7mm BR Diesels

[Healey Mills]

I feel educated, informed and entertained!

I guess that, as on the Southern, this fitting meant they were also preferred motive power for officers' trains...?

Steph

We aim to please

I have no idea about officers' trains... perhaps Mickoo can help with that question.

Cheers
Lee

 

[SimonT]

Lee,
take a look at The Weathering Magazine and the AK Catalogue. Lots of technique and inspiration.
Simon

 

[Ian G]

Hobby Holidays sell many weathering products.

Ian G

 

[Healey Mills]

Thank you everyone for your help and guidance with regards weathering. I shall get around to it, perhaps very soon.

As most of the components for 40060 are prep'd for etch primer I decided to make a start on 40126:



So far not a lot to show, other than a few handrails and brackets applied to the front. I've spent most of the day cleaning up the nickle silver and whitemetal parts ready for either painting or application straight to the loco... how I hate cleaning up whitemetal parts... yuk!!!

Whilst looking at the pic I have taken of the nose front, in particular the splitbox headcodes, I couldn't help think something was amiss. Having looked at a few photos of the loco it seems that the rubber beading is much less pronounced and I think this is what makes the model look a little wrong. I guess I shall have to try to reduce the modelled rubber beading by thinning it and also reduce the depth of it too.

Oooo... just noticed.... I have also got to make and fit the blind operating handles too

Thanks for looking in

Cheers
Lee

 

[Steph Dale]

Lee,
Assuming it's still available, the MMP diesel detail set includes replacement split headcode boxes for the 37/40, IIRC, as well as a host of other useful and lovely things.

Steph

 

[Healey Mills]

Hi Steph,

Thank you for that. I've just looked on the DJP site and these do not seem to be available anymore

Not to worry I'm sure I can sort out what I need to with a little ingenuity and a file

Cheers
Lee

 

[Steph Dale]

Lee,
See here: David J Parkins
Strangely it looks like there's only enough for one end?

Steph

 

[Healey Mills]

ah yes... item 27 on photo no. 2 Perhaps there are more as this seems like it is only a partial view of the photo.

Hmmm, I may order that... it could be useful. Thank you

 

[Healey Mills]

Lee,
See here: David J Parkins
Strangely it looks like there's only enough for one end?

Steph

Hi Steph,

It would seem I do not need to purchase the DJH set of etches (although they are rather nice and I may purchase at some point in the future). As I looked at the headcode boxes on the loco I thought....'Hmmmm this is designed for an etch'.... so I called Laurie at JLTRT. Yes, there is an etch and it is winging it's way to me as I type

Cheers
Lee

 

[richard carr]

Steph

Thanks for posting that, my diesel fittings pack has just been ordered.

Richard

 

[Healey Mills]

Managed to get the cab fronts finished today... and for the first time I glued the handles in too. I normally (Hmm, can you say normally after only one build ) add the handles after I have fully sprayed the loco, spraying them separately.

Anyway, here we are with 40126 nose ends No. 1 & No. 2:



Also I managed to get a lot of No. 1 bogie with all the 'bits' added too:



I guess the rest of the evening will be spent getting bogie No. 2 to the same state.

Thanks for looking in

Cheers
Lee

 

[Healey Mills]

Hmmm... once I'd got bogie No. 2 up to the same point I started pondering how I was going to replicate the damage to one of the No. 2 end loco side:



Copyright: Chris Wright, 40126 Doncaster 1-4-84 (Flickr)

I'm thinking I need to mark out the areas which need to be removed and then just start chiseling/ scraping away. Then of course there's the paint job too

This could be grim (but at least there's the JLTRT guarantee )

Cheers
Lee

 

[Healey Mills]

Just noticed that half of the steam heat pipe is missing too

 

[Pugsley]

I'm thinking I need to mark out the areas which need to be removed and then just start chiseling/ scraping away.

That's pretty much what you have to do. You don't have to do it as deep as you think, though, less is more.

For the more general ripples, scrape the approximate areas out and then blend them using 1000 grit wet and dry, used wet. You may need to rescribe panel lines and add rivets at the end, but that's easy enough.

 

[Healey Mills]

That's pretty much what you have to do. You don't have to do it as deep as you think, though, less is more.

For the more general ripples, scrape the approximate areas out and then blend them using 1000 grit wet and dry, used wet. You may need to rescribe panel lines and add rivets at the end, but that's easy enough.

Yes, I suppose there is no need to gouge deep parts out of the bodywork. Thanks for the tip about the wet n dry.

 

[Healey Mills]

It seems I've not updated this thread for some time, so while I'm literally watching paint dry....

After sealing the windows and the underside of the cabs off 40060 got its first coat of paint.... some etch primer after a good scrub down with Viakal Then into my plastic box to dry and I guess 'cure' for a few days:





At the same time I had prep'd the cabs, bulkheads and consoles for 40126 too as this seems to hold the entire build up if I don't get these items together early on. Once painted they can all be assembled... as can the loco body sides and roof. Oh yes.... something I forgot to do in my haste was mask off the edges of the bulkhead and consoles (what a twit!!)... oh well nothing a little emery cloth can't sort

Whilst glazing 40118 I had realised that it would have been a good idea to leave the consoles out of the cab until it's complete so that's what I intend to do with these next two 40's. Hopefully giving me more room inside the cabs to put the fiddly bits of clear plastic in!!

At the moment I'm in a complete state of disarray with what I will do with the wheel sets for 40126:



I'm just not sure which route to take. I know the best option is to use split axles, however, my success rate with those is not great, neither have I tested them with a running loco. I'm more inclined to see how 40060 runs for a while and in the meantime just have one bogie picking up power off one side and the next bogie picking up off the opposing side whilst making provision for a change later on if the split axles prove successful.

Ho Hum, decisions, decisions

Cheers
Lee

 

[Healey Mills]

After sitting watching paint dry for several days I figured I needed a break... so no modelling this weekend, instead it was the real thing:


40126 Rawtenstall, 2 Jul 16


40013 Pickering, 3 July 16

Today I've managed to get the all the underframe, bogies and water tank of 060 sprayed in black. Additionally I managed to get the cab insides and consoles done on 126. So hopefully some detail bits to add then I'll update the build here

Cheers
Lee

 

[Cliff Williams]

Looking good!
Why not dig out the headcode boxes and backlight them?

 

[Healey Mills]

Looking good!
Why not dig out the headcode boxes and backlight them?

Hi Cliff,

Thanks for posting. I like the lighting that you've used for the cab, is it a grain of rice bulb??

To be honest I'm not sure how to do the headcode box lighting. I was thinking of using the two holes that are drilled already and inserting tower LEDs or something like that. I guess your method involves removing the back of the headcode box, insert one/ two LEDs and then build a small enclosure behind them to contain the light... is that correct?

Cheers
Lee

 

[Healey Mills]

Just a bit of an update after today's work...

The cab consoles, bulk heads and cab interiors of 40126 sprayed and ready for detailing:



The underframe, bogie side frames and boiler water tank just about complete on 40060. They only need a few details added like water/ fuel gauges and all supplementary pipework/ vents/ fillers painting:





Having spent a little time trying to achieve the split axles for these locos I decided that I needed an alternative method to providing some spring loading to each bogie middle main wheel axles. Up to press I have used the method that Cliff Williams used on one of his class 40 builds. This employed a U shaped piece of 0.7mm wire which had a piece of brass soldered to it thereby allowing the unit to be fixed to the bogie frame by a nut and counter sunk machine screw. The arms of the U then fit inside some brass tube soldered to the top hats, thus providing the spring load for the centre axle. This does work very well but as you can imagine there is now a common link between the two top hats which would render the split axle method useless.

So I had a bit of a trial (and lots of errors) before I came up with a very simple solution. Like Cliffs method I wanted the springs to be removable for maintenance purposes. Here's what I came up with:





Yes, it does look rather simple and I have no idea why it took me so long to arrive at the solution to be honest. But as you can see the springs (lengths of 0.7mm wire) are like extended split pins (the pic above is the prot-type and the final ones are much neater!!). This allows their removal but also stops any movement. As the springs are independent they need a little bit of tweaking to get the correct applied force to both top hats but once set they work very well. They are held onto the bogie frames by small U shaped wires that are pushed into drilled holes then glued.

I have also persevered with making the split axles and since I did not have access to a pillar drill today decided that I would try to drill the starting holes with a small electric hand drill. This worked remarkably well and with a 0.8mm drill bit too! The only down side is I had to be rather careful as I had nothing to hold the axles as I drilled except my fingers. Thankfully all 8 plus two thumbs remain intact I found this method much easier than using the pillar drill as I could feel how much work the drill bit was doing..... as a result I did not break any bits, yet with the pillar drill I broke a lot!!!

So out with the Devcon 2 ton tomorrow and hopefully I'll have enough split axles for two bogies

Cheers
Lee