JaymzHatstand

Well, after having a good look at the display model at Warley, I've finally bitten and pre-ordered one! To me, the few moulded details that there are don't pose and real issue, from most normal viewing distces and angles, they look like separate items. I'm looking forward to it's arrivalever that may be, but until then the money is sitting in my account so the longer it takes, the more interest I get! Cheers J

Thanks very much, there's some very messy soldering as well, but as long as it does the job, and doesn't interfere with anything, that's not a problem! I'm thinking about the all-over deep red colour and rather weathered as in this photo... http://www.iomsrsa.com/images/stories/MB-f.27.jpg I'm looking forward to having a couple of bits of stock so I can have a bit of a play! I'll need some track too, and to sneak it all past the domestic management! Cheers J

This week has seen a bit more progress on the Empress Van. I have reshaped one of the ducket pieces to match the profile of the coach end and re-soldered the ducket side piece to it. After a test fit, it is a lot better than it was before, still not 100% accurate, but it will actually go together with minimal re-shaping. I have also fitted the footboards to one side of the underframe and it's now really starting to look like a Manx vehicle with the bogies almost hidden behind them! A start has been made on one of the sides, with the long handrail fitted and two of the droplight windows. I've taken a few photos to illustrate my progress Re-shaped ducket Underframe with footboards fitted Body side with handrail and droplights fitted The underframe resting on the now 'hidden' bogies with the ends fitted and the side in the background. The next step will be to fit the second set of footboards and the remaining handrails, droplights and other detailing parts to the side, and then do the same with the other. Cheers J

Looking at the drawing of the bogie brakes in the Brown/Prideaux/Radcliffe book on the line, the S R lettering is a little high, the stopper for the sliding door should be the centre line for the letters, and there is a single plank width between it and the S. The van number is on the lower left hand side, inboard of where the dog box door would have been and the the weight lettering (8 Tons, Tare 5:18:2) is staggered over two lines with the 8 starting to the right of the panel line which passes through the centre of the R! I hope this is of some use! The van looks ver smart indeed, its something I've been tempted by having a go at for a while now, although I'm rather keen on the ducket van (No14) Cheers J

Afetr a bit of a hiatus while my attention was focussed on getting Whitborough Quayside ready for its exhibition last weekend, the Empress Van has been on a back burner. Now, however I can revisit it and hopefully make a bit of progress! The bogies have gone together, and there is quite a bit of sideplay between the bearings but they aren't too sloppy. The cross-members are in place and need a little trimming flush with the sides. Some fettling was required to get the bogie mounts to sit parallel to the floor of the underframe. From an initial dry run, it looks like the screw holes for mounting the ends need elongating sligtly. I've also made a start on one of the duckets, however when I offered it up to the end-piece the shape of the former doesn't match the end so a bit of modification is required again! Here are a couple of photos to illustrate the above pregress/discoveries... A n initial test of the ends on the underframe, just to give myself an idea of the overall size. The sides seem to be about 1mm longer than the underframe, so the holes that the screws to hold the ends in place go through will need extending slightly. The bogies, which are now awaiting their whitemetal castings and a coat of paint. The couplings will be fitted later, once I've got a few more items of stock to gauge heights with (although somewhere I think I've got a Greenwich coupling heigt gauge, I'll have to dig it out!) This shows the difference in the shape of the two ends of the guard's duckets, and how much will need to be trimmed off in order for it to fit properly. Until these are sorted, the body construction acnnot continue, so this is task number one! Lastly is the underframe and ends resting on a warflat from my SG layout Whitborough Quayside, as I wanted to see if it would fit under the bridge to the fiddle yard (just!) I'll have to check again once the footboards are fitted as I suspect it will be a bit taller then! I thought it would make for an interesting load if it appeared at an exhibition, with the coach being transported either to or from a works visit somewhere other than on the IoM! Cheers J

Well, I've finally bitten the bullet and begun a journey into 12mm gauge as well as 009 (and 00!) My first foray is a Roxey Mouldings Isle of Man Empress Van. I ordered it a week or so ago and this morning it dropped through my letterbox. I do intend to build a second set of bogies for the vehicle so that I can also run it on my 009 layout (after all, the Ffestiniog have a number of carriages built on ex-IoM underframes, so there is almost a premise!) I've never built a Roxey kit before, so I was looking forward to getting the box opened and have a look at the contents. For what is a NPC vehicle I am most impressed with the amount of etched detail provided on the frets, along with the whitemetal castings for bogie/brake details. There's certainly plenty to keep me quiet for a while! I'll document the building on here so anyone else wondering what these kits are like can see one going together (hopefully), and anyone who has experience can point out where I'm going wrong! I do have a few other irons in the fire at the moment so progress might not be overly quick to begin with! Regular readers will not be surprised at this! Cheers J

You've certainly captured the essence and atmosphere of Goathland and the surrounding area very well! I particularly like the shot of Beck-Hole with the viaduct behind it, makes me want to pop in for a pint and pok pie! Looking forward to more photos! Cheers J

Its looking rather smart, and the Hunslet is very nice indeed. Looking forward to seeing more of the layout too! Keep it up! Cheers J

Thanks for the compliments, Matthew, the Open Third has had an orange base coat applied, once its had the woodstain applied, there'll be some photos of that on here. That might have to wait until after Warley of course! Cheers J

I have had a bit of a play with creating the teak effect on the First Open using one of the methods suggested on this forum (a quick search proved rather fruitful and interesting!) That of a painted base coat (in this case Tamiya XF-4 Yellow Green) followed by a number of coats of wood stain (Ronseal Antique Pine as recommended by Wordsell forever), depending on the condition of the coach dictates the number of coats. The pictures below demonstrate the appearance of the coach over three coats. See how the colour becomes darker and almost richer, although the camera flash doesn't do it full justice, but I wanted to have a 'control' light setting for these shots to demonstrate the change in colour. It does look a lot better in natural light, and not a garish contrast to the 'teak' solebars as the camera flash shows! I have tried to keep my brush strokes flowing in the same direction as the wood grain (horizontal below waist, vertical above) so that the colour variance along the panels looks prototypical. I wasn't aiming to get a proper 'wood grained' effect, as from normal viewing distances this isn't too discernible, and would probably drive me batty trying to achieve it! I've also made myself a samples chart with various squares of different shades of paint and woodstain so I can get an idea of how to achieve differing colours for a more varied rake. I haven't done much more with the interiors, but the seating units are marked and ready to be cut, so once that task is done I should be onto final interior assembly and painting! Any comments or suggestions are, as ever welcome. Cheers J

A bit of progress has been made over the last week or so, although one of the coach bodies (the Brake Third) suffered fair bit of damage while I was trying to dismantle it, so this has now become a source of spares and will eventually become a tarpaulin-covered siding filler! I'm now left with the Open First and Open Third which have had the paint stripped form the bodies (mostly) and are almost ready for their first undercoat. The roofs still require a bit of attention, as some of the torpedo vents have been knocked off and a bit of smoothing is required down the centreline where some file marks are very prominent. I have also started the interiors, with the Open First being the most advanced in terms of progress. I have started with a false floor from thin plasticard, followed by partitions in the appropriate places using the instructions, diagrams in Historic Carriage Drawings (Campling) and the beading on the body sides to get them located correctly. The partitions in the First had to be scratch built as the only ones I had were for a centre-door and I needed offset ones, but this wasn't a great challenge, more a bit time consuming to get them to fit in with the curvature of the roof comfortably. The tables are from my spares (and quite probably the ones intended for the kits in the first place!) The next thing is to fit the seating, I have plenty of strips of seating to cut, but again that's a time consuming rather than difficult job (and finding the time isn't always easy!) The false floors are a little curved at the moment, but once they are painted, they will be fitted to the floor of the coach to hold them nice and flat, although the coach roofs do press the partitions down which helps keep them flat anyhow. So the next steps as mentioned are to tidy the roofs, undercoat the bodies and carry on with the interiors. That should keep me quiet for a bit!! Cheers J

Thanks for that and for the example photos you PM'd me, they are most informative. I was aware of the shape issues of the Kirk roof, but as I'll struggle to get the bodies to pieces completely without any damage, I don't think that modifying them for a new roof is completely practical (although it would be nice!). The window apetures wil most likely be treated though, its not something I'd ever thought of before. Is this just a result of the way the sides are moulded in the first place? Would an MJT roof require the body modifications too? I can't remember if it was one of theirs or a modified Kirk roof in the photos! Cheers J

Thanks, that's most helpful! And something I have considered doing, as I've yet to progress any further with my build! I will get ono with it though! One day! Cheers J

Thanks for that GCRS135, I'll investigat the whitemetal ones next time I see the Gramodels stand, and Dan I'm looking forward to seeing your photos Cheers J

A few years ago (around ten I suspect ) I built a few Kirk kits, rather badly! I have decided that I'm going to have a go at renovating them and hopefully end up with something a little better looking and also useful! They are an Open First (crimson & Cream), Brake Third (maroon) and Open Third (maroon) and were all built without interiors (except the internal partitions) with rather tight bogies and other problems (gangways on backwards is one of the major problems ) so they are getting stripped down as far as possible and rebuilt with interiors and a reversion to proper LNER teak finish. In my yoof I did at least have the foresight to fit whitmetal buffers so it's not all bad I suppose, but that's not much of a silver lining! Work has commenced with the removal of the roof units of each coach which was reasonably damage free (the Open Third suffered a little, but this should be hidden on re-assembly). The Open First has had the body removed from the floor and glazing stripped. Fortunately I'd not glued it very well, so it just snapped out with no residual damage, the same applied to the gangways, which will now be cleaned up and fitted the correct way round! It sides/ends and roof have now been joined with plastic weld, so should be a lot sturdier and ready for some paint stripping! The bogies have been removed and the bearings for the wheels seated a little better into the holes, giving the wheels a little more space so they now roll freely, which should in turn make them more reliable performers. The Brake Third is probably the sturdiest of the three models and the body doesn't seem to want to separate very easily, but I'm sure a day or two in the freezer will solve that! That's it for now, but I'm more than open to suggestions from anyone about what modifications I can make to these to improve them. Cheers J

I know that feeling, I keep trying to finish things before starting something else, but I do suffer from ease of distraction, and that is never cheap either! I've fancied one of the Englands for quite a while, they're not too big, and not another tank engine! Also the extra wheels wired for pick up should make it pretty hard to stop on slightly didrty track! Cheers J

That's a very smart England sir, the lining really looks superb! What chassis is it on? Is all this action to clear space on your workbench for a Brian Madge quarry hunslet by any chance?! A height gauge is something I really should sort out, after finding out just how out some of my couplings are at the exhibition in July! Cheers J

Thanks very much, I'm glad you like it! I also have a soft spot for 37s, I've got two so far! They're usable on almost anything, and don't look out of place on short rakes of wagons either! Cheers J

That's rather nice, plenty of scope for operation and interest without track sturation! Everything appears to have a purpose and isn't just put there for the sake of it. I also like the half relief in front of the backscene to create depth, and the weathering of the scenics. All in all a very nice layout and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it. Cheers J

The exhibition over the weekend went pretty well, a few cases of dirty wheels and stroppy stock, but these were easy to solve as I went along (stock that didn't want to play didn't and wqent back in the box!) As the weekend progressed I found myself slipping into an operating sequence, which had just enough movbement to keep it interesting for me, and nothing to stressful that I could be wholly distracted if anyone wanted to chat (I hope!) I think I could do with at least one more loco, as the five I had were pretty much coinfined to their duties, and the ability to swap them and have on in the shed area would add to bot the viewing and operating interest. This will hopefully be solved one day as I've got a Backwoods Double Fairlie on my workbench as well as the start of a railcar which will also increase my operating capacity, and over-fill my fiddle yard! I also found that despite my efforts, not all of my couplings are at the same height, and so not all shunting moves worked, so this is something else to address. Scenically I recieved a fair few favourable comments (mostly about the backscene, which even led to Puffers of Pickering selling one of them, no commission for me though!) People didn't believe that it was pure chance that the scatter I had used matched up well with the colours on the backscene, but I had done most of it before fitting the back boards so it was nothing but luck (I'm rather grateful for it too!) I took a few photos of the layout in action at various stages of the operating sequence so you can get an idea of how it ran. One of my FR brake vans even found its way onto the Whitby MRCs layout 'Streonshalh' on Sunday afternoon and was seen at various parts of the layout on a Lowmac, and on the back of a lorry! I'd like to thank Paul (Wordsell Forever) and the W&D MRC for inviting me to the show, it was great fun as always! Hopefully I'll get to take it out and about again as it is rather enjoyable to operate, and it'll encourage me to keep working on it too! Cheers J

Yesterday (Sunday) I took the layout downstairs and set it up in the lounge so I could spend the afternoon testing various combinations of rolling stock and try to highlight as many potential problems as I could as I dont want to discover that nothing works next weekend! There are a few minor bugs to work around, but on the whole I had trains which were fine and could have stock swapped around so it doesn't get too repetitive! The curtain to hide the legs has also been made, and the eyes for the press studs sewn on (thanks to the sewing machine, fingers and sewing skills of my wife!) Today I have been concentrating on the scenics, mainly adding the wire to the Ratio fencing (which is quite a task, but looks good and so worth it!). Som scatter and hedges have been added, along with a few clumpos of hedgerow and the first couple of trees (all from the Woodland Scenics range) and the followinf photos show that particular progress. The unfinished fence wires are visible in a couple of the photos, but these won't be left dangling will-nilly! I have also pasted the first of the backscenes to it's board, and it seems to be drying quite well. There were a few bubbles earlier, but these seem to be slowly going as the wallpare paste dries. I'd best crack on, I've only got a couple of days until the exhibition now, and Friday will be taken up with loading the car and transporting it to Goathland for setting up, so time is of the essence! Cheers J

This morning I've had a play with the backscene for the station board, cutting out the hole for the control panel (inside the green barn) and drilling the hole to correspond with the bolt for the legs. After a sucessful test fitting I thought 'I wonder what it'll look like when it's done?' so out can the roll of Gaugemaster Backscene and a couple of small bits of Blu-Tack and hey presto (other supermarkets are available! ) the resulting photos are a rough approxiomation of the finished product. There will be some foliage along the join between the flat and the vertical, hopefully some sea-moss trees or lichen, which will hopefully improve the appearance somewhat, but overall, I'm fairly pleased with it so far. Lastly a shot of my Mercian FR van posing outside the goods shed, which I think shows a lot of potential. Can anyone suggest any way that I can fasten the backscene onto the board itself, I don't think PVA will be suitable, so am I looking at wallpaper paste or something similar? Cheers J