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Red Devil

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  1. Red Devil
    A bit more done to the Supertram CAD, there's a couple of little bits to sort on the body (front rubber bumper is one) but the bodf is nearly there now.
     
    Chassis and articulation is next to be sorted, but that's more 'modelling' than copying the prototype.
     
    Few more pics
     

     

     

     

  2. Red Devil

    End of the road ?

    By Red Devil,

    Whilst nothing much has been happening with Grime Street......see previous entry about Sheffield Grimeside..... I've been giving some thought about its future, I'll be honest I like building stuff rather than operating and with pressure of work being another contributory factor taking it out was becoming less enjoyable than previously.
     
    So serious thought time ensued the upshot being as it stands at the moment Grime St will be departing for pastures new most likely early in the new year.
     
    I hope some found my ramblings interesting.....well if you didn't my apologies, it's been a learning curve, hopefully I've progressed and SG will be as good if not better....
     
    It may not be the end....Grimier Street may yet get built, so never say never.....
     
    Thanks for reading......
  4. Red Devil
    Finally got round to getting the Wiking Control87 vehicle up and running at Doncaster last weekend.....it will be a bit of a learning curve getting it to drive it well....but I'll get there.....hopefully!
     
    The very first go on Grime St is shown bellow....yes it's not great!
     

     
    So, as a DHL box van doesn't really go the plan is to build it into something like this.....
     
    https://c7.staticflickr.com/8/7496/15490092630_098d7fe14d_m.jpg
     
    Probably use an RTI resin cab, married to a pantechnicon body that fits over the box van body....cab was off to see what's what.
  5. Red Devil
    Leeds 600 was one of my earliest FUD prints now approx 5 and a half years old, never been happy with either its performance or finish....
     
    So a 19mm powered Bullant/dummy Bullant have been fitted into the Halling C mech chassis frame, definitely better so far, the drive unit on this is another 38.5:1 Belt drive unit and has 'plenty' to shift the 3d print body.
     
    Th body had been primed and painted using aerosols and the question was how to strip this back, previously I've used Dettol and Isopropyl Alcohol to varying degrees of success but this time went for a bath of MEK and a soft brush....result? Yeah no damage or issues to the print to the naked eye....cleaned and sorted in no time....this is not a dunk and leave proposition as I have had that with both the other two things listed which ended up in deformed prints bit as a quick paint remover it seemed to work fine....
     
    So when cleaned, a quick re prime and this is where we are now....quick test video
     

     
    Time for a bit more detailing now...stuff I'd previously not got round to.....bow tubes, route boxes on side, various other bits and pieces then a full repaint, the interior and chassis will need a bit of work but overall happy with this revamp, performance is far better than the previous Halling drive
  6. Red Devil

    I'm on 'Easy Street' !

    By Red Devil,

    As was mentioned before I'd ordered some 'Easy Street' girder rail for the proposed extension to'Grime Street', it's produced in the US and available from http://www.proto87.c...tcar-track.html (usual disclaimer)
     
    So what do you get?
     

     
    Well this is a twin left hand points module, as you can see you also need the plain and curved track sections to complete a working point, so I duly ordered some! Also shown is one of the downloadable drawings available on the Proto 87 website, these are available in quite a few figuarations right up to a 'grand junction' crossing and in various formats (oo/ho, proto87 etc). These I found very handy as you can play around with them to your hearts content.
     
    So, time to do some track laying, armed with tweezers, super glue gel and bits of wire (used as joiners) this was the result.
     
    I've literally built this road section on a plank, 18mmx144 as I had it to hand and wanted a soild base, which I'll let into a baseboard unit when finished, the points on the trailing crossover will be sprung as this is going to be the line terminus, so little in the way of operational flexibility is required.
     
    Overall, very happy so far, need to do some soldering and get it wired up to check for any faults, but it's lived up to its' name so far and been very easy and user friendly, I have a feeling that 'Grime Street' will be being relaid in the near future.
     

  7. Red Devil

    Wiking Control87

    By Red Devil,

    Now being a sucker for moving road vehicles on the FCS and obviously the Magnorail cyclist I must admit I'm tempted to add a Wiking Control87 vehicle into the mix....
     
    These being very much like the FCS vehicles but radio controlled....not a cheap item but one of the trucks altered to say a BRS wagon being reversed in and out of some of the factory yards on Grime St would create a bit of interest at exhibitions I think.
     
    A gimmick? Yeah probably but I always view it that we're there to entertain (or try!).
     
    I can see the conversation now though....'Is that Faller?' ......'Erm no it's broken now 'cos I've just driven it off the baseboard!'
     
    Thoughts anyone? Complete toylike gimmick or possibly worth adding to the Grime Street repertoire?
     
    Quick video of one in action......
     

  8. Red Devil

    Warley Woes.....

    By Red Devil,

    One or two of my regular readers (optimistic here!) may know that Grime Street was due to be at the Warley show very shortly.....
     
    Unfortunately I've had to withdraw and we won't be attending, last week my van and approx £3k of tools were stolen from where I was working, yep Grime Street had it's own van to travel in.....it doesn't now.
     
    Obviously this has impacted heavily on my available time to prep/work/exhibit, you name it...not easy trying to keep going when half your kit has disappeared up the road....with me in pursuit.... another minute and I'd have had the ###### and I may not have been at Warley due to being detained by her majesty!
     
    The Warley club have been great about it all offering plenty of help and I'd like to place on record my thanks to them....but I'll be honest I can't get motivated even if I could spare the time.
     
    Anyway if anyone was going to be looking us out....my apologies, we'll be back somewhere soon!
  9. Red Devil
    I've managed to fit a number of Bullants to various trams....very happy with the running these have now done....superior in pretty much every way to anything that I'd tried before, overall this is definitely the way forward for the Grime St fleet.
     
    A quick video of two Bullant powered reworked Horsfields. This was filmed yesterday at the Hazel Grove show.
     

  10. Red Devil
    Most if not all of my fleet of trams run on Halling or Halling derived mechanisms, up till recently I've been fairly happy with their running yes slower would be nicer, I too hate 100mph, crash stop, 100mph, crash stop, 100mph running as seems to be the norm on some tram layouts, to a degree unless you're prepard to build your own the tram market is governed by what's available....and that's a whole lot less than the railway side of things!
     
    As Grime Street has grown even the Hallings are getting 'found out' a bit with wear to their plastic wheel bushes....replaceable yes but still a pain at times and at approx 21:1 I still feel too fast....that coupled with the fact that bogie cars run considerably slower makes it hard work running the two at exhibitions...
     
    So having recently tried the Hollywood Foundry Bullants and having been very happy with their performance....more so after the Halifax show, the decision was made to re equip with 38.5:1 Bullants.....this ain't going to be cheap!
     
    So a rather expensive box full of shiny new bits (for expensive read total cost...not per unit for what you get!) landed today....I'm going to be busy....
     
    Hopefully this will prove a good idea in the long run....I'm fed up of the tram modelling 20 years behind bit....some maybe....but hopefully that's not always going to be the case....I'm no great advancer of things....as I say I just like building stuff....but if it's going out I'd prefer it to look and run ok if nothing else...
     
    Over the next few months I'm hoping to swap over pretty much completely to the Bullants..
     

  11. Red Devil
    As per the last post we spent the weekend at the Halifax MRC show, well looked after and a really enjoyable weekend, it was also nice to be home with layout all down and packed in less than an hour!
     
    The self promotion bit, well I was a bit shocked to be presented with the best layout trophy, previous winners including Barrowfleet and Liverpool Lime Street, so to be even considered pretty much made my day.....chuffed to bits as we say up here!
     
    Me and a cup.....
     

  12. Red Devil
    Well Faller car system like....both use Faller front axles, steering guide, motor mount and wheels but the rest from other suppliers. The motor is 12v rated mini motor from Nigel Lawton, this fits directly into a 10mm Faller motor mount, battery is a 3v rated half AA. that coupled with a diode drops the speed to something acceptable, even better I called into Tesco today to find all their half AA Duracells were on half price sale!
     
    One is the previously seen YWD Leyland Olympic the other a Base Toys conversion which is currently a little noisy, the box van body amplifying the sound somewhat.
     
    Next up on the FCS front an EFE artic.....
     
    Anyway a couple of quick test videos.....
     

     

  14. Red Devil
    Well sort of........
     
    I suppose like everyone else I'm never happy with some stuff so as the 'new' railway section on Grime St has really begun to take shape (3 road fiddle yard built on one board and a cantilevered one in progress for the other end) I decided that a revamp of the original board was due, so large blunt instruments were brought into play.....resulting in this mess....
     

     
    I've decided to add in another loop and a better (more depth) side street on the original board, by doing so this means that there isn't very much of the original layout left, some of the baseboard and a couple of banks of buildings, but they're subject to change and addition.
     
    At the same time I'm also adding a trailing crossover to introduce more operational flexibility especially when operating Grime St hooked upto Andy Burrows Florin St layout.
     
    Progress has been fairly rapid with all timber work etc completed and half the track already built. So more to follow in due course.
     
    I suppose it's fairly timely then that Grime Street makes its debut in BRM this month (April edition) Some great photos by Andy York that make it look better than it is!
     
    Plus you get the dubious bonus of an interview with yours truly.....I was watching that through my fingers on first viewing but hopefully it's not too bad....
     
    Buy one now whilst stocks last....I am not on commission honestly!
     
    See http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/109547-brm-april-free-dvd/ for more details
  15. Red Devil
    My latest madcap idea for more moving road vehicles is to see if I can alter the n gauge Tomytec bus to power a 4mm truck, the Tomytec bus is on examination almost a Faller copy to a degree, the front axle whilst not the same is similar using 1mm brass pins for the wheel attachment, five minutes after opening the box the rear axle was out and swapped for a Faller one with larger wheels.
     
    As far as I know the Tomytec operates exactly the same as a Faller vehicle, in so much as the reed switch etc, but also has another reed switch in it as a 'slow down' before stop, needing an extra magnet for this. (I need to pick up some LR44 batteries tomorrow to check this out for myself).
     
    So if it's not possible to regauge the Tomytec front axle I'll just add in one of my usual Faller ones, should be fairly simple....he says!
     
    Best bit, a complete Tomytec chassis is approx £18 plus post from Japan. So even if I need a new front axle it should prove a pretty cheap way of doing a couple of 'smaller' trucks.
     
    Anyway a quick pic to give an idea......
     
    TBC!
     

  16. Red Devil
    Not quite as the Mod era is a bit late for the Grime Street period, so here's 'Bert' taking his newly purchased Lambretta LD125 for a quick spin.
     
    Or in reality the old Airfix scooter and rider messed about with to run on the Magnorail circuit, needs a little bit of fine tuning but getting there.
     
    Now does anyone do a 'Bubble Car' in 4mm?
     

  17. Red Devil
    The Grime Street team had an outing to Peterborough this weekend to exhibit at the Festival of Railway Modelling, we had a very enjoyable if busy weekend, the layout seemed to go down well and I was fairly busy answering questions, mainly about the cyclist....
     
    We were well looked after and had a thoroughly great time and it was great to chat to several RMweb members from the boss down.....!
     
    I'll be honest and say I didn't really get to see as much of the show as I'd have liked but that's often the way it goes, Andy one of my helpers and a fellow RMweb member shot quite a bit of video of Grime Street as it's something we'd never really got round to, so a big thanks to him for that and uploading it to Youtube.
     
    Only problem is, is that I now can see quite a few things that need attending to, one being 'that' board joint which I think took a bang in transit!
     

  18. Red Devil
    Prior to the festival of model trams in July there was a rapid period of building to add a 'jointing board' to Andy Burrow's Florin Street layout, the two Leeds tram layouts live 250 miles apart so construction to join the two for inter running had a few minor difficulties but we did manage it and it will happen again (and better) in the future where the two layouts are in attendance. This involved building a double junction off the original layout (to the right hand end) and a small board to join the two layouts.
     
    This has now given me the impetus to get my finger out on board 4 of Grime Street which will be based on the former Leeds City Transport depot at Hunslet, it's not a copy but based on.....
     
    The picture below is Hunslet depot, it actually closed to trams pre WW2 even though the wiring remained for quite some time
     

     
    As the depot was on Low Road, the model depot will be known as Lower Rd Depot.
     
    In effect it'll be a series of loops, the majority of the depot not really being modelled but the front and side in low relief the loops connecting to the original layout at the rear in the hidden area, allowing cars to enter from the rear then be brought out into traffic from the front. A turning loop of Faller Road vehicle guide is planned allowing LCT buses to turn on the depot fan before returning back down Grime Street.
     
    So far a fair bit of track has been constructed (but nowhere near fettled and finished) it includes some fairly complex stuff (for me!) including a single slip and a three way point, still lots to do but gives an idea
     

     
    The tracks leading off to the right will still allow the joint board to be used and through running to Florin Street.
     
    The pic below shows Snowblade 7 posed on the stand alone joint board, scenics on this will need reworking when board 4 comes into play.
     

     
    The pic below shows the two layouts combined at the Festival, they have an approx 16ft frontage, with board 4 that'll take it up to 20ft and Andy has another one planned so a 24ft frontage joint Leeds tram layout is currently in the planning and building stage!
     

     
    It's grown a bit since the original idea of a small Leeds tram layout......
  19. Red Devil

    Leeds 1955?

    By Red Devil,

    Well no, it's Rochdale Town Hall about 3pm this afternoon, as sort of requested here's a short video clip that was kindly sent to me by a visitor to the Heywood MRG show this afternoon.
     
    Road vehicles, trams and that bloody cyclist again! I now need eyes in the back of my head but fortunately no serious crashes!
     

  20. Red Devil
    What's that thing they have on the back of trucks now, 'do not pass on the nearside' ? Well more by luck than good management I've managed not to mangle a cyclist with a sideswipe. smile emoticon
    I've re done quite a bit of the Faller circuits using magnetic strip so was having a bit of a test before scribing the new plaster bits....
    Sorry about video quality but trying to get it all together at the same time was fun....
     

  21. Red Devil
    There are quite a few ongoing projects at the moment mainly FUD prints but a few other bits and pieces.
     
    First up is Leeds post war car 276, this was to be the prototype for a batch of 50 , unfortunately it never progressed beyond this one, this proved to be the last complete tram built at Kirkstall Rd works, (601 and 602 were built by Roe at Crossgates and 600 was nominally a rebuild)
     
    Shown in the second of it's three liveries (light blue, dark blue then red). FUD print body, scratch built chassis bar cast trucksides, scratch built bow, needs interior and glazing.
     

     
    Next up is an ex Manchester Pilcher shown in the later red livery, body painted etc part glazed, chassis and interior to do.
     

     
    Another 2 bodies that are underway are both FUD prints, again both in the earlier dark blue livery one being a Middleton Bogie and one being a Leeds Pivotal, the printed/cast trucks were shown on the previous entry for this one.
     

     

     

     
    Just to prove it's not all 3d prints, I decided to upgrade a few EFE Horsfields, the castings for these are pretty good and with a bit of detailing and repainting can look the part. I currently have 4 of these at various stages and with various modifications to make them more prototypically correct (the castings whilst being 'right' have a few daft anomalies) This is the one nearest completion,
     

     

     
    The most important development of these models has been fellow RMwebber and fellow Leeds tram modeller Andy Burrows aka Purple Door and his brilliant range of prototypically correct adverts, no more generic adverts or something that'll do, there is now a huge range of adverts destinations and other bits and pieces, I've been lucky enough to share these for a while and all the models above show how good they are. Andy has now decided to make these available to all and has set up tramads see http://tramads.co.uk/main.phpNow I'll admit to being biased without these Grime Street and its fleet wouln't be anywhere near as good!
     
    Andy is also doing other non Leeds stuff and has done street names, factory and shop signs, tram stops etc for me, first of a big thank you on that but if you need something speak to him, if it's interesting he'll be interested, well that's what he said to me!
     
    There will be a quite a few modifications in the coming months, one is to make a link to Andy's Florin Street layout for occasional link ups of the two at exhibitions, this will allow me to incorporate something from the master of Northern Urban Grot, Dave Shakespeare, I never knew Dave personally but his Tetley Mills layout was an inspiration to me, after his untimely passing I managed to purchase one of his iconic buildings, it'll be incorporated into Grime Street as my little homage, as without Tetley Mills I doubt there'd be a Grime Street....
     
    It's most likely to feature as Shakespeare Terrace Police station, the style of building and Dave's previous profession seem rather apt.
     
    Hopefully this gives a little taster of what's to come
     

     

     

  22. Red Devil
    Very few of the trucksides used for the Leeds tram fleet have had to been produced as there are plenty of resin or white metal cast parts about. However there wasn't anything for the EMB pivotal trucksides used on the Chamberlain cars that became known as Pivotals obviously due to their trucks, which in theory were meant to combine the best of the 4 wheel and bogie designs, in practice they weren't a success as the linkages needed plenty of maintenance to work well, the majority of the time in use they ended up as locked 10ft wheelbase 4 wheel trucks which by all accounts punished the track, plenty were retrucked after the war but many survived into the 50s.
     
    We've done a pivotal truckside in 4mm before printed in FUD and whilst very nice it was fairly prone to damage, so I thought I'd give it a go in brass and beef it up a bit for this material, the truckside is produced as a lost wax casting from a wax print so not strictly printed but produced by methods involving.
     
    Overall they've come out pretty well, they certainly capture the look and strength is definitely not going to be a problem
     

     

     
    Next to have a mess with is a 7mm version done in steel....never tried this so may or may not work!
  23. Red Devil
    A cryptic heading....however I was fairly amazed recently when the Grime Street Blog ticked over to 100,000 plus views, I can only put it down to a stuck F5 button on my various laptops!
     
    To be honest I'm always gobsmacked that anyone is interested in what I'm doing, the subject matter is hardly mainstream add that to my ramblings, well 'nuff said! So thank you to all who have looked in and taken an interest, whilst I doubt it's inspired many I do hope it's shown that modelling trams doesn't have to be card roads and Superquick buildings with really detailed trams of every system running, nothing wrong with that if that's what you want but you wouldn't run a 73 on a West Highland layout, so that was my aim with Grime Street......hopefully objective achieved.....
     
    Anyway as the layout is now near as damn it upto scratch and a pause is taken before carrying on with board 4 (That's the 'not Hunslet' depot) I can hopefully get a few half done projects finished to bolster the fleet....bigger layout, more stock!!
     
    So Chamberlain 73 has nearly been finished......
     
    This has been sat patiently waiting to be finished for a good few months, it's very nearly there now and as close to completion and as detailed as I've ever managed!
    It was going to be a pivotal trucked one, but I cocked up the mounting plates for the Halling drive (lopsided) and the easiest way was to put in some more...but I then had to use cast P35 trucksides to make it work easier....so I did, upshot is I now have three 41mm drives to fit to some more 'real' Pivs....
    I need to add a bow rope and a couple of platform handrails, I will probably add the black beading between the red and ivory band...
    I think the one thing that now really makes a Leeds car a Leeds car is the fantastic array of transfers that Andy aka purpledoor has produced for these cars, anyone modelling a Leeds tram is indebted to him for the time and effort taken to produce them, a big thanks from me......
    So a few pics



  24. Red Devil
    Well that was rather an eventful month or two, having missed RMWeb live through illness, next outing was Leeds MRC show this last weekend, as the layout doesn't often get put up in its full form now (it's getting too big!) opportunity was taken to get a few pics of the current state of play. It's as complete as it has ever been, but you know the old mantra....'it's never......' well that remains the case.
     
    Several things are planned before its next outing in February (Rochdale) but as per normal with me nothing will happen to the end of January!
     
    Anyway enough waffle....pics....some done with camera others with phone, mixture of colour and b&w/sepia effect for that 50s feel.
     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  25. Red Devil
    As per the recent entry Grime Street board 3 made its public debut at the Festival of Model Tramways last weekend.....
     
    The whole event wasn't without stress and drawbacks as I didn't quite manage to get quite a few things finished in time (ie stringing the overhead at 11.30, painting the road surface at 12.30 the night before and the weathering the road surface at 5 am before loading and heading for the show is not good for your stress levels)
     
    However the one thing that did perform faultlessly was the Magnorail Cyclist, unfortunately as yet unpainted....
     
    I hope you can forgive the few things that are obviously not done but here's a video done by my assistant and life saver for the day Andy Burrows aka Purple door, the light blue Leeds post war car shown is also his latest masterpiece completed in time for the festival......note to self if others can manage that so can I....maybe next year!!
     

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