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

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Amazing what you can do with a toy.

manna

[James Harrison]

Thanks! Now, for my next trick....

.... it may have to wait a little while, I've started building the Mauretania in her dazzle camouflage....

[Danby Wiske]

.... I've started building the Mauretania in her dazzle camouflage....

Not in 4mm/ft I hope!

[James Harrison]

.... I've started building the Mauretania in her dazzle camouflage....

Not in 4mm/ft I hope!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_2P2mFT_ac

Just a little smaller than that...

[Danby Wiske]

Thanks for that - haven't seen it for years!

[James Harrison]

When I said my next trick 'may have to wait a while' even I didn't think it would be three months later! I got.... sidetracked. Built an entry for the Cakebox Challenge on RMWeb and, when that was done, started trying to improve a "Your Model Railway Village" station building. Which looks like it will be a long-term project as I've done the brickwork and the doors and windows and then had to come back and do something else otherwise I'd have gone mad.

So, right now, sitting alongside me and happily whirring away to itself is my silhouette cutter. Cutting out parts for a Barnum saloon...

[James Harrison]

I kept running into problems with cutting out the parts- not a shortcoming of the drawings I add, rather a combination of my bone-headedness and the idiotic logic of the silhouette studio software. It would take a properly scaled drawing and auto-rescale it to suit the size and orientation of the sheet of plastic. And then I'd just blindly press 'cut' and then wonder why parts were too small...

But after a lot of swearing, frustration, wasted plastic and quite some time spent just idly staring off into space whilst the silhouette cutter does its thing, I think I'm getting somewhere.



This is just the basic body shell. It's not quite ready yet- there are some small gaps to fill- but now that the drawings are back to scale I'm hoping the second one will take a lot less time to get to this stage. No, I'm not building them in tandem!- the idea is to build the first one and then the second afterward. If I foul up the build then I've only lost one set of parts....

There is a sheet of seating I've cut out to go inside but it seems very flimsy as it's only cut from 10thou plastic sheet. I'm thinking maybe something built up from balsa wood would be stronger, not to mention it would add a bit of weight.

[James Harrison]

After two coats of Humbrol matt orange to begin the teaking process, I fitted the bogies. I'm using Hornby Gresley bogies under these with the detail removed.



Then I completed the teak process with a drybrushed coat of Humbrol stain mid-brown.



At this point the carriage went on the test track, as a result of which it gained 5 gram weights in each bogie and two 10 gram weights in the saloon, just inboard of the bogie pivots. This much improved the running but means the interior as-drawn will not fit.



So I started experimenting with building an interior in balsa wood...



And I eventually came up with this arrangement as suiting my intentions.

[James Harrison]

And- finished. I'm rather pleased with it.

[exile]

Very nice James.

[Dave S]

Very nice.

Over on RMWeb, JCL has a 'Wainfleet' thread* and he has built some Barnums from laser cut MDF.


* - I'm not sure if he is on here.

[James Harrison]

Very nice.

Over on RMWeb, JCL has a 'Wainfleet' thread* and he has built some Barnums from laser cut MDF.


* - I'm not sure if he is on here.

I noticed he'd recently done some in MDF, which look rather good. This one was done from his original silhouette cutter files for the first one he built a few years ago. Incidentally he said he was looking at doing them in MDF as the plastic version is flimsy but my example seems rather firm and rigid. Then again, mine has solid wooden interiors and a wooden roof substructure and of course runs on RTR bogies so possibly all of those differences help out.

[notascoobie]

Nice work James. Rob Pulham posts on here and he does demos on using the Silhouette. I guess you could ask him about stuff but it looks like you've got it cracked.

[Chris Grouse]

Are you still modding locos James? Don’t suppose you do commissions?

[James Harrison]

Hi Chris! Yes, I'm still doing locos... I just have quite a number of things on the projects list so these last few years they've taken something of a back seat. (Also I'm reconsidering how I do the painting/ lining as I'd like better results. I have an idea and [fingers crossed] my next project will be a loco or two to experiment).

I don't do commissions I'm afraid, firstly I really don't think my skills are good enough for it and also... well... I have a massive backlog of projects of my own to get through.