Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

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jim s-w
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:51 pm

Hi all

I've added some thoughts on tweaking the Oxford Diecast Fiesta to my website.

Image

Cheers

Jim
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BrockleyAndrew
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby BrockleyAndrew » Fri Apr 25, 2014 11:03 am

Hello Jim

I have been reading and re-reading this thread (and enjoying it very much!) and I've been trying to work out how you achieved the great result with your green VW van headlights, where you say you "drilled them out". Have you just painted the resulting hole silver and filled it with clear varnish/glue? they look too regular in their shape for that! Are they new inserts?
Also v impressed with the VW Beetle.

Andrew
in Brockley

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jim s-w
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Fri Apr 25, 2014 11:10 am

Nope, just drilled them, nothing else.

HTH

Jim
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Tim Horn
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby Tim Horn » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:11 am

Just a few snaps of Jim's lovely vehicle stock on Calcutta Sidings :thumb

Road bridge on Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH01 ExpoEM 15th September 2013 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Mini TJH01 CSv2 ExpoEM May 2014 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Jims Vehicles on Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH03 ExpoEM May 2014 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Jims Vehicles on Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH02 ExpoEM May 2014 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Cars on Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH02 ExpoEM 15th September 2013 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Van (Jim S-W) Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH01 ExpoEM May 2014 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg
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Lucy

Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby Lucy » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:13 am

Hi All,
Finally made the effort to add my first post to the forum. I've been an active reader for a while and I've learned so much from that but now is the time to join in.

Anyway, I've been recreating my own car in 4mm so thought this was the ideal opportunity.

Thanks to Jim S-W for pointing me to this thread.

http://www.p4walsall.com/recreating-my-own-car-in-4mm
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Paul Willis
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby Paul Willis » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:57 pm

Lucy wrote:Anyway, I've been recreating my own car in 4mm so thought this was the ideal opportunity.

Thanks to Jim S-W for pointing me to this thread.

http://www.p4walsall.com/recreating-my-own-car-in-4mm


1980's XR3i ?

Where are the pink fluffy dice?

Welcome!
Flymo

PS - at the time, we went everywhere in my mate Andy's white 2.0 Capri...
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jim s-w
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Sun Sep 21, 2014 4:11 am

Hi all

Another mk2 ford transit from the corgi mk1 and ABS ends.

Image

This one has a bit of an odd future for it but I'm not telling at this stage!

Cheers

Jim
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Horsetan
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby Horsetan » Wed May 13, 2015 11:02 pm

Flymo748 wrote:
Lucy wrote:Anyway, I've been recreating my own car in 4mm so thought this was the ideal opportunity.

Thanks to Jim S-W for pointing me to this thread.

http://www.p4walsall.com/recreating-my-own-car-in-4mm


1980's XR3i ?...


It might even be one of the early ones that had a carburettor instead of fuel injection.
That would be an ecumenical matter.

jintynut

Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jintynut » Sat May 16, 2015 6:37 pm

Hi All
I've got a 2.8i Capri in my garage 1:1 scale in bits, when the wife gets her stuff out of there I get on with the welding, next year or two maybe. :cry:
The Oxford Diecast Capri looks good, if it's got Ghia alloys it's Bodies 3ltr S. The Oxford Escort isn't right TPM has got closer. :)

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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby Tim Horn » Mon Jun 01, 2015 12:33 pm

A few more of Jims vehicles from this weekends show at Burton with Calcutta Sidings :)

DR73258 on Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH01 31st May 2015 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Jims vehicles on Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH01 31st May 2015 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Jims vehicles on Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH02 31st May 2015 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Jims vehicles on Calcutta Sidings v2 TJH04 31st May 2015 Copyright Tim Horn.jpg


Cheers
Tim
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jim s-w
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:15 pm

Thanks Tim

Jim
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Wed Sep 02, 2015 7:51 am

Hi all

Image

I decided I quite liked the idea of doing an abandoned lorry for Brettell Road.  Having mooched around for a suitable victim I quite fancied a kit rather than ready to plonk and I haven't built a vehicle kit for a while. I settled on a Coopercraft Bedford ML and set to work.

The kit is quite poor if i am honest. There's loads of flash and the fit of the parts isn't great. I also decided that the windscreens were far too small but being all plastic it's not too much hassle to fashion something presentable and as I've mentioned before I find poor kits strangely rewarding. I attacked the bed with a circular saw in a mini drill to gouge out some of the planks and simlulate rot.  The above is the more presentable side!

Image

On this side I cut off a wing and cut down the tires to simulate flats. The rubber at the bottom was added with filler. The lorry was first weathered with a light blue to simulate fading, varnished and then gouache was used for the rust. another coat of varnish and washes of enamels were added to simulate dirt and grime. Finally the whole thing was dry brushed with Klear to make it look wet.

On the subject of road vehicles I will be doing a demo at Scaleforum this month so please stop by for a chat if you are going.

Cheers

Jim
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Noel
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby Noel » Sun Sep 06, 2015 6:00 pm

With an old lorry in that state, surely someone would have thrown something heavy through the glass by now, Jim?? [Presumably it would have been before Triplex toughened glass as well?]

Noel
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Sun Sep 06, 2015 7:55 pm

That's why the nearside side window is missing noel :D
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:59 pm

Image
The above 2 vehicles represent a return for me in a small way in that both come from manufacturers I have used before and in both cases I was a little bit disappointed previously . On the left an Austin A40 from Road transport images who I used before for a dodge cab on New Street. In the case of the dodge cab I felt it was a bit too rounded and didn't really capture the look of the real thing all that well but I must say I'm much happier with this little van which was an impulse buy at this years Scaleforum. This is one of their all in one kits which is unusual for them as they usually sell all their bits separately so you can build the vehicle you want.

The Lorry is a Ford Thames from John Day models. In this case my previous experience was with a diesel-powered Transit bus and again I wasn't all that impressed. This model couldn't be further from the transit though as its much better cast with very little work to do. I swapped the supports in the bed for wire as they were a tad scruffy and the bed and cab both needed a little bit of evergreen 40thou section to make them fit a little better but I like it!

Jim
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:09 pm

Image

My Ford Thames and Austin A40.  The colours of the Austin have a somewhat obvious Birmingham influence. Cartwrights was a furniture store in Brierley Hill but I have no idea if they used Austin vans or even if they had any road vehicles at all.
Last edited by jim s-w on Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:09 pm

Image

Long time followers of my efforts might recall a batch of 4 Sherpa vans I did from the kingfisher Miniatures kit. I said at the time that I wanted to do more and after a long wait the kit is back in stock so a second batch has been started.

Sherpa's were a common sight in my childhood as they were produced locally at Washwood Heath. While my travels didn't take me over there often I tended to see rows of brand new ones parked up between Tysley and Small Heath waiting for shipment by rail. Public bodies were urged to by British and BR, the Post Office, BT and schools used them extensively over the (better) for Transit. The suggestion was that Ford couldn't make Transits fast enough to meet demand anyway!

Unlike the last batch which was relatively simple (the conversion of 2 to sliding door variants was about as adventurous as I got) this batch is a bit more involved.  On the left a BT version with swappable body/ The body being a simple plasticard box. Second along what will become a minibus in the livery of my secondary school. This is a bit of a best guess as I cant find a picture of one. We definitely had them and I am pretty sure they were long wheelbase ones. The back of the BT one was used to stretch the body but minibuses were wider than vans so the whole model was cut in half (2 cuts down the bonnet on the panel lines and spread with microstrip before gluing back together.The wheels are from Paragon models.

Third along is how the kit was intended, this one is destined for British Gas livery. Lastly another port office one, tis time long wheelbase and high roof. I remember PO vans being slung round the streets of the midlands with the driver's door wide open. Careful consideration of where you cut the van bodies mean you can get 2 long wheelbase vans from a single spare shell.

This is the basic surgery stage. The detailing stage starts next.
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby Armchair Modeller » Wed Nov 25, 2015 7:30 pm

All looking very nice, Jim. I assume the A40 and the Thames are for your steam layout - i.e. pre-1980s?

The Sherpas may have been rubbish, but the design lasted a very long time. You still see the occasional one even today. I remember our local football club got one of the minibuses presented as winners of the Freight Rover/Sherpa Van Trophy.

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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Thu Nov 26, 2015 10:46 pm

They are indeed

Jim
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Fri Feb 19, 2016 12:03 am

Image

My 4 Sherpas are now done. Aside from the Royal Mail one the transfers were all drawn up in Illustrator and printed on crafty computer paper. I decided that the paragon models wheels that I used for the minibus were too big so swapped them for the wheels from and Oxford beaver tail transit. As supplied they were no smaller but by changing the types for some from their mk3 escort they look much better. Its worth doing this even if you are keeping them under the transit to my mind. On the subject of tyres I tend to paint them Humbrol 67 grey rather than black. You only really see black tyres in car showrooms or at car shows.
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby dal-t » Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:46 am

jim s-w wrote: On the subject of tyres I tend to paint them Humbrol 67 grey rather than black. You only really see black tyres in car showrooms or at car shows.


Absolutely - same applies to tyres on aircraft wheels. If you want some variation from Hu 67, you might take a look at Tamiya 'NATO Black' - despite the name it is also a (very dark) grey. It is my preferred choice for 1/76 military vehicle tyres, although I do lighten it a bit (going against the 'scale effect, I know) for the 1/35 things I build.
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby shipbadger » Fri Feb 19, 2016 6:02 pm

Love the telecom van Jim. Round my way the box bodies became very popular for storage in peoples gardens. There are still a few to be seen although they are now by and large painted something other than bright yellow!

Tony Comber

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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby Knuckles » Fri Feb 19, 2016 6:23 pm

:shock:

That Bass building is hard to distinguish between model and reality. Well done indeed.

Wagons and vans look good too but the building is what does it most for me. Custom decals are an area I haven't ventured yet but would like to. I'm interested in that Crafty Computer Paper.

Good job on the vans, Jim.

Nice flat tyres btw. 8-)
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Sat Apr 11, 2020 12:22 pm

Image
Been tweaking a few more road vehicles starting with fitting better wheels (from RTI) to a couple of old cargos. The WH Smiths lorry seems to draw a lot of attention at shows and for many people sets a time and place quite specifically.

Image
Next up another little batch from Oxford diecast waiting form my usual treatment...

Image
... which is to paint the inside of the window apertures and wheel arches black and a quick spray of matt varnish before some gentle weathering. I might see if i can get some more standard looking wheels for the Land Rover.

Image
The Volvo (760) required a bit more effort as out of the box (on the right) it did not capture the look of the real thing very well at all. The solution was to file the windows so that they are much deeper. I enlarged the windows of the Rover 3500 too but not by anything like as much. Wing mirrors are just a bit of microstrip.
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Re: 1980's cars and other road vehicles

Postby jim s-w » Sun May 03, 2020 3:00 pm

Of the 3 cars i did last time the Land Rover defender was the easiest. That's before I encountered the phenomenon of the Land Rover enthusiast. At least as bad as the VW enthusiasts and enough to give the most ardent P4 modeller a run for their money I was (in a very polite way and from several sources) informed that it was wrong as in a too late version.

Image

Friend and fellow Calcutta Sidings operator Brendan supplied the above image of (one of) his. Turns out the Oxford one is a ford engined one and you can tell by the different bonnet shape (not sure why i didnt notice this). These were introduced in 2007. Also Brendan's didn't have a sunroof and the roof ribs were different.

Image

So the bonnet 'hump' was ground down and the new raised bits added from 5 thou plasticard. The sunroof was filed and new ribs added from microstrip. The wheels came from a RAC version again from Oxford Diecast.
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