jukebox

20 hours ago, Pint of Adnams said:

Check with Cambridge Custom Transfers: Cambridge Custom Transfers (cctrans.org.uk) - he is cctrans on RMWeb

 

Sheet BL98 - BR LMS Dias. 1929, 2026; LNER Dias. 6, 86, 87, 120, 170, 176, 177 4-wheeled passenger brake and CCT vans; sufficient for 27 vans.

2mm., 2.5mm., 3mm., 3.5mm. &  4mm. scale price is £9.00

Thanks for that - it does look to be the one needed.

Cheers.

I'm just finishing up a Chivers Dia120 ex-LNER pigeon van;  Can someone point in the the right direction where to find the neccesary yellow labelling transfers ("GUARD", "E70xxxE" "XP")?

Railtec's BR maroon non-passenger stock comes close - but I was wondering if there's anything elese out there / what other use.

Cheers

Scott

Steady, steady:

With one carriage primed, I went back and started bringing the others up to prepaint stage;

Attaching the vinyl overlays for the fibreglass roof hatches was a bit tricky, so I thought someone my benefit from seeing the method I ended up using.

This is the sheet with the pre cut overlays:

Initially, I thought the three sections on each would be firmly attached to one another, and my cunning plan was to use the shoulder film to get the spacing distance from the rain strip constant. 

But after mauling two stickers on the first sheet, I could see that was not going to work (luckily there are spares).  So I came up with Plan B:

Remove the outside shoulder (easy - it is not attached to the inner pieces):

Then, using a sharp flat blade, carefully slide in under the short end, around 2mm - enough to shovel both the middle and centre sticker whilst still intact:

Don't go too far - or it is too hard to remove as a whole on the model.  And pick it up square, as this will aide placement.  Carefully lift off the backing sheet:

Once it is off the backing sheet, you can transfer it to the model, pushing half down firmly and then using that to anchor the sticker, and peel the knife out from under the sticker.

It takes a few goes to get the knack, but there's spares.  I ended up using the Mk.1 eyeball alignment system, and am happy with the result.

***

While the primer was drying, I was going to go back and add the lifting eyes and brake backing plate to the chassis.  To do this, I needed the bogies fitted.

When I fitted the bogies, I discovered an unintended consequence of my cutting the 2.75mm off the well section; I had cut the locating lugs away, and my wells were not perfectly central as a result.

That impacts the ability of the bogies to swing.  This show each chassis with the bogie at full lock:

Chassis #2 and #4 are close to correct - the bogies have equal clearance.  But you can see #1 and #3 have generous swing in the top bogie, but interference in the bottom bogie, caused by the well being 0.5-1.0mm too far off-centre toward the bottom.

My initial though was to Dremel cut the insides of the well away and fit a new dummy wall, rebated rebated 2mm in behind the well side, but my current thinking is I will simply solder up the bogie bolt hole, and redrill ~1mm inboard, to shift the bogie swing axis outboard - which will also make the gap between the well end and bogie sides equal - which cutting the inside well wall would not.

Those of you who read my layout thread know I am happy to own up to my mistakes on here - I'd much rather see that not everyone gets it right, and that there are usually work-arounds when things go wrong.

***

Lastly,  as I had the primer out, I have gotten many of the other kits set up ready for final trimming and then colour.  Here's the NER snowplow, with the primer bringing out all the lovely detail on the 3D print:

Yes, I did replace the handrails...

Cheers,

Scott

And onward.

Whilst I had planned to 'batch build' these four kits, the flaw in that it that one error becomes four errors when I get it wrong, so I've changed tack slightly, and am advancing one body a little further before stepping back and bringing the other three up to speed.

***  

I struggled a bit with the roof-body join.  It seemed to take a *lot* of iterations of filling, sanding, and priming, to get a relatively seamless connection, but I did get there.

Once I did, I used masking tape to mask of the area where the rain strip goes, and Zap CA gap filling cyno to stick the rainstrip down:

This worked well, although when I went back and did the other carriages, some rainstrips ended up straigter than others.  In hindsight, epozy may have been a better choice, as it would have given more more working time - the CA was about 10 seconds.

The end details were also cyno'd on - fiddly little suckers, but I got there. Cruel close up:

There was no coupling hook on the etch in the kit - luckily I had a loco kit with 8 spares on it - perfect!

The tape for the weld seams came next - straightforward.  The same adhesive decals are used for the skylights. These proved rather fiddley, and in the end I found that I could get a fresh flat knife blade under the surround and centre on one end, and lift if off as one (took me wasting 2 of three spares to get the knack of this...).

Not trusting the sticker adhesive's longevety, it was straight to the paint booth for some primer:

Those decals really work well to create subtlely simulated weld seams, but I can see one has lifted slightly, and I'll need to tend to it.  

But otherwise, I'm happy with what the body looks like. I'll sand any minor blemishes with fine wet and dry, and spray another light coat of primer before bringing the other three up to this stage.

Cheers.

Scott

With the bogies built, it was time to start tackling the car bodies.

I bought myself 1m of aluminium angle and made a quick-and-dirty set of bending bars:

These, or a hold & fold, or something similar are all but mandatory to build this kit.

The carriage frames need to have solebars bent down. the car sides have to be bent, and pesky solebar bottoms folded up from fiddly etches.  The bigger pieces were just fine, but the small etches that needed longitudinal folds, to form the angle on the bottom of the well section, were painful using the bending bars.  A hold and fold might have helped.  Also, the kit provides small angles for the *ends* of the well section too, but makes no mention of them in the instructions.  My first one ended up a bit 'agricultural', but I eventually got a technique that worked for me, and they look okay.

I cut 2.75mm off the well - the same thickness as the angle section that has to be soldered under it.  It seemed about right, and my logic was that perhaps that dimension was mis-read when the kit was being scaled.  It seems okay, but perhaps @flood's recommended 4mm is a safer choice.

So at this point, I set up a chassis, to check the ride height and dimensions next to a Bachmann SLP I plan to run with these.  It's not a pretty picture:

Yes, I could shave 1mm or so off the Deralin hub the bogies sit on, but the dimensional issues with this kit appear to be all over the shop.

The bogie height - even the axle centre - look to be okay - but that main solebar?  It appears grossly over fed - it should be similar thickness to the angle under the well.

If I shave the  Deralin hub, the bottom of the solebar will be fine - but nothing short of major surgery can help the over height body.

That's beyond my capabilities, so after a couple of days frustration, I came to the conclusion I will just have to live with the error, and I pushed on.

Chassis ready for sides:

..and sides CA'd then Araldited in place:

Cheers

Scott

I, too, started with the bogies.

It's a simple exercise to nip out the end bracing from the main bogie etch:

And these fold up very tidily into the bogie frames themselves:

Per the advice in the video, I soldered the main etch square, and also soldered the bearings in place, before trapping wheels in each bogie and then soldering the end braces on.

After I'd done that, I saw Southern Pride provide an etch for mounting couplings - I may not use them, but it's easier to have them on and remove later, than to try and solder on at the end of the build, so added one to each bogie.  I wish I'd soldered those on earlier - it was a bit of a juggle getting between the axle and the brace with the tip of the iron.

I checked these were all sitting nice and square on track, and running freely, then filed and sanded back any mess, then gave them a good scrube with Jif, before attending to the cosmetic castings whilst they dried.

These are the bogie castings - they are a pretty good representation of the bogies under the TCVs.  A couple of my 16 had a pronounced bow in them, so it was going to be interesting how they sat on the frames.

All went well, using full strength Araldite - I prefer that to cyno when I can avoid the latter - although I was two frames in when I realised the lugs on the back of the castings where moulding pips, and I could lside them off (otherwise only the bearings form attachment points).

There was a lot of think flash around the bottoms of the castings - something to do with the need to get the resin into the fine details, I suspect.  As I result I did bump one of the suspension lugs off - top left (and another came adrift thru handling).  I glued these back on before attaching to the sub frames.

This morning, I checked the production line to make sure all the wheels still spun freely - they did.  I had clamped the bowed casting onto the thb frame - the rest just sat where they adhered - and perversely, as a result, it ended up a little bowed in the opposite direction.  Not enough to be noticeable when painted black and grimed up under a carriage, and not enough to worry me, so that will be how it stays.

Cheers,

Scott

For reasons 10 years on that escape me now, I purchased 4 of these kits.  I think it was my plan to run something of an abbreviated formation, as these tended to be 10-12 car trains; the West Coast version being 4TCV/BSO/RU/3SLSTP/3FK, whilst the East Coast had BSO/FK/RU/FO/6TCV.

Anyway, here's what I'm working with:

Inside the box, you get the following:

Just needs wheel, paint, and some talent to finish.

Oh, in each of those bags?

Pre-formed brass sides, slotted floor, and ready-to-be-bent etched car well:

The second baggie:

Resin castings and whitemetal buffers:

The last baggie:

Bogie etches, bearings, and etched details - even some wire for the end hinges.

There's also a vac-formed roof, styrene for the rain strip, and a full set of decals including lining & lettering, and a complete set of numbers, as well as vinyl stickers for the roof skylights.

With four of these to complete, my plan is to batch-build. Hopefully I will get better as I go.

There are some known challenges with this kit - I'll document those as I progress.

It's been a number of years since I soldered a kit together, so it may take a while to find my finesse, but we'll get there!

I'll make a start on these next weekend.

Cheers,

Scott

As I mentioned in the first post here since the re-birth, this sudden burst of mojo came about in part because Heljan decided to rain on my parade and produce RTR TCV Newton Chambers car carriers.  When I have four in my stash, and I now know they are nowhere near as "fall together" as the Chivers pigeon vans.  

After grumbling about the state of affairs, and with a few weeks mandatory Christmas leave coming up, I decided to turn the situation upside down.  I'm hoping I can build my four over the summer, and be looking at them sitting on the tracks of Stockrington well before Heljan's models hit the stores.  That'll learn 'em.

***

To start, I thought I'd gather links to a lot of the reference material I have into a post here, just on the off chance anyone else has one of these kits stashed away.

There's a number of posts on RMWeb that reference the TCV's and Southern Pride's kit.  @Flood of this parish was most helpful answering a few questions on the example he was building a couple of years back - thanks again.

There is also a useful thread on the Western Thunder website about the 7mm model that discusses aspects of the prototype:

https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/threads/newton-chambers-car-carriers.3823/

And the go-to for detail photos of the prototype appears to be this site - in blue/grey livery but still relevant:

https://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/proto_carcarriers.html

There's a few other places to find photos, although not many exist showing these vehicles in crimson.  This one is the best, and also seems to suggest there's a height difference between the TCV's and other Mk1 vehicles - or at least the sides are taller (this is a point of contention in a couple of the above discussions).

There's a smattering of other photos around - useful, if not essential for determining the placement of the fibreglass panels on the roofs for specific vehicle numbers.

The most pertinent aide is actually a recent YouTube video by "Wallsrail" who runs through his build of the kit.  Thank you, and well done, sir!

So with all that background material, me being 10,000 miles away from where these carriages were used shouldn't be a problem, right?

Let's see how it goes.

Cheers

Scott

Good evening everyone.

Just a heads-up that I forgot I had a dedicated thread for my layout Rolling Stock:

I will be continuing my summer adventures over there.

Cheers

Scott

So with the snowplough ready for priming, I looked at my shelf and spied two Chivers LNER pigeon van kits that I'd grabbed when Matt Chivers did a fresh run of these back in 2020.

So over a week of evenings these just about built themselves.  Wonderful stuff, nice fresh, crisp mouldings, and easy to assemble.  I made a couple of rookie mistakes as I've not done any kit building in years, but I was able to save myself too much grief (no one need ask why one van has a lift off roof, and the other has a lift off body...)

Here's the completed kits, before any filling and priming:

I've always wanted to take a stab at painting model LNER teak, so the plan is to do one in BR crimson, the other in LNER teak.

That is still a few weeks away...

Onto something rather more complex next.

Cheers,

Scott

And five years on, a second bit of thread resurrection here...   The Second Coming, if you like (!!!!!)

I was tending to my broken signature, and realised my rolling stock work that I should post here was in my layout thread.

So I'll remedy that by reposting the material about the Nui snowplough I have underway, and take it from there.

***

About six months ago, I had mentioned to my good friend Paul that I'd stumped up for one of Al's fro NUI models NE snowplough kits, and he recently saw a YouTube video of a large scale US outline slowplough actually ploughing - he pondered how well the kit plough would work...  Needing little excuse for a diversion, I pulled the box of the shelf, and decided to build it.

Here's the box from NUI:

Inside you get all this:

It's 3D printed, and the bulk of the "kit" is the body moulding, plus a roof, the plough blade, and an axle keeper plate.  You also get wheels, spring buffers, couplings and decals.  My kit cam sans the screws to attached the keeper plate, but that's an easy find in the parts box.

Here's some views of the main moulding, so you judge the detail in the print - I was impressed with the crispness and fidelity:

A couple of points:

The body around the skirt area is a touch wavy.  It's not noticable now, and wil be even less so under a coat of NE dark blue.

The four handrails are well formed, and I am still wavering on whether to replace these with 0.3mm brass wire.  It honestly probably doesn't need it, but I'll see how I go.

"Building" the kit is a bit of a misnomer: you glue the buffers and blade on, the paint, and glue the roof.

I used Araldite, my preferred adhesive for resin - others may prefer cyno, as the drying time for eposy is a PITA; I am happy to trade that for superior tensile and impact strength.

So the kit is now ready for the paintshop.

I did a dummy run, to see how it sits on the wheels (the roof is left loose for now, so I can glaze the windows after painting):

Looks good from this angle, but a little lower and it does seem a tad high

I can't imagine a plough blade that far above the rail head being much use...

Reference photos are mixed - some show a very tight clearance, others do seem to suggest a higher placed blade. The profile on the box shows about half the clearance the model currently has.

Lowering the ride would not be hard - just routing out the axle slots with a Dremel

With that kit put to bed, bar painting, and not wanting to fire up the airbrush for just this one item, I looked around my kit shelf...

Sittiing there were two Chviers Fineslines LNER pigeon vans.  And then I opened my Hattons email to see Heljan have just announced they are producing RTR Newton Chambers car carriers.  There's four of *those* in my stash, too.  Luckily, my kit building mojo as been triggered.  Turns out it's going to be a busy Christmas!

Cheers,

Scott

8 hours ago, 69843 said:

If I'm not mistaken mate, the blade was lowerable with a series of bolts or similar that lowered the lower section closer to the rail head when ploughing, and then could be retracted for running. It seems that the U19 has been modelled in the raised position here by that last photo.

Makes sense, now that you say that.

Curiously, the few reference photos around online suggest the slots should be in the frame underneath, not the blade:

Which makes sense - you would not want those slots filling with icy slush and freezing up; having them on the body, the blade may offer some coverage/protection.

I'm not OCD about it - will leave everything as is.  Including the ride height.

Cheers

Scott

Welcome to December!

Slight change of plans here Down Under.  About six months ago, I had mentioned to my good friend Paul that I'd stumped up for one of Al's fro NUI models NE snowplough kits, and he recently saw a YouTube video of a large scale US outline slowplough actually ploughing - he pondered how well the kit plough would work...  Needing little excuse for a diversion, I pulled the box of the shelf, and decided to build it.

Here's the box from NUI:

Inside you get all this:

It's 3D printed, and the bulk of the "kit" is the body moulding, plus a roof, the plough blade, and an axle keeper plate.  You also get wheels, spring buffers, couplings and decals.  My kit cam sans the screws to attached the keeper plate, but that's an easy find in the parts box.

Here's some views of the main moulding, so you judge the detail in the print - I was impressed with the crispness and fidelity:

A couple of points:

The body around the skirt area is a touch wavy.  It's not noticable now, and wil be even less so under a coat of NE dark blue.

The four handrails are well formed, and I am still wavering on whether to replace these with 0.3mm brass wire.  It honestly probably doesn't need it, but I'll see how I go.

"Building" the kit is a bit of a misnomer: you glue the buffers and blade on, the paint, and glue the roof.

I used Araldite, my preferred adhesive for resin - others may prefer cyno, as the drying time for eposy is a PITA; I am happy to trade that for superior tensile and impact strength.

So the kit is now ready for the paintshop.

I did a dummy run, to see how it sits on the wheels (the roof is left loose for now, so I can glaze the windows after painting):

Looks good from this angle, but a little lower and it does seem a tad high

I can't imagine a plough blade that far above the rail head being much use...

Reference photos are mixed - some show a very tight clearance, others do seem to suggest a higher placed blade. The profile on the box shows about half the clearance the model currently has.

Lowering the ride would not be hard - just routing out the axle slots with a Dremel

With that kit put to bed, bar painting, and not wanting to fire up the airbrush for just this one item, I looked around my kit shelf...

Sittiing there were two Chviers Fineslines LNER pigeon vans.  And then I opened my Hattons email to see Heljan have just announced they are producing RTR Newton Chambers car carriers.  There's four of *those* in my stash, too.  Luckily, my kit building mojo as been triggered.  Turns out it's going to be a busy Christmas!

I noticed this morning as I was checking the forum that today is the 10th Anniversary of me starting this thread.

Happy 10th Birthday to Stockrington!

There's a fair bit to be melencholy about in the last decade - upheavals in home life, the passing away of family, and passing away of friends here on RMWeb, the evaporation of all those photos recording the progress as the layout took shape...

But I'm still here, and the wheels of progress are still turning.

Thanks everyone who has visited and continues to do so.

Here's to shared interests, long distance friendships, and inspirational efforts.

Cheers everyone

Scott

Hi Folks

Sorry for the lack of updates; I just don't quite get the time upstairs I used to - small steps, right now, as they say.

I've been working on finishing the golf course.  The green is 4 shades of flock - and whilst I used a mask to set up the first set of diamonds, the rest is all hand painting PVA, flocking, waiting, vacuuming, rinse, repeat:

I am back up in the NW of our state in the Pilbara this week, so will have to wait until next weekend to get the next shade down, but it's getting there.

Whilst I had the PVA out, I went across to the other side of the layout, and repaired the ballast from the turnout I dug out almost two years ago, looking for the short that wasn't:

The hardest part was finding the jar of ballast to match the mix I'd used at that location - I think I got it right. I'll add a wash of grime later on to make it blend in well, but it's actually come up pretty good.

Cheers everyone.

Scott

Nice work on the video - I do like the trains being driven at sub-HST speeds!  Keeps things plausibly realistic.  Well done!

S.

Last week I had foliaged most of the wire armatures, so this week, I set about planting trees.

Not much rocket science to it, I use Liquid Nails, a viscous construction glue, and prop the trees with whatever is hand until the glue grips enough for the top heavy trees not to topple.

They shed a ton of flock as I am planting, leaving the fairway looking like this:

Reverse camera angle close up:

That rather harsh close up shows the Liquid Nails clearly - a soil-brown goo...  I'll show you how I handle disguising that shortly.

With the first row of trees in place, I was starting to get the effect I'd been wanting; a scenic block that offered 'glimpses' of the railway;

Looking from across the tracks, the stand of trees - centre of view - starts to make sense visually, too;

The view from a driver's perspective also is working for me:

You can see some of the trees have shed flock down the embankment.  I use 3M spray adhesive, and it's tacky as anything, but the contact area of the wore armatures is tiny.  Some of my very early trees on the tunnel hill have she quite a large amount, so I am expecting these, too, will  leave foliage, if you'll pardon the pun, so I won't clean this up; consider it 'the right type of leaves'...

Here's those root balls;

I cover them with PVA applied with a small-bristled long-handled paintbrush, then clump flock around the base, When dry, I vacuum up the excess.

Here's the fairway after I tidied up;

...and looking back down the hill;

Working on the green again there, too.

Those glimpses?  The way I set the trees, I have left some gaps, so as in real life, trainspotting can be done:

Even between the elms, there's some nicely framed views;

My thinking is that as Stockrington is an unashamed 'roundy', there's never going to be a huge operational element - but as it's set up to watch trains go by, I wanted to evoke the feeling of seeing them in the landscape.  That will also make layout photography (and videography) more fun.

Last thing I did today was add five smaller trees, that I've shubberied with a dark forest green flock.  These will sit nestled in front of the row I've created, to add some depth.  Photos of those in my next update 

Then it's finish the green off, and I'll pause the work in this area.  I'd like to bed it in, and see how satisfied I am with it after a few months.  If I think I need a few more trees I will come back to it - but I do think it's getting close.

Once I put this element to bed, I have to move to the next area.  I'm thinking that will be to the immediate right; Stockrington Station.

Cheers,

Scott

Thanks everyone for the kind words of support.

I promise as I find my rhythm again I will make visits to your own pages, and help make this pace the useful two-way street it always has been.

I've had a series of shorter sessions working on the treeline this week, and have just taken some updated progress photos.

I will come back here after dinner my time and write it up, along with some photos of how it's looking.

Cheers,

Scott

In July of 2021, I had started to work on planting the tree line that was  going to follow the fence along the side of the golf course.

That was anchored by four large elm0ish trees;

These were quite large, but did not look out of place:

I then had a fence line that I wanted to plant up to, to create a green barrier that meant you would only glimpse trains going past:

So I started by "planting low shrubs hard against that fence line - lichen and Woodlands clump foliage;

Hmmm - been so long I forgot about file sizes.

Time to reduce some for the next post.

Cheers

Scott

So, here we are, a year since my last post.  Two years since any substantive work on the layout.

The good news is, the sleeper has awakened.  Until recently, I have not checked in on RMWeb, but I gather there was a mishap with a host, and we now have lost all of our images?  That's an incredible waste.  I'm sure everyone who has a layout thread on here feels that as harshly as I do.  I was proud of having this thread as a document of Stockrington's construction.  Very sad.

Life Down Under has of course carried on.  The layout lay dormant all that time; a short had mysteriously appeared around the time of my father's passing, and that, combined with a long period without use, made running unreliable, and it all felt too hard.  I visited the room a handful of times, and each time was reminded I'd done so well up to that point, but just couldn't find the motivation to restart.

Funnily enough, it was my partner who provided the catalyst.  We were planning to meet friends of hers for coffee, and the husband is a beginning modeller.  It didn't feel right not hosting them at my place, so he could see the layout, and that was enough or a prompt for me to do a clean up of the room.  When that was done, I felt guilty I couldn't have a couple of trains running for him, so cleared out the area under the layout where I knew the short was approximately (that PSX circuit breaker paying for itself), and after 45 minutes solved the problem.  So, a few weeks back, Stockrington had its first visitor, and trains ran.

That was enough to remind me of the enjoyment I get out of the journey, and so I am slowly getting back into it.

So let's see what's happening...

Hello from Perth, Australia, everyone.

I just wanted to take a minute or two to thank those of you who have asked after me, and Stockrington, these past six months.  All is well, my family and I are safe in the Covid19-free bubble that is Western Australia, but I have not made any further progress on the layout. Life, and a general malaise about my job, has been sapping any enthusiasm.

As many of you will be aware, Gordon Stolliday passed away this week.  His work on his layout, Eastwood Town, was an incredible inspiration to me, and we chatted both on-line, and in direct messages, about modelling techniques and ideas.  He was a kind and generous gentleman, whom I had hoped one day to be able to meet in person.  He was very much a kindred soul, who managed to strike the sort of balance between pragmatic realism, and remembering that our efforts were just building glorified train sets at the end of the day. His passing, like that of Graham Jowett-Ives a few years back, feels incredibly sad to me.  Despite being on the other side of the world, and being some years his junior, I considered him a friend, and hope he felt the same of me.  I will miss him here on RMWeb greatly.

In perhaps of moment of synchronicity, last month I resigned from the job that made me feel so hopelessly undervalued.  A Covid outbreak in Sydney this month means that a trip east I planned to visit my nonagenarian mother cannot occur, and I find myself with a fortnight of no obligations to anyone but myself before I start my new role.  I am going to try and use some of that time to rekindle some mojo, and schedule some work on Stockrington.  The plan will be to perhaps work on some of the vegetation that I'd imagined will frame the golf course.  As he was such a keen player, going forward this will be known as "Gordon's hole" in recognition of my distant friend.

Cheers to all - hope you are safe, and well.

Scott

The only substantive work in 2021 - four big trees now planted. They form the visual barrier I'd hoped for, and the size helps lift the scene from being "toy train".  I need to go back and disguise the tree bases with static grass and flock

A couple of figures at the base of one tree to get a sense of scale.

I've put the possible 5th tree to the left on hold - a combination of not wanting to overpower the area, and that it might get damaged as I am finishing the rest of the detail here.

Incredibly sad news.

Like so many, although we had not met, I considered him a friend, and imagined the day post-Covid where we could meet face to face.

He was an inspiration, and will be greatly missed.

Condolences to his family and friends.

Scott

Perth, Australia

I must confess I did not have "Russian prostitute nail varnish pink" on my RMWeb bingo card for today...