4mm An EM Workbench: Mini-Signwriting (rough)

[AJC]

Maybe a flash of inspiration required

I have a drawer solely for transfers, but they’re so thin that I sometimes miss them in the layers. So I’ve taken to putting them in sealable bags (recycling is key, for me...) based on the quartet of post-Grouping regions.

Cheers

Jan

Mine all live in a large manilla envelope which you'd think would work. I've got the packet, it turns out, just not the transfers. Never mind. All the transfers on these vehicles are, in fact from CCT (which saved much fiddling about) which come in nice sheets of pale blue card.

Adam

 

[AJC]

Wagons rolling off the line, and this brace of vans I'm quite pleased with. The LMS van you'll be sick of the sight of by now, and consists of a modified Cambrian body on a Rumney Models chassis (state of the 4mm finescale art?) but the LNER - more or less straight Bachmann with new brakeshoes and safety loops.







Adam

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Hello Adam,

Great stuff. Loving the dusty rusty (and a little bit oily) of the LNER underframe. And the rusty buffer shanks are spot on, too.

Cheers

Jan

 

[AJC]

Hello Adam,

Great stuff. Loving the dusty rusty (and a little bit oily) of the LNER underframe. And the rusty buffer shanks are spot on, too.

Cheers

Jan

Hello Jan,

Mostly brake dust on these, though clearly the LMS van has been left standing somewhere damp judging by the rust evident on the springs. I'm really pleased with how the LNER van came out: the body is untouched and the tweaks to the chassis very limited. The pairing with the LMS vehicle also shows the marked variation available in bauxite/freight stock red apparent in pictures of the real thing.

Adam

 

[iak63]

Pure filth and damned fine to...

 

[AJC]

Something simple and astoundingly good for what's a very old kit or, as you can see, bits of two kits - the red original Airfix, which I have about 1 and a half of, and the grey modern 'Kitmaster'. The red is quite hard and a bit brittle, the grey rather soapy: somewhere between the two would be ideal, but never mind. Comparison with the real thing shows it to be more than sound, and given the age of the moulds even the modern one is refreshingly free of flash. A few minor details - new ladders, notably - and it'll be just fine as is.



Adam

 

[AJC]

After hols in Italy, more on the Prestwin - Airfix got so much of this right that all I'm really doing is finessing:



On top, a smattering of handrails (Airfix moulded 'em as lumps) and some valve wheels will be replaced with etchings.





Missing from the Airfix moulding is an access panel which was present on both sides which I've added in 5 thou' together with vac' pipes and so on. I ought to think about brake levers...

Adam

 

[AJC]

A couple of other projects have inched forward. Courtesy of @allegheny1600, another 24 1/2 ton mineral, mid-upgrade. So far, it's had new buffers, axleboxes and v hangers and couplings - and EM wheels - this will feature detail upgrades and weathering to suit a late build of these curiously basic wagons: the final batches were built only a couple of years before the first few batches of HopABs (one has to wonder why, at that point, they bothered).



The other is a bit more exciting, my warwell bolster has acquired the bones of a full set of supports for its bolsters. The cosmetic bits will be in brass sheet, but will have to wait for the weather to deteriorate...



Adam

 

[allegheny1600]

Glad to be of service, sir!
It's already looking much better than when I had it. The Warwell is looking interesting too.
Cheers,
John.

 

[AJC]

No modelling for the last few days as I've been chasing around the country for work. During a layover at Chester on the way to Bangor, my plans of wandering into the city for lunch were stymied when this appeared:



It's actually Braunton playing at being Lord Dowding and presumably it was on a test run or turning run from Crewe because, having hung around one end of platform 4 for a bit, it came past again in the opposite direction:



A pleasant surprise.

Adam

 

[AJC]

More out of the ordinary fun from Chester:





And alongside something more routine and surprisingly comfortable, probably because it was the quietest Voyager run I've ever had.



And utterly ordinary, for the moment:



Adam

 

[AJC]

With Somerset's inexorable progress to second place in the County Championship in the background, the 24 and a half tonner is now complete above the solebar and most of the way there below it. Done: commode handles, brake levers, guides, corner reinforcements. To do: complete brakes, safety loops, door springs (all eight of the blighters).





Adam

 

[AJC]

Two real wagons, built in the same year and so, so different. Well here's the first, ready for paint.



The pesky door springs are pinned through the solebars so should prove durable - unlike the earlier version, I've represented the stiffening/fixings at the top in more brass strip; the rivets will be spotted in with PVA, I think.

The Prestwin, meanwhile, inches on with all those little details that are individually fun to do, but collectively start to drive you slightly crackers.







Up top we have valve wheels, instruction board (the right shape) and stops for the manholes; lower down we've got brake levers, some odds and sods of pipework and the like. I've got to work out what additional brake gear should go in and ladders, and, oh, I don't know what...



Adam

 

[AJC]

Stages in painting a wagon, part 1. Some features of this particular vehicle - yellow axlebox covers and bodyside triangle indicating capacity - require a white undercoat since yellow is translucent and reluctant to cover. So, white primer is the obvious place to start:



Then, dark grey (acrylic) for number patches and yellow (enamel) for the triangle:



A few bits of tape, a quick flash of grey primer and...



A little ragged, perhaps? Lettering and white end door markers before sealing and weathering.

Adam

 

[iak63]

Nope, ragged is fine to my eyes.
Discrete weathering and Franks your billiards coach.

 

[AJC]

I think I've got the Prestwin almost ready for paint. The remaining tricky details were the ladders and a couple of - more or less pointless - brake linkages (see if you can spot 'em). The ladders have been adapted from some of @jjnewitt's fittings for a class A anchor-mounted tank, cut, and straightened:



Good job I retained these and the accompanying jig! Fiddly, but worth it:



My favourite details are the handrails, a tricky job to solder in situ. Here's the other side:



A few minor things to do and then a witness coat of primer - I know there's few sink holes to deal with.

Adam

 

[PMP]

Cracking job on the Prestwin partly inspired me to get stuck into 6 x 16t minerals I found whilst looking for something!

 

[iak63]

No details are pointless, you know that they are there and that is what matters.
Damned fine beastie mind...

 

[AJC]

No details are pointless, you know that they are there and that is what matters.
Damned fine beastie mind...

There is that - I applied transfers to it yesterday. Curiously, CCT cater for both diagrams (which nearly caught me out), while Railtec only do the 1/274, based on the number series supplied. This an interesting wagon, but a fairly involved conversion (never say never though). I have both transfer sets because the Railtec sheet has the lettering for the operating instructions which CCT does not. Photo when I get home.

Adam

 

[AJC]

There is that - I applied transfers to it yesterday. Curiously, CCT cater for both diagrams (which nearly caught me out), while Railtec only do the 1/274, based on the number series supplied. This an interesting wagon, but a fairly involved conversion (never say never though). I have both transfer sets because the Railtec sheet has the lettering for the operating instructions which CCT does not. Photo when I get home.

I should, perhaps, not have tempted fate. Here's the picture of the completed Prestwin:



First stage weathering, with a wash of matt chocolate over the solebars and a coat of the same over everything else. Having done that, I looked at the bits I had left and...



Spare 12' wheelbase chassis and:



The makings of the earlier 1/274, Airfix providing the difficult bits. Take 8mm out of the middle of the 12' chassis (these Prestwins had heavy duty axleguards), trim the top flange off the top of the solebar and put a bit of a rebate on the back.



There's the makings of something there, I think at minimal cost, thus far.

Adam