Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Atlantic 3279]

Now that could frighten children

It must have been reasonably effective - I had few of the little pests bothering me during the weekend.

[Dave S]

That's because I took up the seat space.....

Good to finally meet you and pick your brains.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I thought that Mr King was doing a fortune telling act, .......................GWR is going down the gurgler, don't need to make any more models for them.

manna

[jwealleans]

I had few of the little pests bothering me during the weekend.

Just as well if this worrying report is accurate.

[60526]

Pests and GWR? and from the Grantham thread militants? I concluded years ago that if you want to talk to one of the "exhibitionists", I suppose that is what you could call JW and GK in this case, you either go around again and wait until nobody is pesting them or you just stand there and wait. Both always seemed busy, but on the 3rd time around GK looked like he needed saving so I decided to just stand there alongside the table, that didn't work, so I moved a chair over and sat down, still didn't seem to work until the guy showed GK a photo on his mobile of something that looked like Paddington bear. What this had to do with resin casting I'm not sure but the link with Paddington did make me think that they were talking in code, he could be a closet Collett champion, a 2-10-2T on an extended Hornby 72xx chassis or from a 9F, couldn't find the evidence though.
Anyhow, can I just say that our two champions here did themselves proud, can't be easy at an exhibition such as Warley, I'm charged up a bit to have a go at some carriage roof resin moulding in the new year after an explanation from Graeme, I don't think that photographs do justice to some of the resin work, I was impressed by the K2 but the P2 was something else.

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks for that piece of praise, and thanks for saving me form the "interesting" chap with images of his models on the mobile phone. Apparently, I was supposed to be able to recognise the individual upon whom a particular miniature figure was based. Unfortunately, the way the paint was applied failed to convey to me the look of the one and only Fred Dibnah!

[Atlantic 3279]

A month ago, far too busy with other things and uncertain as to how to proceed, I suspended my attempts to improve the look of the pumps and pipes associated with the ACFI feed-water heather on my Cock o'the North model. Today I got a grip on myself, did something about the previous indecision and fitted a combination of parts from the original Hornby moulding, the Crownline item I'd found, and a bit of home-made stuff thrown in for good measure. I've altered and added to the lining out on the pump bodies too.I hope I've achieved something positive, but I'll wait for tomorrow before posting pictures in case I can get a better one than I managed late this afternoon, IF we have decent daylight in the morning....

I also replaced one of the shafts in the plastic valve gear moulding (the upper one that controlled cut-off) using a piece of bright metal rod, the original having snapped. It now looks far more like the burnished rods visible in the 1934 ex-works photo that I've been trying to emulate, but there's no realistic hope of replacing the main driveshaft too without losing the beautifully moulded representations of the four universal joints. What a pity Hornby moulded the Lentz valve gear in basic black plastic of a type clearly not immune to snapping. It would look so much better had the rods been treated to one of the metal/mirror coating techniques now available. I've tried a bit of Humbrol's so called gun-metal metallic paint as a poor alternative, but it really is a very poor alternative....

[Atlantic 3279]

Here's what I finished up with. Comparison with the images of the parts a page or two back will show what's what, but in a nutshell I used the Crownline parts for the heavy upper pipe, the valve on the boiler side (modified) and the short pipe that Hornby don't represent at all on the model. I used my own version of the slimmer pipe, thinking that most of the unions on the Crownline one were hugely over-scale and the plastic Hornby version too angular. I also used my own bits and pieces of plastic to dress up the Hornby item on the running plate behind the main pump bodies, considering the Crownline version too tall and plain. Real copper wire would have been nice for the pipes, but brass was all I had so "copper" paint has to suffice.
I don't know whether the valve on the boiler side is correctly painted green or should in fact be in bare brass. I did think about removing the badly represented pipe union beneath the valve, but only after I'd started applying various coats of paint and it didn't want to budge - I didn't want to be back to square one with the paintwork following a brutal removal of the offending item, so I left it alone.

As you'll see I also made the outer rectangles of lining shallower and added a hint of lining to the end covers on the pumps - I think the photograph of the prototype suggests that they are lined out.

[Atlantic 3279]

I've also had a tinker with a Hornby Q6, sold as 3418 in post-WW2 LNER livery with diag. 50A boiler. Scrutiny of RCTS 6C suggested to me that the model has the 3940 gal version of the NE tender, identifying it as one of the Darlington-built, first (1913) batch of Q6s, unless some un-listed tender changes took place. Four (I believe) of this batch of locos got the diagram 50A modernised replacement boiler by Sept '39, including my chosen 1311, the first I gather, in Dec '38. I may not keep this identity for the loco long term, but it saves altering boiler details at this stage. I've created a windjabber for the plain Hornby chimney too. The buffer beams and buffers may turn out to be wrong for the particular year and loco, but I'll live with that for the time being.

[Atlantic 3279]

And now an appeal. I know Peco make some fancy new fishplates / rail joiners to go with their very welcome new bullhead track, but I'm trying to get some of the kind I used years ago on SMP track. Latterly I've had to use Peco N/OO9 rail joiners, which do the job so long as the rail sections are exactly alike and the rails well supported by moulded chairs or soldered PCB sleepers, but I'm not keen on the way that the quite crude Peco N/OO9 items grip only the foot of the rail. I don't think the rail joiners in the following picture are SMP, which I never really got on with, although they do look similar to (but maybe not exactly like) Minitrix N gauge rail joiners. As you can see, they extend nicely up the sides of the main web of the rail, helping to steady the joint and (I believe) giving more "to play with" if the two ends of the joiner have to be "nipped up" to different degrees to join dissimilar thickness of supposedly matching code 75 rail from different makers.

The Minitrix joiners seem to still be available at a nominally reasonable price, but I've not spotted a web listing for a British supplier who actually has any in stock. Does anybody know a source?
I see that they can be ordered from Germany, the items themselves having a fairly innocent-looking price, but a ridiculous postage rate around £15 to the UK applies! The so-called EU single market .......

[Atso]

I do like what you've done with 2001 and 1311 Mr King!

Regarding N gauge rail joiners, I don't know anything about the Minitrix ones but maybe Tomix's version may work...

[Atlantic 3279]

Sounds interesting, but I've just looked and failed to find an image that gives any real idea of what the Tomix rail joiners are like. Is there a "standard" and "fine" version too? I don't know which would be appropriate. Also, the obvious Google results are all US sources so the possibility of high carriage charges arises again. Is there a UK stockist please?

[john coffin]

Graeme, just done a quick search, since I too am not a 2mm modeller, and came up with Osbornes Models in Bideford, Devon who seem to know about the Tomix stuff. They have quite a good web site too, but it may be a special order item.

HTH.

Nice pipe work though, shame about the copper coating

paul

[Atso]

I'm afraid I'm not sure if anyone supplies in the UK. I think I might have some lying around somewhere, I'll let you know if I come across them.

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks for the hints Gents.