Infamy and Inactivity

Examination of the latest (December 2014) issue of the 'Railway Modeller' has me, and 'Shifting Sands' implicated as an influence on Peter Leadley's O9 'Clee Valley Railway'....

Do have a read about Peter's exploits in a version of O9 that is very much in my own, miniature railway, way of thinking rather than industrial.  It is no secret that his Paul Windle-built locos were a driving factor behind the creation of my own 'King George VI' locomotive.

This isn't the first time I've been implicated in the 'Modeller this year, I seen to recall getting a mention in the articles on 'Roundtree Sidings' earlier in the year, and a picture of one of my 4mm scale wagons recently appeared in 'Traction', sans credit <<grrr>>

You may have noticed that it is three months since the last update of this blog - I've been rather tied up with domestic activities of late, however the workbench is now clear of other-roomly content, a few bits of storage moved about and is ready for take off, although with precisely what remains to be seen - watch this space.

I can't let a title such as Infamy and Inactivity go without this....

Colin

Building the A1 Models O9 Hunslet - 3

The paint shop doors opened, a bright glow came from within, the Hunslet was ready....

The main colour is Halfords Rover 'Blaze', over-coated with Testor's Dullcoat. Other colours have been picked out in various acrylics, although the cab roof is actually just left in the primer...  The driver has also been painted/varnished but must have nipped to the pub when the photos were being taken!

Jobs left to do at the time of taking the photos were to fit MicroTrains couplers and also add some weight into the chassis frame and bonnet (now completed).

I have had contact from John Flower at A1 Models to say that a second cab etch is in development more suited to 15" miniature railway use 

Colin

Building the A1 Models O9 Hunslet - 2

An update on the A1 Models test etch build.  Most time spent on it has been spent on the chassis block, adding in details such as the transmission cover in the cab (covering the chassis block), smaller cab details from various Airfix/Dapol Drewery/Railbus spares, a Black Dog brake lever and details on the chassis frame including Grandt Line boltheads and scratchbuilt coupler pockets (to fit MicroTrains couplers)

A driver's seat was then added to the scratchbuilt chassis block.  This uses parts of the handrail moulding from a Knightwing shunter kit to form the tubular supports, with planks from 60 thou styrene offcuts:

Every driver's seat needs a driver, he is a bashed-about, forced to sit-down, Prieser clone, posed with his hand on the throttle lever:

Meanwhile, on the bonnet I have added filler caps for fuel and water, and on the far side the exhaust finds it's way up the front corner of the cab:

Apart from cleaning-up and blackening the corners etc, the model is now about ready for the paint shop.

Colin

Building the A1 Models O9 Hunslet

I've finally had time to wield the soldering iron and put together the A1 Models O9 loco body kit that I was handed at the 7mm NGA AGM in Burton. I've also started to create a scratch-built chassis frame for it to ride on a Bandai 4w chassis as I've no spare Kato ones at the moment.

Before building the cab I had some reservations about it's height, however as the photo above shows, for an industrial loco representing a 18" gauge prototype (or even as a small 2ft loco built on a 'Spud') the height of the cab isn't really a problem. Alongside a Black Dog Mining open wagon and it looks in proportion. However, for use as a 15" gauge loco running with passenger stock such as the Avalon Line bogie coaches it is a little bit tall at 54mm (a scale 7'6" ish). Feedback has been offered to the manufacturer on this point.

My scractchbuilt chassis frame is very much in the vein of Black Dog Mining products - in fact the axleboxes and springs are from that source. I'll add some more details to the chassis frame and in the cab before finishing it off as an industrial loco for that non-miniature railway project I keep promising myself to start!

Overall the etches were very easy to put together and didn't really take that long at all.  I've had to add my own roof as this set of pre-production etches didn't include one.  Hopefully A1 Models will be encouraged to produce some further O9 models as these products are always very adaptable and customisable.

Colin

East Midlands 009 Society Open Day (and beyond)

We had an enjoyable day yesterday at Portland College near Mansfield, venue for the 009 Society's East Midlands open day.  Flying the flag for 7mm scale at an 009 event is quite an interesting experience (although I did have to explain once that Shifting Sands isn't an 009 layout!), although we weren't the only non-009 exhibit, as a OO gauge 'Thomas' layout was in attendance an examples of O-16.5, On30 and other scales on some of the displays.

On the right you can see my small 'sales corner' where I managed to shift some surplus items in aid of my daughter Chloe's Girlguiding international expedition to Iceland in 2015.  Speaking of which.... She is required to fundraise to pay for the trip and with a little lot of help from her family is currently producing various craft items for sale - you can see many of them on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/chloeiceland

Dad's duties include cutting and drilling MDF blanks to form various novelty signs etc, and I realised that I could use one of these to create something rather special for us to sell. It is a 20 cm x 15 cm (8 x 6 ins) 1/43rd scale garage diorama, ideal for displaying your favourite model car!

The price to blog readers for this item is £20.00,plus £4.50 postage (1st Class Recorded Delivery). All proceeds apart from postage cost will go to Chloe's fundraising pot. The Bedford van in the picture isn't included, but it is available for £2.50 if anyone is interested in buying it with the diorama. (Sold!)

And finally.... seeing A1 Models at Mansfield reminded me of what I had been handed at Burton and briefly hinted at in a blog entry at the time.  This is a pre-production etch for an O9 loco based on a Jenbacher-Hunslet in the vein of 'Gwril' (the third) at Fairbourne.  Feedback has been invited by the manufacturer and hopefully this will be the first of several items for O9 from this source.

Colin

Twixt Burton and Mansfield

The 7mm NGA's AGM and Convention at Burton was rather O9-free this year, which can only be expected really as last year we were rather spoilt by O9 layouts for the expected launch of the revised 'Going Minimum Gauge' handbook.  Although this publication has been delayed, I was able to view a proof copy and let me tell you, it will be worth that wait... I was also shown (and handed) something else of O9 interest, but more on that another time.

Returning home I was fired-up enough to add the finishing touches to my sign and detail changes on 'Shifting Sands', most of which can be seen in this shot:

If you can't spot all the changes, compare it to this:

I've also been rest running locos and stock ready for the layout's appearance at the 009 Society members day in Mansfield on 29th June, including the new tram locomotive (which incidentally was admired by it's designer at Burton!):

As I suspected, this loco is a little taller than the other stock, although I do recall that the Cleethorpes example was also quite tall, and what's a 15" gauge railway without some size difference?  I couldn't resist this recreation of a typical Cleethorpes scene of years past....

I've found a few little jobs to keep me busy over the coming fortnight, mostly related to couplings and coach roofs, plus further test running!

Colin

A Quick Paint Job for Toby

My MG Models "Toby" tram has now received a quick (by my standards) paint job into an appropriate colour scheme.  In fact, from primer to varnish only took a week, but that is more down to luck than anything else.

Prior to priming most of the bodywork was prepared with Birchwood Casey gun blue in order to promote adhesion and hide any future accidental chipping.  The parts were then scrubbed clean for a final time and dried off with a hairdryer.  At the point of priming (using Halfords grey primer) the body, underframe, roof and interior were separate units.  The day after priming the body was sprayed with Halfords Ford 'Tuscan Beige' to get the wooden colour.  Whilst this was drying the roof and underframe units were brush painted with acrylics.  Prior to varnishing the body and underframe were Araldited together.  Varnishing used Testors 'Dulcote' - my first experience of this product and a satisfactory flat finish.

Whilst the exterior was being painted, the interior had a different approach to painting.  The grey undercoat was used as a base, over which I ran a wash of black acrylic paint to sit in the recesses and detail. Once this was dry I dry brushed the engine block with a metalic acrylic shade, ans picked out various details such as air tanks with solid colour.  Once everything was varnished the interior was stuck into the body using Evo-stick.  The roof was then located into position (I had added bent lengths of wire in each corner to locate it), then held in place with elastic bands and Araldite carefully applied to the inside corners and points along the sides/ends.

All that remains to do is to add a little weathering.  Actually, a little more weathering, as can be seen in the pictures, a weathering wash was used over the beige part of the model before varnishing in order to pick out the planking and the recesses of the framework.

Colin