Jon020

Finally listed on Ebay

Thanks Mark, I will endeavour to keep something going on here, as and when I work on something. But thanks for the comments... much appreciated.

Hi Rich. Thanks for the comment and yes it is P4 track. I had a oo board somewhere but couldn't find it at the time; I'd used this one to grab some photos of my craven so used it for this too... yes, its a fine balancing act, but the oo wheels just about cope. :-)

Hello! Firstly, I feel I ought to apologise for my absence on this forum; I can’t quite believe how long it’s been since I did post anything here and there are plenty of reasons for this, but the most significant of these involve a reduced amount of time spent on railway modelling of late (work, life, other interests etc), and what railway modelling has been accomplished has been written in a thread over on the scalefour forum. The reason for that last item is that in modelling in scalefour, but loyalties were tied between the two forums, but when I was appointed as the New Member Support Officer for the Scalefour Society and put on “the committee” I felt my loyalties “pulled” in that direction. That said, the feedback over there has been great and I’ve felt quite at home in that decision, but when modelling directions deviate a little back to OO, the S4 forum is not best placed. Current Scalefour projects are idle at the moment, but they will pick up again, but in the interim, I decided that I ought to do something about the backlog of less-relevant-to-me models that were filling the cupboard. However, it was by attending scaleforum on Saturday, that I returned home with the urge to get something finished, and this was as good a project as any as it just needed testing and buttoning back up. One of these was a DCC Sound fitted Bachmann Freightliner 57. A nice model and fun to run – it ran on my friend’s loft layout for a few evenings a year or so ago, and at the time I must have robbed the speaker to fit into my BR Blue Backmann (rebuild/detailing) Class 47 project. Recently, I thought that the 57 deserved a better home, so I set about reinstating a replacement speaker (from Bachmann) with a view to placing it on ebay. Having noticed the number of these that find their way there, I thought I’d make mine a little different and apply detailing at one end (nothing different about that) and apply some weathering. Again, there’s little unusual about that, but i do pride myself in spending a little time and effort on these weathering jobs as i like them to look reasonable. Whilst many of these locos did end up looking quite filthy, it’s always (in my view) useful to work from photos. There are plenty of photos to be browsed via a google or bing image search and with a selection of small images to hand, I set about applying some muck. I should also state that I’m no fan of filthy loco sides, just for the sake of it. Most locos will end up with an exhaust and oil stained roof and track and muck and ballast and oil stained underframe (bogies and tanks) and some muck will accumulate at the loco ends, both from being thrown up from underneath at the trailing end of the loco and from the trailing sooty exhausts... and anything in the atmosphere that comes their way. The loco sides are, however, usually subject to washer plants and, being vertical, less prone to dirt accumulation. However, anything that does adhere is prone to being washed away by the elements including rain/sleep/snow etc, so a streaking effect can be seen on plenty of locos especially if they’ve been left sat idle for a little while. Therefore, you will probably see that this is the effect that I’ve set out to represent, as seen in photos of the class (and of this loco) in service... with just a little track dirt that’s drifted to the loco body lower edges as a result of a recent working. The first step with any shiny out-of-the-box loco is to tone everything back. Having already detailed one end with the pipework pertinent to this class of 57 when operated by Freightliner, and painted the bufferbeam and buffers (with layers of grime/oil representing mix of silver and black paints) and added polished silver metalcote inners to the buffer oleos, and then applying a few detail highlights to the bogies frames (including adding the yellow to the axle box covers), I set up my recently acquired spray booth to start work on the loco block/chassis and bogies. I removed the DCC sound chip (putting it carefully away) and fitted the blanking plate and then wired a small Hornby dc controller to the PCB power inputs. This allowed me to run the motor at a slow speed and hence drive the wheels... such that when I applied some track grime/sleeper dirt/black enamel paint mix by brush to the wheels (turning slowly) I was able to acquire a good even coverage; when the paint was applied, I was also able to use a slightly-wetted-in-white-spirit cotton bud tip to remove any over spill on the wheel tread faces ... and keep them electrically clean. I then used the same (and later a slightly different variation) of the same shade of paint within the airbrush to apply a gentle/subtle patina of colour to the bogie frames, buffer beams and underframe tanks. Over a period of an hour or so, this colour mix was varied to darker shades and then through to lighter (similar to brake dust) shades lightly, enhancing the subtle patina of shades that would have built-up over time. I then turned my attention to the body, initially (after allowing the maskol to dry over the glazing) I applied a few light whisps of the dirty underframe mix to the loco ends, removing much of this with the wetted cotton bud, slowly building up a very light ingrained dirt look to certain recesses.... but less is more, so most of it was removed. For the roof section, I started with a mix of mostly roof dirt and a little of one of the track browns, slowly applying the colour moving away from the exhaust ports; cab ends and most of the roof sections were covered and then cleaned away again leaving a little streaking and dirt accumulation at the ends and harder to reach (for the cleaners) recesses. Once dried, I applied a further mix of roof dirt in a similar but lighter manner, again moving away from the exhaust ports in each direction, producing a toned-down, rather than filthy, finish overall. The colour was darkened again to nearly a dirty back to deepen the more recent exhaust emissions nearer the ports. The bodysides were cleaned of their overspray (not much) by dragging the aforementioned wetted cotton bud (clean ones each time) in vertical strokes down the sides. Whilst this cleaned the majority of the paint (and I had to apply a few wafts with the airbrush to built it up), it left some nice washed-out dirt marks down the bodyside, representing rain-washed dirt (or at least, that’s the look I was after – this was hardly a principle express loco). Once dried, a few more roof dirt wafts with the airbrush built up this patina. Some light application of thin black paint was applied into roof, bodysides and chassis crevices (including the bogie secondary springs) to enhance the shadows. The cant-rail grills were similarly treated to bring some depth to the grills. Powders were applied to the bogie side frames and tanks, lightly applying a mix of black and brake-dust colours, all of which were “washed in” with some thinners to dilute and seal them into the crevices as intended. Some oil and fuel spill runs were applied to the tanks and bogies using the Tensocrom products. The end result is of a worked, but kept reasonably well looked after loco... not one that’s been left to rot, but one that’s clearly having a working life and will probably get a wash and brush-up the next time it receives some deep maintenance, but for now, it remains in work. I’ll admit that I’ve applied a little artistic license, but the weathering style is based on photos of Freightliner 57s hard at work. I hope this appeals to someone who will, eventually, find it a good home. The remaining photos illustrate a little more of the finished model... as it was sunny on Sunday, so I took the opportunity to grab some photos. Thanks for reading.... Jonathan

I remember that the rule of thumb we used to apply, was "only trust the salesman that praises another company's product".

Sorry about missing the above request. Quite often, adding the link will provide a preview of the image but I guess I added the wrong link. Sorry. But thanks for the likes. Even the wife didn't mind this one, so we now have it as a framed 36"x24" print ... in a. 70cmx50cm frame (a nice mix of imperial and metric ) on the living room wall.

Something to add to this thread... from early on on Wednesday morning. https://flic.kr/p/zQZuYZ

... and on the same day as the N2... you can't beat a good LL 47 IMG_2713-1 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr

N2 1744 at the EOR just before its move to the Nene last month. IMG_2655-1 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr

I've neglected to maintain much of a presence on here for a while; it's not intentional and a refusal to participate, more of a desire to spend a larger proportion of the modelling time available (which isn't enough) to devote to actual modelling and making some headway rather than sharing progress throughout the interweb. However, I have been maintaining a forum thread on the scalefour forum... primarily due to my scalefour committee involvement and desire to have some form of presence on the dedicated forum for the society... and I was finding it hard to maintain a momentum on more than just the other forum... and there's only so much time. Anyway, I'm pleased to say that since the first posting of a link to the thread, much progress has been made with bodywork details and sprung and detailed bogies... with work to be done on the under-body tanks and further etch details to be added once acquired... but progress is pleasing and hopefully worthwhile The full story up to date can be viewed at http://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4161&start=50 ... and I think that it's fair to say that sometimes its important to maintain a proper balance of what's possibly and what's not really practicable. I'll be taking the model, as it is, to scaleforum this weekend; i'll be there all weekend so please stop by and say hello if you're there and see me. Jon

Good to catch up with the thread Jon and to see that you're still carrying on with 4mm and not just 7mm; all looks great. I really must stay on here more as I've drifted a little to concentrate on the other forum (committee commitments purely making me feel compelled to do so) - so time limited has left me away from here, but good to see the work again. If you're at Stoke Mandeville this weekend, please say "Hi" - I'll be on duty all weekend somewhere Jon

It was fun to operate but blimey I thought that re railing derailments in P4 needed concentration .... great to be invited to help and your son did great! Hope to catch up again in Uckfield. Bombay Jon.

I think it looked and performed splendidly... thanks for letting this non2mm modeller near the operations side and it was fun coping with those minor derailments when the ahem points were set wrong I did learn ... eventually. Hope the rest of the afternoon went well and I hope we'll see more of Kyle soon.

Dear all, I realise that I've not posted much here of late, but I have been dabbling in some projects in some of my spare time, although that's become more limited of late, although a spell off work has seen me able to get my eye back in and catch up with the write-up that I'd promised. As I've taken on the duties of the new member support officer in the scalefour society, ive tried to put more of a presence in on the scalefour forum so my write-up is over there, but I thought a link to the project might be of interest to a few. Please leave comments there if you're a member or here if not, should you wish to. http://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4161 Thanks..... Jonathan

Looks good Pete... which bit will you want me to operate on the night ;-) Good to see you posting again. Jon