James' workbench- ex-GC locos and stock in OO

[James Harrison]

It's not terribly easy to tell from your photo, but i think you may have a little too much lining on that coach. Have a look at a prototype photo and you should see where there shouldn't be lines.

I'm sure I have a couple of photos (somewhere) of the preserved example on the SVR. Shall have to check....

I think you might have used the wrong 'LNER' as well. The elongated one is for Tourist stock.

Ah; yes. That's what comes of taking the first transfer sheet that comes to hand and using the last couple of 'LNER' transfers on it (I'd always wondered what those ones were for).

[James Harrison]

On to a new project.... after a sojourn to the Metropolitan Railway and their E class 0-4-4 tanks...

.... a GCR full brake of 1903.

When I completed my rake of clerestories earlier this year I had a pair of Hornby carriages left over, one of which had been hacked up pretty badly. So this I chose for an experiment. The first step was to firm up the carriage sides (lengths of 0.5mm plastic sheet glued inside the carriage) and to fill in the windows with milliput and white putty.





I then sanded this down, primed it and drilled out positions for new windows.



Then 0.5mm plastic sheet and 0.5mm square plastic rod was used to model the sliding doors and the beading.



Now one drawing I've seen shows matchboarding below the waist, and the one I'm working off of (in Dow's 'Great Central') doesn't. Hmmm, more research required....

[James Harrison]

A few hours spent browsing my stock of books on the GCR on Sunday afternoon produced a working hypothesis regarding the panelling/ matchboarding problem.

Broadly, I think there are three variants of brakevan that were produced practically at the same time and all to the same basic design.

-1907/08 panelled full brake with corridor connection (as drawn in Volume 3 of 'Great Central')
-1907/08 panelled full brake, no corridor connection (as shown in a photograph in the same volume)
-pre-1910 matchboarded full brake, corridor connection [?] (appears in several photographs, but never in very good focus- there is definitely 'something' vertical going on below the waist however).

So with that provisionally solved I'm staying true to the drawing in the book, and these last few days have been experimenting again with teaking.

This time I used a gloss yellow (Humbrol #7) as a base- two coats. Then I used an old brush and put a very thin, streaky coat of mid-brown (Humbrol #133) over it, and then removed most of this with tissue paper. I then worked back over it again with the brush- this time with the brush practically dry.

I think this has worked quite well....





I'm now giving some serious thought to repainting my existing GCR stock in similar fashion...

[James Harrison]

The full brake being now finished I think it more or less settles the question of whether or not to repaint the rest of my stock.



To achieve the teak I used Humbrol paints 7 and 133, then the solebars were painted in Humbrol 113 and the roof with 165. It was then given a coat of satin varnish.

[auldreekie]

CRIKEY!.

I'd never have dared do that with Miliput.

Very thought-provoking........


auldreekie

[James Harrison]

That's not just milliput on its own. Where the glazing was still in place, it was left there. Where it had been discarded, some plastic sheet was put in it's place. The idea being to give the filler some firm foundation or backing to make sure it didn't go anywhere- my first clerestory, I filled in the windows that I didn't need, went to rub it all down and drill new windows- and it all crumbled and fell out!

Happily that didn't happen this time so I think I've cracked it.

[auldreekie]

Thanks for that.

I DID understand about the need to provide backing material.

I still wouldn't have dared, and I'm pleasantly surprised that it worked, especially (if I understood aright) on the basis of something as flexible as 5thou styrene.

Good on yer!


auldreekie

[James Harrison]

Thanks!

Work begins on the next project- a GCR 11A.

So; we start with, as always, a donor loco....

... in this case the chassis and the body are from two different models.

The chassis from a Hornby 2P:



And the body from a Triang Jinty:



There's a lot of hacking up involved in this one!



But now I've begun the reconstuction process... an old Ratio 4-4-0 kit donates much of its boiler for this.

[nzpaul]

Hi James
I was wondering what good could come from the putty fantastic, but I like the end result, that's quite an effort. Loco conversion is looking rather adventurous as well.

Cheers
Paul

[James Harrison]

Thanks!

[auldreekie]

Adventurous indeed. Intrigued to see what will eventuate (EDIT: ah, an 11A - pay attention at the back.....) Also fascinated by the ditty-box in the background of the 2P chassis: does it contain some magic ingredient?


auldreekie

[James Harrison]

It's one of my spares boxes (some jewellery-making friends of mine make and sell them), so technically I guess it does contain some magic ingredients

Inside are a couple of old tension-lock couplings, cast metal boiler fittings, handrail knobs, etched nameplates etc etc etc... basically a mix of bits scavenged from old RTR stock and bits bought in for my hackbashes.

[auldreekie]

Thanks.

Well, that's a relief -- no magic ingredient except by the engagingly adventurous modeller....


auldreekie

[James Harrison]

More work has been done; albeit not a lot- however it does start to look like a loco again...





There's nothing here that I've not done and described before when it comes to the bodywork- various thicknesses and profiles of plastic sheet and strip have been used to alter the body from the donor model.

I'm working on how I can secure the body to the chssis more securely at the moment- and also pondering what exactly might be done to get the driving wheels to turn with less resistance. Proper bearings may be required.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Interesting conversion, I'll have to have a good look in the Green bible for that one, like the full brake

manna