Catenary making

I'm sure if anyone had watched me make this they'd have been laughing rather a lot (until I sent them for tea that is).  I made some catenary masts the other day, simple things from K&S brass tube and rod.  These were set into holes drilled in the baseboard and a wire fed from the base of one of them, this formed the power supply. 

I then turned to getting the wires up.  This sort of follows the Sommerfeldt system.  They advocate putting a loop at one end of the wire and doing the same at the other end.  I decided I'd do that at one end and solder the other end.  The loop helped keep the thing up while I did the other end, and the small 3D printed boxcab was shuttling up and down the wire finding all the bugs.  I learned two things:

1) Don't try and make a curve that follows the track, it doesn't work like that.

2) Don't get any solder under the wire, the loco will find it and be merrily tossed off the rails.

3) It is best to follow American practice (good job I model American then) and have the wire sag.

All in all, a good hour spent soldering (and swearing).  Below is a little drawing I did of a catenary post, more for my memories sake than anything!

Much to my delight it all works, with a good healthy voltage being delivered to the motor.  I will admit the track also supplies the power, but the pantograph does work and provides a more reliable pick up.  I was most delighted that none of the steam locos ripped it all down, not sure what the clearance is supposed to be in American narrow gauge, but it looks far enough!

a small diorama

I am a member of the Great Cockcrow Railway, a 7 1/4" gauge miniature railway in Lyne, Surrey.  It was decided that we could promote ourselves better, so a stand was provided at the Egham and Staines model railway exhibition, with myself operating a portable track outside with my engine Lulubelle.  The stand was very good, lots of pictures, a laptop playing the DVD we sell, a "name the part of the engine" competition and even a small loco!

We also had a diorama of "Jungle Halt".  This was built by myself and fellow Cockcrow-ite Steve Trower.  Its nothing more than a bit of old shelving with some Hornby set track left over from a train set pinned to it.  This didn't require any weathering as GCR track is aluminium on black plastic sleepers! Steve layed the track and built the foundation of the scenery (including the rather natty little station platform), whereas I did the green bits.  This comprised mostly of assorted Woodlands Scenics scatter and clump foliage.  The trees were sea moss sprayed with aerosol glue, then rolled in a mix of scatter and clump, they were then glued to the back scene.  This was a bit of a bodge, simply painted white, but we ran out of time!  If I could change anything it would be to sort the back scene and get rid of that awful "edge" along the bottom!

The loco is an old K's GNR Atlantic (Steve's) painted in GNR livery and numbered 1442 for the simple reason that we have it at the GCR!  The coach was knocked up by Steve out of thin ply emulating the real coaches.

Animals were Kinder Egg things.  Jungle halt is populated on open Sundays by lots of stuffed animals!

It was the second time I exhibited a model I had built, though this one was a team effort.  Its currently in store for the next time, but it did rather set into motion the idea of a larger "Cockcrow" layout.....

Tiger Tank

Its not all trains here, theres a fair bit of artillery too!  When I was in the first year of my apprenticeship I got into 1/16 tanks.  I bought one of the cheap Heng Long Tigers and systematically rebuilt it entirely.  It ended up getting upgraded suspension, new gearboxes and new electronics.  I got a bit ambitious and fitted a winking machine gun that operates at the same time as the sound effect plays.  It weighs rather a lot, and does perform rather like a real tank due to this. 

Tanks are excellent weathering fodder, I made this one a bit grubbier than most would, but it came out rather well.  I wouldn't recommend getting into tanks unless your very very keen, you lose so much money in postage and packing for all the new bits that you will never get it back if you sell the model in the future.  So I'm stuck with this one (and the other three).

Shame ; )

box cab nearly done

I have been beavering away on the box cab, and it is now at the point where it can pull trains.  The loco has been detailed and painted, I decided on a nice yellow in the end, one of the Humbrol acrylic spray range.  That coupled with the grey running gear and roof to me shout "Union Pacific", a railway whose bright livery I've always liked, though this one won't be pulling 50 car trains any time soon.

The roof detailing is scrap box plunder.  Hatches are cab doors from a Bachmann Ivatt 4MT, and the vent is off an RAF fire engine and ambulance set that provides me with all manner of bits, the kit itself is hopelessly incomplete so at least some of it is of use.  I did fit the two bulkheads inside, these are plasticard and form a box within the body, further bracing the printed body and providing a convenient place to stick ballast weights.  Handrails were fitted, using some brass wire I keep for such things, I used photos of real box cabs to get a suitable amount of them on.

Once I'd got the bits all glued on I set to and began painting.  This was something I was apprehensive about.  There isn't much on the web about spraying these 3D printings, and I was worried my work was going to be ruined.  In the end all I found was it took more coats of grey primer than usual to achieve a decent result, the manufacturing process leaves the surface slightly porous so you have to spray around four coats on.  I considered using filler primer but it would have obliterated details.  I followed this up with four coats of Humbrol yellow and left it alone. 

One thing new to me was the masking tape I used.  For this model I decided to see what Tamiya masking was like and it is excellent, it doesn't rip the paint back off and leaves a good edge.  Once the masking was removed I brush painted the underframe and roof with some Humbrol enamel (92 for you paint afficionados out there).

Pantograph back on (connected to the SPUD with a gold plated connector, no messing around) and my favourite self adhesive weights inside and it ran perfectly.  I found I over ballasted it causing the thing to run like it was clockwork, though causing the SPUD to get rather hot.  I've removed some weight and all is now well.  Couplings are just standard Kadee number 5's.

Just glazing to do and then I shall have to make some overhead and see if my pantograph works!  I'm now thinking a bogie version of the same would be good.

Overhead wires and 3D printing

I have long been fascinated with the notion of working model catenary.  As a youngster I would look at the Triang and Hornby catalogues and wish I could have such a system.  I decided to add a short extension to my On30 layout to provide extra storage space (same old situation, too many wagons not enough sidings).  Originally I intended to make this a car float (train ferry in this country) inspired by Egham and Staines "Fraser Mills" though I had no intention of making it work!  I then decided that a working overhead would be more fun, and provide the impetus to build another exhibition layout (you'll learn about my first and only one day!).

So jumping straight in I decided what I needed was a quick to make loco to test my embryo catenary making skills.  Phil Parker had introduced me to 3D printing via his excellent blog, and it seemed a good cheap way of making a loco.  I thus ordered a box cab diesel body from Shapeways and waited for it to turn up.  First impressions were good, the shape was nice, and it seemed strong enough to withstand me working on it.

Construction thus far has been very simple.  It consists of the body which via some little plasticard ledges sits on a square piece of plasticard.  This sits on a Tenshodo Spud to provide the go.  Some plasticard side frames with rudimentary axlebox covers complete the bottom half, and a plasticard box sits atop the roof.  This supports a 50 year old Fleischmann sprung pantograph which I have fixed with nothing but friction, enabling it to be removed for maintenance.  A wire from this will be led to the Spud in due course.

All that is really left to do is adorn the loco with some handrails, air tanks on the roof and fit some inner bulkheads to add some more strength and to break up the interior a bit.  Then its a case of dusting it with grey primer and painting it some nice offensive colour. 

I'm thinking orange.

raw beginnings

Not a model built by me, rather one that belongs to my best mates grandfather, who bought it at a model fair.  Apparently there was a whole raft of things that had been built by the same chap, all looking as....impressionist...as this one.

What we have here is an LNER P2, grafted rather cleverly I thought onto an old Triang Hornby A3 chassis which has had an additional coupled wheel slotted into it.  One wheelset is flangeless to enable the thing to get round a train set curve.  The tender is your bog standard Hornby offering.

The body is grafted out of a bit of (from what I could see) drain pipe, with lots of plasticard, UHU, Bostick and not a little hope to form a rough approximation of what I always thought was Gresley's best looking design.

Why do I show you this model?  Well as I'm starting a blog I thought it best to show a model where someone who despite having apparently little skill in the scratchbuilding department has strived to build a model of a loco they couldn't otherwise have.  It has many deep seated problems, not least the fact it wouldn't run properly, but they had a go, and thats comendable.  I think for that reason its worth tinkering with to get it to run.

My best mate was extremely rude about the model, I felt sorry for it, but not so sorry as to offer it a home.....

New blog type thing

with many models on the go, and being one for sharing how I do things (or not!) I decided to put fingers to keyboard and write a blog showing some of the things I make, as well as some of the toys I play with.

enjoy

Matt