A new modelling room

Over the last couple of months I have had virtually no modelling time, as pretty much all of my time has been taken up between normal work (the 9-5) and redecorating the house. The house redecoration has been a long old project, with every room requiring a complete reworking. We are now 75% of the way through this process and one of the rooms I was allowed to undertake recently was my modelling room. Decorating the railway room next was a strategic move, getting train boxes out of rooms that would soon be coming up to being redecorated, whilst providing me with some space to actually undertake some modelling. The model railway room is the small box room in the house, but I am not complaining. There is enough room to have my DCC test track permanently set up and a desk, with my air brush also permanently set up. Having access to the air brush is a massive bonus, as I will be able to paint anytime I work from home. All the paint boxes with half finished models are stacked to the side of the desk and I can now start to work through these models (although I do need a new compressor).

Whilst splashing some paint on the walls of the spare room, I also took the liberty of ordering some bargain kitchen units and I topped these with some of the old worktop kicking around from the recent kitchen refit. These cupboards are the ideal storage space for all of my O gauge stock. This is a game changer for me, as my models have gone from being stored in plastic boxes that were stacked up in various rooms, to being completely accessible again in the modelling room.

The cabinets are used to store all the rolling stock. The DCC test track will fit over across the top of the two units.

The airbrush is now permanently set up and operational on my desk.

So I now have a fully functional railway room - this is a major step forward and I am delighted! The next jobs now are to get yet another baseboard kit built up, so I can fully setup the DCC test track. With this set up, track laying can be finished and the process of detailing this little layout can start. Alongside this, I can finally finish off some of these models that are half painted, whilst also getting some of the O gauge locomotives DCC sound installed and detailed. I am really looking forward to the next few weeks!

O Gauge Wagons - Herring and Milk tanker

So there has been a little more progress with wagon building over the last couple of weeks, with the Herring wagon now finished off. This is the 3D printed Skog kit and I raided a lot of bits from the spares box to finish this one off. It seems to have turned out OK although I am not sure if the endless filing has sorted out the 3D printed lines, the only real negative about the kit. It is heading to the paint shop now and I will wait for a coat of primer to see how it looks. However, I am currently decorating my new railway room, so it will be a few weeks before I can get the air brush up and running again.

The herring wagon is now ready for a wash and is heading to the paint boxes.

The other wagon kit that has seen some good progress is the Slaters GWR milt tanker. This is a lovely kit to build, although it has taken quite a bit of time to progress it this far. I am now heading towards the finishing stage with this kit and I need to work out how on earth I will paint it. I am guessing I will need to paint the tank and the body separately and then glue them together at the end. For now, I am going to finish getting it built, as I have spent far too much time thinking about how to paint it and not enough time actually building it.

GWR milk tanker slowly creeping towards completion.

Otherwise, modelling has been pretty slow recently, as the house decorating slowly grinds on. We are getting the hallways/landing finished in the next month and then that is that, for a at least 6 months. By November I should have a fully operational railway room, with the test track permanently set up on one side. I have ordered some cabinets to store all the O gauge stuff in and I will move my OO gauge finished models to the loft. Also in November I am finally going to erect my O gauge layout downstairs and try to remember where I had got to with it. Not least it will be brilliant to finally run some trains. 

O gauge wagon building - GWR milk tanker and Herring wagon, plus a small platform

I have managed to make some sporadic progress on building some wagons O gauge in the last few weeks. It is all slow going, but it has been very enjoyable. I have two kits currently on the go and both have presented challenges in different ways. The first of these is a Slaters GWR milk tank. The construction of the chassis is now just about complete. I found this quite fiddly to build and I think the instructions could have been a little clearer. However, the chassis is now rolling freely, although there were a few leaps of faith with the brake gear. I plan to build a rake of these, so the first one was always going to be a learning curve. I am now looking forward to building the body of the wagon and working out how to paint it!

GWR milk tanker chassis, just about finished, although it needs tidying up in places.

The second wagon I am building is 3D printed Herring wagon from Skog. The availability of 3D wagon kits is rapidly increasing and I was keen to have a look at one. There is no doubt that 3D printed rolling stock will become a mainstay of railway modelling over the next decade and this rise in cottage industries will allow ever more wagon types to be modelled. The first impression of the kit was favourable, but it is not without its issues. There are not a huge amount of parts for the kit and the most noticeable aspect of all the components are the 3D printing lines.

The Herring wagon kit.

The wagon hopper was a single printed piece and on closer inspection, the solebars were clearly warped. To try to cure this, I pit the wagon in clamp and applied some gentle heat from a hair dryer. This worked to some extent, but it also bent some of the wagon struts.

Trying to sort out the warp on the solebars.

To build the wagon, I have been raiding my spares box. The axle boxes and V hangers are from Slaters sprues and I still need to purchase some buffers and install the coupling. The printing lines on the body side were very noticeable and I have spent a fair amount of time sanding them down, although there is more to do. I intend to use a thick primer for the first coast of the wagon, mixed with some varnish and see if this will tidy up some of the rough sides of the wagon. Anyhow, it is shaping up and I should be able to finish this off in the next week or so and get it in the paint boxes.

Herring wagon so far.

Finally, I have managed to knock a small platform together for the micro layout.  This was a pretty simple build, just using some pasticard and Slaters embossed stone. However, I somehow managed to build the platform far too low, so I have raised it up with some spacers that will need to be disguised when this is built into the layout. As for the micro layout, well it is being extended by 3 feet! I have the baseboard ready to build and hope to get the track down and laid next week.......so hopefully some quicker updates to follow.

The small platform for the micro layout. 

Heljan Class 03 - saved and in service!

About a year ago, I finally managed to set up my layout and get some trains running. The layout was only partially constructed (it still is!) and there was no fiddle yard. My Heljan class 03 was being driven around the layout and performing poorly. I presumed I had a fault connection on the track somewhere and headed under the baseboards to have a look, when the locomotive suddenly came to life and drove off the end of the layout, smashing into a hard wooden floor. It was a bit of sobering moment - the chassis skirt and several buffers were cracked/broken, the roof was dented and the locomotive no longer would run.  Nothing for it then but for a complete strip down and rebuild, alongside some weathering. Taking the locomotive apart really made me admire the number of hand fitted components that goes into building one of these locomotives, alongside wondering whether I would be able to get it back together.

The separate parts of the cab and lights.

The chassis for the 03, about to have a good wheel clean.

I started with rebuilding/repairing various cracks/snapped of details on the chassis/buffer beams and I kindly had some spare class 03 buffers donated to me. I set about painting the body and chassis separately, using a combination of AK interactive weathering washes, alongside my air brush. Everything was finished and sealed with a satin varnish.

Body painted and ready for reassembly.

Putting it back together was a lot easier than I thought it would be and in the end it went back together pretty quickly. I took the opportunity to add a stay alive to the decoder alongside giving the wheels a good clean and this has really helped the running of the locomotive.  

The finished locomotive - I am pretty happy with how this one turned out!

The final result - well it is not perfect (there are still a couple of areas that bother me and I might well revisit these one day), but overall I am really happy with it. I now have another locomotive to run on the layout and I have also purchased a traverser (Tim Horn) to stop such incidents happening again! 

Finished class 03 running on the DCC test track.

I still have a lot of projects on the go at the moment, although several of these are getting to the transfer stage, namely an SPV and 25T SR brake van. I have also made a start on the buildings for the micro layout and getting these finished and the micro layout track painted and ballasted is a priority. As a dcc test track, the micro layout works really well - but it needs some scenery to stage the rolling stock - it all looks a bit bare at the moment.

O Gauge test Track and O gauge musings

I have recently been clearing out a lot of OO gauge unstarted projects from my modelling boxes and selling these items on ebay. I have been guilty of buying way too much rolling stock for projects that I never get around too and having a declutter has been good (and made some space too). The thing I like about O gauge is that the rolling stock is a little more expensive(!), so it makes one really consider what they are going to buy. I have been talking to my partner for weeks about what locomotive I really want to get next in O gauge, when I stopped and thought - exactly what projects do I have to finish for my O gauge layouts? Well the answer was, rather more than I had started!

So in an attempt to not buy more than I need, I took out my O gauge locomotives that I have not started to detail. There is a quite a lot there. I have a warship about to be detailed and a class 33 about to head into a bath of superstrip (just waiting for a delivery). Alongside this I have a western and a hymek to detail, alongside a class 122 that I have dismantled and made no further progress on. And of course there are many more coaches and wagons waiting in the queue. So the upshot, I really do not need to buy more rolling stock! However, I am sure that it will happen of course. As modellers we all like to have projects we cannot wait to get around too and buy (probably) too much stuff. Taking out these O gauge locomotives was great fun. They are seriously impressive and imposing models. Looking at them made me really excited about running my O gauge layout, although ideally I would like to buy a few more locomotives to complete my western diesel fleet (class 31, class 37, class 47 and 50!)....

O gauge western waiting for detailing.

A class 35 Hymek; I am undecided whether I will repaint this into BR Blue.

A class 42 warship; this is the next one to work through detailing and DCC sound chipping. This locomotive will be finished as D810 Cockade - one of the later lived class 42s.

Anyhow, moving onwards, the microlayout continues to make slow progress, whilst the main layout has not been touched for almost a year (erghhh) - house renovations have taken their toll. However, I have a plan for completion of the text track; I am just waiting for some plasticard to arrive to build a a small platform, alongside building the goods shed.  Then I hope to move swiftly on to painting the track, installing point motors and ballasting. The main layout will really start to be detailed the other side of summer, so there is plenty of time to get stuck into some modelling, before crakcing on with the main layout again. 

O gauge progress - wagons and buildings

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter weekend. I have been modelling away on a quite a few projects recently and although I have been making some progress, it all feels a little slow and disjointed. In theory I have more time to model nowadays, although in reality progress is somewhat slower than I would like. I currently have a lot of projects on the go and this scattergun process means that attention is somewhat divided between multiple tasks. I spent Easter Monday modelling away on a few projects and I have decided that I need to finish off a set of these current projects before moving onto the next ones. This involves finishing off a number of wagons and buildings that are 'in progress' before starting anything else.....

I currently have a number of locomotives stripped down ready to weather/ and detail, including a class 33 and a 122 DMU. The class 03 is heading through the paint shop and I reckon that I will be ready to reassemble this in a week or two. The body weathering has been finished and most of the chassis has been done, although there are a couple of bits to finish off with the airbrush before I can reassemble the locomotive. The class 33 on the other hand has been disassembled, with the body about to head into a wash of Superstrip, whilst I weather the bogies and underframe.

The class 03 bodyshell has been largely repaired following a fall to the floor and is now finished. A bit more weathering is needed on the chassis.

The Heljan class 33 body is ready to head into a bath of Superstrip. You do need quite a lot of paint stripper to cover an O gauge body shell.

I am also keen to get the microlayout scenery going and to do that I need to build several structures. I have a pub at the end of layout that acts a scenic break. This building is currently being 'polyfillared' before scribing. There is also a grounded van body and a goods shed to start building. I also need to build a platform for the microlayout, although the plasticard to do this is not yet ordered. Unfortunately, these tasks all need doing before I start ballasting on the microlayout, so for now I can get as a far as track painting, whilst I build these structures. I am also going to motorise the points on the micro layout, using the excellent DCC concepts point motors and levers. Again, this task has not been started yet.

The beginnings of the pub that will act as a scenic break at the end of layout.

I have made a little progress with some wagon projects. I managed to finish the weathering of a Dapol open wagon. This wagon was weathered using AK Interactive washes and filters, before finishing off with an air brush. I wanted to expand my skills/techniques in weathering and this wagon was a test bed - it has turned out OK I think. I definitely started to get the hang of using these washes/filters and although more practice is required, it is not a bad start. I did try to fitting a Geoscenics tarpaulin onto the wagon and have subsequently decided that I was not happy with the look of the taup and it has now been removed.

Finished Dapol open wagon, ready for use.

I also finished the build of the 12T standard van over the wagon, This is the Slaters kit and was a straightforward built. However, it was also one of those projects that for whatever reason was a bit of fight from start to finish. I am not 100% happy with the fit of the roof, however, I am certain that once painted all the little niggles of the build will be forgotten. A good paint job can hide a multitude of sins! This is also the last box van for the fertiliser train on the main layout, so my first rake of O gauge wagons has now been completed!

12T standard van ready for painting.

So that is my progress update, despite a lack of posting there has been a bit going on.  The aim is to finish off a couple more wagons right now and get the buildings sorted out for the microlayout. Then I can seriously think about weathering/detailing more rolling stock.

O gauge Wagon Progress

The last few weeks has seen some intermittent, but steady progress on a few O gauge modelling projects. I managed to finish a Slaters Conflat A wagon over the last few weeks and all in all I am pretty happy with it. There was a lot of subtle weathering that I applied to the wagon, which seems to have been lost with the application of transfers and final weathering coats, but overall it look good I think. As per normal it was Railmatch enamels from an irbrush and tranfers are a mixture of Railtec and Fox.

Conflat A wagon finished on the test track.

Top view showing the weathered wood floor. 

Another wagon I have been playing with recently is this Dapol RTR 5 plank 13T corrugated end wagon. This wagon was an attempt to broaden my modelling/weathering repertoire, using AK international washes applied from a brush. Specifically, I wanted to develop my application of rust deposits, produce more realistic weathered wood effect, alongside attempting to work more quickly through the weathering process. It has been a good learning curve and whilst the wagon is not perfect, something usable will come from it. I am now airbrushing in some weathering on the underframe, before blending it all together with some final varnish coats. This wagon is a bit of experiment and I might well end up putting a tarpaulin over a wagon load at the end, if the finish is not quite right.

This wagon so far, has only been weathered by hand. It is definitely good practice to learn some new techniques.

The SR pill box brake van is making good progress towards transfers and glazing. There are a couple of bits of weathering to sort out and I am now painting the interior of the wagon, finishing the floors and painting the stove (why did I not do this before I glued it in place!). I am hopeful I can complete this wagon in the next couple of weeks.

The underframe needs a little more detailing (grease in particular).

The interior needs some more painting, a second coat for the wall and flor. The black smudges on the floor are an attempt at footprints. 

Lastly the SPV painting is coming on, applying faded BR blue. Multiple coats have been applied to try to create some tonal variation. This wagon was recently paint stripped and partially rebuilt, due to some bad transfers last time around. The underframe now needs painting and there is a bit of weathering to go on the body, using some paint washes.

SPV painting in progress.

So some good progress. I am going to clear a few of these wagon painting projects out of the way, then it is building the micro layout/test track - such as weathering the track, adding in some buffer stops and ballasting. I also took the class 33 downstairs to add on the details before it has a full repaint, alongside the detailing of the class 122 and class 03. I am also clearing out a lot of the old stock from the railway room that I never got around to detailing - I have too much stuff(!). It feels great to be having a clear out and to be focusing on a smaller number of O gauge projects.

Heljan O Gauge Class 25 - DCC sound and detailing completed

I have been building an O gauge layout for at least 3 years now, and frankly progress has been very slow. The layout is all wired up and scenic work has started, however, two house moves in two years has really disrupted progress. The other big limiting factor has been a lack of rolling stock ready to use and completing the fiddle yard for the layout. Well I have partially managed to remedy one part of this equation with the completion of the class 25 detailing project.

Weathered and sound fitted class 25 on the test track.

The model is the first release of the class 25 by Heljan and I pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced. A mere 7 or so years later I have installed the DCC chip and finished the weathering. The transfers on the locomotive are from Railtec, and all weathering was done using Railmatch enamels from an air-brush. The decoder fitting was an ESU Loksound V5 Xl with screw terminals and figuring out how to wire it up was a good challenge! Once I had got my head around the common return, it was relatively straightforward...... 

Screw terminals on the Class 25 DCC sound chip, after complete removal of the PCB board - take a deep breath when you do this for the first time!

After weathering the bogies, underframe and body separately - I reassembled the chassis first to fit the dcc chip. I placed a speaker on two small pillars of foam packing, glued to a piece of plasticard, so it sits above the drive shaft. I also added the headcode transfer to some very thin clear pasticard (from food packaging - after washing) and trimmed these to fit the headcode boxes.When I was reattaching the body I realised I had lost one of the red tail lights (typical) and had to fudge a new one using some red plastic. Once all this was done I reattached the body - which I really struggled with. Getting the body to sit on the chassis correctly was really hard work and took me about an hour. I, of course, scratched the roof when doing this, so I had to touch up some paint (I do not think this is too noticeable - but it was very frustrating). Handling these big O gauge diesels is tricky - but once it was back together - I did having a wow that looks great moment.

I removed the bogies and weathered these separately.

Chassis reassembled.

The speaker cradle constructed from plasticard and two pillars of foam packing, so it sits above the drive shaft and the bogie pivot.

Headcode transfers applied to some very thin plastic - these were then trimmed to size.

Beyond these tribulations - putting this locomotive on the test track and hearing the sulzer engine was a delight! I am however, not that impressed with the speaker and might add some more packing around it, it has a somewhat tinny vibration at the moment. I have turned down the volume a little and this has helped. Anyhow, it is now fully operational and whilst I might replace the speaker in due course - this locomotive is finished. Taking some photographs of the locomotive - I must say I am pretty happy overall with how it turned it. It was also a great learning experience, being the first O gauge diesel I have sound chipped. Like all modelling projects, there were bits I could have improved, but it is all learning.

Body side view, showing the layering of faded paint and bodyside detailing.

The other end of the locomotive, showing the wobbly headcodes - a characteristic feature of the 1970s.

In my experience, the smooth running of Heljan locomotives is the best there is - and this model is no exception. I spent a good few hours letting the locomotive potter about the little test track with the sound running - really great fun.

And the first passenger train leaves the station on the test track behind the class 25.

Class 25 coupling up to its train.

From here, I have a clear set of modelling priorities, to fit around the ongoing house renovation. First up is to finish some buildings and add some detail to the micro-layout/test track. The only rule for this, is I have to use stuff I already have lying about (except for maybe the backscene), just to keep costs manageable in the short term. I have a couple of Slaters wagon kits on the go atm, alongside rebuilding a Dapol milk tanker and these projects require finishing off. I am also weathering a class 03 shunter and fitting a stay alive to this locomotive - that will be perfect for operating the microlayout. I am also about to detail and dismantle a Dapol class 122 and a Heljan warship. These are the the priorities for the next 6 months or so, alongside the painting of various wagons already in the paint boxes. The aim will be to have the little micro-fully operational in a few months - and if it looks OK I might take it to a few exhibitions. Then from summer onwards, it is back to the proper O gauge layout - I have the traverser ordered for the fiddle yard, - so when that arrives it will really help with the running of the layout and getting the layout over the line.

O Gauge test track

We are still renovating the house and this has really impacted my opportunities to set up my O gauge layout. This is really frustrating as I have several O gauge projects that are nearly complete and I need somewhere to test rolling stock, especially the DCC sound fitting to the O gauge diesels. So over the last week or so I decided to build a small O gauge micro layout/test track. I had a 5ft scenic box that I purchased from Tim Horn several years ago - I had made the box up, but had gone no further. So I dragged this out of the garage and started to arrange some track. I was keen to see what track I could get into a 5ft box in O gauge - the answer is not much!!! However, I added in two points, wired in the polarity switches (Gaugemaster), and used the Express Models Powerbus kit all soldered up. I also added in a small internal light and added a control panel for the NCE powercab on the front. By the end of Sunday it was operational - fantastic. I cut out some simple paper templates of buildings to see how things could fit, and  I now plan to add a couple of buildings to the layout, alongside a backscene and some simple scenery to provide a photographic plank, as well as a fully operational test track.

Test track operational. This is with the lighting unit switched off, showing the real benefit of O gauge and coach lighting.

So now there are now excuses for not finishing off some DCC diesel detailing projects. I am determined to finish off the Class 25 project this week and reassemble the locomotive. I cannot wait to try it on the test track. Otherwise wagon building and painting continues, with a Conflat now ready for transfers and the SR pill box brake van and the SPV being painted. Lots of fun and a satisfying weekend... I plan to spend this evening building another wagon!

Aerial view showing the very limited track layout.

The internal lighting is visible to good effect in this picture.