The Innocent Railway

 I haven't posted a video here for a while, but within the research being carried out for a future project, this popped up. Simple enough fare, but oozing with atmosphere and just a bundle of modelling inspiration and detail.

Drovers Brook taking shape

 I'm hitting the cardboard now with the bridge all but done and most of the structures at least part built. So far I'm quite pleased with the feel of it. This doesn't bode well as this is usually the juncture at which I start to doubt if I like it or not.

I am pressing on. I should be able to get this done in fairly short order and ready for WRG in March (this for a non-exhibitable layout). There is also a side project which is top secret for the Beccles show, not to mention further talks with the Devonians about something for RM next year. I make that three to get done.

I may as well start taking proper commissions at this rate.

Shattered

Getting a few corner points in on Drovers Brook. The one to sort now is the bridge. As always this is travelling hopefully and I was to find this out quickly. There were a couple of pillars in the box; these may have been built by Mr. Hill. Anyway, as this is driven in many ways by an effort to use up as much existing in-stock bits as possible I started working around these and a couple of Wills parts. These are from the retaining arches left over from Hopwood.  Here's the thing: is this stuff degrading? And if so, what is the shelf life. These were direct from Peco, so we can assume fairly hot from the moulds and the layout build was five years ago. Now, they are literally shattering. Answers on a postcard. 

A few days ago I wrapped up a post with this: 'THB this is my happy place. Send more wagon kits for Christmas.'

Today this turned up unannounced in the post. There are some lovely people on here.

 

Little things

 I doubt that I am alone in suddenly having a workbench full of 'I'll do that in a minute' things. The odd repairs and bits of painting that won't actually take long, but interrupt the flow of the more important task at hand.

With the brake van winging its way toward landfill and the condemned 16 tonners into the Rhiw 2 stock box, things turned back to Drovers Brook. One of the workbench things that were hanging around were these two sets of stop blocks - one old school Peco for the Code 75 track at the platform release end and the newer Bullhead item which is for the coal siding. They are noticeably different, but are not interchangeable across the rail types. Painted with first 62 orange as a base and then Typus Corrosion and a wash of black. I note with some amusement that this had essentially taken three coats of paint to get them to the colour that that started out at. Hmmmm.... though there is a much more matt texture. Only one lamp needed and this and the wood blocks were touched in with brown, white and SR brown for the lens; not red. These and tie-bars repaired on Rhiw's runner wagon has dented the pile somewhat.

Airfix/Dapol brake van 3/ramble

So to continue:  The buffers are actually pretty good, better than the other major kit manufacturer's offerings. The holes in the bufferbeam mouldings were opened up a tad and the buffers and vac pipes trial fitted. 

The inner ends. Oh dear, getting worse by the  minute. The door is a separate piece and was like a surfboard. I filed the back flat so that it would sit into the recess. The witness marks are another thing altogether. Why? Just why? Why on the outside? There are faint plank marks and the handrails also on the face, so any sanding would remove these. Frankly this a complete dog's dinner and I can't see that this would be more acceptable in the late 60s than it is now.

So onto some general body mock-ups and the sides (which are pretty good were lined up and fixed. However, by the next day all was not well and the floor had resisted all my flattening and weighting and had started to curl over its length and on the diagonal, taking the solebars with it. Now a non-runner. 

At this point I took a long hard look at it, calculated the forward time to spend both finishing and correcting it. I decided that this was not worth the effort and abandoned the project. Sometimes it's better to walk away.

Thoughts: Some of the Dapol reissues work; the building kits are OK with the usual caveats. Here though it gets embarrassing. Say you were a new modeller and you hand over nine quid in Gaugemaster for one of these. This is, or should be, entry level stuff; Saturday afternoon kit building. It's a full ten star fail and thus tars every other plastic wagon kit with the same brush before the ponies are out of the gates. I've had half a century of kit building and I can't make this work without some major non-cost-effective butchery. Detailing a Tri-ang would be a better start point.
 

Airfix brake 2

It was was some trepidation that work began. I settled myself with the attitude that this was pence spent so no problem if it were to be abandoned halfway through and jumped on; or recycled back into Coke bottles.

The floor was raised at one end by 2-3mm. I bent this back as best I could. I'm not a lover of under-floor ribbing on kits, but in this case it looked like I needed it. One end was welded to the bent end and then I worked my way along and plonked a 3K weight on it while it hardened.

Satisfied with this I moved onto the solebars. As with the 16 tonner 2mm holes were drilled and bearings added. Did I mention that if they were thrown that they would probably come back? I fear this will be a recurring theme to the build. Again one end welded, and as per the floor sans weight. You can clearly see the 2mm differential at the RH end pre-sticking.

 A long time ago I built (or didn't) a kit of the QE2. The hull sides were 1/4" different in length. So it was here with sole bars. One was fixed and the second waggled around until I got the axles almost parallel. It runs... but won't win any prizes. So far, so... well just so far really.

Airfix brake van

 Oh yes, there's more! On a roll and once more into the box. Well I may as well do the whole train now I'm 75% there. This is a mixed bag, and this is what I have. As per usual it came off a club stand at not much money. There are risks involved here, but then that can be half the fun. Pluses are that the seller (and I know who) included a set of Romford wheels. The downsides are 1. It's Dapol made and 2.as far as I can ascertain at first sift through, there is a set of foot steps that have put the best foot forward and walked off.

The later is not insurmountable as the remaining set can be used as a pattern. The Dapol bit is, well, soft and Welsh. Made from recycled  Coke bottles it ain't the best and most stable material. There is a little flash.... OK you win, there's a lot of flash. It's a Dapol kit. 

A quick trawl through the mighty Paul Bartlett site (link in the list on your right) throws up two things: 1. none seem to have the footsteps altered or removed (Bugger) 2. all have the concrete weights added to the balconies. This is the easy mod. THB this is my happy place. Send more wagon kits for Christmas.

Airfix mineral wagon final

 

And so to paint. The whole lot was given a coat of Humbrol 62 orange as a base. Then, slightly paler than normal, the body outer, a coat of Citadel Corax White. Photos of 16 tonners often show an almost white finish, so I could dare to be pale.

The 'new' welded panels were given another wash of 62 to suggest new rust. 

Transfers were added from the ModelMaster range and varnish applied. The the underframe was hit with Citadel Charonden Granite (sadly  no longer available). Then with a cut down old brush I dabbed around with Typhus Corrosion, followed by more 62 over the top, applied in both thin and gloopy form.

The final wash of Humbrol 33, to suggest a thin layer of coal dust, was applied with the wagon held upside down and then some wagon works gothic 6" brush lettering.

There is a lot wrong with the Airfix 16 tonner, but considering its age it's still workable into something fun and acceptable. All for two bob.

It's nice to go travelling

 Once in a while this decade-old post rolls up in the viewer stats and for once is quite timely. In other words I may actually do something about it. There is much to work out and even more that could go wrong to kybosh the idea, however, travelling hopefully... like an elderly gentleman I suppose.

As an aside, and referring back to the 15 years element of the last week: I note, and not without surprise that the numbers have shot up. It's the Spitfire thing. The runs of build posts always get a huge hit rate. the question is, do I play to the gallery?

Airfix Mineral wagon 4

 

A few moves in quick succession: The brake assemblies. As per the prototype, single sided Mortons as per the instructions... only they're not. The Airfix kits have a knack for making an obvious blooper, note all the wrongly fitted windows on the building kits. Here it's brakes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you fit as per the instructions and mentally pull the lever down, the brake axle would rotate clockwise, thus opening the shoes. Err, no. Even MRJ seemed to gloss over this a few years back. If I remember to do it the brake bits are put in backwards. A small point that no one will ever notice, but...

Buffers cleaned and fitted. The coupling hooks have the plastic chain removed and are waggled into the slots.

The body parts are assembled in pairs trying to remember that they are handed. Yes I've done it. We've all done it.

The body dropped on and fixed, and two pieces of lead sheet dropped onto a puddle of UHU. Once the inside is painted these disappear in the grime from normal viewing angles.

Airfix Mineral wagon 3

And so to the underpinnings. All basic stuff bar one thing. I don't usually like plain bearings, but these were to hand. The oval holes were opened out to 2mm and the bearings pushed in.  The outside edges of the W-irons at the back of the solebar needed a couple of file strokes to get them to drop into the chassis ribs. And here is the different bit. Every wagon kit I've built has the same issue; the location mouldings are always too far in. The remedy of course is simple, as can be seen, I add a mil ether side. Result: no splayed axleboxes after the wheels go in.

 

Airfix Mineral 2

With the new non-door pieces fitted and polished it was on to welds.

There's at least one person I know who should close their eyes at this point. Welds are a problem; good welds are invisible, bad welds can be seen from 50' away. To make it work I needed the later, but this would be a 'bad weld'.  Lines were drawn, in pencil. A study of the excellent Peter Bartlett wagon site suggested that a common placement for the line was level with the door hinge, so that's where I aimed at. The thinnest strip I had in my pocket was 20 x10  so that would have to do. Lashings of solvent were used and hey presto! Bad welds.

 

Not a Spitfire

 

I mentioned that there would be three 16 ton minerals running with COND lettering for Rhiw 2. This sprung me into thinking that I should get the third done as well. To this end the Airfix box was pulled from the cupboard and a start made. Then I thought why not run it as a short series. Not that the highly experienced readers here need any tutorials, but with half and eye on how well the Spitfire series went down a few years back.

The idea was to make this a modified version with evidence of new welded plates on the sides and a plated top door. All this is straight forward in wagon bashing terms and the start was to chop out the top doors with a saw and knife as above.

Removing this made the side a little waggly so the doors were added to firm things up, but not before taking the dangly Airfix hinges off leaving a short stub. I noted from photos the the central bar on the top door-less versions is thinner, so these were reduced with a file down to about 50%.

Some 20 thou scrap made the plate section and the new top rail was cut from 40 thou sheet (ex recent platform building). So far, so good.

More 15

 

 

When I was flicking through some of the stuff for the last mention of the 15 years passing, I started counting layouts... then I realised that I not only had missed a couple, but had completely forgotten some. These are purely built during the 15 year life of the blog and throw up some questions.

Unnycoome N

Talcoed 009

Rhiw 1 OO

Rhiw 2 OO

Morton Stanley O-16.5

Garn 009

Edge 009

Orne 009

AotC OO

Dury's Gap OO

Svanda HO

Seething 009

Froxington OO

For RM: Hopwood OO, Oake O, Half Acre N, Trefach 009

I make that 17, not counting the current build. Some would say quantity over quality and I would tend to agree. However if I stand back and look inward it's not a bad innings over the period averaging more than one a year. The questions are I suppose, why did I not just build one layout properly (or a home beast)? The answer here is that the interests are too wide. Which would I return to? This sort of answers itself as it's just been done with Rhiw. The most popular with the public is undoubtably Svanda. Simply because of the number of invites over the period. Though the 009s are always better received than the standard gauge amongst co-conspirators. The bigger question is why do I keep doing this? Dunno.

Saturday Ramble

 

I rather like doing these. None of your soft Welsh plastic - proper Airfix is the only way for 108s; they still stand up half a century after they were designed. This is the second of a trio of condemned 16Ts for Rhiw 2 with the white hand scrawled COND lettering to do. If I remember, the third will have a welded top door and side plate weld marks.

The remarkably successful Uckfield show, which unusually didn't not have me saying never again at the close. Remarkable also it being a two day show. Technically that be it. There is nothing in the book now save a couple of unfirmed enquiries, which ties nicely up with me mooting that that would be it. I may be softening a little after last weekend, but I'm reminded that this did not involve a long drive, a super early rise and was a relatively easy get-in.  Now what? 

As predicted, there are less shows post Covid and those that are still strong are subtly changed with many of the familiar faces quietly absent. This throws up all sorts of questions of the what if and why bother variety. There is also the every present age question. I've basically called it a day with 4mm narrow gauge; the reasons for this are two-fold: the first is the age/size/reliability aspect, the second is the steady rise of quality RTR in 009. I note that even some of the previously pure high-quality exhibition layouts have fallen into the 'easy RTR' trap with the equivalent of a Cornish branch running J15s. Yes I am old school and a bit wedded to the whitemetal kit or build it yourself mentality, not build a FR layout and run L&B coaches on it (see last month's RM piece on forcing the loading gauge down so this couldn't happen). The direction is for the minute, standard gauge and 4mm, with 7mm on the horizon for me. With three initial projects and more to follow. This is very much a tight budget way of thinking, hell-bent of only using what is in the cupboard and only purchasing to fill critical gaps in material. The 7mm may take a couple of unexpected turns, but that is the way it's headed, and this all comes under the Project 70 banner; something I had to explain the other day (!). There are two layouts on the circuit, I can take my time.

Platform

 

There is a slightly different headspace with Drovers Brook that other recent efforts in that not being an exhibition beast it doesn't need acres of backscene height to create a box for travelling. To that end I need to work out just how low I could get away with.  There are/were two factors in play: the undecided bridge/exit height and the buildings on the platform. I could have worked this out, but sometimes a physical thing is better allowing it to 'sit' and be viewed for a while. I concluded that the platform needed to go in first before anything else happened.

I will probably repeat this again, but the overriding thrust of this project was to factor in a lot of left-over bits and pieces that 'might come in useful'. To this end I have again used the Peco Setrack platform fronts as there were just enough scraps from Hopwood and Rhiw 2. These were trimmed by about 3mm to lose the over-height feature which is a simple run with a saw. The internal bracing is all the other bits from the kits cut to size and with the addition of more plastic sheet which is again left-over material, this time N gauge brick sheet remaining from Half Acre. For the top I splashed out £3.98 for a couple of sheets of 40thou. This is thus far the only cost involved.

As an aside, the gap between the platform rails and the loop line is 32mm. Ask me how I know this.

Another Jolly Jinty

 

Reaching back to a time to when I used to post a lot of small workbench projects on this page, here is a simple totally non-useful project from last week. 

Firstly it was surprising that people were caught out by the TT Jinty from a few days ago thinking it was OO, so here for real is a 4mm one inspired by watching OO Bill videos (which get slightly addictive) and to see if I could polish one up. 

There are more than a few on ebay of  varying conditions. This looked OK and was 20 quid. It ran, which was puzzling as the wire to the pick ups was broken - see the brown wire below. I took everything apart aside from the wheels and soaked everything in switch cleaner to get rid of the grease.  

The commutator was polished with T-cut and every electrical connection was cleaned with this and/or emery paper.  The wire re-soldered and the mech put back together. The result is interesting: It obviously doesn't like Code 75 track, but runs OK on plain Bullhead. What is does like is Code 100 to the point where on testing on Svanda's ballasted track it ran way beyond expectation, down to a crawl and  easily equalling any modern loco. This is a 60 year old mech. Really? 

What did I get out of this? At a basic level, a couple of hours of fun tinkering, which is a very CF thing. It does throw up all sorts of questions. As Phil pointed out a while back, this sort of stuff is cheap as chips. Is it worth further serious exploration?

Uckfield show

Excellent weekend.
 

Quiet 15

 Without me noticing we seemed to have quietly passed the 15 year mark of the blog. I ask myself if it is still relevant to me or anyone reading it; though the numbers have dropped only a bit since there is less going on. Only there isn't. In fact if you take the last five years there has been nothing but activity on this front, with me going professional for a bit and still in part, with the ongoing arrangements with RM; four layouts and counting on that front. 

Although there is less going on here now, it has to be said that the movement is firmly ongoing and there is still much to do. It is interesting how things have subtly changed since 2009, though the same supporting cast has stayed in place, notably the ever present Mr. Hill who features here more than he would like. Here are a few highlights from the early years.

Svanda at Uckfield

 Slightly surprisingly Svanda makes an appearance at the Uckfield show this weekend. Not surprising in its locality being only minutes away, but because it has become a mini Scaleforum of late. This suggests that a foreign layout built using Peco code 100 may not be a perfect fit. However...

Always worth a visit even with the weather that is forecast for the area.

For some reason Blogger is being awkward with photos so a couple from the layout's development that I can retrieve.