James' workbench- ex-GC locos and stock in OO
Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 3:27 pm
I thought I'd share some of my works to date with you. They also appear on a couple of other model railway forums, so some of you might have seen them before.
I tend with my models to go for one of two things, either kit building or alternatively taking an RTR model and thinking 'hmmmm' and then attacking it with scalpels and saws on the kitchen table and bashing it into something 'looking like' something else.
Some of them are good, some are okay (for a given value of 'okay') and others were complete rubbish (all of my earlier efforts were condemned in pretty short order as I got better). So long as each model is an improvement on its predeccessor I'm happy.
My non-RTR loco roster at the moment looks like this....
- N5 class 0-6-2. I bashed this out of a Hornby J83 body and a Jinty chassis. I consider it my first successful build, after about four or five abominations. From memory, I took the J83 body and hacked it into about four pieces- two side tanks, the bunker back and the smokebox, then glued them onto a framework of 2mm square plastic strip and built up a new boiler, cab and tank side sheets, bunker etc. from plastic sheet, paper, card, staples and other little odds and ends. I think the smokebox is the only part of the Hornby model not to have been modded in some way! Having worked out recently how to do curved handrails I'm going to be adding the smokebox rail at some point 'soon'.
- D10 class 4-4-0 'Sir Clement Royds'. I bought this off of Ebay as a bit of a mess. The paint job was pretty poor and certain of the details were completely missing, but the basic resin body and Triang chassis were good. I cleaned up the body and added a reversing lever and handrails (including a curved one added on the smokebox recently). The tender was a little more involved but I cut away some of the resin moulding and built a new tender footplate, improving it no end.
- J11 class 0-6-0. This one I bashed from an Airfix 4F. I lowered the boiler by about 3mm and then cut 2mm or so out the smokebox to bring it closer to scale, then added Alan Gibson brass castings for the boiler fittings and built a new cab out of plastic sheet. The tender was built using the Airfix tender tank, with the coal plates cut off and then the top of it 'boxed out' with plastic strip and new coal plates added. Since taking the photo I've weathered it, remedied the patchy effect on the boiler and added curved handrails.
- J11 class 0-6-0. As a 'compare and contrast' with the hack-bashed example, this is a BEC model I bought off of Ebay and rebuilt. I added handrails to the loco and coalplates to the tender, and I think I had to fabricate some new footsteps, but this was quite a nice quick little project.
- D6 class 4-4-0. Hackbashed from an old Ratio kit for a Midland Johnson 4-4-0. At the time I built it I was very happy with it; it even made it onto the 'Readers Models' page of ModelRail magazine. Not however I'm of the opinion that it's not my finest piece of work; it is on the 'to-do' pile for a full rebuild next year.
- L1 class 2-6-4. A Dean Sidings kit built pretty much straight out of the box, except that I thought that the coal rails let the whole model down. So I cut them off the moulding and made my own from pieces of plastic strip and rod- a job which isn't perfect but certainly better than what was there before.
- D11 class 4-4-0, 'Jutland'. A BEC kit I bought off of Ebay unbuilt. I built it using UHU glue throughout (I and soldering irons have an eventful and unhappy history- I don't trust them as far as I can throw them and they in turn see fit to burn me everytime I look at one). A bit of a rough kit to build, in no small part because the boiler was more of an egg-shape in section! As a first attempt at a whitemetal kit it was certainly an 'experience'- sadly it made me wary of buying more unbuilt whitemetal kits.
- C5 class 4-4-2, 'King Edward VII'. Believe it or not this started life as a Hornby B12! In hindsight I'd have been better off starting with the B12 chassis and something like a 'Patriot' body. In fact I started with half of a B12 body- only the boiler and running plate- and had to fabricate the entire rear half of the loco from scratch. I've recently rebuilt it and this is the model at the moment. 'When I get around to it' I have footsteps and a reversing lever to add.
I tend with my models to go for one of two things, either kit building or alternatively taking an RTR model and thinking 'hmmmm' and then attacking it with scalpels and saws on the kitchen table and bashing it into something 'looking like' something else.
Some of them are good, some are okay (for a given value of 'okay') and others were complete rubbish (all of my earlier efforts were condemned in pretty short order as I got better). So long as each model is an improvement on its predeccessor I'm happy.
My non-RTR loco roster at the moment looks like this....
- N5 class 0-6-2. I bashed this out of a Hornby J83 body and a Jinty chassis. I consider it my first successful build, after about four or five abominations. From memory, I took the J83 body and hacked it into about four pieces- two side tanks, the bunker back and the smokebox, then glued them onto a framework of 2mm square plastic strip and built up a new boiler, cab and tank side sheets, bunker etc. from plastic sheet, paper, card, staples and other little odds and ends. I think the smokebox is the only part of the Hornby model not to have been modded in some way! Having worked out recently how to do curved handrails I'm going to be adding the smokebox rail at some point 'soon'.
- D10 class 4-4-0 'Sir Clement Royds'. I bought this off of Ebay as a bit of a mess. The paint job was pretty poor and certain of the details were completely missing, but the basic resin body and Triang chassis were good. I cleaned up the body and added a reversing lever and handrails (including a curved one added on the smokebox recently). The tender was a little more involved but I cut away some of the resin moulding and built a new tender footplate, improving it no end.
- J11 class 0-6-0. This one I bashed from an Airfix 4F. I lowered the boiler by about 3mm and then cut 2mm or so out the smokebox to bring it closer to scale, then added Alan Gibson brass castings for the boiler fittings and built a new cab out of plastic sheet. The tender was built using the Airfix tender tank, with the coal plates cut off and then the top of it 'boxed out' with plastic strip and new coal plates added. Since taking the photo I've weathered it, remedied the patchy effect on the boiler and added curved handrails.
- J11 class 0-6-0. As a 'compare and contrast' with the hack-bashed example, this is a BEC model I bought off of Ebay and rebuilt. I added handrails to the loco and coalplates to the tender, and I think I had to fabricate some new footsteps, but this was quite a nice quick little project.
- D6 class 4-4-0. Hackbashed from an old Ratio kit for a Midland Johnson 4-4-0. At the time I built it I was very happy with it; it even made it onto the 'Readers Models' page of ModelRail magazine. Not however I'm of the opinion that it's not my finest piece of work; it is on the 'to-do' pile for a full rebuild next year.
- L1 class 2-6-4. A Dean Sidings kit built pretty much straight out of the box, except that I thought that the coal rails let the whole model down. So I cut them off the moulding and made my own from pieces of plastic strip and rod- a job which isn't perfect but certainly better than what was there before.
- D11 class 4-4-0, 'Jutland'. A BEC kit I bought off of Ebay unbuilt. I built it using UHU glue throughout (I and soldering irons have an eventful and unhappy history- I don't trust them as far as I can throw them and they in turn see fit to burn me everytime I look at one). A bit of a rough kit to build, in no small part because the boiler was more of an egg-shape in section! As a first attempt at a whitemetal kit it was certainly an 'experience'- sadly it made me wary of buying more unbuilt whitemetal kits.
- C5 class 4-4-2, 'King Edward VII'. Believe it or not this started life as a Hornby B12! In hindsight I'd have been better off starting with the B12 chassis and something like a 'Patriot' body. In fact I started with half of a B12 body- only the boiler and running plate- and had to fabricate the entire rear half of the loco from scratch. I've recently rebuilt it and this is the model at the moment. 'When I get around to it' I have footsteps and a reversing lever to add.