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Ravenser

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  1. 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="">
  2. Ravenser
    You may have noticed in these postings occasional mutters that "I must build the screen walls for the station" . In most postings in this blog , in fact.
     
    Well, with the electrics more or less done (only the Kadee electromagnets and a couple of signals remain to nag at my conscience) I've finally attacked what is the last big scenic job on the layout. Quite a bit of tidying up, fettling and detail work remains but this is the last big block of new construction
     
    Here we have the back screen wall - the remains of a former trainshed - under construction. Main materials are mounting board and Howard Scenics brickpaper, treated with pastel crayon (Terracotta) to redden it
     

     
    And here is the vaguely ecclesiatic end elevation of the old trainshed, facing out towards Artamon Square, under construction
     

     
    The lancet windows (echoes of Liverpool St) were worrying me a little , but a peek in Observer Book of cathedrals revealed that the real things are based on an equallateral triangle. Place your compass point at the top of the vertical on one side of the window, and strike an arc upwards from the top of the vertical on the other side of the window. Turn the compasses round, repeat the process from the top of the other side. Where the two arcs intersect is the top of your arch. Cut carefully along the drawn arcs - bingo, a lancet . Phew
     
    The door is a spare from the Scalescenes Retaining wall/archway kit
     
    Only two sides are finished , but the improvement is dramatic:
     

     

     
    In the second view you can see the unfinished section of the wall - this still needs external brick pilasters adding , plus the brickpaper to represent the bricked up former windows . For this I have used Superquick red brick , toned down with pastels (Burnt Sienna, Terracotta) and the arches are from the Prototype models brickpaper sheets (red again, with pastel weathering). It is assumed the LMR Architects Dept vandalised the original station in the late 50s/early 60s. The gap will be taken up by the surviving station building, which is supposed to act as a "viewblocker" at this edge of the layout (I'm not entirely certain about the concept , now I come to execute it, but I hope it adds rather than detracts from the visual impression.)
     
    Just how all this has transformed the station and made it gel can be seen by comparison with an earlier show of the same area:
     

     
    Although width is desperately restricted , I have managed to space the rear wall off the backscene slightly - very slightly where it passes in front of the brown brick office - but enough for there to be a small gap between the wall and the backscene , meaning that the backscene is visibly somewhere behind it
     
    Giving a station this small a trainshed is not in fact implausible . Lincoln St Marks (ex Midland) - which could only take 3 Mk3s on the platform - clearly originally had one , and in its later days had it removed:
     

     
    and this seems to have been a pretty standard scenario for medium sized stations built in Lincolnshire during the late 1840s:
     
    New Holland Town (MSLR - opened 1848)

     
    Market Rasen (MSLR opened 1848):

     
    (Gainsborough Central follows the same pattern)
     
    Louth (GNR opened 1848 - here , as typically on the GNR , the roof was a two pitched affair , supported by cast iron pillars between the tracks )

     
    with Boston being similar
     
    Firsby retained its overall roof until closure in 1970 , and possibly Alford Town may have done the same (all GNR 1848)
     
    In fact the only surviving overall roof is Grimsby Town (again MSLR 1848) which was renewed in 1976
     
    I've leant more to MSLR practice as those are the examples I'm most familiar with, although lacklade is supposed to be an ex MR station
  3. Ravenser
    In a previous posting , I mentioned trams . I am trying quite hard to be a good boy and finish things off ,not take on new projects and commitments; but despite my best intentions there have been stirrings on the tramway front.
     
    It started when something caused me to look at the Street Level Models website. I spotted a card kit for Manor House tram station (LT), and that started something stirring. Wasn't Manor House the northern terminus of one of the Kingsway Subway routes ? It was - route 33 to be precise, which lasted until close to the end of London's trams. Could this make a modest diorama to display a tram or two? A quick check of the track map in the back of LCC Tramways Handbook ( no doubt long out of print) showed the track layout at Manor House as a crossroads of two double track routes, with a connection between two of the legs. But on which leg was the tram station? Did Subway cars terminate there?
     
    I mentioned in an earlier post about layout projects and commitments (here) that I had vague inchoate aspirations towards a tramway layout, potentially a London tram layout and that the Highgate Archway area seemed to have potential. The trouble with this was that it would also require a lot of space, or at least length, and if I threw in Holloway depot for good measure , probably with as well
     
    Manor House and the kit promised something smaller , but the crossing is a bit of a problem . Still the operating potential should be high . Initial thoughts crystalised into a figure of 8 , with the 4 arms of the double track crossing linked behind the scenes. At the northern end , this would just be a double track loop providing off stage storage, but at the other end, there would be a single track loop past a depot, , and two double track routes going off stage (using a cassette):
     
    A very crude sketch will show what I mean: - top is north(ish)
     

     
    Nearly all of this is prototypical , the liberties being the depot and connecting loop at the bottom , and joining the two arms of the crossing behind the scenes at the top . In reality, the right hand leg of the X continued via Stamford Hill, Hackney and Bethnal Green to Aldgate , while the top leg headed for Alexandra Palace, Enfield and Barnet
     
    Obviously this is all very loose and undimensioned, but then this is only a very general conceptual sketch of a might-be (one day)
     
    In the cupboard I had a Tower Feltham kit, and a Tower E1 kit , not to mention a KeilKraft West Ham car. Of course you can't credibly model London with a single E/1. I made the fatal mistake of looking at ebay for the first time in years , and within 10 days I had won two more Tower E/1 kits, a Tower kit for the centre entrance Feltham prototype "Cissie" and a nice diecast Corgi Feltham in LT livery. I think the whole lot came to about £30
     
    Then there's the ABS LCC storesvan kit in the cupboard, not to mention the LCC B class kit, the etched LCC F class single decker Subway car, and the card M class from StreetLevel
     
    Of course I'm not committed to building anything
     
    Shenfield added the StreetLevel Manor House tram station and a changepit. The north leg of the X was MET , not LCC and therefore overhead - the wires continued to the layby loop at Finsbury Park (represented at the bottom left of the sketch) which was for MET services to terminate. Whether any did , is a moot point, but you could imagine Route 34, which ran from Ally Pally using the single decker cars modelled by Ks, being extended. Failing a Ks kit a plausible representation could be bashed out of a Mehano tram....The LT Feltham displays Route 21, which was a joint LCC/MET service from Holborn taking the left to top connection at the Manor House crossing and continuing to North Finchley. Kingsway Subway Route 33 terminated just south of the crossing
     
    This is all strictly hypothetical, you understand....
     
    A trip to Kew Bridge last weekend was meant to supply some mechanisms for bogie trams. Unfortunately both the trader who supplies tram mechanisms and ABS were absent, and although there was a German trader who had a Halling mechanism on his stand he was only taking cash and I didn't have £47 in cash left ...
     
    Which is a great pity , because what I did buy was this:
     

     
    and about the only thing that would fit to mechanise it is a Halling mechanism. HO is really rather small, and this kit brings it home. Not quite the Holy Grail in whitemetal but not far off - the only Sydney tram kit of which I'm aware
     
    What on earth would I do with this kit ? Well, that's only too easy . A small layout based on the Wynyard terminus of the N Sydney tramways would make a good boxed diorama and could plausibly be done in something like 6 ' x 9"..... The awkward fact is that this is one idea which I might actually have space for , but Wynyard in the rush hour needs more than one trams , and the question arises what else I could come up with
     
    Of couse I'm not committed to building this, or anything else, you understand....
  4. Ravenser

    Set 5 - Quick and Slow: Part 1 Quick (I hope)

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    After a long while contemplating the idea, I finally bought one of the Dapol LMS coaches in CKD form . I prefer CKD form as it's a little cheaper, and as I'm going to work on the thing I am saved the trouble of finding out how to dismantle it. The intended victim is a CK in BR Blood and Custard
     
    The CK seems to be the pick of Dapol's ex Mainline Stanier coaches - Coachmann's expert assessment is here
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67996-making-use-of-Dapol-lms-coach-kits/?p=958249
     
    And it's also - perhaps not by coincidence - a notable omission from the high-spec range of Stanier coaches that Hornby produced a few years ago.
     
    Having decided to build the Mailcoach LNER Tourist Brake 3rd as a partner for my Hachette BR Mk1 SK (forming Set 4) , in part because their gangways match , I was left with an LMS Porthole Brake 3rd kit.The obvious question was what could it be paired with - and a Dapol CK seemed the cheapest and fastest answer. That would also provide some First class accommodation - something which will be conspicuously lacking from Set 4. Also conspicuously lacking from the steam stock is anything in Blood and Custard - because I don't feel up to doing two tone liveries myself . Getting a factory applied finish is therefore a big bonus.
     
    What needs to be done to these CKD coaches? The 60' underframe on the CK is basically correct - unlike the 57' coaches, which incorrectly have the non-corridor underframe . Detailing work is shown in the photo:
     

     
    The new whitemetal buffers aren't terribly clear, but they are there . I bought an LMS underframe pack and set of etched crossmembers from Comet at Stevenage , at the same time as buying the coach. The spare battery box casting will be donated to the MTK Porthole brake as an upgrade
     
    So to the body
     

     
    The first job - and the biggest "win" is flushglazing. I used SE Finecast vacuum formed glazing because Shawplan have not done this vehicle in their Lazerglase range - a surprising omission given that this is a decent model; and the only RTR option for a key type of vehicle. I also touched in the window edges in black to reduce the slab-sided effect - since my hand wasn't absolutely steady and the black line isn't absolutely perfect this is a double edged benefit, but it doesn't detract overall.
     
    The roof vents are a story of blunders . I "upgraded" with a packet of whitemetal torpedo vents. But... LMS official photos in Historic Carriage Drawings show shell vents on LMS Period 3 stock. Pothole stock - which was built under BR - clearly had torpedo vents , and so did the push-pull conversions of Stanier stock . LMS Period 3 vehicles in preservation often - but not always - have torpedo vents. I eventually found a photo of a coach on the ex GW Birkenhead route that seemed to have a mix of shell and torpedo vents - then I found a comment suggesting these were a special type of vents made at Wolverton.
     
    It looks as if some LMS Period 3 vehicles received torpedo vents at a later date , but how many, and whether it was while they were blood and custard, or only after preservation I don't know. By the time I realised there was an issue the vents were irretrievably stuck with cyano and the roof was painted a suitable muddy brown-grey, so I've left it. It may be right, after all.
     
    The interior was painted and a small number of figures added, though you hardly notice there are passengers in there.
     
    The plastic wheels were replaced by metal Hornby ones. I retained the Dapol gangway on one end, and used a Roxey pack to sort out the other . I say "used" advisedly , as most of it wasn't. To be honest the project stalled for a couple of months because I was scared of assembling the Roxey gangways , and in the end I looked at the etch, looked at the drawing and instructions, should my head in several places and only used the etched back of the gangway. The paper looked impossibly flimsy, and I used black card, but 5 folds proved too much and cased problems (read "derailments") on sharp curves , so I cut one fold away with scissors and reapplied the end plate. This was black painted plasticard - I used the Roxey etch as a gangway cover on the fixed end
     
    All it now needs is a weathering wash on the underframe
  5. Ravenser

    A Decent 31 - Finishing Off

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    31 415 is now finished - I've done rather more modelling than blog-posting in recent months.
     
     
    Much of the finishing seemed to be a question of paint
     
    I made a serious mistake with the noses and used Railmatch pre1984 yellow acrylic for the first coats. Nothing wrong with the shade , but I got a dreadful tar-brush result. Much careful/desperate rubbing down resulted , with fine emery boards and a little nail block someone directed me to , that has 4 different surfaces on a block and retails for about a pound in Superdrug. The file , ridge-remover, and buff surfaces were all used , and a vast improvement has been made . It's still not as good as if I'd used enamels from the start.
     
    After multiple coats of Railmatch yellow enamel well rubbed down between coats, I got a decent result.
     
    There is a very noticeable notch or recess under the nose door area which Airfix did not model - this was carefully chopped out using a narrow chisel blade in the X-Acto between two cut lines. As mentioned in my original posting on the 31 , the locos have a little wing plate on either side of the shoulder of the cab door. They are noticeable but I couldn't think how to represent them neatly and robustly so they've not been added
     
    The Airfix buffer beam is very bare indeed: there isn't even a moulded coupling hook. I use Kadees, and the loco is required to couple at both ends on a terminus to fiddle yard layout, so the scope for buffer beam detailing is limited. But after looking at various photos of 31s in Diesel Retrospective - Class 31, I felt something needed to be done to give the cluttered coloured lumps and pipes effect of the real thing. I made use of some spare whitemetal castings from an old detailing pack for a class 20 , which were not used on that model because they fouled the couplings... The effect is frankly representational but a good deal better than nothing. To avoid them fouling the Kadees, the pipe below buffer beam level was cut off with my Xurons
     
    One detail improvement that has a big effect is to paint the raised rim of the cab front windows black , to represent the rubber seal - this instantly enlarges the window and improves the proportions substantially, though it needs a very careful hand and a 00 or 000 brush (and quite possibly a little "wipe away and try again" in the odd place when you attempt it)
     
    Flush glaze is SE Finecast - Shawplan don't , so far as I'm aware, do Lazerglaze for such an old model
     
    Transfers are a mix of HMRS and Fox (flashes, blue stars etc) . The ETH box came out of the Howes buffer detail pack. Roof weathering is Revell anthracite, because that was a suitable shade I had to hand. Cleaning away any black paint that got where it shouldn't have sufficed as weathering on the nose, main radiator grills got a wash of anthracite, and other grills a mid grey wash. Beyond that I chickened out on bodyside weathering , other than a sealing coat of matt varnish - the reference photo of 31 415 at Skegness shows her quite clean
     
    The whitemetal castings representing internal pipework were fitted with Superglue on one side and UHU on the other (to prevent differential expansion cracking the Superglue) . The bottom parts of several of the castings had to be cut away to avoid fouling the chassis - needless to say I found this on a trial fitting after initially fixing them in place , so off they came. I also found that pure white made the pipe runs all too visible through the side windows, so a weathering wash (Humbrol blue/grey) was applied to those castings not irretrevably fixed . The others got a very dilute weathering wash over the windows themselves
     
    As an interesting contrast , here is the finished body shell next to the unmodified body I removed from the model:
     

     
    And as a final "as released to traffic" view here are some shots on the layout during a trial running session:
     

    and

     
    show 31415 side by side with my Hornby 31 174 (thankfully showing no signs of any mazak problems) - an interesting comparision between two models 20 years apart.
     
    And as I now have 2 x 31, an attempt was made for the first time to operate LHS1 (the loco hauled substituted set) in place of one DMU
     

     
    31 415 ran well and I'm pleased with the results
  6. Ravenser
    We left the NBL 21 as a nearly finished bodyshell, here . The sticking point was the need to produce flush glazing for those large curved cab windows by hand.
     
    Finishing the loco was my first big lockdown project and turned into a bit of a fight.
     
    It wasn't really the glazing - like quite a few frightening jobs that didn't prove as bad as I feared. I had used the Shawplan window etches as a template for the shape, traced onto an old business card. (Before I glued the etches onto the model, obviously).  I did this 3 times, to give me spares in case one window went wrong. These templates were cut out and fixed to clear plasticard, then I cut round . (I'm trying to remember whether they were held to the glazing with Pritt-stick or judiciously placed sticky tape. I think I may have done both). They were then filed until they went into the aperture and fixed in place with Rocket Glue and Glaze, which took care of any slight gaps between glazing and frame . Yes, ideally the fit would be good , but it looks perfectly ok at any normal viewing distance and in photos. The front quarterlight was also filed to fit - the rest of the glazing is SE Finecast
     
    Next for the chassis. I had sourced a Class 29 chassis frame and two Class 29 trailing bogies from Peter's Spares. I bought a Hornby Class 25 in blue as mint second-hand at Warley last year for about £50, and I robbed the 5 pole motor bogie out of that. (Before you suspect me of terminal cruelty to Rats, I then bought a Bachmann 25 with damaged handrails at Peterborough for £75, and the medium term intention is to combine the Hornby body with the Bachmann body to produce a super-douper blue Rat at a modest price. Ah, the days when we had shows, and could pile up more and more future projects that we never got round to doing...)
     
    Hornby Ringfield motor bogies were standard items across the range, so it snapped into one of the Class 29 bogie frames. The other bogie was rewheeled with Hornby disc coach wheels. This means a finer wheel profile with shallower flanges that don't catch and lift on stray bits of ballast on my SMP code 70 bullhead track, and has proved effective in preventing stalling on my Baby Deltic. Since there are traction tyres on the motor bogie the resulting chassis picks up on 6 wheels plus 2 crossed fingers. A spare Hornby weight - surplus from the Pacer I started long ago - was slotted into place. Those, too, were standard items at Margate.
     
    I fitted Kadees - long underset , from memory - to the bogies. The Hornby coupling is cut away, a plate of 40 thou plasticard glued underneath to bridge the gap, and then the draft box glued on top of this with solvent, microstrip packing round the sides if possible, and with a Kadee nylon screw  inserted from below for added retention. I think I may have added a spot of UHU on the top to stop it working loose.
     
    While I was about it, I did the same to my old Hornby 29 which was detailed up years ago it a desperate attempt to find a main line diesel that would run reliably on Ravenser Mk1. This loco needs converting to DCC and my first attempt about 18 months ago  failed ignominously, trashing a decoder. A complete rewire is needed: when it was first detailed I fitted Ultrascale wheels and all-wheel pickup, and something is evidently not right somewhere. This loco needs a damaged radiator grill replacing and I will probably have a go at reworking the cab front windows as well. The substantial difference in appearance this makes will be obvious from the photo below, and I have a second Shawplan etch in stock. While D6119 has a 3 pole motor and will never run quite as smoothly, this would at least get it into some kind of use. The "rationale" would be that the loco was appropriated by RTC for test train use after withdrawal in 1971, replacing the Baby Deltic.... 
     
    A TCS T1 decoder from stock was fitted , programmed much in line with the Baby Deltic and test running began.
     
    There were problems. (Entirely prototypically, I might add..)  It kept stalling. A prod was required to get it moving. I added more weight , because the thing seemed to be slipping. I played about with settings, but still it kept sticking in places. Sometimes it would run fine . Then it would start to stall and spin.
     
    After several days of frustration, tweaks and weight adjustments, the penny suddenly dropped. The wheels on the motor bogie had been eased out to 14.5mm back to back. This adjustment meant that sometimes the final drive gears to one axle would slip out of mesh. Hence the slipping and stalling. Nudge the loco and they meshed again. 
     
     The back to back was closed up fractionally (it's now about 14.2-14.3mm)  and all was well. Previous CV values were reverted to in the matter of start and mid volts. And now it runs as well as can possibly be expected from a 5 pole ringfield with traction tyres on one side. There are pickups to those wheels, but I doubt if electrical pickup is more than erratic. So we have 6 wheel + 2 pick up, rather than proper 8 wheel collection
     
     

     
    The underframe was then weathered, with washes of Railmatch Frame Dirt and Brake Dust, and some AK Light Dust Deposit on the centre tanks. And I wasn't happy. The problem can be seen by comparing the top and bottom photos - the bogies were just too bright orange. A further wash of AK Shaft and Bearing Grease over the lot knocked it back to something acceptable , though I left the sandboxes  as colour  photos show these as something of a tonal highlight. The second photo shows D6103 after the extra weathering wash.
     
     

     
    The loco is seen  departing Blacklade with the steam-age engineer's train, my recently completed Toad B leading, and the engineers'  ex GW 4 wheeler (Ratio) just behind . Set 4  (Hachette Mk1 + Hornby Gresley BCK) lurks in the background . I need to weather that BCK at some point. D6103 is evidently working test trains so the engineers at Derby (or should that be Toton?) can work out what the heck is wrong with these things.
     
    This one fought me all the way, but I now have another small short Type 2 that is pretty well bang in period for the Kettle Period. This final write-up has been part finished and outstanding for an indecently long time (D6103 has been in traffic since August) , but we are done. Sorting out the 29  is still outstanding......
  7. Ravenser
    Despite having two sets of coaches on the go already , I seem to have drifted into starting a third. Admittedly the LNWR set is almost done - just a bit of weathering still to do , and the new project is supposed to be a quick win....
     
    When, early this year, I decided to use various steam era kits and bits I had accumulated to operate a steam period on Blacklade I quickly found I was very short of brake coaches. As money was tight at the time , I looked for the cheapest options to plug the gap and bought a Ratio MR suburban brake 3rd and a Dapol CKD LMS non-gangwayed lavatory brake third. The latter cost the princely sum of £9.30 at St Albans show
     
    The original idea was that this would run with an unbuilt BSL kit for a Gresley steel composite. It was only later, on digging the BSL kit out of the cupboard, that I found that it was a corridor coach. Plans have since been revised , and I now intend to get a maroon Hornby Thompson CL when they are available in a few months time to pair with the LMS brake. The BSL kit will ultimately be paired with a Mailcoach/Kirk Tourist Brake third open kit which I bought at Ally Pally
     
    As a CKD kit this ought to be quick. However there are various improvements to make asit's an old model. I won't give a blow by blow account, as the ground has already been covered here:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/64375-Dapol-ex-lms-non-corridor-lavatory-coaches-a-review-of-sorts/
     
    SE Finecast flushglaze was sourced at Ally Pally, and fitted with UHU. This is a substantial improvement. It's necessary to carve away from behind the curving "rail" at the brake end to get the glazing in. Arguably I should have taken this "rail" - actually the toilet filler pipe I believe - right off and replaced it with some .45 handrail wire standing proud of the end . But by this time I'd painted the ends , and I wasn't sure of my ability to form the necessary curve neatly and accurately - so I chickened out on this. The alarm gear on the other end is a bit flat. I'm sure etches and detailing bits must be available to do a better job (from Comet?) but I didn't have any and chickened out again. Arguably you could replace the moulded handrails on the sides in wire - but that would have meant a complete respray , and one attraction of the CKD route is a finish to RTR factory standard.
     
    The number is applied on the left hand side , and has no suffix letter. The Modelmaster Ms I had were visibly not in the same font as Dapol used on the coach, so I couldn't add them. Numbers on the left applied from mid 1949 to late 1951 according to Parkin's book on Mk1s : lack of the origin company suffix letter points to the first year or so of BR liveries, so as produced by Dapol the finish represents a vehicle repainted in 1949-50
     
    I did tackle the roof . The coach is supplied with the roof from the composite , so most of the holes for the vents are in the wrong place . I fitted ventilators into those holes that were in the right place, lined the moulding up against the drawing in Historic Carriage Drawings Vol 2 LMS , drilled pilot holes in the correct places , and filled the wrong holes with filler, which was sanded down with an emery board. Two and in some cases three applications were needed to get the holes filled absolutely flush. The new holes were then opened out with a larger drill and the vents fitted , with solvent/cement applied from the underside of the roof.
     

     
    The underframe was reworked largely in line with the pdf linked in the thread above, but I retained the truss rods and therefore the moulded regulator. Coachmann in this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67996-making-use-of-Dapol-lms-coach-kits/ demonstrates sawing the back off the misplaced battery box and reusing it (they're tight with their brass in Lancashire). I tried, but my razor sawblade was too wide to allow me to get it in between the truss rods to make the horizontal cut . The plastic moulding had to be carved out, and as I had a Comet battery box casting I glued it back to front behind the moulded representation of the battery box front . Since most of the detail was at the top, and is therefore hidden by the solebars , and the whole thing is painted black anyway, this bodge is not visible . Comet whitemetal LMS buffers , vacuum cylinders and dynamo and etched V hangers and crossframes were added with superglue.
     
    Kadees have been added to the bogies :
     

  8. Ravenser
    Well, I've actually made a start on something . When Heljan announced their 128, Charlie Petty announced an offer on his 128 kit, pairing it with the then new Replica MLV chassis to give an easy build unit. So I bought one. And it's been sitting in its box, next cab but two off the rank, ever since.
     
    As it's now very close to the top of the to do list http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-17246-new-years-resolutions-version-81/ I' ve got out the box and made a start. It seemed a lot more promising than another bout with the 155
     
    And I'm starting to wonder why I've put it off for so long, because this isn't a hugely complex kit. I don't have to worry about getting it to run - the MLV chassis should take care of that , and its DCC ready as a bonus. There are NEM pockets. The basic bodyshell is 6 bits plus a roof. The livery will be plain blue. This is all eminently do-able.
     
    Needless to say I've created a few complications for myself
     
    Prototype inspiration is here , taken at Manchester Piccadilly on 10/4/85 according to the back of the photo. I'm reasonably certain this is 55994
     

     
    Now as you can see this is one of the 5 gangwayed cars ordered for the WR, with the gangway removed and plated over. All of the ex LMR cars built without gangways and with full cabs had gone by this point: the WR still had two of its batch, which retained their gangways, and the LMR had three, which had lost them
     
    Since Blacklade is somewhere in the Midlands I needed an LMR allocated unit , with plated ends
     
    Charlie sold me a kit with LMR ends on the basis that this would be easier to convert to the plated ends than the fully gangwayed WR ends. But 55994 retained her headcode boxes till the end - and scratchbuilding these onto the moulded ends would be a very awkward job to get right. However photographs show 55993 lost the boxes and had simple marker lights and 55995 seems to have been the same.
     
    Unfortunately I had removed the marker lights on one end preparatory to attempting split headcode boxes before I spotted these other photos. There were two packets of class 50 marker light castings in the box that I had sourced at some stage and these have been superglued in place as replacements on both ends. I'm not sure they're quite right, but they are the best fix I can now attempt. The centre of each cab has been plated over with 10 thou plasticard - I have virtually none left now , and it doesn't seem to be commonly on sale
     
    Here are the bits and the modified cab ends:
     

    Having now checked through what I have I notice that there are no engine castings and no bogie sideframes. Since Charlie Petty has all his kit material packed away in storage there's no hope of sourcing replacement bits from DC Kits, so it's a question of improvisation.
     
    I have an unbuilt Kitmaster kit for a Mk1 SK in my cupboard. I was always intending to replace the bogies with MJT Commonwealths , and I now have - somewhere - some development etched H-frame bogies with which to do the job.
    This means I can use the Kitmaster sideframes for the 128.
     
    Goulding's drawings are a bit basic around the bogies but the wheelbase and general style are the same. Some modification will be needed to cut away the tie bars and the representation of brake shoes , and I need to round the axleboxes and maybe add a couple of vertical strips to the frame. It won't be spot on - the bolster is different - but it should provide an approximation. I don't think there's any other source of suitable sideframes
     
    What I do about the engine is a good question . I suspect it will involve Milliput and probably plasticard, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
     
    There's going to be a certain amount of approximation on this model. If I were working in P4 , no doubt I would be Damaging The Hobby and I might even have Blood On My Hands - especially if I slip with the scalpel while bodging the bogies.
     
    But I'm in OO, and I'm hoping for something that very much looks the part
  9. 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
  10. Ravenser
    I know I promised a report on the final stages of the reworked NBL Type 2 , but a start has been made on the long- stalled Class 128 parcels unit , and it's getting a little frustrating...
     
    This posting has been sitting in draft for four years with the optimistic stub "Progress on the 128 has been slow, but like BR we're getting there" Very slow indeed... . However on closer inspection I find I am in no sense entering into the home straight with this one
     
    The project ground to a halt when I found that part of the bogie support at one end of the Replica chassis had sheered, and could not be stuck back together. This left one end of the chassis sitting lop-sided. I eventually found out that Replica could supply a replacement, I took it to Peterborough show the following year and they fitted the part .. and other things were higher priority and got in the way.
     
    Having finally got round to the 128  as a result of lockdown I started by trying to fix the mistakes that had begun to nag at me while the bodyshell sat gathering dust on the bookshelf. The lights didn't look right. I removed the whitemetal castings and found they'd been glued the wrong side round. They now look a good deal better, though not perfect. At the left hand end the cab handrail should be inboard of the door. With some trepidation I clipped out my first attempt at a handrail here and put in a new one in the correct place.
     
    There is a problem with door furniture. Two styles were fitted, one to the WR vehicles (of which my model will be one, as inherited by the LMR and modified without gangways) and one to the vehicles originally built for the LMR
     
    A good shot of the WR vehicles is here - M55993 - ex WR and an official photo of one of the LMR units adorns the relevant Railcar.co.uk page Railcar.co.uk - Class 128 page
     
    M55993 is going to be my "target unit" for this model:- the door furniture is visible if you blow up the photo - and I have absolutely no idea how to do the two small handrails either side of the handle , bearing in mind there would be 6 per side and they need to be exactly the same and in exactly the same places . The DC Kits instructions seem to indicate that there are two etched door handles to be applied , one on each door, and no handrails. That is definitely wrong for all units..
     
    After several attempts I eventually got suitable door handles for the three parcels in place, using bits off an NNK/Phoenix etch for Bulleid coaches. As a fudge I've done a rendering of the LMR style handrail , using an etched grab rail from the fret. It is at least regular and neat and more or less the right side, though I had to clip out the first attempts and reposition when I found a good photo.
     
    I also added the vertical handrails beside the windows on the cab front.
     
    This brings me neatly to my big grumble and issue. What I bought from DC Kits was a package deal of 128 body and Replica chassis. The kit instructions are a little sparse and broad-brush. There were a couple of etches of detailing parts. Since what I'm trying to do deviates significantly from the original kit with floorpan and underframe the instructions are not always relevant anyway. There are some sketches but they are not always relevant either. And I'm finding that in a number of areas the parts needed are not included and there are parts included that may not be relevant.
     
    To be more specific - there are no bogie parts included . Since the Replica chassis requires bogie sideframes, I'm on my own. I've managed to find an unbuilt Kitmaster Mk1 coach kit in the cupboard with plastic sideframes that can be adapted to give a decent representation (I would use MJT bogies if actually building the coach , so the mouldings are spare)
     
    There were two fold up etched strips for the underframe equipment, but these were designed for the DC Kits floorpan moulding and the folds weren't in the right place to suit the Replica chassis. And after looking at it for several months I was certain that a fold up etched box with no detail on the face simply wouldn't convince . There are two plastic mouldings representing battery boxes in the bag of bits , so I've hacked away the etched box on each side and made good before fixing the plastic mouldings in place with superglue. But they are hollow, so I'll need to make a back from plasticard… The instructions refer to castings for engines, and two types of airtanks . No such castings are in the box. What lumps I have on the underframe look uncomfortably sparse (and thin) - certainly compared with photos. Golding's book of DMU drawings only shows one side of a 128 , so I'm left to guess if the other is the same , mirrored , or significantly different. The sketch in the kit instructions , and the two identical etched strips imply the two sides are the same but I'm not sure I trust that.
     
    Plastic buffer beams are provided as are etched brass detailing overlays. As I can't see anything on the etched brass overlays that isn't on the mouldings , I've just used the plastic moulded buffer beams. Plastic buffers are supplied but they are round , and by the 1980s M55993 had oval buffers . I found some MJT 1'8" Oleo buffers in the bits box and have substituted those. I butchered the etched brass coupling hooks to get them in, and left off the etched shackles as they would foul the Kadees (There's no diagram to show what the components on the etch actually are)
     
    And I'd already replaced the roof vents with MJT cast torpedo vents
     
    In short this is looking less and less like a 128 kit, and more and more like a scratch-aid for a 128 requiring the builder to conjour up much of the build from his own resources
     
    Progress to date is shown here. I can get a long way towards finishing this, but there are some parts of the underframe equipment where I am afraid I may find myself stumped.

     
     
    And I'm starting to wonder if I was a mug trying to build my own and I should just have paid £50 for a Heljan model out of the Bargains page of a boxshifter… Because I cannot finish this to the accuracy of the Heljan model.
     
     
  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
    Over the last few years I've been very consciously trying to rein in my spending on the hobby, and reduce the pile of stuff in my cupboard. Money has been tight at times, and a couple of short periods of unemployment have brought home to me that I have accumulated an awful lot of unbuilt kits and bits over the years, and that I have made very limited progress with building them.
     
    "Don't buy - build!" has been the watchword.
     
    I'm afraid that my good intentions have not been fully realised.
     
    To be honest Moral Restraint has turned me into a bit of a sucker for the cheap, elderly, and questionable.
     
    Yes, I bought a Hachette Mk1
     
    (And a Great British Locos Jinty and D11/2, and a Hornby 0-6-0T with a dubious shunter body in dayglo livery in order to motorise the former)
     
    The thinking was that this coach might become part of a "modern" mainline set for the steam period on Blacklade. Since the steam period is a not terribly authentic spin-off anyway I wasn't prepared to pay for a Hornby Railroad Mk1 , let alone a pukka Bachmann one. But a Hachette second with flush-glazing for a fiver wasn't bad - especially as I already had a NNK plastic Mk1 underframe truss in stock anyway.
     
    I fitted Hornby wheels and Kadees - and there the matter rested , with the underframe untouched and the coach in a box in the study
     
    The Hachette Mk1 was supposed to be paired with a Mailcoach LNER Tourist Brake 3rd kit which I picked up at Ally Pally for a very reasonable price from a trader a couple of years ago. Fancied the stock, plenty of seats, compatible gangways - seemed like a plan
     
    But then I learnt that those kits are not highly regarded, getting a decent result is thought difficult - and I had plenty of other, more urgent jobs to do involving things in Rail Blue. So there the matter rested....
     
    Until recently , when I thought I'd got a great bargain: an LMS Porthole Brake 3rd kit in the form of a
    punched aluminium bodyshell with bits - almost all complete said the trader, and just a fiver.
     
    BSL kits had a good reputation, and I used to gaze enviously at the Hobbytime adverts in the Modeller when I was very young, listing all sorts of wonderful pre-nationalisation coaches, all quite out of my reach.
     
    I was rather deflated when someone pointed out the MTK sticker on the header card. Aaarghh - garlic and silver crucifix, quick! But he assured me these particular were thought to be quite buildable.
     
    So I got it home, opened the packet , and took a look. You can see the contents here:
     
    First assessment: all the bits that should be in the kit are there except one of the guard's duckets. The coach requires an interior and wheels. I've a packet of Hornby wheels and a rummage in the boxes in the cupboard revealed I'd enough spare bits in the various Comet interior packs I have to cover a 4 compartment brake
     
    Second assessment: the quality of the castings is quite reasonable, given MTK's very dubious reputation. The buffers are a bit basic, but I have plenty of Comet LMS buffers left over from the Dapol Brake 3rd. The gangways are rubber and passable but I found a Roxey pack for two pairs of working LMS/GW gangways . Only one end needs to work, anyway. The vac cylinders aren't great but I found a generic ABS pack in stock which will be an improvement. I have Comet etched crossframes left over from the Dapol Brake 3rd
     
    So far so good. None of these upgrade bits will cost me anything extra
     
    The bodyshell seems to be 2mm overlength, but I'll live with that . A scale drawing is included with the kit, which might even be accurate.
     
    I've bought a Comet detailing etch which will give me hinges, a gangway plate and one or two other bits and pieces, plus a pack of 10 Comet guards duckets , said to be LMS/LNER. Total cost , just under eleven quid
     
    In the meantime, whilst I'm awaiting a pack of transfers from Modelmaster, attention has turned to the Hachette Mk1.
     

     
    As can be seen, I've dismantled it - unscrewing the 3 screws below (two of which are hidden under the bogies) proved an easier route than trying to lever off the roof. The solid trussing has been cut away piece by piece with Xurons - on my model the battery boxes and brake cylinders are very firmly glued in
     
    I sharpened up a fairly blunt chisel blade on a small oilstone to clean up the remains, and duly got Blood On My Hands when the blade slipped and my finger demonstrated that the sharpening had indeed worked. I do have a tin of Birds Custard Powder in the cupboard, but this one's staying in maroon
     
    I then glued in place the replacement underframe truss from Precision/NNK (4PM/022, and still available on their website), trimming around the battery boxes and with some fettling to get the brake cylinder shafts in place, and we get this:
     

     
    I really will get around to writing up the current state of the 155 at some point...
     
    I've also removed the end handrails and water-fillers prior to replacement in wire. The interior will be painted and populated
  13. Ravenser

    Served Up On A Tray - Main Course

    By Ravenser,


    Boxfile
    The deed is done - or at least most of it. On Saturday I duly trotted off to the local DIY sheds. Unfortunately Wickes and B&Q locally do not cut timber , and Buildbase - who might - were closed. But a sheet of 5mm ply in B&Q was only £5.47, so I bought it anyway.
     
    Having got it home and marked out the cutting plan I discovered that if you heavily score the desired cutting line on both sides with a Stanley knife you can snap 5mm ply along the line much as you would do 40 thou plasticard. This is a great deal quicker, easier and more importantly neater and more accurate, than cutting it with a tenon saw.
     
    I rapidly had a base plate , two sides 2" deep, and a back 1 3/4" deep (the lesser depth being in order to clear some of the switches and sockets at the back )- the components are visible here
     

     
    I then marked out where holes needed to be drilled for the two switches and one socket that fouled the back and drilled accordingly - the DIN socket required a 20mm wood drill and some hacking with the Stanley knife. A check fit revealed that the holes needed bevelling with a knife to allow the switches free play - this was done before I started assembly, with one side and the back glued to the base with PVA. This was left to dry hard overnight
     
     
     
     
     
    The next day - being Sunday - I set about trying to sort out the damaged track, removing about 2 inches of damaged Streamline from the fiddle yard area. I have to say that getting fishplates to slide on to anything was a terrible struggle - I managed to write off the first bit of replacement code 75 in the process, and the second had its integrity maintained by soldering in two sleepers improvised out of PCB sleeper strip. In the heat of the struggle, I ended up with the two rails about 2mm out of alignment lengthwise, which created further problems - ie gaps at the rail joints.
     
    Possibly I might have done better by trying to insert a couple of PCB sleepers into the original damaged track to restore it. However as one rail had ripped out of the moulded clips over at least an inch and a half , that too might have turned out to be a struggle
     
    And in the process of checking alignment with the other boxfile , I found that one rail of the point had also come loose, and had previously been kept in position by the fishplate. As I could no longer get a fishplate on the relevant rail, I had to resort to inserting a half-sleeper of PCB strip and soldering the errant rail back into place, assuring the correct track gauge by use of a roller gauge
     
    You will gather that having separable boxfiles leaving the track ends exposed at the joint is not a great idea if you want long term reliability
     

    I managed to get the two files together (I got fishplates to join 3 of out the 6 rails!), and stuck them down in place on the plywood tray and stuck the remaining side in place. We then reached this stage:
     

     
    At this point I retired hurt to bed.
     
    Having applied a second coat of laquer black, on the Monday night I was ready to attempt a little test running. The results were mixed.
     
    Yes, everything was now quick to set up. A little paring of one hole, and all the switches worked without obstruction. The points all threw reliably and emphatically.
     
    And locos ran. They ran across the joints between the files as well as they had ever done - which is to say not especially well. Because the gaps on the rails were in places pretty horrible. As the photo below shows....
     
    Next step - patch up the joints with plasticard, and touch up any damage to the scenic - notably where the Metcalf cobbles had been worn by track rubbers

  14. Ravenser
    This blog hasn't been too active recently. Not a lot has happened on the layout in the last 18 months , though it's been up and run a few time. I had some time for modelling in the early part of last year , but that was almost completely absorbed by a bout of stock building. Only some of that was written up in my workbench blog , and I must add the other items.
     
    Basically the idea was to try to sort out the outstanding/stalled projects , plus the easy bits and pieces then get stuck into some of the major projects I've been meaning to do for so long. Needless to say, what actually happened was that I made limited progress with a couple of stalled projects, finished off a few bits and pieces , started several new wagon kits and didn't finish them , weathered a couple of items and only really managed one modest new project....
     
    Somewhere well down the blog , I mentioned the very long list of started or possible layout projects I have : http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-5665-the-donkey-and-the-bales-of-straw/
     
    Since then there has been a development - a simplification in one sense, a complication in another. The GE branch terminus project which was mooted by a group I'm involved with seems to have drifted into limbo. We haven't seen one key player , who was to build the boards, for about a year because of domestic circumstances , and there's no imminent prospect of anything happening.
     
    Having acquired a discount Hornby L1 during the year because it might be suitable for the GE BLT , as well as to "support the cause" in terms of manufacturers producing LNER locos, I find myself with a modest amount of steam era stuff that has no obvious use. The thought occured to me that I might be able to muster enough to run a steam era period on Blacklade. This would not be very authentic - the station will have corporate image nameplates and so forth - but at least the steam stuff would get used occasionally rather than spending the rest of its existance in its boxes.
     
    What I actually have is a Bachmann 4MT 2-6-0, and O4, a Hornby L1 , a secondhand whitemetal N5 (all in BR black) and a detailed Hornby Dublo 20 in green. I'm likely to get a Bachmann J11: in the mid 1950s 40C (Louth) had C12s, J11s, and N5s , so I need to have one , and the recent future of kitbuilding thread seemed to suggest that the Craftsman C12 was an excellent easy to build kit . Perhaps I should try it... Diesels could be added, and DMUs - and at this point a problem became apparent.
     
    Coaches - Blacklade being a passenger layout.
     
    At the moment I don't actually have any serviceable and complete steam era coaches for any of these locos to pull.
     
    What I do have is a very motley assortment of basically unbuilt kits:
     
    - 2 Ratio ex LNWR corridor kits. These were to provide the branch set on the GE terminus . If this seems bizarre, the LMS off-loaded some of these vehicles on the M&GNJR in 1936, shortly before walking away from the joint venture leaving the LNER holding the baby . These coaches might well have been found eking out their final days in LNER brown on some minor branch in the late 1940s /early 1950s . If you consider what kits might be available for other pregrouping coaches more typical of the early 50s GE Section , how difficult they would be to source and build for a novice, and what they might cost, you will see the thinking here.
     
    - a second hand BSL kit for a Gresley steel composite
     
    - a battered Ratio MR suburban first, built in my early teens and not well finished
     
    - a Ratio GW 4 wheeler ditto, whose chassis isn't square, and which can be discounted
     
    - a secondhand BSL kit for a Gresley Buffet. This can also be discounted
     
    - Various Mk1 and Mk2 project coaches, some in blue/grey and none really suitable for local services to a minor urban terminus in the 1950s
     
    - An unbuilt Dapol/Branchlines railbus kit, meant for the GE BLT
     
    - DC Kits' Test Car Iris, which isn't really fundamental to Blacklade, and is therefore nowhere on the work list. I was already inclining towards doing it in late 90s overall green , as this would be much easier than the blue/salmon RTC livery , even if the latter might look more attractive and be appropriate for Blacklade's "early" period (1985-90). Of course this,was originally built in 1956 for minor branchline service on the LMR, and wore green . So it wouldn't look immediately out of place in a mid /late 1950s LMR local service
     
    - a Triang Maunsell Passenger Luggage Van , passed to me third -hand after someone had gone most of the way upgrading it with the Roxey kit
     
    The problem is obvious - not only is nothing actually built, only one kit is a brake coach so forming sets is very difficult.
     
    I had been hoping to pair the Gresley composite with one of Hornby's Gresley or Thompson non-gangwayed brakes. But they were very pricy , it wasn't urgent, I was waiting for them to be discounted - and when I looked around late last year I found the brakes had all disappeared from the shelves. No matter - what about a Kirk kit? Much cheaper. I phoned the model shop near where I was then working , only to learn he had none left and wasn't expecting any more until some time in 2013. Chivers Pigeon van and another short coach? (we're getting desperate). Chivers kits are out of stock...
     
    This left me searching for ideas, especially as money is relatively tight at present , and I'm not prepared to spend large sums on a sideline like this.
     
    The most suitable, cheapest and easiest to build brake coaches I could come up with were a kit-form Dapol LMS ungangwayed brake third, and a Ratio MR suburban brake . I duly went to St Albans last weekend ,and acquired a Dapol Crimson ungangwayed brake third for under a tenner.
     
    I also spotted a Silver Fox Baby Deltic body kit for £15 - which after a moment's thought, I went for. I have toyed with the idea of doing a Baby Deltic in the past, and I even sourced some mechanical bits: with a bit of modeller's licence D5901 in her RTC days might just be faintly credible in one of the proper periods (Perhaps she was preserved......)
     
    It had also dawned on me that I don't actually have any useable green diesels at the moment either. The Hornby Dublo 20 is one of those models which are nearly impossible to DCC: one brush holder is integral with the chassis block, which is electrically live. Certainly it's far beyond my capacity to convert. I have a detailed blue 29 , with one slightly damaged grill, which is not DCC . I have a spare Hornby 29 body, acquired with faint ideas of producing an early NBL Type 2 for someone else's London area layout , but they went EM.. And I have a second spare Airfix 31 body, and a spare Athearn PA1 chassis and some very faint aspirations towards a green 31 for the GE BLT. Maybe something can be done with an old Lima 20.
     
    I've now driven over to a model shop about 15 miles away and acquired a Ratio MR suburban brake, and a few relevant bits , and for about £50 total outlay , we look to be in business . Three 2 car rakes and a green Type 2 should now be possible with modest effort. I need to fit decoders to the L1 and 4MT . The N5 is parked in the "too hard" basket for the moment, since the chassis is live to the rail on one side. Most of the stock can come from the pile of unbuilt projects, which should be suitably reduced. I even have very wild ideas about a possible project involving two Dapol non-gangwayed brakes, a Black Beetle and a 1956 Derby experiment with a DMU conversion
     
    All a bit of a diversion from my main interests, and it's definitely not going to be a strictly prototypical mix of stock - but if it gets stuff out of the cupboard, built and into use, so much the better
  15. Ravenser
    The Hachette Mark 1 has now been finished, with interior painted
     
     
     
     
     
    And here's the results. There is a problem , but it isn't obvious:
     

     

     
    When I was weathering the underframe somehow a touch of weathering wash got onto the sides. I cleaned it off with white spirit but the panel was still discoloured. I cleaned the whole panel back to plastic and revarnished - still a marked grey discolouration. I cleaned back and rubbed down with ultrafine gritpaper and revarnished - still clearly discoloured.
     
    I then found that Railmatch BR maroon is noticeably darker , and rather more purple. I brightened it up with some Railmatch Royal Mail red, mixed to a good match by eye, and repainted the panel.
     
    It's not an absolute match. In most lights you can't see a difference , and you can't see it on the photos. (It's the long panel under the 4 large windows on the left, by the way). But stick the coach under a fluorescent daylight lamp at a range of 6" and the side is pinkish and the patch is redder. And in some lights you can see a slight difference of colour between the door and adjacent panel.
     
    If anyone had patch-repainted a panel on the real thing after it had spent a while in traffic I reckon this is exactly the effect you'd get. But I can find no photographic evidence of such local emergency patching on coaching stock - and if it had gone near a main works they'd have done a full repaint. In the 1960s there were no graffiti or "tags" - that didn't start till the early 80s.
     
    So after feeling very pleased with how this had scrubbed up, I now feel considerably deflated with a bodged model. But I'm going to leave it "as is" for the moment because you can only see it if you know exactly what you are looking for and where to look. If I notice something when I bring it out again in a few months time having forgotten the incident - there's an issue. If I don't spot it and simply don't notice the issue when I'm not consciously looking for it - then it'll pass.
     
    While all this was going on, I got rather alarmed about the darkness and seeming purpleness of Railmatch BR Maroon. Especially as I'd just bought a spray can of the stuff for the Porthole Brake Third. So I dug the Coopercraft Gresley Tourist Brake Third out of the cupboard, gave the back of the sides a coat of Faded Rail Red - a nice pink shade, to boost opacity and act as an undercoat to relieve an over dark maroon - then one, two coats of BR Maroon on the front, carefully touching round the windows with a small brush - and yes it does need at least 3 brush coats for opacity, like Tony Wright said...
     
    By which time I'd concluded I was probably committed to building the thing. I know I can do a plastic coach kit...
     
    So far I've carefully built a set of Gresley bogies, and added a Comet whitemetal ducket, because I had to buy a packet of 10 for the Porthole Brake, which only needs 2
     
    Speaking of which, as promised here is the MTK Porthole brake kit as unpacked....
     

  16. Ravenser

    "Here's one I made earlier"

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    Very many years ago, when James Callaghan was prime minister and I had not yet discovered that it was possible to make model railways without using steam engines, I had a GW/LMS joint branch line. Because those were the popular prototypes. I wasn't very old but I'd discovered the Railway Modeller, and I had a pannier tank and a Hornby GWR brake third. I wanted a longer GW train but not too long, so a plastic kit for a 4 wheel GW coach seemed a good idea.
     
    This relic survived down the decades in a storage box, and in the last decade vague ideas of doing something with it surfaced. Eventually, last year I actually started but didn't get far, and the project is referred to in my annual survey and resolutions posting:  2019 Resolutions
     
    "The Ratio GW 4 wheel coach rebuild (to an engineer's tool/riding van) still needs to be finished, but should be a relatively quick project.". Well...
     
    The prototype inspiration  is two photographs in Cheona's Railways in Profile - 8 : Engineer's Stock 2
     
    These show two ex GW Dean 4 wheel coaches in Engineer's use in 1958 : a neat 4 compartment composite used as the Oswestry Electricians' tool van , taken at Portmadoc , and a rather more battered 5 compartment all third used as a staff and tool van at Plymouth.
     
    Blacklade has an engineer's train in its two "proper" periods - why not for the steam stock too? Since the steam stock is nominally supposed to be 1958 a GW  4 wheeler is at least in period, and one might have been found in the Birmingham area, and come under LMR control after ex GW lines were transferred. 
     
    The whole thing is not completely implausible, and for a convenient scrapbox project for the inauthentic steam era, seemed worth doing. So a total reconstruction of my 4 compartment all first as a staff /tool van was begun last year.
     
    The coach was stripped with Modelstrip and predictably this allowed the brittle polystyrene cement joints to break. Some of the panelling was filled in with Squadron filler, and the whole lot sprayed with the big aerosol can of Games Workshop Chaos Black - because I had it, and it was suitable and convenient. Perhaps I should have over-plated with 10 thou plasticard , since getting a smooth flush finish has proved a little difficult
     
    That was where matters were stalled by pressure of life last year.
     
    On restarting a couple of weeks ago, I quickly cleaned up and assembled the basic bodyshell. A spare compartment partition , built from plasticard sandwiching a piece of lead sheet, was used up - I think this was made for my Ratio MR suburban project ("Set 2"). One plastic buffer was missing so I replaced the lot with some long slender brass buffers I acquired at some point  - I think they may have originated from a Ratio LNWR coach kit.  I have assumed that one central compartment has been retained for staff riding to site, with a long and a short tool compartment on either side
     
    So we get this:

     
    Along the way I picked up one of the Shire Scenes etched brass compensation units for these kits. As originally built (aged about 12) the chassis was not square, and on a long wheelbase 4 wheeler like this it just seemed so much safer to go for a purposely- designed compensating etch. There are separate fold-up cradles for OO and EM/P4 on the etch.  Hornby disc wheels were fitted in brass bearings - as originally built it had no bearings and plastic Ratio wheels - and some whitemetal Mansell inserts from MJT were superglued in place. These too were from stock, left over from the MR suburbans
     
    here we are in the heat of battle, showing how the etched brass cradle works

     
    The pinpoints were duly sawn off the compensated wheelset with my piercing saw
     
    There is one major error in the model. On rechecking the photos it seems the engineers usually cut away a section of the footboards by the axlebox and fitted a hand brake-lever. I haven't attempted it - reinstating the missing sections of footboard lost in 40 years of careless handling was enough hassle, and I'm not sure that cutting out sections in the middle of the footboard here would have been easy or successful here, as I was working with partly-assembled units. 
     
    This is very much a scrapbox project - actual spending has been confined to the compensation unit
     
    I am now deep into the painting - partions and seats in one compartment have been fitted and sheet lead araldited to the floor between the axles to weight it up to 70-75g. Glazing - sheet plastic from the coach scraps bag, I think left over from the LNW coach kits forming Set 1 - has been fitted. The roof now fits - it didn't the first time I built this - and will be glued at the ends and tacked on the sides with a tough of cement, in the faint hope of getting it off without total destruction in an emergency
  17. Ravenser

    Served Up On A Tray - Dessert

    By Ravenser,


    Boxfile
    We left the Boxfile last time safely installed on its new tea-tray, but with the track joints still to patch, and scenery to touch up.
     
    The track joints were not at all good - they never have been. In the worst place I think there was a horrifying 4mm long gap in the railhead.
     
    The solution was a bodge I've used in one or two places on Blacklade, though not on quite such a scale. This is to cut a sliver of 40
    thou plasticard and superglue it in place in the gap. Once the cyano has thoroughly set - i.e. after an hour or two - trim it down to rail level with a sharp craft knife, and the gap is patched. The plasticard "railhead" will inevitably show white, but the patches are normally very short, and the wheel ought to be fully supported across what was once a void - with all the benefits that implies in running
     
    This is fine if you have a fishplate underneath. You then have a firm base on which your scrap of plasticard can rest , and to which it can also be glued.
     
    However thanks to my losing battle with the fishplates, in several places I didn't have that luxury. At least on the middle road (cue a photo so you can see what we're talking about) there were plastic insulated fishplates underneath, even if they didn't actually connect with one side.

     
    I managed to get scraps of plasticard in place and solidly set with superglue . I trimmed them down - the rail is now more or less continuous - but unfortunately this revealed that the track is not quite flat across this joint, and small 4 wheel shunters may stall at this point and need a touch of the finger. Admittedly it's a lot better than watching the Y3 claw itself out of a pit, like a WW1 tank crossing a trench.
     
    The final joint was rather more trouble, and desperate expedients were tried. I superglued a scrap in microstrip in the rail web across the gap, I packed the Gaping Void with scraps of balsa and bits of Exactoscale support foam , and once the Void was no longer bottomless I managed to superglue another scrap of 40 thou in place in the gap. I left it a couple of hours to set completely , and trimmed down the plasticard - fixed.
     
    The Exactoscale foam proved an excellent colour match for the ash ballast, and I packed the gaps . Then I managed to find the original black flock to sprinkle over it - and found that the original black flock was not a colour match with the rest of the "ash ballast". I had to resort to off-black paint let down with grey - and it still isn't a perfect match , though you won't notice this in the photo.
     
    The next job was trying to restore the rubbed areas of the Metcalfe cobbling . I tried a grey watercolour wash, in the hope this would penetrate the card, so that the colour would persist. Colour-matching again proved a little tricky - and how far it will resist continued cleaning we will see. But for the moment at least the damage has been patched up.
     
    Then I test ran a few locos - and was sharply reminded of the running problems with the Boxfile. Further action required...
     
    As Warley was only a few days away, I headed for the West Midlands with resolution, my debit card and a list. On the Saturday evening I returned with a DCC Concepts rolling road, and a new Tenshodo for the Y3 - the existing one being a hopeless case. Branchlines sold me a 26mm wheelbase unit, which they tell me is what it should take. This replaces a 28.7mm unit, which is what
    was recommended when I built it.
     
    The Knightwing shunter was given a good long run on the rolling road and is greatly improved . The Boxfile's worst two locos are now as good as the best..
     
    Then I started testing the wagons in a fit of enthusiasm - and it rapidly became clear that all was not well. To cut a long story short, I ended up testing all the wagons , and even resorted to generating a spreadsheet...
     
    The problems largely involve wagons derailing when entering the back road which serves the cold store and wagon hoist. Clearly this is not an issue caused by a dodgy joint between boxfiles. In principle it's a track issue, but it's exposing marginal problems with the wagons. And since "the rules of the game" require all wagons to go under the hoist first, the problems need to be sorted out.
     
    The spreadsheet logs wagon description, weight, wheel type, company, work needed, whether compensation units could be fitted, and performance - Go (meaning it runs consistently reliably in both directions through both roads, either way round), Go? (a slight query over reliable running), Marginal (it derails intermittently) and No Go (consistently derails in one or more of the permutations)
     
    When wagons stopped because of broken or missing couplings were added to the equation I had a wretched 14 wagons serviceable out of 32...
     
    Of 11 vehicles marked No Go or Marginal , 7 have Romford wheels. 8 of them weigh 35g or less - none weigh the full 50g, though several were only a little short
     
    A GE open weighing only 30g on Hornby wheels is Go. So is a compensated single bolster weighing 35g
     
    Action was taken. Three wagons have had broken couplings fixed and are back in traffic. Two more have been fitted with Sprat and Winkles and released to traffic. The Blue Spot fish , which looked a bit too big anyway , has been repainted rail blue and consigned to Blacklade; I've pushed on with the MICA which is to replace it , and which only needs varnish and couplings. A fish van has received Hornby wheels and been pushed up to 50g - it's now fine
     
    I aim to finish off a couple more wagons this weekend, but I now have 22 serviceable wagons (plus 3 more which are unsuitable for the Boxfile anyway)
     
    And so the current state of play....
     

     
    The LNER van has acquired its couplings, the PO coke has had a coupling mended, and the MICA awaits a varnish coat and couplings
  18. Ravenser

    Baby Deltic 1

    By Ravenser,

    I'm conscious that the blog has been inactive for a long time , and it certainly feels as if I've been inactive too
     
    However a certain amount of modelling has been done - I just haven't written it up.
     
    One project that has been making intermittant progress is the Baby Deltic referred to in an earlier post here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-12459-baby-needs-some-new-paint/
     
    Much of the progress has been painting - however despite seeing this as a "quick win" project it's proved to be rather a slow process.
     
    Nothing very much got done during my convalescence - to be honest I didn't really feel up to much for at least the first week - and as a result the useful tip about Halford's paint wasn't taken up. Railmatch green in due course it was, and I've managed to get the bodyshell painted and lettered . Sourcing transfers for the headcode boxes was a bit problematic - I finally acquired some bits from someone but I've not certain they're all exactly the same size. I've done my best to cover any blemishes by deliberate misalignment
     
    The mechanism is a Chinese era Hornby ringfield pancake and trailing bogie : this has been oiled and test run - cue another lengthy delay until I dug Tramlink out from under a heap of magazines, as Tramlink is currently my only DC test track (It doesn't help that one board of Tramlink is currently dead due to a broken wire somewhere) . This had to be done prior to fitting into the bogie frames as it seems that once you snap the thing into the frames it's irrevocably located
     
    Some pictures:
     

  19. Ravenser

    West Yorkshire Sow's Ear - 1 : Diagnosis

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I have two Hornby 155s sitting in the pile of stock boxes
     
    One is in Regional Railways livery. I've had it for at least 15 years and it's never run. It was meant as material for converting into 153s to support a proposed club layout project which never happened
     
    The other is in West Yorkshire red and white . This was acquired as a modest priced placeholder for a later club layout project (which got as far as running bare boards and some scenery before it died ). It has a decoder (a Macoder if you ask), it's run , and as Blacklade is supposed to have services south from West Yorkshire via Sheffield, its perfectly in place. Since the thing actually ran quite well, it was a regular on the layout until I installed Knightwing point motors (the dummy prototype sort cast in whitemetal) . These fouled the "black box" on the underframe, so the unit was stopped.
     
    As the packets of NNK/MTK underframe castings have turned up, and as the 101 is now done, and the Kirk Gresley 51' pigeon van well advanced, attention has turned to the poor old W.Yorks 155 while I still have some modelling time. I want at least to get this started , and resuscitation turned from a good intention into an actual project.
     
    Sorting out the various RTR DMUs and their shortcomings has always been a good intention for the future. However with the 101 done, we move on to the next. The W Yorks 158 is in their later livery and not really suitable for an "early period" sequence set in 1985-90. The 155 is eminently suitable.
     
    The Hornby, (ex Dapol) 155 dates from around 1990, and has not been in the catalogue for a few years now. It's quite probable Hornby will never produce it again. It's not a great model, dating from a time when OO RTR was much more basic than would be tolerated nowadays, and originated by a company whose standards were some distance behind the cutting edge at the time . It was the least worst of the 3 modern multiple units Dapol produced in the Dave Boyle era - the Dapol Pendolino was a crude lemon beside its excellent rival the Bachmann Voyager, and the Dapol 150 is a model that is spoken of with a shudder when old modern image modellers sit in the pub by the fire and tell of the terrible hardships they endured in their youth. Hornby seem to have chucked the tooling for those two in the skip (where it belonged) but they re-ran the 155 for a number of years with a decent finish and an improved mechanism.
     
    However it's considerably cruder than the 156 they inherited from Lima , and since only 7 units survive, owned by West Yorkshire , the rest being converted to 153s in 1990-2, its commercial potential is pretty limited.
     
    For these reasons it is most unlikely anyone will ever produce another RTR model . Like the EM2s, it's been stranded by the tide of history. Unlike the EM2s, it's never going to be iconic. It's a grubby middle-weight Sprinter.
     
    And next to a Hornby 153 (like wot I've got ...) it looks rough.
     
    There's so much wrong with this model that simply listing the issues is going to be quite enough for a substantial post. I'm not aiming at "the definitive 155". Assuming anyone could ever be bothered to attempt it, you wouldn't go this route . It has been suggested that a 155 can be converted from two Hornby 153s - a sort of reverse version of what BR did. However that would cost you at least £200 in raw materials, and assuming a professional paint job is required, the bill will be close to £300.There would also be the fun and games of hacking the chassis and consisting two separate mechanisms requiring two decoders. Money is tight, and even if I could source 2 x 153 it's not on for lots of reasons. I'm not that desperate for a perfect 155.
     
    So this is an attempt to patch up the unit I have , at minimal cost using stuff I have in stock, and tackle the shortcomings as far as I sensibly can.
     
    Here's a picture of the trailer car dismantled to help you spot the problems:

     
    Starting at the bottom - the black boxes on the underframe have to go : not only are they very wrong, the model is out of gauge with them. Fortunately this isn't going to be too hard, as can be seen.
     
    The tension-locks go and Kadees need to be fitted. I'm hoping I will be able to consist this unit with a 153 - the mechanical mismatch between a Limby motor bogie and a big Bachmann centre motor drive having proved impossible. This also means close coupling to minimise the Straits of Dover between the two vehicles.
     
    Unfortunately it's not going to be possible to fit working gangways and eliminate the gap completely. I have an Express Models lighting kit - arguably lights are needed on a second generation DMU and they are certainly an operator's convenience. These kits rely on wiring through from the power car, and they recommend you route the cable and plugs through a hole in the gangway between the vehicles. That's incompatible with fitting a paper bellows gangway. The Kadees would be in the way if I tried routing it below the gangway. And it looks very much as if the gangways are a little too narrow anyway. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the whole unit is 1-2mm too narrow, and that they've lost it in the gangways. (I have a decent scale side elevation drawing from Railnews Stockspot, but no scale drawings of the end from which to check).
     
    There is no solebar. The bodyside has been continued right the way down to the bottom of the chassis, and no doubt panel proportions have been played about with in the vertical axis (I said it wasn't up to modern standards...) . I gather the traditional fix for this was to paint a "fake solebar" along the bottom edge of the bodyshell
     
    Ploughs will be fitted , as I have some. Correct from the mid to late 90s but not in 1987-91. So ok when running in a "late period" running session (2000-06) but not for "early" (1985-90)
     
    The interior is incomplete. On the power car this is because the motor bogie fills up the driving end and the start of the passenger saloon. The only way you could address that would be to scrap the existing mechanism and replace with a Black Beetle and dummy at a cost of about £65, which is a step further than I'm prepared to go. There's a vast gaping hole in the floor at the cab end of the trailer, because they've used the same chassis moulding for power car and trailer car. For reasons which escape me, they've left out any interior at the inner ends as well - the seat moulding stops one window before the end of the passenger saloon and the rest of the vehicle is empty , so you can see straight through to the end doors on the other side.
     
    Providing extra seats and partitions at the inner ends is easy enough. On the trailer car I can fit partitions behind the cab and behind the vestibule , and extend the seating forward by one window : unfortunately because of the way the bogie is pivoted and retained at the sides it's not possible simply to extend the floor all the way, and nothing but complete reconstruction of the chassis at this end, with a totally restructured bogie and an entirely new pivot and retention arrangement would address that. Again, this kind of drastic rebuilding is further than I'm prepared to go: the more modest work will address most of the problem, and a one window gap in the trailer car seating will have to be lived with.
     
    It looks as if there should be clear plastic covers on the gangway doors at the cab ends . One or two shots show a yellow plate (eg 155 341), but generally the cover is clear but frequently very dirty. If it's dirty , it will conceal the wires running up from the Express Models lighting. I'm not renumbering - Sandakan's quality of finish is very good indeed and for my purposes one W Yorks 155 is as good as another.
     
    The final issue - and a major one - is the glazing. The real things are flush-glazed. So are Hornby's 153s. The ex Dapol 155 is not, with very obvious ledges at the windows. The glazing comes out easily enough , but the only way I can see of fixing the problem is to cut out each pane individually and slightly oversize then file to a fit and fix . I am going to give it a first shot on the door windows , where the recess looks particularly bad - if that works , then I may be up for doing all 44 windows in the passenger saloons
     
    As far as I'm aware there's no replacement glazing available from any source
     
    If anyone knows how this problem has been tackled by anyone in the past, I'd appreciate the info. If the work is really too difficult or securing too uncertain I might have to leave the main saloon windows as is , but it's a big visual issue , and I'd really like to avoid that
  20. Ravenser

    Damage Control - 1

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I had good intentions, but somehow a 101 didn't feature in them...
     
    I've got a 101 - I've had it for years. A Limby 3 car 101 in blue/grey was one of the things acquired in the RTR buying spree when I started building Blacklade a few years ago. Being ex Lima and a dowdy Modernisation unit it was rather looked down on as a quick placeholder. After all Bachmann would no doubt displace the Limby model with a splendid state of the art model in a few years
     
    Then the power car took a tumble, resulting in the pivot pin of the trailing bogie fracturing and detaching. A panic-stricken repair with superglue took a turn for the worse when I noticed I'd managed to get a superglue mark on both sides of the bodyshell. A hasty attempt to patch paint the mark with an elderly tin of what was supposed to be BR Grey only left it looking much worse. I then found the repaired bogie left one end sitting about 1.5mm high. At which point the wretched thing was bundled back into its box and buried under other stock.
     
    Where it remained for 4 or 5 years. I managed to source some better rail grey point, and also a spare trailer chassis frame and power car chassis frame, along with a pair of what were supposed to be class 101 bogies . But nothing was actually done. The list of jobs to be done was long and resuscitating one mediocre RTR DMU when I have a perfectly good 108 wasn't near the top of it.
     
    Having some modelling time available I thought about patching up the bodyshell damage. I dug out a copy of the shortlived MRM magazine which featured an article by Rich Bucknall on a simple conversion to a 2 car power-trailer unit . This seemed very quick and simple - and had always been on the cards as 3 cars is really a bit awkward on Blacklade.
     
    So one Thursday evening the poor thing was dug out of its box. An emery board and the 1500 flexgrit soon cleaned down the small damaged area on the DMBS bodyshell, and a little Precision Paints Rail Grey made a good job of touching in. It looked like repair might be a success. On the other side damage was confined to the glazing on one window - and after a little scraping with a finger nail , essentially confined to one quarterlight on that window. A little gloss varnish patched that .
     
    The chassis was robbed from the TCL for use under the second driving vehicle to turn it into a DTCL. The exhaust pipes on this were pulled out.
     
    And at this point it all started to get a bit more complicated....
     
    Firstly the holes left by the exhaust needed to be filled (Squadron green putty did the job) and patch-painted (Railmatch BR acrylic was to hand and was a reasonable match) . Not a problem
     
    Then the interior needed painting . That took a good deal longer than it sounds . Seats blue - except in First which was left unpainted to represent the faded gold upholstered armchairs one found there. Duckegg blue is a decent representation of the pale blue-green formica that featured in many Modernisation Plan DMUs , but which bits are duck-egg blue and which bits should be brown is a bit more complicated and I'm not sure I've left as much brown as I should. The interior needed populating - a raid on the figures box managed to cover that. Drivers were added at each end - Springside I think.
     
    At this point I realised there was no drivers' desk on the TCL interior - which by this stage was nicely painted and peopled for the DTCL. I had to cut it off the moulding I had swapped into the centre car, and fix in place on the DTCL interior
     
    The interior of the cab end glazing was painted dark grey where it is between the windows - this greatly reduced the prism effect round the edge of the cab windows
     
    One end of the DMBS was sitting about 1.5mm high because of the bodged repair . I was under the impression it was the chassis frame that had been damaged, but in fitting and removing the interior - to discover that the problem only manifested itself when the interior was clipped in - the repair to the pivot pin failed and I found out exactly what the problem was
     
    The bogie had to be stripped down - neither Humbrol solvent nor Plastic Weld would touch this plastic - and a rather better repair made with Hafix thick superglue. To avoid any repeat fracture I did not plug the bogie back into its hole until very late in proceedings , and I countersank the hole in the interior moulding underneath (using a craft knife) and opened it out with a rat-tail file, since clearly the top of the pivot pin had been fouling against this since the initial repair
     
    When Hornby retooled the power car chassis to take the new Limby motor bogie, they provided NEM pockets on the bogies. However the underframes on the non-powered cars remained exactly as Lima tooled them, complete with great big old style tension-locks . Those had to go and the hoops were trimmed off with Xurons . A suitable platform was left to mount replacement Kadees - I used #27 medium underset , with a single shim underneath, glued in place with a nylon Kadee screw taken through from the top and cut off below as a peg to anchor them. (These were obtained from Charlie Petty at Railex)
     
    This improves the front end appearance no end
     
    I also found a Craftsman DMU detailing pack . There were enough buffers for a 3 car unit - so I replaced the Lima buffers at the cab ends , since the Craftsman buffers looked a bit bigger - but left the buffers at the inner ends, which are less obvious. I still have enough buffers for a 2 car unit.
     
    However it became apparent that I could not fit the cast jumper cable connections , or buffer bean pipeworth as they would foul the swing of the bogie- mounted Kadees. Since I run parcels tail traffic - and it would be nice to work a DMU in multiple occasionally - Kadees are essential. As and when I build the parcels unit I could form up a 3 car rake, and with a considerable squeeze it may just be possible to run a 4 car short underframe set (101 + 108)
     
    A shot of the bits at this stage of proceedings is attached:
     

     
    Then I made the mistake of getting out the books to research a prototype identity , and things got more complicated......
  21. Ravenser
    I have a few problems with my Hornby 31 derailing when running through the crossover at the end of Platform 2 if set to cross over. As this is part of the run round loop and as the 31 is currently diagrammed for any loco hauled trains (parcels, engineers etc) this is a problem
     
    The problem is caused by the fact that these points don't always close tight when thrown - arising from the fact that I used the wire supplied by Tortoise, instead of replacing it with something thicker and stiffer. I've replaced the throw wires on the other points , but it's now going to be the devils own job to do it on the platform end crossover.
     
    However as my Airfix 31 seems to take the relevant crossover in its stride , there's an obvious fix. I always intended to detail the Airfix model at some point anyway and if I want operate a Loco Hauled Substitute set (2 coach MK1/Mk2Z rake) to cover a DMU shortage - as happened not infrequently in the 1980s - I need a second Type 2 to work it Minories-style (Platform 2 is too short to take 31 + 2 x 64' coaches - a pair of 50' vans is the limit - and this is the only platform with access to the loop. The crossover in question was originally added to the plan to give access to the fuelling point , and the fact it gave me a loop was a bonus) . I've got the blue/grey coaches - all I need is a second loco
     
    The Airfix 31 was bought new in the late 70s for my first modern image layout, and has been stored in its box ever since that unsuccessful project was finally abandoned. It has been given a decoder , and runs well considering what it is, but is otherwise untouched. I also acquired a finished 31 body when Dapol were selling off the remaining stocks of discontinued items some years , and the intention is to detail this spare body and substitute it. Kadees must also be fitted to the chassis.
     
    I have a further rather battered 31 body in stock, plus a rather tatty and roughly detailed specimen acquired for £15 for it's chassis (it's a runner though may need some cleaning up) , a spare Athearn PA1 chassis, and the unhappy remains of a first batch blue Hornby 31 (I seperated the body before mazak rot set in) , as well as 31 174 which is - I hope - fine. If I work my way through that lot over the years I should have quite a fleet of Brush 2s
     
    In my teens I saw quite a lot of Immingham's 31/4 fleet on Transpennine South and Cleethorpes-Newark trains. Hornby have made a 31/1, so obviously if I was detailing an Airfix loco for myself I wanted a mid 80s IM 31/4.
     
    Unfortunately it's not quite that easy.
     
    There's little or no obvious external difference between a 31/1 and a 31/4. The detailed issues relate to date rather than type. Airfix produced a 31 with headcode box, bodyside steps and recessed tank filler on the roof, train heating boiler port,, nose doors and buffer beam cowls. As far as I'm aware this represents a late 60s /early 70s re-engined 31/1 from the latter 2/3rds of the production batch. A good choice for a manufacturer in 1977 but rather more problematic now
     
    By the mid 70s all 31s had lost the bodyside steps and roof recess which had been plated over , so Airfix's blue 31 401 is wrong here . During the 1980s buffer beam cowls were removed . The first batch of ETH conversions (31 401-19) kept them when converted in the early 70s . I'm not sure about 31 420-4 , converted in the mid 70s . The second batch of conversions in the mid 80s , 31 425-469 lost them when rebuilt to ETH, and they also lost bodyside bands. I don't feel up to that level of reworking , so my target loco has to be a 31/4 from the early conversions up to 31 424.
     
    Unfortunately IM's 31/4 fleet was basically the second batch conversions. I thought I'd found a perfect prototype and reference shot here:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31408-bk-090383_t.jpg
     
    (I originally found this on the 53A Models photo site)The train is virtually certain to be a Cleethorpes - Newark Northgate service, as it comprises four Mk1s- the Transpennine South sets were basically Mk2a s , later strengthened to 5 when the Newark sets were broken up and that service reverted to 114s
     
    It is at this point that the problem of fan cowls rears it's ugly head - literally . Note the roof line on the loco - isn't there something projecting ?? Aren't we seeing what is horribly obvious here - a raised cowl around the roof fan grill, on the same loco at Rugby some years later:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/cs31408_rugby.jpg
     
    But in 1976 she was smooth and her roofline unmarred:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/16179216@N07/5187603237/
     
    Some internet browsing suggests that these cowls appeared in 1979-82. Many locos never got them - I have a shot of a gleaming new 31 435 at Grimsby in 1985 (I think) with no cowl, and she's plainly uncowled here (a Hull-Liverpool I reckon) http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31435-sp-0690.jpg
     
    I've no idea how you model such a cowl - so 31 408 wasn't a suitable target loco. And as 31 435 had uncowled buffer beams she wasn't either (Whether the buffer beam cowling has been replaced now she's D5600 in preservation I don't know). She has also had a revised smaller cab window on one side which seems to be a very unusual modification - I've not seen another photo showing this asymmetrical cab window arrangement.
     
    As far as I can see from my surviving 1980s abcs, only five 31/4s from the first batch were allocated to IM during the period (31 403/07/08/09/20) and it appears from the class 31 photo site that all of them had roof fan grill cowling during the 1980s
     
    So a slightly different approach is needed.
     
    The nearest I've found to an ideal target loco is 31 415, seen at Skegness in 1982 in a photo in Diesel Retrospective Class 31. She doesn't have a roof cowl, I think the buffer beam cowling is still in place as something is going well below the buffers, and she's most emphatically in Lincolnshire . She is plain blue with no stripe but bodyside bands are still in place
     
    At that stage she was allocated to March (the train is therefore probably the SO Cambridge-Skegness and return), and by the late 80s she was allocated to Bescot - very suitable for Blacklade. At what stage she lost buffer cowling and bodyside bands I don't know - ignorance is bliss here. (For the record a shot in the same book shows 31 414 at Wellingboro in March 1987 without either). The Hornby body from 31 270 would probably be a much better starting point for a 31 without bodyside bands as the band is done by tampo printing
     
    So - 31 415 it will be...
  22. Ravenser
    It's been a very long time since I last started a layout project. For the last few years I've been stubbornly trying to get on top of the long, long list of stock projects for Blacklade, and the nearest thing to a new venture was the decision about 3 or 4 years ago to sort out my stray bits and pieces of steam stock, fill in the gaps, and try to have a "funny trains" steam period nominally set in 1958 . That inevitably resulted in me buying cheap new projects as fast as I cleared existing projects from the cupboard.
     
    On the credit side, I now have a lot more serviceable models than 5 or 6 years ago, some of which had been "and then I could do... " aspirations for a wearingly long time. And I have a modest steam age fleet capable of running the layout c1958 (never mind the Corporate Image signage...) , even if there aren't really any spares or coverage. I can field an entirely consistant BR Blue fleet, even if there are a few operational party pieces which still need an item or two of stock, or a rough edge removing. A significantly higher proportion of my stuff actually gets used than was the case 6 or 7 years ago
     
    On the layout itself , various outstanding matters have been sorted out, and Blacklade has been exhibited twice, at a large and a small event, as well as appearing in one of the magazines. Bar a ground signal and an aspect or two, it's a finished layout - and one that normally works pretty reliably these days.
     
    And with another exhibition commitment in less than 2 months, I really ought to be focussed hard on finishing off some projects which are nearly there.
     
    Instead I find myself playing truant and reaching automatically for pen and scrap of paper.
     
    I really shouldn't be contemplating any further projects. Reviving Tramlink and some repair work on the Boxfile ought to be the only diversions to be considered. Space is at a premium in the flat, and I have a great black cloud of unfinished and prospective projects hanging over me:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-5665-the-donkey-and-the-bales-of-straw/
     
    That, it is shocking to realise, was posted 6 years ago now - plus a handful of days. And precisely nothing has happened on any of those fronts (bar Blacklade) in the last 6 years. It's at moments like this that you feel your life running away through your fingers like fine sand.
     
    Well.... yesterday I saw this thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/119680-snack-boxes-are-back-at-ikea/
     
    And I thought the largest size box might make a boxed diorama. It would probably be slightly larger than the boxfile , but really almost the only thing that would work sensibly in such a small space is trams. And trams are unfinished business round my way.
     
    We have been here before.... http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-7164-im-not-committed-to-building-this-you-understand/
     
    Nothing - of course - happened.
     
    Last year my club floated the idea of a "build a 4' x 1' diorama" competition . Since I rarely get up to the club these days I don't know if anything happened. I briefly flirted with the idea of a 1930s N. London tram scene, disappearing round a fierce 180 degree curve to a fiddle yard behind.
     
    And the idea of the tram platforms at Wynyard underground station as a boxed diorama has crossed my mind before - it's just I have one whitemetal kit
    . for which motorisation is less than obvious, and scratchbuilding a fleet of Sydney crossbench cars is "swallow hard" territory. Wynyard in the peak was a very busy place.
     
    But if you combine those ideas with an IKEA "Snack" box.... you might just be cooking with gas. At 57 cm x 37cm x 30cm , there's a fighting chance of finding somewhere suitable in the flat to keep the thing. 37cm wide = 14.5" . Accepted wisdom is that 6" radius is fine for 4 wheel trams , and some bogie cars might squeak round it.
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75301-absolute-novice-help-with-minimum-radius-oo-for-tram/
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75038-tram-tracks/page-2
     
    Allow a bit for the thickness of the sides, assume that the radius is measured at the centre of the track, and you have an inch from there to the edge of the drop-in baseboard
     
    The 180 degree curve is potentially very much on.
     
    Some work with pen and paper this afternoon produced this:

     
    This is very much a "find the problems and limits" sketch, not a final concept. We are in North London, 1933-38. This suits my reference book and the trams I have in the cupboard, and the conduit system avoids the problem of building overhead. I think we are around Highgate - Highgate Hill required the use of 4 wheel cars
     
    Availability of 4 wheel cars is not a problem. I have the Bec LCC B I built many moons ago for Blacklade - the homemade plasticard windscreen has come away anyway, and provided it is stripped back and repainted in LT red , it can pass for one of the ex LCC Bs that London Transport inherited via Bexley. The "bashed" Mehano single decker is closer to a MET E class single decker (as used to Ally Pally) than to the bogie first generation Kingsway Subway cars which inspired the bash. Again strip the paint , tidy up and repaint. I have an LCC stores van, another unbuilt LCC B from ABS, a Keilcraft West Ham kit, and one of Street Level models card kits for an LCC M .
     
    Whether a Feltham could be coaxed round 6" radius seems to be very borderline. Whether an E/1 - for which I have a couple of Tower kits - could be induced to do so . It would be nice if they could. London without an E/1 isn't quite right.
     
    A 4 wheel car is 5" long (I've just measured the Keilcraft roof - as the kit is 1:72 , it's the worst case scenario) . The stub spur at the front is a staging track - it allows trams to disappear "off-scene" to the rest of the system. The idea is that most of the front side-panel will be cut out to provide a framed view into the diorama. The spur track, and any tram sat on it, will be concealed by the frame. A little juggling may be needed to get enough length here to avoid fouling the curve. I think that should be possible - there ought to be an inch or so's "give" on the length
     
    This means handbuilt points, at 6" radius. I tried inserting a commercial point into a 180 degree curve on Ravenser - the much greater radius threw an already tight curve out, and resulted in some very nasty troublemaking geometry. I won't make that mistake again.
     
    Therefore handbuilt points on the depot side. I've assumed 5" long points, as Setrack is 6" . That may be generous . As drawn , the depot will take 4 x 4 wheeler trams. Stabling an E/1 may be an issue. If points are 4" long we're home and dry
     
    David Voice's book describes handbuilt points with full continuous checkrail, - that would preclude using flexible track elsewhere , meaning handbuilt plain track. But that might allow gauge widening on the curve. I don't see how to motorise the sliver-of-nickel-silver single blade he shows. This opens up a nest of problems
     
    DCC or DC ? How easy is it to convert old and new BEC motor units (I've heard it can be done)? Now Beetles are no longer available I have to be cautious and hoard some for DC Kits DMUs
     
    Scenery - I have quite a few card kits for buildings in stock , some of them specifically London models from Streetlevel, some of them low relief. I think the working railway viaduct as scenic break between the two sides is probably a step too far - I don't think there's enough width, though the idea of a Hornby Peckett pushing a couple of wagons up and down is appealing
     
    Nothing - except possibly a lengthy drive to an IKEA to buy some flatpacks - is going to happen till at least April
  23. Ravenser
    I'm feeling annoyed.
     
    As mentioned I've started work on a Baby Deltic - a Silver Fox kit I picked up cheap secondhand at a show in January. It really should have been a "quick win": just paint the body, hack and assemble some RTR components I already have and there we are - a new Type 2.
     
    I want it in 2 tone green (as it will spend most of it's time working with steam stock) and it will become D5901 - which became an RTC Derby loco, allowing me maximum excuses if it appears on a north Midland layout in the blue period.
     
    I primed it with a coat of Tamiya detail primer , and brush painted the light Sherwood green along the lower bodysides. Three coats that took. Then I went to prepaint the warning panels and found that my pre 1985 yellow had dried up. I had plenty of tins of post 85 yellow, but nothing before. Sudden grinding halt to progress while I waited for a show on Saturday where Precision were in attendance. Couple of coats of yellow, then this morning , before my blood test at the hospital , I dug out the spray can of Railmatch Brunswick green . I masked up the loco laboriously , I shook the can (perhaps not long enough - it's supposed to have 2 mins agitation) I sprayed, or tried to.
     
    At first nothing came out , then I inverted the can and it sprayed. The result was a loco drenched in thick paint with blotches . I hastily wiped the lot off with thinners and kitchen roll, removed the lower masking and went off to the hospital.
     
    When I came back I gave it another go. Remasked lower area, shook the can for over 2 mins , went out to spray. Nothing came out. Well a very little mist. Then the button wouldn't depress - removed it , tried again and the can died with a faint gurgle. (It was an old can, but I'd hoped I'd get more than 2 locos out of it)
     
    I have now cleaned it all off with white spirit on kitchen towel and cotton bud. This has taken most of the primer off the sides as well , even though the primer must have been sprayed a fortnight ago. When I removed the masking ,parts of the Sherwood Green lower strip on both sides debonded.
     
    And I've chipped a buffer head, which will have to be patched
     
    I'm having a minor operation on Friday. I may not be able to drive for a fortnight . The nearest model shop is in the same town as the hospital - but not the same part of it - it's not walkable from the station or the hospital . Couldn't have got a can today - it's their day off. Don't think I can get one when I have my stitches out - I'll be dependent on public transport. I can't phone them and ask them to send me a can - Royal Mail have banned sending paint and spray cans in the post (Go to Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do not pass Go . Do not collect £200, or a can of Railmatch Brunswick Green)
     
    I could walk to Halfords and try to get a spray can of a suitable green. But that would be cellulose, and you can't spray cellulose over enamel (meaning the yellow warning panel and the Sherwood Green band)
     
    So instead of being able to finish the Baby Deltic during my convalescence , I'm snookered.
     
    Drat. Double Drat. Triple Drat.......
     
    I suppose I'll have to finish an NRX and some Midland suburbans and start a 31 instead.
  24. Ravenser

    Set Two: Finishing Off

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    In the absence of better information, I reworked the underframe as proposed, sawing the Comet LMS battery box castings in half in then X-Acto mitre box, and plating the cut ends with 20 thou plasticard. The Comet vacuum cylinders were also installed , though possibly they could have been filed down to sit a bit lower. The completed bogies were fixed onto the composite and I had two completed coaches. They've come in at 110g all up: slightly more than the intended 100g (25g x 4 axles) , but a satisfactory weight to achieve good running. As the kit comes in the box, it would weigh about 40g and give lots of trouble
     


     
    A first test run on the layout when I was programming the decoder for the Bachmann Ivatt Co-Co revealed an unexpected problem - buffer locking at the brake end. I'd done all I could to close up the gap between the coaches with short Kadees but the intermediate buffers are about 4mm apart. Nothing can be done - and as I'd run out of suitable short heads , the bogie with the medium Kadee went under the brake end where the longer buffers would cover it.
     
    After the fight with the intermediate couplers it never occurred to me that a medium head would be too short. But the long shank buffers at the brake end are much longer and the knuckle on a medium head is a little way inboard of the buffer heads. It would be extremely destructive to attempt to remove the draft boxes and change the head - I'd probably find myself writing to Peco to source a pair of new bogies
     
    My intitial thought was that I'd have to remove the buffer heads with a pair of Xurons, tidy up and shorten the shanks a little with a file and glue the heads back on. A nasty bodge, but less destructive of authenticity than anything else - the buffers would simply look compressed. However the other evening I was combining programming of a decoder in my J11 with a bit of test running. and it became apparent that only the L1 actually had a problem with Set 2 , and then only at one end. (In fact I was able to swap Kadee 19 NEM longs for 18 Mediums on the Bachmann Ivatt diesel and it could still handle Set 2 without trouble).
     
    So I did the sensible ,easy, thing. The NEM Kadee at the bunker end of the L1 seemed to be slightly the shorter of the two , so I replaced it with the next size up. Provided the loco is run so the bunker end couples to the brake end of Set 2 , trhe problem is solved. The coupling at the smokebox end is in fact ok except through the curved front exit from Platform 2 via the crossover - at 2'6" radius the only curve on the layout below 3'
     
    The remainder of finishing off comprised lettering, weathering and vanishing, and here there were setbacks and disappointments . The coaches were numbered using bits taken from a couple of Modelmaster sheets for other things . After much poring over the sheets andHistoric Carriage Drawings 2. I managed to get a suitable number for a Birmingham area D501 6 compartment brake out of what I had, but I couldn't readily make up a suitable number for a Birmingham area D551 composite , and I ended up with a number falling in the block allocated to the slightly different Nottingham area composites. Then I realised I'd put the number on a panel at the brake end on both sides of the Brake - meaning it has left hand numbering on one side (used up to 1952) and a right hand number (1952 onward) on the other....
     
    I gave the sides a brush painted coat of satin varnish, as there are too many small windows to attempt masking , and then decided that perhaps I preferred the sides dead matt. I suspect really old wooden coaches at the end of their lives wouldn't have had any sheen. The one colour shot I have of ungangwayed stock in this livery (from Parkin's Mk1 book , taken at Bradford Forster Square , lurking behind a nice blood and custard SK ) shows them a rather brown and dusty colour , but I don't necessarily trust colour rendition in a photo of that age . However I wasn't really up for a second brushpainted coat , and in any case the matt varnish has had a few "issues" of its own.
     
    Weathering owed a lot to Humbrol's blue/grey wash. This is far too thick for my taste and was thinned with white spirit . I also added a little of the brown wash into the mix to represent traffic muck from below. The blue grey was used almost neat but thinned on the ends with excellent results - it approximates very well to a colour photo in Parkin's Mk1 book of the grubby black ends of a maroon Mk1 (A grubby black end in one red livery is going to be pretty similar to a grubby black end in another) With a bit more brown in the mix a similar wash was very effective in toning down the underframe - the brown in the mix was stepped up a bit more for the top surface of the footboards
     
    At about this point disaster struck.- I dropped the composite on the table. To my horror I found that one of the seats in a third class compartment had come loose - the roof is sealed irremovably in place and you can't get inside . Still worse, it was now the wrong way up and I couldn't seem to get it back the right way by shaking the thing. I seemed to be stuck with a beige blob at the window - admittedly , with a bit of care it didn't look much different from the other coloured blobs at the windows (my carefully painted Slater's figures) from a distance of 2 ' And the Kadee head had taken the force of the impact and the knuckle wasn't springing back properly. Just when I was starting to feel quite pleased with my efforts all the gilt was taken off the gingerbread
     
    Somehow - I don't quite know how - the wandering seat has subsequently managed to right itself and is no longer noticeable ./ And the affected Kadee head will still couple up - and as it's the end inside the set, it won't have to do much coupling and uncoupling anyway.
     
    Set 2 undertook its trials while I was programming and testing the J11 and a couple of photos show it in all its glory . (I know that a modern image layout isn't really the right setting for this kind of stock, but at least it gives me a place to play with it)
     

     

     
    The shiny roof is undesirable - unfortunately the Humbrol washes come up quite glossy. I resorted to a brush coat of Humbrol matt varnish , which swiftly became two coats of matt varnish. Then I had to remove the areas where it was drying white (too thick) with a brush loaded with white spirit, and finally touched up the remaining marks with a grey-brown compound of acrylic dry brushed. I'm now happy with the result.
     
    And just as I was putting the set away, finally complete - disaster struck again . One bogie dropped off the composite. Inspection revealed that the plastic pin through the plate into the bolster had become glued solid both to the mounting plate and the bolster - and had sheered neatly across , probably as a result of being required to flex while trial running
     
    Since I couldn't get at or replace the plastic pin, I resorted to an emergency bodge. A few years ago I saw someone's multiple unit where they had left the bogie loose and it fitted onto brass bolts protruding from the body as pivots. I don't recommend this approach - it seemed to cause a number of problems - but it suggested a desperate remedy. I found some thick brass wire - I think about 0.9mm diameter - and drilled a hole dead centre by eye into the two halves of the pivot pin - the bogie and the bolster - using a 1.0mm drill. A short length of the wire was super-glued into the hole in the centre of the bogie , adjusted by eye as near dead straight in both planes as possible and allowed to set hard. It gives a fairly tight fit into the bolster, so there should be little slop , but the bogie will fall off when I try to manoevere the composite into its slot in the stock box. I'll probably need to wrap this end round with tissue paper to keep everything together when putting it away.
     
    The Ratio bogie is designed to rock relative to the stretcher piece (which you don't glue in - it's just trapped) , thus taking care of any inacuracy in the for and aft plane . I just hope its ok in the lateral plane. I haven't actually re-erected the layout to re-test it
     
    Still , I've come a long way from where it all started , with this gruesome object
     

  25. Ravenser
    Just to round off a couple of projects - and prove that I do occasionally finish things as well as starting them, here are some hasty shots of the Met Bo-Bo and the Set 1 coaches at the DOGA AGT . Two coaches proved a little too much for the card loco , though one was easy enough - at 100g+ each this is not too surprising
     

     
     

     

     

     
    This one was taken in it's working environment before weathering and lettering - also before I fitted gangways to the inner ends :
     

     
    Somewhere along the line I managed to lose the moulding for one pair of gangway ends . The work around for this was to fit the Ratio mouldings at the outer ends - representing retracted gangways - and working gangways to the the inner ends . I had a packet of MJT "British Standard" gangways in the bits box, possibly bought for use on a Mainline LMS BG which didn't need them in the end, so I found a use for them here. Despite fitting the shortest possible Kadees, there is still about 3-4mm gap between buffers and the final result is a little more reminiscent of Hornby tinplate than I'd like, but at least there is no tell-tale gap between corridor connectors
     
    Numbering and lettering is from some Modelmaster WR and LMR sheets cut up to get the required numbers. I have heard that HMRS have problems obtaining transfer paper for their Pressfix range - certainly their stand at Ally Pally did not have any BR 1948-65 coach lettering sheets so I was driven to improvise from what I could find in the Modelmaster range.
     
    I'm indebted to Bill Bedford for BR (E) numbers for the ex M&GN coaches surviving in 1952 . As none of the brake composites survived that long - presumably because their small guard's compartment wasn't ideal on a line where the main passenger traffic was holiday makers - I've used a number very close to that of the surviving brake thirds.
     
    The roof was originally painted in Railmatch Centro grey (because I have a jar and have no real need for it). This didn't look quite right , so it was overpainted with a 50:50 mix of acrylic Railmatch Roof Dirt and Frame Dirt, with a touch of Tamiya Flat White to lighten it. I brushpainted the sides with satin varnish to even out the fininsh(I couldn't face masking up the windows , and after 3 brushpainted coats on the body there seemed little point spraying the varnish) More or less the same acrylic mix ,very heavily thinned, was applied to the sides , working down, and drawn off where it gathered, and a similar mix, with a bit more brown, to the underframe. I'm satisfied with the result
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