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4 Posts
Hi,
After a lay-off of some 25 years my interest in model railways has been rekindled by the birth of a son (any excuse) and a recent visit to my parent's loft, in which I found the carefully packaged remains of my former 00 'empire'.
I'd like to see if I can bring such modelling skills as I had back up to speed and maybe work towards producing something half decent. Loathe as I am to throw anything away I thought a good starting point would be to take the stock from the loft and see how far I can go with it.
Having said that, and having seen how far things seem to have progressed since I last opened a copy of Railway Modeller, I'm wondering how much life there is left in my old roster, or whether I should be simply consigning them to a slow demise at the hands of an enthusiastic toddler...
What I have to work with are (among others) are couple of Hornby '8751' pannier tanks and a LNER J83. All 1970's vintage and pretty much as bought, give or take the odd peeling decal. I'm wondering whether these, in contemporary terms, has any modelling value at all, i.e. is there anything that can be done to make them remotely passable as a half-decent model? I was thinking along the lines of adding handrails and cast parts etc, but given the obvious compromises in their manufacture (normal for the times I suppose, but not least that one-size-fits-all chassis with flangeless centre wheel!) I am I likely to end up with a complete, not to say disappointing, dog's breakfast? I'm not looking for rivet perfection obviously, but it would be nice to know how vaguely correct or otherwise these models were in terms of overall proportions and dimensions.
I've scoured the web for articles and advice but they seem non-existent, not surprising I guess given the standard of your average RTR these days. But if anyone has had a similar experience and maybe even seen it through to completion I'd be very interested to hear about it.
Yours from out of the time warp
AH
After a lay-off of some 25 years my interest in model railways has been rekindled by the birth of a son (any excuse) and a recent visit to my parent's loft, in which I found the carefully packaged remains of my former 00 'empire'.
I'd like to see if I can bring such modelling skills as I had back up to speed and maybe work towards producing something half decent. Loathe as I am to throw anything away I thought a good starting point would be to take the stock from the loft and see how far I can go with it.
Having said that, and having seen how far things seem to have progressed since I last opened a copy of Railway Modeller, I'm wondering how much life there is left in my old roster, or whether I should be simply consigning them to a slow demise at the hands of an enthusiastic toddler...
What I have to work with are (among others) are couple of Hornby '8751' pannier tanks and a LNER J83. All 1970's vintage and pretty much as bought, give or take the odd peeling decal. I'm wondering whether these, in contemporary terms, has any modelling value at all, i.e. is there anything that can be done to make them remotely passable as a half-decent model? I was thinking along the lines of adding handrails and cast parts etc, but given the obvious compromises in their manufacture (normal for the times I suppose, but not least that one-size-fits-all chassis with flangeless centre wheel!) I am I likely to end up with a complete, not to say disappointing, dog's breakfast? I'm not looking for rivet perfection obviously, but it would be nice to know how vaguely correct or otherwise these models were in terms of overall proportions and dimensions.
I've scoured the web for articles and advice but they seem non-existent, not surprising I guess given the standard of your average RTR these days. But if anyone has had a similar experience and maybe even seen it through to completion I'd be very interested to hear about it.
Yours from out of the time warp
AH