murrayec

A lot of Fry locos were made from mild steel sheet, akin to a railway companies engineering design prototyping model workshops!.... Eoin

Hi Noel That's unfortunate the paint coming off, though I would not recommend washing down plastic or resin with IPA! The best course to follow is wash it down with water and a spoonful of washing soda mixed in and thoroughly rinse in clean water, filtered if possible! One should also abrade resin with a soft fibre pen or fine wet n dry paper- resin contains oils and some casting never fully cure, if you get the paint onto a dry abraded surface the paint will seal it in. IPA comes in different strengths and all depending on which one one uses and what plastic the model is it could work or it could be a disaster! A better cleaner is methylated spirits. I use enamel paints and wait at least 3-4 days to allow the paint to dry off before applying tape or another coat, if the next coat is applied to early the under coat will take thinners from the coat one is spraying, the under coat can become soft and loose contact with the under surface - enamel takes 2 to 3 weeks to harden off completely. Eoin

Detail parts going on- the exhaust Pipes, horns, handrails, door handles, vac pipes, marker light surrounds and the badges. Next on the body is cab painting, an overall spray of satin lacquer, and then the decals. This is the pick-ups installed on the underside of the bogies. Experienced a few problems with the threaded crank-pins- the crankpin nuts would lock up on one side and come undone on the other, so had to install a set of Alan Gibson crankpin bearings. Motor bogie up and running. Chassis assembled. Ready to run for testing over the weekend..... Eoin

@Broithe Can you send us a large sample of that Eoin

800 Loco body unmasked today after completing the cab painting, a few minor touch-ups are required- mainly the black getting in under the masking at the rivet details, the roof edge also needs attention. The masking is still on the window frames just in case you are wondering! Eoin

Hi Ken July 12th is the next Train & Model Fair, welcome to bring the layout and the Jeep 'in build', I'm sure chaps would like to see it's progress...... Eoin

Buffer beams next, I decided to paint these first before the black. Quickly masked up. First a gloss white coat was sprayed on and then the red. Note;- don't use that Lidl paper for masking if using white spirit- the inks in the print dilute and leave marks behind on the model. So masking up for the black paint- Humbrol Satin 85, using brown paper this time! And two coats applied. The tender unwrapped and looking great, a few small fixes done here n there. A coat of lacquer and we're ready for lining! The loco is still masked up for painting the cab. Turning two 4mm dia brass gauges for the backhead, this photo is of drilling the pipe holes after two gauges are marked out on the brass bar. Turning completed with recessed dial faces and .8mm brass wire glued in for the pipes. The dial faces are inkjet prints with transpaseal stuck on to protect. The completed backhead with finish Alclad II Semi-Matte lacquer. The completed name and number plates. The completed lamps and vac pipes, the bezels in the lamps is epoxy resin glue lumped in to give a dome shape. Cab cream paint is complete just needs the brown paint below the windows all round.... ....and it's ready for lining also. Eoin

'O no it wont'.....

Here is a thing I haven't done in a while- build a DART pantograph;- These are the moulds for casting the four main parts in white metal. After cleaning up the parts the hole drilling starts, this is the lower arm upper pivot being drilled .5mm for brass rod pivot. Lower pivot of the upper arm drilled .5mm and been tested with the brass pin. Testing the two arm assembly pivot fit. The main frame pivot holes being drilled and test fitting the pivot pins- .6mm dress pins. I use paraffin wax to lube the drill bits when doing white metal, that lump in the photo left has been with me since I was 9 or 10!! Cutting the dress pins for the lower arm/main frame pivots, the arm crossbar has been drilled in 4mm both ends to take the pins. All works so now for epoxy gluing, the pin heads are glued to the main frame only, the shafts are then free to allow the arm rotate. Top of panto is soldered to the upper arm with lead 70deg solder in a little mdf jig to get things aligned and leave the two hands free to do the soldering. The springs are made from plastic coated jewellery wire 'Tiger Wire' some call it. The upper spring is bent double and will be epoxy glued in the front end of the lower arm where a .8mm hole has been drilled. The lower spring is bent double with little hooks bent up at each end to catch the back of the main frame for epoxy gluing. Springs on and fixed with glue, the centre arms pivot is glued also only on the outer ends of the brass pivot. Plastic cast roof recess and panto lock down pin set up, the hook is .4mm nickel silver bent up and soldered at the fixing pin end. Lock installed by gluing pin through into drilled hole in the plastic box upstand. And complete. Eoin.

Off the ball today JHB... that's a different 'Brendan' who built Kingsbridge Station. Eoin

By the photos it would seem to be missing parts- valve gear and cylinder parts! also other kits from this seller are also missing parts... Eoin

The first coats of brown did not go on to well, the paint just refused to flatten out when drying! so gave it a good week to dry and then out with the wet n dry and rubbed it down all over. The next few coats went on beautifully- flattened out n all shiny. Next was the masking up for the black paint on the running boards, cab floor, and the smokebox on the boiler. Black on. I got a good wet coat on after spraying a light tacky coat and leaving it for 45mins before applying the wet coat. And unmasked. I set up a decal sheet for doing the boiler bands and some of the lining, I sprayed a base coat of the brown colour onto Testors transparent decal sheet but the paint did not take to it very well, finger prints and greasy areas caused the paint to run away! When that coat dried I washed it down with white spirit and sprayed it again, I ended up with a very poor surface for running a bow pen on which is what I'm going to use to do the lining. I decided that this was going to be a practice sheet and would order new and better paper, so in the mean time I had a go... I strapped the decal sheet to a bit of white board, using a T-Square and a heavy ruler with masking tape stuck to the underside so the ruler stood off the sheet. I did a few yellow test lines using a guide sheet there on the left with the line positions marked out in pencil, as suspected there was to much undulation in the base paint the lines came out different thickness over the length. Not happy with this so will wait for the new paper. I did the black paint between a few of the top yellow lines for the boiler bands but it was disastrous and not going to show you! Chassis and wheel painting is complete and the chassis is now back together. So nearly there...... Eoin

Hi JB Some have used RAL 7015 which is a pretty close match, Eoin

I use all kinds of insulation for baseboards, see at this link;- Eoin

That back-scene pink truck got a make over in the paint shop;- A bit of silver black on the truck, gloss white on the trailer, and gloss white on the 'Gold' wheels. This is the set-up for that view of the truck coming out of the trees, the trailer is cut at the appropriate angle and dept, and the trees mask off the view to the missing end. After cutting the trailer styrene ends were installed with 3mm dia magnets to stick the end back on if one decides to locate the truck n trailer elsewhere on the layout. Eoin

The Train & Model Fair is back in business, here is the date for July;-

I live on a country lane which sees a fair share of horses, more than occasionally they leave deposits on the road outside my place! Luckily there is a lady that does roses up the lane, so I give her a call and she's down in an instant cloves, willies n bucket..... Eoin

Scrawker Mod;- 3mm mdf handle epoxied to both sides of the blade- doesn't hurt the fingers any-more. Eoin

Making the steps/ladder for the Martello Tower is a bit fiddly so I made a mdf jig to hold the styrene side strings in place while gluing the threads in. Done. Starting to paint the tower. After a number of coats of Humbrol 1 I washed it down with a dilute black wash and now hopefully the next step is a light translucent coat of very light grey to finish off?? Racers, steps, door and flagpole all painted and awaiting instillation. I gave up on the flat styrene racers featured above, with the stone scoring I decided to use .8mm piano wire for the racers which will be glued in after the stonework is painted. I also made up a flag pole from .8mm brass rod with a hoop and cleat from .4mm brass soldered on, the pole cap is a bit of styrene tube glued on. Eoin

@Noel I would recommend using epoxy glue for resin mouldings, the main structure done complete with epoxy, one could use Rocket 5-10 (it's stronger but does bloom if one uses to much) to assemble small parts and then apply epoxy to reinforce. Cyano does not suffer shock well and bits are liable to spring off.... The insides of these wagons would not have been painted so if thinking of painting a wood colour would be the one...... The doors were right down to the floor and the ramp closed up against them which locked them shut..... Eoin

@Midland Man yes pretty sad- I heard that the chap who built it- his family from the UK came visiting and asked could they call to the house to view the layout as it was their father's pride & joy, they were very disappointed when they saw the track in it's over-grown state. I will be building a 3.5" straight track in my garden to run the Northumbrian loco when complete, I may invite the now owners of the track to come and view it running and that may light a spark!! Eoin

@airfixfan you may have this already- Ernie Shepard's book 'Bulleid And The Turf Burner And Other Experiments With Irish Steam Traction' by KRB Publishing ISBN 0954203585. Eoin