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Ravenser

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  1. Ravenser

    Bits and Scraps

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    This should have been a posting about ballasting, that being the next logical step with Mercia Wagon Repair.
    Ballasting began last autumn and quite a bit of work was done, even though it has proved a slow and painful process. There was also the little matter of swapping out four solenoid point motors and replacing them with MTB motor drives after I was warned that continued use of solenoids would ultimately lead to the breakup of the Peco switch blades. Given all the trouble caused by having to dig out one failed point from within the formation even at the unballasted stage, further failures would probably have doomed the layout, so the solenoids had to come out .
     
    Unfortunately life and other things then got in the way. I had an operation on my right eye just before Christmas, they put an air bubble in the eye, and dire warnings were given about the implications of getting dust in the eye during recovery. Did that include plastic dust from model making, I asked? They thought it probably did, so anything involving shaping plastic was out.
     
    (The operation was pretty successful – the sight in that eye has got rather better, not worse. It was this eye condition that panicked me into starting Mercia Wagon Repair since the initial mis-diagnosis by Vision Express was pretty bleak and not properly handled; I thought I'd better do something with the N gauge bits while I still could  since the eye might be gone in 5 years. Happily that is absolutely not a possible scenario.... I just need my new spectacles to arrive now)      
     
    The result was that the only modelling done during a little over two weeks off work was this:
     

     
    Two huts and a weighbridge hut built from freebee card kits given away with magazines over the years. Two of them are courtesy of BRM some years ago and one came with RM a couple of months before Christmas. I’ve accumulated a good few kits from magazine giveaways over the years but nearly all of them are 4mm scale. These three huts represent everything I could find in N from my stash that was usable. And you could fit the lot on the palm of my hand. It feels like quite a lot of effort for a very small reward.
     
    The BRM models were printed on glossy card and the sheen was unacceptable. I have a big bottle of Winsor & Newton artists matt medium bought years ago because someone claimed that it could be used for ballasting in place of dilute pva and the ballast wouldn’t turn purple. It proved unsuitable for ballasting as the stuff is too viscous, but it’s useful for killing the sheen on art paper and card. The printed card roofs on the BRM kits were way too light to be acceptable as slate and since I’m new to N I’ve got virtually no brickpapers in stock. What I did have was a small pile of Model Rail giveaway booklets from about twenty years ago containing various brickpapers. These included a set of printed slate strips in a decent dark grey.
     
    Now I’m pretty sceptical about relief on slate roofs even in 4mm and building up a slate roof strip by strip is pretty laborious, but needs must. I’m sure the rows should have been a little more even, but critically the colour is good. The printed sheet was brushed over with matt medium to kill the  glossy paper sheen : it swells a little but relaxes back into shape as it dries. The white edges were dealt using a green charcoal pastel pencil, with another coat of matt medium to seal it and stop it rubbing off. Similarly cut edges of the card elsewhere were treated with red/brown pastel pencils to remove any white line. Chimney pots were improvised from bits of kit sprue painted, then I remembered I have some whitemetal castings in stock…
     
    It’s been some years since I’ve had the opportunity to do this kind of modelling, so it was a matter of easing myself back in and I’m reasonably pleased with the results. It’s just that a week’s worth of work sits in the palm of my hand. I feel like I‘ve achieved almost nothing.
    It’s been way too long since I did any 4mm modelling in a scale I’m comfortable with and know what I’m doing.
     

    This is the bits of an NNK courier van conversion from a Triang Mk1 BSK. The bits had been sitting on the bookshelf almost finished for nearly a year. This one needs its own workbench post, but I finally fitted the vertical door handrails and blackened them, rubbed down and repainted the ends through several coats of black to erase the vestiges of removed detail and assembled the bits. I’ve even started adding the cantrail lining from Fox transfers.
     
    I’ve also been trying to finish off a clutch of N gauge wagon kits which have also been sitting on the bookshelf gathering dust. These too deserve a post of their own in ORBC, but there’s a Chivers SSA, painted with transfers applied, an NGS chemical tanker ex caustic soda in china clay traffic, and a BH Enterprises resin PNA body.

     
    These now at least now are painted, have transfers and are weathered to my reasonable satisfaction. They just need couplings to go into traffic. But applying 11 tiny scraps of transfer to each side of a chemical tanker was a painful reminder of why N gauge and I don’t necessarily see eyer to eye (I left off a couple of the solebar markings, too).
    While I was at it, I had a go at weathering a few of the RTR bogie wagons, since with N gauge you are always going to mix up way too much of a weathering mix for the job in hand. A useful technique has proved to be a tinted varnish – in other words the weathering wash mixed about 50:50 with matt varnish. This allows a much thinner weathering coat to be applied evenly to the model, since the varnish acts as a filler meaning you are applying rather more volume in a more viscous form. A china clay hopper, a Cargowaggon van, and a Tiphook hood acquired at Warley have all been treated and now look reasonable.
     
    And at Ally Pally I finally succumbed to the Model Rail/Rapido J70 I’ve been resisting for some years. The unskirted versions with waggly bits were marked down to £99.99 on the Kernow and as this was the version that tempted me, I bit – having first put the model up against a SR diesel shunter on the stand to check it was a lot smaller. (I know an 08 is too big to look right on the Boxfile, and I wasn’t spending a tidy sum on a loco only to find it wasn’t suitable). The skirted BR versions have sold out – soon after release I think -  but all the unskirted versions were still available and discounted . Given that 500 each of 10 versions were originally ordered, it’s fairly clear that people want Toby in his classic skirted form and pre-nationalisation liveries are something of a drug in the market. It’s now nearing 4 years since this model was released - how long it will take finally to shift the LNER unskirted models is an interesting question. Rapido
    I’m well aware of the reasons why the cost of new RTR has increased well above the rate of inflation and real wages in the last decade – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It costs what it costs, there is not much to be done about it and nobody is making a packet in RTR. At the same time I notice that at a personal level I will buy a loco I don’t strictly need but like when it‘s priced in double figures. Once it’s into 3 figures I won’t. I have a Hornby Peckett and DS48 for the Boxfile – both were bought at shows for about £75 a time after I’d been resisting a while because I didn’t strictly need them – they run beautifully and are now front-line motive power. My last few loco purchases have been an N gauge Class 33 for £80 off the Dapol stand (I needed something earlier than a 66, shorter, and I wasn’t up for splashing the cash), an NGS Hunslet shunter (£81)  a Hattons Barclay (I finally succumbed when the 14” version was discounted to £84 in a decent livery) and Hardwicke (she’s do on railtour duty with 2 x blue/grey Mk1s). There’s a pattern here. I most emphatically do not expect manufacturers to aim at this price point, but I have more stuff than I actually need and at some point I’ll be out of the game – though hardly out of the hobby – at least as far as unnecessary impulse purchases are concerned. Someone’s 31 at 170 quid – er, maybe not. I’ve already got two 31s , and a pile of bodies, and a 37 as backup that sees little service, and a Rat project to do…      
     
    I had the J70 up on the rolling road for almost an hour each way to run her in the following weekend, and here she is.
     

     
    I‘m delighted to report it’s a diminutive loco, pukka Great Eastern, and runs beautifully. Ideal for the Boxfile . I also took the chance to commission the Barclay – that this has been sat in its box unused for 18 months was another reason to hold back on the J70. It now has buffer wires glued in place to take Sprat & Winkle couplings and I had an operating session for the first time in months to give it a run. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem quite as smooth or sweet as the two Hornby locos or indeed the new J70. Good but needs a prod too often. And then a feed wire to one of the points broke, and the session was truncated. (The wire has been soldered back: all’s well again)
    How many locos does a boxfile need? I’ve got eight…
    Meanwhile ballasting of Mercia Wagon Repair hasn’t made a scrap of progress in 4 months.
        
     
     
     
  2. Ravenser
    In which the Author maketh a prosperous Journey towards Penydarren in South Wales - where he suffers a sudden Misfortune which leaves him stranded upon a remote Shore...
     
    It has been some time since my initial post on this model  Part 1  when all seemed so promising.   Now, like a message sent in a bottle by a castaway washed up years later on a distant beach I suppose I should write up further developments with what is currently a stalled model.
     
    After much internal debate I finally decided not to attempt a wooden cladding to the boiler, as painting and assembling the cladding round the boiler and the valve gear and gubbins round the cladding just all seemed too much.
     
    Slowly but steadily good progress was made. Yes - I managed to stick the cross-saddled holding the axles in the wrong place and had to remove them and reposition. The carcase of the model was spray-painted matt off-black (Games Workshop Chaos Black from a big aerosol can) as were quite a few of the valve gear and drive components. I was careful to assemble everything so that it would move where it was supposed to move , although the meshing of the gears isn't quite perfect - as can be seen here - and it isn't really free turning in one direction
     
     
     

     
     
     
     
     
     

     
     
    The crosshead moves reasonably freely , even after painting - as a railway modeller I set about making sure everything slid as freely as I could , and gear teeth were checked over to ease any meshing difficulties. The wheels were on, the motion more or less erected....things turned, fine in one direction, not quite so fine in the other, and I was still harbouring hopes of ultimate motorisation ,once I had finally got my head around what Airfix envisaged happening underneath the plastic stand. A motor was supposed to be fitted there, along with a battery - and presumably a switch as well - and I think this was supposed to drive something and thereby turn one of the wheels , so that the motion moved . Effectively the locomotive would work backwards - the wheels driving the motion.
     
    The display base itself was built up, though I'm not quite sure if the stand mounts would hold the loco perfectly level , or so that the wheel would be in contact with whatever's turning underneath. (There's a slot in the base , where this would have protruded, and come in contact with the rim of one of the wheels.)
     
    But still - so far , so good, or reasonably so , and all the problems looked as if they might ultimately be resolvable with a little thought, care and ingenuity.
     
    Then I added the big flywheel and - disaster!
     
    I tried turning the drive train. It was very stiff. I pushed a little harder - and the great flywheel sheered off.....
     
    Somehow the shaft at the back had become  stuck to the bearing when I added the flywheel (presumably solvent got where it should not have been) - and the simply twisted off and sheered at the bearing as I pressed. The damaged area is visible on the bearing bracket at the rear of the boiler.
     
    I tried to drill out the shaft end to take a short piece of brass handrail wire to pin the flywheel back on - but couldn't drill centrally
     
    The only thing I can now see to do is to melt  a short length of 0.45" brass wire into the end of the shaft from above (i.e. the side) , and drill a hole to take it into the centre of the flywheel. A (very small) drop of superglue would then be used so that the wire would "pin" the flywheel to the shaft.
     
    I suppose I could just glue the flywheel in place and abandon all hope of a working model. But having taken quite a lot of trouble to build the kit with moving parts that actually move I'm very reluctant to do this.
     
    Woe is me! The poor mechanical trilobite has been consigned to the shoe box for some months while I get on with other projects that I haven't broken (yet)
     
     


  3. Ravenser
    After a brisk start , this project seems to have gone to sleep again. 
     
    Not quite true - in the last 10 days I've actually managed to paint the bodyshell, and matters now stand thus:
     
     
     

     
    I see I have managed to capture the corner where one of the window pillars became damaged and had to be repaired. It looks much worse blown up to around 7mm scale. I also haven't removed the Maskol from the handrails
     
    Transfers are Modelmaster (someone said he's dropping transfers?) and the etched NBL diamonds are 247
     
    All it now needs is a coat of matt varnish - and a working chassis to put it on
     
    (As an aside I now have a further excuse to own one of these locos. There's a group talking about building a replica Class 21 Class 21 replica project  - and from them I learn:
     
     
    The possibility of running one in Lincolnshire - maybe even at a pinch on the E Lincs line - hadn't occurred to me)
     
    I've also added a little representational buffer beam detail. When I were a little lad (ok, armed with an ABC..) buffer beam detail seemed to be the core of diesel modelling. It was almost the whole of "detailing a diesel" - and as I used tension-locks in those days it was out of the question for me. These days I use Kadees, which though neater still swing, and I've still pretty restricted in what I can do below the buffer beam. I do try to do something but it veers from the representational to the frankly vestigial.
     
    However all Hornby attempted in the 1980s was a vague blob where the coupling hook should be, and so something had to be done to fill up a notably "busy" area. I've now replaced the blob with a proper whitemetal coupling hook, and fashioned a very rough representation of the two large jumper sockets on the buffer beam out of the ends of two Langley cast speedo cables, with a bit of cable - probably overscale - looped up to one side. It's not much, but it's something , and should be a significant improvement on the starting point. I'm not 100% sure about the shade of red on the buffer beam , but looking at the photo above I think it might be ok
  4. Ravenser
    This is the story of a cheap and nasty kit for a cheap and nasty coach. Actually that's a little unfair - to the prototype
     
    In recent years Coopercraft , like the Cheshire Cat in Alice , has been slowly fading away. Two or three years ago, before matters reached the final stage of a Smile Without a Cat, I purchased a couple of kits from their stand at Ally Pally.
     
    One, the Kirk non-gangwayed LNER 51' full brake was a decent kit, and was built some time ago.
     
    The other was the Mailcoach kit for the Tourist Brake third . For some reason , these slightly unusual Gresley vehicles have always caught my interest - they were not teak, they were built for a rather different purpose, and they stood apart from the general run of LNER coaches in most respects. However they do seem to have been used in general service post war - and here was a plastic kit . Moreover I reckoned I could build a plastic kit..... Added to which, here was a mainline corridor brake with an unusually high seating capacity which might well appear on marginal duties like short portions .
     
    I'd heard one or two grumbles about the kit from the likes of micklner and Tony Wright - but I assumed that as their level of refinement as far above mine (and above what is being attempted with a theoretically quick 'n cheap fleet of coaches for RTR kettles) this just meant it wasn't really up to the standards of a Comet kit. Little did I know.......
     
    Firstly some comments about the prototype, since there appears to be little on the internet - the following rests on Harris' LNER Coaches.
     
    Once the Depression began to ease, LNER management decided it was time to eliminate the remaining 4 and 6 wheel coaches from revenue service. One pocket of this would found in excursion traffic where 36 sets of ex GN suburban 4 wheelers displaced by the Quad-Artics had been retained [The idea of KX to Skeggy in those makes Liverpool St-Cromer in a Cravens unit seem positively civilised....]. The LNER commercial management wished to compete with coach operators, and Gresley came up with the idea of some special modern excursion stock as a part-replacement. Five 12-car sets were ordered in 1933, each comprising two Brake 3rd Opens , four articulated all 3rd twins and two buffet cars. Four more sets were ordered in 1934-6 and one in 1939
     
    These coaches were all opens with low backed bucket seats, plywood paneling, and finished in a surprising green and cream . Interiors were cheap Art Deco, and by the mid 1950s a BR report was speaking of the buffet cars - by then in general service - as "truly very bad indeed". High backed seating seems to have been fitted post- war. The plywood panelling was liable to deteriorate badly and many of the coaches ended up replated with steel panelling. They finally disappeared in 1963-4, though a couple of buffets lasted on the LMR (who must have been desperate) until 1967.
     
    These coaches seem just right for a place like Blacklade
     
    I wanted to check the actual colour of Railmatch maroon jars against the Hachette Mk1 since patch painting was required. So - I did the obvious thing and hauled the Tourist Brake kit out of the cupboard. The sides are moulded in clear plastic with raised window frames and whatever opacity they acquire is given by the paint...
     
    The maroon was dark. I tried lightening it by applying a coat of Railfreight Faded Red (=pink) on the inside. And after a couple of coats of paint I found I was committed, and the Porthole Brake 3rd was laid aside unstarted.
     
    Matters have now reached this stage:

     
     
    I think this has now taken 4 coats of brush-painted maroon, and a certain amount of patching along the way. Tony Wright , who evidently has a higher-opacity red, only required three. In the circumstances it's a reasonable finish, but nowhere near sprayed standard. It's also had about three interior coats. The opacity still isn't all it should be around the window frames - painting these without getting paint on the glazing is very difficult, especially around the ventilators
     
    And I was several coats in and part-built before I realised there were long sunken marks at the bottom of the sides in several places (Perhaps the mould pressure wasn't quite high enough?) . I rubbed back and patched the worst of these with filler, then touched back in. Obviously I should have spotted these, and filled them systematically, at the start : I suspect they weren't terribly obvious on translucent sides - and of course I got stuck straight in to painting as a colour test patch.
     
    There is a pinhole in one of the door droplight windows. I've tried patching it today with some Microsol product - only to find the whole bottle has congealed over years in storage. That's been thrown out
     
    The seating provided seems to derive from longer (compartment?) mouldings , roughly sawn in half , apparently with a Junior hacksaw. Not having spare 2+2 seating available (the remains of some sawn up Mk4 interiors are not suitable here...) I cleaned it up as best I could , painted it and installed it, on the basis that you can hardly see the interiors of coaches anyway - so any unevenness won't be visible
     
    The battery boxes were mere facades. As a bodge, I've thickened them up with a piece of 40 thou styrene glued behind. I didn't feel up to the delay, and the cost of sending away for proper Comet ones, when the overall quality of the kit is so mediocre. "Lipstick on a pig" is the phrase that comes to mind. I has whitemetal Gresley buffers on hand so I substituted them. The Gresley bogies seem to have built up ok - I just need to get my head around fitting Kadees
     
    As I had bought a packet of 10 LMS/LNER coach duckets to replace one missing from the MTK Porthole kit , I used one here. It seemed a better proposition than the one in the kit
     
    Then there's the roof. After a bit of playing around and thinning the ends with a Stanley knife blade, I reluctantly concluded that the profile of the roof moulding supplied , and that of the ends and partitions simply could not be reconciled . I therefore bought an aluminium roof from Wizard Models . This will need to be cut to length, and then a suitable - and matching - rake back filed on every corner. So far I haven't plucked up the courage to attempt it.
     
    That is the current state of play. (And I've just realised I'm out of torpedo vents). The thing has been sat in a box for at least 3 months.
     
    This is not a particularly good kit. It's certainly the worst coach kit I've encountered - but as my experience has been confined to Ratio, Parkside, Dapol and Kirk, I've led a sheltered existence.
     
    I'm sure that the MTK Porthole must be better than this - though I may live to regret those words
  5. Ravenser
    I've made further progress with the bodies, though it hasn't been without problems and blemishes , and I'm afraid the all third is definitely going to be the inferior model of the two. However the brake composite is thus far (fingers crossed) going pretty well
     
    All the sides have been fitted,without any further damage to paintwork. I then moved onto fitting seats, and here I made a blunder from sheer ignorance.I dug out what turned out to be almost all of a packet of Ratio coach seating strip which has been lurking in a scrap box for very many years. This wan't enough to cover all requirements for these coaches and the second set of MR suburbans , so some undignified expedients and a Comet interiors pack had to be resorted to... But I sawed up the Ratio seating strip in the mitre box, painted it a golden brown with hastily mixed acrylics and duly installed the seats in most of the compartments of the all third. I had a problem in one place where solvent leaked onto the glazing and marked the compartment window, taking a little of the paint with it. This was bad enough but it was shortly afterwards that I checked a few photos, and then photos of other coaches and realised that even in third class compartments you shouldn't really be able to see the edge of the seat protruding beyond the window frame. And you could..... With narrow panels between windows on the compartment side , thick plastic compartment dividers and narrow compartments, the Ratio seating strips were too thick. I had made the classic blunder of blithely assuming that Ratio's seats must fit all Ratio's coaches properly.
     
    I managed to extract the worst offenders (those where for one reason or another the seating strip wasn't entirely seated against the compartment divider) and filed these down from the back by rubbing up and down on a big coarse file on the workbench. I did the same with the seating strip for the compartments I hadn't yet fitted out, and for the third class compartments in the brake composite . Thus treated the Ratio strip was just about thin enough to just about sit behind the windows. But there was nothing I could do about those seats I had already installed which were firmly stuck in place. They are still visible behind the edges of the compartment windows . A damage limitation exercise , but not, sadly, a full cure . The brake composite is fine - the all third is compromised on one side. I have a feeling this set is going to spend most of it's life with the corridor side facing the viewer . For the first class compartments I used Comet seating strip , painted blue . I have no idea what colours the LMS - or even the LNW - used : post 1934, the LNER used brown moquette in third , and I had had quite enough of painting the coach in slightly different shades of mid brown, so I'm afraid I opted for an attempt to approximate the pre 1934 fawn moquette in third and blue pattern moquette in first.
     
    It was at this point that it dawned on me that I don't possess a single book on carriage modelling , and have in fact being flying more or less blind, guided solely by some very hazy memories of misbuilt Ratio kits perpetrated in my early teens and a section of a DVD by Tony Wright on detailing and improving RTR - though that involves some heavy duty reworks, it doesn't, obviously, say a work about building kits. I must have at least half a dozen books and DVDs by various people on wagon modelling, a similar number on reworking locos and building loco kits, books on scenery, buildings , painting ... But when it comes to coaches, I suddenly realise that the cupboard is almost entirely bare.
     
    Some Slaters figures were painted with acrylic and the tiny stump of an old paint brush . I took the chance to off load all the figures which are really not suitable for a modern image layout, so passenger traffic from Blacklade in the 1950s appears to consist very largely of nuns and National Servicemen
     
    I've also touched up the paintwork where required: it's adequete rather than a top class finish. It seems necessary to paint the leading edge of the tops of the sides, else slight bits of grey may show when the roof is fitted
     
     

     
    I've also made up the roofs - the two part lamp tops are a bit of a nuisence , and as I managed to damage two , I'd have been introuble if just building the all third. As it was, I had some spares on the other sprue. A point to watch for: although the understide of the roof marks different positions for lamps and torpedo vents for the brake third and brake composite, they've got the kit numbers the wrong way round. I drilled out the first two lamps in the position marked, fortunately checked them against the body before going further, and found they didn't line up with the first class compartments. They had to be hastily filled, and the holes marked for the other kit drilled out instead....
     
    Some thoughts on the kits as a whole, from what I've seen so far. These kits are significantly more sophisticated and elaborate than the very straightforward MR kits . There are the first signs of the unnecessary over elaboration of seperate parts which makes the Ratio Maunsell Van B kit such a laborious chore to build - two part lamp tops, two part floor pan, seperate duckets, corridor handrail and so on. The need to build up the interior and assemble the sides round this makes for more work and parts, but it also results in a strong structure , and makes the kit rather heavier , which is a useful bonus. The fit of parts is good. By modern standards things like metal buffers and metal wheels are desireable features. The kits are still pretty straightforward to build: there is nothing I can see technically difficult for someone familiar with plastic kits , and provided you work with care a neat result ought to follow
     
    I'm intending to build these kits as they come, but in one area I've had to deviate. Somehow I seem to have lost the sprue with the corridor connectors from one of the kits. A hasty rummage in the parts box turned up an MJT LMS gangway ,which I bought for some reason and have no other obvious use for. Since I'm building these coaches as a 2 car set, I'm going to fit the working MJT gangways in the centre of the set, with the fixed plastic mouldings at each end. I've therefore fitted a plate of 20 thou plasticard across the end of one corridor on each coach supported by a cross piece of 40 thou styrene across the inside of the gangway extension. This then will then form the baseplate for the MJT gangway - the other end gets Ratio's plastic moulding with endplate
     
    I've also weighted the coaches to get them over the magic 100g mark (4 axles at 25g/axle) . This is easy enough in the brake composite - two slabs of lead flashing on the floor of the guard's compartment , stuck down with araldite. For the all third it was more difficult , but I glued pieces of lead to the inside of the walls of the toilet compartments , and to the floor next to the toilet compartment , to balance that in the toilets. I intend to build both coaches with battery boxes not gas tanks , and if I need any additional weight there should be room to superglue lead sheet inside the battery box mouldings
  6. Ravenser

    Set 1 - Under False Colours - Pt.1 - Overview

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    Having rashly flung down the gauntlet and declared I'm thinking of running a third , not terribly authentic, period on Blacklade to give an airing to the bits of steam era /green diesel stock I seem to have acquired, I've actually made a start in the form of a pair of Ratio kits: two of the LNWR kits to be precise. The twist is that these will actually constitute the ER's contribution on the coaching side, until I lay my hand on some Kirk kits.
     
    I've rather fancied the Ratio LNWR coaches since they first came out . They were new products, they looked really rather stylish with those big windows, and I suppose they were a bit cool. As I went modern image in my early mid teens, there was never any scrap of justification for buying one - until I got involved with a small informal group locally. Amongst other things we were talking about building a small branch terminus, and because of others' interests it was bound to be steam.
     
    The LNWR seems to have embraced the concept of corridor coaches and gangwayed connections very quickly and with some enthusiasm. By 1893 they had commissioned a full train set for the 2pm Euston - Glasgow express - thereafter, for a generation "the 'Corridor'"(until the LMS formally named it "The Mid Day Scot") - and by the late 1890s they were building corridor coaches in volume for their own main line services, not just the WCJS. Ratio's range of 4 kits represent these , built from 1898-1903, and not extinct until after World War 2. I've always been surprised these kits never took off - there was a time when their MR coach kits seemed virtually ubiquitous and if you wanted a pre-grouping coach it was a Ratio MR kit or a Triang clerestory, but somehow I've hardly ever seen the LNWR kits crop up in layout articles. The prototypes feature in Historic Carriage Drawings Vol 2 - LMS , edited by David Jenkinson, as do the MR suburbans and the MR non-gangwayed express clerestories : and no doubt that's how Ratio came to choose all three types.
     
    The twist in the story comes in 1936 , when the LMS offloaded some of them on the M&GNJR, apparently along with some ex MR gangwayed clerestories which I think are available as kits from 51L Models/Wizard , and which are far too grand, sophisticated and expensive for me to consider... A few months later (October 1936), the LMS offloaded its interest in the M&GN on the LNER. Given that the LNER promptly scrapped most of the M&GN loco fleet -, and the LNER wasn't rich enough to indulge in extravagences like "scrap and build" - I think we can take it that the M&GN was in dire need of re-equipment by that point and the LMS wasn't prepared to stump up hard cash. It's pretty clear why the choice fell on these coaches for transfer. The M&GN was a lengthy cross country main line and its big passenger traffic was holiday expresses from the Midlands. A lot of those passengers were families making 3-4 hour journeys, and by the mid 1930s subjecting them to non-gangwayed stock without access to toilets was unacceptable. The LMS duly off-loaded some of the oldest corridor stock it had in order to "modernise" the M&GN, and since the MR came to corridor coaches much later and more tentatively than the LNWR , inevitably old LNWR stock was going to feature in the transfer.
     
    So some elderly ex LNWR and MR coaches ended up as LNER stock in E Anglia . Beyond this point we find ourselves peering into the mists of history - which are pretty thick and misty hereabouts. As a modern image modeller of Eastern leanings , my references for this are pretty scanty : 3 volumes of Historic Carriage Drawings, Harris' LNER coaches and the notes to the Ratio kits , prepared by a Mr P Millard. According to the latter "several" vehicles were transferred to the M&GN , but he doesn't say what. I have been shown a photo of an M&GN train from the mid/late 1930s with one of these coaches clearly visible , still in LMS livery . It wasn't a brake, and holiday expresses aren't obviously in need of lots of all firsts, so I think we can assume some all thirds were transferred. Whether any brake coaches were is anybody's guess: Historic Carriage Drawings does not even mention the transfer, and nor does LNER Coaches
     
    The Ratio instructions claim extinction dates of 1950 for the brake composites, and 1952 for the brake thirds, but 1947 for the all thirds, even though more of them were built than everything else put together. Historic Carriage Drawings gives an extinction date of 1953 for the all thirds, and says extinction dates for the other types cannot be established but all types reached BR and probably became extinct 1953-5. It's evident from one or two other entries that events in apple green territory are beyond the ken of LMS coach scholars, so these will be for the vehicles which passed from the LMS to the LMR
     
    It is quite possible the vehicles which passed to the LNER lasted a little longer. By M&GN standards, in 1936 these were relatively modern coaches. In late 1934, the LNER had set out to eliminate 4 and 6 wheel coaches - of which it still had several thousand - "except for third-rate branch lines, miners' and workmen's trains". What this meant in practice in E Anglia can be established by looking at some branch line monographs. Witham/Bishop Stortford trains were still 6 wheelers until 1940 , when they were replaced by ex GE 50' corridor coaches. The Thaxted branch retained 6 wheelers until 1946-7, when GE 50' corridor coaches were provided - working in 2 car sets. The Mid Suffolk became the last place in Britain served by non -bogie coaches (until the DoT inflicted Pacers on us) - here the 6 wheelers survived until a few months before closure in 1952, again replaced by ex GE corridor coaches working in 2car sets.
     
    Given this , it seems unlikely the LNER would have scrapped these ex LMS vehicles before the war. In fact it seems quite plausible that after 1940, when holiday trains would have been few and far between, and the M&GN section probably had surplus coaching stock, they might have been pressed into service to replace 6 wheelers on some very minor branch. Photos show elderly pre Grouping coaches as branch sets on many ex GE and ex GN branches in the early 50s - what probably swept them away was a combination of the first round of ER closures in 1951-2 plus cascading following the arrival of the first Mk1s in 1951-2
     
    So - a pair of ex LNWR coaches from the Ratio kits make a plausible E Anglian branch set on a very minor branch in the early 1950s. By that time they would have been in brown - on the GE, pregrouping stock was not given BR crimson, but was repainted in brown with BR lettering , and examples survived beyond 1955. When my local model shop closed down about 4 years ago I bought a brake composite and an all third , for use on the little group branch terminus project. All the other authentic options would have been difficult to source and much more difficult to build. I think they had been in the shop some time - one kit was the earlier version with plastic wheels - and they were discounted. I gave the sides an undercoat and , since it wasn't an urgent job, they sat in the cupboard , waiting for the branch terminus to happen first......
     
    As these two kits include the only kit for a brake vehicle I have , it seemed the obvious place to start. I have very little coachbuilding experience - a couple of Ratio kits in my early teens - and Ratio kits seemed an easy place to start. (That theory took a serious knock with the very over-complicated Southern Van B kit, which took me 2 years to finish)
     
    First stages are shown here. The exact shade of LNER brown seems to be open to question and photographic research. I bought a tin of Precision Pullman umber and another of LNER dull teak. The original idea was to mix up a suitable brown , but then I reflected that Precision paints don't cover half as well as Railmatch or Humbrol and I'd never match the colour for the second coat - or the second vehicle. So I gave the sides an undercoat in umber, in order to darken the teak top coat - and stopped there.
     
     

     
    On restarting last week it became clear that the undercoat on the brake composite was badly affected by nibs and whiskers . I don't have an airbrush , and neither colour is available as an aerosol can. The all third was ok, if not 100% perfect . So I gave the latter a coat of teak - and the brake composite sides got a coat of Modelstrip. The teak coat wasn't 100% perfect either: Precision paint seems to love to form tiny bubbles as you brush . I did the best I could. The brake was given a fresh undercoat of umber, and then teak over. Despite my careful cleaning/degreasing of the sides and cleaning of the brush on a bit of soap to rid it of any nibs, the finish still wasn't perfect - and all sides visibly needed a further coat. There is no way you can apply three brush coats of paint and get a flawless result. I have learnt my lesson and sourced a spray can of Railmatch crimson for all the other coaches, but with the LNW set , damage limitation is all that's possible
     
     

     
    These kits are slightly peculiar - at least to me - in that they are built round the interiors. In this they differ from the other Ratio coach kits I built long ago from the other 3 ranges. They also show early signs of the overcomplication which makes the Ratio Maunsell Van B such a laborious pig to do. I can't see that moulding the floor pan as two halves which join together with a kind of mortice joint is any improvement on the single piece floor pans found in the MR kits - unless there was an overriding technical reason in the design of the moulds, and since they produced a lot of earlier kits with single piece floores , I can't see it. Similarly, the all third corridor sides are two pieces with a tenon joint - though in the brakes these have to be two seperate mouldings , as the guard's van is in the centre not the end. However the fit of the parts so far has been excellent - the floor pan needs only routine cleaning of the edges and no packing or filing down has been required. In one or two places a few strokes of the file were necessary along the compartment partitions to get the side even. There are little locating pegs on the floor to locate the interiors (except for the toilets) - the all third has these pegs on the compartment side too, but the brake doesn't
     
     

     
    In the process of fitting the first side, stage by stage along the side, and holding it tight to the compartment partitions till the solvent set , I managed to get solvent onto the side with some damage to the paintwork . As "cracklature" was definitely not wanted, I have rubbed down the affected panels and they will need touching in - the damage can be seen on the photo . The compartment interiors have been painted with Tamiya Flat Earth acrylic, to avoid anything embarassing being seen through the windows. I am starting to feel that if I have to apply any more coats of brown paint to this kit I'll scream
     
    On the corridor side there are recesses for the glazing strip - why the glazing on the corridor side of the all third has to be 4 seperate recessed sections , when the brake manages with just two sections, beats me. The corridor handrail is a piece of styrene micro rod (more brown paint) applied between slots . On the all third, I made the mistake of using solvents at the retaining slots, As a result , I have marks on two windows just above the rail, where it wasn't 100% straight and capilarity drew the solvent where it wasn't wanted. Damn. On the brake third , I learned my lesson , and used the Revell Contacta bottle . In fact I've taken the heretical approach of using Contacta cement very sparingly applied as the first tack bond for the major pieces, with solvent applied to finish the join
  7. Ravenser

    Route One

    By Ravenser,

    With DCC Installing the point motors and decoder isn't necessarily the end of the story. Yes, it gets the points working , but more than just that is possible, and yesterday I took the final steps in commissioning the installation
     
    Working the points one by one through the handset is a little slow and clunky . Probably no slower than flicking a set of switches on a DC panel, but just as liable to operator error. I suspect that one of the major causes of derailment and intermittant running on the average layout is the operator having failed to set some point in the route somewhere, and I'm no better at it than anyone else
     
    Much more sophisticated automated approaches are possible with DCC, and most of them cost a lot of money. In fact I believe several small building societies are now offering mortgages of up to 80% LTV for first time buyers of Railroad & Co software... Having been born in Yorkshire I'm not going down any route that involves several hundred euros and the installation of lots of special electronic devices sourced from someone unpronounciable in the Black Forest.
     
    Fortunately that's not necessary. The NCE Powercab - which is what I have - offers a feature called "macros" . These allow you to store instructions to up to 8 accessory decoder addresses , and send them as a single operation. There's even a nice prominent button labelled "macros" between "select loco" and select accessory". Just press it. type in the number of the macro and press return - and instructions to up to 8 accessory addresses can be sent at once (I'm being very careful in my wording here - both the MERG point decoder and the DS64 accessory decoder have 4 outputs and therefore 4 addresses . The Lenz LS150 has 6. And one output/address can work two points , typically as a cross-over. )
    The PowerCab supports 16 of these macros , numbered 0-15 (I presume the Procab does the same)
     
    Blacklade has 9 points (2 of which form a single slip), two point decoders, and 7 addresses in use - there are 2 crossovers, wired as pairs. There are 3 platforms in the station , one of which (Pl 2) can be reached by either front or back routes , 3 roads in the fiddle yard and the fuelling point. That gives 4 x 4 = 16 possible route options , though in reality it's only 14 , as you can't reach the fuelling point from platform 3 (the back platform) or from the back exit from Platform 2
     
    So each possible route on the layout can be given it's own macro which will fire all the points necessary to set it up with a single instruction. Full entrance/exit route setting - for nowt. 'Cos it comes as a standard feature on the Powercab....
     
    The first step was to check each point address and work out which way was Normal and which Reverse (these are the 2 options in NCE - Digitrax prefer Closed and Thrown). I drew a very crude panel diagram in pencil to record this - the standard convention being that Normal is a thick continuous line, and Reverse is a break in the line . Then I started programming the macros starting with macro 1 (Platform 1 to fuelling point) , programming the correct setting for each point in the route with reference to the pencil diagram. When route started to involve the slip it seemed like a good idea to run something through to test it and make sure I had the polarity right through the slip, so out came a153. Program macro , press button, enter macro number, hear points throw, run train. And so on steadily down the list of possible permutations
     
    After about an hour and a half I had a layout where I could set up any possible route in one go , just by pressing a button and entering a number . And the appropriate signals came off as well.. The 153 ran slowly and reliably back and forth across the layout.
     
    For ease of operation, I've written out all the macro numbers as a table on the back of an old business card and stuck it on the backscene at the station end. I've also drawn out the panel diagram neatly on two business cards , with point numbers, so that if I have to change points "manually" I do at least know which way to select on the menu . It doesn't really matter which way is Normal for a point so long as you know which option to select to set the point in the direction you want. The amount of time wasted trying each option in turn until the point moved was embarrassing, and trying to work out the number of a given point without aclear memory aid is very difficult - which is why the real railways put a block diagram with all the lever numbers marked in every signal box. I'd strongly recommend drawing out a panel diagram whatever your system, for these reasons alone.
     
    I don't usually do DCC techno- posts and this posting may leave folk with a different DCC system cold. However the PowerCab is quite a popular DCC system and I don't think I've seen any comment on using this particular feature before. Obviously 16 route macros will only go so far on a large layout, where there are more than 16 possible routes and some involve a lot more than 8 points; though I gather from another thread that great northern has been experimenting with macros on Peterborough North. However you wouldn't use a PowerCab to run a large layout anyway, and for the average small terminus 16 macros should be more than enough, especially if the fiddle yard is a sector plate or traverser. It really is a powerful feature to be able to set up any route completely and reliabilily just with a single entry , and the improvement in speed and ease of operation is dramatic
     
    Something similar should be possible on an number of other systems. The Digitrax DS64 accessory decoder supports "routes" at the level of the decoder itself. Unfortunately you can only set up routes involving points controlled by two different DS64s if they are linked by Loconet, the Digitrax cab bus, which means that you can only get comprehensive route setting thisway if you have a Digitrax system. I think Lenz support route setting , though I don't know any details and I have a suspicion it may even be available with the Multimaus
  8. Ravenser

    A Boxing Post.

    By Ravenser,


    Mercia Wagon Repair
    I don't think I've ever done a product review on here before, but here goes....
     
    A fortnight ago I went to Railex. Most of my purchase list was 4mm stuff, even though I don't seem to have done any 4mm for about a year because of the N gauge project (which is why my annual review and resolutions post for 2023 hasn't happened). But the previous weekenmd I went to a local show - only my second show this year - and picked up the body of a Kirk Gresley 61' full brake for a quid. Everything below the solebars had gone , but I bought a set of MJT Gresley bogie sideframes I didn't need at Warley, and with a few other bits sourced I reckon I can rebuild it and get a decent vehicle for the kettle-period on Blacklade for under £20.
     
    I digress. While wandering round the show I came upon a trader new to me , WWscenics. I was browsing their stand wuith a vague "this looks useful stuff for the hobby" benevolence, when I noticed some brown cardboard boxes labelled as N Gauge Loco Storage boxes. I've started to build one or two N gauge wagon kits, bought a few more , and the issue of how to store them was starting to raise its head. The storage drawer under the bed which contains the Boxfile and its stock also houses the N gauge stock, all of it in the original boxes. I'd pretty well run out of room in there, and I'd more or less decided that my purchases of N gauge rolling stock had reached a limit.
     
    Here was an N gauge storage box, at the price of one modestly-priced N gauge wagon. I don't have 10 N gauge locos, but 10 locos might perhaps equate to 20 wagons. 
     
    At that point my interest moved rapidly from the vague "He seems to have a range of decent stuff" to the immediate "This could be useful". I asked if they had a made-up example: they did, and it was remarkably compact. I promptly bought a kit at the exhibition special price. (It now retails at £29.99)
     
    And the next afternoon, in an unwonted burst of energy and enthusiasm, I actually got on and built it. 
     
    The product is here: WWScenics N gauge loco box and it took me a couple of hours to build.
     
    Here we have the key things:

     
    The material is laser-cut 3mm MDF , with chocolate burnt edge colouring and a pungent mildly acrid smell. The instructions are plain and well drawn, although to be honest what goes where is mostly obvious. Nevertheless what you think you know may not be quite the way it should go together so the instructions are useful. The fit of the parts was excellent. No fettling was required.
     
    I assembled the unit with aliphatic resin, not so much because this is the ideal glue for the job but because I have twice bought a bottle of the stuff from Rocket under the impression it would be useful . Having found no obvious need for aliphatic resin over a good many years I am now trying to use up the bottles on any job where they  might be vaguely suitable, in order to preserve my stocks of PVA, a much more generally useful glue. Aliphatic resin leaves something of a stain despite intermittent attempts to be careful. But then PVA leaves a mark, too  .
     
    The finished unit is small- about a hand span in length and width. This means it fits nicely into the limited space left in the storage drawer after the Box file, 4mm stock storage files, and controller are packed away in it. The cardboard boxes and plastic jewel boxes in which N gauge RTR is supplied are a lot smaller than the boxes we are used to in 4mm , but they still aren't a particularly effective use of space. This unit improves the packing density of the stock by 2x-3x. What that means in practice is that I now have a home for pretty well all the kits I've bought once I've built them - and the drawer is less crowded than it was. Since in a small flat the limit on your fleet is the point at which you run out of space to store it, this is very helpful.
     

     
    It has multiple internal partitions so it builds up into a pretty sturdy unit . Clearly it wouldn't take being stood on or sat on , but otherwise it's pretty solid and I can't see it coming apart easily. The tabs visible on the top surface are designed to interlock with a second box on top. I may or may not buy a second unit: on the whole I think I prefer to keep locos in their original padded boxes, and without the locos I doubt if I would do more than half fill a second box. So the saving in space probably isn't there.
     
    A bonus is that it will make taking models out to run the layout a lot quicker and easier. It also means less scattered debris in the living room. I have been trying to use the boxes to give an impression/mock-up of the backscene buildings but that's only a short term measure.
     

     
    The holes on the ends of the trays are just about big enough for the end of your little finger and there is a recess on one end which is presumably there to take a label. A loose intermediate divider is provided with a series of slots to allow it to be placed so as to stop the models moving about. It is just about possible to arrange the drawers to take two 4 wheel wagons , if one is shorter than the other: the divider always has to be a little more than half way down
     

     
     
    I find it a useful product at a moderate price
  9. Ravenser

    Counsels of Despair

    By Ravenser,


    Mercia Wagon Repair
    Things have not been going particularly well for Mercia Wagon Repair recently. As a result I've become rather disheartened and I've been wondering whether I should in fact pull the plug on the project.
     
    Issue number one can be seen here:

     
    A key point, buried fairly deep in the track plan has broken up at the tie bar.
     
    This is the second point to break up at the tie bar out of 7 points I've bought so far (The first large radius point disintegrated at the tie bar before I even laid it.). That is within 9 months of starting work on this project. This particular one failed a few weeks ago during use. It uses a Peco motor fitted to the designed-in attachment holes: in other words I'm using a proprietary product exactly as it is designed to be used.  I've never had such failures in forty years in 4mm.
     
    At this stage there seem to be two possible approaches:
     
    - Extract the plastic tiebar, somehow, and try to wiggle a replacement PCB tiebar  under the rails and also over the actuating pin of the point motor. Not a nice or easy job  
    - Buy a replacement point. Cut out and extract the old point, wire and lay the new one. Reconnect wires ...
     
    Then there is the matter of frog switching
     
    The Peco leaflet with the Code 55 N gauge points makes no mention at all about connecting the frog to a switch to supply it with power. I've read the thing 4 or 5 times carefully through, and  such a reference to frog switching simply isn't there (though from memory such instructions do appear with 16.5mm electrofrog points). All that the leaflet says is "Turnouts are ready for immediate use - seperate levers are not necessary ."
     
    On 4mm electrofrog points there is a wire run to the side , for the purpose of feeding the frog off a switch. There is a linkage wire under Code 55 N gauge points , connecting the swtich rails and the frog - but there is no "loose" wire to link to a  polarity switch     
     
    There is every sign that Peco expect purchasers simply to lay their Code 55 N gauge points as they come, and rely on contact of the switchblades with the stockrail. That is an unreliable contact, and risks leaving the entire switchblade /frog assembly dead - about 3" of track.
     
    (Not a theoretical comment . I've seen this on the wagon works fan , and it is a serious issue for a layout designed around shunting wagons with an 0-6-0 diesel shunter. You should get away with it when running a bogie diesel with all wheel pickup, especially a long one like a Class 66, but wagons are supposed to be shunted around the Works by 0-6-0s)
     
    I tried to tweak the tips of the switchblades on the offending point to ensure contact. I think it may have been the point I had to tweak for switchblade contact - which may have ultimately led to the failure. You can understand why I'm less than impressed with this product...
     
    Having recounted this in a thread elsewhere , someone (with whom I've previously crossed swords several times) appears to state that you can in fact lift the linkage wire "frog jumper" underneath Peco Code 55 points and attach a wire to this "jumper" in order to connect the frog to a polarity switch on the point motor , thus providing a switched power feed to the frog and switch blades. (Which is the best way to wire a live frog) . But -
     
    I've already laid the points. To get at that wire connection and solder on a feed wire to a polarity switch I'd have to lift the points. 
     
    The track is laid and wired and running. Lifting it all and replacing the cork  would amount to "scrap and start again"
     
    It might - to a 4mm mind - seem possible just to accept the issue and carry on. But over the past few months I've picked up disturbing vibes that shunting and shunting/operational layouts are "not what N gauge is about" :
     
     
    It may be unfair to seize on a single comment, but it crystallizes a vibe I feel in the air.
     
    Shunting in N using the "standard" Arnold coupling seems to be regarded as pretty iffy. I have gone for the replacement Dapol Easi-Shunt knuckle couplers - effectively NEM Kadees in N. But they are costing me over £5 a vehicle. They frequently require packing of the NEM pocket to limit or remove drooping , which results in the tail fouling pointwork . And my impression after 3-4 operating sessions is that they are rather less certain and reliable in coupling  than the Kadees I use in 4mm on Blacklade. They uncouple over the fixed Dapol uncouplers, not always conveniently. As usual, successful delayed action is rather elusive.
     
    Put another way - can you remember seeing many "shunting planks" in N? (Either at shows or in the magazines.) Many branch line termini?  An N gauge Minories?  Micros or Boxfiles using N? N gauge inglenooks and other shunting puzzles?
     
    On reflection, the typical N gauge layout seems to be a longish continous run. Commonly on a 2'6" deep solid board , with 12" return curves at each end, and the fiddle yard hidden behind a backscene set 2/3rds of the way back. Operation consists of firing a train out of the fiddle yard, sending it round the the circuit and back into a road in the fiddle yard.
     
    "Cavalcade" layouts do not interest me. I don't want to build one, I don't have the space for one. That is not what Mercia Wagon Repair is about.
     
    Am I trying to do something in N that everyone knows cannot and should not be done in N? A project that cannot and should not be?
     
    When I've raised the issue of shunting in N - apart from the implications of trolling and being offensive - I've been assured that the NGS Hunslet is the very bee's-knees in N gauge running. There can be no question of things being possible in 4mm that are not possible in N.
     
    So I bought one, and here it is:
     

     
    It is indeed a very small locomotive. It cost me £82 which in this day and age is a remarkably keen price (I stuck a wagon kit for a TTA in with the order to bulk it up). The finish and printing is admirable. It does indeed run very slowly, being heavily geared down. But it does not run as sweetly or quite as reliably as my Farish 04.
     
    What it reminds me of is many a kitbuilt small locomotive on 4mm finescale layouts. It waddles a little. It runs slow, and it keeps going , but it waddles. Not quite a even movement. It's a decent locomotive and it will do a job of work on the layout. I'm not the "toys out of pram" type who returns things in a huff because they do not meet his exacting standards 100%... But it's not as sweet and smooth running as the 04.
     
    And it will  be obvious from the photo just how short the wheel base is and just how long the switchblades and frog are on the adjacent point. Any hesitation in contact - they're dead. And the Hunslet will stop. 
     
    Dare I blaze ahead with this project with electrically compromised "live frogs"?? Do I dare spend £145 on a Farish Class 14 in British Oak orange as an additional shunter??? Nobody has mentioned that one as an outstanding shunter. In 4mm I'd have not a shadow of a doubt that a modern RTR 0-6-0T would run shunt very happily over live frog points, smoothly, slowly, reliably all day. But in N??
     
    Disposable income is a little tight at the moment. My savings may be ample - but I'm not necessarily prepared to dip into them to buy a loco that turns out not to be capable of the job required
     
    I started the Chivers N gauge SSA kit. The Peco chassis used is wrong - leaf spring suspension not pedestal. In 4mm  that would be a show-stopper. But in N - nothing can be done.
     
    Then I read this in the current NGS Journal:
     
    That's me told then - the Chivers SSA kit and the NGS chemical TTA kit I'm currently working on can never be good enough to sit alongside a Dapol or RevolutioN wagon with any credibility......  not unless my name's Tim Watson
     
    I painted the main sprues in the TTA kit white - the suggestion in the instructions that they could be left as self-coloured plastic took me aback. Then the bag with the rest of the kit disappeared . Could I find it? I could not.
     

     
    The cars are some cheap plastic ones I managed to find in a model shop's box, which I'm trying to paint up and make passable. Modern cars are quite difficult to find in N . I've got boxes of the things in 4mm/HO needing a good home...
     
    How many more points will fail at the tie bar, and how soon???
     
    At this stage there seem a number of options:
     
    - Press on and hope. Try to fix the tie bar and leave other pointwork as is.
    - Replace the bust point . Maybe try to fit frog feed wires to one or two others.
    - Rip up most of the points and trackwork , and replace them, fitting point feedwires to the replacements. This would mean major reconstruction and rewiring
    - Pull the plug. Decide this project can't be made to work satisfactorily and get out of N. Dispose of the N gauge stock and bits for whatever I can recover before I sink more money time and effort into a quicksand  (I spent over £150 at Warley on a new loco, wagons and bits for this project)
     
    Since two of the locos were given to me and have personal connections, I couldn't dispose of the lot. 
     
    If I scrapped it , what would I do? 
     
    - I think the plan could be done in TT120. There would be some loss of train length, but with mostly 4 wheel wagons it could be manageable. Width might be a more serious issue in a larger scale. 66s and an 08 are promised in TT:120, and in some respects the project might be better done in BR days , with a 37 and 47 as the main line power. But the 66 is 10-12 months away in TT, and I'd have to buy every single item from scratch. This was a project to use a core of existing stock....
     
    - If we're talking about stuff I already have, that points towards either 3mm, (where I have a bag of wagon kits, some second hand Triang and half a dozen Peco points in stock), or OO9. But I have no serviceable 3mm loco, and no design. I have two OO9 Baldwins and some stock, but the design I came up with is 18" wide , not 11" , although I have more length than I drew out. 
     
    - I suppose I could try to come up with an LCC tram scheme in 4mm
     
    - Even Son of Boxfile in OO ????
     
    Or I could box the whole lot up, and put away all N gauge modelling until at least September . When I would re-assess what is to be done about this , in a more cheerful frame of mind.  All my modelling time has been going into N recently - I haven't done any 4mm for about 9 month's let alone had Blacklade up. I know 4mm works, and even more importantly I know I can make it work , within reason. Time to do what will work, instead of plunging deeper into the swamps of N?
     
     
  10. Ravenser

    Pardon My French - or Paint Your Wagon

    By Ravenser,


    Layout schemes
    I started a new job after Easter, and the big lockdown modelling push basically ran into the sands in May and June. But the sale of my late mother's house has now been completed;, and a long-overdue attempt to reduce the chaos of the study has taken place. Out went a large broken computer desk and the very old desktop it housed , and in came a small computer trolley; the office chair moved from the sitting room to the study, the study chair went in the bedroom, and a broken chair from the bedroom went to the tip. 
     
    As a follow up, three new shelves went up on the wall that had just been cleared, giving me an extra 12' run of shelving. To be honest, it would probably take almost the same again finally to clear all the build-up of books and magazines in the flat, but the study is now a lot better than it was, so is the rest of the flat, and a great many things are now readily to hand that weren't.
     
    The new shelves are set at a level to clear the proposed OO9 layout I have been evolving here - Dogger Light Railway   However.... an 18" boxed diorama will severely compromise the new minimalist laptop workstation and drive it well back into the (narrow) room. The curve at one end looks really rather tight with a Lynton & Barnstaple coach.  All in all - possible, but cramped and awkward. 
     
    I've decided that no final decisions will be taken until at least next Spring. I have a lot of other things to sort out before taking on the big commitment of a new layout project. The possibility of moving from a flat to a house using the legacy also needs to be considered , but I am taking no decisions on that front either until next summer, pending some corporate developments at work. 
     
    And in the course of finding homes for piles of stuff, a copy of Loco-Revue dated Septembre 2017 turned up. I read it carefully - there were several articles on a compact modern(ish) wagon-works layout in HO. Total footprint 180 cm x 45cm (interesting to see the French still think in imperial underneath - that's in practice 6' x 18") 
     


     
    The prototypes shown in France can be as simple as a 3 road steel shed , with an additional siding on either side, plus a connection to the SNCF system.
     
    Such prototypes do and have existed in Britain. The wagon works opposite the island platform at Peterborough station comes immediately to mind. Ipswich wagon works closed in the early 80s, but there are other facilities around Britain - probably rather larger , although I haven't seen photos of them. In short , unlike the entirely fictional "Any TOC TMD " layouts we saw around shows before the pandemic,  there is an actual credible basis for transplanting this kind of facility to  a British setting. Such a wagon works  also offers a plausible scenario for shunting large modern wagons singly, in a modest space, without the need to accomodate lengthy block trains. This is very promising.
     
    I have some bits of modern N in store, which spiralled out of being given a presentation Dapol 66/5. Halve the dimensions in the article and you are at 3' x 9". If the wall above the workstation and below the shelves is problematic, what about about the wall on the right hand side? There's now 3' clear on that side before you reach the pile of boxed stuff with forlorn forgotten Tramlink boxed on top of it.
     
     

     
     
    It's at this point that the difficulties start surfacing. For starters, British N is 59% of HO. That immediately takes you up to 3'6". x 10.5"   A class 66 in N is 15cm long. A Dapol Cargowaggon bogie van is only fractionally shorter. Just those two  together therefore come to 30cm , which is longer than the fiddle siding as drawn. And either is about as long as the headshunt at the other end, if not fractionally longer. But you would also have to fit a shunter into the headshunt, otherwise you can't operate at all. A Farish 04 is 6.5cm long....
     
    And since the N gauge locos I  have are 2 x Freightliner 66s, a Freightliner 57, and an 04,  and the rolling stock includes an IWA , a VGA and a curtain sider   any N gauge layout needs to accomodate these vehicles. If it doesn't use  the stock I already have there's not a lot of point doing it.
     
    You suddenly realise that short diesel locos like Rats and 20s disappeared a long time ago.
     
    My calculations suggested I'd need at least 3'7" , which is starting to intrude significantly along that wall. That would allow a fiddle yard 33.5cm long , which would just take a 57 + 2 wagons, or at a pinch a 33 + 3 wagons (A Class 33, the shortest mainline diesel loco still in traffic in the 21st century,  is 10.5cm long). Peco short radius points in N are 123mm long. In contrast the layout in Loco Revue manages 3 wagon trains with an assortment of shunters used in the works
     
    Hmmm. Not quite so simple. And none of this would accomodate my FEA twin-set. It's a bit awkward if your wagon works handles exclusively Freightliner locos, but no container flats ever appear.
     
    Any layout  would use Peco code 55 track. There's no reason to use anything coarser, and pointwork on a shunting layout ought to be live frog. (N gauge actually equates to 4' 4.5" gauge - closer to scale than OO, but still not quite there . However nobody ever seems to notice this.) It would be DC, because none of the locos I have are plug-and-play for DCC, and I don't fancy the hassle and extra expense of trying to fit decoders. I have a perfectly serviceable Gaugemaster 100M and a Combi in the cupboard to run this - solenoid motors could be used.
     
    There are certainly issues. But there are also genuine possibilities, and such a project would use stock I already have which doesn't currently have an obvious use
     
  11. Ravenser

    Skeleton in the Cupboard

    By Ravenser,


    Tramlink
    A very long time ago, I went to one of the CMRA Workshop events. The bookseller was selling a copy of "Tramlink - Official Handbook" published by Capital Transport. (It was Geoff Gamble - I told you it was a long time ago)
     
    Anyway I bought the thing, discovered that Alphagraphix were doing card kits of light rail units, and I got fired up with the idea of building one , and making a working model. This obviously would need somewhere to run, so the idea of building a small layout based on Tramlink was rapidly born. The overhead was fairly simple posts, concrete sleeper track could be used... Ravenser Mk1 was visibly a problem - try again with some proper boards
     
    This whole thing occupied much of my modelling in the early part of the millenium, along with the club project and the Boxfile. The baseboards were constructed in a one bedroom flat using a junior hacksaw and a plastic benchhook - the main plywood plates being cut to size by the timber yard. (Never again... I bought a Black & Decker Workbox not long after. And the timber yard has now closed and been flattened for redevelopment as housing. No-one within 15 miles can cut time to size as far as I know)
     
    The basic design can be seen from the photos:
     
    Each board is 3' x 11" - they box up as an opposed pair, and the idea was that they would just about be carriable on public transport as a boxed unit. At that time I didn't have a car, as I was commuting daily by train .
     
    Here is Elmers' End. Two Wills kits are still in stock for the platform canopy. The photocopy mock-up of the Goods Office is still in place, pending the rework and building of the full kit...
     
     
     

     
    And here is the second board, labelled as Beckenham. I know you can't actually run from Elmer's End to Beckenham on Tramlink, but this was not conceived as  finescale layout. In fact Beckenham was originally conceived as the fiddle yard, until I thought that a terminus in a station forecourt could be suggested, and therefore I could have a fully scenic layout:
     
     

     
    The "unique selling point" was that it was to be an all-card layout
     
    I built the first LRV . It was successful - sort of . It has a Tenshodo at one end , it runs - but it's very light weight and propelling trailer first into (or was it out of?) the cripple siding at Elmer's End it came off every time. 
     

    The system of articulation  was shall we say basic, and would never feature in MRJ. I think the idea was to have one trailing bogie live vto one side, and the other to the other rail. These were A1 etched H frames for wagon bogies, and I cadged some bogie castings off Mark Hughes, who makes a respectable whitemetal kit
     
     

    But it did get written up in the DOGA Journal (also a long time ago)
     
    Then I attempted proper Croydon cars from an Alphagrapix kit. These are skirted vehicles, and the skirts fouled the H frames and it wouldn't take a curve at all.... Since the body is a sealed unit there is no way in bar tearing it apart....
     
    (That photocopy mockup really needs replacing. The back of an advertising hoarding was to go in the gap)
     
     


    Oh and one end sat too high....
     
    About the last thing to be done was a push to build super-detail semis from Bilteezi sheets, which stalled:
     
     

    There was even briefly a thought of expanding it with a representation of the depot inserted in the middle
     
     

    Tramlink (Kent) has been stored, boxed up, in the study with an ever growing pile of Railway Modellers on top for more years than I like to admit to. For some years it was occasionally hauled out for use as a DC test track, The wiring was always very, very, basic with hand thrown points and something has come adrift and the Beckenham board is dead.
     
    After I built the external CDU for the Boxfile external CDU and connections I had good intentions of sorting out poor old Tramlink with a rewire. Suitable DIN sockets were sourced from Maplins (remember them?) to take the connectors from the Boxfile. I even sourced a new small radius point , to replace the troublesome Settrack  point at Elmers End, with a view to lifting and relaying and realigning the lead into the cripple siding . Not to mention two solenoid point motors - might as well fit a point-motor while I'm doing it , and then we could see if a point motor could be retrofitted at Beckenham.
     
    I have all the bits - nothing has been done, as I have a long list of jobs with more urgency and more obvious reward.  When I still haven't fixed the W Yorks 155 , Tramlink is unlikely to get priority.
     
    Once or twice the idea has crossed my mind of scrapping it and reusing the boards for a shunting layout to give the stock off the Boxfile more room to breath (and maybe some of the kettles a chance to use it, too) . But to be honest I don't really want to destroy all the buildings which took a lot of work and scrubbed up well, and I can't see how any kind of meaningful shunting plan could be arranged without doing that. Come to that I don't actually have a meaningful 6' x 11" shunting design
     
    So poor old Tramlink stays in its box buried under the magazines....
     
     
     

     

  12. Ravenser

    DC Kits 128 - Bodyshell

    By Ravenser,

    [This is my third attempt at posting this - both the previous two having been wiped and returned to an incomplete draft entry by the software correction]
     
    Progress so far is shown below . Put simply - we have a bodyshell.
     
    I'm not sure it's absolutely perfect but as this project boils down to a bodyshell on a Replica MLV chassis with trimmings, it's a decent start.
     

     
    Bodyshell assembly has been slow . You get four half-sides, two cabs and a roof. The roof has to be cut to length , and then - as I found - you have the fun and games of making sure the cab ends fit square to the roof in both planes, and filing back the roof a millimetre or so in order to match the length of the sides - which at this stage are being dry assembled in a dummy run as a check
     
    It is possible that Charlie has a niche market of Hindu gods residing in West Yorkshire and modelling Modernisation Plan BR multiple units - ideally this assembly process would require 3-4 hands and I come with only two. The instructions recommend that you build down from the roof, and that all the vertical joints between the half sides and the cab are only glued together at a late stage. In other words you have lots of bits of ABS hanging off the gutter and waggling about in the breeze.
     
    The instructions suggest that you assemble the lot on a flat surface. This should be excellent advice: unfortunately I can't quite see how it can be easily combined with building down from the roof using ABS and Plastic Weld. Quite simply by the time you've got the brush to the joint you're frightened there won't be enough solvent left to weld anything, and by the time you can turn it upside down and get it to a flat surface you're irretrievably committed with the joint. There is zero adjustment time.
     
    In short I have a bodyshell that, despite my best efforts at adjustment when welding up the vertical joints, is about 0.5mm out of square diagonally across the corners. Under normal circumstances I'd just shrug my shoulders and reflect that the bogies hang off the floor and flex, it will stay on the track, and nobody will ever notice the very slight twist in the body. However this body is going on a dead square chassis block with a protruding solebar :
     
    I'm hoping that the spacer pieces which I've added inside the bodyshell will push the sides out and straighten the body, and that there will be no visible misalignment against the solebar
     
    A word of warning - the MLV chassis is surprisingly fragile in places . When I tried to pull the coupling out of the NEM pocket the whole coupling assembly came away and one of the mounting rings broke . I've reassembled it and it seems to be holding. Since the maximum load this unit will take is 1 x GUV/NRX + 1 x CCT drawbar pull should be limited and I'm hoping the coupling will be okay
     
    More seriously I found that one bogie was tilted. When I attempted to snap it back into place I found that the mounting bracket above the bogie pivot had broken on one side. The plastic is hard and shiny and I reckoned that superglue was the only option, but it was necessary to force it over with a jewellers screwdriver to get it into place against the break, and it seemed to take an eternity before any bond started to form
     
    eventually, in desperation, I dropped a sliver of microstrip into the joint - and the whole lot bonded firm in about 20 sec.
     
    Presumably this bridged the joint , and meant that there was only a thin layer of cyanoacrylate to bond
  13. Ravenser

    Safety Valve

    By Ravenser,

    This is by way of a moan... I'm trying to sort out various bits-and-pieces jobs, and one is to replace the Bachmann/ESU 3 function 21 pin decoder in the 150 , which doesn't support advanced consisting, with a rather expensive TCS 1344 21-pin decoder that does. I have no need whatsoever for 6 functions - it was just that 21 pin decoders are few and far between, and a DMU that won't work in multiple is rather a nuisence on a layout where operational interest is supposed to be boosted by joining and splitting the things
     
    (Memo to Messrs Lovatt and Kohler - consisting is a Useful Thing, and even your cheap decoders should support it. I don't give a stuff about Mars Lights, function mapping and flickering fireboxes, but I do care about Advanced Consisting in DMUs)
     
    Attempt one was an ignominous failure - I couldn't get the body off because the two small screws at the gangway end wouldn't come out , being too small for any of my jewellers' screwdrivers . Having bought a new set of jewellers screwdrivers from a local shop, for a couple of quid - this time with some very small ones in - I managed to get them out with a 1.0mm flat screwdriver . The screws, though crossheaded, were way too small for my smallest crosshead Phillips screwdriver (00 - what else - it seems crosshead screwdrivers are numbered like paintbrushes or model railway gauges...). Thankfully I hadn't mashed the heads fatally in the first attempt
     
    The game plan was to switch the Bachmann decoder into my nice new ROD 04 . The decoder sits in the tender and all you have to do is remove the tender top . Carefully poised upside down , using the packaging as a protecting cradle, out come the back 2 screws withb a 1.0mm flat , cos they are way smaller than 00 crosshead. The front two won't come out.....
     
    The ROD is not going to be up and running this Bank Holiday weekend
     
    A hasty check of the Squires catalogue reveals - in 3 pages of jewellers' screwdrivers - just one set with 0000 screwdriver , at £13.99 . Which I will have to order - tools, Bachmann locos, for the opening of....
     
    Question to Barwell - why are you fixing together parts of your models which lots of people will need to undo , using fastenings that require tools which are very difficult to source in order to shift them???
  14. Ravenser

    Filed under box van

    By Ravenser,

    I've been building stock boxes : one last weekend and one this. And here are the results:

    which is the air braked box and

    the steam age stock for the shunting plank.
     
    There is absolutely nothing original about this - the idea was taken from Chris Ellis' book "Next Steps in Railway Modelling" , published a couple of years ago, in which it is credited to Stuart Robinson. The construction should be obvious from the photos - take one box file (price 3 quid) , rip out the spring clip and insert dividers using corregated cardboard from a dismembered box and parcel tape. The result is remarkably effective - because the compartments are close fitting and sometimes even a shade tight, the stock doesn't move around and doesn't get damaged. And because of the honeycomb effect , the partitions are strongly reinforced by other partitions and end up pretty rigid
     
    It also saves a lot of space. 2 box files for the shunting plank contain a total of 35 wagons and 4 locos. I reckon you save about two-thirds of the volume storing stock this way compared with leaving wagos in the manufacturer's boxes. Not to mention that the vast majority of my wagons for the plank are kits so there wasn't a box to start with. It's also much quicker and easier to find things in these boxes - just lift the lid and it's all there. As opposed to using the long cardboard loco boxes they sell for a couple of quid, where you have to hunt from box to box and unwrap everything to find the wagon you want.
     
    This was brought painfully home to me when turning out the collection of long boxes that was housing a lot of this stuff before. I found a Conflat or two I'd forgotten about and never run- not to mention a Red Panda Lowfit I'd forgotten I'd ever owned - built for Ravenser Mk1 and rarely if ever used, not least because it was stored somewhere else and forgotten about. Once fitted with S+W couplings it can go into use on the shunting plank.
     
    As well as helping to clear up some of the debris around the place and bring a bit of order and accessibility to my fleet, this exercise has helped to define my wagon building activities for the medium term. As you can see, there are a number of vacant slots. These will take the wagons I'm currently working on, plus the ex WD road van and the etched COV B which have both been sitting on the bookcase for an embarassingly long time. There are slots for a couple more wagons to be recycled out of the fleet from Ravenser and fitted with S+W couplings for the plank. And that leaves just 2 slots for further steam-age wagons.... Plans for Tranche 4 of stock for the shunting plank have therefore been abruptly curtailed, especially as once I'd turned all the "overspill" stock out of it's boxes it was clear I was already almost there anyway. So this just leaves space for a rebuild of a Hornby refridgerator van and an elderly Ratio coke wagon kit I picked up unbuilt at the club, and tranche 4 is done.
     
    On the airbraked side, there's no real need for most of the revenue vehicles now I'm less actively involved at the club. With a little bit of work with a knife, and some more parcel tape I relocated a partition in one of the stockboxes I built about 2 years ago - a further advantage of thistype of construction is that, if push comes to shove , you can modify the size of the compartments. This now provides a home for the Walrus which has acquired its Kadees (no 49 long overset , if you're interested) and in a burst of enthusiasm I coverted two more wagons to Kadees while I was about it. With some wagons transferred from the old box to the new, there are now slots for a Dogfish and a second Shark from the bag of Cambrian kits I was given earlier this year (The idea here is to have an engineers's train for both early and late periods - in the early period it runs with Walrus , Dogfish, grampus and Zander , using an ex GW Toad and a Shark - in the later period it has Seacows, Rudd, PNA, and a pair of Sharks. Hence I could use a Shark in olive green, which could run in either train) I could also probably squeeze in a Starfish with a bit of ingenuity (another kit from the cupboard) . On the other hand there's no slot for a scratchbuilt PNA . And the fact that there's a convenient slot for an old Lima CCT as well as for my PMV means that sorting it out has risen up the To Do list..
     
     
    Suddenly the way ahead on the wagon front is much more sharply defined. If it's in the boxes, it will probably get run....
     
     
  15. Ravenser
    I really must get more done this year . In fact I seem to have spent as much time taking stock as making stock. However first things first , and I'm going to try to transfer ORBC from the old forum. This is because half the projects concerned are unfinished - and it's not going to make a lot of sense if I announce with whoops of triumph that the PMV is finished and you haven't a clue as to the long-running saga of distress to this point.
     
    And I have a sinking suspicion the Bratchill 150 hasn't made any progress since I last copied stuff onto a new version of RMWeb...
     
    I will do better next year. I keep saying that...
     
    So - now let's see if I can get my head round Martin Wynne's transfer utility
  16. Ravenser

    Payment on Account

    By Ravenser,

    Just before Christmas , Mallard60022 started a thread on "The first models I am going to build in 2010 are.., which you can find here: 2010 model promises
     
    As I said in there, I seem to have posted rather a lot of implicit promises - or at least pointed memos to self - just below in this blog. And as Mallard60022 has recently posted shots of his efforts to redeem his own pledge, I suppose I ought at least to post an installment payment...
     
    Well, for starters , the Walrus is done. Not painted , but done:
     

     
    Everything in white or metal has been added , and the bogies are replacements - current Cambrian 1piece items which are as easy to work with as the ancient originals were impossible . Quite a bit of work with pieces of microstrip, scraps of plasticard and bits of handrail wire was needed to cobble together an approximation of what was visible at the ends in photos in Cheona and Southern Wagons - it would have looked extremely denuded and empty if I had built what was in the kit and stopped there . I'm not saying it's spot on , or all there , but it's passable. And I'm rather pleased with the result. Not in any sense of cutting edge perfection - if I want to see its weaknesses I need only set it next to a Hornby Seacow and look carefully but in the bleaker more basic spirit of "we got a result" - an ugly draw ground out away from home for essential points . Ravenser, 0 - The kit, 0. I beat the kit , the kit didn't beat me... With all its limits, it will be able to sit next to a Hornby Seacow without too much embarassment - a decent weathered paint job can cover a multitude of sins.
     
    (I should stress this is an old kit - my example may be 30 years old - and has been retooled and replaced by Cambrian. Comments are not indicative of today's Cambrian range - other than the favourable ones about the new bogies,- but they may well be indicative of what you get if you dive into your club's rummage sale)
     
    One minor point - the Walrus has effectively decided that the early period Civil Engineers' stock from the crane train will get Kadees not Sprat and Winkle couplings. I can't get the S+W mounting plate under the platform without fouling the wheels - in fact I couldn't fit a full width mounting block under the platforms without fouling the flanges of the wheels. Thus a narrow mounting only , and therefore Kadees. Which means that a spare 31 or a 20 would be motive power and I can stop worrying about how I fit a decoder to the 29 which was never going to get Kadees - that little problem can be crossed off this year's list
     
    First cab off the rank in terms of projects for 2010 is a Ratio ex SR Van B , and I've made a start:
     

     
    This photo does reveal that I missed the top edge of the droplight , which is showing green , and that there is rather a lot of dust on the centre section - it will be washed off . The doors are not yet attached , which is why one has slipped. The bodysides and doors were sprayed on the sprue with Railmatch aerosol - the first coat was done when I was prespraying the PMV, and I gave it another coat at New Year. Unfortunately, the guard's doors are moulded on the sprue in reverse, so the back got sprayed. I painted the door fronts by hand in Railmatch BR blue - and it's come out gloss. I'm hoping a thin coat of matt vanish will leave it a near match for the sprayed version, and weathering will obscure any remaining differences
     
    I will need to touch round the etched droplights by hand which poses the same issue - again I hope differing materials on the prototype and a little matt varnish will deal with any difference
     
    Progress will now slow, as thanks to a link someone posted I've discovered that Roxey do etches for the bars behind the windows . This is infinitely better than messing around with cotton thread , though a hasty look at the relevant section of Paul Bartlett's wagon site suggests strongly that most Van Bs were grubby enough that you couldn't actually see through the windows. Anyway , an order is in the post to Roxey, and I won't be able to fix the doors in place finally till it comes
     
    I've also spotted in the instructions that the interior was largely a reddish brown - I was thinking of the guards compartments in Mk1s which I think were a greyish white. The photos on Paul Bartlett's site also suggest most of these vans actually retained their footsteps till the end, although a shot in the Cheona book indicates some had them removed in the late 70s (PMV seem generally to have lost them). Since trying to fill the slots in the solebar which take the footsteps would be problematic, this van will have the footsteps
     
    Over New Year I put a first brown undercoat on the sides of the two Ratio LNWR coaches. This doesn't mean that I've actually started them - I sprayed the sides for the Van B months before I started it - but I've come to the conclusion that Precision Umber , though in line with the darkest proposed interpretations of LNER carriage brown , is too dark. I let it down with some Precision Teak , but even that's on the dark side : I reckon I will feel most comfortable with a moderately darkened Teak rather than a lightened Umber
     
    And at St Albans I seem to have broken my resolutions to avoid filling the cupboard back up. Not only did I acquire a second hand Dapol wagon , which I take to be LMS dia 1892 - but repainted into a private owner livery and hand lettered on one side - but I also acquired a prepainted Slater's PO wagon kit from C+L "just in case" (it's much easier weathering an existing PO livery), and a wagon body for a spare underframe I have. Paul Bartlett's site only seems to have photos of these LMS opens which have been retrofitted with vac brakes by BR : I suspect as a steel underframe 10' wb type they may have been extensively targeted for this. So strip the current paintwork, add tie rods, vac cylinder and new fitted buffers and repaint. On top of this I've just ordered two wagon kits from Cambrian...
     
    I've made a little progress with the Pacer , in that I've largely removed the "black box " on the second car , but as this is the same work as I've already done on the first car , there's no point posting any pictures.
     
    And the replacement underframes for the 101 have turned up
     
    Focus.....
  17. Ravenser

    Taking Stock

    By Ravenser,

    It's the time of year for casting an eye over projects unfinished and unstarted, reviewing progress and considering what's been achieved, and making resolutions for the New Year.
     
    We could start with the 2009 New Year's Resolution (buried in a transfer off the old site far below):
     
     
    That one I actually kept, more or less. A few bits and pieces were bought - a couple of second had wagon kits, a 153 (but that was a carry over from the 2008 Rolling Stock Programme) , a Central 158 and a cheap black kettle. But I did manage to avoid racing out and buying a lot more unfinished kits. The two Parkside kits acquired are in the thread below , finished. I got round Warley without committing myself to anything significant new...
     
    There is still a large backlog, and some of it has been outstanding a long while. But having wholly or largely shed one or two commitments at the club recently, I have more time and there are signs of progress. So where do I stand?
     
    Wagons
    Air braked stock:
     
    Blacklade was designed as passenger only - apart from a couple of oil tanks (built) and maybe a short Civil Engineer's train it doesn't need wagons. Given the way things are developing with club projects, it's unlikely I will have much requirement for airbraked wagons in the next couple of years, and what I have may be unsuitable anyway . Apart from the PNA (see below) which is not really a priority, I'm not sure there's any point working on more airbraked wagons - I haven't got a use for them. That simplifies things a bit
     
    Steam age stock.
     
    I seem to have launched into a new round of stock for the plank. With 4 vans in the bag , or almost there, this means I need 2 minerals and an open. There's an MCV in the box with the stock off Ravenser Mk1 - a quick change of branding and some Spratt and Winkles and that's one mineral - the second hand kits included an old Ratio coke wagon - that's two. All I need then is an open - there's an ABS LNER 6 plank in the cupboard , and possibly a battered body or two somewhere. I could also very usefully finish off the DOGA LNER COV B which has been lying about part built for an embarrassing length of time, and was supposed to be part of a previous round of stock for the plank
     
    I'd almost forgotten the Walrus and WD brake, both of which need finishing
     
    Coaches
     
    Here it gets a bit more serious. The PMV is built and in traffic. The LMS BG is also finally in traffic. I can run a parcels train on Blacklade . However 50' BG+ 57' GUV + 31 is a bit long for the platform. I can manage, but the train hangs off the end by an inch. And a blue/grey LMS BG with gangways may well not be accurate for 70s/80s parcels - all blue with plated over gangways would probably be better
     
    So the Ratio ex SR BG is right at the top of the list to do. At Warley I got the underframe bits to rework one or more of the old Lima CCTs which were originally acquired a very long time ago for my first teenage modern image layout, so a revamped BR CCT should also be on the agenda this year . I acquired an all blue ex LMS BG secondhand at a show late last year but reworking that is less urgent - maybe 2011?
     
    Then there's steam age stock . The small GE BLT which a little group I'm involved with is nominally supposed to be building hasn't made much progress, so I've done little about stock in that direction. But some old comments I found in Michlner's workbench thread- have sparked a few stirrings. (My minor thread hijack is below all the pictures of fine LNER models...). A hasty check of the boxes has revealed that actually I chucked out the old Ratio clerestory kit as past redemption during a clearout, and I'm increasingly confident that the M&GN would only have had corridor vehicles transferred from the LMS , since Birmingham/Yarmouth on a summer Saturday is a long way for non-corridor coaches. (The kit I kept is a MR suburban, and therefore no use).
     
    For those interested, the Ratio MR clerestories Ratio MR clerestories are those in Historic Carriage Drawings 2 p96-7 ; the 51L clerestory kits, which may well be the corridor vehicles confirmed on the M&GN are covered in the same book p101-3 (and the well known Ratio MR suburbans are covered in the intervening pages). (NB I have no knowledge of the supplier linked to - he's just a convenient source of suitable images)
     
    And the ex LNWR 50' corridors known to have been transferred to the M&GN in the early 30s are these Ratio kits. Once again - I have no knowledge of this retailer, it's simply a source of images. My 2 kits (Brake compo/all third) came from a local model shop's closing down sale . Some survived past 1948 on the GE Section and like other pregrouping coaches maintained by Stratford, would have retained LNER Brown under BR until scrapping (see this rather fine model of a GE brake by Buckjumper). I'm not saying they'll be built instantly, but thanks to the thread discussion, I now have some idea how to do LNER brown, and painting the sides will be the first step.
     
    As for other bits and pieces- the 3 or 4 Bachmann Mk1s and Mk2s bought in the same sale, the Kitmaster Mk1 kit someone gave me, the two Phoenix/BSL kits - not this year. What use have I at the moment for a Gresley buffet??
     
    It's very unlikely I'll have a fresh stab at cleaning up a Hornby Mk2b which I started then dropped in haste when the problems started emerging. There are plenty of more productive uses of time (The coach is off my first modern image layout, again)
     
    Maybe this year will finally get to be "the year of the Coach"
     
    DMUS
    And here it gets very serious indeed. One Pacer is already started, but will be a big job - new chassis, lights, modifications, DCC, Kadees. The second, a chocolate /cream reprobate exiled to the E.Midlands , will be a rewheel/DCC job , and I should have a go at the rewheeling asap as James Makin reports no problems... . That gets 2 unserviceable models into traffic.
     
    Smaller high priority jobs include weather/paint and people the interior of the 108 . (That's a "quick victory" to get another unit for Blacklade completed and looking the part). DCC installation on the Central 158.
     
    And a replacement for the damaged and patched underframe moulding on one car of the 101. A spare has been ordered from E Kent , along with a trailer moulding to allow a power/trailer conversion while retaining easy reversion to a 3 car unit. I'm in several minds where to go with this unit. 3 car is a bit too much and blocks up the fiddle yard. But the unit in question was a Tyseley unit at almost the right period. Did the TS 3 car sets sometimes run without their centre cars? Or should I convert it to a 2 car power/trailer unit - then hope one was allocated in the right area at the right time, and renumber? Leaving a surplus centre car?. Either way, the "black box" underframe needs tackling and if I have to replace the power car moulding anyway, that is the obvious time to do it. This looks like morphing very easily into "upgrade the 101"
     
    I really must build the DC Kits 105 this year - before Bachmann get their's out. It has to be the 105 because the 114 will be in blue/grey - a much more difficult paint job. The original idea was that the 101 could be sorted , slowly, once I had the 105 built to replace it......
     
    And yes - it is high time I finished the Bratchill 150/2. Just to make it more difficult the person who was going to paint it in Regional Railways livery has backed out, and somehow I'll have to do it myself.
     
    What are the automotive spray can equivalents for Regional Railways livery - or at least the Hornby version: 'cos this will probably run with a 153 from time to time.
     
    And I've a Trains4U 150/1 on order which will need the usual weathering etc....
     
    There's a lot of work to be done on this front (We'll ignore the Dapol railbus for the GE BLT..)
     
    Locos:
    None of which are weathered. There's an off chance my 57 might be needed elsewhere so an early weathering is desirable. And it's the smallest of my 3 Type 5s, so the most suitable for fuel tanks on Blacklade
     
    The 60 needs a small bodyshell repair - that's urgent. It and the 66 need weathering - not so urgent.
     
    Now for the more serious stuff. There's an elderly Bachmann 03 off Ravenser Mk1 lurking in a cupboard. I could usefully convert that to DCC - it would be ideal for tripping in a single TTA or shunting a CCT or PMV in the early period. And while I'm about it I should add supplementary pickups as I've done on the Silver Fox 05 (well, large Hunslet) which runs on the plank. And the recent George Dent book on Detailing & Modifying RTR Locos (Diesels) contains some notes about upgrading the handrails, cab interior, and windows....
     
    There is also the case of the Airfix 31. It's running with a decoder but I have a spare body which I'm intending to detail up for it as 31 402 in blue. This may be an early project, and it's just occured to me that with all that fresh air inside if I ever wanted to have a DCC Sound loco , this would be the one to go for. It would give it something over and above the very serviceable Hornby 31 that's its rival (The loco is another vetern off my first modern image layout)
     
    (And while 31 174 is fine, I must check if I really can get the body back on the unhappy and stopped 31 270 - or whether it's a mazak casualty)
     
    Putting a decoder in the 29 was abandoned when it became clear it was one of the earlier Ringfields and not a straightforward hardwired installation. If I have time on my hands , chipping the Bachmann 08 (also ex Ravenser Mk1) would be more productive .
     
    There is also the Dapol/Branchlines 04 Drewery I started building for the plank rather longer ago than is comfortable, and whose part built chassis still adorns the bookcase. I really ought to do something with that, too, this year. It's not made any progress since this:

     
    This is rather a lot of stuff. Visions of stuffing Athearn chassis into a further spare 31 body (whether ochre or not - for the GE BLT) and an old Hornby 37 body, etched loco kits, whitemetal Y5s , Lima 20s etc etc can wait for another year. And speaking of weight, it seems sensible to decide at this point that the wretched A1 Models Baby Deltic kit has a promising future as ballast weights:
     

     
    The Sentinel got built , by the way .
     
    And I will have an ROD . A Frodingham one , if I can afford it...
     
    Then there's
     
    Layouts...
     
    You're probably as sick of me muttering "must build screen walls/motorise remaining points" about Blacklade as I am of saying it. It will get done in the next few months. Promise.
     
    There are a couple of structures I ought to finish for a club project
     
    I'm not even going to think about the half built light rail project , though as it's my occasional DC test track , I must repair the broken wire on the second board....
     
    And if I get even 2/3rds of all that done in 2010 , I'll have had a busy and productive year.
     
    But - and it's a sobering thought - I don't need to buy much for all these projects. It's basically all stuff already bought and projects already committed to. It doesn't even clear the whole backlog.
     
    And the other theme is that a lot of this is about getting stuff from old layouts back into use and circulation. I've quite a lot of stuff that for one reason or another is "stored unserviceable". If I could recycle some more of my yesterdays , I'd have a lot more toys to play with and a lot more to show for myself.
  18. Ravenser

    Fruits of my Labours

    By Ravenser,

    After a rather more protracted effort than it should have been, I've finally finished the vans and here they are:
     

     
    From left to right , ex LNER fruit, BR vent van, and rebuilt BR Shock. And yes , the Fruit and Shock still need couplings.
     
    Unfortunately I've noticed the chassis on the vent van is not 100% square . It seems to run fine, because it's been out on the shunting plank without trouble - it was only some time later that I noticed a fractional rock when stood on a mirror. Since I built it on a flat surface and (as far as I was aware) it was fine then, i don't quite know what has happened . I suspect part of the problem may be the excellent fit of the parts . On the other two vans the wheels are a little loose in their bearings , and there is a bit of slop which will accommodate any slight irregularities. But on this van the whole assembly is tight and the axles have no slop at all.
     
    I'm not sure what , if anything, I can do. The van seems to run fine in practice , and possibly will do, though now I know it's not 100% right I'm uncomfortable and a touch annoyed with myself. The only thing that comes to mind it to attempt to shift the errant bearing slightly with the tip of a hot soldering iron - either down fractionally, or in, which would then make the wheelset a slightly loose fit, and the slop would presumably solve the problem
     
    The box lettering on the Fruit is rather larger than the photograph I have (in Cheona Wagons 2) shows. However an old set of BR transfers (GeeDee?) had a ready made up transfer for the BR built batch of this wagon type and so I used that . The vac cylinder was replaced with an ABS one (I needed extra weight) and the buffers are ABS LNER fitted.
     
    The Shock shows why I thought it worth preserving the body. The brake shoes and cross rods on the new underframe aren't perfect - trying to cut down the Red Panda shoe moulding is not nice and I had to work round the lead weights stuck on underneath. I've added as much more as I can, but it's still only a fraction over 40g and really a bit light
     
    Fruit and BR Vent vans have canvas roofs (one ply of tissue stuck to the roof with solvent - I didn't dare try it on a painted body) and a suitably motley array of rainstrips, based on photos in the Cheona book (micro rod or strip ) . The end cappings were slivers of very thin card or think paper
     
    And yes , I will try to get the couplings on this weekend
  19. Ravenser

    Unfinished Business

    By Ravenser,

    There will no doubt be a proper way to do this, but I can't find a facility that allows me to store snippets of info... I don't know when Andy will be locking down RMWeb3 and whether I will still be able to gain access to old PMs, so to save embarrassment, - dimensions of a batch of PNAs , as kindly supplied by the Fatadder in May (scratchbuilt bodies, for the use of...) . I haven't actually got round to using them, mind, but perhaps this year.(It's the time of year for reviewing outstanding oprojects, progress or lack of it and tasks for the year ahead. This one's on the to do list)
     
    <H3 class=first>Re: On Rich's Workbench - Urchins and Parrs last page</H3>Sent: Tue May 05, 2009 10:00 pm
    From: The Fatadder
    To: Ravenser
     
    PNA details:
    Height - 14
    top rib -2.6
    other ribs - 1.6
    length (excluding end ribs) 105
    width (over top rib) -35.7
    inner width 31.2
     
     
    And I should get a proper blog update on the outstanding steam age vans up in the next day or two. I might even have the couplings on them by then so they can be released to traffic
     
    Addendum - New Year's Day, the year after the end of time...
     
    Just to add some further detail on this one while I'm about it: the Cambrian POA/SSA kits come with a lot of extra bits, including several types of solebar. While the Bachmann PNA covers one type of the wagon, PNAs seem to be a motley bunch, built on a variety of second hand underframes of varying lengths . There is a reasonably extensive section in the recent Burkin/BRM book Modern Wagons in 4mm Scale, which quotes wagons as having lengths of 28' 8" over buffers / 101 mm over headstocks (as Bachmann) , 103.5mm over headstocks , and 106mm over headstocks. The Cambrian solebars are 104mm long , so you get a varient with a very different underframe and length.
     
    Going through the photos turns up several wagons at the 103.5mm length, and CAIB3840 - disc braked , Gloucester suspension units, straight solebars , with 7 ribs spaced very differently to Bachmann and very minimalist underframe equipment - looks the best candidate (p99 bottom). It will certainly be a little different from RTR. One issue may be sourcing suitable transfers for the very weathered Railtrack lettering
     
    I think, as near as I can make out, it's one of these:
     

     
    It ought to be a reasonably straightforward scratchbuild job for the body.
     
    I had understood Cambrian sold their plastic fold up axle units seperately , but can't find them. I may use conventional W-irons as an emergency fudge to attach the moulded plastic suspention units to
     
    (Given how long its taken to find the Burkin book, I badly need a clearup in the study . And yes I am putting everything here so I can actually find it easily...)
  20. Ravenser

    Shock to the system

    By Ravenser,

    The small shunting plank is firmly Transitional. It may use diesels (or an honourary diesel - Y3) but it's the sort of inner city goods depot you really can't justify existing after about 1970. Consequently the modest fleet of stock for it is very traditional indeed: no air brakes here. The ex LMS fish van is meant for it , and various circumstances resulted in me acquiring and building one of the new generation Parkside kits for the BR standard 12T van . Potentially very useful for the plank
     
    In the last couple of years I've been fairly heavily committed on a number of fronts , not least with Blacklade, and not much has happened on the plank side of things . In fact the little depot has hardly been operated - I seem to have been too busy. However with one or two commitments winding down I've a little more time , and one Parkside kit sparked off another and another.
     
    Ravenser Mk1 was a compact shunting micro of an unorthodox design, taken from a plan called "Swan Yard" in RM June 1988 (I think) . For various reasons it didn't work terribly well, but when the trains weren't falling off the tracks the operational interest was high. A fleet of about 20 wagons and half a dozen locos was accumulated over about five or six years. It was set in North Lincolnshire, and, largely by accident, in 1983 - I had some 16T MCOs and then discovered unfitted operations ended in December 1983. The Speedlink airbraked stock was RTR but the traditional stock was virtually all kit built . This was my first serious venture into building wagon kits, and nearly all of them worked . It was also my first attempt at proper weathered stock.
     
    When I moved into my present flat about 7 or 8 years ago, I had grand ideas about building Ravenser Mk2 . The study was earmarked for it. However I'd joined a club and a couple of societies, and became actively involved with a club project and one of the societies, which ended up meaning quite a lot of commitments. I'd also started a light rail project , and Ravenser Mk2 never actually happened. The shunting plank was built as a micro for a competition a little later and then I built Blacklade for the RMWeb Challenge to act as the larger layout I'd never actually managed to get. Ravenser Mk2 was quietly abandoned as an aspiration at that point. The main rationale for the early period on Blacklade is to provide a use for locos and passenger stock acquired for Ravenser Mk2; the later period provides a home use for various items acquired in support of a club project , though in both cases the core of what I had anyway has been expanded with new purchases
     
    However, this means that for the last 6-7 years all the wagons from Ravenser Mk1 have been sitting in a stock box in the study, unused. When I built the current shunting micro , I realised that it would have to be set pre 1970 and it became an excuse to build all the kits which were completely out of period for a TOPS era BR Blue layout but which I had somehow acquired or really fancied - fish vans, Palvans, wooden PO wagons, cupboard door and slopesided minerals , prenationalisation vans etc etc, and Silver Fox bodied shunters. It also became a test bed for trying something better than tension-locks - Sprat &Winkle couplings. TOPS lettered wagons with tension locks didn't suit, and there they sat. I've ended up with three completely different OO fleets, one of which hasn't been used in years .
     
    So, with one or two commitments off my plate , and a nice new Parkside kit under my belt in double quick time, I had a rush of blood to the head. Out came the old stock box and I had a look through it for suitable candidates for a set of new couplings and a revived life on the shunting micro.
     
    I said earlier that nearly all my early ventures into kitbuilding worked. One didn't. I built a Red Panda Shockvan , and it looked very pretty. Unfortunately the chassis wasn't square and it fell off the track with much more enthusiasm than the other wagons. Effectively it was useless . And Red Panda underframes are delicate and fragile and this one got some knocks and was rather battered with bits missing.
     
    A Shockvan would be very nice on the shunting micro , and a Red Panda underframe kit was found in the kits box in the cupboard.
     
    Not a pretty sight at first:
     
    .JPG]
     
    The old underframe has been removed. The problem has been identified - one end is very slightly lower than the floor at one side (the body is smaller than the underframe, since this is a shockvan). This has thrown it out of square. A little work with the file and we are in business. The kit provides for a sliding body and thus fills up part of the area between the solebars . This made it awkward to break out the old chassis bits , and it also means that there isn't much room to add lead . Sadly I didn't remember to put it inside the body in those days. the van turns the scales at about 35g - once the couplings are on and a bit more lead stuffed into the last orifices, I hope to get it up to about 40g , though that's really still too light
     
    I was rather pleased with the finish of the body and have managed to retain this. I was trying to retain the vac cylinder , but unfortunately stuck on the new solebars the wrong way round. I resorted to stuffing clippings of lead inside the replacement cylinder before supergluing it in place , in a desperate attempt to add a fraction more weight. Fitting the brakeshoes was not a nice job - the mouldings have to be cut down severely to fit and are easily damaged in the process. I got them in, just, but not all the push rods (45 thou wire) are dead straight . I've added rain strips of the 3 part variety from microstrip , after cleaning off most of the incredible never-drying matt varnish on the roof ) with white spirit. The van used to stick to the plastic lid of the stock box and was a mess. But I didn't dare try adding a canvas roof - I reckoned I'd damage the finish on the sides in the process
     
    I haven't posted in the first and latest models thread , but this one will have to do. "And here's one I made earlier". Its not in fact amongst my earliest efforts, but shows an old Lima body with vents added on a spare Parkside claspbraked underframe, which was a RTR upgrade for Ravenser Mk1 inspired by reading Rice's book. And next to it is a brand new Parkside kitbuilt van . (The thing they are standing on is my Sprat and Winkle fitting gauge)
     
    .JPG]
     
    The kit provides alternative ends and alternative planked and plywood doors. I went for plywood doors/planked sides for the hell of it , with the later hydraulic buffers. It seems ply doors/planked sides coincided more or less with the change to clasp brakes. Thus the conversion to the left is wrong - the doors shouldn't be planked ,or if they are , it should have push rod brakes; and that on the right is questionable - the clasp braked underframe would arguably have been more common on these , though lot 2990 apparently featured ply doors on the older underframe, and the wagon will carry a number from this lot. But the only photo I've found shows the older buffer design....
     
    Oh dear! I can only plead that published info is limited, and when I did the original conversion years ago I had almost zero info on BR 12T vans
     
    The body and underframe are now painted and await transfers and weathering. I've got Spratt & Winkle couplings on this one andthe LMS fish van , so they are useable on the shunting micro - unfortunately there is a minor clearnece issue with the 12T vent van in one place, so a little discreet carving is called for.
     
    Getting Sprat and Winkles on the Shockvan will be more interesting as the lead sheeting prevents the normal mounting block and melt in staple attachment. It can be done , with wire fixing and the baseplate glued onto the lead sheet but it won't be as good and I'm uncomfortable about hanging a heavy load behind it. Fortunately on this layout it won't have that issue
     
    And with an excess of enthusiam , I've dug a kit for a Parkside LNER fruit out of the cupboard and made a tentative start on that as well....
  21. Ravenser
    It's officially a day for quiet reflection and I'm back from Warley after what inevitably seems to turn into a spot of retail therapy. And since I've not actually made or done anything - I've simply flashed the plastic in various directions - it seems inappropriate to muse on the fact on a workbench blog. That's for making things.
     
    I finally succumbed to an order from Hattons a week or two back . I'm now the proud owner of a Central Trains 158. It needs a decoder fitting of course, but that is one of the shortfalls in stock for the late period covered. There were also two new Skaledale buildings because they're from my home town and I knew the businesses concerned (strictly speaking Mawer & Plenty is actually Rubery's the Chemist where I used to get the meths for my Mamod traction engine, and Rubery's isn't , if you get my meaning , but I digress) . And while I was about it I had a quick hunt through the bargain list and splashed out on a Base Toys 70's lorry because it was only ??2-50 and spreading the postage across more items helps. Just the sort of thing that might come in handy one day - and then you won't be able to find one for love nor money
     
    How much stuff do we buy "because it 'll come in handy one day" even though at the moment we don't, strictly speaking, have any use for it all?
     
    I've got a cupboard full of the stuff .And a small chest of drawers. A hasty check behind me reveals an S-Kits air-con unit etch sitting on top of a card kit for a building in Barcelona (in 1:100) and one of the Maurice Bradley Bilteezi sheets which was intended for the light rail project.
     
    Which has been stalled for at least five years. The heavy rework of a Bilteezi semi detached (cut down to 3/4 relief) is still in a plastic bag in the topmost of the chest of drawers, unfinished. There were supposed to be two pairs of semis. I can't remember if the second one was started or not. If not , the sheet is presumably in the same pile, underneath the building from Barcelona . Along with the part used sheets for a firestation , started but not finished for a competition, and destined for a club project which may have been overtaken by events. The bulk of it is safe in a shoebox cluttering up the sitting room. Now I've got a bit more time - if you ignore the fact I've been out the last 2 Saturdays and will be out next Sunday and the Saturday after that , and then it's almost Christmas - I may actually get it finished and out of my life
     
    On top of that lot is two Knightwing oil tank kits. They were bought for the fuelling point on Blacklade but proved far too big so were never built. They could well come in handy one day..... Or , more realistically, I forgot to get them into the second hand stall at the last club show. A set of C+L plastic windowframes seperates them neatly from a yellow box containing a Ratio Southern bogie brake. This is meant for the parcels train on Blacklade - along with the LMS BG I've already done - since 2 x 50' vans + 31 will fit neatly into the middle platform without hanging off the end. 50' van + 57' GUV won't - though it didn't prove a real issue when I had the last operating session. I sprayed the sides BR blue when I was starting the SR PMV kit - and that's as far as it got, though I have sourced transfers .And on top of those are some blue and white ABS packets newly bought at Warley. They had axle unit castings for a BR CCT along with clasp brakes , and MJT supplied some suitable etched BR plate W-irons. Somewhere in the depths of the pile of stock are two boxes with twenty -odd year old Lima CCTs from my first modern image layout , which I'm hanging on to, with a view to upgrading for parcels use on Blacklade (tail traffic perhaps) . Though now the PMV's built, the need is less urgent.
     
    The light rail project does see occasional use as a DC test track, by the way - though the electrical connection onto the second board has broken and so it is temporarily only 3' of test track. Another job , midway down the list, that needs sorting. Which is why, when I succumbed to the siren call of the Bachmann stand at Warley and bought a medium sized black kettle, cheap, it went round the test track, to check it worked and run it in before chipping.
     
    Yes, I know I shouldn't have succumbed to a loco I don't strictly need. The idea was that it could serve as a sensible sized railtour loco on a club project (it's a preserved example) - I'd resolved I wasn't going to succumb unless and until I saw it heavily discounted : and there it was. Thank you! Which way is the cash dispenser?
     
    The fact that the project in question is a bit up in the air at present , and things could go in a direction where the kettle wouldn't be needed isn't a great objection. It was "only"??50 , and since it has a tender cab it could - I suppose - appear on Blacklade with a 2 or 3 coach steam special without looking completely stupid. And I could actually use the small number of Mk1s and Mk2s I bought when the local model shop closed down . Not to mention the BCK I bought off the Bachmann stand a while back for a tenner, or the unbuilt Kitmaster Mk1 someone in the local group gave me. Or - assuming we ever manage to build the thing - the little Eastern branch terminus the group intends building. I shall probably find the ER never had any.
     
    Anyway , it's a nice loco. And I don't strictly need it. And in its last 3 outings, the Bachmann stand has caught me 3 times in this way to the tune of ??150 in total. All of these locos might run on Blacklade - but strictly speaking they're not necessary. They're nice locos and they run well, though....
     
    And in the top drawer, on top of the plastic bag with the unfinished semis there is now (since last night) a bag with some laser cut sheets for red pantiles, and some laser cut doors and uPVC window frames. Which I'm sure will come in very handy for- something. These are from a new firm York Modelling , and are some of the first British outline products I've seen using this technique. Its been around in the States for a little while I think. He's also done a low relief terrace kit in 4mm as laser-cut MDF. It requires you to add your own brickpaper or plasticard cladding but that's no problem. Unfortunately I've no obvious use for it at present - Blacklade's far too narrow for such luxuries . So I managed to resist it. (We don't seem to have a smiley with a halo...)
     
    I've also sourced 20 swg piano wire from Eileens - who seemed think Xurons could cut the stuff without damage to themselves. This removes the one obstacle to fitting the last few point motors, unless you could the inertia unit fitted to my drive.
     
    And it looks as if I'm going to have to paint my 150/2 myself, somehow. Anyone know any Halfords car colours that match colours in Regional Railways livery?
     
    The two major omissions were a lighting unit for the Pacer - no sign of Express Models - and a replacement underframe for the 101 , though E. Kent gave me a list , which shows this as a spare. However I risk buying other bits to make up the order.
     
    I'm trying to be good and not buy stuff I don't need, or start more projects . But I reckon I must have spent close to ??150 yesterday - excluding travel
     
    (And I'm not even mentioning the tram habit. 4 kits (etched LCC F, whitemetal LCC snowbroom, Keilkraft W Ham balcony, Streetlevel LCC M) in 4 months. I'm not committed to building Highgate Archway circa 1936. Honest. I haven't got room or time even to consider it. I keep telling myself this, at regular intervals)
  22. Ravenser

    Troublesome Wagons

    By Ravenser,

    Now for a proper update (rather than transfers from the old forum)
     
    Some progress has been made in the last 2 months, though sometimes it doesn't feel that way.
     
    The two SSAs are finished , though I'm not 100% satisfied they're OK... One is in blue and is not quite as free rolling as I'd like , while the other is in EWS red and has given a good deal of trouble with the weathering. Really , I think the proper tool for the job - depositing a fine even layer of grime - would be an airbrush. I haven't got one, and painting with washes has resulted in a slightly uneven effect. I hoped a second wash coat would even it out - in fact it looked pretty bad , and in desperation I resorted to the technique of trying to wipe it away with cotton buds and white spirit. The result is a lot better and may even have had an effect on the first wash, which was added weeks ago. But I'm not convinced by the muck in the corner framing - not on these vehicles in this condition. To my eye it looks too much like "model railway weathering - heavy" and not the real thing
     

     
    And next to it is that other problem child, the PMV, possessed with gremlins to the last. I boosted the weight with a bit more lead - and duly cracked one of the improvised roof vents while doing so. Trying to reattach it with a brush full of solvent resulted in the solvent attacking the paintwork around the vent. I've managed to touch it up. And once again I broken one of the underframe tie rods. The dirt on the underframe "makes" the wagon - the light tone works well , but it has very much been a case of pulling out all the stops to patch up an acceptable result. If I'm p[lease with this one its not because of any particular excellence - it's more in the spirit of "we got a result"
     
    Here's the other SSA , in grubby condition, with the LMS Fish next to it. The latter just needs Sprat + Winkle couplings but has weathered up well
     

     
    A very little progress with another beast of a wagon, the Walrus - I've stuffed bits of lead strip between the hopper base and the side to weight it. This throws up an interesting conundrum. The common formula for weighting wagons is 25g per axle . Therefore this would give 50g for the PMV , and 100g for the Walrus.
     
    But both vehicles are the same length. It seems very odd to make one twice the weight of the other.
     
    The NMRA have a formula which is based on so many grams per inch of length, but simply to work on linear measure and ignore the difference between bogie and 4 wheel seems problematic as well. I suppose almost all US vehicles are bogie types , so this does not arise for US modellers
     
    Anyway, I reckoned the PMV was a bit light at 50g and I've managed to push it up to 65-70g with a bit more lead. That should do. The Walrus is now nearly 60g and counting - I haven't even added the bogies yet so we may make it past 75g. Given that the adhesive weight per wheel is reduced because it is spread over 8 wheels, I think it needs quite a bit of weight, but 100g seems over the top
     
    So - 3 wagons off the bookcase, one very close to it, and a very little progress on the Walrus and Pacer.
  23. Ravenser
    Now to try the third part of the old ORBC. This contains several things I'm still working on or have only just finished...
     
    ORBC - Ravenser
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2497&start=50&hilit=ORBC"> original page on Old RMweb
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:30 am
     
    Time for a bit of an update. Contrary to appearances , there has been some progress on the modelling front.
     
    The Parkside PMV is painted , but awaits transfers. Finding something suitable is a problem as the Modelmasters sheets seem only to cover pre 1965 , or cream , and I'm virtually certain it absolutely has to be white for TOPS era. The same problem arises with the Ratio SR bogie brake which is likely to be next cab off the rank
     
    Meanwhile the 40' dry vans require weathering , and a coat of varish, and there are still a couple of hazchem flashes to go on the first tank container before the gloss cote is applied (the barrels are normally kept quite clean). A second one is well under way , as is the fifth 40'
     
    I've also been fighting a pretty grotty old Mendip Models kit for a 20' open top. The fit of parts was not good, and bits of the door locking bars had broken away. It took quite a bit of nervous cleaning up with files to get a passable fit of the parts and I did what I could to patch the pinholes here and there in the castings. All of this was done outside in the garden, up wind and with some trepidation and all files etc used were cleaned with a file card , and washed , at least twice (In other words I treated any resin dust as like poison) . I still thought I was slightly wheezy for a few days afterwards , though that might be for completely different reasons
     
    I've purchased a second 153, this time in Regional Railways , and this has had a TCS T1 fitted and has been recieving interior detailing (paint the seat backs/add Slaters figures) this week. Now all I have to do is add the Kadees - and do something about the underframe . The plain black plastic on this and the Central 153 increasingly niggles , so I have to touch up the the relevant bits in relevant colours , then weather suitably.
     
    Once that is done, I can think of tackling something fresh over the Bank Holiday weekend . I need to renumber the 57 - transfers have to be ordered but I have the plates - and weather suitably. There are a couple of Hornby TTAs that might be tackled. The two resin POA kits will definitely have to wait until the weather is fine
     
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by jim s-w on Sat Apr 25, 2009 12:53 pm
     
    Hi Rav
     
    White numbers will very quickly go off white as soon as there is any form of weathering. Not all vehicles were renumbered into tops straight away and there were ballast wagons around in the 80's without tops panels, usually with the tops codes painted on. If they were going to re-do the numbers they would just do the tops panels anyway, they wouldn't redo the original markings in white.
     
    You should be fine
     
    Jim
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun Apr 26, 2009 10:02 pm
     
    Jim: thanks for the reassurance. An order to Howes for various transfers , including these , has gone in the post tonight
     
    Good progress has been made with the 153s - not only did I finish off the figures for the interior of the RR version, but I've weathered the underframes of both.
     
    In both cases , I used Railmatch track dirt, eased towards a lighter more orange shade with Railmatch brake dust as the main washes (enamel versions in both cases).
     
    However mixing them up as I worked resulted in distinctly different shades. Neither is unprototypical - as the 153 prototype photo thread shows , you get units with a distinctly ochre underframe and some with a more or less off black:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co....p;sk=t&sd=a" >http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=35689&st=0&sk=t&sd=a</a
     
    I've picked out minor details on the underframe in colour - notably the exhaust pipes which seem to be routinely a slightly pinkish shade , and the silencers which are either silver or buff/orange , and given second washes to area which have more brake dir
     
    The net result is that using the same paints at the same time , the units have gone in different directions:
     
    The Central unit towards a heavy coat of yellow/orange dirt
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=75508" alt="">
     
    here the silencer is in Humbrol Leather acrylic
     
    The Regional unit towards a much more new into service condition:
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=75509" alt="">
     
    This was already much darker and got very much less of a second wash. The silencer has had a wash of Humbrol metallic aluminium enamel .I still have to do the wheels on this though - along with exhaust weathering on the roof and above the gangways, and probably the perspex shields/door windows on the RR unit
     
    The balance of the last batch of mix ended up on the underframe of the PMV
     
     
    I'm rather pleased with the results actually
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:33 pm
     
    In the words of Dick Dastardly...
     
    Drat. Double Drat and Triple Drat.
     
    The order from Howes has arrived. There were two critical elements to this - the transfers for the PMV and the numbers for renumbering the 57- with a few other useful bits tacked on.
     
    What do I find - a credit note because the Fox Freightliner numbers are out of stock despite being listed on the website . And the Modelmasters transfer pack , whilst including transfers for the BG as a GUV, the BY and an "SCV" (not a TOPS code I immediately recognise, and from the number attached not a PMV) - does not cover PMVs
     
    Anyone know a source for post 1965 transfers for a PMV? Even if I try to concoct suitable numbers from what I've got, the dimensions lettering for shorter vehicles quotes 35'6, which is a good bit longer than a PMV...
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon May 04, 2009 9:09 pm
     
    I had aspirations for the weekend , but I got boxed in..
     
    The containers have been eating up an awful lot of modelling time over the last 6 months , and I'm still not completely done . We have 2 boxes almost completely finished, 4 more with full transfers applied (several will require weathering), 1 painted with transfers to go on shortly, and one tank nearly built requiring more paint :
     
    Here is the wretched resin opentop and sharp eyes may spot the amount of patching needed on broken door bars , though the pin holes aren't noticable. One end is slightly rhomboid rather than square . These are the sort of castings that have given resin a bad name
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77358" alt="">
     
    And here's the one finished tank. For once the imperfections of photography flatter the result - you can't see my struggles with brushpainting a very recalcitrant gloss white to a decent finish, though it's not obvious at a distance over over 18 inches anyway..
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77359" alt="">
     
    And here's the PMV, awaiting lettering
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77361" alt="">
     
    I've at least managed to start something else - I've begun upgrading two Hornby TTAs , one of which was bought from a model shop in Grimsby many years ago for the princely sum of 50p second hand, and the other was Railroad . I have the bits in stock anyway, so the cost is minimal (Well I thought I had the bits till I found I'd run out of cast clasp brakes. An hours rummage unearthed some Comet etchs which are nil cost at this point but will be significant amounts of work)
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Dan Randall on Mon May 04, 2009 9:33 pm
     
    Ravenser wrote:
     
    "the Modelmasters transfer pack , whilst including transfers for the BG as a GUV, the BY and an "SCV" (not a TOPS code I immediately recognise, and from the number attached not a PMV) - does not cover PMVs
     
    Anyone know a source for post 1965 transfers for a PMV? Even if I try to concoct suitable numbers from what I've got, the dimensions lettering for shorter vehicles quotes 35'6, which is a good bit longer than a PMV... "
     
    Hi Ravenser
     
    Is this the sort of thing you're after....
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77377" alt="">
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77380" alt="">
     
    I too, struggled to find some PMV transfers in 7mm scale, so I drew up what I wanted in TurboCAD and sent it off to Robert Kosimider at Steam & Things
     
    <a href="http://www.steamandthings.com/" >http://www.steamandthings.com/</a>
     
    He re-drew my requirements using his preferred software and I believe they're now available in both 7mm & 4mm scales. The CCT version should also be available, so it might be worth sending Robert an e-mail. The numbers look a little different and came from a different source. With hindsight, I wish I'd included some of those on the artwork too.
     
     
    Regards
    Dan
     
    Edited for spelling mistake!
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Tue May 05, 2009 4:27 pm
     
    Thanks for this - it's exactly what I'm looking for . I'm going to have a further attempt to see if I can source some from Parkside - failing that, this looks like the way to go .
     
    I may need some custom transfers for another project so this is a useful link anyway
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by PMP on Tue May 05, 2009 9:14 pm
     
    I'll have a look on Pressfix Sheet 15, I think they may appear on there or be 'makeable' from the sheet. I've used Blackham Transfers to do rub down lettering before too, very good prices, turnround time and quality too
     
    <a href="http://www.blackhamtransfers.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.blackhamtransfers.com/</a><!-- m -->
     
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun May 10, 2009 8:09 pm
     
    I had the usual hopes of lots of progress and the usual outcome - the containers soaked up time like they were a form of blotting paper and not a lot got done. <br />I had wild visions of starting the SSA kits (thanks to the Fatadder for PNA dimensions) but that proved completely unrealistic - try the Bank Holiday weekend
     
    However the second tank is now finished , and I've managed to weather all the boxes that are going to be weathered. A little discreet drybrushing with a mix of track dirt/brake dust (about 2/3rds brakedust) which seems to be my favourite potion for weathering. This was followed by a very thin wash of a mix nearer 50/50 over the whole box to tone some of them down and add the general coating of traffic muck. I also added a little bit of almost matched patch painting on the P+O box. I'm quite pleased with the results , especially the P+O box which now looks suitably tired and worn - it should be 8-10 years old by the intended period . All they need now is a matt varnish coat tonight (Acknowledgements to gloriousnse's The Humble Box for photo reference )
     
     
    There's been a bit of progress on the two Hornby TTAs . I got as far as giving the first a spray with emerald green from an old Humbrol aerosol as a first priming coat. Unfortunately it displayed all the problems that someone was complaining about with spraycans recently , and the result was not good - it aloso looked as if I hadn't given a through clean sufficient to remove all traces of sanding dust. As a result I've spent quite a bit of time rubbing it down with a very fine flexigrit sheet and tidying up the filled areas where necessary (which is what primer coats are for...) . I've also gone back and added a little more filler where slight depressions were still showing up
     
    I still have to phone Parkside about PMV transfers - many thanks for all the alternative approach info to date.
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by PMP on Sun May 10, 2009 11:18 pm
     
    PC Sheet 15 does contain 'PMV' branding and you can probably cut and paste sections of the sheet to make data as per Dans picture. I wouldn't like to do it though so if theres a sheet ready to use, I'd take that just in terms of time saving.
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat May 23, 2009 8:05 pm
     
    Slow but steady progress has been made with the TTAs , and I got as far as a coat of some old Malachite green for one of them last night (I've forgotten where I acquired it, second hand - the brand is "gloy" - long forgotten I suspect) Apparently this is a decent match for BP green
     
     
    I've also been attempting a Cambrian Walrus kit, and impressions so far are that it is possibly the most awkward plastic wagon kit I've ever built. Mind you I may have led a sheltered existance. The body is built round the hopper , and there's virtually no way of using a trysquare to ensure anything's square. I've built it largely by eye so far, and I had to take it apart twice as it seemed the hopper moulding was a bit too wide. I had to let a scrap of microstrip into the ends to remove gaps (which will need a spot of tidying up seeing that the inside of the wagon is exposed. There is no floor to build round - the bogies are attached on 2 narrow bolsters whith pegs which do not line up with the holes in the sides which must be meant for them , and are too long anyway, so have to be removed. I've tried cleaning up the top surfaces - if the wagon isn't 100% totally square sitting on its top on the mirror this may reflect the top surfaces not the structure
     
    How I get Kadees on it will be interesting. The bogies attach by a basic plastic peg into a moulding with a hole not dead centre.
     
    In fairness to Cambrian-as-now-is, this is an old kit. I got it second hand , from material donated to the club from the estate of a former member - there were a number of similar kits and I'm glad I only bought one (perhaps he built one and left the rest..) The instruction sheet shows Cambrian at an address in Dyfed, and is a small typescript sheet with a few faint drawings , and one sentence of the typescript scribbled out . I wouldn't be surprised if it is 25 years old or more - the actual example I'm building not just the kit. On the credit side it comes with rub-down transfers for the data-panels , and I'm hoping that if the bogies come out ok I can get away with the rest , since on a bogie vehicle , the absolute squareness of the body doesn't determine whether all the wheels are on the deck
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon May 25, 2009 11:43 am
     
    Some further progress. As far as the TTAs are concerned, most of this has been further painting and rubbing down to minimise slight imperfections , although I've nearly finished one of the underframes
     
    I seem to have developed a standard recipe for these Hornby TTAs, largely derived from the short photo feature in Ian Rice's Improving RTR Wagons (Irwell - and I think now out of print , so bears repeating):
     
    Dismantle , glue the two halves of the tank barrel together. Apply filler to further disguise the end seam. Remove the plastic walkways , fill holes left . File or pare away the square edges of the base of the tank moulding to feather them to meet the chassis moulding. Fit A1 etched walkways . Remove the buffers , coupling mounts (snip with the Xurons) and moulded brake shoes . Also remove some surplus bits of the underframe piping (this really needs a photo to make sense but its mainly a few horizontal connections) . Correct the dimple on the roller bearings to a bump with a bit of sprue glued in the hole and rounded to shape with a file (You will notice this is not a finescale conversion...) . Drill out and extend with files the open area in the brake lever support bracket. Fit new brass Oleo buffers (A1 Models) and replacement clasp brakes . This will mean opening out the slot around the wheel in the underframe moulding to accomodate . Coupling hooks should also be fitted - I think I've got some somewhere
     
     
    In the process I've found I've not got quite enough Hornby 3 hole disc wheels left to do the Walrus and 2 x TTA and have hastily robbed a set of Romfords off another TTA lurking in the cupboard awaiting conversion . These are slightly smaller diameter than Hornby wheels : current thinking is that the two TTAs I've done in the past have Romfords, so the black Shell tank gets the Romfords for uniformity and the green tank (likely to be a singleton for use on Blacklade for the fuelling point) will get Hornby wheels. I've also run out of clasp brakes - I've got 2 cast sets and 3 plastic ones in the box - but have turned up 2 packets of Comet etched brake shoes, which can be sandwiched between strips of 20 thou plasticard to make up an equivalent.
     
    I think I've also run out of suitable airtanks , so another packet will need to be sourced.
     
    After careful examination the Walrus is not quite square , and at this stage in proceedings , there's nothing I can do about it, short of throw the thing away and start again with another kit and no guarantee it will be any better . I'm afraid I'm just going to struggle on, on the basis that no-one should suspect anything unless they go looking very closely for a problem. However I'll be sticking to the efforts of Messrs Hornby and Bachmann if I ever want any more ballast hoppers. I've tackled any slight gaps and irregularities with bits of microstrip and have at least got the big end support brackets in place and fitting at all points . The bogies are too wide as they come to take Hornby wheels and retain the axles, and never in a million years am I using the plastic wheels in the packet (I told you it was an old kit). I shall have to melt Romford bearings into place . I'm trusting that the slight play of the bogies from the body and the wheels in the bearings will deal with the fact the body isn't 100% square and the result will run properly
     
    Does anyone know whether Walruses had a centre divider in the hopper? The Sealion and Seacow do - the kit doesn't and I can't help wondering. Its going to be very visible from normal viewing angles if it should be there and isn't
     
     
    On a happier note I've started on a pair of Cambrian SSAs . These are a rather later kit than the Walrus (1992 to judge by comments in the instructions) and by this time Cambrian were trading from an address in Taunton. Fit of the parts is good, there are places for them to locate, mouldings have very little flash , there are part numbers on them and the instructions are extensive, with a detailed prototype history, and a set of clear well printed detail drawings
     
    One will be built with each type of chassis - leaving me a spare set of chassis mouldings for a Gloucester pedestal chassis 103.5mm long. This is spot on for a couple of the PNAs shown in the recent Burkin book - with different rib patterns and a different length to the Bachmann model. I even appear to have a photo of one myself:
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=79916" alt="">
     
    You will note this is a disc braked wagon, meaning no brake lever or clasp brakes to worry about (and no 3 hole discs..) The triangular support plates on the Cambrian solebar will need to be removed and replaced but that ought to be manageable
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:00 pm
     
    Despite the silence a bit of progress , although I seem a bit disinclined to get on with stuff at present - my get up and go seems to have got up and gone
     
    The SSAs are sort of finished. That is , they're built except for me sawing up the triangular section supplied for adding the debris fall plates, and sticking them in place. The corners aren't quite 100% perfect and will need slight tidying. I'm rather impressed by the neat design of the fold up wheel units which deliver built in compensation units, although getting them to fold right took 2 goes (I had to tighten the whole lot up with a second application of solvent and elastic bands to get free running) . Beware : once you've snapped those units in place , they wont come out again without damage
     
    The wagons, obviously , aren't painted or fitted with Kadees.
     
    And I'm really rather impressed by the quantity of alternative/spare parts left over , and their usefulness. This has sorted out the shortage of airtanks for the TTAs quite nicely
     
     
    On the downside, I can well understand the Fatadder's feelings that he can't face more than one EWS rebodied SSA conversion. My own position is that I'm going to need a rake of 6-7 scrap wagon (or at least the club project probably will) - and I don't think you can run these mixed with POA Blackadders. Therefore I suspect I shall take the "easy" way out and buy a 4-pack of Bachmann wagons to bump up the numbers (meaning spill plate conversion work across the lot , but little else) and an extra Cambrian kit for rebodied SSA conversion plus the extra bits for stock. However I suspect this is still , cumulatively, going to be a lot of work , especially on the weathering side. The club project is post privatisation and really a couple of wagons in EWS (plus 1 rebody) is the bare minimum I could credibly get away with so late.
     
    The two TTAs are making decent progress. Painting the green one has been a protracted process : I still have more to do and the quality of finish overall isn't quite as high as I'd hoped but the first transfers are on (and I've realised I need to add solebar plates for the hazchem labels). The fit of top and bottom isn't quite so perfect as it was before I pulled off the top thinking I'd forgotten to refit the weight (I hadn't)
     
     
    The second one just needs one bit of wire for brake yoke and an air tank then we are into transfers, patch painting and weathering. If you're wondering why I'm bothering with a lot of work on the old Hornby model - total spend to date is - about a fiver. All the wagons/materials/ bits/transfers etc are from stock bar one sheet of Fox tank numbers . And with the first transfers on the green one , its starting to shape up and with weathering should look quite good
     
     
    The Walrus continues to be a pig , and after various emperiments/bodges with one bogie last night I've concluded that there's no way forward with the bogies as supplied and I'll have to fit the side frames to some A1 H-frame etches I have dug out of the cupboard
     
    I also made a tentative restart on the WD road van the weekend before last as it was fine weather. I'm scared stiff of resin and the heath & safety precautions treat the stuff like a compound of depleted uranium and swine flu virus - only work outside, all castings + files subject to thorough washing /file card and repeat washing before being allowed back injside because of the safety risk from the dust
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:50 pm
     
    I managed to make some more progress over the weekend. Most of it was on the TTAs - I'm starting to think that one of the hallmarks of modern state of the art modelling is that it takes the best part of a week and a microscope to apply all the transfers
     
    This has prompted some questions and discussion about prototype subjects , and I'm indebted to Pugsley for pointing me at relevant info in another thread:
     
    <a href="http://www.rmweb.co....f=5&t=46978" >http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=46978</a>
     
    A hasty snap of efforts to date is attached:
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=87063" alt="">
     
    This shows the green BP tank I've been working on - it just needs current style warning flashes (which I don't have: I need to make up an order to Fox) then weathering. Oh , and brushing off to remove the dust that seems to have got on it. Behind left is "one I made earlier" which seems to have acquired an SUKO prefix number along the way (the 2 white stars are obscured) , and rear right, the Shell branded ex Railroad TTA . These brandings seem to be fine for the early 90s , and therefore it will be entirely in place as a fuel delivery when Blacklade is operating in 1985-90 mode - whereas the BP tank will suit c2005 mode . And as its circa 1992 , I can use the hazard flashes I've got
     
    I've also made some further progress with the WD road van - I'm finding myself seriously hampered by the fact I'm plain scared of the health implications of working resin and everytime I need to do a bit of filing and fitting - such as you'd do automatically with plastic in a few seconds, it means take everything downstairs , into the garden, thoroughly decontaminate workpiece and tools after filing etc
     
    Thus far I'm still avoiding the Walrus . Two preliminary attempts to assemble the bogies as they come failed , and the only viable way forward seems to be to stick the sideframes to A1 bogie H frame etches and bodge from there. This will give a wb which is about 1mm too long , but frankly its the only way I'm going to get buildable bogies
     
    The PMV has hit a further snag. I finally ordered the transfers from Steam and Things, and they arrived from S. Australia with startling speed on Monday. That was the good news . The bad news is they're way too big. The photo in Dan Randall's posting above matches the photos on Paul Bartlett's site : the transfers sit well within the triangle created by the diagonal. The transfers I've got go the full witdth of that end section and pretty well the full height of the van. I reckon they must be at least 50% too big . They're clearly marked 4mm , but I think they're actually 7mm scale. Having spent ??7-50 I'm not sure where I go now - I can't exactly send 'em back (I asked for 4mm , and it says 4mm on the sheet) , I''m no further forward and still have to source something. I'm not even sure I can off load them on the 7mm mob at the club - not sure if any of them model BR Blue
     
     
    Transfers and the cost thereof are becoming a sore point and will become a sorer one when I make up the Fox order. I'm up for ??7-35 just to change one digit on a "bargain" Bachmann 57- plus the cost of the plate . I've spent about as much on PMV transfers as on the kit, without result, and sourcing the hazard flashes for the green TTA will cost another ??4-20. Transfers for 2 EWS SSAs another ??10...
     
    Yes I know in theory I can use them for other projects. Its just I don't have or need a Freightliner 47 or 86 (nor can usethem). I'm not buying and repainting a Heljan 86 just to use a bit more of a sheet of transfers....
     
    Oh and there's no source for Railtrack brandings as seen on the PNA (possibly because of the fate of the company) All I can see to do is to cobble something together with dryprint on Fox plain waterslide sheet then weather it savagely (mostly they're almost obscured by rust and muck)
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Tue Jul 14, 2009 5:44 pm
     
    Well - two weeks on and the TTAs don't look to have changed dramatically . They do however now have hazard flashes, airhoses, a full set of other transfers on the SUKO tank, and Kadees (46 long centre ). All they need now is weathering
     
     
    The order from Fox has duly arrived (minus the Roof Dirt) and my FL 57 has finally been renumbered and acquired its new plates- now all it needs is weathering and we will have a pukka loco. The Fox transfers are a different weight of type (bolder, heavier) than the Bachmann printed numbers, so the whole lot had to come off - one digit produced a distinct unease on the eye, especially as the top of the 1 was formed slightly differently on the transfers and with 57 011 the two versions were side by side. Thanks to a tip from someone else, I used microset and cotton buds to remove the printed numbers
     
     
    Very little has been done to the Road Van ....
     
    As for the wretched Walrus , there's been other jobs ahead of it and I've gratefully accepted the excuse not to fight the beast, and I really must get round to sorting out the SSAs with their plating so they can advance into painting and couplings come off the bookshelf into traffic
     
     
    I also acquired a not-strictly-necessary second hand Parkside LNER van at the weekend, which will need stripping for a repaint and slight tweaks
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:18 pm
     
    I've finished weathering the TTAs . I'm not entirely sure of the result - I've either done a decent representation of some grubby wagons or a heavy handed misfire and I'm not quite sure which. It seems less satisfactory when the green one is caught in artificial sidelight. I may put some photos up in Weathering& Painting, but as photography will add another layer of distortion it may not really answer the question...
     
    Two and a half months for 2 wagons (admittedly with other things going on round them) . No wonder I don't get much done
     
    Now for handrails on the Road Van and spill plates on the SSAs....
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:00 pm
     
    There has actually been a bit of modelling round my way in the last month. The time has certainly gone in- whether much has come out is a moot point
     
    The TTAs are done, fitted with Kadees , and in traffic (assuming one running session counts)
     
    Was it really 5 weeks ago ~I was girding my loins for spill plates on the SSAs? Feels much longer...
     
    Anyway, the triangular plastic sections were cut and installed - I really don't want to do an EWS rebuild from this kit. We'll keep that to one , and do it from a Bachmann wagon...
     
     
    The SSAs are painted - one in EWS and one in blue/yellow. On reflection I should have painted the straight solebar vehicle EWS to be different from the forthcoming Bachmann release. However, the spill plates are different. Transfers have gone one - well almost. The blue wagon got rubdowns off an old Cambrian sheet that were not good - they tended to come off in bits. Fortunately this wagon was scheduled for heavy weathering - ie overall coat of chocolate brown muck . The EWS wagon has Fox - and making up data panels from individual numbers/letters is desperately slow. I still have the last digit of the tare to add, and Microsol has been invaluable for fixing stuff down so that it doesn't float away when the next digit goes on.
     
    The blue SSA is weathered, and during my holiday one of the few extra things that got donwe was to weather a few wagons - a Sealion bought cheap of DC Kits at Southwold, a Rudd , and my Limby Sealion. The latter required action to cut down the internal partion in the hopper to match the Seacows . The Xurons did most of the work , cleaning up with a file. The Walrus kit doesn't have one......
     
    Individually , I was quite pleased with the results. However put my three weathered ballast hoppers together, and quite sure any of them are right - they don't gel. I think a seperate thread in Weathering may be forthcoming, next time Blacklade goes up and I can take some photos .
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:35 pm
     
    Having failed to clear up the "outstanding items" over my holiday period, I was going to tidy up the loose ends and start something new over the Bank Holiday. Did I heck....
     
     
    I have been lettering up the PMV , which had stood forlorn on the bookcase while I tried to source transfers . I said a couple of months back:
     
    "I finally ordered the transfers from Steam and Things, and they arrived from S. Australia with startling speed on Monday. That was the good news . The bad news is they're way too big. The photo in Dan Randall's posting above matches the photos on Paul Bartlett's site : the transfers sit well within the triangle created by the diagonal. The transfers I've got go the full width of that end section and pretty well the full height of the van. I reckon they must be at least 50% too big . They're clearly marked 4mm , but I think they're actually 7mm"

    and I stand by that. They are almost certainly to 7mm , which probably means his 2mm transfers are actually right for 4mm..... . In all the circumstances I've done the best bodge I can. It seems from the Modelmaster CCT/GUV pack that some CCTs were lettered with the dimensions and the description split by the diagonal , using larger lettering. I've done something similar using the dimensions section of the oversize Steam & Things transfers, although it is still a bit of a squeeze, and I had to lose "max speed 70mph" . The bottom lines were taken from the HMRS sheet and actually relate to a BR CCT , so the tare is wrong. I took the letters NOV from the HMRS sheet and then noticed that the photo from Paul Barlett's site is actually headed NQV. Well - if I can read it wrong on a vehicle blown up to 7mm size, then I get away with it (there's no NQV on the sheet). The Railmatch rub down warning flashes are completely useless - I've had hardly any successes - and I eventually resorted to some flashes cut from an ancient Woodhead sheet, laid on a dab of gloss varnish to make them stick, followed up by some microsol. I now need to seal the lettering with satin varnish before weathering - I can't face any of the lettering breaking up under thinned washes
     
     
    Kadees have been fitted to SSAs and PMV - no 26s , which wipes out 75% of the ones I bought from Charlie Petty at Southwold. I've also added weight (lead sheet) underneath with araldite, and have got the SSAs up to just on 50g and the PMV slightly over. I suspect the PMV requires a bit more as its a long vehicle, but I'd used up all the araldite mixed , and would have needed to find some more scraps of lead in the drawer. A little bit of touching up of packing and screw with frame dirt, and a repair of the truss rod on the PMV - the wretched things keep getting caught and breaking . I also fitted cross rods between the clasp brake shoes with 45 thou handrail wire. On reflection I should have painted the interior (its apt to take a green tinge in sunlight) added weight inside before I fitted the roof - and fitted bars across the glazing. Hence It's going to have to have a heavy coat of dirt - including over the windows
     
    At a recent show I picked up a second hand built kit for ??3 under the delusion it was an LNER van. It isn't =- the underframe is BR clasp and some checking reveals its actually an LMS fish van. I've already built one of those myself... I would describe it as competently built by someone who didn't know what he was doing. That is - it's neatly assembled , and the chassis is perfectly square. He's taken the wrong chassis off the sprue (which contains both BR & LMS clasp underframes), and as bought , the van sides had curious horns at the bottom on the ends - parts of the sprue the builder hadn't realised he should remove...It was painted brown (wrong) with the roof and underframe left in bare black plastic.
     
     
    I've started a clean up . The horns have gone, as have the tension locks, and the cross shaft and rod from the brake cylinder have been added, along with cross rods to the clasp brake shoes. LMS vac pipes (ABS) have been added. Rainstrips were removed and one ply of tissue stuck over the roof with solvent for canvas effect - rainstrips reinstated with micro rod. The brown livery was rubbed down , two coats of Precision BR maroon applied and lettering from Modelmaster transfers applied (I had the paint and transfers left over from my own model). Bases to apply the S+W couplings have been built up with plasticard. It needs more weight - its turning the scales at about 37g ( my own kit kept derailing until Ifound it was lighter than all the other wagons on the plank and I glued more lead underneath)
     
     
    I've also made a start on a 40' container from C-Rail (also bought off Charlie at Southwold) . Box is built, a primer coat applied - I just need to spray it.
     
    Minimal progress on the road van - just a few of the handrails have been done. And as I had the soldering iron out to start on the Pacer, I've done the A1 H-frames from the Walrus. That's all I've done on that front.
     
     
    The Pacer project merits a seperate post - if only as a file note for myself
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:10 pm
     
    I should really post some photos of the PMV and fish van , and maybe the 40' box which has most of its transfers in place. Then there's the 29 which is looking like a tough job to DCC , so has been dropped from the list of current jobs...
     
    But I need to set down the parameters of the Pacer
     
    I've started trying to do something about one of the two Hornby 142s I own. They are currently stored unserviceable, as they won't go through the diverging roads of points (wheels are too coarse)and they have no decoders - messy , problematic hardwired installation on 2 motor units
     
    There are two of them , bought second hand: a chocolate & cream "Skipper" and a Provincial Blue unit.The Skippers were exiled to Lincolnshire immediately after their explusion from the West Country in disgrace, and there's a shot of a blue 142 passing Brocklesby in the mid 80s in one recent book.
     
     
    First survey of the units: both are double motored and need wheels replacing and decoders fitting. The Provincial unit was in worse condition , as it has a non-electrical coupling between the units (so 4 wheel pickup) and a screw had stripped the thread resulting in one motor unit flapping loose.
     
    A first attempt to fit Ultrascale wheels to the Skipper failed when it became clear significant carving would be needed to make them fit- and I carved the rear truck too much in the wrong place
     
    A Branchlines chassis kit has been bought (nearly 2 years ago)
     
    The intention is to give the Provincial Pacer a comprehensive job, with new chassis , and retain the existing mechanism on the Skipper - thus using the set of Ultrascales I bought at great expense
     
    First assessment of the Provincial 142 and work needed.
     
    Rewheeling is covered by the new chassis
     
    DCC installation - should be a lot simpler as only one motor, and therefore only one decoder, needs to be considered .
     
    No lights . As this is a second generation unit, really I should install them , especially given all the other work to be done on the unit. Express Models do a lighting kit , but this means wires between the vehicles . However a short unit like this could be kept perminently coupled and stored/handled as a single train without seperation??
     
    The Branchlines kit provides for pickup on two wheels each side, with chassis live. Not ideal. Adding extra pickups all round may mean another cable between the 2 cars... Or I stick with 6 wheel pickup? (Might there be scope to reuse the old Hornby pickups for the "extra" wheels ????)
     
     
    The interior needs some tweaking - it seems some of the partitions either don't exist or are in the wrong place. Repaint and add some figures. Hopefully the decoder won't be too obviously visible
     
    The cab front should be 3 deep window recesses in a thick solid front . Hornby model the top and bottom - but not the bits between the windows and it does affect the look . ??? Insert white plasticard??
     
    The warning yellow looks very orange and may need repainting
     
    Replace the moulded cab front handrail - wire melted in?
     
    I'm not going to attempt the handrails by the doors - I don't think I can make a better job.
     
    Since the unit is to be in 1985-90 condition, there's no need to change the 4 piece doors nor does it need roof pods
     
    I think perhaps I really ought to do something about the "black box" on the underframe. Its only a small one, true, but it really shouldn't be there. But then I have to do the same with the other Pacer... The weight is 50g , so I need to stuff that amount of lead flashing either between the solebars, or else possibly under the seating unit between that and the chassis. I don't think it will be prudent to reduce adhesive weight with only one driven axle. But should I lighten what will become the trailer?
     
     
    Replace the moulded exhaust (so I need to source a casting - on its own?)
     
    Fit decent representation of the gangway. It will help to disguise all the through wires......
     
    Do I attempt to reduce the number of ribs on the roof??? I really do not want to have to repaint the body - I can't possibly do a decent job on the sides , though patchpainting a weathered roof might not be impossible
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:10 pm
     
    Do you ever have a model that seems to be cursed? Or at least to be possessed by a cackling gremlin which is determined that no matter how you try this one is going to come out as a wretched failure?
     
     
    I have. It's a Southern PMV. Readers may recall episodes in this story to date, but now we can see it in its full malevolent perspective. First one of the roof vents pinged into oblivion - I had to improvise representative replacements. Then we had the saga of the transfers, or non-availabilty of same. Then I ordered special transfers from the remotest corners of the earth - only to find they were 7mm
     
    Here is a photo:
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....e.php?id=103381" alt="">
     
    Note the large size of the faint lettering (the only bit of the purchased transfers I used ) - and how it spreads across the whole panel . Now compare with Dan Randall's 7mm PMV above...
     
     
    Also the way the green interior shows up... (I should have painted the inside)
     
     
    I think I must have broken every one of those wretched plastic rod underframe tie rods at least once, and stuck them back together
     
    I've weathered it . The brown has picked out the planking lines in a lighter colour , which looks wrong... I weathered the windows . In the process two of them, being imperfectly attached, fell inside .
     
     
    I've tried making a replacement out of clear plasticard, desperately , to stick in with varnish, . When I'd finally got it just to fit , it fell inside . In shaking the van to get it out , the orignial windows started to appear. I managed to manoevre one back roughly in place , and seem to have stuck it there with brushfuls of solvent. In the process the other window seems to have attached to the back of it - I shook it loose and its now probably stuck to the floor somewhere...
     
     
    I shall now have to attempt to bodge a replacement window (I don't think I can get it properly inset - and the windows on these do not seem to have opened).
     
    Arrghhh
     
    Target condition is now something like this:
     
    Oh by the way the bit of the special transfers I used is now barely visible...
     
    <a href="http://gallery6801.f.../p46201342.html" >http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p46201342.html</a>
     
    Hopefully a further wash of dark grey with a tinge of dark brown will do the job - and not dislodge any windows
     
    Also the fish van. A much happier tale. Here it is , lurking behind the Sealion I weathered, before work started :
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....e.php?id=103390" alt="">
     
    and a very rough shot before weathering
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....e.php?id=103391" alt="">
  24. Ravenser
    This one's gone wrong somehow - try the link
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2497&start=25" page on Old RMweb
     
    Comment posted by russellwar on Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:34 pm <br />
    <cite>jim s-w wrote:</cite>
    <br />No, you fit the glazing after the paint. You do need to cut your own but there is a small overlap between the etch and the hole. I have asked a lazer cutting company about the costs of getting windows cut - if its viable i'll let you know<br />
     
     
    Cheers
     
    Jim
     
    />If you do, I will quite happily rip out my windows. Let me know too.<br />
     
    <br />The thought of ctting all those windows scared me until now <br />
    __________________________________________</]
    posted on Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:58 pm
     
    They've done it again.
     
    First Bachmann announce a 150 shortly after I buy a Bratchill kit. I still think I will probably get there before they do though - we've not seen a preproduction model yet
     
    Then Hornby announce a 153 , knocking the project to convert an elderly 155 into 2 x 153s on the head. That's not a problem - I could probably use a Provincial liveried 155 suitably detailed, the beetles can be diverted.
     
    Now Bachmann announce a Cravens. Building the DC Kit in my cupboard (acquired second hand) was going to be next cab off the rank after the 150, given that the 153s have been taken out of the pipeline. This because it can only be plain BR blue - which is the sort of livery even I can do.
     
    Questions, questions. Do I simply plough ahead , on the basis that it will be at least 2 years before I get my hands on one of Bachmann's? Do I really want 2 Cravens ?
     
    Do I try to build my kit as one on the parcels unit conversions of the late 80s ? These would arguably be slightly closer in period to a newly converted 153 , and I think some of the conversions amounted to a stripe down the side and removal of some seats . But this leaves me without the passenger DMU for at least 2 years . Should I convert a Bachmann unit to parcels condition in due course??
     
    Questions, questions....
     
    __________________________________________
     
    Comment posted by PaulCheffus on Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:53 am
     
    <cite>Ravenser wrote:</cite><br />They've done it again.<br />
    <br />Now Bachmann announce a Cravens. Building the DC Kit in my cupboard (acquired second hand) was going to be next cab off the rank after the 150, given that the 153s have been taken out of the pipeline. This because it can only be plain BR blue - which is the sort of livery even I can do.<br /></font></blockquote><br />Hi <br />
     
     
     
    Yep its annoying. I had a DC Kits 105 in the cupboard for about eight years then last year decided to make a start, but I will finish it.
     
    Dapol did something similar to me. I spent two years scratchbuilding a pair of Telescopic Steel Hood wagons. Finished the first one and started applying the transfers to the second when they announced they were doing one in N. I have again decided to keep mine and finish the second as they haven't cost me much and to replace them would be about ??????‚??30.<br />
     
    Cheers
    Paul
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by <b>Platform 6</b> on Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:54 am
     
    <cite>Ravenser wrote:</cite><br />They've done it again.<br />
    <br />First Bachmann announce a 150 shortly after I buy a Bratchill kit. I still think I will probably get there before they do though - we've not seen a preproduction model yet ....<br />Questions, questions....</font></blockquote><br />
     
    I know exactly how you feel. I've a DC Kits 108 unstarted but now have some Bachmann 108s. I really think the DC Kits window bars will not 'cut the mustard' compared to the Bachmanns'. http://www.rmweb.co....es/icon_sad.gif
     
    And then there's the 8T cattle trucks just announced! <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....on_rolleyes.gif">
     
    I've slowly been building up a collection to detail/weather from Dapol - and then along comes Bachmann again. <img src="http://www.rmweb.co...._frustrated.gif"> <br />
    You just can't win! <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....es/icon_lol.gif"> <br />
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:14 pm </font><br />
    I've finally managed to do some modelling (does layout building count?) Well, stock modelling anyway.
     
    I had all sorts of good intentions about kits to be built . With it being so fine I even thought of digging out the resin WD road van kit and having a go at it in the garden - as resin dust in the home isn't good for your health. Only a passing thought though and as its set to rain tomorrow the moment passed.
     
    After attempting to weather a Harburn chemical toilet and not liking the results entirely - I wiped most of it off and touched up the roof - I had the acrylics out. So I decided to experiment with weathering a wagon in acrylics - normally I stick strictly to enamels. Out came a few recent RTR engineers wagons which were embarrasingly untouched ... and I spent most of the afternoon weathering two wagons.
     
    A factory weathered Hornby Seacow was the first victim. I didn';t much care for the effect on the underframe and the interior seemed to have had a faint coat of some spare LMS crimson. The inside of the hoppers and the ballast shoots got a coat of Humbrol matt leather , which proved very satisfactory and makes a big difference. I got enthusiastic and gave a Bachmann Limpet a thin wash of the same over the factory painted interior (much better than Hornby but a shade dark)
     
    I'm not too keen on Railmatch Brake Dust - frigteningly yellow and light when wet and darker but still pretty yellow dry. Rescue for the bogies came with a coat of Tamiya Flat Earth XF52 - the fag end of a jar left over from painting the sleepers on Blacklade. I didn't mix it properly and the thin part proved a very effective wash on the underframe of the Limpet , though things like the air tanks need a proper coat
     
    The chequerplate end platforms on the Seacow got a wash of matt leather, followed by a wash of flat earth. That was it for the Seacow - Hornby had effectively taken care of the sides for me. There will be better Seacows out there - a good few owned by folk on RMWeb - but I'm rather pleased with the result and its certainly a considerable improvement. The Limpet has had a few bodyside streaks but the body needs a proper working over with enamel washed and dry brush to tone it down and give it that faintly rusting washed out look<br />
     
    One thing is nagging at me - I presume I can apply Railmatch matt (enamel) varnish over acrylics? I know one way goes and one way doesn't between enamel and acrylic - I take it it is enamel over acyrilc? I normally apply a sealing top coat of matt vanish and it does tend to lighten and tone down , which the Limpet needs
     
    Overall impressions are that it's worked so far and seems effective over large areas. Thin washes can be problematic , and covering power seems poorer than with enamels . On the other hand , speed of drying means you can almost keep working. With enamel washes the Seacow would surely have taken a couple of evenings
     
    And a photo of one of the kits that didn't get built :
     
    <img src="http://img119.images...1024x768ko0.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    an etched kit for a Warflat , courtesy of DOGA. I'm rather looking forward to having a crack at this because it looks fairly simple and the nearest thing to a quick win possible with an etched kit. However it will have to wait till the vacuum based vice I've ordered from Squires arrives
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat May 10, 2008 2:18 pm
     
    Having just lost a long posting , this will be short but I did manage some modelling over the bank holiday. The Warflat didn't get done , for lack of a vice (Squires didn't have what I ordered) and photos are in short supply because the other thing that didn't get done was sorting out the ground cover and fitting the storage tank to the fuelling point on the layout- at which point it should make a nice little diorama for taking photos
     
    I finished the Limpet - wash of "off black to tone down the rust/black and wash of faded rail red + Humbrol 94 to tone down the orange. Excavating in my boxes to find the WD road van kit turned up a VGA I'd forgotten about which acquired Kadees and a wash of Tamiya Flat Earth on the underframe. Representing a coat of dirt on the stainless steel sides probably needs an airbrush and I haven't got one.
     
    In the same box I found a VDA bought off someone else a decade ago as a doner. I didn't much care for the basic weathering so reweathered in washed of enamel and acrylic andI'm very pleased with the result In a burst of enthusiasm I fitted Kadee no5s - well if it went wrong this was a spare wagon - which was my first genuine Kadee installation . In a further burst of enthusiasm , I added a kadee to one end of the Limpet to replace the pocket I robbed for the VGA. Possibly an underset coupler would have been better than packing it - I suspect it's slightly high
     
    On the wagon kit front, the WD road van progressed as far as cleaning up the flash and drilling holes for the handrails. Being resin, working with files drills etc in the flat is absolutely forbidden onsafety grounds, so I had to wait for a fine day and go outside. The instructions are a possible entrant for Metropolitan's Rubbish Instructions competition. They give tips on using cyano, and on painting, they tell you how to prepare the Dapol chassis and drill the holes. They do not contain any instructions on assembling the parts in the kit, though there's an exploded drawing attached
     
    These 2 can rarely have appeared on the same workbench:<br /><img src="http://img356.images...1024x768xq3.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    The Slaters MR asymmetric box van of 1880 must be the earliest prototype available as a plastic kit. This is for someone else. With the POA Blackadder I have copious amounts of Blood On My Hands [ the last 2 elastoplasts were removed this morning - it seems to be twist drills not craft knives that do the damage]
     
     
    The chassis came from a monstrosity Triang Hornby claimed to be a Winkle - the body went in the bin. That also surfaced from the boxes in the cupboard. Suitably cleaned up and with the V hangers filed out and representational detail . Then I made a blunder - digging in my boxes I found some A1 18" railfreight buffers , which sounded right late on a Bank Holiday without a photo in front of me, and fitted them. Photos of similar wagons in the Cheona books show "two stage" oleos on POAs and TTAs They are very firmly stuck - and they're staying.
     
    The thing is , I'm not attempting to build "the definitive 4mm POA Blackadder" for desplay on the DEMU stand at a show. Its an attempt to knock up another airbrake wagon from bits out of the cupboard at nil cost on a Bank Holiday Monday . I actually havbe a 51L /Wizard Models kit and will build that properly - the likely fate of both is to form a rake of 6-7 scrap wagons for use on an exhibition layout , and quite probably there may be several such rakes required. This wagon is making up the numbers, and I suspect most of the effect is going to lie in painting and finishing . It is already dawning that things like the black and yellow stripes on the top won't be easy. Does anyone do Railease logo transfers?
     
     
    Also the TTA chassis is representational at best - and a hasty look at Paul Barlett's site suggests it may be wrong for this body style:
     
    Wagon with TTA chassis?:<br /><a href="http://gallery6801.f.../p23292324.html" >http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p23292324.html</a><br />
     
    Wagons with same body style as jonhall's resin casting from his demos- which is what I found in a box:
    With FAT suspension but longer brake levers:
    <a href="http://gallery6801.f.../p23292333.html" >http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p23292333.html</a>
     
    With pedistal suspension:<br /><a href="http://gallery6801.f.../p23292307.html" >http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p23292307.html</a>
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun May 11, 2008 5:16 pm
     
    Most of the ground work around the fuelling point was done last night , so we have pictures of the stock. Unfortunately I still have to resort to flash , despite a sunny day , so quality isn't perfect :
     
    Weathered VDA and Limpet<br /><img src="http://img122.images...p1010312bi3.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    home mixed greys in acrylic , Railmatch faded rail red plus a coat of railmatch matt brushing varnish on the VDA . The varnish does bring out the faded silver grey
     
    Weathered Seacow and partbuilt POA Blackadder<br /><img src="http://img158.images...p1010321uu8.jpg" alt="Image" />
    __________________________________________
    posted on Thu May 29, 2008 9:30 pm
     
    Some folk can nearly finish a DMU kit in 72 hrs (my 150 still sits as a black reproach on the bookcase). Me , I had a bank holiday and what did I manage in 72 hrs . Err... I fitted Kadees to two wagons, and part painted the Blackadder . The POA and a detailed Hornby TTA now have Kadees and I've used up all the number 47s in the packet. Possibly I should have used something shorter as the buffers look a bit far apart. The Blackadder is off-black , (except for the underframe which is suitably brown and the interior which is suitably rusty ) I'm in the corse of sourcing transfers. And that's all folks - except I waved the chequebook around in the direction of various detailing bits
     
     
    It may not be quite right in the underframe department , but the POA is starting to look quite good - if you don't know your stuff on the details of wagon underframes
     
    A rummage through boxes turned up some MEA bodies bought for 50 p each off the Bachmann stand. Dangerous things, cardboard boxes . I need some more TTA underframes, cheap
     
    The MR box van was finished, painted in what may be too dark a shade of grey and dispatched to its new owner. I used acrylics cos I was rushing the job , and I have to admit I'm not entirely comfortable with athem as a medium at least for basic painting. Covering power is not as good as enamel - I'd hate to apply yellow acrylics - and they have a habit of drying up very fast - potentially disasterous if you've mixed a shade .
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:41 pm
     
    A little progress over the weekend. Some of the shopping arrived on Saturday, and with a packet of flushglaze in my hot sticky little hand I attacked the LMS BG. It's rather embarassing to have to admit this is my first serious coach project - assuming a couple of Ratio MR coach kits in my mid teens are excluded (results were slightly better than might be expected, but not in the "keeps all feet on the floor" department). The last 2 layouts were freight only , the light rail project was a different ballgame , so its nearly 20 years since I had to worry about coaches
     
    The flushglaze went in neatly enough with UHU - there's probably a much better way of doing it, but this seemed safer than superglue - and an excellent flushglaze effect was achieved [ There is a sequel to this- it doesn't go without saying ].The bars behind the glazing were reinstated with white cotton , a pair of tweezers and more dabs of UHU top and bottom. The old wheels were replaced with Hornby coach wheels , and while the body was off I started weathering the underframe. As it came , the van had the solebars painted blue , and I initially set about painting them black as it gave a most odd appearance, before spotting that the new Bachmann GUV also had blue solebars , and removing most of the black acrylic in haste with a fibreglass pencil. Black and white photos were no help at all here.
     
    The underframe was then treated to a coat of dilute (enamel) Railmatch frame dirt as this seemed a suitable darkish brownish shade to approximate the colour of underframes in various colour photos of coaches. In a fit of enthusiasm, I then tackled the new GUV with the same stuff . It's remarkable how long painting an underframe actually takes , once you've got in around all the detail and painted the fronts and backs of the wheels (as they weren't primed , I'm not sure how durable this will be , but I don't make a habit of handling my stock by the backs or centres of the wheels , so it should stay on . At least it seems to , where wagons are concerned ).
     
    This makes a big improvement to both vehicles and the BG is now starting to come together. I need to weather the ends suitably (the upper footsteps have been removed, as they had gone by this stage - electrification) and fit Kadees. The GUV is a very nice piece of work , and has NEM pockets at the correct height (I think) but a lot of parcels vans got truly filthy and this is a bit of a challenge of one of my first attempts at coach weathering
     
    I'm still not particularly confident about the BG in this livery (blue/grey) and condition (gangwayed) in parcels traffic as late as the 80s, though a little less unhappy than I was. The relevant Cheona book turns up 3 photos - one gangwayed in all over rail blue in parcels traffic in mid 1975, and two with the gangways removed plated in all over blue, one c1980 . Paul Barlett's site turns up photos of derelict vans in the mid -late 80s , but blue, and with gangways removed/plated, and one photo of an LMS BG in blue/grey , from 1968.
     
    So - blue/grey is a geniune livery, and gangwayed vehicles were used in parcels traffic , and to at least the mid 70s . However the only photo of this is in blue .. Blue/grey gangwayed Mk1 BGs were certainly used in parcels trains in the 80s, and LMS BGs were certainly used in parcels trains to some point in the 80s , probably the mid 80s , but the only photos found show vehicles in plain blue with gangways removed. So a blue/grey gangwayed LMS BG in a parcels train in the period 1985-90 is not proved impossible but seems a bit unlikely...
     
    I'm not doing a repaint , and the gangways are rather nice work anyway . But there is enough flushglaze left to do another van, so if an all blue van turns up (they were certainly produced RTR) a pukka plated conversion might well be on the cards . [ Since then another one has turned up...] Overall , the base model seems quite good
     
    In a rush of enthusiasm, I extracted a very elderly Hornby Mk2 from the bottom of the stockpile , in the naive expectation that similar improvements could be made. Alas , this is a very much worse proposition. For starters , the sides are about 4mm thick, so the "flushglaze" doesn't fit flush - there is still about a 2mm step , and it is not going to look too plausible against modern models . Then , the flushglaze doesn't fit. It's necessary to file back the inside of the window apertures to get it in at all , and with all the vents this is a major task, and one that is likely to result in a loss of crispness/minor damage. I wrote off 2 sets of windows before I worked all this out
     
     
    Then the coach is not, as billed, a BSO Mk2c but a BFK mk2a, of which most of us have much less need . The rail blue is self coloured plastic . There is no white lining between blue and grey .There are probably some more faults I was too disheartened to spot. It's now gone back , literally , to the bottom of the pile
     
    But the parcels train could end up looking rather nice...
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:04 pm
     
    The blue/grey BG is now done, barring Kadees , and the wheels on one side which I forgot to brushpaint. Since it's now dawned that a parcels train has a gaurd and a guard needs a van its a necessary item at a practical level 'cos he can't ride in a CCT, the Maunsell Van Bs had gone by the 80s, and there's not really sufficient length for a Mk1 BG and much else, though I shall probably end up with a Mk1 BG in the end because they were so much a staple of parcels and van trains in from the 60s to the end
     
    The Bachmann GUV is also more or less done, and as a payment on account here are some rough shots . You can see that "on Ravenser's bookcase" is not a figure of speech and the Branchlines 03 chassis just visible has made zero progress in at least 18 months . Despite being taken in daylight flash was necessary and played its usual tricks, and without a tripod, strewn with digital noise and not quite pinsharp they are blatently snapshots...
     
    <img src="http://img223.images...3quartertc9.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    <img src="http://img225.images...rguvsidedv4.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    This is my first attempt ever at weathering a coach : I wouldn't use some of these methods on a passenger coach but NPCS notoriously got covered in grime and I can live with the results . The photograph over emphasises colour contrast but clearly the bogies need another wash of track dirt
     
    I've sourced a TTA chassis and it clearly doesn't fit the MEA bodies. I suspect a scratchbuild will be needed . Anyone know a source of suitable heavy plate W irons and FAT suspension?
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by PMP on Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:56 pm
     
    The bogies and underframe look too shiney, and the wheels are too brown vs underframe. I'd give the wheels a wash of matt dark grey/black to take the 'earthyness' away, and then give the underframe a coat of matt varnish first, before applying any more weathering. That way it'll harmonise your colours so none stand out above the others!
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....n_thumbsup2.gif">
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:18 pm
     
    The underframe is the bit that didn't get the treatment with matt brushing varnish..... Washes of Railmatch Frame Dirt seem to come out semi-gloss. The bogies aren't quite so shocking in real life as in the photos , but the brown wash was clearly far too weak here and needs redoing, and the ? battery box suffers from the same problem. With varnish on the whole lot , not just the body/solebars/roof , it should look more uniform
     
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Sun Jun 22, 2008 4:16 pm
     
    I've patched up the GUV , the bogies no longer look like a fright (though I think I may have missed one wheel) and if Imageshack would stop running like extremely viscous glue , some pictures could be posted:
    <img src="http://img57.imagesh...41/brguvfg3.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    <img src="http://img57.imagesh...3640x480cd4.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    And here's the LMS BG:
    <img src="http://img57.imagesh...7/lmsbg5vk5.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:45 pm
     
    I've finally got round to doing some modelling , and some Townstreet castings are decorating bookshelf and workbox
     
    These are for some 3/4 relief buildings. You may be unaware that there are any 3/4 relief buildings in the range - this is 'cos there aren't . Once again I am suffering from my usual inability to build anything in accordance with the instructions, compounded by delusions of grandeur. The original intention was low relief but they seem to have grown in stages at the back.
     
     
    In short I'm attempting to kit-bash plaster castings , and I'm not sure if it was a bright idea. The main building I've been working on is by way of a trial piece - the housefront casting (acquired via someone else) suffered some slight damage to guttering and downpipe , which I've attempted to patch - successfully with the guttering, more questionably with the downpipe . If it doesn't work out - well it was a test piece and the bits might otherwise have been ditched.
     
    The main problem is the side walls: Townstreet's only stone side walls have very Scottish stepped gables: entirely authentic for Fife but I'm not a Scot and have no intentions of modelling Scotland. This leaves stucco castings and the need to reface them , or provide an alternative.
     
     
    The low relief fronts are square ended with stonework continued round the edge. The stucco sides are mitred. Option one, based on something I'd seen from someone else, involved sawing off the edge of the end casting to allow for the depth of the front, then cladding the thing in Slaters rough cast stone plasticard, with a suitable cutout to fit round the casting for the front . This was for the chimney end. Option two involved a new end in 1/8th balsa, clad in the same Slaters plasticard, but this time with a sizeable overlap across the end of the facade casting . I had hoped to cover the end completely but there is a small gap : with the edge of the plasticard suitably treated/cut out at the mortar courses this is not very noticeable
     
    I then painted up the castings and the plasticard stonework . First problem - you get a different shade on the plasticard and the plaster with the same paint (I was using Humbrol 94) . This was blended in by a hasty wash of Humbrol 93 on the side/end of the front casting, and the result is a fairly decent match. However a dry run suggests that Option 1 produces a very noticable butt joint with the two castings being very difficult to fit exactly to each other. This is unacceptable : the plasticard has been ripped off the side casting - it was stuck on with Evostick - and a new plasticard overlay will be prepared without the cutout , in the same was as for Option 2
     
    As the building will be part of a terrace, you may well not see the side walls at all , which is the only reason I'm prepared to contemplate these approximations and bodges . What may well be visible is the gable and very top of the side wall, so something has to be done, rather than simply a plain bit of balsa
     
    Its also very apparent why the full relief buildings (from which the side castings come) use mitred corners - I can't see any other way of securing a reasonably neat join between plaster castings. I suppose I could have tried filing a 45 degree mitre onto the front castings , thus sacrificing the cast stonework detail on the edges - the castings are about 9mm thick
     
    I've also painted up castings for a three storey bank. These are over a centimetre thick, and I'm inclined to use the plasticard with a slight overlay onto the casting - anything less than about 9mm out of line with the adjacent building and all you'll see is the cast plaster detail on the side . Anything more - well , a dressed stone facade and rough stone sidewalls aren't exactly unknown , and any difference in texture /colour can be accounted for by the change of material. I suspect this is mainly going to be an issue at the gable and the top storey
     
    I'm also having to cut down slate roof sections to fit the house ( involving careful use of a junior hacksaw ) and it looks like I'll have to cut pantiles to size for the bank
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun Aug 17, 2008 4:47 pm
     
    A little more work on the Townstreet castings, and some pictures.
     
    First the scene of battle (or as the Anglo Saxons preferred, the place of slaughter...)
     
    <img src="http://img507.images...orkbenchpb2.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    You can see I've recently peeled off the Slaters cladding from the end plaster casting after a certain amount of shaking of head..
     
    Here's the rework , showing the large overlap .This time I've gone a bit further and I've cut round individual stones , wherever possible, as well as filing back the edge of the plasticard to a bevel to avoid a prominent line, and filing out the mortar courses at the edge .
     
    <a href="http://imageshack.us" ><img src="http://img224.images...treetendrq2.jpg" alt="Image" /></a>
     
    Here we have the frontages - I have still to paint the window bars white
     
    <img src="http://img507.images...rontageswy4.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    I've been experimenting with the slates. Initially I used Humbrol 112 Tarmac - and after comparing it with some roofs visible out of the window, I decided it was far too dark. The small test piece (off cut from cutting down the roof) features half painted with 112 tarmac then given an acrylic grey wash composed of Tamaya matt white and matt black (roughly to the shade of the darker Railfreight grey) . The other half was an attempt to mix the tarmac with some white enamel to tone it down.
     
    I'll be going with the Tamaya wash.....
     
    <img src="http://img232.images...eettilesbf7.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by c37408 on Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:15 pm
     
     
    How odd, I just spent some of Saturday dirtying up a very similar looking Parcels BG! I'll post some pics later. Yours looks great to me though, I especially the variety of shades of blue it now has in that second pic!
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:28 am
     
    The GUV is partly a demonstration of the difference made by decent photography, as I didn't actually rework the body weathering at all. First shot is taken in haste with flash , close up - which tends to do awkward things to colour and certainly accentuates any contrast. The later shots are taken in natural light . The underframe needed a bit of reworking though
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat Aug 30, 2008 12:40 pm
     
     
    Not too much to report, but on account , as it were , here is a hasty snap of the POA Blackadder, which still needs wasp stripe on top edges and buffer beams , and further weathering
     
     
    <img src="http://img370.images...p1010494zd5.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    I have been struggling with the roof of the larger Townstreet building , which is pantiles - the supplied castings need to be cut down in both dimensions, and the break on the narrower roof at the back has not come out straight - as it is the back of a 3/4 relief building against a backscene I am pressing on , in the expectation it won't be noticable when in position on the layout
     
    Painting is Humbrol 82 , lining orange, which was the nearest enamel I could find but is still a bit bright and well orange. I have applied an extremely weak wash of matt leather acrylic toned down a little with matt flesh. Perhapsd this is slightly too light a weathering coat , but the results of tests using thicker heavier coats on off cuts were not good at all
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:35 pm
     
    Moderate progress has been made with the Townstreet buildings. The small house is now complete, the windows properly painted , and the bank is complete except for its roof - I think I need a final toning down acrylic wash on the pantiles which are still a bit fresh and new.
     
    I had quite a few problems with the roofs . No way could I get the slate roof of the small house to fit without gaps, and I ended up filling the gaps at the top of the gables and at the ridge with very fine grade milliput (about the first time I've got milliput to work well - maybe using a pack that was less than 5 years old helped ) The gap around the chinmey base was filled in the same way, and painted to resemble concrete flashing (121 pales stone ) this worked rather well.
     
    The stones picked out in 110 chocolate stood out a bit too much even after a grey acylic wash - I had to apply another yellow brown acrylic wash then reweather with very faint dark grey to tone the whole lot down
     
    But I must say the bank looks a very very impressive structure when the pantiles are put in place as a dry run
     
    To give a glazed effect to the windows I painted over the black with Humbrol Gloss Cote
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:19 pm
     
    Well, a bit of progress to report. The bank is finished and I'm pleased with it. I still haven't cracked weathering pantiles, but as reasonably new tiles it looks fine. I've also had a go at paining and finishing two buildings which someone else built, using the same approach. These seemed to come out a bit darker - perhaps ~I was slightly heavy handed with the dark acrylic weathering wash, perhaps I made it too close to black and it should have been more of a grey. But still the overasll effect is good , and stone buildings which have been cleaned up a bit a different times are not exactly the same shade.
     
    Blacklade, my Challenge layout , has been a bit stalled in recent months. The two major outstanding jobs have been fit the point motors /decoders and build the screen wall , and somehow other tasks, commitments, work and so forth have taken priority. But I have at least taken a first step , and built up the first of two MERG accessory decoder kits , kindly sourced by paulcheffus. Now I haven't actually tested the thing yet - it was only finished on Sunday night - but the thing is finished, and I'm very hopeful I haven't accidentally fried the IC chips.
     
    Considering I haven't attempted any form of electronics circuit construction since I was in my teens - and that was only a few very simple projects at school , most of which didn't work - this may seem like tempting fate . However I have to pay tribute to the kit design and technical support provided with it , in that I assembled the thing , slowly, but without any serious difficulties or real problems . Apart from one hasty appeal here to discover which way is positive on a capacitor , there was nothing that actually proved a stumbling block .
     
     
    I think I know the real reasons why my teenage school efforts at simple electronics were normally a failure:
     
    1.They didn't teach me anything about soldering . To be specific , they didn't teach me the necessity for cleanliness of the work pieces and tip to achieve a joint, anything about recovery time, or the role of flux. Maybe something was said at the beginning of the lesson and perhaps I missed those 2 sentences , and perhaps I wouldn't have missed key points like that if it had been an English lesson or a history lesson. I don't know. But I'm quite sure nobody ever actually showed me how to make a solder joint or taught the theory of good soldering - if they did it can have been no more than 10-15 seconds by the desk and half a sentence
     
    2. Nobody ever mentioned that you can destroy an electronic component by overheating it. I didn't hear that till years later.
     
    I remember lots of repeated attempts to remelt joints with a lingering iron in the hope that they would flow properly and not be dry. No wonder most things didn't work - I must have cooked several of the components in the assembly process
     
    This time I've been very careful - fine tip bit , straight in and out, minimal time on the job , give components a chance to cool before the next joint - and the bit time to recover. As I say it's not yet tested , but fingers crossed - the joints look neat bright little cones, as they are supposed to
     
     
    Another job under way is weathering a Hornby PO open for someone else. This is the 4 plank open - acquired second hand for not very much when my local model shop was closing down . Modifications have been slight - I removed the brake gear on one side as a granite company's 4 planker is most unlikely to have had independent brakes like a bottom door mineral . The wagon is beaing worked into post war condition - ie very tatty . After a "toning down " wash of a lighter grey to fade the lettering and a further wash of a timber colour , I've painted out several of the planks in a different timber mix.
     
    I am not quite sure I've cracked a suitable mix for timber. My first effort, concocted out of Humbrol 94, some Railmatch Centro Grey (not sure what use I have for Centro grey.._) and 53 Gunmetal had a faint greenish shade - gunmetal is recommended under these circumstances , but any noticeable quantity seems to have a substantial and not wholly desirable effect on the shade . The second attempt, for the planks, featured Humbrol 110 , Centro grey and a faint trace of Gunmetal and seems rather better , though perhaps rather yellower -
    "representational "; pine planking rather than a faithful shade , which would surely be more of a silver - grey . The solebars got a second wash with the revised wood mix - it's very noticeable in shots of weathered wooden POs that the solebars end up similar colour and of a piece with the body
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by PaulCheffus on Thu Oct 23, 2008 8:13 am
     
    <cite>Ravenser wrote:</cite><br />1. They didn't teach me anything about soldering To be specific , they didn't teach me the necessity for cleanliness of the work pieces and tip to achieve a joint, anything about recovery time, or the role of flux. Maybe something was said at the beginning of the lesson and perhaps I missed those 2 sentences , and perhaps I wouldn't have missed key points like that if it had been an English lesson or a history lesson. I don't know. But I'm quite sure nobody ever actually showed me how to make a solder joint or taught the theory of good soldering - if they did it can have been no more than 10-15 seconds by the desk and half a sentence
     
    2. Nobody ever mentioned that you can destroy an electronic component by overheating it I didn't hear that till years later.
     
    /blockquote>
     
    I was originally taught to solder by my Father at the tender age of eight but you are right school never did explain things properly. As one of my hobbies during my teens was electronics (possibly influenced by my Fathers interest as a Radio Amateur) I learn't quite quickly that certain electronic components don't like heat.
     
    Cheers
     
    Paul
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:51 pm
     
    A photo of the wagon - transfers are now on, and a wash of off-black "dirt"; will be added over everything. I'm not entirely sure about the ironwork - flash tends to exaggerate things, but it is slightly red in natural light, and perhaps something a little further towards chocolate brown would be better
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=39204" alt="">
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Fri Oct 31, 2008 11:02 pm
     
    The wagon is now finished - unfortunately I didn't think to take another shot before delivering it . It recieved the thin wash of black (which picked out the planking slightly)and the lower regions got a thin wash of Railmatch trackdirt which makes the wheels stand out less, before an overall coat of matt varnish. To be honest the whole lot didn't radically change the appearance from the photo
     
    A certain amount of time over the weekend was spend playing about with DCC - I was supposed to be sorting out points on Blacklade , but with the layout up it seemed like a good chance to use it as a programming track - one of its functions in life.
     
    The Hornby-Lima NSWGR 422 class was duly fitted with a decoder. Breaking in was something of a nightmare at first as I couldn't get the body off , even though it is supposed just to remove from the chassis . I resorted to business cards down both sides to get some leverage , (and I mean cards plural...) and eventually managed to free the ends . I suppose I should at this point post a photo of the interior /chassis : unfortunately I didn't take one at the time and you can guess why I'm not anxious to remove the body and take one now.... Consequently you'll just have to use your imagination and picture - a chassis with a very Lima looking round pancake motor complete with beige blob , plus a largish circuit board amidships with a DCC socket in it, and at the far end a recessed open area. The loco has working headlights - a twin white LEDs in a block at at each end centrally above the cab windows- which are powered by 4 brass strips fixed to the interior of the roof, pressing on contact pads on the circuit board. There are no cab interiors<br />
     
    The general effect can be judged from the photo - this is in fact an 80-class of 1981, taken at Broken Hill in Dec 1983, and not the earlier 422-class (1969) or 442- class (1971) as the copyright is mine,but the effect of the front end is very closely similar (for the record the top of the cab of the 422 is a lower shallower profile , and it lacks the cut away recess at the apex of the cab in which the horns are fitted on the 442 class and 80 class - I've been doing some hasty looking at photos)
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=40692" alt="">
     
    There are some pictures of 422s on the Aucision site in support of their forthcoming high-spec 422 class
     
    I fitted a TCS T1 with harness - the new version with Back EMF , which was stuck in the convenient recess at the end with double sided tape and the harness wires restrained with parcels tape . Unfortunately the harness can be seen through the cab windows at one end - the recess is where there might be a cab interior but isn't
     
    Performance is good. With a bit of tweaking (and track and wheel cleaning) I managed to get it to move at speed step 2 of 128 . Start volts were set at 1V [entered as 18], and I've played about with the speed curve by making mid volts 4.6V [80] and top speed 11V This reduces the tendency to high speed running at the upper end while leaving a good top speed : an excellent moderate and controllable speed is maintained up to about speed step 70 I left the suppression capacitors in place - it performs as well as I could hope from a pancake motor and rather better than I expected . I tried experimenting with dimming of the LED but it really doesn't seem any dimmer . There is only one function required - for the lights - though the headlights are directional. The decoder has all sorts of wierd and wonderful US light effects , but as I'm not sure if any of them are relevant to NSWGR operations I haven't used them
     
     
    All in all , it looks like a good 'un and I'm very pleased with it. Many thanks to Shortliner and Chris Ellis at MTI for selling on the review copy [ Now all I need is some wagons . And mayby a CPH tin hare for the passengers. And about 6' x 18"; plus fiddle for a small terninus , plus some rock moulds , and some gum trees ... And space to put it... Stop !]
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:54 pm
     
    Contrary to appearances , I've actually been doing a bit of modelling recently .
     
    New Year is an appropriate time for taking stock, and I duly did. There are an uncomfortable amount of projects outstanding , and accordingly this years New Year Resolution comes from Magnus Magnussen : "I've started, so I'll finish" . Or in other words - no new projects . This doesn't mean I'm not going to start anything new - it means I'm trying to avoid buying anything new in order to sort out the stuff to which I've already committed , and which is adorning the book case or sitting in the cupboard. Or worse still sitting on top of the cupboard forming a pile of debris
     
    Buying 153s doesn't count, of course . They were already on the list as a carry over from 2008 , because Blacklade needs 153s to enable multiple unit working . My Central 153 has been rushed into service , with a TCS T1 decoder , the floor, tables, and seat backs painted (I used a spare bottle of Railmatch Centro Grey , for which I have no use at all) and passengers added - Slater's figures painted up with acrylics and the legs cut off. I tried to modify them to remove some of the period air (eg WWI forage caps) but you can't see much inside beyond the shapes
     
     
    I've also had a fit of putting Kadees onto everything with NEM pockets . The 153 requires a long and an extra long Kadee - two longs together are not enough separation with 23m vehicles. The 57 I picked up cheap off the Bachmann stand at Warley has has another T1 fitted and runs very nicely , and has acquired long NEM Kadees - anything shorter fouls the 3 link coupling . So have my FEAs . These were ordered basically to support the venture without any actual need but I decided that if I had container wagons there really ought to be some containers for them , and I've bought some C- Rail kits . Four 40's are now built and nearly all the transfers applied. Yang Ming , in particular, is something of a pig on the livery front with 8 seperate transfers on the door alone. Being a cheapskate I mixed up my own blue for the P+O box and I think its come out a bit light. The containers are the first time I've used Microsol - quite essential given the ribbed sides - and its proved very effective
     
    I've also got a couple of tank containers - on the first one I tried painting after assembly and discovered it makes painting the framing in black very difficult indeed. The second kit has therefore had the framing prepainted before assembly - much easier. I have also struggled to get a decent white finish to the tank barrel - I'm up to 3 coats now on the first tank
     
    The one perminent Kadee fitting was to the 422 class , where I cut off the very obtrusive forward projection from the bogie which carried a Roco coupling . After much headscratching the best I could come up with was plasticard packing behind the buffer beam to create a platform , onto which I glued a piece of 10 thou plasticard overlapping the buffer beam, then glued the draft box in place on top with solvent and reinforced the joint with a fillet of Zapagap cyano. Kadee used was #24 Talgo , but with the draftbox only. I've only done one one end at this stage because I'm not confident of the strength of the joint
     
    There's also the new stock box, mainly for engineers wagons , which I've knocked up out of a boxfile , based on an idea in one of Chris Ellis' books, not to mention the Parkside PMV which keeps failing to get done, and the possibility of sorting out the old Airfix 31 , thanks to a useful note by K9-70 in the DCC forum
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun Feb 22, 2009 10:23 pm
     
    Things are looking up...
     
    I've built the Parkside PMV , although perhaps it's not my best kit ever. Things kept going wrong and having to be bodged. Firstly , when I assembled the underframe there was a slight rock , and the solebars were too firmly stuck to remove one and pack it. After trying to drift the bearing by opening out the hole slightly I was driven to the horrible bodge of getting out the soldering iron , and drifting the bearing with a 25W Antex. That wheel set is now a little loose and sloppy , giving enough float to ensure all 4 feet are on the floor, which is a potential problem with a wheelbase this long.
     
    On the floor is also where two of the roof vents ended up , and as the carpet is green , there they'll stay.... I resorted to bodging up a representation of the roof vents with scraps of microrod and solvent
     
    I had glued on 4 footboards before I checked Paul Bartlett's website and found that by the 1980s all footboards seem to have been removed . I've removed mine and cut away the struts for the lower footboards, though I can't remove the strap across the spring and I haven't represented the brackets which used to support the footboards. The final bodge was that I needed tall vac pipes - I don't have any SR ones, and I resorted to some LNER pipes from ABS
     
    It's going to get Kadees and then I can have DMU tail traffic. Maybe the SR bogie brake comes next.
     
    The Airfix 31 is up and running on DCC as well , as reported elsewhere, though I need to get in and oil the worm gears. Then I just have to produce a detailed body....
     
    __________________________________________
  25. Ravenser
    ORBC
     
    by Ravenser
     
    original page on Old RMweb
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Fri May 04, 2007 5:24 pm
     
    As I'm hoping that I will actually get something done over the bank holiday weekend, I thoughtt I'd better salvage the spiel about the Bratchill 150 from the old forums.
     
    Having gone back to RMWeb2 , I was confronted by my New Years Resolutions from January last year:
     


    I must make some progress on other fronts this year. I have a lot of DCC installations to sort out: the 31 where I misconnected a loose wire and fried the decoder, an extra 20 I bought because the number was the first 20 I ever saw, a Voyager for the club layout, probably a 60 (ditto)
     
    Then there are various MUs and locos. An old Lima 20 which I rewheeled and fitted with added pickups needs the body sorting out (yes I know, but I've already got the stuff and in the immortal words of Magnus Magnussen "I've started so I'll finish...") A decoder could sensibly go in that at the same time. There is the Bratchill 150/2 kit - should be simple and therefore an early candidate. Its about time I chopped up the Hornby 155 into a pair of 153s. More Beetles, more T1 decoders. Can I finally get round to the Home Made 37? Will the Ultrascale wheels for the Athern chassis turn up before 2007?
     
    Then there is the Branchlines chassis for the 04 I started almost 12 months ago . Not to mention the small Dark Secret in the cupboard
     
    And I really should do something about the light rail project this year (Other than operating it with a pair of 153s) . Even your average cowboy builder doesn't take 3 years over a pair of semis
    Well.. most of the DCC installations are done (the Voyager still needs more work and the 31 needs sorting out)
     
    The Athearn wheels for the 37 did turn up - but nothing else got done. The 153s are still an aspiration - though my Challenge project gives them an immediate use (once the Challenge Project is far enough advanced). The Sentinel got built
     
    The rest didn't , though I got a fair way with the 150/2...
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Fri May 04, 2007 5:30 pm
     
    So here we go (just under 13 months ago...)
     
    Quote:
     
    Not a lot has happened recently but now DMUs seem to be on the agenda.
     
    The other evening the Bratchill 150/2 kit came out for the first time. Fit of parts seems reasonably good : a little bit of filing was needed around the corridor connection on the ends. One area that will need careful attention is at the front end , around the interlock between sides and roof . There is a visible bump here and this will need filling and filing down as no such bump is visible on photos of the real thing.. It will also be critical to ensure exact alighnment of sides and roof so there is no "step effect" as you go round the rim.
     
    I'm also agonising over whether I need to fill the join lines where the end fits into the roof. I'm a bit short of 150 photo reference especially for internal ends and have resorted to gawping at a few other Mk3 MUs . Yes there seems to be a faint seam , but not a prominent one...
     
    One thing I didn't buy at Ally Pally was a set of Lima 156 bogie mouldings, as recommended by cloggydog
     
    Nothing has actually been glued together yet.
     
    Unquote
     
    4 days later a start had been made:
     
    Quote
    Posted - 12/04/2006 : 14:19:34
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    I've actually managed to make a start on the Bratchill 150/2.
     
    Progress to date amounts to gluing in the ends and making a start on gluing the sides in place. I'm having a spot of bother with one side, - there's a kind of interlocking step between side and roof at the cab end and the side isn't absolutely seating properly here, meaning that there's a hairline crack between roof and side towards this end. So of course the solvent wont grab at this end, and the side is only glued for about 2/3rd of its length .
     
    Fixing in the cab end might help. Unfortunately the instructions say that glazing should be fixed with contact adhesive - I'm not sure if this applies to the clear ends as well, and I don't think Uhu is going to give me a great bond here. I may have to slip in a sliver of microstrip or micro-rod to get a bond at the cab end and resort to a bit of filler to fill in any residual hairline cracks. (The other side's fine)
     
    I've started to fix the sides of the second vehicle - at this stage just at the inner ends . I've still got room to work on the interlock at the cab end to make sure that this time it really does seat properly
     
    Unquote
     
    By the end of the month , one concern had been allayed by the Fatadder:
     


    I have never had any problems using my normal Mek poly or plastic weld gluing the clear cabs onto by bratchel 456s, so there shouldnt be any problems.
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    Rich
    Dreaming of Mountains and Snow.


    Fatadder:
     
    Thanks. That's one problem out of the way then . The ends can hold the sides in place and I sort out the hairline crack over the last 2 inches with filler
     
    I didn't really fancy trying to slip slivers of microstrip in - it would probably have been too thick and over done the correction.
     
    I might actually get some 21st century modelling done tomorrow then...
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Fri May 04, 2007 5:36 pm
     
    By mid June , things were far enough along for a first assessment:
     
    Quote
     
    Is it just me?
     
    I took yesterday off and full of good intentions decided to do some modelling. Hoping and expecting to make Some Serious Progress on several fronts.
     
    The net result? Er 8 small holes and a couple of bits of whitemetal stuck with Araldite . And no we're not talking big subtantial structural items like boilers and footplates . Try a few underfloor casting bits...
     
    The 150/2 has now reached the stage of 2 bodyshells. Yes , I should have drilled out the headlights before I stuck the ends into the bodyshell . No, I didn't . (And no it didn't turn out to be mission-critical). An Express Models lighting pack for the Dapol 150 has been procured as I'm not up to doing my own LED lighting installation , and I've managed to drill the headlights out to suit (actually starting with micro drills and opening out with broaches. If I'm honest, despite my best effort trying to centre the drills on the headlight , the results are only 98% straight, but they are the same size)
     
    After much effort with the needle files and fibreglass pencil I finished/gave up on cleaning the main engine and gearbox castings (given that the castings are ex MTK as cleaned up and sold by NNK , finishing and throwing in the towel come to much the same thing. In fairness the engines were always going to be the roughest and most awkward castings by some way).
     
    These are now araldited in place, after much comparison of the ex MTK instruction sheet, Jim Smith-Wright's Update drawing, and drawings in Railnew Stockspot 2. All show slightly different positions for the engines and transmission relative to the windows, meaning much poring and moving of bits of whitemetal , but Update and Railnews are pretty close here
     
    Also aradited were a pair of brass coupling hooks for the Dublo 20 (and one exhaust pipe on the 150/2 before the araldite went off). This now has main handrails one one side - the second side was going to follow the 150/2, but I didn't get that far....
     
    I still need to sort out some ex Lima 156 bodies for the Sprinter - so no progress on running gear.
     
    I think I'm now at the point where some intelligent comment can be offered on the Bratchill kit. Where Bratchill's own work is concerned, assembly is pretty straightforward and results good.
     
    But I'm a bit disquieted by the amount I'm going to end up discarding - basically everything below the bodyshell - and the amount I'm having to source from elsewhere. The underframe boxes etc supplied with the kit are nothing to do with a DMU and have been put aside. The bogies are well designed , and would be easy to build and attach - but they've got damper arms so must be discarded and alternatives sourced . I do hope I can fit the Bratchill centre bolsters , otherwise I've got to devise and fabricate alternative arangements
     
    So all I'm going to get from Mr Bratchill is two body shells - not including the seating , which is courtesy of DC Kits (and looks like Modernisation Plan benches - more work with file and paintbrush. ). Considering the kit cost me ??????‚??67, this seems a bit meagre. I'm having to source bogies, underframe detail castings , motor bogie, wheels, seating, and lighting units myself . That's quite a lot of the finished vehicle. And some of these items will require some work. The additional items will cost about ??????‚??85 -90
     
    Ouch.
     
    Obviously things look rather better if you're building one of his EMUS , where the bogies and underframe detail are right. But still, the 150/2's not cheap and it's not complete.
     
    Unquote
     
    Quote:
    Speaking of MTK, I've spent the afternoon sticking a few bits of whitemetal. Here's the base of the Bratchill 150/2 kit.
     

     
    Most of the bits on the side are now stuck to one of the underframes.
     
    Working out what is what and what goes where from Jim Smith Wright's drawing, Railnews Stockspot2 and the NNK/MTK leaflet is a bit difficult. J S-W and Stockspot seem basically to agree, but the castings don't necessarily match. The two objects on the left with round fillers are the two ends of the fuel tank. They are neither the same shape , nor remotely the same length (one's about 2/3rds the length of the other) nor the same height. The circular discs appear to be meant as representations of the ends of the air tanks???
     
    Its going to have to be strictly representional , I'm afraid , but at least it will be a represenatation of a DMU , not (like Bratchill's bits) a representation of an EMU
     
    Gives the thing bags of weight though
     
    Having discarded chunks of the kit to replace them with detailing bits from elsewhere, I'm now discarding detailing bits to replace them with bits from the kit...
     
    Those curious objects looking like whitemetal archery targets seen in the piccy above which are alleged to be airtanks , or at least the ends of airtanks (one of the late Mr Massingham's less plausible fibs) to be precise. I stuck them on, found they were wonky, shakily attached , and didn't even begin to resemble the air tanks found under Mk3 derivative stock , or the drawings or anything else really. Sanity dawned, I reached into the relevant bag of Bratchill bits, retreived 4 x plastic air tanks and stuck 'em on. A plastic rod drive shaft between gearbox asnd engine went in to
     
    Apart from that I've been adding plasticard sides to MTK/NNK's cast facades for battery boxes etc
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Fri May 04, 2007 5:46 pm
     
    By the time I reached the bogies , we were into mix and match territory...
     
    Quote
    No work done, just some shopping
     
    I finally phoned MB Models in quest of the Lima 156 bogie frames recommended by cloggydog. Unfortunately they're now out of stock , as they've had quite a few people buying them recently . Wonder why that would be....? Perhaps I'm not the only person who's actually building a Bratchill Sprinter
     
    So I resorted to Plan B , and ordered some Hornby Networker bogies and one or two other bits from East Kent Models . Service was exemplary - stuff ordered on Tuesday afternoon was waiting for me when I got home yesterday
     
    The sideframes will need to be sawn off the bogie mouldings and superglued to etched H-frame units - I have a pack of A1 Models etches in stock. It looks like I will have to fill in the slight recesses around the bogie pivots , and possibly file down the mounts as well (fortunately the holes are the same size in the Bratchill floorpan and the etches)
     
    The trailing vehicle is the easy bit . More awkward is the powered vehicle. Gluing the sideframes to the Beetle is not difficult . However I will have to provide pickups on the trailing bogie and that's a bit more problematic.
     
    Soldering a wire across the top of the cross stretcher for wiper pickup from the top is easy enough, but means the H frame is live to one rail. Fitting a second pickup is then more awkward. Last time I tried this , on a light rail vehicle, I ended up with through wiring to 2 trailing bogies , each one live to one side, because attempts to fit a second pickup on a bogie resulted in shorts.
     
    Through-wiring an articulated LRV is one thing, but I'm not going to do that on a 2 car DMU. And there must be a chance of simply fitting an excellent set of brakes to the trailing bogie
     
    Seating is another problem . I took the Hornby 155 out of its box last night and a number of problems started to emerge for the 153 conversion. The moulded seats in the 155 are nothing like the seating units supplied by DC Kits - which I'm increasingly certain are 2 + 3 high density seating for a Modernisation Plan unit, and not 2+2 seating for a Sprinter. So they are completely unsuitable. I'm not sawing down 3 seat units one by one into 2 seat units (This is despite being quite explicit on the phone to DC Kits about what I wanted , and being assured they would provide a suitable pack)
     
    Unfortunately E Kent's Hornby spares list does not include seating units for the 155. The candidates are Networker seating (almost certainly 3+2 suburban), Mk3 seating , and Eurostar seating . If anyone has any comments , I'd be glad to hear them , but present thinking is to go with the Eurostar seating units as being 2 + 2 and presumably having plenty of airline seating
     
    I'll need more seating for the 153s anyway , as the seating needs to be extended at both ends to fill the unit, as well as installing end partitions. And I suspect I will have to replace the bogies with etched H frames when I do the conversion - the Hornby versions are the very opposite of open
     
    There's also the complication of the wiring and installation for the decoder on the 150 . I'm making the coach with the toilet the powered vehicle with a view to hiding the decoder in the toilet compartment
     
    It doesn't seem to be getting more straightforward
     
    Unquote
     
    By mid July the tale was looking still more like a corkscrew :
     
    Quote
    And things have got even less straightforward , as the person who was going to paint the unit (and any 153 conversions) can't now do it intil the New Year , if even then
     
    The gubbins has now been installed under the second floor pan , and here is a picture for anyone else who is trying to reconcile a bag of whitemetal bits with a couple of drawings and concluding that the two things don't exactly match.....
     

     
    This is the second and very slightly better underframe. You will see that the two ends of the fuel tank bear no relation to each other....
     
    I don't guarantee this is absolutely accurate compared to the real vehicles - in fact I'm sure there are some differences (fuel tank for starters , and the exact shape of the exhaust arrangement being two). However it is a reasonable approximation of the equipment underneath a 150/2 , as opposed to the excellent model of the underneath of a 321 MS which is what you get if you s8imply use the bits in the kit
     
    After further investigation , I've decided the best way forward for the seating is Mk4 TSO coach interiors from E.Kent Models. These have the right sort of seats in a 2+2 arrangement with a fair amount of aircraft seating in the mix . A fair amount of chopping up of the units will be necessary, but it's the only route that offers something approximately correct
     
    It's perhaps worth adding that there are two black plastic airtanks underneath the exhaust unit, both mounted laterally , not transversely, with the smaller tank towards the centre. Black on black hasn't shown up well
     
    Unquote
     
    The start of August saw things working towards the rails:
     
    Quote
     
    I had a day off yesterday, and actually got a bit of modelling done
     
    Thankfully the weather is now cool enough to dig out the soldering iron. 3 x A1 etched H frame bogies were folded up and soldered, and the sideframes cut from the Hornby Networker bogies stuck on with cyano. The brass of the etch does project slightly above the cosmetic side frames but I think I'll have to live with that.
     
    I've fitted two to the trailer vehicle, using the Bratchill screws and attachment points. The recessed wells in the floor pan have been packed down to floor level to provide a bearing surface for the fold up bearing tabs
     
    And suddenly I've got a vehicle, instead of a collection of bits and sub assemblies. All it needs is windows, interior,lights and one or two details. Photo will follow
     
    Even better, my Boy's Bumper Bag of Kadees arrived from MG Sharp, and a little experiment showed that a dropped head Kadee should mount at the correct height via the enlarged coupler slot I filed in the front
     
    I'm told that The Thing To Do is to use a medium shank Kadee at one end and a long shank Kadee at the other , as this will get it round a 2' radius curve. There's a packet of medium shank overset Kadees in the Starter Pack, but no long shank equivalent, and the separate packet of #49 long shanks I ordered is still on back order..
     
    I've decided to make the DMSoL the motor car as this gives me a toilet compartment in which I can hide the decoder
     
    I've even started to contemplate the supplementary pickups off the trailing bogie in a cheerful frame of mind .
     
    And I've found someone else to do the paint job. It's starting to come together
     
    Unquote
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Fri May 04, 2007 6:23 pm
     
    Quote
    As promised, a photo:
     

     
    I'm afraid black plastic doesn't produce the clearest results. We'll have to say its currently a Stealth Sprinter. But it rolls very freely, sits very steady and weighs quite a bit
     
    As the Mk4 seating has arrived from E.Kent Models, I've started some desultry hacking. I was going to fit interiors after painting , but I've come to the conclusion I'm going to have to fit the interior on the powered vehicle before it goes away for painting, so that I can get all the wiring round it. (to be specific , Decoder, leading bogie pickups, Beetle pickups, and Express Models lighting)
     

     
    The problem of the snowploughs seems to have a solution , and I'd better order some for the 153s as well
     
    Unquote.
     
    It was not long after this that we managed to break RMWeb1.5....
     
    A hasty knot in the thread and we rejoin RMWeb2 late in September...
     


    The cast brass snowploughs for the 150 have arrived from Hurst , so we may see some progress on that front , too.
    Some comments from bigjim, who had done some 153 conversions :
     


    quote:
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Originally posted by Ravenser
     
    The cast brass snowploughs for the 150 have arrived from Hurst , so we may see some progress on that front , too.
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    they are good those ploughs, i find when fitting them put a dummy bsi on and glue the plough to the body and rest them on the coupling too, otherwise they fall off, or use miliput, they really make a world of difference to the 153 models, i have done loads of them now, far too many, i can do them in my sleep now!!
     
    heres one of my efforts, i know you have seen my "times are changing" so heres a different one "heart of wales"
     
    And bigjim again:
     


    quote:
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Originally posted by Ravenser
     
    Thanks for the comments. I'm afraid I don't have any bright ideas to sort the bogies, so a little bit of trickery with a mk 1 paintbrush looks the only option
     
    The Hurst snowploughs do seem to "lift" the 153s. My 150 looks very naked around the front end withough ploughs .
     
    Whose conversion pack did you use for the 153 conversions ? I've got a Hornby 155 to rework at some stage and some A1 packs in stock .
    And how were the vinyls done?
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    the kit i used was the hurst one, really good quality and simple to do.
     
    as for the vinyls i took pics of the real thing and measured the dimensions (got some funny looks off the passengers as i did it during a turn round at crewe a few years back!!) and got someone to make them for me (lettering only) but the big pic on the side was simply done by photographing the real thing side on and reducing it in size on the computer then printing it onto a sticky label!!
     
    if you want some "heart of wales" decals i have some left over and a set of "times are changing" too, i also have loads of arriva decals
     
    i tried to fit a spud motor to another 153 i did and it ran like a dog, i got it in a mtk class 150 kit which i ended up using the motor/underframe castings on a 153 and chucking the rest in the spares bin (where it is still languishing) i ended up putting the Hornby motor back in
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Edited by - big jim on 16/10/2006 21:36:01
    And rather embarrasingly, there the matter has rested ever since, as a couple of locos , a Challenge layout and the club project plus various bits of admin have been ahead of the 150 in the queue
     
    With most of those disposed of, I'm hoping the 150 and the Challenge project can make some progress this weekend.
     
    The delay hasn't entirely been a bad thing. Thanks to one or two people I now have some much better ideas about how to install the Express Models lighting kit. The circuit board will now be mounted on the roof, avoiding much awkward sawing up of the interior seating to fit round it. This will also mean that the LEDs can stay firmly inserted into the cab front, and there will be no complications in routing the wire+ plug to the slave lighting unit in the trailer via the gangway. Effectively the whole thing becomes part of the removeable top - not the underframe
     
    This also means that the partitions can be glued in place and I just have to cut a notch in the top for the wire to pass through. And it leaves the underframe clear to install a Tony Wright style simple wire coupling between cars. This gets round the possible problem of Kadees uncoupling between the cars if standing in the wrong spot
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Tue May 08, 2007 5:22 pm
     
    I had lots of good intentions for the Bank Holiday weekend. I was going to crack on and sort out the bogies for the poweered car , pickups, motor bogie , that sort of thing.
     
    And what happened?
     
    Er, well I almost finished the trailer car instead.
     
    It now has an interior, with seats concocted out of chopped up bits of Hornby Mk4 interiors. Unfortuately part way through the process I rechecked my references and realised that 150s are supposed to have 3+2 seating , not 2+2. At least nearly all of them do. I'm afraid I was led astray by too many miles on 153s and 156s . The HornbyNetworker interiors would presumably be more appropriate, and I suppose I should have written off for some and called a halt till they arrived...
     
    In fact being a OO bodger , not a P4 modeller , I'm afraid I assembled the interiors using 2+2 seating , set in "airline seating" on the principle that it is going to be pretty difficult to see the details of the interior through the windows and so long as there are shapes , of a suitable shape , in a suitable place , of approximately the correct colour , the eye will be happy and not enquire further
     
    Lighting has been fitted , using double sided stickytape to hold the slave unit of the Express Models lighting kit to the roof and the cab front (sticky pad behind the gangway door)
     
    I've also added part of a Hurst Models detailing kit (for the 155). I took some effort to file the profile of the top of etch to match the moulded gangway, and on checking a photo I find that the top of the gangway seems to have less of a rounded corner - like the etch. Are the Bratchill moulded gangways not quite right?
     
    I'm struggling with the other bits on the etch. I've identified the door opening buttons (already used A1's), the windscreen wipers (moulded on the glazing) but there are 2 square brass frames which sat inside the gangeways on the etch and some other tiny bits, and I've no idea what they are....
     
    All that needs doing to the trailer car now is fit the etched roof aerial pod and the brass snowploughs - plus painting and fitting of the glazing
     
    Then I've really no excuse for not sorting out the power car
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Wed May 16, 2007 9:24 pm
     
    Over the weekend I actually got the pickups installed on the power car. Two bits of brass handrail wire soldered to a piece of copperclad strip (as sold for building points - spare from a Mainly Trains sample pack) , with a connection to the inside from some strands of computer ribbon cable.
     
    The copperclad was pared away with a craft knife before cutting off to length so that the whole lot would be low enough to fit on the cross beam of the H frame without fouling underneath the floor. I added loops to the ends of the pickups - much easier to adjust than bare ends
     
    The worst is almost over. Can the end really be in sight now?
     
    Thanks to several threads several new loco projects float back into view. The Airfix 31 should definitely be tarted up. I even have a spare painted body , bought as part of the Dapol factory clearance along with the body I used for the 20 (as well as a battered and crudely painted one bought for 50p) I shall probably spare the original body ton please collectors and rework the spare.
     
    However a hasty check throws up no photos of 31 402 - and besides it seems she went from FP to the WR . Besides , the Airfix body is pre refurbishment, and couldn't easily be altered. I'm not certain of the visible differences between an unrefurbished 31/1 and original 31/4 conversion so I'd best stick to an early 31/4
     
    Checking through a Cl31 site threw up another, better candidate loco : 31 408 . This is well recorded in photos , was at MR, BS , and CD in 1985-90
     
    And best of all is this:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31408-bk-090383_t.jpg
     
    a JohnTurner shot of her at Brocklesby in March 83 with a Cleethorpes/Newark local service ( 4 x Mk1s) - allocated to IM and working in N.Lincs. Any unrefurb 31/4 is going to be slightly out of period on Artamon Square in 1988-90 (a Steve Jones shot at Stafford in 1988 shows her refurbished) but 31 408 is going to be spot on for my theoretical ultimate N.Lincs early 80s interests
     
    And thanks to Jim S-W , the scrapbox 37 is definitely back on as Athearn PA1 chassis can be DCC'd. The second Athearn PA1 chassis is earmarked for the battered 31 body to give a green headcode box Brush 2 for the little GE BLT project I've got involved with (We'll try to keep it to the Gresley compo kit and the Dublo 20 not the ex LNWR BCK and the road van)
     
    A further thread took me to Russell Saxton's livery site. And a photo then raised an interesting possibilty for the Ultrascaled Lima headcode box 20 lurking in a cupboard. Maybe not a mid-late 80s blue IM loco. Nor a late 60s blue loco for the cancelled Thamesside plank.Try a late 70s green TO loco?? I hadn't realised 20 177 was still in green , at Toton, in late 1976. That could easily find itself in the Scunthorpe area
     
    Speaking of Ultrascales I must write off for repleacement wheelsdets for the Pacers to sort out the binding problem in the diverging roads of the points (what was that Capain Kernow was saying about a Jinty and an A6??) . With any luck I should have them by the start of 2008. I don't think sorting out the Pacers is going to be an early priority
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Pennine MC on Wed May 16, 2007 9:39 pm
     


    Ravenser wrote:
    . I'm not certain of the visible differences between an unrefurbished 31/1 and original 31/4 conversion so I'd best stick to an early 31/4
     
    None, bar the ETH gear (which Airfix didnt model anyway). Some (non-ER) 31/4s had the boiler exhaust plated, but so did some 31/1s - an easy mod with thin plasticard. So with another Fotopic trawl, you *might* just find a 31/1 that was still unrefurbed in the late 80s
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Phil on Thu May 17, 2007 7:03 am
     


    Ravenser wrote:
     
    Try a late 70s green TO loco?? I hadn't realised 20 177 was still in green , at Toton, in late 1976. That could easily find itself in the Scunthorpe area
     
    Ravenser - try 20141. I think that was the last, or one of the last 20s to carry green livery - possibly even into 1980. At least, I think it was green under all the dirt !!!!
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Phil on Thu May 17, 2007 7:07 am
     
    The ever helpful Brian Daniels fotopic site :
     
     
    http://briandaniels.fotopic.net/p38615978.html
     
    Continued thanks Bri !!!!
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Sat Jun 23, 2007 7:45 pm
     
    This is by way of a blatant bump , in order to stop the thread being locked.
     
    The melancholy fact is that with various distractions, I haven't actually made any progress on any of these fronts in the last month. In particular no progress at all has been made on the Sprinter.
     
    Maybe tomorrow, or possibly next weekend. At least the external distractions are clearing, and I'm hopeful some of these projects can be finalised in the next few weeks.
     
    In the meantime I have managed a little bit of modelling , and have started a very elderly building kit, which is going to need a lot of upgrading. Yet another large cardboard box with a half built project in it is cluttering up the sitting room
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:49 pm
     
    Resurrecting my workbench thread from the depths , I'm shocked to see exactly how little I've done, and for how long. Building a layout does seem to preclude building any stock. There has been zero progress on the Sprinter
     
    However the purpose of this is to record a way forward for dealing with the factory weathering on a Hornby 31. I didn't really feel comfortable with the weathering or the colour it left the blue - photos suggest the sides of 31s were fairly clean and blue , not covered in brownish gunk on their lower half - that stayed below the body
     
    You are of course always advised to try out a new weathering technique on a piece of old junk in case it goes horribly wrong. So I tried it out on a new Hornby 31... In reality if you want to see what you can do about a particular factory effect , you don't have a lot of choice.
     
    I took a scratchbrush , aka a fibreglass pencil , to the paintwork. At the top of the thread I mention
     


    the 31 where I misconnected a loose wire and fried the decoder,
    I now have 2 x Hornby 31s: rather than risk 31 174, which works, has a bodyside band and was allocated to IM in the 80s, I tried to minimise my risk by using poor 31 270 , which is none of these things and is still stopped. I started from the bottom , and worked up , very gently - the whole process was rather hair raising when you recall the price of these things, and the idea was that if it went horribly wrong and I went through the finish, it could be patched up and rescued as rust affected/paint stripped areas, which appear on the bottom of the body in shots of run down 31s
     
    Thankfully it worked , and the preliminary results are seen here.
     

     
    I haven't finished work - I've simply gone far enough to be sure it's working. When I do press on , the intention would be to apply a thin weathering wash of grey over all then pick out grills in black . Applying my usual matt varnish overcoat might be awkward here.
     
    And if I'm going to put that effort into weathering, I have to get the thing to work again....
     
    I've also started work on adapting the inevitable Pikestuff kit for a low relief building. After the long struggle with the ballast, quick results are morale boosting.
     

    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Platform 6 on Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:29 am
     
    Thanks for the update on your thread - especially on the Hornby 31. I have a couple but I don't admire the Hornby "weathering". I really want to do my own. Removing it is a first step I've wondered about.
     
    I've also got a Pikestuff 3-road shed from a few years ago and again, I don't know what to do with it. I don't know of any sheds in "Pikestuff blue" - I'm thinking of a light grey to respray it. I'm modelling pre-TOPS blue.
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:03 pm
     
    Platform6:
     
    I've treated the Pikestuff shed with Humbrol Metalcote, a light silver, and it seems to give a very satisfactory result (details in the Blacklade construction thread near the end). You could also try mid green : there certainly seem to be some green sheds near us
     
    I know the Challenge is over , and I really shouldn't be working on Blacklade but... While trying to sort out the photos on Sunday I posed an unbuilt card kit for a warehouse in the right place to show the effect, and well.. I couldn't help thinking that all it needed was layering up and one thing led to another and I had yesterday off and by lunch time we were well under way to a warehouse.
     
    The kit is one of those added to the Bilteezi range in the early 80s as a sort of postscript and drawn very nicely by Maurice Bradley - I think he was an architect as he has "letters" - ARIBA.
     
    I've bought 2 kits , and I'm layering them using mounting board with the printed windows and cut out. This gives some genuine relief to the model. Photos to follow - the basic principles should be applicable to the Bilteezi range in general and also to Street Level Models kits
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by MartinWales on Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:55 pm
     
    Nice work on the 31-I'm just plucking up the courage to weather mine!!
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:48 pm
     
    I've been working on another building for Blacklade . This is one of the Bilteezi sheets - not the original Vacy-Ash sheets from he 50s but one of the low relief buildings drawn by Maurice Bradley in the 80s. He seems to have letters - ARIBA - so I assume he was a qualified architect
     
    The original building was in Hampshire I believe but similar Victorian brick warehouses are common enough in the E.Midlands and therefore right for Blacklade.
     
    The big issue with the Bilteezi sheets is they're flat. The printed windows can be worked round but part of the character of these buildings is they're chunky and have deep inset brickwork.
     
    Never fear - heavy rework time ....
     

     
    Here we have the bits. At ???’???‚¬????????‚??1.50 a sheet (actually 2 x A4) , buying two isn't a hardship. One front has had the recesses cut out, and been mounted to 1mm mounting board. The other has had the windows cut out and been mounted to 1mm mounting board. All brickwork has had a light rub over with a suitable pastel pencil to tone down the yellow and give it more of a Midland redbrick look - in this case, Derwent Terracotta
     
    To minimise warping , I'm using permanent Photomount to fix the thin card to mounting board. Blacklade isn't going to be exhibited (for lack of means to move it) and I hope this will be perminent enough
     

     
    Here we see some hasty masking up with freezer tape to keep Photomount off the bits that will be visible after layering up
     
    A fair bit of the afternoon was spent cutting slivers of card from spare bits of the kit and sticking them over the exposed mounting board edges . All the windows and all the doors have been done as well as the recesses. Not quite as bad as it sounds, and the finished result can be seen here
     
    Close flash photography is quite cruel to my felt tip and pastel pencil touching in of the edges, but there is an awful lot less edge to touch in than if I'd just left the mounting board unclad (brown seems better than red , and a rub with something called Sanguine de Medici seemed to help - this pencil is from another range , grabbed cheap in a closing down sale . Quite why the Medicis are supposed to have had a darker shade of blood I can't say....)
     
    And here is the result. :
     

     
    The imperfections are not quite so obvious in life ("honest guv!") and the result is a very chunky frontage with heavy relief . You'd not think it was a flat card kit to start with
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Sun Jan 06, 2008 12:26 pm
     
    The warehouse is now finished and awaits installation.
     
    So last night, between sneezes, I opened one of the packets of Ultrascale wheels for the Pacers, expecting that this would be the usual 5 minute drop in job.
     
    It isn't
     
    There are no instructions, which is a good start.
     
    I've removed the trailing wheels , only to find the replacements won't fit. They have a dirty great boss on the back of each wheel which fouls the plastic moulding very comprehensively. Still worse , this moulding is a bearing surface - the pin points fit into an open U where the W irons whould be , and are held down by plastic in the centre on which the axle runs . Except that on the placement wheelsets thereis a rubby great boss in the way. So somehow I've got to file the plastic down , on both sides , to get the replacement wheelset in.
     
    I can't simply leave the original Hornby wheel set in place (it was the driven axle that caused the problems over point work). This is because the Ultrascale wheels are smaller diameter than the Hornby wheels they replace
     
    The driving axle is more fun. It looks as if I have to knock the old axle out with a nail (and the gear wheel!) to extract the old wheels , then remount the gear wheel on the new axle - somehow - and add the wheels
     
    I suspect a tiny drop of superglue to secure the gear wheel may be appropriate - I don't have any Loctite (And I do mean a tiny drop)
     
    I bought a Pacer replacement chassis from Branchlines a month or so back , and compared to this it looks relatively straightforward , reliable and well engineered. Significantly easier to do , in fact. I never thought I'd ever say that about attempting a chassis kit....
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    Comment posted by jim s-w on Sun Jan 06, 2008 12:36 pm
     


    Ravenser wrote:
     
    The driving axle is more fun. It looks as if I have to knock the old axle out with a nail (and the gear wheel!) to extract the old wheels , then remount the gear wheel on the new axle - somehow - and add the wheels
     
    I suspect a tiny drop of superglue to secure the gear wheel may be appropriate - I don't have any Loctite (And I do mean a tiny drop)
    Hiya
     
    Out of interest are the Ultrascales 10.5mm diameter or 12mm like the Hornby originals? Rather than Gluing the gear on a better bet is to knurl the axle by rolling it with a file a few times.
     
    Did you get your 150 finished? Did you have any window frames off me
     
    Cheers
     
    Jim
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    ??? posted on Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:44 pm
     
    Jim:
     
    1. Hornby 13mm diameter; Ultrascale 12.25mm
     
    2 There is roughening /knurling of the replacement axle at its mid point. However alignment may be interesting as the gear will have to be fittted in place - you can't extract the wheelset , as it slots through a metal casting with the gear sitting in a cut out in the centre.
     
    The more I look at this, the worse it gets . I can't even fully disengage the motor unit from the chassis without unsoldering connnections
     
    3. The 150 is still unfinished. Having got the warehouse out of the way , I was looking for a nice quick win before turning to finish off longer term projects , and I thought an Ultrascale rewheeling pack would be a doddle: 10-15 mins at most....
     
    A final push on the 150 should be the next item on the agenda, or pretty close to it
     
    I haven't had some of your etches, but I probably need them. How do they fit into the build sequence ? I'm having the unit painted by someone else, and they asked for it before the glazing is fitted, to simplify masking. I assume the etches must go on before painting as the paint partly covers??
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    Comment posted by jim s-w on Sun Jan 06, 2008 4:44 pm
     


    Ravenser wrote:
    Jim:
     
    I haven't had some of your etches, but I probably need them. How do they fit into the build sequence ? I'm having the unit painted by someone else, and they asked for it before the glazing is fitted, to simplify masking. I assume the etches must go on before painting as the paint partly covers??
    Thats right - etches go on before paint.
     
    If it were me I'd use the Branchlines or High Level kits for the 142. Ultrascale sounds like a bit of a pain and will result with the wrong sized wheels anyway.
     
    Cheers
     
    Jim
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:10 pm
     
    Jim: This may be a stunningly stupid question but - can you fit the glazing after the etches - or does this require the sequence glazing/etches/paint , meaning the glazing has to be masked for painting?
     
    I've a feeling I may be parking the Pacer in the too hard basket for the moment . Making up the girders for the bridge looks like a more productive use of a Sunday evening
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by jim s-w on Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:32 pm
     
    Hi
     
    No, you fit the glazing after the paint. You do need to cut your own but there is a small overlap between the etch and the hole. I have asked a lazer cutting company about the costs of getting windows cut - if its viable i'll let you know
     
    Cheers
     
    Jim
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:35 pm
     
    So I'd have to throw away the window glazing in the kit?
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    Comment posted by jim s-w on Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:44 pm
     
    Yeah
     
    Its means you loose that god awful prism and the over thick frames effect too You do re-use the door glazing though
     
    Cheers
     
    Jim
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:22 pm
     
    Hmm.
     
    I'm starting to wonder just how many bits of this Bratchill kit I'm actually going to use , having already discarded virtually everything below the floor and replaced with components from other sources
     
    I made a little progress with the Pacer. The trailing axle can be pullerd out and worked on seperately. The moulding has an open U-iron on each side - the wheelset is held in place by running through two slots in plastic lumps that project upward between the wheels (ie within the back to back). I reckon you need to file these back from the outside to get the wheels in place. It may or may not be necessary to file down the projections to the bottom of the slot . I did, over filed , and will now need to cannibalise a spare moulding off the second Pacer. As I have a Branchlines pack for the second Pacer, that's not a problem . Anyone with just the one Pacer and an Ultrascale pack would now be tearing out his hair.
    ________________________________________
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