brian daniels

Unfortunatly the side grill will not be changed. Do a blue one and you won't notice it I suppose it's down to cost as I don't know if they could change the current mould or would have to do a new one, but it's a damn big body mould to do a new one!

It will get a good bit of frame dirt on it Dave. Has anyone painted a loco brown and "weathered" the base color in? It does seem a waste of time painting the underframe and solebar black and blue and then completly cover them in dirt colors I wish I could find a picture of the whole loco in this period when it was at IM with the token recess, why did I not take one at the time There are a lot on the web of it in later times without the recess but none in this state unfortunatly.

I have finaly got round to putting the transfers and then varnishing my 20029 now the weather has warmed up. One thing that surprised me was that it has the large arrow on the bodyside instead of the smaller one that they usualy have there. Will give it a while for the varnish to harden then weather it and put the windows in after the weathering to save me masking them off.

I believe the model of E79960 is in the "as preserved" livery of the lighter green.

This is what was in the pre prodution Deltic. Lets hope it gets the lettering on as well like the 33. Looks like we might slowly be getting through to them as to what's needed Hope your pump gets sorted.

Hi PCM, I don't know what goes on with the Danes and their wide tanks either. I have narrowed my 7mm 37, 47, and now 33. Will have to try and get through to them when they do the 31 to narrow it down a bit. Attached a couple of pictures of the insides Tim, showing the PCB board. It does say in the enclosed instruction sheet to just swap over the board with the sound chip so I assume that it will be a straight swap. I don't think I will be putting sound in this as I do most of my running on DC layouts to be honest.

I know it's Christmas day but I got bord so I smoothed down the mould lines on the cabs and then weathered it. Looks ok to me. Mind you the 33's did not get very dirty in the good old days, you could eat your dinner off the engine block of the EH ones. When I changed the headcodes I put FC in one end and 2 blank whites in the other. To me a crompton says fuel tanks and parcel trains down here in Oxford hence the FC, tanks to Brum headcode.

I have just removed the wire that works the red tail lights. If anyone else wants to turn theirs off it's the little black wires that need removing from the terminal. I have also made some new headcodes on the computer and found out that to remove the headcodes you need to take out the cab interior and push the old headcode and glazing out. The headcodes are paper stuck on the rear of the glazing. When putting a new headcode in I am sure the glazing is handed so try to keep the oriantation of it correct and just push it back in. Replace the cab interior and bobs your relative

Finally decided on 33015 for this loco. Just about done apart from another coat or two of cream on the roof. I have painted the buffer shanks silver to improve them. Whilst on the subject of buffers they do not work very well as bought so I carefully drilled them out a bit deeper with a 3mm drill by hand, working perfectly now. A picture attached to show the narrower tanks. Before I screw the body back on I think I will disconect the red tail lights which are the 2 lower lights on the front but these were seldom if ever used instead using the red blinds. Whilst I had the sideframes off I painted the wheel faces Frame Dirt ready for the weathering later. I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy modelling New Year

Blimey these 33's are selling well! Some times Heljan do listen to suggestions as per the warning flashes Something has happened to these models as mine had the buffers ramed into the housing one end suggesting the box had been droped on it's end but there is so much foam on the ends there is no way the buffers could have come into contact with the end of the box so how they got damaged is anybodys guess. Nearly done mine now. I decided to paint the fibreglass panel cream but it will take 2 or 3 coats to get it to cover but as per the cab roof coment earlier it will be weathered over it later so not too worried about coverage here.

Hi Tom, glad you like it. I am thinking of rubbing down those mould lines over the cabs as I will be re-spraying it there with weathering anyway so should cover up the rubbing. Nearly finished the painting of the bufferbeam and tank bits so should have a picture on here by tonight on my workbench thread. I am putting the ploughs on mine but just debating if I should cut the side ploughs off and mount them on the bogies as per the model and then make a couple of brackets and mount the middle bit on the bufferbeam as per the prototype. Or I might just leave the middle bit out as a few pictures show them running with just the outers. Just trying to make up my mind. Still don't know which one to do yet either, EH or HG one Decisions, decisions

128 is on the back burner as I can't do any spraying in this weather so now I have a Heljan 33 I am working on that. First job is to narrow the tanks underneath. I don't know why but all Heljan 7mm loco's are too wide down here. I have removed about 1-1.5mm each side. I have also moved the coil springs in on the bogies (bottom pic shows before and after). I am changing the air pipes on the bufferbeams at the moment and then I will paint the pipes and MU/ETH orange. Still can't make my mind up yet what to number it

Got hold of a Heljan O Gauge 33 today and mightily impressed with it The handrails are plastic so as to keep the flat appearance of the prototype, so look after them A nice touch are the snowploughs that are the correct "Southern" style with the upturned ends and they fit to the front of the bogies so they turn with the curves as per prototype. One little compromise with them though is the middle bit turns as well, instead of being mounted on the bufferbeam and the vac pipe will need a bit cutting off to clear the swinging ploughs. But should be able to overcome this little anomally. Headcodes are pre- fitted and there are none in the box to change them if you wanted to. I think I will cut off the center coil spring on the bogies and mount it further back as per the OO ones that people have done. Once I have painted the ETH/MU jumpers orange and an air tank above the fuel tank white it will look really nice. By the way I did try a 40mm ESU speaker in the tank and it fitted ok for those who want sound.

I am still not convinced that blue is bog standard BR Blue. To make a model look like that I would think you would have to change the blue by darkening it or something Anyway this one I am doing is good old Banger Blue. I have recieved to cab steps and speedo from Westdale and the corridor connections from CPL. Have done one end so far. The instructions are a bit vauge but I think it looks right, certainly better than the ones supplied. The concertina bit on them is made using black paper. I have done one side to see what it looks like as being paper it will have to go on after it's cleaned and painted. Need to sort a top bit out as well later. Still waiting for some buffers to finish the chassis off though. The windscreen wipers were from a DJH kit but they are for a wider windscreen than this. I tried to re-bend them but the left hand one here won't play ball

See you there then Weather permitting that is!

The handrails are plastic on the 33 so as to replicate the flat profile of them which would be a sod to do in wire I would think. Can't wait to see one close up though.

Not worked for me all day

Sean, glad you managed to last the distance Has anyone tried to "guess" this darker shade of BR Blue on a model Keefer? Andy, should have it running at the Bourne End session after crimble if you want a closer look. I have now ordered a set of bogie footsteps and speedo from Westdale so just waiting now for these bits and the corridor connections to finish it.

Well Mike the resin doors were as supplied in the kit.Must have bought this one when they were in their process of doing resin bits as the MkI's have resin ends now instead of the ally ones. That's a cracking picture David. Now is that rail blue or this "other" shade that only seems to show in pictures Do you have anymore pictures of these 128's? This one I am doing will be banger blue with dominoes, can't be doing with all these tecnicolour liveries I have finished the chassis bar 2 buffers at one end and a speedo which will have to try and get hold of. It also neds some steps on the bogies.

I am at present painting 20029 so in the mean time i have dug out a long stored project spurned on by all this talk about Easy-Build DMU's. This is a Westdale 128 that can be made with either style front. I am going to make this one of the Reading allocated units that in the dim and distant past I did drive I have just about done what I can on this at the moment. I have ordered some CPL corridor connections that should make the ends look better. Whilst this body looks like a 128 the underframe is a bit lacking in the castings being of the correct style But I just want to get it out of the way so it's going together with what was supplied or else it will get stored again! The headcode boxes and exhaust pipes are only Blue-Tacked on at the moment untill the corridor connection is sorted.

Here's a pic of the North Norfolks railbus for you.

Best of luck with this build Tim, I must try one of these myself (I keep telling myself this ) I am in the same boat as you regarding painting at the moment

Done a little more to the 20. Added the speedo cable and MU cabling from rubber tubing. Also made the sand pipes. I found a casting for an AWS reciever in the spares box from a DJH 31 so thought I might as well use it. It's a shame JLTRT don't do a casting for this. Trouble is though will it show when it's all black under there . I have also had a go at making the coupler banging plate thingy thats under the coupling. Well I have done the token recess so I thought a few more bits won't go amiss. Trouble is the other 3 20's I have done should get these mods as well, we will see. Nearly forgot, I have put the windy wipers on it as well. Still have to make a pair though for the front as JLTRT don't make the little un's. Last thing now are the bogie air pipes which I absolutly hate doing

Hi Ian and welcome to the forum I see The cab steps are from Pete Harvey, his add appears on here randomly. As to the cab windows, yes they are a bit "square" aren't they I wonder if it's worth asking Pete Harvey if he could do an etched window frame with the slight curve on it? I keep looking at mine and I think I put too much of a curve into the handrail under those windows which is making the lack of a curve on the window frames look worse. Something to sort out later I think. With the tanks I am happy to leave it at just narrowing them. If you want to go the whole hog MMP does replacements. Any chance you could put a picture up of what you are doing with yours

I have been doing a little bit more to 20029 recently. I decided to go for the brass JLTRT token casting instead of the plastic one I had. These are now glued in place as is the cab to the hood. I have also made the pipes that run from the front of the cab olong the top of the solebar. The picture I have of 20029 showing these pipes unfortunatly does not show where they go to along the top of the solebar so I guessed that bit but if anyones knows then I will change it. Extra pipes/conduit has been done around the battery boxes. All that's left is the sanding and air pipes on the bogies. There is no rush to finish this as it's a bit too cold to paint it at the moment anyway.