"Voiding the Warranty" - Mol's experiments in 21mm gauge

[Mol_PMB]

Another warranty voided. A perfectly functional Murphy 141 class now in a million bits.

I have removed the cosmetic bogie frames and the fuel tank and started the weathering process on them.

Also I removed the wheelsets, dismantled them and reassembled with new longer axles, Gibson carriage wheels and some spacer tubes to keep the wheelsets central. 

Removing the body was quite an ordeal involving an excess of swearing, but eventually it came apart.

I scraped off the old numbers (149) with a cocktail stick, and renumbered it to 156 using some custom transfers I had printed a while ago. In this case, it is correct to have the large shaded numbers on the front.

I've also removed the tablet catchers and repainted them, ready to refit. I found that Precision Paints gave a better match to the Murphy orange than Railmatch did. 

I've started the weathering process on the body, running a dirty wash into the crevices. There's plenty more to do and I'll get the airbrush out tomorrow. I'm aiming for a loco that was recently repainted but has got a bit grubby in traffic and then been well cleaned on the bodysides and ends, but with a grubby roof and bogies, something like this 181 from Ernie:

It's interesting that even this pair specially prepared for a royal train still have grubby bogies!

156 ought to have its roundel a bit higher up than the one on the model, and I'm trying to decide whether to scrape them off and add new transfers in the correct place. It's tricky as they are under the handrail. I have some Railtec roundels which are the right size but are very 'orange' - they match the paint. These roundels faded quickly and the printed Murphy models roundels nicely capture the faded colour. Hmm...

I have not yet taken the plunge and tackled the buffers. I need to decide whether to hack then off and replace with unsprung, larger ones at the correct spacing. Or live with the ones that are already fitted. I was only able to get one set of the correct type and they're no longer made, so if I do the modification it will be my only 141 with correct buffers.

Also I'll need to refit the coupler pockets into the front valance.

 

More tomorrow, hopefully.

[DJ Dangerous]

35 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

I have removed the cosmetic bogie frames and the fuel tank and started the weathering process on them.

I wonder if there is any way of somehow using the cosmetic bogie frames, not yours in particular, just in general, to create O Gauge equivalents?

[Mol_PMB]

11 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

I wonder if there is any way of somehow using the cosmetic bogie frames, not yours in particular, just in general, to create O Gauge equivalents?

Interesting thought. Years ago I did a bit of Irish O gauge but used the American scale as it was closer to broad gauge. An Atlas switcher on flexicoil trucks had the right style of bogies though not 100% perfect.

It looks like the US version of the Flexicoil is now available as a 3D print:

https://3dcentraltrains.com/products/51001-flexicoil-p48-emd-truck-atlas-o-upgrade-kit

 

[StevieB]

Where can we get new number transfers, I have two class 141’s looking for new numbers?

Stephen

[jhb171achill]

4 minutes ago, StevieB said:

Where can we get new number transfers, I have two class 141’s looking for new numbers?

Stephen

Me too. I want 145 and 150.

[Horsetan]

6 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

....

I have not yet taken the plunge and tackled the buffers. I need to decide whether to hack then off and replace with unsprung, larger ones at the correct spacing. Or live with the ones that are already fitted. I was only able to get one set of the correct type and they're no longer made....

You might want to use the correct set as masters for casting further sets of buffers.....

[Mol_PMB]

9 hours ago, StevieB said:

Where can we get new number transfers, I have two class 141’s looking for new numbers?

Stephen

 

9 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Me too. I want 145 and 150.

Short answer - Railtec sheet number 5710.

Long answer - that isn't what I used - see the diatribe below...

 

I drew my own artwork for these, shaping each digit individually based on dozens of photos (OCD in action again...). Then I got them printed by Precision Decals.

I offered the artwork free to Steve at Railtec too, in case he wanted to produce them commercially. It was at that point I discovered that he does produce something similar - sheet number 5710:

https://railtec-models.com/showitem.php?id=11581

I have found it hard to search the Railtec website effectively for Irish items. You can only search for one word or phrase (no and/or functionality). Sometimes they are listed as 'Irish' or 'Ireland' but there are many Irish items labelled CIE, such as the broken wheels. However, a search for 'CIE' returns hundreds of irrelevant transfers - so many that the ones you actually want are off the bottom of the page, and there isn't a 'next' button... (FYI, broken wheels are in sets 5605, 5606, 5607). So that's my excuse for not finding this set on the Railtec website!

Anyway, I like my custom ones better. The differences in the shape of the numbers may be small, but I know mine are right. Steve's are pretty close though.

 

Anyway, back to 156, here's the prototype at Ennis in the late 1980s, about to haul me to Limerick. This is about 15 years later than the period my model represents; by this time the loco had been repainted and received unshaded numbers on the cab fronts, and the roundel moved down to the 'standard' position. Also it has an S suffix to the numbers on the sides, OHLE warning flashes, upward-facing headlight and the tablet catchers had been removed. 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Mol_PMB
unwanted merging of replies to different questions.

[Mol_PMB]

9 hours ago, Horsetan said:

You might want to use the correct set as masters for casting further sets of buffers.....

Is there a firm that would do that? I have no experience of making castings?

[Galteemore]

12 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Is there a firm that would do that? I have no experience of making castings?

Could probably do your own resin castings quite easily. I’ve done it for railbus wheels 

[Mol_PMB]

Just now, Galteemore said:

Could probably do your own resin castings quite easily. I’ve done it for railbus wheels 

Buffers are a complex shape though - would need a multi-part mould I think? And fragile in resin. It's not something I have any experience of. 

I'm also wary of stopping progress on the loco rebuild because bitter experience of my own uselessness is that if I stop now the bits will sit in a box forever and never get finished!

[Galteemore]

I’m opening just such a box of doom myself Paul, with the intent to progress it over Christmas. Fair point about the detail- one gets away with a fair amount of leeway in 7mm! Sorry to hear that you have OCD - having had some encounters with sufferers, it’s a very debilitating and often misunderstood condition and I hope that modelling gives you some respite from it. 

Edited 13 hours ago by Galteemore

[Mol_PMB]

3 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

I’m opening just such a box of doom myself Paul, with the intent to progress it over Christmas. Fair point about the detail- one gets away with a fair amount of leeway in 7mm! Sorry to hear that you have OCD - it’s a very debilitating condition and I hope that modelling gives you some respite for it. 

To be fair, I've not been diagnosed with OCD, but I do have an obsession with detail and I suspect I'm somewhere on that spectrum. I find modelling very helpful. My work also requires a lot of attention to detail and the hardest part is when there isn't time to do a job to the standards I set myself.

Anyway, I'd better get on with some modelling!

[Mayner]

52 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Buffers are a complex shape though - would need a multi-part mould I think? And fragile in resin. It's not something I have any experience of. 

I'm also wary of stopping progress on the loco rebuild because bitter experience of my own uselessness is that if I stop now the bits will sit in a box forever and never get finished!

 

Probabably worth checking out firms in the jewellery sector in Birmingham that carry out brass/lost wax casting.

I have used a local business that carries out lost wax casting to produce brass castings from metal, resin, plastic masters and 3D models to produce brass castings including buffers.

 

[Mol_PMB]

I've just weathered the roof. I used an experimental technique and it seems to have worked reasonably well.

I masked off most of the body with tape, and then dabbed on Maskol for the top edge, so that it was slightly uneven. 

Then I did the spraying, a dirty brown/grey mix over the whole roof but heavier in the middle, followed by 'rubber black' focused around the exhaust. 

It seems to have given the desired effect - with the edge looking like it has been cleaned slightly unevenly:

A bit like the loco in Ernie's photo here: