James Makin

Shawplan do the radio antennae and wipers if that helps! www.shawplan.com. I don't know about the etched kickplate but in this scale I've never gone wrong by just handpainting silver and weathering - looks the part! For the underframe tank, the old Lima moulding can be carved away and replaced by a twin-tank spare part from Bachmann, either sourced via their Spares department or just on eBay, normally only a few pounds but it'll make a big difference and easier than hacking the flexible old Italian plastic into shape. Finally my top tip for the roof radio aerial itself, my preference is to use an old toothbrush hair, superglued into a small hole and painted dark grey, the flexibility means it can never be knocked off! Cheers James

Hi all, we have an update on the next Worthing MRC show from the WMRC Committee: WORTHING MODEL RAILWAY CLUB SHOW Important Announcement Worthing MRC has taken the decision to postpone this year’s Annual Exhibition until 2024. The new date of the next show will be September 28th & 29th, 2024 at Durrington High School, Worthing. The decision to postpone the event was not taken lightly. This follows a naturally challenging few years whereby we have decided that as a club, we would not wish to compromise on offering a high quality and exciting show for our loyal visitors, hence the decision to focus all efforts on putting on a fantastic exhibition next September, 2024. We know that this may come as a major disappointment to our regular visitors, however we would encourage you to put the new date in the diaries, and we look forward to inviting you along to our next show which we are confident will be our best ever! Worthing MRC Annual Exhibition 2024 28th & 29th September 2024 Durrington High School, Worthing, West Sussex, BN13 1LA Keep posted on the latest updates at www.worthingmrc.co.uk or search for Worthing Model Railway Club on Facebook.

Plus with some locos, the tumblehome steps were plated on one side only (37057 I've tackled like this!) so it goes to show there's a lot of modelling fun ahead for us all, with these high fidelity models raising the bar, you can't just slap a random number on a loco these days! 😄 Cheers James

My favourite reference point for Class 37 renumberings is at the classic go-to page - https://class37.co.uk/. It's interesting to see that someone's now put this info onto Wikipedia, but the useful thing about the Class 37 page is the ability to search on the 'Fleet History' tab under each different running number depending on whether you knew the loco in it's early days, the first TOPS number or subsequent refurbs, it's all easy to navigate. For the roof detail variations, Flickr can be your friend - type in a loco running number and year and you'll usually be greeted with many shots uploaded, with a degree of luck and searching around the different years you can start to see the key details needed. It's a little more DIY research than just having everything there on a plate but makes for some great fun itself I always think! I've been in the same situation many a time and from experience it's always easier to take the opposite mindset of "I'd like to model 37XXX, which donor model shall I use?" rather than "I've just bought a model, which 37s can I make from it?" - it helps you open the mind a bit consider conversion parts from different places and some modelling fun! The interesting thing about the Accurascale model is the removable roof sections - in a few years time with more variations modelled we could soon all be swapping roof mouldings around on our models in the same way I'd used to be swapping over the different nose ends on the old-school Bachmann 37s, so I am sure there will be some more swapsies fun to come! Cheers James

I'd second the suggestion for spares, in particular, bogie sideframe mouldings for the 37s! In the 'old world' I would brutally hack about the bogie frame to produce a crude but effective-ish representation of a Class 37 cast bogie (or add on bits if doing a fabricated one!) - but on a model as detailed & finessed it almost seems a tad criminal to do too much bodging! I'd happily cross the palms with silver for spares like that to make renumbering projects that bit more straightforward! Cheers James

Exciting update, and very insightful the amount of fettling that has to take place on the journey to a perfect 31! I'm especially looking forward to the Dutch and creaky old 'Banger Blue' examples which will make for great projects to be modelled in circa 1998 condition and just about clinging onto life by a fine thread 😂

The loco's fine but there's now a small crater in your garden 😄

Great to see the project moving forward, I've filled in my EOI for a pair of 'Barbie' 180 Adelante's, so fingers crossed they come to fruition! I was very excited for the 180's project based on an assumption that it would of course be available in Barbie, you just assume it would be the most popular livery for modellers as it was the default launch livery somehow, funny how the world works and what some modellers are like! Let's hope for the best as we all know that 'Barbie' is not a scheme that's easily repainted and there's no proprietary decals out there yet either! 🤞 I guess one day similarly there will be a time when those who see Voyagers, don't remember that they were Virgin Voyagers! 🤣 Cheers, James

Absolutely incredible work! 😎 I found your thread in a section of the forum I don't tend to get to visit often and it's firmly being followed now!

Looking very nice indeed! 😎

Hi Steve! Absolutely, the key to all these finishes for me is to add a layer of matt varnish to start. I'll spray either Railmatch or Humbrol matt varnish from the aerosols across the model that is to be weathered, and then wait at least 1 month for this to harden fully before doing the paint-on/wipe-off weathering stages. I've alluded to it in the writing but essentially the matt finish helps the subsequent weathering paints stick to the body otherwise they wipe straight off as you say! The only downside is the 1-month time taken to wait for the matt varnish to dry and harden, but it's based on my experience of working on a recently-applied varnish, only to have that peel off if it's not hardened enough! There are other weathering techniques out there that people do with the acrylics or powders that can be done instantly but I'm a bit old fashioned in loving the enamel paints! Cheers, James

My latest weathering challenge from Fran, Gareth and the Accurascale gang has been the lovely china clay CDAs, which have made for a great fun project! I've put together a 20-step weathering guide that features on the Accurascale website here, but below is a whistle-stop tour the main elements. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr My inspiration for these was the condition of the wagons around the turn of the century, somewhat older than Accurascale's EWS/DB release, so it has been fun to back-date these and repaint into the original ECC colour scheme. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr Below you can see what you get, the versions tackled by Accurascale mostly feature the EWS red framing, suitable for the early 2000s onwards, with sharply-printed detail and a lovely satin finish. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr Seeking to get these into a fun late 1990s condition meant removing the existing branding, which just lifts off with a little Humbrol enamel thinners, and repainting the frames into a faded ECC blue. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr The wagons were given a coat of gloss varnish prior to applying the superb Railtec Transfers, before giving a good coating of Railmatch matt varnish, and leaving to harden for a month. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr Next up came the weathering fun! The soundtrack came from the superb Sussex-based Maisie Peters who's already rolled out a number of pop bangers this year and is the go-to recommended listening for CDA weathering projects. Having varnished the wagons, a layer of neat Humbrol white was painted all over and removed with cotton buds, the varnish allowing the white paint residue to cling to the wagons and give an all-over pale white finish. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr Following this, the rusty streak layers were added, these are notable on the prototype pictures, emanating from the vents, and in model form, just a drybrush of Humbrol 62 matt leather down the sides gave the right effect, which would soon be toned down with an overall dusting of more Humbrol matt white, applied with an airbrush. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr A small amount of the white dusting was wiped away with a cotton bud dipped in enamel thinners, the corners of the frames seem to be cleaner than the sides, and areas like the wheels were painted, first in dark grey and then dry brushed white over to represent the clay dust build-up. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr Little extra details included repainting the yellow parts on the axleboxes, hopper lid handle mechanism and brake levers, using a faded yellow - Humbrol No. 74. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr The hoods were given an overall weathering alongside the rest of the wagon, and the faded ECC blue looks rather pleasing! Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr Moving onto the ends, the now-white buffers were given a dabbing of dark brown to represent greasy parts, and the shanks themselves painted mid-brown, following prototype photographs of the CDAs. Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr Accurascale CDAs by James Makin by James Makin - Account 3, on Flickr These made for a great fun project, and have definitely reignited my dormant interest in modelling Cornwall (my first ever layout represented this!) - thoughts are turning to creating some quaint china clay mini-layout just to accommodate these! Thanks as always go to Fran, Gareth and the lovely team at Accurascale for letting me have a crack at these awesome wagons! Cheers, James

Following on from my car mileage coincidentally predicting the arrival of ‘Deltic’ Gordon Highlander last Summer, today I think my Mystic Meg car is trying to tell me something about the next Accurascale Exclusive..! Mind you I’ve been preparing for it for a while now! 😂 Cheers James

Barbie all the way without a doubt!

Nice, shame about the Rfd 47s, that is definitely one of the challenges of modelling the extremities of the network being the reduced diversity there! Mind you I’d love to do a mini Lostwithiel station & sidings-type plank layout one day, something cute with a level crossing, the old semaphores and oodles of CDAs! I visited in 2002 and it was great fun watching a ‘66’ shunting around! If you ever have any Bachmann 47s you are looking to shift then my fleet roster is always hungry for more..!

Looking good Rich! Lovely selection of green 47s coming together as well! 😎

Well I must say I've been very naughty this morning! The prices are ever so reasonable considering the amount of vehicle for your money. When these arrive my Didcot Parkway layout will be suitably well populated with the right level of automotive traffic! Keep up the great work lads! 👍

I’d go for a little touch of PVA glue (or similar), there’s a big risk in using super glue that it could overspill and damage the paint, at least with a non-solvent glue it’ll just wipe away and no issues!

Thanks guys for the advice on the non-sound decoders earlier, I think I better bide my time for an Accurascale decoder in due course! 🤞 The snowplough attachments look great, you wouldn’t believe how much of the back of the ‘plough (and bogie front) I had to grind down to get ploughs fitted and bogies to swing freely on my old Bachmann 37s 😂 Cheers, James

On the topic of decoders for the 37s, does anyone have a recommendations for the best value (cheapest!) non-sound decoders for the DCC Ready locos please? I've got a stash of Hattons 21-Pin 'Direct' chips but I was wondering if these may fit or if they need to be those 'MTC' ones (Dapol Imperium?), what would you guys all recommend? I'm not looking to use many functions beyond having the headlight & headcode box marker lights in the direction of travel if that helps reduce functions needed! Many thanks in advance! James

That's too close to the truth! 😄 I actually had 8 cheapo old Bachmann 37s lined up as part of my current loco reworking batch, but seeing all the painted up samples come to life here in recent months I've decided to park them all and wait for the Accurascale ones to land instead, I'm hooked on how they've captured the 'heavy' look as it sits low on the bogies and oh so ultra meaty!

The main lesson is you can't please everyone, I will be matt varnishing mine (like all my stock) to give it a dead-flat look, I don't like satin finish locos at all, even when modelling an ex-works one, I don't think it scales that well in 4mm! 100% of the fun in RTR these days is customising it to make it your own and Accurascale are giving us a superb base on which to start that journey 😎 Cheers James

That doesn’t bode well for me in the future, aged just 36 but already I’m clinging on to my old Lenz LH100 controllers whilst my mates have moved onto iPads 🤣 Back on the 37s, those recent pics showcase just how good the checker plate is around the cab steps, sublime detail there! 😎 The fine-ness of the bufferbeam detailing is also worth a mention, incredible! It’s easy to get bogged down in the details but the fact we can soon just go and buy these for £170 and it’s instantly better than hours of labouring on the old-gen locos (see the bodged old Bachmann 37s on my Workbench thread for starters!) shows just how much the hobby is being pushed forward, keep it up guys!

For my take on the UK D&E scene I'd nominate the 2000s - at the start of this decade we had large stocks of basic Lima diesels lining the shelves of every model shop and the pancake-powered Lima Class 66 had arrived only the summer before. We soon saw the Bachmann Class 25, building on the smooth central-drive mechanisms seen in their Warship and '158', and with sprung buffers to boot. Grilles became see-through, both on the '25' and the brand new Class 170 Turbostar hitting the shops then. Hornby had decided they wanted a piece of the action and fired out the then-game-changing 50, 31 and 60 in just a short few years, along with many solid wagon releases from Bachmann. Each new release gradually had a little something extra from this point, but what makes the 2000s decade stand out to me was the breadth of releases - we ended the 2000s with almost all mainline diesels being covered by 'high-spec' models in one form or another, and had seen the integration of working lights, DCC and DCC Sound as core elements - something we would have marvelled at in 1999 yet took for granted by 2009. The Bachmann wagon range had been transformed from just an HEA/MEA and VGA to a whole range of stuff, whether coal, petroleum, steel, aggregates or distribution - there was something for everyone and at very reasonable prices. A worthy nod goes to the 2010s period - I think the core part there being that there may have been a sense in the hobby that the main manufacturers were possibly becoming a bit bloated, a bit stale, possibly taking their dominating position for granted, which may have led to a new generation of hobbyists thinking 'we can do better', putting big money where their mouths are to sew the seeds for the thriving and competitive scene we have become accustomed to now. I think I'm happy with the level of details we see now - but I'd love to see something in the area of couplings to oust the old tension-lock forever, and something that could make shunting easy, yet 'British' in appearance so to not look as out of place as a Kadee, perhaps building on the fashionable magnet couplings of today, with DCC-powered electromagnets, would be most interesting! Cheers, James

Great stuff and Paul, I would be very flattered that so many manufacturers and modellers use your photos for reference, hopefully you get the credit where it’s due! It’s easy to underplay the significance but a massive blow was dealt by the death of Fotopic in the early 2010s, thousands of early-digital and scanned wagon reference photos essential for ‘90s-‘00s modellers like myself disappeared overnight, and subsequently Wagons on the Web came down, countless stacks of photos were lost with only a small percentage having subsequently appeared on wagon Facebook groups and Flickr. Naively we probably all assumed they’d always stay online, how we learned that lesson - always save that image! We’re indebted to photographers such as yourself, Martyn Read, Andy Jupe and others who’ve maintained resilient websites and photo collections on various online platforms that stood the test of time, and the growing band of Flickr & Smugmug users uploading pics from their archive collections, as time goes on I can imagine even more of your reference photos becoming 3D models, and long may it continue! Cheers, James