Tuesday 30 December 2014

7mm scale warehouse

With the big shed and small shed done I spent some time this morning positioning and cutting a thick piece of card. As can be seen this lifts the buildings up to a smidge below the rail height. The area in front will be Das'd and scribed. I said that very quickly to make it sound like a fast job - you better believe that it won't be.

Monday 29 December 2014

16mm scale Hunslet

This is all a bit weird. I honestly have not got a clue what I'm doing with this, but I'm simply making one part at a time and seeing how it goes.
Bonnet front went on in the early hours -  a piece of 60 thou 50 x 44 with a hole cut in it, then added to the back of that a piece of car body fill mesh that I must have had in the box for the best part of thirty years awaiting this sort of thing.
I did ponder on a freelancy name such as Hudslet or Rudson etc, but even though Hudson never built anything remotely close to this design it felt better. Lettering is of course from Coopercraft's station nameboard set for 4mm.
Now I might take a bit of a break from it and back to something more serious and pressing in 7mm.

Saturday 27 December 2014

16mm battery loco

Back in June I reviewed an IP Engineering basic chassis kit for 16mm.

http://unnycoombelala.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/a-salt-and-battery.html

Over the last couple of days I've played about wrapping something around it.
This is a big learning curve.
1. On say an 009 kit/build, you just need to worry about where the motor will fit. Here there is the issue of motor, power and control all on board.
2. It's heavy. Not lead-heavy, just so much bigger even with a tiny prototype

This is only a small Hudson 20hp style shape, and yet it is 5" long. I wanted to keep the cab clear so ended up mounting the battery box on the underside of the bonnet top. More thought process - you need to be able to change the batteries so there has to be an easy entry. This gives a high bonnet, but as can be seen against the Coopercraft rubbish wagon, which is a pretty small vehicle itself, not that tall at 50mm which is a bit over a scale 3'. I've sketched the cab out at around 95mm high. Next technical problem is getting the switch wired and put somewhere. Though where that somewhere is, is another question altogether.

Thursday 25 December 2014

7mm warehouse for Morton Stanley

Determined today to get the big shed painting finished. More or less done now just the adjacent hut to tidy up and that's all the buildings done. I'd lulled myself into the frame of mind that this was an 'off' day, and of course it is nothing of the sort. Still a little bit done is better than nothing.
Now to tidy the bench and get the top bleached in time for the new year.

Salutations of the season to all the regulars.

Friday 19 December 2014

7mm scale painting

For regular readers (and I note that this page has been up and running for over five years and 800 posts, where did that go?) there's no need to explain that everything slows down around now as the workload trebles while I watch gay middle-aged men handing out sweets to under tens after they have done as they have been asked with full encouragement of the parents. The irony is not wasted on me that if this assignation happened on the street or in a park the police would be called, such is the paranoia surrounding such things these days and the double standards being dished out. But I digress.

What I am doing is a spot of painting. To be precise the two remaining buildings for Morton Stanley, built over the year by Mr. Hill and passed to me a week or so ago. It's slow going with multiple washes, but I'm getting there. The above base on a building on Gold St. Saffron Walden.

Wednesday 10 December 2014

January Railway Modeller

RM dropped through the letterbox over the weekend -  bit of an 009-fest in places. I wonder why that might be? Pat Collins' Ryedown Lane is superb and with a short piece on John Thorne's loco fleet and CO'D's fresh fish hut from Compass Point, there's quite a bit for the 4mm narrow gauger. There is, should you look closely a namecheck for Mrs F. This is a bit weird and it can't be long now before she is offered a seat in the Lords.
Other bits of the mag though, leave me scratching my head. Is the hobby changing, or is it me?

Tuesday 9 December 2014

Knightwing diesel conversion for 009

Quiet here.
Regulars will have sussed out that the blog is slow this time of year due to the extra workload. Nevertheless, I have done some modelling. Again, regulars may remember the Knightwing OO conversion that was destined for Rhiw on a Tenshodo spud. For a couple of reasons (clearance and haulage) it was abandoned and all the bits put in a marge tub for a later date. This week I got them out and rebuilt the part built body onto a new plastic footplate that was in turn wrapped around a Kato 104 chassis for 009 use. This is hardly an original conversion, but a handsome beast anyway.
It's a bit bit for Tal-coed, but might just fit a future project.