A little mermaid progress

A really busy couple of weeks with weddings, stag weekends and a lot of work pressure means my modelling time has been non existant. I recieved my new Heljan class 33/2 in the post, along with four dogfish in dutch livery and a GUV, very exciting. I plan to put a Express Models lighting kit in the class 33/2 if they do a suitable one, after I have finished the 08 and the various other projects I have on the go!! Anyway I have made a little bit of progress on the mermaid. I have strengthened the body with plasticard, after cutting some bits of the sub frame away. I have reglued most of the rollers and fitted one of the three link couplings with a little modification, after shortening it. Hopefully next week will be less hectic and have some more modelling time. As it is, I am off to my sisters wedding for the weekend!!

Mermaid and walrus

Well the walrus is progressing nicely, with the body built. The detail has to be added to both ends, but am happy with how the build is progressing. The detailing of the flangeways mermaid hit another stumbling block, with part of the underframe/floor having to be cut away to accommodate the 3 link coupling. The underframe sits too low compared to the solebars anyway, so I have replaced the cut away bit with a peice of spare plasticard. All in all this is becoming a right job and I think the conversion of te next one might be a damm sight simplier, with leaving the solid metal body in!!! Either way it is a diffiult conversion and really should not be. To be honest it has put me off buying anymore of these wagons and instead I am going to build a couple more of the cambrian wagons which are cheaper and to my eye look better. Which on a happier note means I decided to invest in some heljan dogfish this morning and a class 33. The dogfish will form the basis of a future detailing project and I am looking forward to running the class 33, my first heljan diesel.

Flangeways Mermaid

Getting the body apart for detailing is a nightmare on the flangeways mermaid. The construction involves gluing the weight, which is the solid floor, to the underframe. The body is then glued to the rollers. So getting the thing apart is pretty brutal. It involves removal of the chains and then prising the body of the rollers, then prising the rollers off the underframe and snapping out the weight/floor. The photograph shows it unassembled. Removal of the solid floor improves the appearance of the wagon no end, as per the prototype. The top of the cylinder has been added from scaps from another sprue. I will add a three link coupling to each end, and glue back on the rollers, which I damaged slightly, and give the underframe a good weathering. Some ballast will have to be added to the body for some necessary weight.

NSE class 108 detailing and a bridge

After finishing the wearthering job on my class 47035(!), I have moved onto the detailing of a NSE class 108. Picked up at bargain prices, this has now had decoders and passengers fitted, and the roof is being suitably weathered. The application of some roof dirt is doing wonders for this model. After this, I will add some pipes to the bufferbeam, for a gentle weathering of the undercarriage, leaving the sides generally clear and clean. The other photo is the constuction of a Wills bridge for my layout. This is slowly getting painted, with a heavy degree of weathering to yet occur.
I also managed to get the first of my Flangeways mermaid apart last night. It was quite an effort and yes I did damage it. However, the removal of the floor improves the look of the wagon no end. I have mainly fixed the damage(!) and will progress to detailing and weathering of this. I am fairly certain I can get the next one apart with no problems(!!). I will put some photos up of how i managed it later, together with the build of Cambrian Walrus.

Engineering wagons

A very busy weekend followed by a severe computer virus has limited my ability to model recently, so no progression and no blogging. A call to my local shop has revealed 47035 requires a new circuit board and decoder, oops! I also suspect that will not be the end of it either, so the repair is ongoing. My cambrian walrus wagon has not progressed since last week, but a few posts of this maybe later tonight or tomorrow night, as I hope to pick this up today and tomorrow.

My engineering stock is increasing with two new Mermaids purchased from Flangeways to run with my cambrian examples I have built. I want to take the Flangeways mermaid apart to get rid of that floor and add some couplings, but I cannot work out how to do it. Does anybody out there know? It does baffle me how a company can take the time and effort to produce a lovely wagon like the Flangeways mermaid, but put a solid floor on a wagon with an open underframe. Otherwise this is a supurb wagon and worth the £16 price tag. Anyway, I will out up some images of how I manage it. At least it gives me yet another project to be getting on with!! I have put up a picture of a Parkside Grampus and a Chivers Crab other examples of some wagon kits I have built.

Mk1 First open

Two other projects are ongoing. One is a DC kits 3 car class 119, which has completed stalled at the moment, whilst I waited for some detailing parts. I hope to finish this off later in the year. My other project at the moment is a MK1 FO carriage from southern pride models. I quite like the southern pride kits, although with the quality of the Bachman MK1s far surpasses anything I can model. This project is nearing completion, with the interior largely fitted and painted (where are the passengers?) and just some roof and end details, side details and a bit of paint/transfers to complete. Here are a couple of pics of the coach during building.

Some engineering wagons

I have recently been building some wagon kits of engineering wagons from the likes of Chivers, Cambian and Parskide. So here are a handful of pictures of a catfish, a mermaid and shark. The shark was started before the Hornby model came out, but only finished recently! I currently have a Walrus on my modelling bench, pictures of which I will post as it progresses

153

Have also recently finished a subtle weathering of a Hornby Class 153 and fitting of decoder. I wish i had stressed the roof a little more, it is far too shiny. However, overall i think this looks good and will be a regular runner on my upcoimg layout.

47035

Last night just finished weathering and detailing my bachmann 47035. Put it on the track for a test run and the wheel just slipped and went no where. Total disaster. After some prodding I managed to knock a copper coil off the circuit board. I have now decided to give up and take it into a stockist for a proper repair. It is an odd one though, as I have no idea what went wrong with it. It ran fine after fitting the decoder to it. Maybe it took a knock somewhere? Anyhow hopefully it will be fixed soon. Here are a couple of shots of it, in its finished paint scheme. I am pretty happy with how it turned out in the end. I now have an NSE108 to detail, and lights to fit to a bachmann class 08, as well as building a few engineering wagons. I am also considering buying one of the early Class 47's from bachmann relatively cheap and fitting with a sound decoder after detailing. Now why don't bachmann produce a DCC sound BR blue class 47?

The first step is to build a small testtrack as a self contained layout. My son and I are going to build this as a father son bonding exercise before moving onto the full version!! I need to develop practical skills such as wiring, tracklaying and scenary building.

I am building the layout using a simple DCC system (Bachmann EZ). I brought my first DCC trainset and am now firmly hooked. I had my first attempt at weathering the class 25 loco from it. I made a few mistakes, but the overall the result is acceptable for a first attempt, or so i think.

This is my new blog about my first time building of an 00 gauge model railway in glorious British railways blue. In fact this is my first attempt at blogging to!
I am no expert modeller, I am just finding my way through building my first layout.
Since I can remember I have been fascinated in trains and those from the 1980's stick with me. So after years of building the odd wagon kit, I am taking the plunge and finally building a model railway.

I am writing these pages so others can see what I am up to and also pass comment and offer advice. I follow many other sites on the web so it is nice to write one of my own.