Newton Regis. Workbench wanderings through the 1920s and 30s the Great Western Way

[MrWolf]

Depending on where the slate was quarried, it's not always a uniform colour even when new.

[longchap]

7 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Depending on where the slate was quarried, it's not always a uniform colour even when new.

 

Very true and we have some fabulous Indian slate now residing as the hearth for our wood burner! However I rather also like the more uniform look from my childhood days, so model it for the sake of retaining comfort from my northern roots.

 

Sorry 'bout that.

[MrWolf]

There's a big difference in color between Welsh slate and that mined in the Lake district or Leicestershire. Even then you get variations in the actual stone as batches of slate are processed and packed for delivery.

[longchap]

Having some overnight visitors last week, I rather quickly had to move the layout boards and workbench out of their way and into a different building. Now with a little more time, I started tiding the various heaps and sorting stock from various other locations into big storage boxes, which was useful for my future sanity. Of interest were some half forgotten items, long salted away, which served to reinforce a recent decision to stop buying stock (except some existing pre-orders) and build all the kits and projects already on the embarrassingly long waiting list.

 

This box revealed my stash of old clerestories, mainly brake thirds which including a pristine LMS version, which might just avoid the razor saw and go into a display cabinet with some other fondly remembered ancient items.

 

 

I then discovered three more and I have numerous plans, including an unusual auto trailer, which I found a lovely prototype photo for the basis of the conversion.

 

 

Another surprise, as I have only a vague memory of starting the kit sometime in my 20s, is this old Wills loco kit.

 

 

I can only recall building the body of the 1804 saddle tank and the box still contains a pair of wheels, so the origins of chassis is a mystery, but perhaps it’s from that incomplete kit I bought of an open cab white metal pannier from that auction site.

 

 

I’ll need to check out the chassis some more and see how it runs and I have several other motors which might be fettled in. It will be wired for DCC.

 

I have a minor medical intervention next week, but am looking forward to getting into more productive railway modelling as soon as I can. This however will be getting the control panel and wiring completed to get the layout running and that’s a milestone I’m looking forward to reaching.

 

Speak soon,

 

Bill

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by longchap
word spillage

[MrWolf]

I'm looking forward to rediscovering my stash of railway items once we're settled in at the new place. 

We have a mountain of decorating to do first...☹️

 

I've also had to be strict about not buying any more wagons, coaches or locos that don't fit the branch line philosophy.

 

It's a lot easier to buy them than build a layout and run them!

 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by MrWolf

[NHY 581]

Evening Bill, 

 

Curiosity has got thd better of me so I've popped in for a nose around......

 

 

Rob.

[Gilbert]

4 minutes ago, NHY 581 said:

Evening Bill, 

 

Curiosity has got thd better of me so I've popped in for a nose around......

 

 

Rob.

I thought you were supposed to be ill........

[NHY 581]

1 minute ago, Gilbert said:

I thought you were supposed to be ill........

 

 

I'm poorly bad. Close to death. 

[longchap]

27 minutes ago, NHY 581 said:

Evening Bill, 

 

Curiosity has got thd better of me so I've popped in for a nose around......

 

 

Rob.

 

You're welcome Rob, but curiosity, so some say, caused the cat to be less so, so tread warily 😬

 

23 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

I thought you were supposed to be ill........

 

20 minutes ago, NHY 581 said:

 

 

I'm poorly bad. Close to death. 

 

I'll send over some liniment, as endorsed by Lilly the Pink 😋

[5BarVT]

1 hour ago, longchap said:

liniment

Don’t you mean medicinal compound?

Takes me back a bit, and though I haven’t a clue who the band were these days, you’ve got me humming the tune and some of the words!

Paul.

[longchap]

9 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Don’t you mean medicinal compound?

Takes me back a bit, and though I haven’t a clue who the band were these days, you’ve got me humming the tune and some of the words!

Paul.

 

Result !!!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scaffold

 

I too am a scouser, slightly lapsed round the edges.

[wiggoforgold]

10 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

Evening Bill, 

 

Curiosity has got thd better of me so I've popped in for a nose around......

 

 

Rob.

Me too! Having found it, I shall be back :)

 

Alex

Edited May 23, 2022 by wiggoforgold

[longchap]

Bonjour Alex and welcome to Newton Regis, now with added back photographs!

 

You join us as our holiday season is about to start, so little modelling as I finish off maintenance items, but the occasional finishing off of some builds is imminent, including my goods shed, which just needs rainwater goods and a horse and cart.

 

Bill

 

 

[longchap]

Summer meanderings around the village

 

As is usual during the summer, modelling activities are suspended due to high temperatures and catering to our holiday guests, so Newton Regis waits quietly until the autumn. However, a short visit to the UK last month enabled me to rescue a cache of railway books, tools and some kits from a good friend, as well as collect my new Hornby Star loco, on offer from Hattons.

 

The summer months however, also offer greater opportunities to mess about with old cars, so here’s some old motor news from chez nous.

 

An old friend was attending the June centenary celebrations of Citroen’s 5cv and was towing his 1925 example to the event in Northern France behind his 1947 Citroen Traction Avant when the Big 6 broke down, so abandoned it and the trailer in a safe location, continuing to the event in the 5hp, which performed faultlessly over the three days and then onto our village, just 150 miles further at 35mph, where it too broke down outside our village bar when entering a one way street with shouts from the outside clientele, strongly applied the transmission brake and snapped a half shaft.

 

Fortunately, the large box of tea bags he was carrying for us were undamaged by the incident and I recovered the Yellow Peril, driver, co-pilot and PG Tips back to ours for further investigation and emergency beers.

 

 

Removal of the half shaft was straightforward and the sheered off end had fallen down inside the differential, which was then removed to reveal the source of the famous Citroen logo:

 

 

The double chevron helix gear wheel, the invention and manufacture of which made Andre Citroen a rich and well known man. Note broken half shaft in the background.

 

The plan was to buy a new pair of half shafts and return in July for repairs and take in our annual Retro Grand Prix event, which is a celebration of pre-war sporting cars and motorcycles up to 1960.

 

Some random photos from the July 2022 GPR in Le Puy Notre Dame (plenty of videos on YouTube):

 

 

 

 

 

Twisted autojumble relic

 

BSA tricycle car

 

BSA, Otto with handmade coachwork by another visiting chap.

 

Meanwhile back at the ranch:

 

 

I pulled this 1956 swan neck 49cc Velosolex out from the far reaches of my workshop,

Here in tandem with my almost new March 1965 38cc model. Both original and complete with tool kit under the rear rack. The ’56's stilll had an original insurance certificate inside, registered to our current address!

 

Apparently, my pal Bernie had been looking for a while for an old Solex to restore, so I gave him the ’56, with a spare engine and an old French crash hat.

 

Owing to the long and complex process for registering a collector car in France for road use, our ’36 Ulster (the blue car above) could not take to the track this year, but will be back next year with his new French number.

 

News of normal service from Newton Regis to follow!

 

Best,

 

Bill   

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by longchap

[john dew]

Lovely to hear from you Bill. What an eventful summer you have had - no wonder you have had little time for Newton Regis.

 

Best wishes

[longchap]

With summer nights now drawing in and temperatures finally dipping back into the 20s during the day, one's mind turns to getting back to railway modelling, so today I took the toilet flush mechanism to pieces and removed a surprising amount of calcaire from its gubbings and now reassembled, it works to an acceptable standard, necessary for the comfort of a modeller in man cave self isolation!

 

Next came a huge reorganisation of numerous boxes of really useful stuff, so I could find the right stuff when needed and finally a clean and tidy of the work table, which is now ready for action, so progress at Newton Regis can start again next week.

 

I need to finish wiring the last few points and making the control panel to get trains moving, but I have an overwhelming desire to complete the 'almost there' goods shed, so I'll hold the electrics off a tad longer and find the guttering and downpipe packs put carefully in a safe place earlier in the year! How difficult can that be?

Edited September 11, 2022 by longchap

[Graham T]

Packs like that seem to reappear just after I've given them up as lost and ordered replacements...

[longchap]

Too true Graham, but today I found loads of Ratio and Slatters GWR station fence packs which I didn't know I had, so saved the hassle of ordering more!

[MrWolf]

I've had a sort out since we moved and found at least half a dozen more wagons.

Which means that I don't need to buy any more.

 

Ever.

 

Probably.😇

[Graham T]

A likely story Mr W!

[longchap]

Goods Shed, (Prototype: Chudleigh)

 

I wanted a shed capable of representing brisk to busy goods traffic at times, yet maintain the feel of a spacious yard, so opted for a small goods shed with adjoining loading platform. I noticed Chudleigh had a small platform sited shed and then discovered Rail Model produced a laser cut MDF kit which fitted the bill well enough.

 

This is a relatively small and seemingly straightforward kit and is provided with let us say, ‘concise’ instructions, but fortunately also a good set of build photographs to keep you on the right track. However there is nothing quite as good as having period prototype photographs for reference, which are often easily found in the internet, as is the case for Chudleeigh.

 

 

This photo shows the build commenced with walls laminated and clamps holding the floor joist dwarf support walls in place while the PVA glue dries (EDIT I admit to a bit of overkill with the clamps, but I’m still using normal PVA at this stage and wanted to keep the pressure on). The construction manager in me sighs when joists run the long, rather than the short building span, but as I didn’t use them and you couldn’t see them under the floor anyway, I shouldn’t complain. There are 11 floor joists, which may indeed be prototypical to support a fully burdened shed, but is overkill for the model, so I used the 2 end supports and 2 of the joists on the two other sides to support the floor and gained 9 useful joists for the spares box. I am sure that they will be used before too long.

 

I use the piece of blue glass seen in the background to build everything on, which is an easy way to help ensure square and level structures and rolling stock and the wall structure is assembled on this, with the floor dropped in with a couple of small engineer’s to ensure alignment. 

 

The kit will be built with rail and roadside doors fully open, enabling the interior to be detailed. Beside the roof trusses and floor planks, no internal detail is modelled in the kit, so I scribed the internal wall boarding and you can see coffee stirrer sticks cut down to size and waiting their turn to provide the timber frame for the external cladding.

 

 

Although I read the instructions, I never like gluing up a four sided structure in one go, so used my tried and tested method of assembling the walls as two sub-assemblies, with the corners held firmly between two engineered right angled devices, using Rocket card glue with its precision application nozzle. I’ve found this quick drying glue so versatile and easy to use, that I keep a bottle handy on the work bench and usually a couple in reserve. To get the longest life from them, always keep the nozzle clean and the cap on tight between applications.

“It’s a game of two halves, know wot I mean John”

 

Adding the timber frame to the cladding boards was straightforward, although cutting and fettling the coffee stirrers to scale size took a while, but absolutely worth it.

 

Before permanently joining the two halves together, they were painted and weathered, including the floor.

 

 

As you can’t view the layout from the rear, the interior is mainly detailed where you see it through the front loading door and bearing in mind the final viewing height will be pretty much at eye level, a reasonable view should be possible, although. I think it may be a bit dark in there, so will probably need some interior lighting.

 

The roof is made removable to facilitate future lighting, so the two end roof trusses at each end were glued to the structure with their attached purlins, with the three central trusses glued to the underside of the roof boarding. A simple plan, but one needing plenty of patience and some additional support framing for the truss / rafter joints to enable them to be carefully lined up before each truss was in turned glued to the roof boarding. The build would have been a whole day quicker if I installed the roof as designed, but sometimes it’s cool to do complicated and it also makes it easier to vary internal cameos.

 

 

I next laminated and fixed the sliding door tracks to the walls and then it was ready for priming. I’d started using Tamiya fine surface primer for a couple of white metal kits and were pleased with the results, but before spraying the MDF shed, I tested it on a couple of MDF privacy screen panels for the station as a test piece and it was fine, so we went outside to a windless sunny day and soon had the shed primmed from the rattle can.

 

 

I know the canopy bearers look wonky, but the top inclined faces all line up. The projecting lengths will be trimmed to be equal, when I fit the fascia board to them and what lies within will never be seen . . .unless I take a cheeky photo when all is done!

 

I next put two coats of Precision Paints GWR Tint No.2 on the external walls, but that’s for the next part   .  .  .  .

 

[longchap]

Goods Shed, (Prototype: Chudleigh), the continuing storey, part deux

 

Once the primer hardened overnight, it was lightly sanded, then on with the face mask to brush two coats of GWR Tint No.2 Light stone enamel, thinned with white spirit, to all wall areas, it serving as finish colour to general timber cladding and undercoat to those parts then painted in No.3 Medium Stone.

 

With the doors painted, it was time for what I assumed would be the fiddliest part of the build, having earlier seen the size and fragility of the door hangers, i.e. the iron straps which bolt to the top of the doors and hang off the track on rollers. This was a correct assumption, made even more frustrating when not only had I lost both spare sliding rollers, but also one of the four remaining ones, then lost it again, once found! Yes, they are too small to be easily seen on workbench or floor when they regularly go AWOL and they were superglued into the track before escaping again.

 

 

Two MDF sections make up into L shaped overhead door runners, which contain the rollers, which in turn are glued to a bearer, which is glued to the two hangers. This arrangement enables the doors to be posed in any position along the track in 7mm scale and theoretically in 4mm. Well I tried several times and at this scale, as intimated in the instructions, it was best to finally glue the parts in place with the doors in a fixed position, having checked against prototype photographs to get the correct handing of the railside door (it’s the same end of the building as the roadside elevation shown in the instructions).

 

Some adjustment was made to the verge overhang of the roof boarding to better accommodate the barge boards using the ever useful wooden coffee stirrers.

 

 

 

 

 

Having corrected a slight misalignment of the rear slopping roof boarding (my error) with yet another strip of coffee stirrer, followed by the satisfying task of running round the roof perimeter, fettling and fitting fascia and barge boards to eaves and verges and then priming and painting mid-stone. This almost completes the roofless building, save for the rainwater goods. The parts included in the kit for these are a tad over scale, plus the gutters are solid half round sections without a gutter channel, so a visit to the ‘assorted building bits’ box was necessary.

 

I’ve been trying to find effective representations of rainwater goods for some time now but not really found ‘the one’, so ordered a selection from several other manufacturers, both from the UK and Europe, including those from an ambitious range by Modelu. I’ll not distract from the shed build by straying into rainwater goods territory, but may post some observations later.

 

 

Blue tack again was most useful to hold the gutters (Auhagen in HO scale from Germany) in place for gluing. Unfortunately, the clearest photos I found of the prototype were from the 1950s, by which time the rainwater arrangements had been bodged beyond original recognition, so I relied on logic to place them where they realistically would have hung out.

 

The roof slates were added using Scale Model Scenery’s laser cut strips glued to the roof with a 2mm  overlap and painted first with an overall light grey wash, then all slates individually coloured with subtle shades mixed from a complimentary colour pallet of white grey, tire black and blue grey, until the roof was covered, then finished with a thin mid colour wash from the above pallet to bring everything together.

 

 

 

 

 

I now need to construct a loading dock and also extend the height of the shed to match the dock, as the prototype was built on the station platform. I can then fix rainwater downpipes and generally fettle, however, I'm not entirely sure with the spacing of the gutter brackets, so will first have a think about it before doing the downpipes, which I have, but am waiting for some fittings to arrive.

 

Best,

 

Bill

 

 

 

[Graham T]

Very nice job so far Bill.  Particularly like the slates, and the guttering, although I think you may have a point about the bracket spacing.  I'll be interested to hear how the Auhagen gutters compare to the Modelu item.

[longchap]

I got some Modelu guttering out earlier Graham to compare the bracket spacing and I much prefer its wider centres. I've also downpipes laid out on the bench from 1.5mm dia plastic rod fitted with tiny Modelu brackets and shoes and think I'll use them with their guttering as well, at least as soon as I receive some end caps and wider swan neck fittings. They will be easier to fit to the Modelu gutters than filing down the Auhagen down pipe outlets from square to round, but some items on my Modelu order need to be printed, so I may need to do some more wiring on the layout, which can't be a bad thing!

[longchap]

Goods Shed, loading dock

 

Looking for a faster method than scratch building, I spent a short time with parts from a Wills timber halt laid on the workbench in deciding just how I might configure them to the shed. A plan was born and yet more coffee stirrers, with some spare MDF kit parts were repurposed as legs, struts and joists until a timber dock appeared for wrapping around the shed, providing space and flexibility to service two wagons.

 

At least glue is quicker than watching paint dry! 

 

Next came a brick foundation under the shed to equalise the floor and dock levels, as well as provide necessary rising damp protection to the shed, by raising the timber structure off the ground. This is a simple laminate of embossed brick over a plasticard backing.

 

Work in progress: two courses of brickworks still to be removed, see later photo

 

The goods yard also hosts coal trade, so some darker colours extend to the shed area from the adjacent coal merchant.

 

 

The test brick strips above show two subtly different mixes of basic brick colour, although they look pretty much the same in the photos, then with an overall thinned mortar wash. The lower strip had a  grey wash over the left hand side and black to the right, so the grey it is then.

 

 

Protective bump stops under the door, bolt holes now added.

 

 

I’m not entirely sure with the look of the dock, but will look different once the track and yard have been finished, weathered and cluttered, plus it will not normally be viewed from this direction, so will review it again as the layout develops.

 

 

Looking busier from the front, so I think it will finally pass muster.

 

As I wait for rainwater drainage items from Modelu, I started running-in some locos on the rolling road under DC power (30 minutes in each direction) and came to the new Hornby and Dapol large Prairies, both having been stored in the stock boxes on delivery, not having been tested, but had a cursory inspection to see if anything had dropped off in transit.

 

 

Both are beautiful models and fortunately they ran, the Dapol slightly smoother and with just minimal detail differences between them, with the Hornby just a little smarter, although Dapol’s motion looks better. Both however will be weathered before seeing service, which will help regularise their appearance.

 

Time for tea!