Scattergun Distractions - Gadzooks, I appear to have gone normal

Neil

Western Thunderer
Impatience?

To be honest I'm not sure why I followed the route I did, but it may have been a conversation with Cookie about painting diagonal stripes on the end of his narrow gauge locos that set me thinking about paint rather than transfers. In retrospect it may even have been possible to buy ready made red warning stripes, but I had all the other stuff to hand so thought I might as well press on with it. There's a constant theme building throughout the build of self induced difficulty; part way through I stumbled across a Dutch or German forum (I forget which) which shows that at one time (and possibly right now) there has been a one piece resin cast body for this loco. Ah well, I'd have missed out on all the fun of cutting and sticking plastic.
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
Also occupying space on the workbench and time in my mind has been the Model T (ish) railbus. If I'm in a polite frame of mind it's brought a number of fresh challenges, when the veneer of civility drops it's been a twat. Apart from the luggage and the main bodyshell every other master and mould has had to be re-done or modified to get a reasonable result. I thought I had a good handle on this casting malarkey but obviously not. However here's my test build in rough and primered glory.

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It has the hard to cast and hard to fettle Mk 1 mudguard and running board unit. Mk2s are just rolling off the production line. Hopefully I can now trundle on and build up stocks ready to release mid May. Weirdly I've found it's the mental space it has occupied that's got in the way of my other projects rather than physical space or time it's demanded.
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Impatience?

To be honest I'm not sure why I followed the route I did, but it may have been a conversation with Cookie about painting diagonal stripes on the end of his narrow gauge locos that set me thinking about paint rather than transfers. In retrospect it may even have been possible to buy ready made red warning stripes, but I had all the other stuff to hand so thought I might as well press on with it. There's a constant theme building throughout the build of self induced difficulty; part way through I stumbled across a Dutch or German forum (I forget which) which shows that at one time (and possibly right now) there has been a one piece resin cast body for this loco. Ah well, I'd have missed out on all the fun of cutting and sticking plastic.

There is, in fact there are; for three variants IIRC. I've got a couple kicking round here somewhere.
There's also a very affordable (under £20) etched brass kit which has had me thinking a couple of times...

Steph
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
Thanks Steph; I wasn't aware of the brass kit but a couple of minutes trawling and I found it here. Twenty Euros sounds like a bargain, but I'm where I am with mine, and I do like bodging plastic far more than brass. Good to know though, and I'm going off now to see what other goodies they offer.
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
In between the steady plod of casting railbus components and a surprise visit to the dentist I've been playing. A year or so ago I bought a Hornby platform shelter at a toy fair for a couple of quid thinking I might do something with it; yesterday I did. Rather than waste words, follow the photos.

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It's been a most enjoyable build, coming together quickly and simply.
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
Some time ago Martin (Jones aka Wales) passed a couple of buildings my way to repaint for him. A year or more later and they'd bubbled to the top of my 'to do' pile. His latest fancy seems to be the North East region of British Railways, fine by me as I remember the house colours, pale blue and off white, tangerine signage, with fondness from my youth. So last week the paints came out and I attacked a Wills water tower and a lamp hut of unknown origin. I liked the look of them, particularly when teamed with my similarly painted platform shelter, a modified Airfix coal office. Spurred on I dredged up the dreadful remains of a continental HO goods shed which is now well on its way though the Anglicisation process.

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I thought it would be nice if I could provide passengers with facilities too, so into the scrap box for an even more dilapidated part built, part crumbling Airfix coal office. I think that this was originally one of Martin's 'bargains' destined for another project. To cut a long story short it's a fair way through the tarting up process. Here are a few photos showing the unpromising origin and the improbable extras sourced from my structures parts bin.

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It's accounted for a couple of hours pleasant bodging today. I'm quite looking forward to the next session with it.
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
A few days later on and the basics of the platform shelter are done.

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When the paint is fully hardened I'll be applying some gentle toning down as both the white and the pale blue are a little stark. I'll maybe think about a little further detailing though I'm going for restrained rather than bells and whistles as it would be all too easy to make a small structure look too fussy.
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
Oooh er missus, it's a lot bigger than I'm used to.

Seeing as the this week has been dreadful, my thoughts have naturally turned to building something for the garden. Earlier this year I bought a fifteen quid battery chassis kit from e-bay. I'm now a reasonable way through equipping it with a plasticard body.

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Neil

Western Thunderer
Thank you Steve and Heather; it's very enjoyable to add on fiddly bits which wouldn't normally show up in the smaller scales. With an Emett-ish vehicle I think it should be possible to a long way with such stuff before the risk of overdoing it looms up on the horizon. It's 32mm gauge Steve, though the kit I used for the chassis should also work for 45mm if one was to substitute longer axles and some pretty chunky spacing washers.
 

unklian

Western Thunderer
Good work there on the big/little diesel (or would it be petrol ?) . If you Google 'Emmet Festival Railway' and check out the pictures of the full size Emmet railway built for the Festival of Britain, I think you will see just how far you could go .
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
I must have had a severe lapse of memory over the first half of this year; I see that it's over six months since I posted any progress here. I'm pleased to say that the Emmet-esque diesel gained some paint and found its way outside one sunny spring evening.

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I've also indulged in retail therapy of a continental nature; of a measured and relatively thrifty nature.

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Shopping isn't the 'be all and end all' though; the plastic has recently come out to combine with a Bachmann US diesel shunter to make this.

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I've posted some stuff regarding the full size little trains in the Corris wet and dry threads, but I thought that there may be some interest in these series of photos depicting the prototype guards lookout ...

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floowed by the production version in the open ....

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... and closed positions.

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Right that's it for the moment. I'm heading upstairs to the playroom as I have a Hornby class 25 part way through the tarting up procedure. For some time I've had three of them, all gifts, sat in a box awaiting my attention. They may have sat there for quite some time had it not been for a suggestion on Tuesday. I have four mates who live locally, all into railways, all apart from me use dcc. The suggestion came that I chip a loco to try my hand at this witchcraft malarky, that I buy something cheap and relatively disposable, 'an old Lima diesel' was mooted. The lightbulb (40W) came on and the memory of the box of rats came to the fore. I'm going for a light breathing on rather than the full monty. I like the Hornby moulding far more than that by Bachmann and am intrigued by the idea of how little I may need to do make a convincing model as opposed to a knock the socks off job. I wonder if knocking the socks off is a waste of time and effort?
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
Things have taken a funny turn; though the rat is still being tarted up I went shopping and ended up with an 8F.

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I thought it needed company, so a three quid basket case, plasticard, paint and transfers were deployed to create a suitable brake van.

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Neil

Western Thunderer
I see it's six and a half years since my last post in this thread, a personal record I think. Morfa, the layout I was initially distracted from, is no more and now it's Northern Town which is the victim of my sporadic inattention. The latest fancy to take my time is a slight step up in scale from 4mm/ft to my interpretation of US O gauge at 6mm/ft which makes 9mm gauge track spot on for 18" gauge. Enough of the numbers, here's what I've been building.

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It's all largely scratchbuilt, though you will find a Kato mechanism, a Peco 009 underframe and a few bits of a Testors San Francisco cable car kit in there.
 
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