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Etched Pixels

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  1. Etched Pixels
    Think I need to do the roof out of something other than stainless as its a bit of a ... to shape.
     
    After this one I have a giant to follow (although there is something ironic about a T scale giant)
     
    Still having to do a bit of thinking about the floor - I have the trussing fine and a bit of plastic rod will do the tanks, but getting the solebars right is going to need some experimentation. Thank goodness Peco sell large packs of T scale round buffers in packets labelled 'track pins'
     

  2. Etched Pixels
    I've been playing with the vinyl cutter and Thompson stock. As the Thompson stock is very similar in ends and profile to the Mark 1 it seemed a perfect thing to use the clear plastic shell from the Farish Mark 1 coaches for. Especially with new better Mark 1 coaches on the way.
     
    The coaches were drawn with the gimp and then pasted together using a small program which assembles them and generates three images, one is a colour printed sheet which is like the coach sides it reads but with areas around the sides and in the windows filled in colour so that any slight cutting inaccuracy doesn't show up. The second is a black and white sheet showing which areas are part of the coach (and thus the cutting lines), the third a proof sheet combining strictly for human consumption.
     
    The black and white sheet goes into inkscape and the inkscape 'trace bitmap' function turns it into cutting vectors, and hpgl-distiller makes it edible by the vinyl cutter.
     
    The print image goes to the laser printer first on paper to check sizes/detail and then again with magic laser printed vinyl paper. This second sheet then goes into the vinyl cutter where the registration marks ensure the image is cut accurately and the end result goes on the side of a brasso cleaned coach.
     
    Bogies are plastic ones from the NGS. I could have used the correct etched 8'6" ones but the 8' ones will fool most people and are rather simpler to use. All I need to do now is cut off the underframe then paint and glue on a pair of etched Thompson truss rods, vac cyl, dynamo and battery boxes. After that I'll probably fix the roof ventilators and add rainstrips. Certainly the rainstrips are a very visible difference that needs sorting.
     

  3. Etched Pixels
    The Gresley is now closer to done. Still need to make roof cowls (why did I pick the awkward coach). The sides to this are screen printed to a pre 1985 design. Next to it is a faded Regional Railways Mark2 coach complete with peeled numbers and other little details, the latest in vinyl relivery bits from Electra.
     
    Both await interiors and roof paintwork finishing so they should a fairly similar comparison
     

     
    I think the Gresley stacks up pretty well - and shows just how good a job Cavndish did back in 1984 or so.
  4. Etched Pixels
    Good to see rmweb slowly recovering
     
    In the meantime I've mostly decalled the 02
     

     
    and am also part way through painting and decalling a Carl Peplow resin 47 shell I had lurking in a drawer.
     

     
    and the Maunsell coach project is slowly getting there. This is a test build with the underframe, sides ends and roof. Couple of small errors to fix on the underframe etches but nothing serious. Need to fit the bogies, underframe and roof vents next, see how it looks.
     

  5. Etched Pixels

    DEMU/EMU ends

    By Etched Pixels,

    Just got back the first castings from a first adventure into actually making new white metal casting masters.
     
    (forgive the lousy image)
     
    The master itself is layers of brass to build up the levels, plus top detail layers all then glued firmly together with the help of a vice.
  7. Etched Pixels
    The Electra vinyls arrived for an ex NSE BFK to go with the regional coaches. Easy to put on (took about 5 minutes, and about 15 to ge the original paint off). The vinyls only address part of the coach however. The underframe is of course wrong for an older Mark 2, although replacements are available from Ian Stoate in resin. The roof is more of a challenge and needs to be drilled and fitted with ventilators. Then the wheels, interior and rubbing plates..
     
    There's also a very nice set of faded RR sides waiting for their coach to arrive.
     

     
    Meanwhile the Maunsell construction project moves on. I've now put an Ultima Bulleid roof on one of the Maunsell test coaches and it improves the look immensely, particularly of the ends even though it doesn't yet have any ventilators on it. Just the duckets to sort now.
     

     
    (Roof still loosely fitted)
  8. Etched Pixels

    Thompson BZ

    By Etched Pixels,

    And then suddenly it's August and hardly any modelling time has happened.
     
    The last couple of weeks I have had a bit of time however and got the Thompson BZ kit design done. This needs a few adjustments (making the roof extend over the ends a spot, moving the steps) but I'm pretty happy with the test run other than that. It rolls beautifully and it'll handle 9" curves.
     

  9. Etched Pixels
    I've been meaning to draw up some templates for making paper wagons for the Peco chassis for a while as its a great way to knock up all kinds of fun wagons, and if you overlay the strapping with black painted plasticard etc can look really good.
     
    This one is just a paper build on a Peco 10ft chassis
     

     
    If you want to make your own then the artwork is below, print at 600dpi and have fun. The tiff one is the best quality and most likely going to just print right, the jpeg is there too just in case.
     
    For OO you'll need to resize it. I don't know what the dimensions of the OO chassis are so you'll have to work it out
     
    Print on nice stiff quality paper (the one above is on cheap paper as tester) and make the folds sharp. Fold up and glue (for laser print titebond woodglue is awesome for this, for inkjet you need more care but spraying the back of the sheet with spray mount might well do the trick).
     
    Cut out four of the corner bits and wrap them round the corner to hold it together.
  10. Etched Pixels
    I thought I'd start with NN3 trackwork on the basis that I was doing the first test build with a roller gauge and no jigs, along with no experience. I figured that however dodgy it turned out it wouldnt be totally amiss as an industrial narrow gauge siding. It's also using Z standards so its a good deal more forgiving and coarse spec than 2mm trackwork proper.
     
    I have learned several things
     
    - that the ends of the rail are sharp and next time I should cover them in tape so less blood is involved when cleaning up with a file
    - that I need to make some jigs for more serious NN3 trackwork
    - that the pritt stick cheap clone I used to stick the sleepers down ready to solder turns into a strong glue once soldered (next time I may try photomount)
     
    I'm still stuck on a few things
    - The best way to paint it given the sleepers are metal - all over attack with Games Workshop skull white and then clean the tops of the rails ?
    - How people get small neat blobs of solder and don't have to spend an hour cleaning up the joins or removing and replacing some of the worst excesses (would solder paint be better)
    - Would it be better to find matching plastic strip and glue every 'n'th sleeper and just fake the rest, especially on the NN3 bits where realyl the rail ought to be flat bottom on clips or nails/
     
     
    But it works, it's to gauge and you can run things on it. I'm almost tempted to attempt some dual gauge trackwork after I make sleeper spacing jigs so I can get it straight. That is once I figure out the right way to make the jigs.
     
    Alan
  11. Etched Pixels
    I picked up a box of interesting bits a while ago and in the bottom were some bits of etched EMU stuff and white metal. One is a BHE 2-EPB the other a bit of a mystery. The bag it was with contained a BHE 2HAP underframe white metal set, four sides and some what appear to be BHE plastic roof/floor/sides etc.
     
    Only it doesn't seem to be a 2HAP because its shorter than Mark 1 length and the windows are wrong (no big windows) for a Southern 2HAP. It seems to be an SR species 2EPB which is intriguing because I've never seen reference to a kit of one anywhere.
     
    Anyway I figured I'd build it but now need to work out what is is to get the roof and underwear right
  12. Etched Pixels
    The open coach I built a while back has died somewhat so it seemed to be time to build something more robust, and perhaps a little less "garden railway" looking. The body is a narrow gauge coach off Shapeways which has been slightly anglicised by paint job and then fitted on a scratch built chassis using T scale parts to run on 3.1mm soldered track.
     
    The weight may need adjusting - with a vehicle that size on 15" track the weight needs to be low but at the same time the mechanisms can't haul much weight,
     
    The Eishindo 103 has a separate gear box and motor so I may just have to put a "proper" motor unit together - that would also improve running considerably although I have a few things to do before I can really test the weight and motor situation out properly.
     

     

     

  13. Etched Pixels
    This took a bit of squeezing. It's the Zimo MX648R and a Dapol M7 chassis with a tidied up Highfield G5 body kit on top modified to fit. The speaker and decoder just about fit in the back of the loco although it's a very tight squeeze.
     
     
    Pardon the lousy camera work
     
    http://vimeo.com/36930371
  14. Etched Pixels
    I got distracted (again) adding another experiment to the corner of an etch sheet, which I've now been assembling (and editing with scissors a bit as I goofed a couple of bits of the design on the first go)
     
    Some of the terrier photos I've always loved are the tiny terriers dwarfed by the biig Marsh 'Balloon' trailers. I wanted to do the first ones - the 'classic' shot of the originals with gangways, but in the absence of good enough drawings I moved on a couple of diagrams.
  17. Etched Pixels
    A quick detour from the Thompson to another bit of Ultima stuff. The sides, roof and ends are not a problem but the original aluminium floor is long deceased. Worse than that the price quotes I've got for a new die to extrude the stuff are not really viable with the Dapol Gresley stock on the market, nor would have space to store the typical "minimum order"
     
    So to see what was needed and as a planning aide I cut a floor out of 1mm plasticard 117mm x 16mm to go with the roof and ends. Then I stuck 3mm or so square plastic rod each side between the ends and stepped slightly out to line up with the profile on the ends both to give the sides somewhere to sit and to stop the chassis from bending. The solebars are plastic U channel about 2mm high and the rest of the underframe is Ultima parts built to the original instructions.
     
    No bogie mounts yet (or bogies in fact) but one problem at a time. I also need to work out which interior strip goes with each coach, which isn't helped by the fact they are labelled by some old numbering system with things like "N27".
     

     
    When it comes to teak printed sides are a definite winner even when not yet stuck down (need to paint the rest first)
     

  19. Etched Pixels
    For the bridge and valley at the left hand end of the new layout I've been pondering what to use for the narrow gauge line I fancied running over it. Z is a possibility and the little known remainder of the 3' Cornish mineral railways but another obvious option is to lay something in NN15 (or NN18 to be exact). Unfortunately the out of the box T scale track isn't really suitable for narrow gauge so it was time to try the obvious plan B
     
    NN15 track - the soldered way. This is with code 40 flat bottom rail - really I need to find something lower, but I also need to build the proper trackwork in steel anyway because the T gauge stuff relies on magnetism to make the physics work.
     
    The other reason to do this is that T gauge switches are not very good and mostly plastic causing a lot of stalls, so I'll need a couple of T electrofrog switches to pull it off... (oh boy....!)
     

     
    The medium sized controller (in N) surveys his options
  20. Etched Pixels
    This started off as a Mill Lane Sidings ferryvan but is getting turned into the conversions done on them for use as curtain sided vans.
     
    The weathering on the sides is all done digitally (which is why the ends are not weathered yet). The rest will get weathered once I've attached all the other parts and painted them (roof, underframe etc)
  21. Etched Pixels

    1020x Progress

    By Etched Pixels,

    Having finally got a bit of modelling time I've also started putting the cab roof profile onto 10201 and 10203. Trying Daz clay this time to see if I can get a better finish than will milliput.
     

     
    So far the finish seems nicer but its a right pain to get Daz to stay stuck to anything while being shaped, that or there is a trick I don't know !
  23. Etched Pixels
    The Mark 2 BFK now has an interior - unpainted so far, and the roof mostly done (needs another coat and some weathering/matting). One mystery remains first. Presumably the BFK has a periscope - but where does it go ?
     

     
    Meanwhile I've also been putting together the test build of the Ultima Thompson matchboard full brake. Usefully the N gauge society has produced the rather less usual 8ft Gresley bogies this needs, as part of the rather excellent Gresley brake kit.
     

     
    The only trouble being that in looking for reference images I inadvertently discovered the rather cute 6 wheel Thompson D.358 full brake which I now need to find drawings of to etch up.
  24. Etched Pixels
    Actually its an X-Fish
     
    Test etches for converting the N Gauge Society sausage van & stove-R chassis into the LMS van in question. I've just glued it together quickly and dropped the roof loosely on top to check it fits - still need to remove the battery boxes (no electric eels in transit clearly) and add the bracing along the bottom of the axles.
  25. Etched Pixels
    The empty space in front of the headshunt has now gone from foam to landscape and been walled and vegetated. I've used a couple of different ground colous at different level to try and suggest stratification. Still not sure about the left hand wall so that isn't stuck down or painted up yet. I'm torn between the modern concrete wall, brick wall or having a go at modelling a wall with a large hole in it (as if someone at some point put some heavy machinery through it) and fencing.
     
    The sheep are however in place along with a suitably modern looking shepherd (none of this twee outfits and crook stuff) plus dog, trying to herd the sheep towards the gate on the other side - and probably not assisted by having a DRS 20 running around its train the other side of the wall.
     

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