Will's West Highland Workbench - K4s, J39s, D34, K2/2

[will5210]

Cheers Steve! Yes you can't beat Apple Green in my opinion.

The buffer beam is from the 3500 gallon tender I'm building for K4 mk3 (see above).

By the way, for all the snowplough fans who are wondering why I haven't fixed it to 3441, I've decided it'll be easier to fit it to K4 mk3 which will have a brass footplate meaning I can solder it on.

Cheers

[will5210]

A little update with some rolling stock in various states of completion. All need varnishing.

Parkside Cattle truck. My first go at weathering with aerosols.

DSC01980 by will5210, on Flickr

Ratio LMS open

DSC01982 by will5210, on Flickr

Parkside LNER Van in Red oxide

DSC01981 by will5210, on Flickr

Parkside LNER Van (corrugated version) in bauxite

DSC01979 by will5210, on Flickr

Parkside & Cambrian Opens further down production line

DSC01983 by will5210, on Flickr


cheers

Will

[will5210]

I had my first go at weathering a loco tonight. The unsuspecting victim was a Bachmann J39 & the result is below.

I'm content with it for a first attempt as I was looking for 'workaday grubby' rather than 'end of steam knackered'

Any feedback is more than welcome

DSC01985 by will5210, on Flickr

DSC01986 by will5210, on Flickr

DSC01987 by will5210, on Flickr

Cheers

[Sylvian Tennant]

I saw a mention of these models not being showcase. I would like to content that by saying that this is some amazing model making.

The weathering is a good start but a constructive observation it's still looking slightly monotone from the pictures. Definitely take a look as some colour pictures to try and pick out some more colours, shades, deposits and streaking. I appreciate that it's hard to find colour photos of pre-national days but even early to mid BR days had locos in a work-a-day condition where there was clean...but not too clean.

I like the differential between the smoke box and the boiler and the boiler is nice and just grubby.

Keep up the good work though.

[will5210]

Thanks for looking in!

I agree - I perhaps could have been a bit more varied with my colour palette but I was trying to be quite restrained
I do think it'll look better in natural light though so I'll see how it looks outside on Saturday.

Will

[Sylvian Tennant]

Restraint is always the best with weathering.

That's a good plan, I always check my weathering in natural daylight too.

On the whole it's a very good job and I can see great things coming from this thread.

[earlswood nob]

Evenin' all
I think this is a good example of weathering. At the end of steam locos became very dirty, but when I started trainspotting in 1955, there were plenty of clean locos around.
How times change. Nowadays would a couple of nine year olds be allowed to travel unescorted to large stations collecting numbers? We used to do so on many saturdays.

Earlswood nob

[will5210]

The sun almost tried to think about coming out today, so I attempted a few daylight shots to see what needs changing. I think I'll leave it for now, might fiddle with it in the future.

DSC01993 by will5210, on Flickr

DSC01997 by will5210, on Flickr

cheers

[will5210]

'Lord of the Isles' is now more or less ready to go. Just needs crew, coal & safety valves refitting.

DSC02013 by will5210, on Flickr

DSC02011 by will5210, on Flickr

Cheers

[drmditch]

Magnificent!
I always like green engines to show some working grime. To me they look much more real, although I don't think I can have any memories of proper green engines.
Presumably the K4s would not have had long in pre-war conditions of cleaning.

[will5210]

Magnificent!
I always like green engines to show some working grime. To me they look much more real, although I don't think I can have any memories of proper green engines.
Presumably the K4s would not have had long in pre-war conditions of cleaning.

Cheers Drmditch. I'm not 100% happy with the weathering, to be honest. I went a bit overboard & had to take a lot off today, but its come out ok

[will5210]

Hi all,

Saturday afternoon was spent having a bash at a kit I've had in stock for a while - the Gem D34.

I've decided to fit it to an old but sweet running Triang L1 chassis I purchased from the RMWEB classifieds which I've rewheeled with Romford's driving wheels, Hornby bogie wheels & also fitted Hornby T9 coupling rods.

I decided to use this chassis as I believe 4-4-0 chassis are difficult to set up so not really suitable for my level of expertise (novice!)

I'm happy with progress so far, but the kit needs a lot of fettling to get thing as I want them. In fact, some of the castings are quite bad - in hindsight I probably should have exchanged the kit.

Footplate on chassis (tension lock will be coming off!)

DSC02014 by will5210, on Flickr

Boiler offered up to cab/footplate

DSC02018 by will5210, on Flickr

& now on chassis (boiler still not soldered to footplate)

DSC02019 by will5210, on Flickr
(look at that casting on the frames!)

DSC02021 by will5210, on Flickr

Hoping to get more done this week. The boilers seems to need shortening at the firebox end to make the smokebox sit in the correct position (it's currently too far forward)

Will

[Atlantic 3279]

Even the use of the sweet-running RTR chassis may not get you out of jail free if the whitemetal body turns out to be nose heavy. That's the main problem with 4-4-0s. It isn't monumentally difficult to set up the tender to transfer weight onto the back end of the loco to balance things up in such a case, and that aids traction rather than robbing you of some grip as a sprung front bogie alone might.

[will5210]

Even the use of the sweet-running RTR chassis may not get you out of jail free if the whitemetal body turns out to be nose heavy. That's the main problem with 4-4-0s. It isn't monumentally difficult to set up the tender to transfer weight onto the back end of the loco to balance things up in such a case, and that aids traction rather than robbing you of some grip as a sprung front bogie alone might.

I suspect I may end up having to use the transfer-the-tender-weight method to get the most traction available from this one, even though It'll most likely spend all its time double heading with another D34.

Thanks for looking in,

Will

[will5210]

Grabbed some time tonight & fitted splashers (soldered) & Chimney, Dome & safety valves (glued with epoxy).

Almost every casting I've used so far has needed quite a bit of 'adjustment' to get it anything like correct & I regret not replacing the cab roof with a brass one, as I think the over high roof affects the visual balance of the thing.

I think I'll be trying the PDK D34 next time.


DSC02025 by will5210, on Flickr

DSC02024 by will5210, on Flickr

Cheers