Kingsbridge - workbench

[Broithe]

11 hours ago, Jimbo325ci said:

 I’ve recently discovered audiobooks which I play in the background! 

This is currently on BBC 4 Extra - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072szv/episodes/player - being audio, it should be available everywhere. One of the best examples of a book reading that I've heard.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Broithe

[Noel]

Lima GSV conversion update.  A few more cycles of fill, sand, prime, etc.  Roof more or less finished except for exhaust.  I tried as much was possible with my limited skillset to mimic the roof of the GSV in SSM's photo (inset below).  Added vent brackets, lifting rings, air intake, boiler overflow, etc.

Louver vents and water intakes framed 

Primed once more after sand'n'rub down, almost ready for buffers and gangways, etc.  I've decided not to attempt flush windows as this old style Lima body is quite thick.  May attempt flush glazing with the Bachmann donor for the BCK GSV which will start as soon as this is ready for spraying.  B5 bogie couplings will be changed to Kadee's in the future.  Pondering some sort of internal lighting and tail lamps, but might leave that for 3173 which will be on RPSI duty with the MM Blue Cravens.

[Glenderg]

That's quite impressive! Whip out them mullions, I'll post out some glazing I have to spare that should help. After all the effort thus far, it would be a shame to have it held back by 40 year old tooling. 

The real icing on the cake would be to drill two holes in either tank filler square at either ends, 0.35mm or so, insert yer lifting eye wire with a touch of cyano, and clip off. It's painful, but puts your model on a level beyond what's available off the shelf. 

possible ocd on my part, feel free to ignore . R. 

[Noel]

Hi Richie.  Thanks for the kind offer of the glazing.  I may take you up on that in the future for the second GSV conversion if it is a Lima.  Yes I plan to do a few more bits including the water filler pipes.    Noel

A few more blemishes to touch up and she is almost ready for the spray shop.  Waiting on some components from Radionics for lights and tail lamps. Going to attempt DIY lighting using bridge rectifier, capacitor and micro pot.  Need to change the wheels so I can get electrical pickup from alternate axles rather than wheel edges.  @Junctionmad has raised the bar somewhat with rivets on his fuel tank access hatch covers, so I'll have to attempt to keep up, especially as both these GSVs will make their first appearance on one of WMRC's layouts soon.  Mine has sprung buffers - JM's are fixed castings  All good fun!

[Noel]

Back to GSV for some spray painting.  Tan and White bands approx painted before reverse masking.  Roof light grey as I was going to use maskol to create light grey peeling blotches under black roof but decided against filthy black roof as these were not in that state in early 70s when delivered.

Reverse masked the white band and tan bands.  I meant to make the white and orange edges in the black zone fuzzier so there wouldn't be a ridge but I had a 1/2" ridge of masking tape between the white and orange zones while I was spraying so I could do both in one go without overspray, but left a slight ridge at the edge of the temporary white band which would end up narrower after the reverse masking.  After this I sprayed black all over, and then a dusting of frame dirt on the chassis, bogies, ends, and gangways.

Relieved when I pulled the masking tape off to reveal the white band and the tan band.  The white band (4.5") during CIE Black'n'tan era was not as wide as on the laminates, cravens, etc (6").

As this GSV is done in early 70s CIE livery I decided to do the roof in the earlier grey colour lightly weathered.  It wasn't until the IR/IE era that the roofs were in an awful state with black peeling off to reveal the earlier grey underneath.

Next up add the gangways, bogies, light weathering, then gloss varnish, decals, matt varnish and add the door grab rails, water fillers, etc.  I'm enjoying this but it's taking forever.  Can't help wondering of it would have been easier to buy an RTR one and modify it!  

Edited December 7, 2017 by Noel

[flange lubricator]

looking great

 

[jhb171achill]

Absolutely top class job - I've been following this one with interest. It's not often too, that accurate notice is taken of the thinner white line on these coaches. One small point though - nothing black'n'tan would ever have had a grey roof - always black; however, such were the deprivations of rust and exhaust, that roofs on these things tended to be sixty shades of black, filth, greys, browns, rust and general gunk!

Unlike passenger-carrying stock, all sorts of genny vans from tin vans through to Dutch and BR types, tended to be washed less frequently, and thus show up often as more weathered than accompanying Park Royals, Cravens and laminates. So if this one is to be as pristine as the sides, a black roof would probably be better with very light weathering, depicting something just out of Inchicore (but not to stay that way, probably, for long!). If a weathered, worn, roof is preferred, a good degree of brake dust in the nether regions, and side weathering, would look more fitting.

 

(NB: grey roofs with green livery, even then, in latter "green" days, sometimes black).

Edited December 7, 2017 by jhb171achill

[Noel]

That's really helpful Jonathan, thanks for the info.  I do plan to weather the sides.  The paint is still drying.  

[jhb171achill]

I remember seeing a "tin van" on the Limerick - Ballina. The thing was in such a state that you'd have been forgiven for thinking it had a BROWN line above window level, not white....and the glass in the windows was the same colour, as were the ends and chassis! It had a bit of a "limp" too; looked like it was on its last legs.

Incidentally, if anyone knows where a 2nd handy Mayner tin van might be had, I'm interested.........

[Noel]

This is the look I'm after in the CIE early 1970s livery (Rosslare) even though the GSV below is BCK layout, my model is BSK.

Photo (C) Stephen Rabone of 3174 taken 1984 (cleanish GSV) from his site: http://steverabone.com/RailwayPhotographs/ireland_1984.htm

Edited December 7, 2017 by Noel
lexdysia

[jhb171achill]

Yes, those are plain black roofs, shiny from either rain or carriage washing plants.

The black ends of CIE coaches ought always to be weathered at least a bit, bogies likewise, to achieve realism. While all painted black, they didn't look that way for long. It's a bit like a rake of pristine four wheeled wagons - they just don't look right if pristine!

[ttc0169]

Nice and clean work so far.....Don't forget to include the waving Guard........

[Noel]

2 minutes ago, ttc0169 said:

Nice and clean work so far.....Don't forget to include the waving Guard........

Is there a model of you Noel on Shapeways in 4mm scale?   

[popeye]

Very nice and neat paint work. 

[ttc0169]

29 minutes ago, Noel said:

Is there a model of you Noel on Shapeways in 4mm scale?   

I'm working on that one......

[jhb171achill]

Those vans would have made a great place to put a layout inside, ttc.............................

[Glenderg]

The "black" that I tend to use on roofs is generally diluted with a bit of white to make it more charcoal, especially on the steam vans. The heat from the vents, boilers, flux capacitors and other gizmos they tended to use meant the paint on the roof took a greater hammering than that on the sides, and appeared to be less well maintained. 

Just out of curiousity - "The white band (4.5") during CIE Black'n'tan era was not as wide as on the laminates, cravens, etc (6")." this is a new one on me, care to expand on your research?

Great work thus far! R

[jhb171achill]

The carriages were British, thus built to their lower, narrower loading gauge. The whole idea behind the white lines was to have it at an exact height from rail level, so that the disparate types of carriages, initially all green, would look more uniform if this was painted across everything at the same height. Due to a lower roof on BR vans, thus a lower cantrail gutter, the bottom of the white line would stay the same as on other stock, so wouldn't be as thick, as the lower roof got in the way!

Perusal of pictures will show this, plus the absolute uniformity on other stock. The original experimental black'n'tan from its earliest sample outing in 1962, had slightly thicker white lines, but these didn't make it to production.

[Noel]

8 hours ago, Glenderg said:

The "black" that I tend to use on roofs is generally diluted with a bit of white to make it more charcoal, especially on the steam vans. The heat from the vents, boilers, flux capacitors and other gizmos they tended to use meant the paint on the roof took a greater hammering than that on the sides, and appeared to be less well maintained. 

Just out of curiousity - "The white band (4.5") during CIE Black'n'tan era was not as wide as on the laminates, cravens, etc (6")." this is a new one on me, care to expand on your research?

7 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

The carriages were British, thus built to their lower, narrower loading gauge. The whole idea behind the white lines was to have it at an exact height from rail level, so that the disparate types of carriages, initially all green, would look more uniform if this was painted across everything at the same height. Due to a lower roof on BR vans, thus a lower cantrail gutter, the bottom of the white line would stay the same as on other stock, so wouldn't be as thick, as the lower roof got in the way!

Perusal of pictures will show this, plus the absolute uniformity on other stock. The original experimental black'n'tan from its earliest sample outing in 1962, had slightly thicker white lines, but these didn't make it to production.

 

Thanks Richie.  Useful info, too, especially the 'flux capacitors' effect on roof peeling  Re the thiner white stripe, I just noticed the difference from photographs and approx eyeball measured from pics, but Jonathan's (the Oracle) explanation seems spot on. I'm taking a little poetic license on the roof colour because I can't find any 1970s delivery pics when they were presumably initially BR mk1 grey and I just don't like pure black roofs on the layout.  I don't know how soon CIE would have painted the roofs black after delivery, or if they just did the sides.  When I do the B&T GSV after next, it will be tippex era, so that will get the fifty black 'flux capacitor' peeling roof treatment.  The next will hopefully be RPSI 3173 BCK in Maroon using a Bachmann donor instead of Lima.

[jhb171achill]

4 hours ago, Noel said:

I'm taking a little poetic license on the roof colour because I can't find any 1970s delivery pics when they were presumably initially BR mk1 grey and I just don't like pure black roofs on the layout.  I don't know how soon CIE would have painted the roofs black after delivery, or if they just did the sides.  When I do the B&T GSV after next, it will be tippex era, so that will get the fifty black 'flux capacitor' peeling roof treatment.  The next will hopefully be RPSI 3173 BCK in Maroon using a Bachmann donor instead of Lima.

The BR livery vanished in its entirety before entering traffic - the entire coach was painted in the standard CIE livery with black roofs from the outset. Nothing orange and black ever ran with grey roofs. Dirt, of course, can throw up many shades of many things.....!

[Noel]

1 hour ago, jhb171achill said:

The BR livery vanished in its entirety before entering traffic - the entire coach was painted in the standard CIE livery with black roofs from the outset. Nothing orange and black ever ran with grey roofs. Dirt, of course, can throw up many shades of many things.....!

Thanks Jonathan.  Dirt it is then  

[Glenderg]

Personally, I'm not convinced that there was ever such a thing as 4.5" stripe. I've seen 3" and 6", but never seen a half measure. I've been digging in to it with drawings and photos, and it would not surprise me one jot if such a thing existed, CIE being the oddballs we all love. Just finding photo evidence that can be quantified (camera matching etc) would be great. It's one of those "turf burner frames were used as a bridge on a golf course" things that grow legs, and tales  R

[Noel]

Hi Richie.  This is fascinating.  Thanks, as I said I'm purely using guesswork as to the precise thickness of the older CIE roof level stripe based on visual observation.  I've done my best to scale these to similar pics the same at the coach ends despite the slight difference in perspective.  The older CIE livery GSV on RHS does seem to have a thicker white line than the newer GSV in IR/IR tippex on LHS, but not as thick as the 6" used in the 60s and 70s B&T Craven and Laminates.  JB may have some additional nuggets of specifics.  I'll leave it up to you two to advise.   Now if you had some Kryptonite and a few spare Dilithium crystals to put in that flux-capacitor you might be able to travel back in time to 1974 with a calliper and measure fact from "turf burner" myth so I could get on and finish this model. 

Photos (C) Stephen Rabone (http://steverabone.com/RailwayPhotographs/ireland_1984.htm)

 

Note the GSV stripe not as thick as the Craven behind but as JB states the lower edge lines up with the lower edge of the Craven.

CIE era Park Royals and Craven with 6" stripes as opposed to the later IR/IE era 3" tippex

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by Noel
Lexdysia that just won't go away

[Noel]

GSV slowly but surely nearing completion.  Awaiting decals, a few bits of detailing and weathering, but should be finished early next week.  Keen systems LMS suspended sprung gangways added, replica B5 bogies and somebodies sprung buffers I can't even remember!  The last item I have to source is a model of Noel Enright waving out the window  

[Noel]

3 Steps - Lima BR mk1 brake second conversion to CIE GSV BSK 3185

[aclass007]

Lovely job! Great attention to detail all throughout the build....

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by aclass007

[PJR]

lovely work

[JasonB]

Cracking work Noel.Flawless paintjob as always

[Georgeconna]

Noel will have to bring his fag and uniform and get himself scanned at Warley is suitable posture. Impressive work Noel.

 

[flange lubricator]

Amazing job , just show's you what can be done , the Lima MK1 is very basic by today's standards but by adding new buffers good paint job

and of course the B5 bogies it brings it up great .

 

Edited December 11, 2017 by flange lubricator

[jhb171achill]

That is just stunning. Superb finish too.

[heirflick]

Deadly!

[burnthebox]

Mega piece of work Noel, really looking the business,  & the photo of the 3 stages are perfect,

BTB

[patrick]

A marvelous piece of work. I am impressed at how much you get done so quickly.

[Noel]

Thanks for the kind and encouraging comments guys.  Feeling somewhat humbled given the quarter from whence the comments came.   While waiting for decals and some detailing parts for the GSV . . .

Next project are some 20ft skeletal container wagon kits for my C-Rail 20ft Bell containers.  3D bogies with some white metal detailing bits.  Surfaces being 3D a little 'toothpaste' but judicious primer will help that and you won't even notice when they are under the Bell's.

 

The 3D bodies have NEM coupling pockets at the correct height.  Bodies are dead square and flat with no warping.  I added two small vertical container pins to each wagon to keep the containers in place.  I have four standard holes in the base of my C-Rail containers so they can be mounted on the wagon in either direction and I will have the option to run with or without the containers.

 

Primed in new'ish spray booth as it's too cold and damp to air brush outside in the shed this time of year. Will spray these bauxite later.  The kits were supplied by IFM and I'm very happy with them, quick and easy to assemble with minimal fettling, filing or tidy up needed.  The kits came with wheels, couplings and transfers.