shells.
    There's nothing wrong with these Tri-ang bodies as they stand, except that they don't allow for flush glazing (unlike the earlier livery models, where the window
    inserts were a separate moulding) so for that reason I'n repainting the earlier Nanking blue shells.
     

     
    The driven end. I won't add the decals until I've finished the testing of the rake, as I don't want to handle it excessively once the decals are on.
     

     
    Cheers, all.
  2. Barry Ten
    Back in 2015 I posted a series of entries on building upgrading an old Airfix Prairie with a Comet chassis, and mentioned that a second Prairie was in the works:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/257/entry-16401-a-brace-of-prairies-one-down-one-to-go/
     
    It's taken a while, but the second one is now coming together, courtesy of the SE Finecast kit:
     

     
    The model uses the same wheels, motor and gearbox as the Comet one, so - all being well - they should be very similar runners. The Comet one (with its ESU
    sound decoder) has settled down to being one of my best-running locomotives, so the new boy has a fair amount to live up to. Whether it'll be be DC or DCC,
    though, remains to be decided, depending on the livery I finally apply.
     
    The chassis went together very easily except for the crossheads, where I had to deviate from the kit design in order to get enough clearance between the back
    of the crosshead and the leading crankpin. Once all was tested and adjusted, though, I was very pleased with the running. You'll note that the Finecast slidebars
    are set further apart than the Comet one, which makes life a bit easier as there's no chance of the connecting rod clouting the ends of the slidebars at top and
    bottom of each wheel rotation. Tonight I added the brake gear, which is one of those jobs I always find fiddly but immensely satisfying once done, as they lend
    and immediate presence to the chassis. One of the failings of the current Hornby model, other than that my two don't run particularly smoothly, is that the brake
    gear is very wimpy in appearance.
     
    Next I have to attach the pony truck. Fortunately, having the done the Comet one, I have a good guide as to how much material needs to be trimmed from the
    inside faces of the cylinders to enable the truck to swing.
     
    The quality of the body castings is top notch, and most fit with very little fettling. A bit of a contrast to the Gem 2-4-0T I did last year!
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/257/entry-18366-cambrian-2-4-0t-and-dean-goods/
  3. Barry Ten
    Before the announcement in 2015 of the Bachmann 94xx (which still hasn't appeared, nor appears to be anywhere imminent) I'd already gathered a spare pannier chassis and a cheap Lima body to add another of these locomotives to my fleet. Earlier this week it glared at me from the projects drawer and I thought it was time to crack on and finish it. It's the sort of job that really requires only basic modelling implements and skills - a rotary cutting tool, some knives and files, some filler, a few bits of plastic card, some drills and wire and a few patient hours. I've taken the black one to this state after just three evening sessions totalling about an hour each, so it's really not that arduous.
     

     
    Other than using a newer chassis, the work was very similar to the job done on the GWR 94xx seen in this picture. That one used a split-frame chassis, which is still offering good service ten years after the conversion, as is my other split-frame pannier, now pushing twenty years old.
     
    The Lima body breaks down into a footplate and a body moulding, and being able to separate them makes it quite easy to saw away the excess plastic needed to get the newer chassis to drop into the available space. It's not difficult, just requiring a bit of trial and error until the necessary space is made. The relation of wheel centres to splasher mouldings is not exact, but if you have to live with one of them being out of alignment, I prefer it to be the one under the cab, which is very unobtrusive to begin with. If it bothers you, it would be relatively easy to correct the cab-end splasher.
     
    Then begins the fun work of correcting the body errors on the Lima moulding, and replacing as many of the handrails as you desire. The main fault with the Lima model is the presence of steps on the driver's side of the cab, as well as some spurious handrails which should be absent on that side. Correcting these faults would be easy were it not for the presence of the rivet detail, which it's hard to preserve during cutting and sanding. On approach might be to lose the rivets completely as they are a little on the heavy side anyway. With the green one, I sanded them off then reinstated them with blobs of PVA, the success of which I think is debatable, but something I can live with.
     
    With the black 94xx, I'm trying a slightly different tack which is flood the inset steps with Mr Surfacer (as used by military modellers etc) and see how I get on. If it all goes to plan (which I'm sure it won't!) the Mr Surfacer should form a smooth layer which blends in seamlessly with the surrounding cab. In any case, it'll be a learning curve. Although it'll remain in black, I expect the model to need a repaint in any case.
     

     
    Also on the workbench this week has been the venerable 2721 class. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, it's now running with a Comet 57xx chassis in place of the Hornby original. There are lots of things not right with the 2721, and using the 57xx chassis is a bodge in that (among other things) the brake pull rods aren't the right type. The main outstanding issue, though, was that the front splasher was now badly out of alignment with the wheel. Finally summoning up the nerve, I reworked that whole area by sawing away the splasher, relocating it, and then building back the detail under the smokebox. Once I'd done that, I had a huge void under the tanks which needed addressing. The motor angle was adjusted slightly and a false boiler bottom fashioned from plastic tube of roughly the right diameter. I then added a suggestion of inside valve gear using plastic rod, only just visible but I know it's there.
     
    After all this, there's just enough daylight under the boiler to look convincing, I hope, albeit tricky to photograph:
     

     
    That's it for now. Happy bodging, one and all.
  4. Barry Ten
    Work on the revised track arrangement on the summer module continues at the usual stop-start pace. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wasn't satisfied with the initial tracklaying as done in July, so I later bit the bullet and lifted and reworked some of it. Unfortunately, after coming back from my holidays, I still wasn't happy with a couple of areas, where there were still unintended dips - not enough to cause running problems, or even all that obvious to the eye, but definitely enough to annoy me in the long-run. So, after a deep breath, a week ago I began lifting, relaying and re-ballasting about two metres of track on both the up and down running lines.
     
    Here's where we are now:
     

     
    The Castle is a good test locomotive as its long 4-6-0 chassis really seems to accentuate dips, so if the Castle looks good running over a particular bit, I take it as a good sign that the problem has been rectified. It was a real pain to relay some of the track twice, but I'm glad I did.
     
    The trackwork is mostly bullhead Peco, incidentally, with a small bit of C+L in the yard. There's been much discussion of Peco's new bullhead points elsewhere on the forum, and I certainly think they look very good and are a welcome development. In the end I decided to stick with Code 75 flat-bottom points for the crossing, though, as I felt that the bullhead points - even if they'd been available in the summer - would have shown up the slip and 3-way for what they are. I'm happy enough with the overall look, anyway, as I suspect it will be a long wait before more complex items like single slips join the Peco range. For this bit, I've experimented with a very light shade for the sleepers, rather than usual sleeper grime, and I quite like the understated contrast between the ballast and the trackwork. I've also made a start on disguising or reducing the impact of the Peco tie-bar mechanisms where practical.
     
    I had a couple of Dapol GWR starter signals on the layout, but I'm afraid I had real problems with reliability. So, rather reluctantly, I've gone back to making my own signals, starting with this combination starter and shunt signal, which was loosely inspired by a photo in one of Stephen Williams' books on GWR branch line modelling. The signal was bodged from a Ratio home and distant kit.
     

     
    Someone will tell me it shouldn't be where it is, or they'd never have used a shunting signal on a main line, but it works for me as it allows goods train to be stopped, and then to advance past the signal to the point where they can set back into the yard, which all adds to the play value. I haven't finished painting or detailing the signal just yet, though, as I'd like to add working lamps, and haven't quite worked out the best way to do it.
     
    The signal is constructed as a removable module using a base assembly made from thick plastic sheet, which drops into a slot on the layout:
     

     
    It's driven by two servos, which are in turn connected to a Megapoints servo control board, which will run up to 12 signals and has a fantastic bounce algorithm, which never quite repeats itself. Well, it does, but not so that you'll ever notice, as I understand there are over a thousand different bounces in the board. Dead easy to program, too.
     

     
    Since I will have at least four signals controlling the station area, I thought it would be fun to move to a more hands-on control arrangement, so I'm in the process of wiring up a set of DCC Concepts signal and point levers, which are very satisfying to operate.
     

     
    Ultimately the levers will be painted and numbered according to function.
     
    Finally, back to an engine:
     

     
    This 53xx mogul is an old favorite and was converted to DCC quite a few years ago. I was never happy with the decoder, though, as it was a Hornby one that offered little scope for adjusting the motor parameters. Last week I swapped it out (it'll be quite happy in another model) and added an ESU sound decoder for one of the smaller GWR 2 cylinder locos. There isn't much room in the tender, and it's still a tight fit getting a small speaker and decoder in, compared to a King or a Castle where there's bags of room. The running was a bit rubbish initially, worse than before, but I added some tender pickups and now it's fantastic. I can only guess that sound decoders are a bit more demanding in terms of pickup than bog-standard ones. These old Bachmann split chassis models get a bad rap, but the good ones I've got are all still nice runners, and I've put sound in a couple of them now and been very happy with the results.
     
    That's all for now - thanks for reading.
  5. Barry Ten

    New GWR footbridge

    By Barry Ten,

    Work has been progressing on the alterations to the station area, with more of the ballasting done. Still some tidying up and painting of rails and sleepers to be done, but it's getting back to where it was before the works begun.
     

     
    When I originally built the station area, I wanted to use the old Hornby GWR footbridge but I had a lot of trouble finding even a second hand example. I used the Ratio kit as a stand-in, but while it's a nice model, it's (I believe) based on a Southern prototype so never looked entirely at home to my eyes.
     
    Eventually I got hold of a second hand Hornby kit, and now that it's been re-released under the Gaugemaster brand, they should be much easier to find. Last week I made a start on building the kit, but with a few alterations. It needs to be lowered in height, but I also wanted to build mine with one of the staircases facing the other direction. Luckily, once you've started cutting it down, you end up with enough spare bits to make the job pretty straightforward, with some careful cutting and measurement.
     
    Some GWR examples had the area around the legs filled in as storage rooms, and I wanted to include this feature. After trimming the legs to height, plastic card was used to assemble the filled-in bit, using a handful of photos for reference and a large dose of guesswork. The legs should still be visible, so it's not enough just to remove them or sheet over them completely, at least in the examples I've seen. Perhaps it was done differently at some stations, though. Presumably it was a local alteration done according to the individual needs and resources available.
     

     
    Since the platforms are removable, the bridge has to be as well. I didn't want it just sitting on them, so the solution I came up with was to cut an area of the platform base away around each staircase, and then glue the bridge directly to these. The bridge can be blended into these bases but I don't think the eye picks up on the gap in the platform surface quite as easily as it would the tell-tale line around the base of the bridge, although you can easily see one of the gaps ahead of the lowest step in this picture.
     
    I also added lights to the bridge, but I've yet to wire them and see how they look under darkness. The bridge was painted using Railmatch light and dark stone shades and giving a light wash of weathering, and then the fun bit - adding lots of enamel signs!
     
    As for the old Ratio bridge, it'll be repainted in Southern colours and then hopefully find a use on the layout when I do my long-promised region swap.
     
    Cheers!
  6. Barry Ten

    LBSCR six-wheel van

    By Barry Ten,

    This LBSC van was constructed from the Branchlines kit, which I purchased at Railwells. I started it exactly a year later, prompted into pangs of guilt after returning from the next Railwells with another pair of kits. I felt it was time to make some inroads into the backlog.
     
    I didn't have a strong desire to built this particular vehicle for any reason but I felt it looked characterful and would be a good warm-up exercise if I wished to tackle some of the pre-grouping stock in the Branchlines and Roxey Mouldings ranges.
     
    The kit went together very nicely, with the exception of the underframe, where I really struggled to get the intended design to work. Ignoring the middle axle for the time being, the kit has a rigid axle at one end and a rocking compensation unit at the other. I'd built a GWR coach chassis based on this principle with no difficulties but the snag I hit here is that the rocking unit seemed - at least in my hands - to be too deeply etched, throwing out the ride height compared to the fixed end. There's no way to adjust it, so the only fix I could come up with was some major butchery of the underframe, creating a rebate and then mounting the rocking unit at a reduced level, and then having to fix it in rigidly since there was now no room for it to rock. This then created problems with the middle axle system which also needed to be altered. I'd like to think I made a stupid mistake, as otherwise the kit is very nice and I'd happily build another. On my 00 trackwork, not being compensated is not really an issue.
     
    I've omitted the roof vents and hand brake gear for the time being, pending some more research, as to where and if they should be fitted. It may be correct as it stands, for a given prototype early in the grouping.
     
    The model is now primed and will be receiving olive paint and yellow lining. I was (am) very tempted by LBSC colours, though.
  7. Barry Ten
    With the new track arrangement tested, I set about ballasting. Now, call me mad, but I quite enjoy ballasting. It's repetitious and mindless but it can be done in small steps and with each bit that's done, there's a palpable sense of progress.
     
    As mentioned, I'm not using Copydex again. I've gone to back to ye olde dilute PVA, applied using traditional methods. Because the track is laid onto foam, there's still some resilience even when the PVA's set, so I've not noticed any increase in noise compared to the earlier system. (Coming back to this, I noticed that there is some extra noise after all but it's still what I'd call tolerable. The advantage of PVA over Copydex for me is that it's neater to apply and control, and most importantly, durable after it's gone down).
     
    Nosing around the recent Warminster show, I was taken with the shade and texture of some Green Scene ballast so I bought a few packs and this is what I've used. It's not too far off whatever Woodland Scenics type I used before, so the two should blend quite nicely.
     

     
    I took extra care around the single slip and 3-way, as you'd expect. In fact, some of the fiddlier bits were fixed down using cyano-acrylate, dripped onto raw dry ballast. Once it's seeped in, it sets very hard but it's good for a very controlled application. I once spilled an entire bottle onto an area of track on Paynestown, and after it dried there were no ill-effects. My other way of doing fiddly bits is what I call the "porridge" method. Basically, you get a bit of card and dollop a fat blob of PVA on it. Then you sprinkle ballast onto the blob and stir it in until it forms a porridge-like texture. The resultant goop can be then be picked up on the tip of a screwdriver and manipulated into tiny spots and awkward areas like grout, and once it dries it's indistinguishable from normal areas of ballast. Because it's got some grout-like stiffness, too, it can be used to fill holes quite successfully, forming a layer over a cavity if need be. It's good for working near point mechanisms and any other areas where you want precise control of where the ballast goes.
     

     
    Even after all the care I thought I'd taken with the levels, I still wasn't happy with one of the lines running into the single slip, so after these pictures were taken it was lifted, relayed and re-ballasted! I reckoned I'd be happier fixing it now than living with it and eventually having to change it anyway.
     
    The mix of Peco bullhead, C+L and Peco pointwork is evident, but for me a satisfactory compromise. I'm debating whether or not to attempt adding some cosmetic chairs to the Peco points, unsure of whether the sleeper spacing will make them look silly, or whether they'll be an improvement on none at all?
  8. Barry Ten
    With the revised track arrangement in place and wired-up, I've been doing a lot of general tweaking, just to make sure all the levels are as spot-on as I can get them and that the transitions are nice and smooth.
     
    Over the weekend I re-instated the trailing connection to the yard from the "up" line, so now the yard can be shunted from both directions. But the proof would be in the pudding, as both instances would require propelling moves, one across the slip, and the other around a bend. I was cautiously optimistic it would all work without mishaps, but I was glad to be able to shunt some test trains without any derailments or buffer-locking. My goods trains are made up of stock coupled using a mix of Spratt & Winkles and 3-links, and it's the latter that are most likely to cause trouble.
     
    Here an up train pauses before continuing. To shunt the yard, it will run to the left, out of the visible scenery, through a ninety degree curve, into the Spring module, and then back up through a curved siding, formerly the head-shunt of the old yard. Any wagons can then be detached via magnets in the two sidings, one serving the goods shed and the other the cattle dock.
     

     
    Thankfully all was well, with a nice mixture of rolling stock hopefully offering a typical train. I'm sure there'll be the odd mishap in operating sessions, but they'll be attended to as they happen, just as on the real railway!
     
    A down train has to back over the single slip and into the yard via the 3-way. There's an uncoupling magnet on the main running line, so a train can be broken before the main shunting move, and then part of it left in the yard. Over the years I've rarely experienced any difficulties with having magnets on the main lines, since the inherent tension in a train tends to prevent unwanted uncoupling incidents. You just have to be careful not to stop with the couplings exactly over the magnet, unless you want to uncouple.
     

     
    I like this low-angle and look forward to re-ballasting the track.
     

     
    Thanks for reading!
  9. Barry Ten
    Over the last week I've been implementing some long-intended alterations to the track layout of the Summer module.
     

     
    The existing arrangement was entirely prototypical, in that it allowed "up" trains to set back into the goods yard, but there was no equivalent means for down trains to access the goods yard without a cumbersome run-round move. In reality (as I think Stationmaster confirmed at one point on this blog, or perhaps elsewhere), such a yard - be it on a branch or cross-country route - would in general only have been worked by up trains, with any wagons intended for "down" the line being moved on up to the nearest station that could remarshall them in the appropriate manner for a down service.
     
    Here are a couple of shots of the existing arrangement:
     

     


     
    I'd long felt that I was missing out on a bit of operational fun by not being able to shunt down trains, so I started thinking about adding a trailing link from the down line, via a single-slip and a 3-way turnout. Another factor in this desire was time spent playing with PMP's layouts, especially Albion Yard, with its interesting arrangement of points. As it stood, the Summer module only really had one truly visible point, with the others being mostly or entirely off-stage. Now, I didn't realise it at the time, but one of the enjoyable aspects of our hobby is watching engines and trains snake across pointwork, and I started to realise I was missing out on that aspect. Adding some more "on-stage" pointwork would definitely enhance the fun factor.
     
    Two other factors coming into play were that the track was not level in some places, due to my inexperience laying C+L, resulting in some dips between rail sections, as well as some stretches where there was an awkward lean to one side, scarcely noticeable in side-on photos but annoyingly apparent in end-on shots. I was also unhappy with the ballasting, which had been done using Copydex. For me, that's an experiment I'm glad I did, but one I won't be repeating! I found it too easily damaged after it had been laid, as well as hard to get as neat as I'd have wished. So, it's back to PVA for the second time round.
     
    One minor positive of the weakly-bonded Copydex ballast was that it was quite easy to lift. Once I'd cleared the relevant area, I began by installing the single-slip across the up line, as I felt that this would be the critical part around which everything else revolved. I then added the trailing point on the down line, trimming both the point and the slip to get a closer alignment between the up and down lines. Once that was thoroughly tested, I added the 3-way:
     

     
    The aim was to get a flowing movement across the slip and into the yard:
     

     
    Again, I tested this thoroughly, adjusting and filing rail joints until a Prairie tank was able to move smoothly through all the routes with no visible "twitch" of the pony wheels as they cross the sections. I was also satisfied that my Comet-chassis Pannier was able to traverse the routes at a crawl, despite the diverging route on the slip being (I think) a bit tighter than my ruling minimum of 30 inches elsewhere.
     
    Inevitably all this work has meant that the sidings need realignment as well, but again I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the tracklaying in several areas so it's worth the pain of lifting and re-laying. In the photos above you can see how the track has been loosely aligned before continuing with the work. The new bullhead is all Peco, by the way, simply because it's easily available, but I wouldn't say there's any great advantage or disadvantage over the C+L: both are pretty flimsy compared to "standard" Peco flexible track and demand careful handling. These rails pop out of the chairs if you so much as glance at them!
     
    I will admit that one final motivation for all this work has been admiring the absolutely gorgeous track and ballasting on Stoke Courtenay, which in my view is one of the finest layouts on the forum. While I don't have the skills to lay my points by hand (yes, I've tried!) I still felt I could up my game a bit, if only in terms of neatness. The finished result won't approach Stoke Courtenay but it'll be better than it was.
     
    Here's a link to the Stoke Courtenay topic thread, for those who may not have seen it. This is a link to the most recent page, but I recommend reading right from the start:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/112547-stoke-courtenay/page-14
     
    Finally, all this change has prompted thoughts that the station needs a new name. King's Hintock is fine but it's too similar to John Flann's fine and long-standing Hintock, probably why the name jumped out as me as suitably GWR-like! I got it from a list of Thomas Hardy place names so I think a fresh perusal may be in order - although I'll be sure not to use Sherton Abbas as well!
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1131/entry-19033-sherton-abbas-goes-digital/
     
    Thanks for reading.
  10. Barry Ten

    GWR 2721 pannier

    By Barry Ten,

    I've recently revisited an old project which I first mentioned back in 2010, a shocking seven years ago:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/257/entry-2879-Hornby-2721-class-detailing/
     
    At the time I "improved" an old Hornby 2721 class pannier by substituting a newer Hornby chassis, as well
    as adding some additional brake gear detailing.
     
    The model ran better than the original, but truth be told it still wasn't brilliant, and tended to stall on less than
    perfect track. It then needed a prod to get going, despite all-wheel pickups. My guess is that the motor wasn't
    that hot. It didn't get any better after I fitted a decoder, either. Eventually the decoder was pinched for another
    project and the 2721 body languished, chassis-less, in the general jumble heap of locomotive bits.
     
    Vowing to do something about it, I looked at substituting a Bachmann pannier chasis, but was dissuaded since
    it seemed to require a fair of hacking to the Hornby body to make room for the mechanism, and I didn't fancy
    anything too adventurous. Last year I decided to add a Comet 57xx chassis instead so the basic bits were gathered
    together and finally I made a start.
     
    At Railwells (I think) I also bought a Branchlines motor and gearbox which I was told would be a good choice
    for a small 0-6-0T. The only remaining thing was to source wheels, and there I thought I had a cunning plan,
    in that I had a Triang chassis which - once upon a time - had had correct diameter Romford wheels put onto it.
    The wheels were duly liberated and then I ordered some crankpins as I'd run out.
     
    Snag one was that I'd forgotten that the wheels had been modified to fit the Triang chassis, in that two of
    the three pairs had had their crankpin holes drilled out to extra clearance, so that the Triang coupling rods
    could be retained. That meant that the crankpins were now a loose fit, rather than a screw-in fit, and needed
    to be araldited in position, carefully checking alignment as the epoxy set.
     
    Snag two was that I'd ordered the wrong crankpins - or, by some devious twist of fate, had I? By mistake I'd
    ended up with threaded crankpins with screw-in retaining bushes. I'd not used these before and was a bit
    dubious. However, by not needing soldering, perhaps they were a fortuitous choice after all, as they wouldn't
    risk becoming overheated and loosening the epoxy joints? After getting some advice from the loco builders
    on Tony Wright's thread, I forged on anyway. The major difference, for me, was that the coupling rods needed
    to be reamed out to a much larger clearance to cover the bushes. I found that tricky, and was constantly on the
    point of distorting the rods. I much prefer the small clearance that's required for the usual crankpins.
     
    However, once the rods were on, and adjusted, all was well and they look OK enough in my view - even though,
    for a 2721, they should be fluted, not flush.
     
    The Comet chassis, I should add, went together well, as did the Branchlines gearbox and motor combo, which
    turns out to be pretty much exactly what I'd want for a Pannier in turns of steady, slow-speed, performance.
     
    Oddly enough, the bearing holes in the Branchlines etch were a very sloppy fit for the supplied bearings, not
    the usual tight fit which needs to be opened out. This concerned me as it seems to give a degree of hit and miss
    regarding the gear mesh, but in practise it's been a lot less hassle than some of the other gearboxes I've made
    over the last year or two.
     

     
    The resultant loco is very happy on the bits of track that the old chassis didn't like, so I consider that a hit in terms
    of getting a better performing model, which was the objective. The wheelbase is more correct, too, but that then
    throws up a secondary issue in that the front splashes of the Hornby body need realigning, which I'm not quite
    sure how to approach at the moment, being (as mentioned) rather reluctant to hack the body about too much.
     
    Is it a 2721, though? The coupling rods are wrong, and the outside pull rods ought to have a crank in them
    beneath each axle, presumably for reasons of clearance. I had a dodge planned to achieve this, but by the time
    it came to put the brake gear on, pragmatism was winning the day and I decided to keep them as is, on the theory
    that painted black, they're not going to be the first thing that catches anyone's eye.
     
    As far as I can tell, the visually very similar 1701 class had fluted rods, so perhaps that would be a more appropriate
    number series to go for - but then again, the pull rods would still be wrong! So it is what it is, for now, a representation
    of the open-cabbed panniers without being all that accurate a depiction of any particular class!
     
    (Edited - I was confusing the 2021 and 1701 class originally).
  11. Barry Ten

    Patriot Games 2

    By Barry Ten,

    Just about done! The loco was lined with Fox transfers, followed by the usual fun but time-consuming business of final detailing, adding
    cylinder drain cocks from soldered brass, vac pipes, lamps and lamp irons etc, glazing, crew, real coal. Nameplates were bought years
    ago, so it was satisfying to be able to add them at last. The flush-sided tender may not be right for Lady Godiva- I wasn't aware of
    any way to get a rivetted Fowler tender at the time I bought the kit - but that's the sort of fudge I'm well prepared to live with, being more
    concerned with shape and overall texture than surface details. Not to say I wouldn't try to get the right tender now, if I were starting
    over, but it's not particularly a show-stopper as far as I'm concerned.
     
    The model was put through a week or so of extensive testing on DC to make sure it had no tendency to short circuit. Surprisingly,
    it all worked first time and other than a stray pickup making intermittent contact with the frames, no tweaking or filing needed to be
    done.
     
    A Hornby decoder was installed, pinched from the Dean Goods project of a few years ago, but it didn't have quite enough top speed
    "grunt" for my liking, and so a Bachmann one was substituted which enables the Patriot to give a better account of itself. I've since
    done some reading around and it seems other people have found the basic Hornby deoder a bit limited in the upper speed stakes,
    and there's no way to configure it. That said, I find that it does give a smooth performance so the decoder will be set aside for
    a tank loco or slow-freight plodder, as and when. Perhaps I'll install sound one day, but no hurry; I like to have quiet running sessions
    as well as noisy ones.
     
    This has been a very satisfying job, and it's spurred me to assemble the pieces for a similar chassis job on a Triang-era Britannia,
    which has been languishing in the non-runner box for far too long.
     

     

     

  12. Barry Ten

    Patriot Games

    By Barry Ten,

    Way back when...
     
    The better part of ten years ago, I made a post on RMweb about building a Fowler tender for a parallel boiler Patriot project:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18410&hilit=patriot
     
    At that point, the tender was all that was needed to finish a modelling job that was itself a couple of years old.
     
    I'd had a Hornby Patriot for many years (I think it was a 15th birthday present, not long after the original model
    was released) but the model had become a non-runner due to gradual deterioration of the tender drive, for one
    reason or another. Perhaps it could have been serviced but my thinking at the time was that it would be better
    to have a loco-drive version, and as it happened I had a spare Bachmann chassis from their taper-boiler Patriot
    model. I then set about modifying both the Bachmann chassis and the Hornby body until they fitted together
    acceptably well, a task which turned out to involve a lot more filing and filling than I'd anticipated, not least when
    - during an over-enthusiastic bout of filing the body - I managed to break right through the boiler!
     
    The model was eventually repaired, and even got to the point of being painted and prepared for lining, along
    with the tender. But then disaster struck (again) when I decided I wanted it to run on DCC, and I dismantled
    and reassembled the Bachmann split chassis to add a decoder. Unfortunately the chassis must have been
    on its last legs (it was second hand when I bought it) as the wheel muffs gave away, aloing with much of
    the valve gear, and despite my best efforts I could never get it to run acceptably.
     
    So - back to the drawing board, and a few years go by, until finally I decided to substitute a Comet chassis
    for the failing Bachmann one:
     

     
    This was a timely project as I'd just removed a DJH motor/gearbox from Banbury Castle, as I felt that it wasn't geared
    sufficiently speedily for the GWR loco, but it would suit the Patriot very well. The recycled motor was therefore
    installed in the Patriot chassis. It's now back to front compared to the configuration in the Castle, so forward is
    now reverse, but after some running-in it's settled in nicely.
     
    The valve gear was my third attempt at outside Walschaerts and this time the first to be assembled using
    brass pins, rather than rivets. I got on better with the pins as I found them quicker and more precise than rivets,
    which I'd always found a bit hit and miss as to how tight they end up.
     
    The loco will now be reunited with the tender, lined in BR green and named as Lady Godiva - and get a decoder,
    of course, for which there's still plenty of room in the boiler.
  13. Barry Ten
    Back in January I mentioned some of the changes I'd made to the right side of the summer module after visiting Railwells and deciding that I didn't like some of the earlier aspects of the layout. These changes included realigning the backscene to create more space, new, more realistically sized level crossing gates, and a slight realignment of the road leading away from the level crossing up the hill. I also replaced the pair of shops with the new pub, which in my view tended to fit in better with the rural atmosphere at this end of the layout.
     
    Here's where things stood in January:
     

     
    Try as I might, though, I couldn't feel satisfied with this new scene. I felt it was better than the old, but still unconvincing, and my hunch
    was that it wasn't going to look any better once the scenic treatment was completed and the buildings fully integrated. It still looked
    a little cramped and contrived, I felt, and something about the alignment of the road didn't ring true; I think it was that, having gone
    over the crossing and made a sharp bend to the left, the road was then constrained to be straight by the need to fit along one
    edge of the backscene, whereas real country lanes tend to be sinuous. Whatever it was, it wasn't hitting the right notes for me
    and so I decided to have a radical re-think of this whole area. Another prompt was rediscovering one of my earlier sketches for the
    layout, which reinforced the idea that my original intentions had been much more rural and minimalist.
     
    So, out with the heavy duty modelling tools, and this whole area was subjected to some major reworking. The road up the hill
    was removed, as well as the church and most of the buildings adjoining it. The road was realigned to form a t-junction leading
    off-scene, where previously there had been a cottage, and the hill to one side of the church was extended to form a much larger
    feature dominating the whole corner area of the layout:
     

     
    One of the original cottages turned out to look reasonably at home on the bend just after the level crossing, so a new foundation was
    made for it. The cottage will need extra detailing and interior lighting now that it sits closer to the pub, as previously it was at the top
    of the hill and difficult to see at close quarters.
     

     
    Another view of the overall scene, from the end of the goods yard at the left. There will be a lot more trees needed in the background,
    but there's no rush to get it all finished at once.
     

     
    Overall I'm pleased with this more toned-down, spacious area of the layout as I feel it gets back to my original intentions and creates
    a more restful backdrop for the trains. Chocolate box? Maybe, but then again, I'm partial to the odd box of chocolates so that's no
    bad thing in my book!
  14. Barry Ten
    Just a quickie here for anyone interested - some shots of the part finished model with an all-up lighting test.
     
    The navigation lights on the saucer and engines are on a different circuit so can be set to blink.
     

     

     

     

     

     
    Shuttlecraft, one of four supplied with the kit. There are also travel pods, worker bees and cargo pallets.
     

     
    A huge amount of etched brass detailing in the shuttle bay ... almost none of which is visible in the finished model.
     

  15. Barry Ten
    Here's another update on this long-running build of the 1/350th scale kit of the Starship Enterprise. Things are finally coming together in that most of the model has now been light-blocked, painted, and given a covering of Aztec decals:
     

     
    These Aztec sheets consist of huge transparent decals which are intended to cover almost every square inch of the finished model. They take some careful fitting but the fears I'd had that they would be difficult to apply without tearing proved unfounded, as they mostly went on without trouble. The key is to have a good wet surface under them, preferably satin or gloss, and to cut the larger decals into more manageable sections.
     
    The effect is to give a complex pattern of panels, subtle from a distance, but conveying a sense of scale up close:
     

     
    Once the Aztec decals are fixed down satisfactorily, the normal decals can be applied over the top, as done here. There are hundreds more small decals to go on, but I just added the name and registry to get a sense of how it would look.
     
    These decals only approximate the complex, shimmery decoration applied to the studio model (particularly in the first film) and some people prefer to use an elaborate multi-stage masking process with pearlescent paints, but for me it's good enough and looks the part. Once down, they are surprisingly durable too.
     
    The Aztec sheets also include large areas of tinted colour, as here on the neck and upper section of the secondary hull. These areas needed a lot of attention with setting solution to minimise wrinkles and blobs as they settled.
     

     
    The saucer has now been joined permanently to the secondary hull, with all wiring connections fed through and tested. The nacelles and pylons still need to finished, but I've clipped the engines on temporarily see how it looks.
     

     
    The stand is well engineered, with a sturdy metal support pole. It's a great kit all round, and looks impressively big!
  16. Barry Ten

    Blue diesel days

    By Barry Ten,

    A quiet moment at the level crossing as Warship D836 Powerful rumbles past on a stopping passenger train.
     
    Slow progress of late, but I've begun to set the new pub into its surroundings and generally work on reinstating some
    of the background scenery which was removed during the big alterations to this part of the layout last year. All quite
    satisfying and low-tech messy work, the kind I like.
     
    My trees are very quick and basic entities using the Woodland Scenics plastic armatures. I bend them to shape, give them
    a thick going over with grey/brown acrylic paint, bung some superglue onto the branches and then fix on several tufty bits of
    Woodland Scenics poly-fibre, which is versatile stuff and because it's so fibrous and easily stretched out, one bag
    goes a long way. I then give the trees a whack of hairspray and sprinkle on some leaves which in practise
    can be any small, green-ish scenic scatter type thing. Finally, another blast of spray and the trees can be set in place.
    Some of the surrounding trees aren't trees at all, but just blobs of poly-fibre with scatter on. Once the armatures are
    painted, the individual trees take about ten minutes to prepare, so I generally do a batch of armatures one evening
    and then the foliage on another. By painting the acrylic on quite thickly, some useful barky texture can be achieved on the
    plastic surfaces, beneficial for a foreground tree.
     
    For other types of tree, or a bit of variety, I've picked up some postiche in various shades, as well as various other
    types of scatter material.
  17. Barry Ten
    Not of interest to the majority of RMwebbers, I'd suspect, but hopefully the management won't mind another installment in this very non-railway topic. That said, there's a lot of crossover here in terms of applicable modelling skills, and I'm certainly picking up some approaches that will easily translate into layout-related stuff, especially with regard to the use of LEDS as a general lighting solution.
     
    With the saucer section finished, I decided to attach the neck and then begin getting to grips with final light blocking, as there won't be much scope for reworking areas once the decals have gone on.
     
    As mentioned, there are quite a lot of LEDS in this thing - 20 in just the saucer - and it's a real sod to stop the light leaking out where you don't want it! The plastic is very translucent and I found that you need 2 - 4 coats of matte black depending on the area in question, and even then there will be hot-spots showing through which still need to be addressed.
     
    I was finding it a bit hit and miss to fix these areas one at a time, until I hit on the obvious-in-retrospect idea of waiting until the evening, turning out the room lights, turning on the LEDS, and just painting any bits that shouldn't be there.
     
    A test-blast of primer showed that it would be relatively easy to get back to a plain white finish even after spot-painting bits of black on the outside. I masked all the windows using Maskol liquid solution, which wasn't as bad a job as I'd feared.
     


     

     
    Although my camera battery ran out before I could get a picture, I'm nearly ready with the secondary hull as well (lurking in the background in the second shot), including a dozen or so more LEDS and a fully-detailed shuttle bay, and I've also made a start on the engines, which are huge!
     
    The kit is designed in such a way that there's only one practical assembly order, which does pose a headache or two in working out how to complete all the final wiring connections, with the one between the neck and the secondary promising to be particularly nerve-racking. I've installed a 4-way micro-plug in the secondary hull, which is how power will be fed into the whole model, but I wish I'd bought a second such plug as it would be very handy for the neck section! At the very least, there's a lot of soldering and head-scratching to be had with the wiring, a bit like layout electrics. It's strongly recommended not to build it in one piece and then attempt painting and decaling, and judging from all the various builds I've seen on the internet, that seems like good advice.
     
    By the way, unless you want the Star Trek music going through your head for months on end, don't build this kit!
  18. Barry Ten
    Back in the summer I spent a bit of time reworking the lining on the Hornby corridor clerestories:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/257/entry-18224-tweaking-the-Hornby-clerestories/
     
    I wasn't done with them, though, and over the last couple of evenings I thought I'd revisit the project and take things
    on a step further.
     
    As a recap, the idea wasn't to end up with museum quality coaches - you wouldn't start from here, even if I had the skills - but
    to see if it was possible to bring the Hornby models up to a level where they'd sit comfortably next to a nicely built and painted
    brass model. The main work I did in the summer was to add additional black lining around all panels, and to paint in the droplights.
    I also repainted the roof an overall grey.
     
    Coming back to the coaches, I'd always meant to carve off the horrible, Godzilla-scale tension locks and their associated mountings.
    So, out with the cutting tool, and short work was made of the couplings.
     
    Next to the Mallard coach, the Hornby bogies look a bit too heavy, even though they're dimensionally not too bad. I found that a quick
    and simple solution was to drill out some voids in the bogie frames, just above the stepboards. I used a mini-drill, chain-drilling the holes
    to form the necessary voids, then cleaning up with files.
     
    I then dismantled the coaches, removed the ends (a simple sliding fit) and cut away the corridor connections with a circular saw, followed by cleaning up until I had a flat mounting surface. I then made up a pair of MJT GWR bellows connections and glued them in place.
     
    The coaches were re-assembled, and some additional detailing added to the ends in the form of brass wire for the handrails or tank filler pipes, whatever those curvy things are.
     
    Fixing the bogies and corridor connections made a big difference, but I was niggled by the fact that the Mallard coach has the raised window surroundings picked out in the same colour as the droplights. The problem is that the Hornby moulding doesn't include these raised surrounds (bolections, I think) so there's a lot more "brown" than there should be. To get around this, I decided to have a go at lining in fake surrounds using GWR indian red in a bow-pen, which turned out to be surprisingly straightforward. I simply used a ruler to do all the horizontal lines first, then the vertical ones, and touched in the corners where necessary. To my eye this added the necessary element of busy-ness to the sides which was earlier lacking.
     
    Here's a shot of two Hornby models either side of the Mallard coach. At least from normal viewing distance, they sit together quite well, I reckon. It's only when you get up close and notice that the Mallard coach has much shallower sides (and hence flusher glazing) that the differences begin to jar.
     

     
    As I think I mentioned last time, the shades of chocolate and cream are a little different, but again it's not too apparent in a layout context. Hornby's chocolate is a bit drab, a trend apparent across their GWR range. But there would have been prototypical variations in richness as well so I don't lose too much sleep over that.
     

     
    Finally, a side-on view of the Hornby brake, hopefully showing something of the opened-up bogie frames, with a bit of daylight visible above the step-boards. I'd still like to touch in some cream to the narrow vertical panels. These coaches will probably run in a fixed rake with simple hook-style couplings fashioned by brass or piano rod.
     

     
    I don't see too many of these coaches running on layouts, so I guess they're either out of period for the majority, or dismissed because they look a bit basic out of the box. But hopefully these tweaks go some way to making a reasonable model out of these inexpensive and widely available products.
     
    cheers!
  19. Barry Ten
    Last August I came back from an enjoyable visit to Railwells both fired up with ideas, and at the same time dissatisfied with various aspects of my own layout. One thing I've always tried to pay attention to is composition and a balance between spaciousness and cramped detailing. Sometimes you need a bit of both, but often when something's not quite right, it can be very tricky to pin down where the difficulty lies, and what to do about it.
     
    However, after taking a good hard look at the right hand end of the summer module, I decided that something needed to be done. Here's a shot of the level crossing at the extreme right of the module, as it was until last year:
     

     
    In this image, the shop in the immediate foreground acts as a view block to conceal where the tracks continue to the right, passing through the backscene into about 18 inches of limbo between this module and the adjoining winter modukle. The backscene bends around to sit snugly against the back of the shops.
     
    After my Railwells epiphany, I decided to re-align the backscene so it extended all the way to the winter module, bringing the former "limbo" area into the scope of the summer module, creating several square feet of additional modelled area. This was quite a brutal job, as the backscene was curved MDF, glued to a hardboard former, and thoroughly difficult to budge! But after a weekend's wprk of careful work with Stanley knives, clamps and only one trip to A&E, I managed to realign it, splicing in a new section to extend the sky a couple of feet further. This reworking in turn dictated a new lighting rig, so that was yet more work, but worth it, I think, for the new area it opened it, and the possibilities for "relaxing" some of the more cramped scenic elements already present.
     
    The first job was to take a good hard look at the servo-driven level crossing. Although it worked well, I was increasingly niggled by the fact that the Peco gates didn't close off the tracks completely when set to allow road traffic. They are just barely long enough even if the double track formation is straight, but mine was curved, necessitating much greater clearances to avoid being swiped by trains.
     
    New gates were therefore demanded, using two sets of Wills 4-square gates cut down to 3 each:
     

     
    These in turn needed the servo mechanisms to be removed and reinstalled at slightly different positions. But the end result is more pleasing because the crossing as a whole is much more spacious than before, with decent clearances at all points. And now the gates close off the tracks as well as the road. A lot of work, much of it messy and difficult due to having work underneath the boards, but worth it in the end.
     
    With the crossing improved, I also eased the alignment of the road as it continues beyond the crossing and up the hill. Previously it had taken a sharp swerve to the left, but it's now gentler and I think the visual appearance benefits. Of course this meant that the buildings set back from the road all needed to be adjusted and have new pavements, walls etc re-installed, a process which is still underway.
     
    I also decided that I didn't really like the shop in the foreground. Or, more accurately, I liked it as a model but it didn't sit well with the distinctly rural atmosphere suggested by the other buildings, which I think are more in keeping with a village or the outskirts of a small market town.The red-brick shop looks more urban to me, so it was removed and put aside for another project.
     
    In its place goes this Wills Craftsman pub, which I built over the Christmas period, and which is slowly being painted and detailed.
     

     
    It's a kit I was given as a present some years ago, but which always terrified me whenever I opened the box, but in the end it all went together nicely and I think it definitely sits in that scene a little more happily than the shop did. I've set it at a slight angle to the road, partly to give a better view of trains, but also to suggest that the road took a different alignment before the coming of the railway. Hopefully that works?
     
    The stone walls are castings which my wife made for me about ten years ago, similar to the ones I used on Cogirep. I think we got the mould from a Dutch scenic company, although the name escapes me. They're "European" but I don't think they look terribly out of place in a British context?
     
    So, there you go - nothing mind-blowing, but a welcome bit of progress on the module. Cheers!
  20. Barry Ten
    Way back in the year I mentioned that I'd made a start on building Polar Light's 1/350 scale kit of the Starship Enterprise:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/257/entry-17837-a-little-something-for-the-weekend-building-the-starship-enterprise/
     
    I didn't do much more with it until recently as it's a such a monster to work on, taking up most of my workbench. But over the last week
    or so I finished adding the lights and light blocking for the saucer section, and finally took the plunge to glue it all together, knowing there'll
    never be a chance to get inside it again:
     

     
    There are 20 LEDs in just this bit, so there's a lot of wiring. I ran the wires (mostly grouped together) through a hole in the underside
    of the saucer, which will eventually feed down through the neck section, the next bit to be attached.
     
    It's only when the saucer is fully assembled that you can really get a sense of how effective the light-blocking has been, and as you
    can see there are still some areas around the edge where it bleeds through. These are areas inside the saucer where it's difficult
    to get paint and foil, unavoidable really. I trust that I'll be able to retroactively block these areas with the exterior paint job, perhaps
    by applying a masking coat of black before adding the white.
     
    Although it's not that obvious, I detailed the observation and rec lounges, using the etched add-ons mentioned in the first post. The
    neck section is nearly finished and ready to be attached, but the rest of the model will be built in modules rather than being fixed
    together as a single unit, since it's far easier to paint and decal the parts on their own.
     
    It's definitely a leap from railway modelling but there are a lot of transferable skills, so all in all a fun and challenging project.
     
    I won't be done with 1/350 kits either, as Father Christmas just delivered this whopper:
     

     
    Quite a contrast, again. But variety is the spice of life...
  21. Barry Ten

    GWR Gunpower vans

    By Barry Ten,

    Before the Parkside kit was announced, I fancied a pair of gunpowder vans via the established route of elderly Ratio Iron Mink kit plus Shirescenes etched brass sides. Unfortunately I cocked up the painting of the first van so it sat in a cupboard gathering dust, until I needed to get the Modelstrip out for another project. Having stripped and resprayed one van, I thought that was as good an incentive as any to do the second one, so another evening was spent with the Ratio and Shirescenes parts. I assembled both vans as per the instructions, except that I also filled in and removed the ventilator from each end of the wagon. Somewhere along the way I'd also managed to lose the etched door locking gear from one of the van sides, so a fair approximation was then botched together from wire and plastic. Incidentally I seem to remember that there are some dimensional issues with the Ratio Mink, but since I'll only be operating this pair of vehicles, they'll at least be consistent with each other. I imagine if the Parkside one is substantially more accurate, it might look a bit odd in the same setting.
     
    The transfers were from Fox, and there are enough on the sheet to do three vans. I've yet to add the "GPV" letters to the ends, and it's a good job there are enough for three as I ruined a few of the letters before getting into my stride. I have just enough GPVs to finish them off. In typical Barry Ten fashion, too, I managed to misplace my copy of Beard et al so couldn't track down any prototype lettering info beyond what was available on the internet. From what I can gather, the placement of the GPV's and GWs varied considerably, and some of these wagons also had "gunpowder van" in white lettering. However, in the end I found a photo of a 3mm Iron Mink which was the basis for my lettering for both vehicles. I know it's not really the done thing to model a model, but the 3mm model looks plausible to me.
     
    Still a few things to be done, and roofs painted, but nearly there, and I'm pleased with the "different but still GWR" look of them. Now I need to find how these vehicles were marshalled into trains.
     

  22. Barry Ten

    Three swans a-swimming

    By Barry Ten,

    Once a year, or thereabouts, I pay a visit to Menzels model shop in Dusseldorf, one of the best hobby shops I know and home to an excellent selection of European and American modelling products. This year I came away with a Busch set for three swimming swans, sold for less than 40 Euros. The kit includes a motor, gears, swans, magnets and a selection of laser-cut wooden parts which have to be assembled into the basic operating structure.
     
    The assembly is dead easy, taking no more than about half an hour, with the main job being to make you sure glue the bits you're meant to glue, and not the parts you shouldn't! I found that the laser-cut parts fitted together very nicely.
     
    Once you've built the kit, you end up with a rectangular "pond" sitting on top of a box-shaped operating mechanism, about 2 inches deep. Luckily, my layout scenery is based around 2 inch loft insulation, so rather than hacking a recess into wood, I only needed to scoop out the corresponding area in the foam. The unit then sits neatly in its recess, with the water level being just a bit below track level. If you wanted it to sit deeper, you'd just have to clear a suitable recess in your baseboard.
     

     
    Look, they've moved! The operating mechanism is pretty simple, just a large wheel below the pond, with three small magnets set into it. The wheel rotates very slowly, and the swans follow their magnets thanks to small metal bits in their bases. The mechanism is very quiet, with just a faint hum and the sound of the swans moving across the pond surface, which is dimpled to give an effect of rippled water. The movement is not as smooth as a real swan, but it's subliminally effective, and one of the "features" is that a swan sometimes stops for some reason, and then gets picked up again the next time its magnet comes around. This creates quite a pleasing sense of the swans not moving in rigid formation, but occasionally stopping to do some preening or whatever.
     

     
    I thought it best to make the entire unit removable for maintenance, so although there is scenery overlapping the pond, it's fixed down very loosely, with just enough of an effect to hide the rectangular borders. If you'd cut a hole in your baseboard, you could access the entire motor assembly from below, but I can't do that so I felt it best to allow for removing it from above.
     

     

     
    It's a novelty, of course, but since my layout is operationally quite limited, I'm up for anything that adds additional play value, and this fits the bill nicely. Being HO, the swans are 15% too small for British swans, of course, but the purist could always assume that they are slightly less mature, with suitable allowance for the plumage.
     

     
    Bonus content: Dean Goods
     

  23. Barry Ten
    It's possibly a sign of age, but I still tend to think of Hornby's long, corridor clerestories as the "new ones", as opposed to the shorter models which appeared under the Tri-ang days. The earlier versions do have their uses, but when the longer models were announced - 1981 I think - they looked destined to set a new standard for reasonably accurate, panelled stock, suitable to run with the likes of Hornby's 4-4-0 County class or Dean single. Alas, when the models appeared, the moulded panels on the pre-production versions had been replaced by flat sides and printed panels, presumably because it would have proven difficult to print lining onto moulded detail.
     
    Etched sides have been available as overlays, but they don't seem to be that easy to find, and I'd never really given the clerestories much thought until a few years ago, when I chanced upon a set in a glass cabinet at my local model shop. I was struck by how nice the lining looked, with an almost 3-d effect achieved, which went some way toward rectifying the flat look of the original releases. Some while later I bought a train pack which consisted of a Dean single and three fully-lined clerestories.
     
    The coaches are nice enough, but I still felt that they didn't quite cut it, even with the improved printing:
     

     
    The chocolate, cream and gold lining is very nicely applied, but the lining's still quite simplified as there's no black component to it. Also, the window droplights should be painted reddish-brown. Set against a kitbuilt clerestory, lined to a high standard (not by me!) the Hornby coaches looked a bit toylike - which is a shame as I gather they are fair representations of their particular diagrams - certainly good enough for my standards.
     
    I decided to see what could be done without going to the trouble of etched overlays. The first job was to paint in the droplights, done carefully with some dark red and a fine brush. Some might prefer a browner shade but this is the colour I've used for all my other GWR coaches so at least there's consistency. Just painting these droplights went a long way to breaking up the monotony of the Hornby decoration, giving the coach (in this case a brake) a more interesting, busy look. But I was still conscious of the lack of black lining. Being in a optimistic frame of mind, I decided to have a go at ruling in the black using a bow-pen. I used acrylic ink although enamel would have worked just as well. After some trial goes before I got my eye in, the lining went quite well and I was very pleased with the way it helped bring out the gold lining already applied by Hornby:
     

     
    Hornby's roof painting might be accurate for an ex-works vehicle but I preferred to go with an overall grey, in keeping with my kitbuilt vehicle. Perhaps I should have used a darker grey, in hindsight.
     

     
    The origins of the Hornby brake are still obvious but hopefully these tweaks have gone some way toward helping it blend in with the kitbuilt coach, and there's still more to be done, all easy jobs, such
    as removing the horrible couplings, adding working corridor connections, separate wire handrails and pipe fillers and so on. There are some noticeable differences in the renditions of chocolate and cream,
    but nothing that wouldn't have happened in real life as well, given the age and condition of differing vehicles.
     
    Total time to line both sides was one evening, with another evening or two to do the droplights, as my red needed two coats before it achieved sufficient density. Not really much work at all, then, compared
    to building or painting a coach from scratch.
     
    Cheers, and thanks for reading.
  24. Barry Ten
    Self-explanatory, really! Two coats of Precision GWR green brushed painted on an undercoat of Games Workshop Chaos Black, and I may add a third layer.
    Hopefully the worst of the pitting has been taken care of; there are still a few blemishes visible in the photo but they're not so apparent in real life, and I think
    once the model is finished and decorated, there'll be enough "bling" to take the eye away from the remaining imperfections.
     
    Next I'll order some plates and see if I can get "Great Western" lettering small enough to fit onto the side-tanks.
     
    One thing I forgot to mention - and I saw a similar problem referenced on the web - is that the chassis, as designed, doesn't allow the gearbox to fit, even
    though the kit is supposedly supplied as a package. Since I didn't have any chassis instructions I can't tell if this would have been covered otherwise, but
    I didn't realise the issue until the chassis was fully assembled. The problem is due to the central frame spacer which, if fitted as intended, gets in the
    way of the gearbox. Luckily I was able to remove part of the frame spacer from the assembled chassis, by gently bending and fatiguing the metal until
    it gave way, which then allowed the gearbox to be fitted - just - without any obstructions, but it's something to watch (and which I should have checked
    beforehand, but why would you?). I must also unsolder and reattach the rear steps, which are located incorrectly - the perils of relying on instructions,
    or your interpretation of them, rather than looking at a photo of the real thing.
     
    Has this been fun? Sort of, and I'm pleased with the final outcome, but one shouldn't have so much work to do to get an acceptable result with the
    bodywork.
  25. Barry Ten
    Updates on a couple of loco projects here.
     
    The Cambrian 2-4-0T was one of the locos absorbed by the GWR and given the Swindon treatment. Although I've no particular intention of modelling
    the handful of rural lines on which these three engines operated, I still thought it would be a nice little loco to own, especially given that 2-4-0s in general
    aren't very common on layouts.
     
    A couple of years ago I bought a package kit containing white metal body parts, a chassis, motor, gearbox and wheels. The body originates from the Gem
    castings, while - at least according to the instructions - the chassis appears to have some basis in Gibson.
     
    First the good news: the chassis goes together superbly well, with a very good design of slots enabling accurate assembly of the spacers and chassis
    halves. Allthough I used a pair of jig axles, and aligned everything on a gridded cutting board, I'm pretty confident that it would have gone together
    nicely without these basic aids, so positive was the location.
     

     
    I did run into some issues getting the Rod Neep gearbox to mesh nicely, but these were eventually resolved and they're no reflection on the quality of
    the components. The motor is an open frame Mashima for which there's plenty of room in the body. In fact, I doubt that I'll bother trimming the motor
    spindles as there's no real need, especially one a crew is installed to block the view into the cab a little.
     
    The bad news is that the body parts were pretty poor in general, with some awful pitting and voids. Perhaps if I'd paid more attention on receiving the kit I could
    have chased after some replacements, but I'm afraid I was far too taken with the shiny etches to pay any heed to the castings. Anyway, nothing ventured,
    nothing gained, and I still decided to make a go of the body:
     

     

     
    This is the basic structure in all its ghastly glory, and fair amount of bodging was needed to get the cab and bunker parts to mesh well with the boiler, various
    bits being well oversize and needing some delicate filing back.
     
    Thereafter it was a case of filling in the major voids with solder, where possible, and model filler where not. I went over the body several times before applying
    a test coat of matt black, to highlight what was still needed. Then it was a case of more filling, more sanding and filing, until the parts started looking a little
    more acceptable. The main issue was the two lumpy halves of the boiler.
     
    Finally I was happy to start adding additional boiler detail, and on went the chimney, dome, safety valve etc:
     

     
    At that point I realised that the kit's instructions really weren't adequate to help with the additional boiler plumbing, which seemed to vary quite a bit from loco
    to loco, so after an internet trawl I managed to find two photos of the same engine from each side, and I now need to rework the pipes from the top-feed, which
    should bend back to the horizontal rather than running down the boiler sides as seen here. In the meantime, I'm waiting on handrail knobs to complete that
    aspect of the detailing. As can be seen, the chassis now has full brake detail which certainly goes a long way to making it look "interesting" in my view. I've
    a particular liking for locos with outside brake linkage...
     
    Which brings us neatly to:
     

     
    Those who've been reading this blog for a year or two may remember the protracted saga of the Dean Goods, but finally it all came good and after several weeks
    of very satisfying test running, I'm happy to call this one conquered! The chassis is Comet, with their own gearbox and a Mashima motor, and it runs brilliantly,
    and with more than enough grunt for my typical goods trains. All that remains to be done now, other than final painting and decal-work, is to get rid of that huge
    coal load. This one has been particularly satisfying for me as it's been far from an easy road to get here, but it's been well worth the hassle.
     
    Cheers, and thanks for reading.
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