These are again painted with Vallejo acrylics. The silver on the "Silver Ghost" is "Chain Mail" metallic silver, which was let down for spraying using Vallejo's own thinners, and once prepared it sprayed beautifully.
In between other jobs I managed to get a squirt of black paint, the transfers and some weathering on the tar tank.
What was interesting having built an lettered a Slaters kit, is that I took the measurements for this from a Skinley drawing. That drawing must relate in some way to the Slaters transfers because unlike the Slaters' kit the transfers went on in one piece without having to make any adjustments to letter spacing to take account of the panel size and layout of the rivets.
My Slaters example took several sessions/hours to get the transfers on whereas these went in in about 15 minutes tops for both sides.
My main reason for building this was to do further experiments with the crackle medium to see if I could reproduce cracked tar runs on the tank. I am pleased with the results so far.
Back on some way on this thread I made some cable drums from wooden pieces created by drilling out lightening/cable runs on my layout boards and matchsticks.
Last weekend I came across a few more of the wooden circles and decided to see if I could improve upon them now that I have the NW Shortline Chopper to cut some coffee stirrers instead of the match sticks. An hour later I had 5 cable drums.
A quick resize, a visit to the printer and then some careful cutting out and I had some labels for them.
Following my last post on this on the Guild Forum Jim Snowdon set me a bit of a challenge - copied here for context.
Originally posted by Jim Snowdon
[br]Very neat. Now, all you have to do is band them, and if you are feeling really enthusiastic, model the tail of the inner end of the cable where it pokes through the side of the drum and is secured.
Then, the real test is to load them into a wagon and rope them correctly....
Jim
Jim went on to give me a big helping hand towards meeting the challenge by posting a link to this Youtube video https://youtu.be/MJ-8X20w3eE - Well worth a watch even if only the first 2 or 3 minutes
So this is how I got on - Bands from black insulation tape and ye olde faithful coffee stirrers for the cover for the cable tail.
And isn't it typical that a gap in the banding on one of them only shows up when you have taken the photo....
Some time ago I drew up some inserts for Mansell wheels but I never got around to cutting them out. Seeing Peter Beare's recent additions to the backs of Slaters wheels over on Western Thunder, brought them to mind again.
While at Telford, the tight Yorkshireman instinct made me take advantage of Haywood Railway's offer of two axles of coach wheels inc bearings for £5. 00 - I bought quite a few...
Finding myself in need of some Mansell wheels for some scratch build projects (more of that later) I revisited the drawings to amend them to suit the Haywood wheel dimensions and cut them out from 10 thou sheet. Initially I wondered if they would be deep enough and whether I might need a blank spacer but as it turns out they were perfect.
As alluded to earlier, the last couple of weekends have seen some more scratch building going on.
Having painted up my cars I need something to carry them on and Open Carriage Trucks fit the bill as being a little more in keeping than machinery wagons or Lowmac's. A look through my trust Historic Carriage volumes gave me examples of GNR and NER so I made start on a couple of GNR examples.
First the 21' version whose Diagram number I cannot recall and I left my book up north.
Followed by the earlier and shorter (18') Diagram 375
I have another 21 footer started too. All the hinges and details were drawing in Inkscape and cut on the Cameo.
And finally, to bring things right up to date I also seemed to have found the time to have built four Parkside van kits almost to completion.
Left to right - LNER 12 ton unfitted van, LNER Fish van (the later type that were ultimately rebuilt into the ones that became known as Blue Spot) and an LMS 12 Ton Van (Diag. D1664). What's missing from the line up is an LMS Beer Van (Diag. D1817 ). All are mostly out of the box builds and just need grab handles and guard irons on the underframe fittings etc. except the LNER unfitted van
I have on the go an EX NER van which had the external sliding end hatches that I still need to make up. Reading through Vol 4a of Tatlow led me to some of the earlier versions of the later LNER van having them too before they moved to having internal hatches that the kit portrays so I decided to have a go at making them. These are done by hand without the aid of the Cameo but now I know what I am about I will draw some up for other examples that needs them.
You didn't notice because the picture angle didn't allow it in any case that my GNR 21' OCT being vacuum fitted has a star on the solebar. Initially because I wasn't thinking I followed the drawing and what should be a star is actually a hexagon with the points top and bottom. Discovery of another tool Inkscape had me quickly drawing a 6 pointed star (the tool creates either stars or polygons and a drop down allows you to quickly chose how many points.
Size wise the points of the stars are 2.5mm across
I made more progress on the OCTs now having two 21' and one 18' examples in similar states of build.
and finally a photos of the star and some modified spring hangers. The cast W Irons and springs were kindly cast for me by Kerry Viney in Australia but nice as they are they didn't quite match the spring hangers on my drawing but some time ago when I was experimenting with drawing up springs and hangers in Inkscape I had drawn up and cut some hangers which I hadn't used. I found that If I glued 3 layers together by inserting them on a length of brass wire to index them I could them cut the loop end off and insert them on the bottom of the solebar like you see in the close up below. Not perfect in that they could have been a little wider but now I have the proof of concept adjusting with will take moments before recutting. I will do this for use with the next half dozen that I have, which I plan to use on an NER 6 wheeled OCT
Although last week was a bust from a modelling perspective due to being ill. When I started to feel better I did get a bit of drawing and cutting done which allowed me to make a start on what I think are the last two open carriage trucks for now.
First I made up the body and basic underframe for the GER OCT that I was enquiring about the origins of Here - viewtopic.php?p=119619#p119619
The plan is to finish this with an A Type container (which I have made start on drawing up in Inkscape).
Last but by no means least (because it's a bit of a beast at 34' 8") is a former NER 6 wheeled OCT. Apparently in 1917 these had their sides removed and bolsters added for the conveyance of Aeroplane parts.
Last weekend saw further progress on the GER OCT and the completion of an LNER A Type container to go on it. - Thanks must go to Jonathan Wealleans for supplying me with the information that allowed me to draw the container ready for cutting.
Containers are the perfect thing for creating with the Cameo. I have also made a start on making up W Irons and springs from my home produced examples. No photos at present until they are finished.
I have also made a start on making up W Irons and springs from my home produced examples. No photos at present until they are finished.
Inspired at the time when a gent called Adam built a 4mm scale scratchbuilt Lowmac on a couple of forums that I frequent, I recalled that when buying NER Implement wagons and Lowmac kit's from Jim in the past he packed a couple of extra axlebox/spring castings. With that in mind and wanting to expand the wagon fleet in this direction I ordered and collected another of each kit from Jim at the Keighley show. This gave me a spare set of axlebox/spring castings for each type of wagon.
So when I was ill a couple of weeks or so ago I drew up the parts for an implement wagon to see how it looked.
Then last weekend in between working on the GER OCT and the A Type container (I was a busy boy because I also finished fitting the handrails to the Parkside unfitted van) I assembled it.
I didn't get any further with it because I had left the relevant volume of Tatlow at home in Wakefield..... Which seems to be the story of my life just now - I hadn't been able to assemble the container the weekend before due to leaving the information at home.
Time for an update, seven days away from TV and internet have allowed me to crack on with quite a few of my ongoing projects.
First up I finished the remaining three Parkside Vans ready for painting - actually I tell a lie because the LNER fish van still needs guard irons and vac/steam pipes.
Then I built a Slaters Gloucester 5 Plank Open. Unlike my previous builds of open wagons I haven't gone to town on the interior detailing on this one - I went as far as scribing in the plank lines because I plan to load it in such a way as the interior won't be seen.
Then I built a Parkside NBR 4 plank open and while looking in Tatlow for the additional details that I had added to the last one of these that I built, I noted that some of these wagons had been converted for use as Coke wagons. Variety is the spice of life as they say, so of I went with the styrene rod and sheet - it was actually great practice at cutting straight strips from 1.25mm sheet.
Despite being a simple kit bash it allowed me to indulge in adding bolt head details and by dint of good fortune I just had enough styrene washers to hand to complete it.
Another of my last week's endeavours was to make up and underframe for the tar tank.
My spares box yielded axle boxes/ springs and brakes while the "cameo" spares box yielded W Irons and Crown plates. I will need to cut more of the other washer plates for the solebars but since I already have an assortment drawn for other wagons that should be a simple matter.
One thing that I did notice when checking my drawing for making up the underframe is that this wagon has a 10' wheel base whereas the Slaters version has either 9' or 9' 6". Which will account for the the differing overall length and the reason that the transfers fit without adjustment.
It makes you wonder whether Slaters (like other manufacturers) developed the kit around reusing some existing underframe parts in their range and then adjusted the tank length to fit. But subsequently someone else developed the transfers around the longer wheel based drawing.
I can see lot's of sound business reasons for doing this.
