[kiwionrails]

L&MR Rocket
When I recently picked-up a Revell kit for a UP 'Big Boy', I decided that I should probably start-off at the other end of the scale to enable the two ends of the 'scale' of steam locomotives to be captured...!

Whilst of course the Hornby LMR Rocket model is very nice, as I don't actually need one, and it will be a 'shelf queen', I decided to instead start with the venerable Dapol(/Kitmaster!) kit.

As the instructions make very clear, the mouldings on this are definitely not young (>50years old now!), and some of the fitment/finish as-supplied definitely required a fair amount of 'massaging' to get them to fit nicely.

Whilst this is plainly not a motorised model, one of the biggest things I think you can do is to increase the weight of the (very light) plastic model to make it more stable when placed onto the rails. - This was done by simply filling the boiler and water tank with some lead shot during the glue-up stage.

After about an hour of assembly and clean-up in front of the TV on NYE, I was left with the main 'bones' assembled. - The wheels and chimney are both completely removable at this stage to assist with assembly and painting. - A bit of a size comparison to a GWR hall that would've been ~100yrs its junior!

The look of the chimney could also be massively improved after assembly by drilling it out (slowly opened-out to approx. 3mm).

The cylinders were also assembled, but left unattached for painting...

The supplied plastic stays at the front of the boiler were substituted with some 0.45mm NS wire, which looks better (IMHO) should be much stronger (chimney removed to make this easier).

One of the other improvements was to replace the moulded pipe which goes up the LHS of the chimney with some more wire, thus after some careful carving....

(note that the glue was wet in the above photo - it dried much less 'globby' than it appears!)

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos before painting, but another big improvement was to mount each of the wheels into a drill, and 'clean up' using some emery to get the flange to actually be round! The two loco wheels are also still 'splittable' to enable them to be removed for painting.

The two figures also required careful cleanup and filling, as there were big flash and moulding sink marks on them. Whilst definitely not perfect, I'd like to think they are improved from the supplied...!

....after that we catch-up with how things are now, with everything disassembled to assist with painting.

And now following an application of white primer

To Do!

• Painting! - obviously
  • Currently deciding how much to do with the airbrush, and how much by hand. Current intention is that the yellow and white areas are both airbrush, with the remainder by hand, but TBC.
• Final detailing
  • As the cylinders are not attached to assist in painting, the two stays which attach to the chimney don't have anywhere to mount to at the other end.
  • I'll be trying to keep the model 'rollable', but again TBC.

Regards,

Cameron

 

[Greyvoices]

You are making a great model Cameron.

Best regards .............. Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[kiwionrails]

You are making a great model Cameron.

Best regards .............. Greyvoices (alias John)

Thanks John!

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Shunting Wagon Diagram M.2 No.41750 - Plymouth (Millbay) East End (Continued)
The custom shed/yard allocation lettering from Railtec (a 'standard' range of names also available) arrived a couple of days ago, which allows the lettering to be finished-off. Steve nicely supplies them as a pack of 3, which means you have a spare should a disaster occur...!

(the extra set is for another project which will be coming around the corner one day...)

These were then fitted onto the toolbox, although the 'lock-side' one needed splitting to be able to get around the lock itself.

As mentioned on the previous post, as the running number is located on the solebar, it needed to be slightly smaller than the standard 5" which GWR used, thus I used some 4" ones (Railtec again!) followed with the Tare from a Fox Transfers sheet.

This one is very nearly there, with just a few tasks remaining;

• Coat of gloss varnish - seal in the transfers
• Very light weathering (oils) of the wagon & wooden flooring.
• Coat of matt varnish to 'dampen down' and stop the oil paint from smudging
• Attaching the shunter figure which I painted before.

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Low Siphon Diag.O.1 No.1995
As I'm sure some worked out, there was a reason why I've been obtaining and repainting a stack of milk churns in a previous post.

Although (as-per previous discussions), I'm aware that the K's kits are definitely 'less than great', I've been wanting to tackle a 6-wheel siphon for years, and the D&S High-Siphon goes for £££s on the 2nd-hand market...

As with many K's kits, the flooring comes in two pieces (presumably to simplify the moulds as it means you'd only need two copies of the same shot), which meant joining and filling in the middle to hide the joint. - Due to a change in approach later, this was probably not nessicary, but hey ho!

Honestly the rest of the original build went together pretty smoothly. The prominent mould release marks on the rear of the walls/ends all need chopping-off then sanding, and small adjustments were required to the fitment between parts, but generally it was ok.

Looking at the above photo though definitely gave me the 'this could be improved' vibes...

First on the chopping block was the moulded door handles and grab rails. The tee handles were from Roxey Mouldings, and the grab rail was Dart Castings.

The moulded lamp irons have also been carved-off ready for replacement, however I will leave fitting the new ones until towards the end as they are fairly vunerable to mangling where they are...!

....and this is where I decided 'stuff it-go ham'.....

...and obtained a 6-wheel set of sprung W-irons... (technically the etch is for a MR prototype, but I honestly couldn't see any differences between this and the prototype)

Unfortunately this meant hacking-off the moulded W-irons and footboards which I had only just fitted, but all for the greater good....!

This was followed by hacking off the moulded protrusion which is supposed to represent the solebar footboard, as the supplied one looked a tad high, and was also very....'chunky'.... This was then replaced with some thin plywood cut into a suitable strip.

One of the other major shortcomings of the original K's mouldings was that the axlebox springs were completely the wrong length - ~4'6" rather than the 6' they should have been! Fortunately Dart Castings has a nice whitemetal set which can be used to replace!

As I decided to go the 'whole hog' on this one, there is a long to-do list remaining...!

• Bodywork
  • Buffers
  • lamp irons
• Underframe
  • The above mentioned Bill Bedford w-irons
  • Brake gear
  • W-Iron tie rods
  • Lower footboard
  • Axleboxes
• Roof
  • The moulded roof was missing in the kit I bought, so I've had to scratch-build one to fit...
• Painting!
• Finishing
  • Fitting the milk churns. - I have some ideas...

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Low Siphon Diag.O.1 No.1995 (Continued)
As mentioned above, unfortunately the kit I bought was missing the roof, so thought I'd try something new - scratch-building a roof!

I'm aware of a couple of different methods, however decided to use the 'heat up over a suitable form' approach. A scrap of balsa was sanded to a suitable shape using the body end as a template (the siphon roof is a 3-arc type), followed by baking a piece of 0.5mm plasticard at 180C for 10mins!

Unfortunately you can see from the above that I somehow ended up with a couple of bubbles which would need sanding down.

Before I did that, I decided to stiffen everything up using some transverse ribs (again using the body end as a template). The ones at each extreme were made slightly deeper to 'grip' the ends.

...and test-fitted to the body...

I could have done a better job preparing the buck, and I think that I probably 'over-cooked' things, so the surface was quite rough. - The solution; absolutely slather it with filler then sand-back down!

This was followed with some grey primer to help show where would need more rubbing-down (also will highlight where later sanding is still going down to the lower layers).

....aaaand more was plainly needed...!

....aaand some white primer.

Once the main part of the roof was all nice, the rain strip was next, fashioned by gluing some 0.5mm NS wire on top.

....and this was finally followed by a coat of off-white (RAL 9002) to tone things down slightly from the very 'bright' white primer!

Having now completed one scratch-built roof, I must say it was a lot less painful than I was expecting. - I've tried using the 'boiling water & jar' method before without much success, but this seems to have gone reasonably! I have a Mink which is also missing a roof which I may tackle at some stage....

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

Freelance GWR 'Mini' Brakevan (Continued)
The mini brakevan is now done! - The last couple of things included fitting windows - this was done using glass microscope cover slips (I like the 'sheen' which this provides compared to using plastic, although it is definitely more difficult to work with...!). This was fixed in place using Humbrol Clearfix, as this doesn't suffer from blooming as superglue is liable to, although unfortunately you can see the RHS window on the below photo there was a small amount of 'squeeze-out'.

Buffer heads are 18" turned steel from Wizard Models, which unfortunately come untreated, so required a dunking in blackening solution before gluing into place. - Although I like the idea of sprung buffers, I've basically decided that they aren't worth the effort in 4mm.

Final points is some 'glam' shots - Whilst definitely ungainly, I'm really happy with how it has turned out overall, and it seems to run really well despite the 7ft wheelbase. The underframe itself also turned out quite well, giving it a pleasing 'busy' look which also still stands-up to closer examination.

The accompanying 'maxi' one is also being progressed, but that will follow in a future post...!

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

L&MR Rocket (Continued)
Progress on Rocket is continuing, albeit a tad more slowly than originally intended.

As the main body is of course bright yellow, I've started with this...! I couldn't find any details on precisely which yellow Rocket should have been, so ended up with Railmatch Warning Yellow, although will admit that is largely driven by being the only yellow I had in stock....!

As with many such colours, the first coat didn't provide complete coverage...

...so a second coat was required (you can see the areas which only ended up with one)

I decided to tackle the black ironwork (using Humbrol acrylic pots) on the tender first, as I wanted to get this all closed-out before proceeding with the more complex loco and wheels...

The tender water carrier would follow next, although I can see from the below photo that the strapping will require a bit of touch-up still....

Much of the same to the above is to follow. None of the above is complex, but does definitely take time to get it to look decent... I have definitely decided to do the white chimney with the airbrush though, as I have a bit of a bad history with trying to brush-paint 'large' areas of white going badly.... so lots of masking to follow....

I have also been having a go at painting the two Victorian gentlemen who were supplied with the kit, but that is for another post.

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

L&MR Rocket (Continued)
...Some fine Victorian gentlemen....!

Supplied with the Dapol Rocket kit are a pair of smartly-dressed Victorian gentlemen in some rather fetching top-hats..!

As with the rest of the kits, unfortunately the mouldings for these two are definitely showing their age, and required quite extensive filling and re-shaping to their backs and sides due to a very prominent mould-pin mark and lots of flash around the edges....

I've looked back, and it seems that I didn't do a great job of taking photos, thus the best I have of the initial stages is the below which was taken after initial filling/sanding/priming, but before the final tweaks - you can see the rather nasty state of the back of the LHS gentleman!

Each figure was mounted on a small piece of 0.5mm wire to provide a place to grasp onto for painting.

Colouring would be very simple - Skin colour was Tamiya Flat-Flesh XF15 acrylic paint, which was followed by carefully spraying the coat, hat & trousers with cellulose RAL9005 black, although I deliberately kept it slightly translucent to help show contours. The gentleman on the left also had his beard picked out with a white pencil.

You may be able to see some white 'splodges' on the face on the RHS - there was a very brief attempt to try to paint eyes, which I will be covering up before toning down with some matt varnish...

A few other bits I'm pondering, although am as-yet undecided on;

• Picking out coat buttons with brass paint
• Picking out better the white shirt & maybe a tie (would need to check my Victorian fashion for that! )
• Maybe trying to replace the broken hands - they arrived broken unfortunately...

In my defence on the above photo - each figure is ~26mm tall, so unless you're looking at the above photo on your phone, you're likely seeing them at >>actual size...!

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Low Siphon Diag.O.1 No.1995 (Continued)
Next-up on the Siphon was fitting the buffers - in this case some nice whitemetal and steel 2ft buffers from MJT.

The W-irons would be tackled next, with focus initially on getting the 4-wheel chassis running nicely and ensuring the suspension runs smoothly.

(note that the W-irons weren't glued in place for the above photo, hence the alignment issues!)

After getting the 'plain' W-irons rolling nicely, next up was to get the brake gear on the outer axles sorted. These are integral to the Bill Bedford fret, which although very nice isn't 100% designed to work with OO wheels, thus there are some clearance issues with the brake yolks and they don't align with the wheel treds fully.... Honestly this isn't that noticeable when things are the 'correct' way up, so I'm going to leave as-is.

As the connection to the pull-rod is below the axle, this will be painted separately to allow the wheels to be removed whilst painting is being done. The yolk has a small pin soldered into it to allow it to be clipped in-place when the time comes.

You can also see that a small amount of shimming was required under the W-irons to get the desired ride height - this was very deliberate as it was easier to add more shims than grind out more of the flooring!

Next-up was fitting the middle wheelset, which were again shimmed to the correct height. One thing I have done is mounted this axle 0.3mm higher than the outer two to 'soften' the suspension and prevent it rocking over the centre axle.

The axlebox tie-rods and axleboxes themselves were soldered and glued into place. The tie rods were some lengths of 0.5mm NS wire. As is so-often the case, the axleboxes needed their rear grinding out with a mini-drill to clear the moving bearings.

This was followed with some very nice lost-wax brass vacuum pipes from MJT. This also be followed with some steam-heat pipes (whitemetal), however I am leaving these off until later in the build to avoid damage due to handling, particularly before the step-boards go in!

Popping it back onto its wheels, for a progress shot does show that the Siphon is really starting to come together!

Remaining list!

• Bodywork
  • lamp irons
• Underframe
  • Vac cylinder & associated Brake gear. - I might see if I can keep this entirely de-mountable for painting, although may leave that to just the pull-rods if it is elsewise too difficult....
  • Lower footboard - I have cut some plywood into strips and will be supporting on some brass wire (0.7mm I think). I haven't decided whether to leave this unpainted or not - I have seen pictures of both.
  • Steam heat pipes
• Painting!
• Finishing
  • Fitting the milk churns.

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

L&MR Rocket (Continued)
Painting on Rocket is continuing, starting with the wheels. - this was achieved by mounting the wheel into the chuck of a drill, then spinning it to help ensure the black areas were nice and even around the circumfrence! I didn't actually use paint for this, rather alcohol-based black marker pen. - with careful overcoating with varnish, this actually works completely fine..!

A similar process was followed on the loco driving and trailing wheels, although this was actually easier than the tender wheels, as I haven't attached the central axle halves together yet, so they could be more securely mounted in the drill...

The loco body has also received additional paint - this time the white for the chimney. Fortunately the masking for this could be pretty basic as all I needed to do was protect the yellow paint, as it is easy enough to paint black over white..!

And following removal of the tape, it looks like nothing leaked, which is good!

The 'near finished' components of the tender were again dry-fitted to see how everything looks, and I'll say I'm pretty happy with it!

Needless to say; focus will be turned to finishing-off the painting on the loco body to enable final finishing!

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

Freelance GWR 'Maxi' Brakevan No.104438 (Continued)
Progress on the 'Maxi' brake van is moving along, albeit slower than I'd like. Lettering on the second side of the body has also now been completed, and am very happy with how neatly it has turned out

I nearly forgot about the sander pipes. These are all fashioned using some 0.7mm brass rod which are suitably bent & glued in-place to the underside of the flooring. I used the baking soda/superglue trick to reinforce the landing area for the sanding pipes, so there is absolutely no way they're coming off!

A quick lick of paint makes them blend-in very nicely, and although the sand pipes are fairly subtle, I do think they add to the look!!

This one is very nearly done, with only the following left!

• Painting
  • Picking out handrails in white (after lettering complete)
• Finishing
  • Install window glazing

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[Adrian]

Awesome. Thanks for the detailed photos and comments, all very helpful.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Low Siphon Diag.O.1 No.1995 (Continued)
It has been a busy few weeks back in the 'real world', thus unfortunately progress has been very slow recently.

The one thing I have managed to move forward is the vacuum brake cylinder. This is of the distinctive dean-pattern using some whitemetal bits from ABS/Fourmost Models (NLA, however equivalent from Dart Castings)

These bits go together wonderfully with a little care - all the castings were crisp with a very light touch of a file to get them to fit together perfectly.

Assembly was using some black rubber-reinforced superglue. This is very much slower setting than normal superglue, but appears much less brittle, which is ideal in these situations. A pair of self-closing tweezers make an ideal holding clamp for such situations.

Unfortunately I was lacking in progress photos, so you'll just have to live with those of the finished unit...! The main jiist is that the main shaft uses 1mm diameter brass wire, with the smaller shaft linking the vaccum cylinder to the levers using some 0.7mm brass. You can see a small amount of remaining flash in the below photo - rest assured this was subsequently tidied up after it was taken!

The 'Z'-shaped piece (I forget the name!) is currently left free to rotate, pending fixing to the model to enable it to be aligned with the brake pull rods.

Another long-stalled project which uses the other one of these has also finally recieved some love which I hope to be able to update on some time...

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Siphon F (Continued)
Back in April/May last year I started work on a K's Siphon F kit. Where things stood on the last update I had purchased the MJT CCU bogies and was starting to think about the modifications required to the bodywork and building said bogies. Due to various contributing factors, including the house move(!) this was filed-away in a box and forgotton about....

One thing I struggled with on the kit is that it is moulded using a tranclucent-white plastic, which makes it very difficult to see what is going on, so the first thing was to apply a coat of grey primer so you can actally see!

As noted in the previous post, one of the first things I wanted to improve was the door handles, grabrails & the 'access hole'. The mouldings aren't awful, but could definitely be improved... A combination of Roxley door 'T'-handles & MJT grabrails were used, which were coupled with opening out a suitable 'access hole' using a mini drill. Although the latter isn't perfect, I think it does help to break up the surface slightly.

From a 'few steps back', you can see the improvement in the look (IMHO)

MJT 9ft CCUs were then assembled as-supplied, followed by starting to attach the American-style cosmetic mouldings.

Assembly of the cosmetic bits was a tad fiddly, as the spring hangers(?) needed some adjustment to clear the torsion wire, as did the cosmetic transverse leaf spring, as without some filing it clashed with the end of the torsion wire mount.

You might be able to see from the above photo that the ends of the brass pin-point bearings protrude out of the cosmetic sides very slightly (only ~0.1-0.2mm), however this was enough to stop the axelboxes from mounting flush over them, so the end was carefully ground-down using a rotary burr in the mini drill, and the axleboxes glued in place.

Final touches on the bogies would come from some whitemetal brake shoes and suitable pattern etched steps, both from MJT.

Some dean-pattern whitemetal buffers were sourced from Wizard/Comet Models. One of the biggest improvements I can see when using these (and probably most whitemetal buffers tbh) is mounting them in a drill to polish-up the face which often ends up with a wee bit of flash.

The to-do list is moving along, however a few things remain...

• Underframe detailing
  • Brake gear - this uses the same dean-pattern type vac cylinder as I did the other day for the Low-Siphon
  • DC brake handle
  • Gas cylinders.
• End lamp irons - You can see I have already removed the moulded ones in the above image. The plan is to use the Dart/Frogmore Dean etch.
• Vaccuum brake & steam heat pipes.
• Have realised that I haven't added the gas lighting pipework to the roof (it is actually currently painted..)... will need to do this then re-coat.
• Painting!
  • Intended livery is the 'big letter/number' early type, 'cause I like the look!

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Siphon F (Continued)
To enable the fitment of the brake gear a flat surface was needed, thus the moulded longitudinal members needed grinding off using a burr mounted in a mini drill.

The ABS brake cylinder assembled in a previous post was affixed to the floor, using some reference photographs to try and get the longitudinal position correct.

Although Tony's suggestion to use some old fuses to represent the gas cylinders was a very good one, I decided in the end to use some moulded whitemetal MJT items, although it is definitely something which I'll keep in mind in the future.

The one piece of the K's underframe which I would use was the Dean-Churchward asymmetric hangers, although these were modified to remove the moulded lever. A small square was used to ensure they were mounted directly opposite each other.

Some of my last Kenline DC brake levers along with some 0.7mm wire was used to complete the look on the vac cylinder side. The pipework for the gas cylinders was created using some soft copper jewllery wire threaded through a 0.4mm hole drilled in the end of the gas cylinders.

The footboards on the opposite side did however need a bit of modification, with the gap moved along. - This was provided to enable clearance to the DC brake lever, with the step itself replaced with some suitably-shaped plastic rod.

With the filling-out of the underframe, things are really starting to come together, which is good!

Next-up; the lamp irons and vacuum pipes...

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Siphon F (Continued)
One of the challenges which came up when putting together the Siphon was how to deal with the lamp irons - they are positioned poking-out of the extremities of the vehicle where they are very vulnerable to being knocked-off.

I ended-up using an etch from NUCast Partners, picked up at the Tonbridge show at the weekend (unfortunately they don't have a web presence at all..).

Plan A was to simply superglue them in place and hope for the best.......which was quickly quashed when I knocked half of them off again about 10mins later....!

Plan B was to use some small pins (made using 0.3mm NS wire) soldered to the etch to enable a much stronger mount to be made.

First-up was drilling-out a 0.4mm diameter hole in the end (small amount of clearance to provide some room for glue!)

The lamp iron etch was then folded up and the 'top' face tinned..

...which was then followed with re-flowing on the 0.3mm NS wire with plenty of flux - it is much easier to trim this to length after soldering in-place so you're not working with a completely minute length!

.....aaand after a small amount of tidy-up with a file, fixed into the hole with a small dab of superglue. - You really can't see the NS pin once it is mounted in-place.

One of the tools which is most useful when doing the above - some ceramic-tipped self-closing tweezers. These allow you to keep a reasonable grip on the etch whilst soldering, but unlike metal ones you don't risk them becoming attached to the item itself!

The vac & steam-heat pipes were both then drilled and glued in-place. From my reference photos, I could see that the vacuum pipes (LHS) were a different pattern to the steam-heat pipes (RHS), which is obvious in retrospect, as you wouldn't want someone accidentally connecting the wrong one...!

The vacuum pipes have a small 'swan neck' which ducks up from under the buffer beam, and I decided on some Lanarkshire Models whitemetal items for these. The steam-heat was however directly coming out of the buffer beam, thus some Dart Castings 'hanging' pipes were used. I'm aware that Dart also do a casting set which includes both, however (a), I couldn't find my ones(!) , and (b) I felt that the above combination more closely represented what I could see in the photo!

With that, the Siphon F is now finally ready for paint! IMHO he below photos show how much the original K's mouldings can be improved with a little bit of work!

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Siphon F (Continued)
Fortunately the Siphon is fairly easy to dismantle for painting...

...and was them followed with a dusting of Halfords etch grey primer...

...swiftly followed by some GWR Brown....

On closer examination, it'll definitely require another coat before masking-up to paint the underframe.

The roof would also require some masking-up as the early Siphon livery was brown below the rainstrip...

... which came together pretty nicely to me

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

Freelance GWR 'Maxi' Brakevan No.104438 (Continued)
Jumping back a few posts has the finishing-touches being done on the 'Maxi' brake van.

The first part was to pick-out the handrails in white.... this was followed with some light rubbing-down of the lettering surfacing to take-up the small 'ridge' created by the transfers. - This was done after a few light coats of gloss laquer was applied to provide a small amount of thickness to work with.

....and following a final coat of matt varnish and fitting of the glazing (microscope cover glass), it is time for some glam-shots...!

When you compare it to the original plan, it is shockingly similar to that intent (slight changes to the detail of the livery and position of the bogies, but that is about it!)!

Regards,

Cameron.

 

[kiwionrails]

GWR Shunting Wagon Diagram M.2 No.41750 - Plymouth (Millbay) East End (Continued)
Another project now reaching completion - the Millbay shunting wagon. My original plan was to do some light weathering & fit the cast whitemetal figure, however I decided not to do either at the moment. The former as I wanted to hold-off weathering until the (eventual...) layout exists and the context of working and upkeep of stock is more clear. The latter is closely related, as attaching the figure leaves it venerable to damage until a more permanent home is located...

With that in-mind, following the final coat of matt varnish, some more glam shots!

And with its running-mate (technically photo I have was of its sibling [1363], but close enough.... I may renumber eventually, we'll see)

Overall I'm incredibly happy with how this one has turned-out as well. Being whitemetal it has turned out much heavier than it looks (56g), although this is without compromising any of the features, as (for instance) the lid on the wagon remains easily removable, and I may one-day glue it in an 'open' position with tools/etc visible. The castings themselves are beautiful and crisp, although as noted in the first post did require a wee bit of clean-up in a few places.

I have managed to get my grubby-hands on a few more ABS kits (Iron Mink & a couple of opens) for reasonable prices, so watch this space in due course - a few more other ones need clearing from the queue first though...

Regards,

Cameron.