Brettell Road - Shuffling and testing

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Sat Apr 25, 2020 7:21 pm

A while ago I showed a picture of the framework for Brettell Roads new roof. I was going to have this done for Scalefour North but given the Covid-19 crisis the show was canceled and the urgency to get it done went with it. However I have turned my attention back to this with thoughts on the material.

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The first material I brought was just too heavy so i didn’t even try to use it. The weight wasn’t something i had really considered. This is the second material, much lighter but it let too much light through. On top of that my efforts were too scruffy and would have bugged me if I left it.

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So this is material 3 – Much happier now and with the help of my wife much neater as well. The image shows it before I finished the front off and the supports will obviously need to be darkened.

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The above image shows the lighting on the layout pretty much as the eye sees it. Not as dark as before but still obviously night time.
Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Sun Apr 26, 2020 6:32 pm

I've been looking at a few RTR Wagons recently from Bachmann.

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Slope sided mineral. I really like the chassis design on this one as the brake gear is separate and for P4 can be moved out to line up with the wheels with just a little bit of trimming. As well as my usual gouache approach for rust I've also tried out some weathering pencils from AK interactive. I won't go into any detail on those as yet as I'm still getting to grips with them.

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Bachmann's presflo's are a lovely little model with just a change of wheels, couplings and buffers required. The buffers on these were very odd and I'm not really sure what they were supposed to be so I have used Accurascale ones in their place. I've also added more weight as they hardly weighed anything as supplied.
Im not a huge fan of textures in weathering as I believe they often look too heavy in 4mm scale but on these wagons the dry concrete could often look really caked on so i used talc in wet paint ad part of the process.
Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Sun Apr 26, 2020 7:58 pm

Just a gallery post (no need for words)

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Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

Terry Bendall
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby Terry Bendall » Mon Apr 27, 2020 7:31 am

jim s-w wrote:Just a gallery post (no need for words)


Magic! :D

Terry Bendall

tmcsean
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby tmcsean » Mon Apr 27, 2020 7:42 am

Lovely photos, and I will cherish the idea of the royal family travelling through the midlands by railbus. I can still remember the fairground-ride trackholding when trsvelling on them on the Barking to Tottenham line. More generally, the illusion of the nasty wet night is beautifully sustained.

Tony

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Sun May 03, 2020 2:49 pm

Thanks Both

With Brettell Road's new roof design the last thing to do was remove the original pelmet.

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I have to admit I wasn't expecting that removing it would open up the layout quite as much as it has.

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This is the view from my eye height. Obviously this higher angle wasn't available to me before now.

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Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

garethashenden
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby garethashenden » Sun May 03, 2020 3:47 pm

Are you going to increase the height of the backscene to match?

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Sat May 16, 2020 7:39 pm

No they are based on operator comfort. :)
Jim Smith-Wright

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jim s-w
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Those little Mainline iron ore hoppers.

Postby jim s-w » Sat May 16, 2020 7:40 pm

Anyone modelling in 4mm scale for any length of time has probably come across the Airfix/Mainline/possibly Dapol/ Bachmann 21, 22 or 24 ton Iron ore hoppers. Based on a Charles Roberts version with the standard, at the time, stretched to fit compromises to fit a generic 10ft wagon chassis. They do however make a good little project for 'tarting up a bit'.

Geoff Kent wrote a great article about just such an exercise in MRJ 182. I have however deviated from his sage advice in a few areas.

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The hopper is easy with 3mm cut out center but offset to the side of the bracing to hide the cut. For the chassis I cut it into 3 parts to retain the middle detail. Geoff thinned the base and removed the top of the chassis on his models but I decided to cut the base away around the edge and mount the chassis flush with the top. The chassis being a Parkside 9ft example.

The door closing gear was knocked up from microstrip and a few bits of brass., Shiny bits on the chassis came from Ambis, Mainly Trains and Bill Bedford.

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After a light weathering. I still need to add the rain effect yet mind you. The ladders are from Stenson Models.

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Jim Smith-Wright

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Sun Jun 14, 2020 10:33 pm

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Back in the early days of Brettell Road I represented rain falling on the canal as seen above.

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Over the years however the effect of this became lost so I have revisited this area of the layout to get the effect back. Also to make the canal look a little more downtrodden. I have used a thin layer of clear resin and the same baking soda in wet varnish trick as I used originally. Results are below.

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Jim Smith-Wright

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Lindsay G
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby Lindsay G » Mon Jun 15, 2020 12:48 am

The effects in the photographs really do give a great impression of a run down inner city waterway, with debris floating amidst the rain p****ng down. It's making me put the hood up on my train nerd's anorak. Photographs and modelling both look superb.

With apologies in advance, with that great effect in one area and also the rusting plate bridge over it all, the embossed plastic brickwork on the surrounding warehouses needs to be revisited to make the effect homogenous.

Lindsay

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:39 am

Thanks Lindsay

Everything has varnish to make it look wet but I’m wondering if I need some darkening as well. My pot of Tamiya smoke is Looking worried. Need to do some more experimenting I think.

Cheers

Jim
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Lord Colnago
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby Lord Colnago » Mon Jun 15, 2020 9:39 am

Hi Jim,

That brings back childhood memories of dingy towpaths and run down smoky surroundings. It always seemed a bit sinister to me. A lovely (if that's the right word in the circumstances) job. Look forward to more.
The second best priest

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:35 pm

One little project I have been dipping in and out of now and then has been the station buildings for part 2 of Brettell Road.

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This is the smaller building. The real buildings at Brettell Lane were wooden but of a GWR origin. As Brettell road is more midland I used the Ratio (previously Parkside) LNWR station panels. These or similar were used in the Birmingham area so that was near enough. The canopy valence and supports are from London road models and the poster boards from N brass. The chimney is from Unit models.

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The side in the first picture faces away from the public so rather than have a blank wall I decided to give the viewers a sense of being inside the building. (it is supposed to be raining remember, who wants to stand outside?)

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The main building is the same but bigger. The above image gives a rough feel of the look I'm after. I actually shot it like this because I haven't done the roof yet!

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I have mentioned in a previous post the idea of letting the layout have little bit of a life of its own. Originally i was going to use the name Brettell Grove not Brettell Road so why not an old station nameboard with the original name?
Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:46 pm

Bit of a random post this time but I have been revisiting a few things. Be warned though these are all really subtle and if I didn't point them out I suspect no one would ever know.

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Starting with the safety valves on my prairie. As supplied it was a pretty flat dish with 4 blobs to represent the valves. A bit of drilling and some wire gives something a little better.

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I've also gone back (again) to my Dapol railcar for another little tweak.

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As its not all that obvious I have fiddled with the bogies a little. Some 3x4mm triangles and some microstrip was used to change the sideframe shape to something more accurate. I also got a spare set of sideframes and cutting the springs and axle boxes of the new ones, filing down the old ones and sticking them over the top had given me more relief.

Sometimes its nice to look back at where we started to see how far we have come.

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While i was in a railcar kinda mood this is my detailed Lima one. I haven't done anything to it, it just tends to avoid the camera for some reason. <

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Austerity hides at the headshunt. Again no tweaks just a piccie.

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Now this is properly subtle. I have revisited the layout with some Tamiya smoke and AK wet effects to see if I could increase the wet look a little. The smoke provides the darkening effect of the rain.

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It a little easier to see on the light walls of the pub.

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The thing is I know its darker because i knew what it was like before. In order to give fresh eyes something to compare it with I needed a few areas of contrast.

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By the warehouse i can leave the area under the canopy dry to give the contrast I was looking for.

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and at the other end the areas shaded from the rain by the bridges. Its important to make sure the rain falls in the same direction. So the buildings don't have smoke applied to the sheltered walls. Its the area above where I feel the effect has come out best.
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Serjt-Dave
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby Serjt-Dave » Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:23 am

It's excellent weathering there Jim. I think you've got the level of wetness just right. As I said on your FB post it looks more like it has been raining. The detailing on your station building is brilliant. Well done and have you started doing my station building yet? LOL.

All Best and Keep Safe

Dave

BrockleyAndrew
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby BrockleyAndrew » Thu Jul 23, 2020 11:10 pm

Hi Jim

Fantastic images as usual. I really like the way you go for contrast to enhance the realism: wet/dry, dark/light, shiny/matt.

Under bridges on the walls there is always those drip patterns and repeated wet areas which are often really quite dark. I understand that you are aware of scaling colours (not overusing blacks etc) but was wondering if a dark wet night might make for harsher contrasts? Or does the layout lighting achieve that by having low light accentuate the grunge? Not criticising, just interested!

Andrew

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:18 pm

Serjt-Dave wrote:Well done and have you started doing my station building yet? LOL.
Dave


Erm? :shock: :?
Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:21 pm

BrockleyAndrew wrote: I understand that you are aware of scaling colours (not overusing blacks etc) but was wondering if a dark wet night might make for harsher contrasts? Or does the layout lighting achieve that by having low light accentuate the grunge? Not criticising, just interested!

Andrew


It’s a good question Andrew. As I’ve changed the wetness and the way the layout is presented I feel I need to wait for the next show (remember them?) to review where I’m at now.

Cheers

Jim
Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

BrockleyAndrew
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby BrockleyAndrew » Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:36 pm

Yes Jim, it will be great to see B Road in the flesh again sometime soon....

Was looking at the excellent shot of the dry under bridge track contrasting with the exposed wet lines and thinking that what I'd really like to see is lines of water dripping down the wall from the bridge but then thought again and realised there may be no obvious run off from the bridge edges, it will have its own drainage? Just thought with your propensity to realistic dinginess you could go for it with the mossy poor drainage wall trails. Really, now that I think of it, what I have in my head is driving under various suburban rail bridges (or being stuck in traffic queues and gazing at the brickwork!) with their streaky tiles or bricks.

I do admire the way you just get on and build. It's really inspiring. And that you post the decision processes.

Thanks as usual,

Andrew

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:22 pm

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Something that always bugged me about my Heljan class 27 was the somewhat odd buffers. A long time ago i got a set of replacements from Sutton Loco Works and its just one of those things I never quite got around to. Well now that little job can come off the list.

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Finished the roof of my station building - just need a layout to plant it on!

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The gutters are a recent introduction from Modelu. I found they don't like superglue at all but stick very nicely with liquid Poly (in this case Tamiya extra thin).

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Popped back to my Kirtley to pick up a few things that irked. The loco to tender gap has been tightened up a bit and the rain cover tidied.

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Crew from Modelu

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Bit more off a proper project this one. A clasp braked 16 ton mineral from a Parkside kit on a Rumney Models underframe. The only down side to Justin's stuff is it looks better not painted! A few pics below for history.

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Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

tmcsean
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby tmcsean » Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:55 pm

Inspiring pictures, and I don't think I could have brought myself to paint the minfit underframe. I really like the weather sheet on the 0-6-0 how have you made it behave properly when it goes round corners?

Tony

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Mon Aug 03, 2020 4:12 pm

Thanks tony.

It’s really thin latex from a glove. I got a box years ago before covid made them like gold dust!

Cheers

Jim
Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

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jim s-w
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby jim s-w » Fri Aug 21, 2020 9:04 pm

I found a relatively cheap Bachmann Compound recently and thoughts have turned to what to do with it.

Lets start with a little disclaimer. Alan Gibson supplies a set of wheels to convert this loco to P4 and I would have every confidence that just swapping the wheels would get a p4 steam loco up and running pretty quickly. After all a 4-4-0 has got to be about the best case scenario you could really ask for. I didn't try it myself but we've had a wheel swapped GWR Grange (I think) running on Moor Street for years now.

Being relative new to RTR steam locos, this is actually my first RTR tender loco I've had since i was a kid, there's always 2 areas that stand out to me as looking a little weak on pretty much all RTR steam locos. No, not the wheels although big, in your face, wheels do perhaps yield the greatest benefit of swapping to p4 visually. The areas I am talking about are bogies and tenders. More specifically in the case of the latter, tender underframes. They just always seem so, for want of a better description, flat!

The bogie

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So to the bogie. There was nothing about the supplied RTR one that i wanted to keep so its a straight swap with a Comet example. As supplied they can be built with central springing for side control but no springing on the axles. Setting some simple springs up however couldn't be easier.

The loco chassis</strong

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To the loco. I decided I wanted to use some of the Comet chassis bits but not exactly as intended. So the first process was deciding what of the RTR offering I wanted to keep and what I wanted to replace.

I wanted to use the sideframes in a sort of Brassmasters easychas inspired way and keep the original Bachmann drive. Initially I thought the crosshead was just an RTR bodge but they do actually look like that. So that and the cylinders were keepers. I also liked the brake gear so that stayed.

The Comet chassis is not designed for this model and is too long. The wheelbase between the driving wheels and hence the coupling rods are also too long. Comet do specify this is the case on their website. The Bachmann frames are actually the right width at the front of the loco but narrow from the cylinders back to accommodate the 00 wheels. The cylinders look, from underneath that they might fit on little pegs coming down from the footplate. They don't, they slot sideways into the chassis. Its best to pop them off and keep them safe.

I decided to split the chassis behind the forward step to loose some of its extra length. The front part being a relatively easy fit. The rear part needed some trial and error to cut away little sections to get it to fit. The Bachmann model is driven on the front driver ( it looks like the chassis was designed for gears but to both axles but it doesn't have them), so the Comet chassis was carefully titivated so that the rear axles position matched. I wasn't too worried about the front driver as I has decided to keep it rigid.

By leaving the RTR style bearings off the rear driving axle you get a little room for vertical movement. A Brassmasters sprung bearing was modified with a bit of tube (the Bachmann and hence Alan Gibson axles are an odd size). The frames were glued in place using 60 thou plasticard to space them out to something more prototypical. The springs are part of the RTR keeper plate so they are too to far back but I decided to leave them as is.

The brake gear needs a bit of modification to fit over the new frames and it was here that I hit a little unexpected snag. Bachmann use bigger wheels than scale. I wonder if this is because its a development of the national railway museum model which being an earlier example had bigger wheels? Anyway the effect of this is the brake gear sits too low and would likely hit the rails when crossing pointwork. The solution is to take a mm out of the top of the keeper plate so that everything moves up a little.

Valve gear

Lets be honest RTR valve gear is generally a bit weird. Its often both too big and too thin at the same time. The Bachmann coupling rods are about scale height (ignoring the bosses which are huge!!) but being only 1 piece of metal aren't thick enough. So these were discarded and the Comet ones used in their place. Suitability shortened by 2mm.

The connecting rods as supplied are quite good though. Much more meaty and they feature the big square bosses that the Comet ones don't, so hybrid valve gear it is then! The Bachmann crank pins are 2mm wide (really!) so a bit of tube was soldered in to make them fit the Gibson crank pins. While I was at it I made another 2 collars for the trailing driver a the coupling rods on a compound are outside of the connecting rods.

On to the tender

Body great but underframe - ugh!

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Luckily Lanarkshire models do a replacement chassis kit for a Fowler tender. This was assembled as per the instructions. For the outer frames I was kindly supplied a spare etch by Brassmasters and mated this with some Comet springs and axleboxes. I decided to keep the Bachmann steps as they are moulded as part of the tender body.

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As is often the case with this sort of stuff, the most pleasing view is the one you wont ever see!

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Jim Smith-Wright

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Over thinking often leads to under doing!

Philip Hall
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Re: Brettell Road

Postby Philip Hall » Fri Aug 21, 2020 11:07 pm

One of your usual tidy jobs, Jim. Interesting how you wrapped the Comet frame around the Bachmann chassis to allow for some springing. One thing though, I’m intrigued about you soldering a bit of tube into the connecting rod to reduce the size of the hole. I wouldn’t rely on that joint because every Bachmann engine I’ve ever seen has diecast connecting rods! I usually force in a bit of tube with a touch of cyano for security. In truth, though, it’s all held together with the crankpin nuts so can’t go anywhere.

I can’t wait to see what you’ll do with the weathering.

Philip


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