Heljan O Gauge Class 33 DCC fitting and reassembly - part II - all finished and ready to roll!!

Over the last couple of days I have managed to finish putting my Heljan Class 33 back together. This has been one of those projects where nothing has gone right and the modelling has been a bit slow and disjointed. I originally reassembled the locomotive and installed the DCC sound chip, only to discover that one of the motors was not running correctly, which created stuttering, especially at low speeds. I took the locomotive apart again and stripped the bogie down; I suspected a cracked gear but could not find one. When the locomotive was running the motor seemed to working upwards a little in the motor casing - this was despite making sure every screw was tightened up. Ultimately, I could not find the reason for the poor running....

Finally, the class 33 ready for service!

So in the end, I decided to remove all of the gears from one of the bogies and disconnect the motor, snipping the wires and sealing the ends in insultation tape. I left the motor in-situ to provide some weight and balance to the locomotive. The upshot is, the loco runs perfectly well on one motor, however I am bit miffed that one motor has effectively been consigned to the rubbish bin, when the locomotive has barely been run.

Despite the trials with this project, I am pretty happy with the end result. At normal exhibition viewing distances the class 33 looks pretty good!

After some testing I was pleased that the locomotive was running correctly and reinstalled the Heljan hand rails.  I have no idea why Heljan opted for plastic handrails - they are somewhat fragile, surely metal would have been better? However, they have now been reattached and look OK, although one of the hand rails is sticking out a little too far and I will reset it this morning. 

I was particularly pleased with the detailing on the underframes and bogies, the colour contrasts have worked well.

So finally, the class 33 project is now finished! Lots of errors along the way and also a brilliant learning curve for working and detailing O gauge models. When it was all put back together and was running on the DCC test track, I did think, yes that looks pretty good. In a few years time I might well revisit this locomotive but for now it can happily plod up and down the layout. With a lot of lessons learnt, I am about to start the weathering and detailing of a class 122 bubble car and class 42 warship, although I hope to complete these projects a little more quickly than the class 33! It is great to now have another completed locomotive to run on my layout and I am getting close to having enough rolling stock to run at an exhibition; I just need to get the layout finished.......more on that soon.....

The class 33 idling on the DCC test track, pulling a couple of pieces of rolling stock from the engineers department.

North Devon creamy goodness! Slaters Milk Tanker in service (and a Merry Xmas)

So I managed to put the finishing touches to the Slaters milt tanker, which amounted to gluing down the ladders and gluing in the straps. It was all a little fiddly to get it finished but it is now over the line and ready to roll. On the next build I will definitiely drill out the bronze castings that the straps fit into - this was a bit of an error in this build, which meant that gluing them into place was a little tricky. Overall, I am pretty pleased with how this one turned out, although as always there are some places where the modelling can be improved....

Anyhow, it is great to finally have some time to model over the festive season, now that work is finished for the year.  I have several other projects that are nearing completion - so I really hope to be able to find the time over the coming weeks to get these finished off.

All that remains to be said, is Happy Xmas everyone - I hope you all have a wonderful time.

Milk tanker finished in typical 1970s condition, i,e. filthy!

O Gauge Slaters Milk Tankers - first one nearly finished.....

The Xmas break has arrived for me and this year I have a decent amount of time off over the festive period. Alongside seeing friends and family, I should be able to get a few days of dedicated modelling time and I aim to put this time to to good use, finishing off various projects. I have quite a few models in the paint boxes that are close to being completed - so I plan to get these models over the line, rather than starting too many new projects.

So the first one that is heading towards the finish line, is this Slaters GWR 3000 gallon milk tanker. The building of this kit is a joy - although it is a bit fiddly in places. The painting is a little awkward and to be able to fully paint the tank, you need the underframe and tank kept as separate pieces. So yesterday, with the paint and transfers finished, I glued the two body parts together, desperately trying not to spill glue over the paint finish. Today I need to glue on the ladders and undertake a tiny bit of touching up of paint in a couple of places. Hopefully this will only take a couple of hours and then the first model of the Xmas hols will have been completed.

GWR milt tanker nearly finished. There are a couple of small areas that require paint touching up, and the ladders added.

End view of the milk tanker, with the level of detail in the kit evident.

This is the first Slaters milk tanker I have built and it is the start of a small rake. Having now nearly finished this wagon, there are a few tricks to the construction and finishing of these tanks that I will employ on future builds, so this has been a very good learning curve. I have a second kit in the stash to start in the coming months and I am hoping construction will be a bit quicker. Ultimately I would like to build between 6-8 of these tankers to run into the dairy, although at the current rate of progress that might take me a few years to achieve!

O gauge Tunny and Grampus kit builds

With the layout packed up for Xmas I have made a little progress on finishing off some wagon builds. The couple I have been working on are two engineering wagons, being a Grampus and Tunny. The Grampus wagon is the standard Peco (Parkside) kit, built as per the instructions, which I finished off a few weeks ago. This is a simple kit to build - the parts go together cleanly and the end result really looks the part.

The Grampus wagon - now waiting for a good clean before heading into the paint boxes.

The second kit to finish building was a GWR Tunny wagon. This is a 3D printed kit from Skog. Compared to the Parkside kit, there was a lot of cleaning up to do of the printed parts, not least trying to remove the print lines, particularly from the exterior of the wagon. The wagon was built with a lot of spare parts from other kits; the brake levers are the spare set from the Grampus build and the axle boxes are Slaters spares. However, overall it is has built up into a good representation of the prototype and I am sure will look great once painted. The kit will need a thorough scrub when it gets cleaned later today before heading into the paint boxes.

The Tunny wagon.

The sides took a lot of filing down to get rid of the 3D printed lines.

The close ups are probably a little bit cruel when it comes to the Tunny wagon. However, with a good wash later today and a decent paint job I am certain it will look the part. Whilst the Tunny kit was a bit more basic than the Grampus waggon, it was also under half its price. It therefore represents excellent value for money - although I would definitely recommend having a cache of spares available to help detail the kit.

With Xmas fast approaching I am limited to a bit of modelling on the kitchen table alongside doing a bit of painting. The next wagon build has already been started - a Slaters SR BY wagon, again to be finished in BR engineers olive green. I also have severeal buildings to finish off for the layout, alongside completing the painting of severeal wagon. So there is plenty to keep me busy over the next few weeks, whilst the layout is packed away.

O Gauge Layout - Backscenes trial and error!

So the next part of layout detailing was fitting in the backscenes. I think this is one of the most important parts of the layout; a good backscene will transform the whole view of the layout, whilst a poor backscene really detracts from the overall picture, no matter how good the modelling on the baseboard. I had been putting off doing the backscene, as I was not sure how to proceed. I had already glued the foamex boards down onto the layout, so I had to fix the backscenes in-situ.

I had purchased the self adhesive ID photographic backscenes and the quality of the product is excellent. However, I did not think I could use the self  adhesive of the backscene, as the backscene was awkwardly placed in certain parts of the layout, meaning I could not slide the backscene into position. So I opted to use some double sided tape and lightly fix the backscene into place. A lot of cutting and measuring ensued to fit the backscene and it was semi successful, although there were a couple of bad joins between sheets. I left it for a week and over the week the backscenes settled a little (I think they might have swelled a little) and the wrinkles seemingly became more noticeable. In the end I decided I could not live with it, so I had a second attempt.

The first attempt - I was pleased with the overall effect, although there were some wrinkles!

As the backscene had been effectively unrolled, cut to size and tacked into position. I decided to remove the double sided tape and use the self adhesive backing. I removed the protective film from one end of the backscene and smoothed this onto the foamex board to act as an anchor. From there, I slowly removed the rest of the double sided tape and the peeled off the self adhesive protective wrap a few cm at a time, fixing the backscene down as I went. The end result was so much better and wrinkle free. There are a few blemishes here and there but these will be disguised by the addition of the buildings and further scenery.

The second attempt was much better!

So lessons have been learnt. On future layouts, I will stick the backscene to the foamex boards first and then glue these into place. However, the end result for this in-situ fixing is entirely acceptable and I am very pleased with it. I only managed to finish three of the baseboards in this way, so there is a further one to go today before it is all done. However, there are no excuses now, it is time to get those buildings glued down onto the layout and the really fun bit can start, adding in all the small details and cameos. The layout as a whole has now been put away until after xmas, although I can bring down individual boards and work on these in the evenings. So hopefully more progress to report soon!

O gauge layout - quay front and fiddle yard progress

Recently, I have had the layout set up in the lounge, which has allowed me to progress some key elements of the layout. The next really big task to undertake was the water at the quay front. I started off attempting to achieve the water affect using the AK interactive Atlantic water gel. I applied a couple of coats of this using a small trowel and a paintbrush. I had not used this product before or really attempted to model water, so I was keen to see what I could achieve. The first finish using the Atlantic water gel would have been fantastic for a warship diorama but the effect was too glossy and the blue too rich for the quay front. The glossy nature of the finish contrasted too sharply with the matt finish of the quay front stonework.

First attempt at the quay front water.

So I experimented with the AK Atlantic water gel, by diluting it a little with water and adding some lighter blue paint mixed into the gel. The outcome from this was the most lurid toothpaste colour blue! So further coats of the Atlantic water gel were applied, to get rid of this light blue and I was then back to square one! I then opted to pour a lot of Woodland scenic water over the top of the AK water gel. The end result, whilst not perfect, is one that I can live with for now. There is a little bit too much variation in the colour of the water and the blue could be toned down a little. However, I think I have got my head around how to use the Scenic water and blend this with a better base coat. For now, I am going to move onto the backscenes and revisit the water effects in the new year.

The impact of pouring the Woodland Scenic water over the top of the AK Atlantic water gel. The reflection of the stonework is great, although the water displays quite a lot of variation in its colour at present.

The end result, whilst not perfect, I can certainly live with for the time being.

Another task that was finished off last weekend was the testing of the fiddle yard. A quick bit of soldering was required to allow the powerbus from the layout to connect to the fiddle yard. It was great to have the layout set up and give it a short test run. The fiddle yard worked really well and is a full 360 degree turntable. I need to add in some guard rails to protect the rolling stock, but this should be a quite a quick job. For now at least it is operational, which means I can finally use the layout at home.

Fiddle yard set up with the powerbus attached.

The fiddle yard has 3 roads for the layout operation.

Fiddle yard exit onto the layout.

So this weekend, the big task is to attack the backscenes. This is another job I have been putting off for a while, as I am not sure quite how to fix the backscenes in place. I have some Deluxe Models View Glue ready to use or I can try to use the self adhesive on the back of the ID backscenes photosheets. An alternative I have been pondering is using some double sided tape. Tonight I will get the backscenes out and have a proper think about it, before giving it a go tomorrow. The foamex sheets for the backscenes to be adhered to are firmly glued in place onto the layout, so this is an in-situ installation which will add a little to the complexity (cursing!) of getting this bit right! In my opinion the backscene is one of those things that makes or break a model railway - so fingers crossed I can get this bit done correctly!

A class 25 spotted from the quay front.

A class 25 doing a bit of shunting around the platform.

The class 25 heading towards Barnstaple with a short engineers train.

Other than that, it was great to run a few trains on the layout and test the track a little. Some of the curves are pretty tight, although it is all just about manageable. I am looking forward to getting these backscenes installed, so I can start the final leg of the layout detailing. 

O Gauge layout scenery Kimington Quay Phase 2

The detailing of the some of the basic scenic elements for the layout have continued over the last week, focusing on the diary and platform end boards. The scenic detailing tasks were to add some static grass to the areas surrounding the track bed, platform, dairy platform and sidings, blending this into the modelling already undertaken on the curved board. A very enjoyable Saturday and Sunday were spent applying  these scenic details, dabbing down glue and layering in some basic grass and bushes.

View looking down the layout, past the platform and towards the diary siding.

I am no expert in undertaking layout scenery but one of the things I wanted to avoid was large blocks of homogenous grass colour, especially as the detailing approached the the quay masters cottage and runs along the edge of the platform. The area between the platform and the quay wall was an attempt to model some ground that has been reclaimed by nature, as part of the run down of the railway network in the 1970s. There are some more brambles and shrubs to add, but these extra bits can wait until the water at the front of the layout is finished and the backscene has been fixed in place.

The area in the front of the platform is an attempt to model some ground reclaimed by nature.

The variation in the ground cover after the quay wall is just about visible in this photo.

In the fictional world of my model railway the diary is still in business throughout the 1970s, although the siding for the short diary platform is somewhat rundown and overgrown. I used a different colour grass for the siding, trying to replicate newer growth.

The diary platform and area surrounding the quay masters cottage.

I really like this view of the layout - looking back towards the platform from the quay masters cottage. It has the feel of the openness of the railway, whilst looking very down at the heel, befitting the 1970s.

The transition from the quay wall to the platform is staring to get there. I now need to add in a fence or two....

Overall I am really pleased with the scenery so far. The really big messy jobs are now finished. So this weekend, I am going to try to put down the water in the quay and once that is done, I am going to attempt to add the backscene in a couple of weekends time. I have also started to play with the arrangement of a few scenic elements in the area of the quay masters cottage. There will be an information board (not yet built) alongside a telephone booth, post box and street lamp. These elements will need to wait until the backscenes are in, when I can move onto the next stage of detailing.

Some of the details plonked down at the quay masters cottage. These items need to be toned a little and then glued in place.