The Depths Of Cutting Mawr

Himself has spent most of this week adding more rock, and resin fake rock, to the sides of Cutting Mawr.

It occurred to me that the picture I posted last time might not have given an impression of just how deep it is, so this time I thought I would pose one of the WHR saloons on the track to give you some perspective.

The bulk of the job is done now.

He's sent me away with a few more selected lumps of slate to mould and copy to finish off the inside wall and then it will be a case of infilling the gaps with rubble and foliage.

The irony is that most of this will be unseen.

Not only is the cutting so deep that you have to peer over the top to see into it but it's also 15 feet away from the front of the layout.

At least you know it's there, though.

Gold Leaf

Himself has begun applying the transfer lining to our new, old carriage 15 (if you can follow that logic).

This is an even more thankless task that on carriage 19 which completed not so long ago because there is even more of the fine gold lines and tiny weenie curves to be slid into position around the intricate beading on what are reputed to be the UK's first bogie carriages.

At the moment he's just done the very start of one end, but it's a painstaking business but I'm sure the end result will look fabulous.

Once again he's using the Fox Transfers waterslide lining sets.

I suppose it may be some consolation that it's no easier doing it on the real carriage where all of this detail is applied in an equally intricate fashion using genuine gold leaf.

If you've never been to one of the FR's Victorian Weekends you really should make the effort to go because the restoration, rebuilding and recreation of the vintage carriage fleet is something to behold when you see them all brought out and being played with.

Keep On Rocking

Himself has started work on the last major scenic operation on Bron Hebog, completing the rock lining of Cutting Mawr at the back of the layout.

Most of it is not actual rock, but it is a perfect copy because I made moulds from pieces of genuine North Wales shale which I cast copies of in resin.

Himself has given them washes with a variety of acrylic colours and they are fixed into position by being pressed into a bed of plaster.

It does look very deep, doesn't it!

You Can't See The Join

Now it's had a coat of primer on it I can asses how good a job I made of the conversion of WHHR carriage number 7, chopping off the top of the sides of the Dundas kit and adding the row of windows.

If I say so myself you wouldn't be able to tell that it wasn't meant to be like that.

Himself is also planning to add a few finer details, like slicing off the moulded handrails and door handles to replace them with brass ones - you can just make out the holes he has drilled to accept them.

He's also replaced the plastic air brake pipes which come with the kit and has made up his own from wire.

On with the painting now.

Bogie Bearings

The first of our WHHR carriages is on wheels now.

While the plastic used for the injection moulding in the Dundas kit is nice and soft for cutting and altering when I was kit-bashing the body, these days they're now using it for the bogies as well.

This means that it's a very necessary precaution to drill out the axle boxes from the inside and fit some brass cup bearings.

With Bron Hebog being a very long layout by 009 standards the chances are that left in their original state the pin points on the wheel axles would very quickly bore out the locating holes in the bogie

frames leading first to loose wheels, and then eventually, no wheels.

This was certainly our experience with Dduallt so we're taking no chances with the even longer run.

You can see in the picture that he has also soldered an extension to the Greenwich coupling so it can be glued into position on the bogie.

Next it's onto painting the carriage in a mix of green and brown shades which is never going to end well for Himself, alas....

Comfy Seats

It's been a quieter period on the modelling front for me.

The one small job I have managed to get done is casting the seats to go in the Superbarn observation car 152.

The castings are fresh out of the moulds and so still need their flash cleaned up.

Bucket seats in the front saloon come in two halves which need to be glued together and the big arm chairs for the back will require me to add legs at the front and arm rests in styrene.

They will be fixed back-to-back before they're put in place in the carriage.

There's no hurry to have them ready because the body shell is at the back of the long queue of work in progress with Himself to fit the brass roof and the window pillars at the front.

Tools Of The Trade - 2

Although Himself's in no hurry to begin the Robex Gelert project he couldn't resit having a fiddle to see how the Fleischmann chassis would fit within the 3D printed body, and I couldn't resist giving it a test run to check whether the chassis (which has been sitting in a drawer for more years that I care to remember after being bought on German ebay) actually worked.

The short answer is that it did, and made a very ghostly sight running around Bron Hebog.

Now, anyone who's ever modelled one of these Bagnall tanks will know that the design is very rear heavy, even in featherweight 3D form, and the pony wheel is essential to keep the front driving wheels on the rails.

Well yet again Himself's hoarding of 'bits that might come in useful one day' has come to the rescue.

In his former life working on pianos he saved some little cylindrical lead weights (they're used to counter-balance the keys) and it turned out that one of these was a perfect fit inside the hollow smokebox, and also the perfect weight to balance the loco on the track without a pony wheel in place.

So remember that the next time someone near and dear to you is ordering a clear-out and tells you: "you're never going to use that stuff,  you know......."