Thought for the day...

When looking for a quartering problem, don't overlook the obvious.

Faced with a pronounced stall on the very first test run after fitting the DCC chip and uniting the body and the chassis, do check that in putting the two together, you haven't squeezed the front steps on each side slightly together, and they are now fouling the front crankpin nut.

DAMHIK...

Cheers
Flymo

PS - yes, it's been a busy summer, but now it's time to come back with a little modelling

The postman calleth...

 

...and delivered a free carrier bag. With some content which will make very pleasurable reading.

I may be quiet for some time...

Cheers
Flymo

 

Handrail...

And back to the Buckjumper locomotive body build at Missenden... 

One of the characteristics of the prototype I'm building is the handrail at the front of the locomotive is in three sections, not the more usual single continuous rail.  The handrail on the front of the smokebox is separate and circular.  It's also quite close to both the edge of the smokebox itself, and the front face of it.

I judged the location of the three handrail knobs by eye, and carefully drilled the holes with a 0.4mm drill in a pin-vice.  The holes needed a touch with a reamer and then I could fit the Short version of Alan Gibson handrail knobs.  However before fitting these, I had to make the handrail itself.

If you're forming a circular handrail between your fingers, it can often end up looking kinked or uneven.  As this was a separate section, and I didn't have to worry about a straight leg on either side, I could employ something for better effect.  So I borrowed a set of GW Models rolling bars from Tony Gee - the great thing about Missenden is someone will *always* have the tool you left at home.  I fed in some 0.45 nickel silver wire, and rolled...


 
The end result was a nice smooth curve.



I cut it to slightly over length, for later trimming back, slid the three handrail knobs on, and secured them in their holes with the faintest touch of 100 degree solder.  I'm quite pleased with the result, shown here balanced on a Missenden Mug (no, not Tim Shackleton...).


 
So that was how things finished after the very productive weekend.  But inspired, I made more progress at home in the next couple of days...
Cheers
Flymo

Missenden Autumn 2016 - down to work...

So after setting the scene, what did I manage to achieve over the weekend on my Buckjumper?

I'd last done a major piece of work on the locomotive at the Missenden weekend in spring 2015. Since then I've done a little bit of tidying up on the workbench at home but nothing major. The stage the locomotive had reached was that I constructed the shorted out wheels for the split frame chassis, put the chassis together, quartered the wheels, and made sure it rolled freely as an unpowered chassis. I had put together a High Level gearbox, reduced in width thanks to the inspiration of Steve Duckworth in encouraging me to take a piercing saw to such a lovely piece of engineering. It now sat cleanly in the insulated centre section of the driving axle.

So the first thing to do this Missenden was to see if all of my efforts had been in vain in my first attempt at a split chassis. I cut a couple of lengths of electrical wire and threaded one end through the terminals on the motor, then soldered the other end to either side of one of the PCB spacers in the chassis.

Connecting an ordinary 12 volt controller borrowed from John Gowers to my short 6 inch length of P4 test track I gently turned the power knob up and to my amazement the motor ran. It's not conclusive proof that split chassis work for me, as I still see a number of problems with them that need to be solved, but it certainly surprised me that it worked first time. Apparently I was very happy for the rest of Friday evening and wouldn't stop talking about it, according to the other members of the group.

This shows the chassis sitting on the length of track at the top of my workbench. As I said, the wiring is just a lash up and the more permanent arrangement will be longer wires to slip the motor inside the boiler and also the inclusion of a DCC chip.

The next stage on the chassis was to fit the brake rigging.

As the steel tyred wheels were already in place along with the motor and gearbox, and although I could have dropped them out I needed them in place to judge where the brake blocks were going to go, I decided to forego my usual technique of soldering and resort to superglue. I had opened out the holes in the brake shoes and in the brake rigging to 0.45 mm to be able to use matching nickel silver wire to form the brake rigging from one side of the chassis to the other.

This whole process took quite some time for two reasons. Firstly the pre-etched shape of the brake shoes didn't match the profile of the tyres of the wheels, so there was quite a lot of filing required to make sure that when the brake shoes were fitted to the upper mounting wires they were located in the correct place. The second element was that because the brake rigging came in separate sections I wanted to make sure that each section was correct correctly located and soundly fixed in place before moving onto the next. So it was a case of glue one section, do something else/go and visit another group/have a cup of coffee whilst the glue dried and then return to the next.

This picture is of the chassis with almost all the brake rigging in place, apart from the final length. This turned out to be the most problematic because the holes at the end of the rigging were over etched and in actual fact were not holes but merely cup-shaped stubs. This meant there was a little bit of swearing and much bodging with lace pins (thanks to James Dickie for the loan thereof) to get it into place whilst the glue dried. It wasn't entirely successful as when I started working on the locomotive on Sunday evening after returning home this section fell off due to the brittleness of the superglue, so I resorted to a slightly chunkier quantity of 24-hour epoxy resin to put this particular piece back in place.

With the chassis done as far as I could, it was onto the body but that is for next time…

Cheers,
Flymo

The end of summer...

Although feeling the heat from the sun today, I'm not sure of the accuracy of saying such things... It's been a great summer the doing things with the family, from messing about with motorbikes, and generally all those other things which mean there is a temporary lull in the pace of modelling. I still done one or two things over the period since I last posted, and more of that in future days.

However two things in the last two weekends have inspired me to dust off the modelling bench and make a serious start on one or two unfinished models.

The first was Scaleforum where I was on a demonstration desk talking about how to model wagons in the pre-grouping period. I had some great conversations with visitors over the weekend, not only about period modelling but also about things as diverse as what types of couplings to use, what is the best type of suspension, and how best to do weathering (including a swift hands on demonstration of the use of washes on the sides of wagons to simulate that lovely Edwardian grime).

Of course, one of the best ways to learn weathering techniques is to attend Tim Shackleton's weathering course at Missenden Abbey. It was the Missenden autumn weekend last weekend, and as usual I participated in the 4 mm loco modelling group. It was a great bunch of people to spend the weekend with and was led in great humour by Tony Gee.



If you've never been to Missenden before, here's a few snapshots of what I was working on and how it was done.

This was the set up in the loco building room. The light available, both artificial and natural, in the room was superb and I very much hope we'll be returning there on future courses.

As usual, I had my portable workbench with me. It's been a great addition to my toolkit, enabling me to take it to demonstrate at Scaleforum and then on to Missenden. I also had a few comments over both weekends from people offering to beg, buy, borrow or steal my beloved toolchest from me. Alas, I'm not letting go of it, and you can go and find your own for twenty quid in a junk shop.



I'd taken along to separate loco kits, both of which I'd started at previous Missendens. Both of them are also in the final stages of completion with the chassis fundamentally builds and the bodies to different stages of finishing. On the left is a London Road Models LNWR Samson kit, which really only needs motor rising before it is finished. On the right is the kit I chose to take further this weekend, which is a Connoisseur Models GER Buckjumper.

I'd taken it to the point where I had a rolling chassis with a motor installed, and apart completed body that needed detailing. It was this I chose to work on for the weekend.






I'll come back to what I did over the weekend in my next post.

Cheers,
Flymo

101 Not Out - an S4/EM collaboration...

A little late in posting my acknowledgement of thanks to the organising team and all the demonstrators from the Scalefour Society and the EMGS.  What a fantastic day! Everyone that I spoke to was enjoying the atmosphere, the demonstrations and the layouts.

More appreciation and some photos of the event here 101 Not Out on the Scalefour Forum




And I was pleased that I was finally able to pick this up

Cheers
Flymo

A place to work...

Last month there were a few of us that turned up at the Cambs, Herts and Essex Area Group (CHEAG) in Newport for a natter about what modelling we are currently doing.

My good friend Carlos Vasco was explaining that his modelling time is rather constrained by the need to get everything out to use the kitchen table and then put everything away afterwards, as he doesn't have the advantage of a dedicated space that he can leave projects on. I thought that I'd post about a couple of solutions to this, before I hope to see him next at January's CHEAG meeting.

As I've mentioned before, I'm fortunate to have the space to have a converted bureau/writing desk to do my modelling on. If I want to be tidy, I push everything to the back and close up the front.

However it's still quite difficult to fit the "modelling bureau" in the back of the car for my semi-annual trips to

Something that I'd spotted was that the fantasy wargaming chain of Games Workshop had produced a portable workbench that they intended for gamers to paint figures on. Now these have been discontinued, but they do come up from time to time on Ebay. Here is an example of one in an auction:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GAMES-WORKSHOP-PAINT-STATION-/301733120026?hash=item4640b2081a:g:t0kAAOSwTapV7EiO

They can be found on both assembled or unassembled form. I was fortunate to find an unbuilt example, so it was possible for me to decide if and how I wanted to modify it.

I've equipped it with a tufnol soldering area on the right and a cutting mat at the left hand side. With that is the mount for a vice. This is for one of the little (but good quality) modeller's vices sold by Eileen's Emporium. These have the advantage that you can buy spare bases for the vice unit, so I can swap it from my proper bench to this portable one.

The paint station comes with a variety of holes drilled for paintbrushes, although I use them for all sorts of tools. To stop things rolling around and to keep some type of order, I used a hot glue gun to fasten a cheap stationery tray to the board, which is useful for popping small parts in whilst working. On the other side is a glued down soldering iron stand, to stop that wandering around.

Two things that I should also mention are recommendations from the Missenden course notes. One of them is a wooden strip across the front of the underneath, to hold it square on a table and stop it sliding around. The other is to cover the underneath with some green baize to protect any surfaces that it is put on top of.

Now the thing that I mentioned earlier was that these paint stations are no longer produced, so they can be hard to find. So I was very pleased to find a new development at this year's Warley show. Whilst speaking to Grainge & Hodder, who do some of my 5522 etchings for me, I noticed that they had a laser cut worktray. They had produced it just in time for Warley, and had already sold several of them.

It's now a stock item, and can be found on their website:

http://www.graingeandhodder.co.uk/store/c1/Featured_Products.html

Having examined it, it looks better designed than mine, and is also lighter. Obviously, it's also possible for you to customise it as you wish. If I manage to break/lose my original one, I'm sure that I'll buy one of these as a replacement.

I hope that this has given you some thoughts on what to do when space is tight...
Cheers
Flymo

Exactoscale 1, Swann Morton nil...

Mystery of the day: how come I have just broken two different scalpel blades, on two different knives, just trimming a couple of Exactoscale check rail chairs to fit?

I haven't suddenly gained super-human strength or anything, and this is literally the last rail to fit in the entire turnout.

Strange...

Cheers
Flymo

A finished hut...

After one hour and thirty one minutes of modelling, the platelayers' hut is finished.

The time wasn't recorded as a challenge, but simply a reflection to myself of being able to finish things in a reasonable time. My Y14 locomotive is approaching four years since I started it, and although there is only the lining and finishing to do, I still can't motivate myself to end the job...

Anyway, superglue was used throughout, I didn't glue my fingers together at any point, and nothing fell off when it was washed under the tap with Shiny Sinks.

 

So the next thing is to make a small base to place it on. I was inspired to do this little scene by this cropped section from picture in the Windwood Collection of the Great Eastern Railway Society:

Unfortunately I'm not going to hit my target of finishing it by Friday night as work has taken me out and away from modelling for three nights this week.  Hmm... I have just cut this too fine!  It does give me the opportunity to make a proper job of the diorama base though :-)

Cheers
Flymo

This weekend's little project...

For reasons that may become obvious in a few days, this weekend's project is a non-rolling stock, non-trackwork related one...

Prompted by a certain Mr Brandreth of this parish, on Monday I ordered a kit from Severn Models. This turned up on Thursday. I missed it lying on the doormat, which meant that I was only able to chat about it at that evening's CHEAG meeting, rather than show it.

The intent that it is assembled with superglue rather than soldering, so that will be an interesting experiment. Expect stuck fingers at some point!

Cheers
Flymo

Cracking on...

A couple of days ago, I wrote:

"However the real reason for the feeling of shame is that I've just gone to put out some materials to build a replacement turnout - and I found that I hadn't unpacked and plugged my soldering iron in since Missenden!"


Well, I haven't needed my soldering iron so far. My first task has been to salvage and clean up the rails from the ply-and-rivet built turnout that this new one is replacing.

That done, it's down with the template on a piece of board and start on construction:

This is the first time that I'm building pointwork using plastic chairs. I've done one of the Exactoscale turnouts in a box before, and found it quick and easy. So far this seems to be just as straightforward, and a lot less messy than soldered construction.

The one thing that I really like, and it's quite a childish pleasure, is that with the detailed plastic chairs, you finish a bit and it already looks "right". That gives quite a big sense of achievement.

I did discover that I'm dangerously close to running out of Daywat though, so I've popped an order through this morning for another couple of bottles, and some ModelStrip whilst I'm at it. That's for all of those wagons that I still need to restore.

Nothing for the next couple of evenings though, as I have to be out at work events and will have no chance to do any more modelling. I'm really looking forward to starting it again though

Cheers
Flymo

Oh the shame!

How long is it since I last updated this thread with news on my own modelling?  I've been busy with work, but not that busy.

There has been an autumn Missenden that came and went.  Very enjoyable it was as well, with excellent company, and some very good modelling to be seen on a range of people's projects.  It's amazing how many variants of High Level Kits appear in the 4mm group at Missenden!

I took along a good couple of boxes worth of ratty wagons.  These are ones that either

- I built a long time ago, and my standards have now improved

- I have carted around with me from house move to house move and have been damaged through being bounced around in boxes

- Built or part-built models that can be picked up cheap on Well Known Auction Sites that are a candidate for finishing or stripping down and rebuilding.

At Missenden I had mostly the latter, and spent quite a bit of time with a set of Xuron cutters, a sharp scalpel, and some files as I reduced a fair quantity of GWR wagons to their bare bones, ready for rebuilding in a fully sprung and cosmetically detailed way.  As the weekend wore on, the pile of plastic shavings around my workbench (these were mostly Coopercraft models) increased substantially.

Part of it was also to work on a set of five LNWR ballast wagons.  One of them was an original of mine, where I wasn't satisfied with the paint job on it, and the other four are updates to secondhand purchases.  I've just finished the lettering of them with the transfers from the original Ratio kits, and these are them sitting on mats whilst the varnish over them dries.  I use Testor's Dullcote, which seems to give a super-thin and properly matt finish when I've previously used it.
 

These seem to be drying nicely, and later in the week I'll be starting on the weathering on them.

However the real reason for the feeling of shame is that I've just gone to put out some materials to build a replacement turnout - and I found that I hadn't unpacked and plugged my soldering iron in since Missenden!

Oh woe is me!  I must do better!
Cheers
Flymo

Calf van finished...

And after a very good discussion over on the Scalefour Society Forum about the making and shaping of brass roofs, last night I soldered it into place:

 

That's the van now finished, and ready for the spray booth.  As I have a total of seven wagons and vans to paint now, I'd better find a spare evening to take all the kit out and do that.

However for the next modelling item that can be done in spare moments in the morning before work, I feel a spot of the 1960s coming on...

Cheers

Flymo

 

Making progress...

Well, after a lot of scraping of solder, and cutting and hacking, the Calf Van was reduced to a minimum. Every time I thought that I had reached a point of satisfaction, I found another element that I wanted to remove to improve it.

You may have seen the partly rebuilt van over on MikeH's Scalefour Forum thread about starter wagon kits, where it made a brief appearance.

Now it's finished apart from adding weight and a roof. I assume that the roof was originally etched brass, and included with the kit. However like many casting details, this wasn't with it when I acquired the part-built kit.

So tonight I've been out with ruler and set-square, piercing saw and files, and started cutting out the roof from a piece of sheet brass.

I've started squaring it off, and if I have time tomorrow I'll measure the arc of the roof and mark it out to size. I've already pulled the trusty GW Models rolling bars out of storage, and I expect that the actual rolling of it to shape will be the quickest and simplest thing to do...

Cheers
Flymo

Off again...

Well, the lead sheet went in, and was left for half a day for the Araldite to go properly off. Yes, I have vans where there is a distinct "clunk" from the weight inside moving around as you pick them up... Then it was on with the roof and this is the result:

 

As before, the camera exposes something that the naked eye did not. There was a sliver of flash between the roof and the top of the side at the far end that is highlighted by the camera. Fortunately ninety seconds with my finest scalpel blade and it was no more! How I missed it first time around when assembling the sides I have no idea.

So on to the next thing. I have a succession of projects tucked away in those small Really Useful Boxes that I have a real addiction for. The one that has been tempting me for a little while has been a part-built etched van that I picked up from somewhere or other. It was basically the completed body, plus underframe built rigidly and in all honesty not very well. None of the fittings like axleboxes or coupling hooks were with it.

The Kit was originally Jidenco, and the core body is really nicely proportioned and nicely etched. The rest? . The prototype is described in the extraordinarily brief and confusing (how would you build this if you didn't have a good knowledge of how the prototype went together?) instructions as an LMS Calf Van. It actually looks to be the Midland Railway Calf Van, which is nicely illustrated on page 5 of Volume 2 of "An Illustrated History of Midland Wagons".

I neglected to take any pictures of the "before" version, but what I found when comparing it to the reference photo was that the builder had added extra strapping fitted in LMS days, the buffers were all wrong, and what was below the solebars was pretty horrendous and totally unsuitable for P4.

So over the last couple of evenings I've been busy with a slitting disc in a Dremel and a pair of stout snips, removing most of the underpinnings in preparation of replacement. And this morning I cranked the soldering iron up to full to remove the extra strapping, and also the buffers to replace them with correct Midland pattern ones. The soldering braid also came out as well, as all of this was fixed with an excess of the shiny stuff.

This is how the stripped down model looks:

 

 

 

The next steps will be to clean up the remains of the solder with a fibreglass brush, and solder up any dodgy joints and fill in the gaps.

I've started collecting the replacement components to rebuild it in the aforementioned RUB. As usual, it will be sprung suspension, although whether it's Bill Bedford or my own home-brewed etched version remains to be seen.

More as it happens...

Cheers
Flymo

Doing something...

It's been rather busy on a number of fronts recently. Modelling has only had the occasional ten minutes when I can pick something up and do it quickly. To make the most of that, I've been ploughing through a few things that were part-built and had stalled for some reason.

One of those was a Slaters kit for a Midland ventilated van - I can't remember the exact terminology. It had stalled because I wanted to build the fitted version that ran on coach-size wheels, as I quite fancied the look of the bigger size of spoked wheel as something out of the ordinary. Progress had halted because I didn't have in stock any W-irons suitable for the larger size of wheel.

So rather than wait any longer, I checked the reference books and changed the plan to the diagram that had the same body style but ran on conventional wagon underpinnings and was through-piped. So in the last week, it has progressed from a bare plastic body to this:

The plastic undergear of the kit is replaced by some Bill Bedford sprung w-irons, a Bill Bedford brake lever, a v-hanger nicked from another fret, some old whitemetal brakegear that is still finer than the plastic version, and some safety loops made up from scrap fret waste.

I'm rather pleased with it at the moment. It needs some lead sheet placed inside to bring it up to my preferred 50g weight for four-wheeled wagons, and then it can take it's place in quite a lengthy queue for the paint shop.

Like James Wells said only a couple of days ago in another place, it's good to be modelling again!

Cheers
Flymo

Sticky business...

Sometimes things just don't work out... 

As usual, I have three or four different things on the go at the same time.  This mostly explains the slightly random order of progress displayed on here.  I pick one thing up, do a bit, put it down, rinse and repeat...

Over the Easter weekend I had the opportunity to take out some of the "big toys" that I don't usually have the time or the space for in the evenings after work.  I had a good session of mouldmaking on the Centricast machine, and took out the spray booth to make some progress on the Buckjumper.

The next stage in the chassis construction is to paint it black (now try and get that tune out of your head...) ready for the mounting of the wheels.  To spray the wheels themselves, I masked off the tyres and the axle holes with Humbrol Maskol.  My bottle of this must be over a decade old, yet by keeping it tightly capped, it's still gloopy and can be easily applied with a cocktail stick.

For the chassis itself, I thought that I would spray it with the hornblocks still in place as they were held securely by the CSB wires and I didn't want the faff of taking them out.  On the other hand, if I used Maskol, I'd spend an age picking bits of rubber out of them.  So I reached for the paint box and a roll of masking tape in it.

A quick waft of the spray can - no need to fire up the airbrush for something this simple - and it was done.  I used Games Workshop Chaos Black as the colour, having heard good things about the coverage, finish, and its ability to adhere without using a separate etch primer.  After it had dried overnight, I went to remove the tape and this is where I found a minor disaster...

The glue/fixative/tack/adhesive (what is the right name for the stuff that makes Sellotape stick?) had gone all gooey and was now leaving a sticky residue wherever it had touched the model.  There was no alternative but to remove each hornblock and clean it and the corresponding guide up carefully with a fibreglass brush.  I didn't want to use solvents, as that could have lifted the paint finish and I'd be back to square one.  It took some time, but all has now been restored to a good state of order.

I bought the masking tape a couple of years ago.  I have a recollection that it is either Tamiya, or from Precision Paints.  I can't be more precise than that as I wasn't really paying attention to the possible consequences.  Suffice to say that I won't be using it again, and I'm very glad that this happened on a plain chassis, and not whilst I was painting or lining a locomotive body!

Cheers
Flymo

Maths...

Clearly not my strong point...

Having carefully measured the thickness of all six of the driving wheels of my Buckjumper, and produced an average from them.  Then taken various readings of the thickness of my standard back-to-back gauge (and this time scribed the number on the outside face of it to avoid doing it next time) to determine what that needed to be. 

I added them up and started happily cutting down my split axles to length.

I was just cutting into the third and complex one for it has two splits to isolate the gearbox when the penny dropped.  Locomotives have a wheel on each side...

So the axle length should not be 2.46 + 17.78 = 20.24mm

It should be 2.46 + 17.78 + 2.46 = 22.70mm

Oh well, it's a good job that I made up a batch of spares whilst the glue was out!

Cheers
Flymo

Missenden Spring 2015 is go!

Last night saw the clans gathering for a virtually full capacity Railway Modelling Weekend at Missenden Abbey.  The maximum capacity of the Abbey is 70 places, and we have 69 attendees signed up.  It's a tribute to how popular these courses have become.  Note to self - book for the Autumn course as soon as it is available...

After an excellent fish and chip dinner, the main room was filled for the ritual Health and Safety briefing.

David Brandreth has just explained to Tim Shackleton how to avoid paper cuts...

Some of the assembled masses.  This room is used for the 4mm modelling cohort, so there are 19 of us happily filing little bits of brass.

My own workstation.  

I'm aiming to use the weekend to (nearly) finish a Connoisseur Models GER J65 Buckjumper that I started at Missenden last autumn, and basically haven't touched since.  It's being built with CSB suspension, which I'm comfortable with.  However it's also going to be my first attempt at split-frame chassis, so watch out for the fun and games!

Until later...
Flymo

Happiness...

...is opening an old locomotive kit box to see whether you fancy taking it to Missenden for the weekend, and finding an unused Portescap in there.

That's going to be going on Ebay after I've checked that it runs properly, so mentally is offset against the course cost :-)

Cheers
Flymo