Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Nova]

No reasonable request ever refused, so, now in rich green and straight out of the mould this afternoon:

I'm very tempted to try that when I come to making buildings and structures out of resin as an exercise in making a kit for personal use. (I scense potential in precoloured brick-red modular sections for an engine shed or terraced house(s)

[Tim Watson]

Afraid LP doesn't have the radius rods linked up to a screw reverse worked by a little man in the cab. I suppose I could have made it work, but its kind of important to have the haulage weight in a 2mm loco, especially on Copenhagen Fields. LP currently tips the scales at 130g and will get a bit heavier with the motor and gearboxes installed. The only engine that would push her at the Stevenage show was Jerry Clifford's class 52 diesel.

https://youtu.be/2-XXO5GRRVg

I always like to see fully working Walschaerts valve gear, when possible - probably arising from my love of the old Hornby Dublo 8F and Barnstable locos I had as a youngster.

Tim

[Atlantic 3279]

The EM front end is amazing Graeme. If I have not already asked, please add my name to the list of potential customers (for all versions)!

I have especially noted the flange that should allow an easy joint between the two boiler halves. Was that there on the earlier moulding?

I shall try to keep a note.

The flange was there on the original grey-green casting, but the photograph was awful......

Despite my care in trying to ensure a good and easy fit, by taking enough material off the leading edges of the flange on the master, it appears that the castings all require more material to be filed off, especially the parts of the flange that fit inside the top of the boiler and the extreme lower edges, otherwise flush outer surfaces cannot be achieved.

[rowanj]

Just out of interest, here is my hack of Graeme's J6 kit to a J2, running c.1951. The idea is that it is workstained, but not yet filthy. I used Tamiya weathering slabs, as an experiment. Wheels are W&T, motor 1024, gearbox Highlevel Compact+. Unlike Graeme's superior effort, I used his resin chassis, rather than the Bachmann K3.

[Atlantic 3279]

Nice to see some more J6 parts put to good use.

I've had to relieve some more tight spots to get the casting to fit the front of the P2 properly. I hope to be able to make minor modifications to the mould and to its mode of use to eliminate the difficulty with further castings.

[mick b]

Beautiful !!

[drmditch]

Excellent!
(Although I'm looking forwards to Mons Meg - or possibly Lord President!)

[Dave]

Now thats impressive, I do like the idea of a base coloured resin, but is it worth it as most would prime the resin before painting.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Excellent work Graeme. Looks amazing!

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks all for the various contributions.

Dave makes a good point, as the thorough concealment of any surface marks such as bubble-witnesses from the mould, file marks, sanding marks etc. may depend on the application of a coat of primer. I suppose the use of a sympathetically coloured resin for the castings could be offered as an option for those who might want to see if they can get away without the use of a full coat of primer, either in order to preserve maximum crispness of detail or simply to save time and work. Colour in the resin does of course always make it easier to spot defects in the castings, so it has some value even if later obliterated by primer.

[Daddyman]

Looks nice, Graeme. Like others, I'll be interested to see the streamlined one.

[Atlantic 3279]

I'm hopeful that replication of the existing master Bugatti nose will actually be an easier proposition. No awkward corners and recesses to produce.

The plan however is to get 2002 back together and at least in tolerable, basic livery before I pull the other loco apart. That helps to maintain loco availability for Grantham and minimises the number of pending projects on the workbench at a time when further interruptions to my flow of work are still likely.

[Atlantic 3279]

Although my plans for spray painting yesterday were, I thought, well laid, I was unable to get to quite the stage I had hoped because two crucial tins/jars of paint that I believed to be sound turned out to contain thick gloop full of little dried flakes of paint. Thinning the gloop wouldn't have been a problem, but having no suitable strainer or filter and no time to experiment with tissues or kitchen paper as make-shift filers, I had no means of spraying a suitably mixed paint shade to try to match the Hornby factory P2 colour. It was never going to be possible to get a faithful match for all lighting conditions anyway. The colour cards I had prepared using Phoenix Precison, Railmatch and Humbrol colours only served to demonstrate that what looked" just-right" in daylight (or the Winter apology for daylight), and "okay" under incandescent filament or warm-white LED, looked hopelessly wrong under fluorescent tube lighting!
I did however manage something useful, getting a decent coat of what can only count as a green undercoat onto the model, in the process proving, to my own satisfaction at least, that over the lightly keyed and/or thoroughly de-greased surface of the basic resin there is no outright need for primer under the green. The only parts of the boiler and running plate that got any primer were the filed/scraped/filled/sanded ones in the immediate vicinity of the joint between the original body and the new resin section.
There is therefore possibly some advantage in having green resin castings in case of later paint damage.

On a slightly different subject, last weekend I acquired (and only because they were at an acceptable price) four of the super-detail, but flattish sided, Hornby Gresley corridor coaches. Inevitably, some of the bogie footboards were already bent or flapping around loose on their ludicrously flimsy plastic brackets and one had disappeared altogether. I've now replaced the missing one and beefed-up all of the others with some brass wire super-glued to the undersides. The tails of the wire go upright into holes drilled in the sideframes, and as the reflections in the picture may hint it isn't just a right angle bend but a bit of a swan-neck (like the pipe sticking out behind a hand-pull beer pump at a proper pub). This allows the straight tail of the wire to go right in to the hole in the sideframe and brings the important supporting strip of wire up tight against the lower face of the footboard which is aof course a little higher up than the bottom of the frame. Now painted black the reinforcements are all but invisible.

[teaky]

Excellent job on P2 there Graeme. Once again, I marvel at your invisible mending. Did you reinforce the underside of the running plate at the joins or does the adhesive and filler hold strongly enough?

Are you intending to leave the cab and tender handrails as they stand or to replace them?

[Atlantic 3279]

Only the moulded lugs on the rear of the new resin portions of the running plate are bracing the joint. Some might consider it better to remove those entirely and bond a strip of metal across the lower face of the joint. When fitted to the chassis, that joint sits almost directly on one of the cantilever brackets, so it does have support of a sort and the presence of that bracket must be borne in mind if any extra bracing is applied to the joint.

I don't honestly know how important it is to change those cab and tender handrails. They are rather neatly and cunningly moulded after all. I also ought to consider lowering the handrail on the left side of the firebox by a scale two and three quarter inches, in other words less than 1mm. How many will notice?