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

[AJC]

Hah! Very kind of you I'm sure. Those boltheads are just the thing for wet September afternoons with the T20 World Cup in the background! I've dug out a couple of pictures of some of the others. A pair of Coil S conversions from pre-nationalisation designed highs for carrying rod coil, and a Coil H, a rather elaborate - and quite short-lived - mid-60s conversion of a BR-built Pig Iron vehicle, apparently for carrying coiled tinplate from Trostre. The Coil H is now a bit more advanced but I haven't put it in front of the camera again.





The hood actually looks a bit better than that - I've since smoothed the edges on it.



The Coil S have actually gone backwards: I've broken a couple of bits while they were in storage. Since one of these will be modelled loaded and sheeted, much of the above solebar detail will be hidden. Despite that, it's going to be a real pain to do since the coils of rod will probably have to be done properly as I reckon they will be visible under the sheet.

Adam

 

[AJC]

While I think of it, a quick note on inspiration. It's one of those words you see time and again on forums, but generally - in my view - it seems to be used as a synonym for 'desire'. That is, 'I want to do what he/she is doing' or 'I wish I had the skills to do what he/she/it has done' as a substitute for actually taking what has been shown off as a hint to produce something of their own. To illustrate this point, a couple of examples of why I spend my spare evenings mucking around with solvent and bits of plastic and brass.



Dad made a batch of four china clay tippers goodness knows how long ago, but probably in the early '70s, decades before the Ratio kit. I seem to remember that he told me the 'clayhood' was based on the prototype conversion of the breed. Being based in Cornwall/Plymouth at the time, these were probably modelled from transparencies (since lost) taken by him at the time and made from plasticard and metal toothpaste tube and the limited range of castings and bits then available from the trade (probably the EMGS and Kenline). This no doubt explains the GW and modified LNER axleboxes on what were BR-built wagons. Would you notice? For the Plymouth club at the time - steeped in the pre-war GWR - this was all a bit radical: now, it's relatively mainstream. There was a scratchbuilt (plasticard on Tri-ang DMU bogies) Pressed Steel single car and a rail blue class 22 as well. He still has the latter in a box somewhere and it's pretty respectable even if the Tri-ang motor bogie it had was feeble. The wagons are still in use.



This is a much more recent - and more esoteric - vehicle. One of Mr Bulleid's experiments and probably one of the better ones: the fibreglass PMV on a skeleton chassis. Barring the buffers, handwheels, wheels and couplings (and possibly the 'W' irons) this one is completely scratchbuilt. Dad's pretty modest about these things but wagons like these, and his encouragement, really do inspire me to have a go at making something that bit different.

Adam

 

[AJC]

Steve - since the model is in Somerset - it was built and belongs to my father after all (I claim no responsibility, barring the mediocre photo) - and I'm in Southampton, detail pictures are going to have to wait. The shot below is the only other one I have. As for proximity to the prototype, you'll have to dig out a copy of Gould's book on SR non-passenger coaching stock. I think they built 10 of them altogether, full of Bulleid ideas to save material, hence the low tare weight. I still think the model is one of the best things dad's done, though the chain-driven diesel bogies (in 4mm) pip it in engineering terms. No, I don't have any pic's of those...



Ian - since 'motivation' for my actually doing modelling at the minute tends to be relaxation from work or another rained-off Cricket fixture this summer, that word has almost taken on negative connotations, albeit of a personal nature! I don't get too hung up on the means of describing it, but the tag of 'inspirational' [You''re right 28ten, a whole other fish kettle] strikes me as too pat. Perhaps because I'm a historian in the day-job, at the moment, and labels are both the basis and the bain of the profession, I tend to use the same mental approaches to interpret what I'm building. It's knowing how to make things or working out where a model can follow the prototype or where it's best to deviate that takes the skill rather than whether it's derived from thing a or thing b. Take the hood on that Coil H, for example. It would be very difficult if not impossible to get a sheet material to look like a full size canvas. My attempt with Miliput simply emulates what military modellers have been doing for years but isn't inspired by that.

Anyhow, time for a cuppa.

Adam

 

[AJC]

Ok, so I did manage to do a little more - I had the paint out for something else. Now resplendent with the post '64 white blocks indicating a shock vehicle on the original bauxite livery (apparently correct) painted free-hand with a brush. You can see the witness mark where one was a touch over width. In a photo twice life-size this is an issue, after weathering, it won't be, even so, they would probably benefit from another coat. It's now hiding out in a box until I get round to half-finishing something else and feel like getting on with lettering it.



What you can't see is that I've taken the opportunity to paint the interior it's first coat of brownish mid-grey. That can wait for when I have the weathered wood paint selection out too.

Adam

 

[AJC]

I like building wagons and most of these are from kits - Parkside, Cambrian and the like. Nice though these are there is always scope for further variety and scratchbuilds and kitbashes - not that I build much as it falls out of the packet - provide this. The queue on the length of track that sits above my workbench currently includes no fewer than four of these: a couple of specialist coil types and this, an SR-designed, BR-built shock-high. I'm starting with the the shock-high, purely because it's close to being complete and ready for painting. Well, it will be once the solvent has gone off. The choice of prototype, by the by, was purely based on having the Masokits etch for the brake gear in stock. I hadn't realised when I started it, but dad built one of these himself about 35 years ago. I'm not certain we really need another, but it's done now...

The techniques aren't anything especially novel - Geoff Kent's wagon books will describe them - and as an open box on a spare set of Parkside solebars, it offers few challenges beyond a bit of patience. A short string of progress shots should give an idea. The prototype information came via Dave Larkin and Paul Bartlett while the drawing was found in SR Wagons, vol. 4









Hope this is of some interest

Adam

 

[AJC]

Not the PMV (sorry chaps), but the state of play with the Shock High now sporting a coat of halford's red oxide and a dose of Humbrol 98 on the underframe. It may yet stay like this for months...





Adam

 

[AJC]

Yes, these are wagons too just of a rubber-shod variety, although really, they're kitbashes rather than full scratchbuilds. You can blame Geoff Kent for these as well. Although MRJ 40 will always be remembered for Hursley, it was one of the other articles in it, by Geoff, on scratchbuilding 4mm scale road vehicles which really caught my imagination. That issue really changed what I thought a model railway could be. I suspect that this wasn't immediate - I was er, aged about 9 when MRJ 40 came out (I went to the MRJ show at Central Hall too!) but the long-term effect is a greater interest in what goes on around the railway.

Since I'm not Geoff Kent I've made use of Frank Waller [Road Transport Images] components rather than doing it all from plastic sheet, though the tipper bodies here are all my own work. I do like the way Frank (and Bob Fridd, who makes the masters) do business - professional, friendly and prompt - and I enjoy using the products. Some are better than others - though RTI do revisit stuff and improve it - but for the most part, the essential character of the vehicles they portray are there in the resin castings. As such, this is really about the detailing and the paint job rather than the modelling since the hard part, the cab, has been bought in. Well, not quite, the reason these two have emerged from their box is that I need to finish the glazing and the curved rear quarter lights mean digging out a Fererro Rocher box and setting about it with a razor saw...





Frank can supply transfers for several of the bigger fleets but I wanted to model a specific vehicle - the AEC featured here - found in a book on Somerset and Dorset hauliers and I decided that custom transfers weren't worth the hassle and expense for a single vehicle. Micro-signwriting is not good for your health especially if you do it as I do, using a size 000 brush. There's a local connection for me since I was brought up in Yeovil and Bird Brothers built the Concrete batching plant near Pen Mill Station in Yeovil, just out of shot to the left in this George Woods picture (but the image is just too nice not to include on so many levels. Even if you're totally unconcerned by 4mm scale lorries do take a look) which is still there, though not served by vehicles as elegant to look at as this AEC Mercury. They're probably better to drive though...



The Big Bedford tipper, greedy-boards and all, is a figment of my imagination however, intended for the South Wales landsale yard/opencast disposal point micro-project which I will get round to before too long. Don't ask how long 'too long' is!

Adam

 

[AJC]

Painfully slow, owing to lack of correct paint (you try finding 'Freight Brown' on the shelf in Southampton), but here is the Coil H after some attention from the paintbrush. It will need more, especially on the underframe since the photographs show no end of red oxide primer grinning through here and there. That and my tin of Matt Chocolate needs a better stir...



This end view hopefully shows the work that's gone into the hood. Overall, I think it's quite successful, though the quality of the light here doesn't show it to its best advantage. I'll have to have another go in proper sunlight. It'll be a while in this state since no one does any suitable lettering I shall have to get some custom transfers done and that can wait until I need a reasonable quantity (unless someone else needs some I can piggyback on, of course?)



Adam

 

[AJC]

Some more slightly scruffy (like the prototype on this occasion) micro-signwriting. The data panel should be sharper since on this vehicle it was stencilled and will be done as a transfer: if custom decals are the way to do the Coil H, then I may as well do a few extra elements such as these while I'm at it.



The weathering will hide to worst of the scruffiness (honest) as will viewing the thing at actual rather than 1.5 x actual size.

Adam

 

[AJC]

A small holiday update. Tanks to dad's transfer collection, my scratchbuilt Coil H is now more or less fully lettered. The lettering features items (almost all no longer available) from SMS, Woodhead and Cambrian via Modelmaster. The thing that's missing, of course, are the 'Empty to' brandings. In this instance, it should be '... SCOW Trostre and Velindre', but they can't be had. In fact, looking around the various, currently available, ranges - Fox, Cambridge Custom, HMRS, etc. - the 'Empty to' and 'Return to' can be had, but not, and this is baffling, any suitable destinations, rendering the first elements useless. CCT are an exception, but only to an extent, since thebrandings produced refer only to a relatively limited range of vehicles. All totally understandable, but nonetheless irritating.



By way of a comparison, here's an earlier conversion from a Parkside Iron Ore tippler that's just been in for a refit. The real thing was done at about the same time, for the same traffic, in the same region (South Wales), and shows what must have been a rapid change of thinking. The Coil J was crude, cheap and effective and ideal for short-haul workings from steel mill to docks. You have to wonder why they went to the trouble of the new sides and hood, etc., in the first place.



A couple of ex-works pictures too. First the scratchbuilt Shoc High:



Finally, an earlier build, a Shochood B (branding by HMRS - why the designer failed to stick a 'B' on the end rather than make the modeller line it up by eye I'll never know), all other lettering by Woodhead.



Happy 2013.

Adam

 

[AJC]

Getting back to where we started, a couple of shots of a Plastic PMV on dad's new photo plank.





From the cruel enlargement department. Hope this satisfies your curiosity!

Adam

 

[AJC]

Following on from Dog Star's tribulations with the NLTRT TTA, here's one of a matching pair of recently completed wagon projects. It's not a TTA, nor even a TTV - it's in too early a condition to be called either, and Bachmann have clearly at least seen this Paul Bartlett collection shot - http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brttanks/h7fbfd8#h7fbfd8 - but it shows what can be done relatively easily with the Bachmann OO model.





Above the solebar, all I did was to replace the catwalks with the appropriate version from S Kits. They aren't perfect, but are much, much better than what went before. Otherwise, I added new buffers (ABS on this, MJT - sprung - on the other), brakeshoes (ABS - though I reused the Bachmann ones on the second one), new brake levers and guides (spares from Dave Bradwell), stirrup steps and replacement brake rigging from scraps of plastic and nickel wire with screw couplings from Masokits. Note that, like the real thing, these were spaced away from the headstock. In model form, this eases the process of getting them round corners while coupled, but most of the other vehicles in the rake (half a dozen Airfix kits at present) have sprung buffers so these rigid buffers won't matter. This last shot, showing the wagon on its back should show most of the mod's clearly.



There should, probably, be numbers on the ends to the right of the ladders but I haven't any suitable transfers in hand.

Adam

 

[AJC]

I dug out a couple of things yesterday evening that I'd started over Christmas but had no time to get back to. Not that I've actually done very much; just fitted a set of bogies acquired at the Southampton show to a Christmas-started scratchbuild.



... well, one of a pair of scratchbuilds. When you're working from a few measurements from a weight diagram and a handful of photos it makes sense to use the measurements twice - it saves marking out and loosing the bit of paper you've written the things down on if you want to make another. Anyway, eventually I shall have a pair of these, Coil Ks. These one piece Cambrian bogies certainly make things a lot easier than assembling the old three-part type. The bogie frames aren't really deep enough but they look about right. Unfortunately, Rural Railways only had the one pair in stock so the pivots on the bogie-less vehicle came from a set of Gloucester cast bogies which are going under a back-converted Bachmann BDA. It doesn't especially matter since I'm now out of disc wheels!





EDIT: Just noticed that there's a pair - among a cut of Shochood Bs by the looks of things - of these Coil Ks in the backdrop of this shot of Oxley:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/71592768@N08/6980202629/in/set-72157629939452747/lightbox/

Adam

 

[AJC]

The other item cluttering up the workbench at the moment - and it's that long that it does get in the way - is this Bogie Bolster D, back converted from the Bachmann BDA. Yes, I know that there's a Cambrian kit for this vary type, but the little underbody gussets on the solebars are the very devil to do (though not all had them), and well, it was quite cheap. The principal differences between the BDA and a diagram 1/484 are the bogies and the number of bolster. Oh, and air brakes but that's by the by.

Here's the full thing:



The Cambrian bogies with the 'one piece' mainframes aren't too bad, but the bolster detail could be a lot better (and should stick out more). The spoked wheels are temporary; they're there to set up the ride height on the new bogies. Anyone want a pair of untouched Bachmann Y25s?



View showing the new bolsters, built up from plastic strip. Note the Vac' pipe.



A rather better view showing the modifications to the deck. The chain rings are inset into the deck - tricky, but worth the effort. The technique is to mark out where they go, cut into the deck all around with a scalpel and using the same, make a series of nicks at an angle. Some form of 'micro-chisel' does the rest, in my case the sharpened remains of a broken jeweller's screwdriver. The chaining rings themselves are simply lengths of tinned copper wire about 0.4mm diameter wrapped round a 1.5mm drill and carefully cut off one at a time with a scalpel (be very wary while doing this). These are secured into the deck by means of a 1mm hole and a split pin made from the same wire. The theory is that I'll be able to chain a load to the thing in prototypical fashion. Don't hold your breath. The other bit of plastic with the square hole, by the way, is the spare location for the moveable end bolster.

The next puzzle is how to make the oblong holes for the bolster pins. Any ideas?

Adam

 

[AJC]

Returning to another earlier theme, the colours of Charrington-liveried hoppers, Justin Edwards on the BR wagon research Yahoo! group has pointed me in the direction of this (from a slide on eBay):

35mm SLIDE OF BR STEAM LOCO 80137 - 1960's | eBay



Adam

 

[AJC]

Roight! I'm with @Pugsley and @Overseer on this and, having re-reviewed the Castledine picture, I'm of the view that the background of the lettering is the same as neighbouring hopper - see below:



The band certainly doesn't match the loco's buffer beam (which near contemporary shots in colour show to have been red). Thoughts before I rub down and start over on the band?

Adam

 

[AJC]

And here, I think, is an answer, from a picture by Gordon Edgar at Weetslade:

All sizes | Weetslade Coal Preparation Plant | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Note the hopper (LNER dia. 100) in the back right hand corner. The two tone finish is clear as is the boxed lettering on the brown (thank goodness) lower half replete with figure 5 in the square box to the right of it. If you squint, the middle letters of the Charringtons brand are just about visible in the centre panel, I reckon, red. My suspicion is that the band is a pale grey?

Adam

 

[AJC]

I'm not sure how to post a link to flickr, or what unintentional copyright issues I might infringe if I re-post it here, but I have just found a colour image of a Charringtons hopper on Geoffrey Tribe's flickr site!

The number of the pic is; 15884436063_5df21d9c01_o It is a downloadable image too!

Cheers,

Pete.

Ah, this one!

Denbigh Hall Hoppers by Geoffrey Tribe, on Flickr

Result! Thank you Pete!

Adam

 

[AJC]

A couple of slightly indifferent pictures in this lovely morning light showing the BR hybar in its painted condition. Obviously it isn't actually finished; a final coat of matt lacquer and weathering, not to mention paining the insides, will follow, but a sense of what the finished vehicle will look like is clear. The painted view shows off Justin's tarp' rail etches to their best advantage I think.





More exotically, we also have - not complete because, if I have Rail Alphabet style lettering for wagons I can't lay hands on it right now - my 21 ton hopper, liveried for Charringtons. I think it's fair to suggest that the coal factors in question certainly got their monies' worth!



Red stripes are also wanted on the axleboxes but the impression, courtesy of John Isherwood's transfers, is in place.

Adam

 

[40126]

Hi Adam

Love the 21t hopper, as well as all your other work. I Searched Google to find a prototype pic, but only found these....





Do you have a full size wagon pic ?.

Steve