Seans workbench thing

[Mayner]

I moved from OO to N gauge during the late 1970s mainly because I did not have space for a layout  and mistaken belief that I would be less tempted to attempt scratchbuilding/kitbashing locos and rolling stock in N gauge, which was soon proved completely un-true.

I ended up building an end-to end shelf layout based on current CIE practice using re-painted and modified Lima, Graham-Farish, Minitrix and Peco stock which passed the 2' rule.

I originally re-painted the Lima BR Class 31 as an A Class and the Lima German center cab diesel as the GN Mak, but eventually ended up re-building Atlas American SW 1500 switcher locos into 121 & 141 Class diesels which became the mainstay of operations. The 141 and 001 had scratchbuilt plasticard bodies, while I fitted scratchbuilt plasticard cabs to the 121s and extended the bonnets with plasticard.

my "Craven" coaches were simply re-painted Minitrix MK1s, though my "BR Vans" were kitbashed from Lima Mk1 coaches which had a narrower profile than the Minitrix coaches. Wagons were originally re-paints but some were later fitted with .010" plasticard overlays to look like the plywood bodied H Vans.

The N gauge was abandoned following a house move during the early 80s and have mainly focused on kit and scratchbuilding in 4mm, but still have a soft spot for N scale particularly American . 

N gauge really come into it own when you don't try and fit too much into a relatively small space, basically the same amount of track as a similar sized OO or HO gauge layout.

[Sean]

Have been playing around with this idea for use as a beet hopper. 

It's not bad although the box may be a little short to be an accurate representation.

 

Sean

[jhb171achill]

On 15/3/2022 at 7:31 PM, Sean said:

Have been playing around with this idea for use as a beet hopper. 

It's not bad although the box may be a little short to be an accurate representation.

 

Sean

Easy to fix - saw chassis in half & take a centre section out, glue back together. Yes, far too long as it is….

[Sean]

 

spent today cutting up an old triang mark 1 and adding sides to give me a rebuilt dutch van shell,  very primative looking right now but im confident i can turn it into something nice looking.

wasnt sure i had the proportions right but the more i am looking at it the more it seems like they are

 

adding the windows and doors seems like its going to be the hard part.

 

the bogies are off a lima mark 2 but its all sitting on a damaged project 42 chassis i had lying about

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

Fair dues 

[Sean]

Pretty delighted with how its shaping up. going to need a mountain of filler though as i overdid it on the windows. (eye it up cut it and then measure twice)

Went back to the lima mk2 and cut out the toilet windows to fill in my oopsie, also cut out the battery boxes and put them underneath and took the metal weight and fit it inside of the shell.

Pretty much considering this side done, besides the aforementioned fillering, and a fuel cap and the weird indent thing beside it. on the other side I just have to add the doors in and source egv grilles from somewhere.

its sitting a little high at the moment but the bogies are running on what seem to be quite oversized oldschool wheels, Gonna borrow some wheels from a dapol kit to see how it sits before i do anything further to address this as the ride height will change when i fit those. Will also look at replacing the D link with a magnetic coupling for overall fleet compatibility.

im not too bothered about getting the roof detail correct as this is just intended to be a quick and dirty build to fill a gap in my mk2 rake until somthing better is released and it will also give me a chance to practice my painting a little more.

[Sean]

Dj sent me pics of his dutch van the other night so ive kinda just been obsessively adjusting this side trying to get everything to roughly where i would like it to be.

Having spent far too much time on the windows its a good relief to know the ends and the other side should take far much less fettling to get everything as i would like them to be.

high build primer is great for highlighting and filling any imperfections, should feel lovely once it dries and i get to wetsand it.

still on the lookout for some nice egv grilles, looking like 3d print is gonna be my best option.

 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Sean

[Sean]

 

quite pleased with how shes looking after the wet sand and im finally finding myself happy with the window proportions although they are gonnna need another spot of filler into the corners for one last tidy up, that means im happy to move onto the other 3 sides of the thing now which im anticipating wont take as long, the shoulder shape isnt final yet as i think its better to leave them and the 2 ends until last, the gangway into the luggage compartment also needs to be cut down a bit so ill tackle all this together as my last few jobs but im doing the other side first as i need to match up the doors when the door is still fresh in my mind.

 

found an engraver in the shed that apparently the mother bought from aldi at some stage, gonna try and engrave the EGV grilles, could be either delightful or a complete disaster.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Sean

[JasonB]

Good stuff @Sean Can't beat a bit of old school modelling.  

[Sean]

Not my favourite thing but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and these are nice and simple so what better place to start.

 

went a bit overboard on the window so it will need a fill and profiling again lol

 

the shoulders are looking SHARP though  

[DJ Dangerous]

Either way, it's awesome to see people actually making stuff! Fair play!

[Sean]

Celebrating the twelfth last night.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Sean

[DJ Dangerous]

What will you do for glazing?

[Sean]

probabaly just a cd case or some shite, half considering a plastic chinese tub for slightly opaque/shaded windows since theres no real interior to speak of. 

more worried about how ill get thing masked up for black and the best way to go about adding the lining stripes.

this will be happening also after seeing this, the whole idea of getting power from the rails was missing the one idea of how the hell i could make pickups easily, this solves that, also gives me scope to mount a speaker and some sort of audio decoder later on, that wont cost much at all since it will just be a generic mp3 player type circuit board getting power from the rails.

[Sean]

experimenting with the masking yesterday an today, this may not work out but so far is actually looking straight so i have some faith in the idea,I guess ill know in a few more hours haha.

Parking a coach at either end I am starting the mask on one of the coaches until i have the tape lined up perfectly with the livery stripes and then i am going and doing the exact same thing on the other coach but ignoring the van until i have either side perfectly leaving a little bit of slack in the tape.

 

when im happy with the alignment on the coaches i wheel them apart and let the tape naturally tighten up until all slack is gone and then I am gently pressing the tape into place, never seems to be straight the first time but its usually quiet close and at this stage if i need to adjust it im lifting the tape off the coach and reapplying it along the livery line which seems to begin to iron out all of the kinks.

[Tullygrainey]

[Sean]

One must take care when warming up spray paint from dealz, this happened as I was shaking the can  

 

[Sean]

So there's good news and there's bad 

 

On one hand my masking all worked out good.

 

On the other I half arsed the prep for the white lines and took the tape off too soon so now it's payback time for the paintwork. At least the strip is lifting without damaging the lower layers ,

 

Overall I'm happy since the lining actually worked out in theory lol

 

 

[Sean]

Well that didn't take long.....

 

To deal with my impatience I'm after putting together this paint drying contraption from a YouTube video and it seems to be doing the desired job.

[Sean]

the white paint was still soft and lifty this morning, whilst the black roof and ends presented no issues whatsoever, reminding me why i swore not to buy dealz paint ever again.

masked off again and brushed on an enamel which dried properly this time, once that dried i remasked and did another black coat with the aim of sharpening the lines which seemed to work, sadly could not do the same with the orange layer which would have tidied things right up as i ran out of orange paint, ill get back to that in a few days though when i get to the shop.

 

kinda happy with it now except for the last orange paint coat but im still gonna be on the look out for something to use as a suitable gangway and handrails as well as a decal kit and a source of egv grilles.

 

only built this yoke out of the OCD factor of needing the right egv to go with the particular set of coaches im running. when the IRM ones arrive im gonna need to build a second one. so gonna start planning that soon also.

[Sean]

kinda feeling bad for my 192 which does not see enough time on the layout so shes in for the works tonight before being transferred to east wall tomorrow in anticipation for a new project.

 

mag couplings

iphone 5 speaker

645 loksound

 

should take me about an hour or so,

 

[Sean]

15 minutes later.

 

Methinks it was very generous to allot an hour to this task

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Sean

[Sean]

Something different for tonight. Been looking forward to this for a little while.

[Sean]

This is an open source wireless throttle for DCC++

it has a 1 inch OLED display

and onboard charging via this full sized usb-b connector, I could have used micro usb here but I did not because i hate that particular connector.

Overall it is a very simple build consisting of 4 components(plus the extra usb port and battery) works with or without JMRI.

https://github.com/flash62au/WiTcontroller/

Now its time to wire it and hopefully flash the software and away I go.

 

 

[David Holman]

Looks like witchcraft to me...

[DJ Dangerous]

Where's the "report" button? English language only, please, none of these Welsh words with no vowels. What the Hell is a jmri anyway?

Edited August 9, 2023 by DJ Dangerous

[Sean]

 

Perhaps the finished product will explain things a little better

[Sean]

Was pretty underwhelmed by the iPhone speaker I fitted the last day so this morning I'll be attempting to squeeze in this fancy one from road and rails.

[DJ Dangerous]

2 hours ago, Sean said:

Was pretty underwhelmed by the iPhone speaker I fitted the last day so this morning I'll be attempting to squeeze in this fancy one from road and rails.

Pic of the two side by side, maybe?

[Sean]

Getting through my first provincial wagon kit today!

Another happy customer @leslie10646 

[Sean]

Still need to add steps and brake shoes but she all went together without too much fuss except for the waterslide decals which I had never used before. 

I shall have to bug Leslie for another set the next time he is on Irish soil

 

Overall a lovely wee van.

[DJ Dangerous]

That blue Transit is still there. I'm telling you, they're up to no good.