[kiwionrails]

QUOTE (Anthony566 @ 13 Feb 2017, 13:43) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>which varnish did you use ?
Hi Anthony,

It was the Humbrol matt enamel spray varnish.

Regards,

Cameron(Kiwionrails)

 

[Anthony566]

QUOTE (kiwionrails @ 13 Feb 2017, 14:15) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi Anthony,

It was the Humbrol matt enamel spray varnish.

Regards,

Cameron(Kiwionrails)

Excellent thanks for that.

 

[kiwionrails]

Thought it was about time I got around to glazing the Wills hut, so was time to break out the microscope cover glass.

Was carefully cut to size to fit neatly into the window frame

The same was done with the other windows, although unfortunately the corner of one pane cracked off as it was being glued in place.

Is nicely confined to a corner, so am not going to worry about replacing it.

The 'overspray' onto the tiles has also been corrected. Will probably get weathered with powders/washes when installed on a Diorama or Layout, so won't do so until then.

All windows have now been installed. Will probably need the glass cleaning slightly before installation, but that is fairly easy to do using a cotton-bud and alcohol.

A small white LED has been installed in place with some nice fine wires, so should completely disappear once a small coat of paint is put over the top.

(The blu-tac is only there to temporarily hold it in place whilst the glue dries)

Regards,

Cameron(Kiwionrails)

 

[kiwionrails]

As the wire used is so fine it could be easily run down a corner, and should be completely invisible if given a coat of paint.

Possibly with a bit of tuning on the brightness, it looks quite convincing IMHO.

Regards,

Cameron(Kiwionrails)

 

[kiwionrails]

Some may remember that I mentioned creating a variable resistor for fine-tuning the brightness of lighting in DCC Decoder installs. This was all based-off a conversation at Warley which referred to a 'resistance wheel', which allows a range of different values to be selected. The only example i've managed to find in my searching is linked below;
https://www.jaycar.com.au/resistance-wheel/p/RR0700

It comprises of a 10-turn 10kΩ Potentiometer which could be 'turned down' until the LEDs are lighting at the required brightness.

For usability it has been fitted inside a small Aluminium case, with suitable connectors for connecting one end to the decoder output, and the other onto the leads running to the LEDs.

The banana plugs and their test-hooks would be connected to the LEDs, with the flying leads going onto the function output from the decoder.

Starting with the 27xx install, I've decided to standardise on using either a 2.45mm(0.1") pitch or 1.27mm(0.05") pitch pin and socket connectors, depending on the size restriction in the locomotive. (They are also the same as and 8-pin and 6-pin decoder socket respectively)

Regards,

Cameron(Kiwionrails)

 

[kiwionrails]

It has been a number of years since I was last active on the forum, but have been beevering away over the past ~2yrs and thought I could start posting again....

Have been doing a massive turn on wagon construction, and have now accumilated quite the 'collection'....! Housing pressures for now still unfortunately perclude having an actual layout setup ('yay expensive areas....'), but I have managed to convince my better-half that a wee display case in the living room would look nice....

It is based on a 'collectibles display case' purchased online, which I have slowly been upgrading with lights and suitable lengths of track...

From a count I did a few weeks ago, I'm now sitting on nearly 70 wagons which I have constructed, which form the majority of those visible in the above image...!

In light of that when I attended Alley Palley at the weekend (1st exhibition in >2yrs...), I decided that I would revisit one of the first wagon kits I attempted back in June 2010...! - The Cambrian GWR 10Ton Ballast Wagon!
I never fully finished lettering the two of them at the time, so as part of my reinvigoration of things, I went back to do so recently, thus the 'better' one now looks like so...

Looking over it with more experienced eyes, I can see numerous problems with it, although will admit it wasn't a 'bad' first attempt (at least I think so...). A summary of these I can immediately see are;

• Wagon number lettering hasn't been spaced very well, and overlaps the strapping
• Pt Way/CO/etc lettering missing - the one copy I had of the former on the HMRS sheet was used on the Mousa Diag.P4 wagon done as part of the old group build.
• I got the brake rigging completely wrong. As I built the above as a lever-braked wagon, this should have been done using the Morton-pattern brakes (which would make it a Diag.P20) with the clutch mechanism on the 'offside', however I have built it as-if it would be 4-shoe independent brakes, and put the rigging itself on backwards...! In my defence, looking back at the photos from my original post, I'm not convinced that the correct morton levers were actually supplied with the original kit....
• The model is completely devoid of any door springs, despite them being very prominant in relaity
• I made a complete hash of the buffers, as I tried to use separate steel inserts whilst keeping the plastic housing...

With the above in mind, I thought I'd give it another go...! Rather than a lever-braked variety, I thought I'd step back a bit and do a DCIII diagram (P.15) for a bit of variety to the existing wagons.

I've made a number of improvements to the supplied kit. This included continuing my habit of fitting brake cross-shafts, as I believe they both look good, and make the brake gear itself much more robust.

I have also packed as much lead shot as I can under the wagon floor....! This means that it currently weighs 43.6g...! Not bad in comparison to the 29g empty weight of the old ones...! Due to reports I had read of lead shot expanding when gluing with PVA I opted to fix it in with copious amounts of superglue (big bottle!) drizzled in, then a small amount around the wheels ground out to make room for the flanges once everything set. I started doing this when I got back into things a few years ago, and have not-yet encountered any expansion problems...

As above, the 'ok' buffers supplied in the kit was one of the other things I wanted to try to improve this time, so have replaced them with a set of the very nice whitemetal castings from Lanarkshire Models. The kit-supplied DC-levers just look wrong, so these too have been substituted with some castings I bought many years ago, which I think originated from ABS, although cannot be sure...
Couplings will eventually be Dinghams, although won't be fitting those until after painting. I have started 'masking off' a slot for the coupling fitment from the lead shot/glue using a small blob of blutac, which seems to have worked quite well, which is nice!

To-do list;

• Finish the brake gear - the brake rods between the various cross-shafts are yet to go in, and the existing shafts will need trimming to length.
• Finish adding the door bang springs. - The remaining ones I believe are affixed differently to those already fitted.
• Maybe(?) add a separate door chain. - The moulded ones are barely visible, and they look a lot more prominent in photos (although am concious on over-doing it...)
• Paint! - I have an airbrush now, and have now managed to get to a point where I'm producing a decent finish with it....!
• Lettering - My plan is to use those supplied on CCT's C89 sheet, as they are actually suitably sized for this wagon.....

I can say having done most of the construction, that I definitely didn't choose an easy kit to start with 12yrs ago.... Getting something which runs acceptably was quite difficult, with basically no 'self-jigging' built in, unlike kits from Parkside/Ratio, Cooper Craft, etc.... Installing the solebars in their intended position also resulted in them being too far apart, and I have had to insert a combined .75mm of shims behind the pinpoint bearings to not have the wheels slopping around... I can also see that the although the body moulding has improved (it now is combined with the bufferbeam), it still looks like it sits too low on the solebars, although the buffers are sitting at the correct height... Compare my photo to this of the prototype for instance... Not sure this really matters in the grand-scheme, but is just odd..

There are (naturally!) many other things on the workbench, but I thought I'd leave it there for the first post back...

Best Regards,

Cameron (Kiwionrails)

 

[kiwionrails]

Whilst the Rapido Gunpowder van looks very nice, I thought I'd give a go at using the Shirescenes conversion kit of the venerable Ratio/Parkside kit to put together my own.

The main part of the kit itself is absolutely perfect for beginners, and absolutely 'falls' together...! Fitting the etched overlays for the GPV doors was also pretty easy, involving carefully sanding flat the moulded doors.

From some photos in the Iron Mink book from HMRS I could see that the ventilation bonnet on the ends was removed from 'conversions', and plated over. The rivets were achieved using some Railtec transfers applied following a first paint coat. Buffers were again from Lanarkshire models to replace the plastic version.

Although pretty 'stark' in the above photo, the rivets tone down a lot after another coat of paint....!

The aforementioned HMRS book indicated that some of these were fitted with 4-shoe independent lever brakes upon conversion, so stole a spair set from the bits box...

Next up was painting. Just before Christmas I bought some automotive cellulose paint for use in the airbrush, and must say that I have been very impressed with the finish achieved with it! That said, it is extremely nasty stuff, so spray booth & vapour mask were the order of the day.....

Next on the list was to do the lettering. I initially tried using the 'red cross' transfer from the Shirescenes kit, and was exceedingly unimpressed - The waterslide film was very thick, so it would not conform with the etched detail at all, despite copious amounts of micro sol/set being used... These were therefore hauled-off (which showed just how tough the automotive paint was!), and I manually painted on the 'cross' with some red paint and a brush. The remaining lettering was done using the Fox Transfers GPV set, which I had ordered in frustration whilst doing the above, although as said didn't end-up using it for the 'cross'.

The white 'lettering' on the door warning panel was again picked out with a paint brush (under magnifying glass!), and although are just plain lines rather than actual words, I think they look quite good.

Final things to do were then to seal in with some varning then attach the roof and fit wheels...!

'Glamour shot time!'

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

On the subject of Iron Minks, back in June I picked up a 'new-old-stock' kit, and quickly discovered this was a bad idea, managing to snap the axleboxes clean off whilst fitting the pinpoint bearings....

Fortunately I had some Bill Bedford etched sprung W-irons on-hand to swap them out with, and decided to go the 'whole hog', and do some fancy shenanagans with the remainder of the underframe...

This considted of an independent 3-shoe arrangement to give a bit of variety, using a 9ft wheelbase Bill Bedford etch. The sewing pin in the below photo was to ensure things were aligned correctly whilst gluing the etches in place..

With the brake levers and MJT axleboxes fitted, I'd like to think that it looks pretty nice...! Buffers were some fine whitemetal/steel units again from MJT which certainly look the part!

This was blown-over with a coat of Phoenix red oxide primer (as you can see I was working on a couple of other things at the time, which I may get to later...)

I seem to be missing any intermediary photos, so will jump straight to the glamour shot... The "GW" lettering went slightly wrinkly for some reason, but don't think this looks too bad unless you're looking at cruel close-ups....

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

At the same time as the Iron Mink in the previous post, I thought I'd have a go at tackling the Parkside MICA A to bring a splash of 'colour' (well, white) to the collection.

I'll say that I'm very impressed with the underframe detail as-supplied. This included plastic strip/moulding for the DCIII cross-shafts, however I wanted to swap these out for some more robust brass wire, particularly given I was planning on representing the pull rods themselves...

I went full-hog and have (hopefully) represented the majority of the DCIII brake gear, although will admit that the pull-rod levers are probably more crude than they could be... Stretcher bars were also replaced with some brass wire for greater resilience. The supplied DC brake levers got swapped out for some Bedford etched items on account of dropping and loosing one of the supplied ones...

Fitting the black plastic end steps woudl be classed as fiddly, as holding them in tweezers, the wagon body, and brush for the butanone required 3 hands....

...that said, forming the end handrails was by far the worst part of this kit.... They are a very fiddly and complex shape, and I created a couple of 'bin copies' before managing to get two pairs to vaugely match... For some reason although this is a vaccum-fitted wagon, the Parkside kit does not come supplied with a brake pipe, so I glued on a nice MJT whitemetal one, which looks the part!

As the end handrails connect the body and roof, it wasn't really going to be possible to keep these separate during painting. Instead I cobbled together a painting stand which consists of a couple of trimmed-down plastic wheels glued onto the ends of some scraps of wood.... It provides decent enough access to both the body and underframe, which is nice!

This was then blown-over with a coat of Halfords rattlecan white primer.

Next-up.... lettering....

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

The MICA is the first wagon I built using 'modern' waterslide decals, and I will say that I'm very impressed with how easily and nicely they went on. The red-on-white definitely stands out!

I did the lettering prior to painting the black underframe/body components....no idea why..... This was then completed, although you can probably see there was some less-than-stellar masking to the bottom edge of body done when spraying the underframe..... I'm just going to say that it is from some light weathering....

Overall a pretty nice kit to put together, particualry if one sticks to the instructions.... Those handrails still give me nightmares though!

At some point I'm going to see if I can pick up one of the old Hornby Dublo versions, although I'll need to replace the chassis with something a bit finer...

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

Next on the block was to do a Parkside Mink D, which like the MICA, the main components basically fell together...!

The underframe on this one was going to be a bit trickier.... It is DCIII clasp brakes....!

The kit itself comes supplied with moulded clasp brake shoes, however as part of 'rigging up', I augmented these with some Comet/Wizard models etched yolks. I'm aware that one of these would probably have gone 'under axle', rather than over, but decided that it didn't really matter, would make wheel removal for painting impossible, and would never be seen...!

Buffers were again swapped out for some Lanarkshire Models items, and the vac pipes MJT. Really don't know why Peco/Parkside don't supply some.....

Next up was some Halfords etch primer to unify everything.

One thing I started doing was using some old scrap pinpoint axles to keep the bearings clean during painting. This avoids the faff of having to mask with tape, or the issues I've had in the past digging out Maskol or Blutac to get the wheels to run smoothly again...

I seem to be again missing a whole lot of pictures in the middle, so will once again jump forward to the finished product....

(The shadows in that photo cruely shade all that fancy brake gear...!)

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

Jumping back to the present day for a second, I'm currently working on a Cambrian Steel Open Wagon (Diag. O.30).

Unlike the old STARFISH, this went together quite nicely, being supplied with a single-piece underframe moulding, so there was no real risk of misalignment. That said, I did still need to fit a small shim washer (0.25mm I think it was) behind one of the bearings to take out any 'play' in the wheels.

The 2-shoe Morton brakes and levers are very nicely moulded, however were still retrofitted with my usual wire/pin crossbar. As with the STARFISH, the underframe was completely filled with lead shot for weight and buffers replaced with whitemetal units.

After a coat of rattle can primer, I went back to the automotive paint for the wagon exterior and underframe:

The interior however was going to be a bit....different. according to the instructions; whilst the main parts of the body were constructed in steel, the wagon floor and inside of the doors were wood. The latter reportedly for slip resistance. Who says H&S is a recent thing....!

I thought I'd have a go at representing these different finishes, so first gave the floor and door interiors a coat of vallejo 'wood' coloured paint through the airbrush, before masking these off and giving the remainder a coat of 'rust':

As you can see from the above, they have (unsurprisingly) come out rather....bright.....however this should tone down once I've given things a suitable weathering.... (I say this, having not actually done it yet at the time of writing.....)

I've made a decent start on the lettering. Well, am 1/2 way through.... First side is therefore done, and I think it is looking pretty nice, and am very happy with the finish!

Transfers for the above came from a couple of different places;

• 'GW' lettering and running number - HMRS Methfix sheet
• Load/tare etc - Fox transfers
• 'Not common user' - Railtec
• 'Return to Plymouth' - CCT sheet C89

...now to finish the second side...

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

As a bit of a change from all of these 'modern kits', I thought I'd jump waaay back in time to one of the old K's Private Owner Coal Wagon....!

On initial inspection, I will say that I'm very impressed with the quality of the mouldings. They could definitely be classified as 'chunky', but all the details have been represented pretty crisply.

The above said, some of the ejector pin marks are more prominent than more recent kits, but these are generally placed reasonably sensibly, and have been fairly easy to remove.

The main body itself was a dream to put together, although the age of the kit was given away with the moulded 'jigging pins' which ensured correct alignment between the parts... Fortunately these were all pretty small and easy to remove once things were glued together.

The bit of the kit which did however massively give away its age was the underframe.... I decided before things even arrived that I would be substituting this for some MJT rocking W-irons.

I did find (wasn't surprised) that the space between the solebars was a tad tight, so had to grind away some of the plastic on the insides.

Brake gear was some Bedford 9ft etches, and buffers MJT unfitted PO buffers.

MJT RCH-pattern springs were glued in-place, although due to the unusually deep wooden solebars on the kit, they have need to be bent very flat as-if the wagon was very heavily (over) loaded....! I believe door bang springs were from Wizard models.

The rocking W-irons do cause a challenge for increasing wagon weight due to the need to maintain movement on one. That said, even without any additional weighting, it was sitting at 22.5g, which isn't too shabby!

I did want to see how much I could shove in, and have managed to get up to 38.7g without too much difficulty. If wanted I still have some space to add in some bits of lead sheeting into the W-Irons themselves.

Painting next....! The plan is that this will be a lovely shade of Railmatch Claret...!

Whilst I'm aware that the prototype had a grey body (according to Hudson PO Wagons Vol.3 - plate 14), but quite frankly wanted an excuse to use the colour....! Rule 1 and all that!

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

Some Halfords grey primer was once again the order of the day, which nicely shows the moulded details.

Due to the intended body colour, I then over-coated this with a thin layer of white primer...!

Aaaaand then that nice Claret for the main body area. It certainly looks very different to my other stock....!

Steel strapping and chassis (minus solebars) will be brush/sprayed in black.

For the lettering, I'm going to try use the supplied K's transfers, which I'm certainly not lookinf forward to on account of their age....! If anyone has any pointers for these old K's transfers, it would be greatfully recieved! Looking at them, I assume they're waterslide, although fortunately I have 2 sets, so there are some spares if things go wrong....

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[34C]

It's 'suck it and see' on those old transfers. The discolouration of the film is going to be very visible, and they are unlikely to conform neatly on the moulded surface. Give it a try, but don't be surprised if you feel they are not good enough. (There was a reason why we hand painted the lettering on PO wagons, fifty odd years ago when I was a teenager; it looked so much better than the waterslide transfers that were the norm.)

 

[kiwionrails]

That probably isn't a bad shout to be honest, I'll give those ones a go then decide if it looks acceptable! I'll definitely see if I can trim the backing film as close as possible before applying them though, possibly splitting off the 'colliery' bit from the 'sutton heath' to get rid of the bit between them.

Worst-case, I have some HMRS lettering which I could fall back on if that fails....!

Best Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

Whilst waiting for paint to dry on the above, I thought I'd do a bit of lettering on some other wagons....!
Something which I've wanted to have a go at replicating for a while was scrawled-on chalk destination markings such as those on the below photo:

Whilst browsing Railtec's website, I noticed that they produced some 'handwritten chalk desination lettering', and thought I'd give them a go..!

They are 'chunkier' and slightly more 'even' than ideal, but will say they look pretty decent overall!

(The above is currently having a roof scratch-built for it, as it went missing in a house move...)

An alternative approach that I've also just tried was to use a very sharp white pencil (White Faber-Castell 'Goldfaber' - you can also buy them online in singles, which is what I did), and despite the very 'rough' test wagon I've done it on, am very happy with the initial result! Maybe the white could be slightly more opaque, but it does seem to give the impression of being handwritten fairly well (I suppose 'cause it is!...)

(That poor van has lived a very hard life, being the test-bed for a multitude of experiments...!)

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[34C]

One of the difficulties is the need to write most of such loading guides in cursive script, if you want to keep close to prototype. The high grade white crayon is ideal, gives the right 'dusty' look, and is readily blurred to look like it has been either roughly wiped when the next scrawl was added, or simply fading through exposure to the weather.

 

[kiwionrails]

One of the difficulties is the need to write most of such loading guides in cursive script, if you want to keep close to prototype. The high grade white crayon is ideal, gives the right 'dusty' look, and is readily blurred to look like it has been either roughly wiped when the next scrawl was added, or simply fading through exposure to the weather.

From some practice writing, methinks my cursive needs work...... Has been a few years since I last did any........!

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

Back to the K's open, have made a start on the painting of the metalwork, and will say it looks pretty snazzy!

I still need to do the underframe, but was getting late and didn't want to risk smudging the bodywork whilst doing it!

Regards,

Cameron.