Class 122 DMU all finished

Well the class 122 DMU saga has drawn to a close.  Today I managed to reassemble the DMU unit and add the final touches, namely destination blinds and the spedometer cable.  I did not like the destination blinds as supplied by Dapol, so I used some old Modelmaster ones I had, which had some good old fashioned south western destinations on them.    Unfortunately, I had already used up the Ilfracombe and Exeter ones, so I had to go with St Ives and Newton Abbot, close enough!! The transfers were put on using Microset and then sealed into place using Acclad 2 varnish.  The DMU unit has a Howes DCC sound unit fitted, alongside an Iphone 6 speaker.  I am looking forward to firing this up soon - sometime around next weekend when I set the layout back up.  

Class 122 complete with Newton Abbot destination blinds.  Note the driver in this view.

The other end with St Ives showing.

The DMU finish is nowhere near what I originally intended when I started out.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, the weathering wash I used on the original body shell attacked the Dapol paintwork (it was Humbrol thinners).  So I had to attempt to rescue the body shell, using a combination of some faded BR blue and weathering, using an airbrush.  So the final result?  I am not desperately happy with it; however, compared to how it was looking when I originally started and the paintwork started to disintegrate - I will take it.  So a lesson learnt with Dapol paint finishes.  Time to order a class 121 and try again me thinks....

End detail.

Full view of the body side - it doesn't look too bad I guess.  The passengers are clearly visible in this view.

More Parcels Stock - another LMS CCT

Over the xmas break and early new year I have been working away on finishing off a few projects that have been kicking around my modelling boxes.  One of these was another LMS CCT, a dia 1929 with windows.  This model has had a long history, I reckon it has taken three years of very non-intensive work to finish it off!!

Finished LMS CCT. The underframe weathering can be seen to good effect in this picture.

Anyhow, with some modelmasters transfers and a good weathering job over a coat of BR faded blue, I am pretty happy with how this one turned out!  As per normal all painting and weathering was carried out with an airbrush, fixing the decals with micro sol/set.  

Side view of the CCT. The correct transfers were a bit of guess work....

So another one for the finished pile!  More parcels stock for Charlton; one wonders just how much parcels traffic a small Devon terminus would generate - quite a lot judging by the number of wagons I have built!!  Other projects are making good progress, with the sound fitted class 122 DMU and sound fitted class 22 nearing completion.  A dance hall brake van is also nearing the transfers stage, so plenty of non layout progress at the moment.

View showing one of the ends; not the grease sploges on the buffers.

Class 122 DMU progress

A happy new year to everyone!

Over the xmas break I finally managed to get back into the swing of modelling.  No monumental leaps were made, but a little bit of progress was achieved and this was definitely needed to reignite some flagging motivation!  The Charlton layout was packed up before the xmas break and it requires a weekend of effort to finish off a lot of little nagging areas of the layout.  This is on the to do list for February - so until then I am going to work on completing a few pieces of rolling stock.

So I picked up the Dapol Class 122 I had started some while ago and made an attempt to get this finished off.  The original problem with this project, was the application of an initial all over body wash of weathered black and frame dirt, diluted with Humbrol thinners.  For some reason, this attacked the Dapol paint job, and quite frankly made a right mess of the body shell....be warned!

The body shell, showing the faded paint job, after a weathering wash, thinned with Humbrol thinnners.

I subsequently tried to blend this paint job together, using some shades of faded rail blue and weathering to disguise this.  The end result was a body shell that was a lot more heavily weathered than I originally intended.  Whilst not a disaster, it is not quite how I envisioned the DMU turning out.

The finished body shell weathering. 

The degree of weathering visible is much heavier than I originally intended.

Cab showing the driver.

View from the other end - slightly better!

The underframe was a lot easier to do and was weathered using various shades of sleeper grime, frame dirt, rust, etc, all from the airbrush.  When the underframe was complete I installed a Howes DMU sound decoder and  a Roads and Rails double Iphone speaker into the body shell.  This required a little bit of cutting away of the original speaker housing on the plastic underframe, but was relatively easy to do.  The interior had some passengers and a driver added, and the lights and glazing were reassembled.

The speaker in  place.

Underframe weathered and passengers ready!

Hopefully some of the variation in the underframe weathering is visible in this shot.

Close up showing the cut away of the plastic interior to house the speaker.

I still need to finish off the bogies, with a blast of matt varnish and reassemble the hole unit.  However, the verdict so far?.....I am not really happy with this model.  The weathered finish on the body shell is too much.  I am considering just buying a new body shell or a whole new DMU!!  Whilst that might sound drastic, when you consider the cost of the DMU plus DCC sound plus speaker is somewhere in the region of £250, that is a lot of money to spend on something you are not happy with.  The whole thing needs to be reassembled to see how it looks together, and then I need to spend a weekend running it on the layout to see how I feel about it.  However, a somewhat frustrating project so far.....at least the Class 22 is shaping up nicely!