Back to some model trains!

It seems a long time sine I did some railway modelling. In fact look back it was at the start of the year when I poured the resin model water for the river on my 009 narrow gauge layout. Well that took some time to set and rather disappointingly looks more like a swamp than a river. It needs more resin poured but having learnt my lesson about the resin not setting in cold weather I will be awaiting the joys of a warm summer day. Now there's hoping after the past few days of storms!

The bridges over the river need to be completed and so today whilst watching the rain through the window I recommenced on the shared road/rail bridge with a wooden deck. For some reason the deck no longer fitted and even using some force would not get it to line up with the bridge supports. I cut my losses and started again. Sometimes it is the best thing to do and in this case probably saved me time. With a bit of trial and error I managed to get a new bridge deck built with strips of balsa to represent planks that fits the supports and incorporates the rail track as well. It just needs to be finally glued up having seen a few trail trains cross it and then some weathering. Funny though how running trains to trail something can take an hour of time!

Although the Scania production line has take the weekend off I did manage to finish painting the door interiors. All done with a brush which for the black rubber parts involved some careful free hand work to get the straight lines I have to admit though that there were one or two less than perfect parts and one of those tricks you learn to deal with this on transparent parts is to let the paint dry and then use a pointed cocktail stick to abrade the paint away. It does work! I also painted up some of the other light lenses with Tamiya transparent orange ready for fitting to the cab shell.

Storm Eunice!

Here in the UK we are being battered by the second storm in three days. Parts of the UK have suffered not only 100 mph plus winds but snow as well. Luckily for me the storm has not been as bad as for others - so far! I did manage a 19 mile bike ride this morning whilst the wind was relatively calmish!

Doing some inside jobs I did take an hour out to d a bit more on the model Scanias. The cab of the 143H is now partly assembled and ready for paint on a calmer day.

In my usual bout of curiosity I did tape the front panels and roof to the cab sides to see what it would look like and further curiosity saw me pose it with the 141LB.

I also built the headlight units for the Scania 141 where the lens were 'glued' into their headlamp units using Tamiya varnish. The varnish acts like a glue and dries clear so is perfect for jobs like this. The light lenses for the spot lights in the bumper were also 'glued' in with the varnish. 

Hopefully by the time that Storm Eunice subsides they will all have dried. In the meantime I am just hoping that the storm does not create any additional jobs on Mrs. Woody's list of jobs for me to do!

Scania Production Line 2!

An hour or so of further progress on the Scania models.

The 143H chassis is coming together and although the mudguards need to be glued I can not resist putting parts together temporarily to see what things look like.

The cab interior is also coming along in its two tone grey which I decided to brighten up a bit with the seats getting some red panels. Interior design is not my particular forte, just ask Mrs. W, but I think that this does work! The instrument decal has been applied to the dashboard and once set the steering wheel and column can be attached and then the dashboard can be fastened to the rest of the cab interior.

Certainly a lot less parts than yesterday!

Painting the door interiors on the Scania 141H has progressed with the yellow parts having had an undercoat of matt yellow waiting for a top coat of gloss yellow.

Have to see if the production line continues with this rate of progress - There is even a danger that I could finish both models in a couple of weeks!

Scania production line.

That is what my model making feels like at the moment! Having done an 18 mile bike ride where half of it felt as though I was cycling into a brick wall and the other half as though I was Mary Poppins (now there's a thought!) being blown home by Storm Dudley and having done some Mrs. W jobs it was time for an hour more on the Scanias. 

The door interiors on the 141LB by Heller are something that I have never seen in a model before. The whole door interior including the window is moulded as part of the transparent parts. Most strange. However I have started to paint these with the door cards being painted to match the rest of the interior. I have also painted the rear light lenses with Tamiya clear red and orange paints for the rear/brake lights and the indictors ready for fitting to the chassis.

More parts of the Scania 143H have been painted, mainly parts for the interior where the browns and yellows of the 1980's are replaced by the greys of the 1990's. How fashion changes!

Lots of parts just needing a production line to assemble them!

Light bulb moment!

A great sunny day which saw me clock up 512 miles on my bike this year so far. Even Smudge the cat came out of her basket curious at the brightness outside and took in some of the sun before heading back in for something to eat and another sleep. She has a hard life!

It was also sunny in the Man Cave AKA The Room of Gloom as the Heller Scania 141 LB made progress. 

First thing was to glue the two part tyres together. As these are rubber plastic cement was not going to work and my trials with super glue failed miserably. Pondering this as I fixed a puncture on my bike I suddenly had that light bulb moment. The adhesive used to adhere the repair patch to the inner tube glues rubber to rubber! Yes it did work on the model tyres as well! Half an hour with my puncture repair kit on the workbench had the tires glued. I also remembered to return my repair kit to the bike or that could be a swear jar moment when a future puncture occurs.

The engine has now been glued in and the wheels attached to the axles and just await their center caps to be fitted. The cab front has also had various decals applied and the model now looks like this.

Not many parts to fit now but the further into the build you get the more fearful you become of something going wrong! Hopefully nothing does.

Sometimes you have to be destructive to be constructive!

 

As I highlighted yesterday I needed to take drastic action to try to make the inner cab unit fit the outer cab shell on the Scania 141LB. First try was a lot of clamps and leaving the model on top of a radiator for a while. As the radiator is a central heating water filled one there was no risk of fire but always a risk of damage to the paint. The idea was that as the plastic heated up and became a little more flexible the clamps would pull it into place. That was the theory and the model was completely successful in proving  me wrong! Rather than breaking into a Basil Fawlty moment and threatening the model I sat back and thought that there was no other way remaining other than to be destructive so I could deal with the inner cab unit. I therefore had to be destructive! Out came all the cab innards and it was not easy as my glue joints were for some unusual reason strong! Seats, bunks and steering wheel all ended up on the work bench. It looked terrible!

I felt a bit like Edd from Wheeler Dealers with a stripped out cab putting right the underlying problems. I had to shave parts off the lower back joint of the inner cab part and file parts off where it matches up with the passenger door. I also had to cut  chunk out there and cut back and reshape and rejoin the part. The result was that the panel fitted apart from a gap at the side which cannot be seen. With that issue resolved it was back to putting the parts back in with the advantage that there was no annoying Mike Brewer telling me he had worked hard in having the glove box emptied! Anyway I am back to this and yes I have tested that the roof fits! 

With all the handling that the cab has had there are some marks on the paintwork which I am hopeful will polish out just like on Wheeler Dealers!

Pulling levers and turning wheels!

Another day at the Rocks by Rail Museum. Although there were only four of us there we got a bit more ballasting and track leveling done. With a minimal crew on hand I was allowed to pull a point lever which was a first for me and operate the chutes on the ballast wagon by turning the operating wheels which again was a first. I think I didn't make too much of a mess of it as the loco traversed the point OK and the ballast came out of the wagon in the right places!

These are the wheels on the ballast wagon. There are three. The outer two open the side chutes whilst the middle one opens the one in the center of the hopper.

The ballast in the hopper discharges through the chutes....

and out of the side of the hopper.

There is always some ballast that refuses to come out so in this case Richard went in to poke it out.

Looking at where we are now with the ongoing track ballsting and leveling shows just how far we have progressed. We started near to the engine shed in the far distance of this photo back in October.

We need to get down to that wagon in the distance on this photograph near that red board so probably over half way now. We need to be ready for the opening of the Museum at Easter so there is still a lot of work to do!

Walking down the track today I noticed that some of the concrete sleepers have the old WD or War Department mark on them.

These apparently date from the First World War. Not bad for being over 100 years old! 

On the Scania 141LB build my fears about dealing with warped and twisted parts and these causing problems have proved correct! No amount of pulling levers or turning wheels or even pushing and coercing the parts makes this problem go away!

I can see I will need to take some drastic action and get another larger swear jar!

Nerve wracking times!

The time has come with the build of the Heller Scania 141LB to put the cab exterior around the cab interior. It is nerve racking as I am dealing with painted parts, glazing and with a kit that has twisted and warped parts that have no doubt caused some issues with the subassemblies which probably show up in yesterdays pictures. This particular part of construction could well see the need for a much larger swear jar! 

First job was to fit the glazing into the rear windows using Deluxe Materials Glue and Glaze which works well.

Once the glue is set I can then go onto the difficult part so there will be much trial fitting and no doubt shaving of parts to get it to all fit. 

I did have the opportunity to spray up the front bumper in white which can await fitting whilst I fill the swear jar!

Getting there!

Getting there, is the usually response from me to Mrs. Woody's enquiries as to progress on her list of jobs. Getting there, is usually that unspoken code for, well its not really progressed much but I am working on it - honest! However with a day of doing various different jobs today and getting there with some of them, I did manage to fit in some model making between and in this case the model Scania 141LB is indeed actually getting there but don't tell Mrs. W! Some airbrushing, some gluing and some balancing of parts towards the end of the day to see what it will look like. The wheels still need attaching properly, the exterior of the cab is held up by a paint bottle but the interior is more or less finished as is the engine and the mud guards are now attached after another coat of black paint on the rubber parts. So here we are - getting there! Now where is that list of jobs......

Fuel for thought

This evening I managed a couple of hours of work on the Scania 141LB. Thoughtfully, having painted the straps on the fuel tanks yesterday I was able to mount them to the chassis which gave that a bit more of a look of a complete chassis. I also have matt varnished the engine block as well as the one for the Scania 143 and applied a wash to highlight detail on both. The mudguards for the 141LB have also been painted, unusually for me, using a conventional brush. As it was a black matt paint used to represent rubber parts it should be OK. Putting it all together (the mudguards are yet to be properly attached) it actually is looking good to my aging eyes! The coloured engine certainly adds something.

I did grab a few minutes earlier toady to put a first coat of red onto the Scania 143 rear wheel hubs which I primed in white earlier last week. Red can sometimes be an awkward colour to paint as the pigment is not that strong meaning if you apply it with an airbrush it can look very washed out hence an initial coat of matt which has a denser pigment content then the gloss red which I will apply later. Actually sounds as though I know what I am talking about. Now that is fuel for thought! Wonder what Mrs. W thinks?

Masking it!

No not masking me up although some would say it might improve my looks! In this case I needed to paint the straps on the fuel tanks for the Scania 141LB in an aluminum shade of paint. I could have tried doing it freehand with a paintbrush but previous experience starting from my early days of childhood has shown me my inability to keep in the lines not only of colouring books but on models as well. So I needed to mask the tanks and then airbrush the silver paint. It took me almost an hour to mask the tanks up but it was worth it. Whilst the paint was in the airbrush I also painted the tank for the Scania 143.

Also taking time but not needing masking were various components on the engine so they look a bit more interesting now.

They need to dry fully and a coat of varnish will be applied before they both get a wash of black to highlight the details. This may sound a bit strange as black hides things but in this case the wash is a very dilute mix of paint that settles in the recesses and around the edges of the models which in effect highlights them. 

Putting my efforts together for the day there is not all that much to show but this is sometimes how model making goes - progress is masked by the detail!