Bull Bars

There's been more work on the front end of WHR diesel number 9, specifically the protective structure in front of the radiator.

The real one has quite a few more bars, but short of getting something etched bespoke for us I think this will give enough of an effect.

Besides which, I'm hearing whispers that the prototype etch for the loco we're using has turned out to be a smidgeon on the small side when a tape measure was run over the real thing, so there's always the question of how much effort Himself should go to with this one because I couldn't rule out that a some point in the future the chassis may be transferred to a body of the correct dimensions,

Regardless, its's developing into a very nice looking model, and given that the real one has only made the most occasional forays to Beddgelert so far it's never likely to be a front line machine for us,

But it is yellow, and yellow is my favourite colour, so it's definitely got a place in our stockbox.

Non-Slip Casting

I'm in a mood to finish off some projects which have been held in abeyance for too long.

One of them is the well wagon project which has been sitting waiting for something to represent the Durbar plate decking.

My original plan was to get something bespoke in etched brass which would help give strength and weight to the structure, and would be user-friendly if the wagon ever got added to my range of kits.

I'd sent off some design sketches but nothing as come of them - and I'm reluctant to nag or chase-up - so I've decided to try one of the alternative approaches I had in mind originally.

Years ago I bought a packet of very thin, etched brass plates, which I can't seem to find being sold anymore.

They weren't big enough to cover the whole lower deck of the wagon, and I don't have enough of them in any case.

What I can do, however, is use one of them as a master to make a mould and cast a number of copies in resin, which I can then join together to make a master for a large piece which does fit.

This is what I have done, and you can see the result in the picture at the top of the post.

You can still make out where the join is but I'm hoping it won't show up too much when the wagon is painted and perhaps given a bit of weathering too.

Next, I shall be making some smaller pieces for cover the slopes and the upper platforms above the bogie pivits.

This will mean that the wagon still probably be a little on the light side, still, but the solution will probably be just to run it loaded.

The Carriage That Had The Last Laugh

At long last we've got our hands on a set of etches for FR carriage 21, which we'll be doing up to represent the volunteer-built replica which entered traffic a couple of years ago.

This pair of Asbury carriages were rather basic compared to what Victorian passengers had become accustomed to with the 'bowsiders', and although apparently intended for tourist traffic other accounts say they were bought to be nothing more than bogie quarrymans carriages.

Sitting in one of the end compartments of the replica for just a few minutes while it was under construction at Boston Lodge, I soon appreciated how they developed this reputation for not being the most spacious and comfortable carriages, and I know I wasn't alone in wondering quite why some people were so keen to recreate one it its original form?

That was before Covid-19 came along, and suddenly compartment stock roared back into fashion!

Along with the other 'lock ups' 21 has become a mainstay of the FR fleet for the past two seasons and those who built it - while others looked on with a sceptical look - have had the last laugh.

As built there were never any dividers between the compartments, but these were hastily added as a Covid precaution before the start of the 2020 service.  

Now it's been handed over to me to make the interior,  and I'm wondering whether I should make it with the plywood walls in place as our little miniature memorial to the pandemic?

Rob's Bonnet

A day isolating in the 'Covid Cave' on Sunday gave me the opportunity to get the master and the castings for the new side doors on the bonnet of WHR diesel shunter 9 completed.

I think I'm pretty satisfied with how they've turned out.

I cast three copies (and one for luck) of the first master of just one set of the double doors, then joined them together - with an extra blank door on one end - to form a second master.

Once that had been used to make a mould I cast a few copies of this longer set and selected the best pair to use on the model.

When they had cured the spare door was cut from different ends - because they need to be a mirror image - and I've added some hinge details using fine styrene rod.

They're not that much thicker than the nickel silver etches which came with the kit prototype from RT Models and I'm confident they'll look quite effective on the finished model.

I think this can now be passed back to Himself to work out how to replicate the 'bull bars' style grill protection on the front.

Toast Rack Update

Tinkering has been completed on the scratch built Hudson toast rack replica 39 and it is about to move to the painting stage.

Himself has taken my resin cast body and added a a brass roof as well as finishing details such as the vacuum pipes, electrical connections and emergency stop apparatus.

It's had a trial run on (most) of Bron Hebog along with the 009 Society kit version which we are going to finish as the version of this type of carriage running on the WHHR. which is more correct to the kit.

The front one will be finished mostly in green and the rear one mostly in maroon.

Given that I was only working from photographs with measurements of the key dimensions of the Society kit when I started I'm pretty pleased with how it has turned out.

Killing Time

In the previous post I said I had run out of excuses for not getting on with the doors on diesel 9, well, how prophetic those words turned out to be!

That very same day I somehow found myself - finally - among the millions testing postive for Covid.

As I am the only one in the household who needs to isolate, and because I have shut myself away for the duration in the room where I do all my modelling, there's no reason not to crack on.

Forget any idea that I shall be spending the whole ten days beavering away on models, though, because at the start of lockdown my employer issued us all with the kit to broadcast from home, so for most of these ten days everything is cleared away to turn the desk into a temporary news studio.

For this weekend, however, I have packed all that away and filled the empty hours with some casting work for customers and made a first attempt as a master for the door castings on the diesel's bonnet.

These are to replace some thin etched panels so I've made them out of 10" styrene and put a blank door on either side so I can use the castings that are produced with the door with the vent either to the left of the right.

This has been formed into a casting box and is curing under the RTV as I type.

For those who are curious about my health, I'm pleased to report that four days after testing positive my experience of Covid after being double-vaxxed seems no different to a winter cold, so far.

Doors Time

With the toast rack project passed over to Himself for the roofing and painting stage I've not got any excuses left for not tackling the doors on WHR diesel 9.

As you may have read in previous posts on this blog, the idea is to make this up from a test etch for a potential new kit from RT Models running on an adapted Farish 08 chassis.

Because it is a test, a few of the details will need to be altered before it goes into production, including the side doors on the bonnet which were not the same as the ones being carried by the WHR example based at Dinas.

In the kit these were meant to be metal overlays to be positioned on top of the perforated bonnet former.

I think I shall try to make a very thin masters out of styrene and attempt to cast copies. 

Keep following the blog to see how I get on....

The Forgotten Carriage

It's possibly the affect of age, and a touch of confusion creeping in, but I was very surprised to discover recently that we didn't have a model of bowsider 18 in its current ornate Victorian livery.

The only one we have is one of our very first 009 models from around 30 years ago, built from a Langley brass kit, finished in the very simple two tone 'Mountain Prince' livery of the late 1980s.

(This model is not strictly correct because it has all the panelling etched in brass, whereas at this time number 18 was running with smooth panels along its midriff.)

We're going to fix this gap in the stock list and have bought in a Worsley Works body kit which Himself is busy soldering together.

That's the easy part - the hard part will be the painting.

A Big Relief

Wiring and control panel work wasn't the only thing happening on the 'test track' at the weekend.

While Himself was playing around with the soldering iron I set to work on another Metcalfe kit, this time for the main building of the station.

This one required quite a degree of kit-bashing because it is not to be positioned on the main part of the layout - it's too tall - but built in half relief and placed in the gap between the edge of the layout and the wall.

Given the depth of the gap it's not so much half-relief as three-quarters-relief.

When the layout is folded away this building - and half the platform - will remain in place sitting on top of the shelf which the layout rests on.  

With the layout down you should hardly notice the gap.

Well, that's the theory, anyway.

Adapting the kit was fun but made more challenging by the way the building is made up of four blocks, and each one had to be thinned by the same amount to make sure that when they were fixed together all the roof parts still connected as they should.

The front looks quite normal, as it should, and the rear - which doesn't have the windows installed because no one will ever see it - does quite a convincing turn as an abandoned post-Beeching shell.

Since these pictures were taken it's been completed with the roof and all the trimmings and I'm pretty pleased with the result.

 

We Have Control

Most of yesterday was spent installing this beauty.

Yes, you're right, it is probably overkill for a 'test track' but I did say we were doing this properly!

Himself spent the last week building one of his by now standard control panels which we also have on Dduallt and Bron Hebog.

This one features a colour-coded track layout (in Dymo tape) which shows isolating sections, and includes triple-pole section switches for 'cab control' on the main lines, simple switches for isolating sections in sidings, centre-spring switches for point control and push button route selection for the three-way points in the depots.

Two panel mount Gaugemaster controllers will be placed in the white space on either side in due course.

Wiring this lot up, however, could take some time, especially because it's being designed to be removable, which is complicating things a lot.

The narrow gauge circuit, when it's built, will be controlled from a smaller separate panel.

Mesh Door Solution

You can call me a hypocrite if you like, and I won't disagree, but after many years of - lets call it scepticism - about 3D printing the new fangled technology has proven to be the best solution to the problem of how to recreate the small mesh safety doors on the Hudson toast rack carriage 39.

Even better was that I didn't have to do anything to get them, having been offered eight spares from fellow NG modeller, Colin Lea.

As printed, they were just under a millimetre too wide for the gap between the body panels - if it was the 009 Society / Dundas kit it would have been even more so - but it proved possible to file them carefully at either side to fit snugly.

You can probably make out in the picture that I have made and fitted the seat benches and the backrests.

Now it's just about ready to pass to Himself to add the brass bits and get it painted.

Cheers Colin!