Nelson's Workbench

[Dunluce Castle]

I know it's not much but I made these ratio level crossing gates for my brothers layout.

[scahalane]

Lovely looking job.

[Dunluce Castle]

Hello everyone,

 

I managed to get the brake van, cattle wagons and coal wagons complete last week and then I began work on Northern Ireland's most famous wagons, the spoil wagons.

These are done by Provincial Wagons and are absolutely superb kits, such a joy to put together, I have built 8 (5 for myself and 3 for a friend) I've nearly finished one of them, just the buffer heads to do then onto the other 7

Many thanks

Nelson

[enniscorthyman]

Great work there Nelson.I love the LC gates.

[leslie10646]

Hi Nelson

 

Thanks for the sales pitch for the Spoil kit. I'll slip you a fiver when I next see you!

 

It must be reasonably easy to put together, as rakes of them seem to be popping up everywhere!

 

I have good stocks of the kit, if any other UTA period enthusiasts fancy a rake, or a few to use as pw wagons in NIR '70s.

 

Leslie

[Hunslet 102]

Great job with the spoil wagon Nelson,it really looks the part.Nice set of level crossing gates too

[richrua]

I must say Nelson you have a real skill in painting and weathering. I think I saw these spoil wagons on one of the Irish Railway dvds?

[heirflick]

lovely work -high standard as usual!

[Dunluce Castle]

Thanks guys for your comments, I appreciate them a lot, it's a way of telling me that I'm doing something right and not completely wrong lol, the spoil wagon was the one I was unsure about because they were quite unique and I had to rely on few colour pictures and sometimes colour pics can be quite misleading? But it seems I've done alright, just finished painting the other 7 and will be applying transfers shortly, happy modelling folks

[leslie10646]

Folks

 

I have now seen at least fifteen of my kits built - unpainted, painted pristine and mucky - and while all these clever chaps have "mucked" the wagons up, no-one has yet tried to really "age" them. What I'm getting at is that after a fairly short time in service, the lips of the hopper got well and truly bashed! Can't wait to see someone's stake on that!

 

I assume, by the way, that you youngsters know that the trains were referred to as the "Muck Trains" - so these are Muck wagon kits! People THINK that the M in the wagon number was for "Magheramorne" (Quarry where the Muck (sorry, "Spoil") came from), but the enthusiasts knew that it really stood for Muck!

 

Without these trains, there'd be no No.4 today!

[Dunluce Castle]

Hello everyone,

 

Got 3 more spoil wagons weathered and I'm really quite proud of them, so that's 4 now done and onto the next 4, obviously if there's anything seriously wrong with them or anything that can be improved be sure to let me know, I'm happy to take constructive criticism as it all helps

 

Many thanks

Nelson

[aclass007]

They look fine from here!

[Glenderg]

Bloody superb as always, but i think you can push the weathering even further!

[Mike 84C]

Looking good from over here and I"m with Glenderg on the weathering from photographs I"ve seen.Push the envelope Nelson! Regards Mike

[popeye]

Great work as usual, very nice weathering.

[Dunluce Castle]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for your kind comments guys ^

Here's my attempt at pushing the weathering even further, I'm a bit unsure of it. so be honest please what do we think?

The one on the left is the new one.

 

Nelson

Edited October 27, 2014 by Dunluce Castle

[Dunluce Castle]

Just as a heads up the above wagon M53 has been re-painted and is now in its pristine colour ready for me to have another bash at weathering as my fist attempt was pretty horrific tbh.

[popeye]

They look good to me. Depending on the look you want, some pictures in books show them in a new condition and in the late part of their working

life they were quite dirty & rusted. If your happy with them that's all that matters.

[Dunluce Castle]

Thanks Popeye for your comment,

 

Over the last week I've been building these 2 Cambrian LNER kits but found them to be incredibly close to those used by the UTA so painted them in UTA colours, after all the LNER did build wagons for the UTA to replace those destroyed by the Belfast blitz, so they are close enough and I'm happy with them, I've weathered them lightly and added a timber load to one of them but I think the wooden planks are a it too big and coarse for OO gauge? So they might be replaced.

Many thanks

Nelson

[Warbonnet]

Very nice Nelson. I believe that there's a piece on the free DVD with November's BRM which deals with modelling wood loads in 4mm scale. Might be worth picking up.

[Dunluce Castle]

Thanks warbonnet, yep picked that up the other day and its very good it's why I'm saying the load may be a bit too big but they could jut be big planks of wood

[burnthebox]

Nelson, not daring to say those are wrong, but maybe look at the planks of the wagons themselves may help, just saying, ok, ok,

[Dunluce Castle]

Thanks for your comment, ^ I'll be changing the load shortly.

 

A friend of mine wanted me to make him a Thomas the tank milk van and the orders were to keep it nice and simple so here's my efforts, it's a scratch built body on a Cambrian Underframe kit, the roof and couplings will be fitted after painting.

Thanks

Nelson

[richrua]

you could build anything

[Dunluce Castle]

Just settling in after a great exhibition, it was a brilliant show and I think everyone really did enjoy themselves. A video of the show is still being edited and will hopefully be up sometime this week, my spoil wagons joined others on bleach green and together they recreated a classic 20 rake spoil train from the late 60s double headed by 2 Jeeps, what a sight it was, stay tuned for the vid of this. The exhibition also provided me the chance to give the milk van that I made to my friend and he was very happy with it, here it is on his layout (his pics)

I have a number of examinations in the upcoming weeks so I'm not going to start any new projects until mid December, so until then I shall be finishing off current projects such as the seaplane and tank, just small military models, exams come first! But what is does give me the chance to do is go through everything I have and start ordering stuff ready for the new year, I've already ordered a lining pen and about to order stuff to help me with my wagon building.

[Dunluce Castle]

Hello everyone,

 

Quite amazed at how long I've been going for without modelling mainly because of school and exams but hey that's life this 1/72nd scale elefant tank is my first model I've done since the last update and I wanted to try out a couple of things on it, such as the winter camo, which was my first attempt at doing and I think it's turned out fairly well, what do you guys think? Now that this is done I have another U2 to do and more spoil wagons so that should keep me busy over Christmas.

 

That's all for now folks,

Thanks

Nelson

[Garfield]

Serious piece of German heavy metal there, Nelson... nice work!

Edited December 9, 2014 by Garfield

[burnthebox]

Nelson you did say spoil wagons didn't you, just asking. !!

[Dunluce Castle]

Thanks Garfield and yes burnthebox

[Dave]

Lovely work Nelson

[heirflick]

great stuff - another job well done!

[David Holman]

A fine array of wagons, Nelson & an interesting bit of history re the LNER opens - especially as I have a couple myself which I built for my BR, Eastern Region layout. 32mm gauge, but easily altered for wagon wheels.

One constructive comment, if I may. Wagons of the quality you are producing would look even better without the ugly tension lock couplings. Can understand why folk use them, but there are alternatives, which might be worth investigating. Three links are a bit of a faff in 4mm scale, though I found I could work them if I stuck to the Smiths ones, which have fairly large links and hooks. Alternatively, Dinghams are not bad either.

[Dunluce Castle]

Thank you David, i appreciate your comment and advice, I'm with you with regards to tension lock couplings which is why I'm now starting to use 3 links but I'm still looking around for different alternatives, until then the search continues

[Dunluce Castle]

Hello everyone.

 

Hello everyone.

 

Well it's been weeks since I've done any modelling, Christmas came and went, new year came and went and now I'm back to school so yeah, oh and did I mention exams are coming up lol, so I've been revising and just overall very busy so literally no modelling has been done except this wee thing that took ages to do, but it's now done and I thought Id show you guys. I won't be doing anything until the exams are done and I have a few railway projects planned for then, so until then.

 

Happy new year

Nelson

[Noel]

Hello everyone.

 

Hello everyone.

 

Well it's been weeks since I've done any modelling, Christmas came and went, new year came and went and now I'm back to school so yeah, oh and did I mention exams are coming up lol, so I've been revising and just overall very busy so literally no modelling has been done except this wee thing that took ages to do, but it's now done and I thought Id show you guys. I won't be doing anything until the exams are done and I have a few railway projects planned for then, so until then.

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Happy new year

Nelson

 

Looks great Nelson. Mind you it reminds when Fr Ted visited Father Fitzpatrick's war memorabilia and asked "Nothing from the Allied side?" and got the response "No, that sort of thing wouldn't interest me at all." Superb modelling.