Jump to content
 

ClikC

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    528

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by ClikC

  1. ClikC
    Hi All,
     
    Slow but steady work continues on the Class 87, Lima body on a Heljan 86 chassis to reiterate.
     
    For the best part of this week I've been working on the roof of the 87, which has involved cutting up the Heljan "Class 86" body to remove the roof as one piece. And removing the chunky and fairly fictional lima roof.
     
    So after a lot of sawing, filling, test fitting, more filling, more test fitting, a bit more sawing and you guessed it, some more filling. The liquid poly came out, and the roof secured to the body of the 87.
     

     

     
    Unfortunately I didn't bother with any "before" shots, but I really think it makes a hell of a lot of a difference to the model, despite being the wrong colour. The finer detail of the Heljan roof, really lifts the model. I think this will become my default method of upgrading 87's.
     
    This week I'll be returning to the underframe.
     
    Regards
     
    Matt
  2. ClikC

    Class 87 for Caldew

    By ClikC,

    As a break from my recent projects, I decided to start a long overdue project, a Class 87 re-motored and converted to P4.
     
    An old Lima 87 was picked up for about £25 on Ebay, and with Rails of Sheffield having the new Heljan 86's on offer for varying prices, I picked one up for £84.50. Also had the benefit of allowing me to evaluate a Heljan 86 offering, and to be able to make a more informed opinion on it's viability for re-motoring Hornby's much better 86's and Hornby/Lima class 87's.
     
    Unfortunately due to the thickness of plastic the Hornby 86 is molded in, it won't fit on the Heljan chassis without considerable work. The good news, the Lima 87 body slips on easily once the body mounting lugs have been removed (I chose to drill vertically down the lug to remove it tight to the underside of the body roof). But some work is required to make the body sit flush, due to the components on the Heljan circuit board. I chose to make with the elbow grease, and set to the inside of the body armed with course emery paper and a grinding tool in a mini drill. A mill would make light and accurate work of this, but by far the easiest option would be to dispense with the Heljan circuit board, and make your own smaller one.
     
    The chassis was stripped of everything but the battery box and air tanks (I'm not sure on the air tanks, i really need some photo's of the underframe on the prototype to make sure everything is situated right). Wheels were replaced with Alan Gibson 3'8" steel tyre'd P4 disc wheels.
     
    Here are some photo's of the work completed so far, pictured with a Bachmann Mk1 Bg and Airfix Mk2D.
     



     
    As you can see from the above photo's, i've only done the one side so far. Hornby class 90 bogies shrunk to the correct 43-mm (for 4-mm scale) axle spacing, and I've started to rebuild the underframe with a mixture of Heljan parts, and parts cut from the old Lima underframe. The flexi-coil springs need adding, but need filing down to fit (they are a bit to tall on the Lima 87). Eventually I aim to have full working primary coil suspension and working flexi-coil secondary suspension, but thats probably better listed as a 'pipe dream'.
     
    I also need to figure out what I'm going to do about the GEC (AEI) cross-arm pantograph, which I guess is going to be a scratch build, or a very fiddily to design and build etch. And I need to find some Hornby class 50 MU jumpers, but thats all detailing work really.
     
    This 87 is destined to become 007 with sister 014 to follow later, the plan being that these two will feature working a double headed frieghtliner service.
     
    With regards the use of the Heljan 86 for re-motoring, I'll be doing it again but much much later, when they are going cheap on ebay. It was a tough decision, I want to support 4-mm scale overhead electric loco's (both kit and RTR), but I wish that these offerings better reflected the look of the prototypes. Hopefully the forthcoming Bachmann class 85 will do what the Heljan 86 has not. I also find the Heljan method for bogie mounting leaves them a little to stiff for my liking, so for future 87's and 86's, I may go with stretching the future Bachmann Class 85 chassis's.
     
    As always, comments, suggestions and criticisms welcomed.
     
    Regards
     
    Matt
  3. ClikC
    Track laying has commenced on Blackwell Road, with wiring and tortoise point motor installation being completed along the way.
     
    I've gone for Exactoscale / P4 Track Co.'s NewTrack system through out the scenic boards, making use of their 60' 24 sleeper panels, S1 Chairs and Steel rail. Originally I was going to combine the NewTrack turnout kits with the FastTrack bases and C&L's HiNi rail, but I changed my mind considering that the sleeper grain is far too over stated on the FastTrack, and by opting for NewTrack I can use correct keying practice which I think will leave me much more satisfied with the look of the track. The FastTrack bases will be used for the cassettes. In an odd turn of events I find myself with a really strong liking of using Steel rail so far, see a bit further down.
     
    Progress has been much slower than I would have liked, but work has entered it's busy season. Still I have a week off in July coming up, hopefully I can get on and finnish a majority of the track work then. The first turnout pictured is a B8 Right Hand (as part of a crossover), which I had started at the exeter show but is now finished and fully working.
     

     
    I've now got about 2 meters of plain track wired up, which has allowed me to run a lot of my Diesel conversions. Most of the one pictured below are sat on Ultrascale nickel silver wheels, but my first steps into P4 a few years back now leaves me with a Class 25 sat on Alan Gibson steel wheels. Originally I was never quite satisfied with the Alan Gibson conversion, but now I'm using steel rail I've seen what all the fuss is about. While the nickel sliver ultrascale wheels have a fair amount of slip on nickel silver rail, it's less so on the steel (although still noticeable). But what made me sit up was running the 25 the first time, the extra grip afforded by the steel on steel is really noticeable. It's certainly made me re-evaluate my opinions on the whole debate, and I find myself wanting the quality of ultrascale's wheels, but with steel tyres.
     

    Looking down the laid track, a vac awaits departure with a small two van parcels train.
     

    A selection of converted loco's, 45, 47, 25, 40, 37 and a 50. All in much need of considerable work to bring upto P4 standards, but none the less all rolling P4 conversions.
     
    Regards
     
    Matt
     
    Source: Blackwell Road
  4. ClikC

    Blackwell Road 2

    By ClikC,

    Short update.
     
    Layout now has a permanent home in my bedroom, spend the last couple of weeks getting some shelving put up to allow me to store the layout, without stealing floor space. Also been filling and sanding the board tops ready for applying the Templot plan, which I'm happy to say has concluded today.\
     

     
    Please excuse the photo, the light was failing and my room is a lot tidier than it looks from this angle, but I really do need to sort out the work bench and the stock shelf. Plus I really should get around to re-decorating... As you can see, i was having a quick play with the Bachy 47, one of my recent P4 conversions on Ultrascales. Has been stripped and needs repainting once i've finished adjusting the cab windows.
     
    Anyway, the plan is all firmly in position ready for track laying over the next few weeks. Although the middle board will be coming with me to Exeter 2010 show, so i'm resisting the urge to lay all the track on the board, lest I have nothing to do at the show.
     

     
    Again, please excuse the photography, as the light was failing. The above shows the C10 LH for entering the yard, with a Mk1 BG for scale. I really do love big point work, the smallest point on the layout is an A7 for the TTA siding.
     
    Next update should be post the Exeter show, if you coming along, please stop by to say hello.
     
    Exeter 2010 topic
     
    Exe MRS Website
     
    Regards
     
    Matt
     
    Source: Blackwell Road
  5. ClikC

    Blackwell Road

    By ClikC,

    Hi all, and welcome to my layout thread.
     
    Blackwell road (or more accurately Blackwell Road V2) is my first real attempt to produce a layout of P4 or 4-mm finescale standards. It's basically a glorified test plank, as i've a real desire to model a prototypical section of the Northwest LMR circa May 1974. But the layout will be exhibitable and hopefully that'll help me gain some much needed exhibition experience. By entering the layout here in RMWeb's 2010 layout challenge, I hope it'll give me a nice deadline to finish by, thus I'll be able to work on the next layout while having something to test P4 conversions and builds on.
     
    Blackwell road was attempted before, with a wildly different track plan, but the baseboards were made for an '00' gauge layout and were not built to decent enough standards for P4 wheels and track. The name comes from a road near some allotment ground in Carlisle, although being a purely fictional railway. The layout will feature a small two road parcels only station and for the main part a TMD for the staple supply of Northwest LMR diesel locomotives. Class 40's (my personal favorite) and 25's will feature in prominence, along with 45's, 50's, 47's and 37's. But as this layout is designed as a testing ground for locomotive's converted to P4, most have yet to be built or converted.
     
    The layout will be built for DCC from the ground up, and most of, if not the loco's will be sound fitted. I'd also like to try to make the layout operateable in both daylight and night time modes, with some sort of adjustable layout lighting.
     
    The boards are some 12'9"long, by 18" inches wide (1854 square inches for the scenic area, 156 square inches for the fiddle yard cassettes, equalling exactly 2010 square inches to meet the RMweb challenge rules). Anyway, below are some photo's with the boards mocked up (last board needs gluing together) with a previous printed templot plan placed into position (the final plan is more or less the same).
     

    With the non-scenic fiddleyard board nearest (not the top is in-set for the use of cassettes) and the two scenic boards covered with the previous plan in templot.
     

    More of a close up on the old templot plan.
     

    For a better sense of scale here is the plan with a couple of items of stock I've converted to P4; Mk1 GUV and Mk1 BG in the parcels depot and a Class 45 crossing the double slip from the TMD.
     

    And here is a scan of the reduced sized actual plan, sorry for the quality.
     
    Hopefully the plan has a nice sense of space, which is a major feature of real life TMD's both big and small. Choosing large B8 and C10 turnouts really helped this.
     
    Anyway, tomorrow I shall assemble the final board. A little bit of wood filler and much sanding later will leave the boards primed for covering with spray-mount and then sticking the final templot plan down. Then I need to think about producing legs for exhibition, but the layout will fit on shelves in my room.
     
    Regards
     
    Matt
     
    Source: Blackwell Road
×
×
  • Create New...