Brettell Road - Going over old ground

[RobM]

I haven't Rob. It's a HO kit (vollmer I think) although the bricks would be quite big if used in a HO setting.

Not my failing then to roll embossed brick sheet into a taper, will stick to square and hexagonal chimneys………..
Rob

[Phil O]

I haven't Rob. It's a HO kit (vollmer I think) although the bricks would be quite big if used in a HO setting.

Phil. The door furniture is supplied as extras on some of the brassmasters etched Windows. The arches are left overs from New Street so not available, sorry

Jim

Thanks Jim

[jim s-w]

My class 11 is ready for a visit to the paint shop



I prefer to give models a coat of undercoat when the basic work is done before adding details as this allows me to see any areas that need attention first. The rivets are archers and the ladders are Colin Craig's.



One thing you can't do is just refit the brake gear as it will now sit too low and too far from the wheels. My solution was to trim the mounting blocks down and add new pegs from microstrip set to bring everything back in line.



With plans afoot for my what if the Flatirons weren't scrapped idea I have decided a short passenger train might be in order to go with it. As such I picked up an old Bachmann Mk1 suburban for a fiver on eBay and set to work.



The principle work done to the mk1. Starting from the top the roof ribs have been reduced in size, Replica Railways windows have been added, bufferbeam details and steps along with underframe details from Masokits and Replica.

[jim s-w]

Not a lot to say really, the class 11 is done and ready for service. Here's a few pictures.



OK so the irony isn't lost on this one but its a good comparison between the class 11 and class 08 shunters. Of course class 08's never carried LMS livery in their early days while the class 11s did. It will be interesting to see if anyone ever notices that 12049 is a bit more than a repainted 08!


Whilst I had my airbrush out the Mk1 got all mucky too!


I haven't done any photo-shopped pictures for a while but here's a spot of shunting.

[jim s-w]

A while ago I posted an image of the Hornby water tower building that I had converted to a disused pump house. Well waste not want not I decided to use the water tank bit for a small industrial tank.


Here's progress so far. The Hornby tank, like the building it came with is a tad basic so I reduced its length a bit and added more framing from microstrip. The base it sits on was made from evergreen section using a simple jig and was sprayed with plasticote suede to give a concrete texture.


The handrails are some very nice turnings from http://modellingtimbers.co.uk/40.html who specialise in stuff for ships. they are actually 1:72 scale.

The pub and little industrial building have also been finished and planted. Below are a few images.

[RobM]

Jim, very atmospheric…..any chance of some daytime photos to get an idea where it all sits?
Rob

[jim s-w]

I picked up a few Parkside container wagon kits at Scaleforum and over the last week or 2 I have been putting them together. Along the way a Bachmann example was added too as it was cheap and had the smaller container that I was after.


Above are the Conflats themselves, the 2 on the left being the Parkside ones and the 3rd the Bachmann one.   The first one is built as intended with the usual additions of buffers and brake pipes from Lanarkshire models, safety loops from Bill Bedford and tie bar from Eileens emporium. (I'll come back to the chains in a moment).   The second one uses the Red Panda underframes as a lot of those pictured on Paul Bartletts site seemed to match this configuration. For the Bachmann one it looked a bit of a faff to sort out the underframe as the brakes were set for 00. Strangely Bachmann had the wrong brake levers on either side meaning that the brakes wouldn't actually work anyway as lowering the lever would pull the shoes even further away from the wheels! A Parkside chassis is the easy option and I had a spare from the second wagon.

Above is a view of the different underframes. You could go much further than this if you wanted too but this is a representation of what I feel you can see in all the gloom. If you did want to go further then the obvious start point would be one of Justin Newett's excellent etched chassis but even if you didn't he puts his instruction on his site anyway and there's some good references and info on how it should all look. The wagon at the front is the BR clasp underframe.

I mentioned earlier that I would come back to the chains and to my eye Parkside have been too delicate in the details on this kit. There's a tendency to think that finer is better but I don't think it works here. The chain I used is 23 links per inch from Langley models Which as supplied has quite round links with a twist to them. You can see the original shape on the container on the right. To get them to the more lozenge shape it's simply a case of putting one end of a length of chain in a vice and pulling the other to stretch it. Nothing cleverer than that!   The lifting shackles on the roof were also too fine and were replaced with spared from Justin's Bogie Bolster E underframe detailing kit.  In case you are wondering the wagon on the right was destined for the smaller container which is why the raised links are towards the middle.

The finished wagons - Both large containers were sprayed with Halfords Rover damask red. The apparent difference being due to the weathering. I might be stating the obvious here but it pays to weather the wagons and containers separately meaning the weathering process is earlier in the build than normal.

The shackles are from Roxey models and use the same Langley chain links. While a little fiddly it does mean that they can be assembled without resorting to the soldering iron! I didn't use the supplied eyelets for the containers as I felt they didn't really look much like the prototype pictures I was using so I just used a bit of fine wire instead.   Once the chains are in place it worth treating them to a thin coat of ZAP thin CA (the pink bottle) to set everything solid.

I've been doing other wagons too. Above a Dia 1/002 Lowfit from the Red Panda kit.

D2109 LMS 16t mineral wagon from the Cambrian kit
A couple of Banana vans - Wrenn bodies on Red Panda underframes with additional details.

And finally a couple of brake vans - on the left the Airfix kit with Bill Bedford springing and extra details. On the right Hornby RTR.

[RobM]

Great stuff Jim..........still waiting for the daylight photos of the geographical location of the buildings we discussed at Scaleforum........
Rob

[jim s-w]

Haven't forgotten Rob. I just want to get the water tower in.

[Re6/6]

Superb stuff there Jim.

[iak]

One has been busy Jim.
I do like the conflats mind, very tasty.
The tip using the chain is rather canny and very effective.

[jim s-w]

I never planned for Brettell Road to be populated with anything other than tank engines but as with most things I have planned it's all gone a bit wrong!  So...


I present you the Brassmasters easychas for the Bachmann 4f, not that its going in one mind you. I found a picture of an interesting little loco at Saltley in one of D.J. Nortons West Midlands books and there was a ancient kit for it too. However the chassis supplied is literally 2 bits of brass with 6 holes in it. It wasn't really going to do!

The chassis has been built kind of as intended although I needed to shorten the tender wheelbase a bit. I also added a few Alan Gibson frame spacers to the chassis and a high level gear box (smaller motor is in the post) . The p4 frame spacers were a tad wide and I wonder if the EM ones might be better if you are following a similar approach?


Having never built a tender loco before and figuring if you are going to do something you may as well go for the ultimate solution (or potential failure) I decided to have a go at Brassmasters working inside motion too.   It certainly ticks the fiddly details box that's for sure but was fun to build.

But what loco is it you might wonder?


A Kirtley goods, I was attracted to its ancient appearance. These loco's (the 700) class were introduced in 1869 and the last one made it to BR as 58110 being withdrawn in 1951 when she had seen 71 years service!  The body and tender (shown losely mocked up) are the Keyser kit and the kit itself is nearly as old as I am.  I've removed the springs to be replaced with something a little more refined and shortened the footplate so that it doesn't overhang the bufferbeam, All the rivets have been sanded off, the ones on the  smokebox were too crude and the tender of 58110 was flush riveted in the end.  I've also reduced the with of the tender footplate slightly to add some 0.7mm L section from Eileens (the actual prototype being very thin in this area and nothing like the chunky cast floor thee kit comes with.

[garethashenden]

That looks very good! It's interesting that the wheelbases line up so well between the two locomotives.

[James Wells]

That looks very good! It's interesting that the wheelbases line up so well between the two locomotives.

The Midland Railway seemed to standardise on 8' + 8' 6" for 0-6-0 locomotives - one of those things which is quite useful for modellers!

[Le Corbusier]

I have one of these which I am also looking towards building ... an poorly built model bought of e-bay and now in its constituent parts following a lengthy soak in Nitromors.

I will be watching with considerable interest ... have you had any thoughts/ideas as to how to represent the outside horn blocks and bottom straps?

[jim s-w]

I'm not sure the outside hornblocks would be doable and might add a lot more resistance to both the rolling and springing. The bottom strapping is quite noticeable. I did think of making it from small steel bar and popping a few micro magnets in the bottom of the frames to hold them in place (same ones I use for brake pipes on new street)

One thing I found that you might want to do if you are building the kit is cut out the curved cab floor (that hides the original gearbox) but use it (slightly tweaked to fill in the hole in the bottom of the boiler. It's a reasonable fit and saves a lot of faffing about. I'll take a picture for you.

Cheers

Jim

[Le Corbusier]

Thanks Jim that will be interesting to see.

I started a small thread here which has a few thoughts from others on the horn block problem ... might be of interest.

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4890

Tim

[jim s-w]

More work on the Kirtley

On the left the original splasher (and somewhat crude spring) and on the right my resized version/ I chain drilled a line of 1mm holes inside of the splasher (from the back) and added a new top from some scrap etch.

The oversized splashers mean the boiler is compromised to fit around it. I modified it with some scrap whitemetal disks (from a southern Pride 310 kit - see, never throw stuff away!)  Below is the loco so far with new splashers, springs and beading along the footplate. I've also mounted the chassis a tad higher into the body since the first image the other day.

[Le Corbusier]

More work on the Kirtley
On the left the original splasher (and somewhat crude spring) and on the right my resized version/ I chain drilled a line of 1mm holes inside of the splasher (from the back) and added a new top from some scrap etch.
The oversized splashers mean the boiler is compromised to fit around it. I modified it with some scrap whitemetal disks (from a southern Pride 310 kit - see, never throw stuff away!)  Below is the loco so far with new splashers, springs and beading along the footplate. I've also mounted the chassis a tad higher into the body since the first image the other day.

Jim,

You don't say what you did to the springs? They look infinitely better.

This is fantastic for me!

Tim

[jim s-w]

Hi Tim

The larger springs are tender springs from wizard models (axle boxes cut off) the smaller ones are MJT wagon springs. The hangers and other bits are just brass strip and rod/tube

HTH

Jim

[Armchair Modeller]

This looks very impressive. Carry on like that and we shall all be buying K's kits instead of throwing them away!

Looking forward to seeing how this progresses and (of course) the end result.

[Philip Hall]

Jim,

More years ago than I care to mention I did some work on an already built 00 K's Kirtley, one that had the original motor and gears in a plain brass frame. It actually ran quite well but it took so much current to start we turned off most of the lights first so there would be enough juice available. Anyhow, having read Guy Williams' articles I thought there should be something under the axles, so I found some brass channel in the local model shop, and cut short lengths of this which were a push fit on the whitemetal frames. They stayed put quite happily and only when the body had to come off were they a bit of a nuisance.

Although there were gaps around the axles where there should have been bearings it didn't really notice. I must say you've made a tidier job of the thing than I would have thought possible. Can't wait to see it finished.

Philip

[jim s-w]

Hadn't thought of brass channel Philip, that's a good idea that I might end up nicking!

Thanks for the kind words. This kit is ticking my poor kits are more fun box that's for sure

Jim

[Terry Bendall]

This kit is ticking my poor kits are more fun box that's for sure

That might of course depend on your definition of fun Jim. There is of course considerable satisfaction to be gained from solving these sort of problems and turning an ugly ducking into a swan but those with less experience might prefer to start with something with fewer problems to solve.

Terry Bendall

[jim s-w]

My Kirtley project has reached the stage that its ready for primer. Buffers are from Lanarkshire models whilst the whistle and safety valves are from Markits. I've replaced the steps and cab roof with brass.



Rear view. Some Kirtleys had a simple weather hood to protect the crew. It stretched from the cab roof to the tender front. Anyone got any thoughts on how to replicate this? It will need to be flexible.