Brace Position

I've been busy fashioning a few more of the most obvious features of the KMX tamper, such as the bracing girders and bars which stop the machine vibrating itself into oblivion as it goes about its work on the Welsh Highland.

In the picture below you can see the tie bar which runs across in front of the tamping head and to its right a rather more substantial lump of metal (or in this case styrene) across the smaller compartment which is yet to be filled with techy bits.

The blocks that the bar is fixed to on either side took a while to be knocked up with quite a few small tiny triangles to be cut and glued into place while there is some accurate drilling required as well.

You can see the same bracing structures mirrored on the other side of the tamper at the far end as you look at the picture above.

In the foreground in this view are the engine compartment doors. I made this as a one piece laminate structure which will be glued into place in the final stages of the build.

Oh, and in case you thought the cab roof looks a bit wonky, don't worry, These are just off cuts of styrene which are shoved in there to help keep the sides nice and square for the moment.

Head's Up

I have resumed work on a second KMX tamper - this one for a client in Australia.

It's been some time since I last did anything to it, partly because the client made the fatal mistake of saying that he wasn't in a hurry for it, and because I've been concentrating on other projects including carriages for Bron Hebog and my latest adventure with resin casting wagons.

However I have decided that it is time I got back to work on it and in the last few days I've been working on one of the stand out features of the model: the tamp head.

As with my own model, for this one I am using resin castings that I've bought in from Britannia Pacific Models who produce kits for 4mm scale standard gauge machines.

I am slightly adapting the castings, at the request of the client, who was one of the engineers responsible for converting the machine for use on the WHR, to show the tamp head as he intended it to be, rather than as it turned out.

In effect, and in non-technical terms because I am not very technical, it means a double tamp head on either side of a single frame, rather than single tamp heads sandwiching a frame.

I have added lumpy bits (another technical term) at the sides and drilled holes in them so that the whole tamp head assembly can be suspended on two horizontal bars as it is on the real machine.

Here it is in position.

MOTW - 2042

I suppose this is what you would call a standard WHR carriage, if there were indeed such a thing.

2042 was the third and final of the original batch of third class saloons built for the opening from Caernarfon to Dinas by Winson Engineering. It was also the last to be sent for a full-scale overhaul at Boston Lodge Works which was completed in time for this season's running.

The design has been superseded by longer 13m carriages built at Blodge which also have proper disabled access with double doors at one end.

It was the last of the original carriages which I built, in styrene as usual.

It spent a number of years sitting unpainted in a drawer and, in fact, by the time Himself got around to finishing it off Blodge had already begun giving the Winson carriages a makeover, the most obvious changes being vertical strips of beading beneath every window pillar, the removal of the hoods above the opening windows and a change to the livery with the cream doors which are now standard on new-build carriages.

I did briefly consider taking the unpainted model back and attempting to rebuild it in the new style, but it would have been very tricky to remove so much detail without damaging the styrene panels beneath the beading. So in the end we decided to the full Winson rake kept in their original condition.

I may one day end up building replacement carriages in their current form but not for a while yet methinks.

Flat Out

So what do you reckon this basket of groceries is all about, then?...

I wouldn't have blamed the checkout operator if she gave me a few strange looks when I walked up with a jumbo roll of sellotape, cling film, furniture polish, cocktail sticks and a jar of Vaseline. Was I some kind of fetishist?

No. Just a slightly frustrated modeller trying everything he can think of in an attempt to get smooth, flat backs on his resin casts.

It's sometimes the case when using an open mould, as I am, that the top surface of the resin does not set completely flat but with a slight hump. I tried to improve matters by passing a flat edge along the top surface after it had been poured which helps a little, but you do get a bit of a bow wave effect which leaves the casting deeper at one end than the other.

So I consulted some of the village elders to see what they had to say. They all suggested placing something flat on top of the mould as the resin set. (It doesn't need to be exposed to the air, of course.) The difficult bit is how to stop the resin becoming stuck to whatever you put on top of it.

Suggestion one was a piece of clear plastic sprayed with cheap furniture polish, the cheaper the better.

Didn't work!

In fact, as Himself would say, it stuck like sugar to a blanket. (Perhaps something to do with the type of plastic I was using?)

Suggestion two was to wrap the plastic in cling film.

Not entirely successful.

The resin certainly doesn't stick to the cling film, but try as I might I couldn't get a flawless cling of film. When the resin was set the back of the cast was as rippled as a beach with the tide out.

I tried the polish again, but this time on glass.

Just as bad! In fact I had to chip the resin off the glass fragment by fragment.

By this time I was more than a little fed up. In fact I was rather grumpy and beginning to consider whether this resin casting lark was worth it?

I spent a few days after that in an exhaustive trawl of search engines to see if I could find anyone using any other methods.

I noticed how some people who do split mould castings mentioned using Vaseline as a cheaper alternative to expensive mould release sprays to keep the two halves from sticking to each other. And thinking more about my tribulations with cling film I also wondered whether there was any chance of using sellotape? I knew I would have half a chance of applying that to the plastic with no imperfections. The big question was would the resin stuck.

I experimented with both on an off cut of plastic. I covered one half with sellotape and smeared Vaseline on the other side before dropping on two small blobs of resin.

Success! The set resin popped off them both without a fuss.

I decided that sellotape would be the simplest and less messy solution to try first and went out and bought a roll of clear parcel tape. So far I have managed to cast four wagon sides with backs that are billiard table smooth.

I hesitate to declare that I've got this sorted once and for all because resin casting seems to have a habit of biting you on the bum whenever you drop your guard and dare to think you're the master of it, but just now the kit production prospects are looking a lot more positive than they were last week.

A Fourth Fairlie

I've finally got around to doing something about another long-time modelling ambition - a model of Livingston Thompson 1980's style.

Photo taken by the late John Halsall, courtesy of FR Society

This is the FR's fourth Fairlie that currently lives in the National Railway Museum at York, looking rather smarter than she does in the picture above, although that's how I'm going to model her.
First, a quick history lesson for those who don't know the background to this locomotive. (Those that do can skip on a few paragraphs if they wish..)

Livingston Thompson (or LT for short) was one of two Boston Lodge built Double Fairlies which survived the FR closure and was restored to steam in 1956, but by that time called Taliesin. (The same name the Single Fairlie carried. Confused yet? You will be....)

In 1961 it was renamed (again) Earl of Merioneth before being retired for good in 1971. A rebellion by FR staff and volunteers - the so-called Active Forty - headed off a plan to give the old girl a radical rebuild with a new parallel double boiler, and the (new) Earl of Merioneth we know and love (or perhaps even loath) was built to replace it and had its debut in 1979.

The old superstructure, ex-LT, ex-Taliesin & ex-Earl was stripped of any useful bits (like bogies) and placed in store until finally in 1986 it was placed on ambulance bogies and dragged up the line to Glan-y-Pwll by a gang who called themselves the Active Four.

Eventually a plan was hatched for a proper cosmetic restoration, the corpse was dragged back down the line again, got taken away to Winson Engineering where it was buffed up, plonked on a pair of withdrawn bogies and handed over the NRM for display, having been pulled halfway up the line yet again for a ceremony at Tan y Bwlch.

Photo - Roger Dimmick

(Here's where FR anoraks who knew all that can start reading again!)

I've always been fascinated by this loco, I think because I am too young to have seen it in steam.  I remember seeing a picture in the FR society magazine in the early 1980's showing the superstructure resting on a couple of slate wagons in a shed in Minffordd Yard, apparently unloved and forgotten about.

I've only ever seen it in its embalmed state when it came back to the FR for a visit a few years ago and got a really close look when we exhibited Dduallt directly in front of it as the centrepiece of the Warley show at the NEC.

Knowing that it had been towed at least twice around the spiral I have for years wanted to make a model of it like this to drag around on Dduallt behind our Earl of Merioneth. The difficulty has always been finding a kit to essentially ruin for the purpose. A Backwoods Miniatures one is quite obviously far too valuable to vandalise in this way, and even the old Langley whitemetal ones retail for a small fortune (for what they are).

So I was very grateful indeed when FR shop manager, in-house film maker, 009 modeller and 'Isle of Stoner' blogger John Wooden offered to give me one he had (with a few bits missing) for free.

Here it is with the main bits laid out. LT was stripped of a lot of its fittings before its lost decade and a half in Minffordd Yard, but happily all the big bits that remained on LT are there in the kit.

The big challenge on this project, aside from cleaning up and straightening out some of the shockingly rough castings, will be the scrapyard-style weathering job to be done on it. I hope it'll be an interesting one to watch.

On The Move

It occured to me while we were packing up the layout at Railex a few weeks ago that you might be vaguely interested in seeing how we transport the layout.

I've heard stories about a number of modellers who have built lovingly built their layouts but left it until the eve of their exhibition debut to give any consideration to the best way of transporting it about.

In a way I suppose it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. The public doesn't generally get to see exhibtion layouts being set up or knocked down, so unless you've actually attended with your own or someone else's layout how are you to know how other modellers do it?

We transport Bron Hebog (or as much of it as there is at the moment) with the boards in pairs.

As you can see they are mated front to front and fixed with wooded transport panels at either end. The profile of the scenery and any structures or trees etc dicate how close they can be mounted.  As you can see in these shots, some are closer together than others.

In a neat piece of design Himself has arranged it so the metal dowels and clips which locate and the lock the boards to each other when the layout is assembled double up to locate and hold these transport panels on either end.

Being a 'belt and braces' man there is also a small bolt at the top and bottom just incase the panels should unclip in transit.

And here is a snap showing the tressels we use to support the layout at shows.  The larger one on the right goes under the widest section of the layout.  As you can see, they fit together quite neatly and are held in place with bungee straps for the journey.

MOTW - Old Water Tower Base

I'm featuring one of the smaller features on the layout this week, but one of the bits of the layout which immediately identify it as Beddgelert.

Known by some people by other less flattering names - such as the 'manky water tower' - this 1920's concrete McAlpine structure is one of the few bits of WHR heritage left at Beddgelert station, especially now the pit next to it has been covered over.

Our model was made from styrene from measurements taken at the site.

The mankiness comes courtesy of some concrete effect paint, which has a sandy texture when applied.

The rusted bits of rails sticking out of it are - well - rails, in this case offcuts of some Peco 009 track.