54Strat

Hi David, Interesting use of the word 'net' to describe the 2D layout. I've not come across this term in over 20 years in the CAD and 3D industry and I'm wondering if it's a TurboCAD term? Technically, it's called a development, though I have used the crude term 'pelting' for laying out texture space for characters. Paul

It's been a while since I posted; life, family, work and hobbies all shift in priority from time to time. I've still been busy, more collecting than modelling though, and now I find myself running out of storage space for my stock. Some OO stock will have to go soon to make space as I've really can't see myself going fully to OO and seem to have settled firmly on N now. Though that said, I did buy a sample pack of a wagon and some easy track from the 2mm Assocation a month back. The little modelling I've done has been in fits and starts, with nothing ever getting completed before I've another idea and I'm off onto the next one, or I'm distracted by other diversions. I'm sure some of you out there can relate. Anyway, tonight I dug out that FruitD and remembered I'd re-done the transfers on clear paper as opposed to the white backed paper of my previous effort. This will need a patch of white painting on the side of the wagon where the transfers will go, as the decal's lettering is transparent and needs to rely on the background to provide the colour. I've printed quite a few shades of blue to get a match, keying of a calibrated scan of the wagon itself to provide a reference. So I'm setting some time aside to get this finished. I can then mark this job as done from about thirty odd jobs I've got on the go and move onto the next one and so on until they're all finished. So many unfinished jobs was actually a bit overwhelming, now I've decided to just get on with it, I think it seems more of a challenge. We'll see Paul (the ex procrastinator)

Just spent the last hour reading this thread. Very inspirational and educational. It may even persuade me to get my finger out and some modelling done, thanks for sharing. Paul

After 5 x n gauge weathered ones dropped through the letterbox at work, I must say these are the most detailed rtr n gauge stock I've seen to date. They don't disappoint and really are fantastic. I just need to find a way to get them into the house without being caught again.

This is looking really good. The filler works really well. Another solution and very similar to ewsjo's way is to borrow a method from the model airplane guys and maybe use a product called Solarfilm. However, this is iron on (actually you place the iron very close for a short amount of time to stretch the fabric) so melting the plastic is a real danger. Just an idea. Paul

Have you sourced any transfers for the Dapol CCT? I've repainted one in BR Blue too, but the ones I ordered from the NGS were yellow text, rather than the correct white and I've not been able to source any others. So this is on hold until I either make my own (I'm still experimenting on a BR Blue Fruit D) or I do actually find a vendor.

Nice solution for shipping. I airmailed via DHL my 2007 challenge layout to my son for his birthday, from UK to Australia. About £200 plus $50 AUD for customs, with a risk of a 24hr fumigation at 96 degrees But then again, what a gift for a 10 year old. It may be worth checking customs regulations, in and out of the country as wood can carry risks and if they so much spot a woodworm bore..... And I did buy an old keyboard flight case for the layout, but it weighed in at 15kg.I made a lightweight plywood case instead and it worked fine.

Thanks, also had a mention of redfirecracker.co.uk from ewsjo, who does a similar services, I'll keep in in mind if I don't get the results from my dabbling. The decal paper softens quite nicely with MicoSol, so I don't think the thickness is too much of an issue. The whitemetal is quite crude in places, it was why I left of the electrical fittings on the end as it just highlighted the oversized depth of the frames on the body, though I do think the overall appearance captures the character quite well. Printing white decals is definitely a challenge, looking forward to seeing how you get on too.

Thanks guys. Redfirecracker looks good, as does Precision Labels (mentioned by James Hilton in a previous post). Thanks Jo, I'll try it once more before I'll try the professionals. As an idea for colour matching, one thing that might work is scanning in the van and decal on the same scan, and using an adjustment layer in photoshop to get a value for the hsv offsets, then apply that layer to the master. Gerry, I'm sure there's a fair bit more experimenting to be done, especially with the varnish application. Will, the tip for saving paper really gets round the barrier of wastage. I was a bit reluctant to buy some decal paper at first as I thought I'd have to fill a whole sheet up too. Just make sure all edges are taped and there's no folds in the tape, I used standard sellotape and it worked great.

After spending a while matching the background colour of the decals to the blue of the van (I lightened the original blue with a hint of Coach Roof Off White RC417), the decal was ready for printing. One tip to save using a full sheet of A4 decal paper; print the decal out on normal paper at draft quality, then cut a portion your decal paper to overlap and match it and tape it the decal paper over the draft printout being careful to leave enough around the edges to prevent the tape from being printed on. Be sure to smooth the tape out so there's nothing sticking up for teh printer to catch on. Then use the draft printout again as a template and run it through the printer again. It should just print on the decal paper. Three coats of Humbrol Acylic Gloss Varnish Spray were then applied to seal the ink onto the paper and it's ready to use. One coat of Klear was added to the areas that will recieve the decal. Once dry, a coat MicroSet was applied and the decal cut out and placed in cold water for twenty to thirty seconds until it started to slide about on the backing paper. The decal was applied to the Van, and MicroSol added to soften it. After a short while, I used a cotton bud to press it home and clear the excess water. So, what's with the white border? That could be a couple of things but mainly I think because the water, the MicroSet or the MicroSol is dissolving the ink leaving the plain white decal film visible. This could be due to.. Not enough acylic varnish. Hp Ink is unsuitable for this. Too long in the water Too much MicoSol / Set One fix would be to paint the borders blue, but that's only treating the symptons and not a real cure. I did think to cut them out first, then give them more coats of varnish so the edges would be sealed. When I tried this, rather amusingly the spray shot them off the workbench and into the bin. I only found one of the little bu66ers so now I need to print some more off to see if this works and this time I'll stick them to something first. MicroSet did a grand job off helping to remove the ones in the pic, and white borders aside, I think they look quite good. The backup plan is to ignore the borders, and mask off the panels and weather over it including the borders so it appears as if the panels have been freshly applied over a dirty van.... ahem...

After a week of waiting for a reply from Fox, Cambridge Custom and Modelmasters and still not a peep (a bit disappointed in the lack of response tbo) I've decided that I'll have a go at making my own decals. So I ordered some decal paper, white and clear and I've read up a fair bit on how to best go about this. I'll be using my BR Fruit D as a test case, but there's a big catch. The only way to print white on a deskjet is to print the decals on white paper using a colour to contain the white (which is in fact clear). Deskjets don't print white, you'll need an ALPS printer for that. So, as all of my decals are white I've printed an array of a BR Blue(ish) colour and varied the hue and saturation quite a few times in order to match the actual tone of the van (right pic). The aim is to get a colour as close as possible, so it won't be noticeable and comparing a test print done on normal paper I've produced one that is a very close match. Another way would be to scan the van in, and pick the colour from that. One thing that was poor was the quality of the text at 2mm scale (right pic) even at 600dpi. This was corrected by outlining the text until the characters nearly met (left pic, enlarged for clarity). This produced something almost legible on normal paper, so I'm hoping for better results on the proper decal paper. Before I get on with this, I decided I didn't like the colour Blue I'd used, so I've repainted it with a lighter shade. Now I'll have to match the colour again. Doh!. ps. Fox just mailed and can't help, though at least I got a reply

The building in the lower centre in pic 4 is where I used to work for a couple of years, formerly Ocean Software, then Infogrames now Atari I think. My desk overlooked the canal, a great place to work with Dukes 92 opposite and there was always a glamour photoshoot on that footbridge, or a scene from Corrie being shot here. And you've got to model the Water Womble, youtube. It sometimes moored next our building and went up and down pulling all sorts out of the canal. Though tbo, the name 'Canal Street' is associated with Manchester in another way. Here's a link some more shots of the old viaduct http://www.28dayslat...ead.php?t=47878

Thanks, I've a couple of emails sent to Cambridge and Fox. Modelmasters took up the old Woodhead range, though I'm not having much luck finding the right ones. I'll mail them as well, though afaik they only supply 2mm ones though the NGS, and due to vaguish descriptions on the NGS shop catalogue (and my ignorance it must be said) I've bought yellow ones. Thnks for the info on the boxed style. I'll see if they get back to me about sheet BL54, thanks for pointing it out to me/ The weathering? Thanks for the comments but there's none on at the mo. I found by thinning the acrylics quite considerably, they kind of pooled quite nicely into the recesses giving this look, plus it's undercoated with a garter blue. The roof is a couple of coats and a tiny bit of sanding to remove a couple of dried bubbles.

After priming with Halford's grey primer, I tried using Humbrol Rail Colours Acrylics for the first time. Dirt Black (RC401) for the underframe. BR Diesel Blue (RC411) for the body. BR Coach Roof Grey (RC412) for the roof. I mistakenly used Garter Blue (RC404) for the body, (why don't they print descriptive text on the tins?)and was happy with that, until I realised my mistake and so applied a thin coat of BR Diesel Blue. I'm still not sure about this colour, but I'm planning to give it a healthy coat of grime so I shouldn't be so fussed really. I must say, after using Humbrol enamels for years, I was really pleased with the acrylics in terms of colour, coverage and ease of thinning and cleaning. I don't miss the smell of the enamel thinners one bit, and the biggest plus is that I can now paint on the dining room table without being banished to the shed with my smelly paint. I'm having trouble sourcing some appropriate decals for this. I originally I bought some decals with yellow markings but I've since learnt (RMWeb Topic) that BR Blue vehicles used white markings, sometimes boxed too so this'll now wait until I get hold of some, I've mailed a few companies and I'm waiting for a reply. The same goes for a Dapol CCT I've just painted in BR Blue and have some decals with yellow markings.

A quick update to the Fruit D. I didn't like the thickness of the six plasticard steps so I've replaced them with some strip brass. A very fiddly job in this scale, but I think it makes a big difference. I was also planning to put some electrical fittings on the end, but after a mock up with some wire I decided that as the relief of the ironwork on the ends of the van is way out of scale that this would only draw attention to that fact so I ditched the idea. The only thing I would like to add are the 6 individual rainstrips on the roof, probably out of thin wire but I can see getting a uniform appearance would be tricky, so I'll think about how to get them consistent. Whilst I'm pondering that one, I've a Mink C from the NGS next in line. The kit is very straightforward and went together really well. The only thing I'm uncertain about is the rather chunky handles, but I've no confidence I could scratch build them to a better scale so I guess they'll stay. Btw, the roof is not fixed as I've yet to add some lead weight in it.

Thanks everyone. The whitemetal quality is pretty good in this kit though it did require a little bit of bending to flatten the sides true, and even with just using superglue it's really quite solid; no need to add any weight to this one then. I do think one thing that lets it down is the use of the peco donors for the chassis, though I think the extra detail here and there does take away the attention from it. Overall I'm quite pleased with it so far as it's my first attempt at a wagon kit other than the peco 'almost' ready to run kits.

After what seems like a year or two of collecting stuff and not doing stuff, I've actually got my finger out and started to turn a few of those kits into reality. First up on the workbench is the Fruit D kit from PD Marsh. This is a whitemetal kit, and comes with no chassis or roof, though there are some under frames and a cylinder included. It's very straightforward to put the body together using superglue. My soldering skills would probably be more like melting skills so I opted for the safest option. Only slight filing was needed to get everything true and square. The roof is 0.5mm plasticard with the curve preformed by sellotaping it to a glass jar of similar radius and pouring very hot water over. I'm not too fussed with the fact the roof isn't straight, as the intent is to create a wagon that's near the end of it's days. (At least that's my story). The suggestion on the instructions was to use one peco 15ft chassis, cut in half and joined to the underframe which included a section of solebar to extend the peco chassis length. This seemed a bit difficult, so instead I used two peco chassis, and cut them such so that I could eliminate the use of the underframe section, cutting off the underframe detail and gluing it in position later. The outside brakes were also trimmed off. The whitemetal cylinder was glued underneath, and I added a vacuum cylinder. I used a watch battery as it looked the same size. Next I added some Ultima roof vents, obtained from the NGS and added a tie bar from microstrip. Footsteps were added aslo from microstrip and brass steps were glued beneath each door. I've also blanked the buffer beams off with some strip. To do is the fittings for electric lighting. Looking at the photos, I'm thinking the plasticard footsteps are too chunky, so before painting I think I'll replace them, probably with brass if I can get some narrow enough. C&C is most welcome

Hi Grahame, just a small thought about the reflective nature of the glass; it was no doubt an aesthetic design consideration of the architects of Southwark towers for it to reflect it's surroundings. Once finished and sited on the layout, I'm wondering if the faces of an exhibition's audience would appear at a scale 150ft in the windows?

It's on Dapol's site now. Another must have 00 loco even though I'm an N gauger