O Gauge Olive Green BSK - another vehicle for the engineers fleet

Another project I recently managed to finish was the repainting of a Lionheart BSK coach into olive green livery. Repainting 'ready to run' stock in O gauge is a somewhat move involved process than in OO gauge. due to the construction of models in O gauge is much more complex with many separately fitted parts. Of course, this is brilliant for O gauge modellers as the level of detail is superb  but it does create complications when stripping down models for repainting / detailing. Anyhow, I acquired a Lionheart BSK coach in SR (BR) green at bargain price to experiment with repainting an 'rtr' O gauge model.

The original BSK in the BR (S) green livery.

The Lionheart Mk1 coaches are stunning models in my opinion, so it was with a deep breath that I started to dismantle the coach ready for repainting. To strip the coach down you have to separate the sides from the ends, roof and underframe. The separately fitted details on the coach sides are also problematic and during the removal of these I broke several of the door handles. However, a quick email to Dapol / Lionheart had some spares quickly sent out to me - so some positive praise to Dapol / Lionheart team for excellent customer service. Conversely, the window glazing is screwed into the coaches and this made removal really simple - which is quite a contrast to the awful glues used on other Dapol models, such as the DMUs that means the glazing is unlikely to be removed without being destroyed (this is another story).

BSK after disassembly.

Once the coach was disassembled, I removed the original transfers using some fine wet and dry paper and glued some thin plasticard to replicate the welded up windows seen on some of the coaches in the engineers department. The selection of windows for this was somewhat freehand and loosely based on some photographs I found online of coaches in the engineers department. For ease, I ended up doing this to the four end windows on the model.

Plasticard added to replicate some welded up windows - I have no idea what the reason was for this on the real railway....

The different coach components then had a wash in the sink, before I set about repainting the coach sides into olive green and weathering the chassis / roof. bogies, etc. The process of repainting was quite drawn out and as a consequence a fair bit of dust ended up attaching itself to the paint finish during the application of various coats. This was really annoying, not least because I keep the models in sealed 'Really Useful Box' during painting. However, we are still renovating our house (there is / was a lot of dust around) and life is too short to worry too much about these things.

First attempt at reassembly - I completely forgot about repainting the bars on the window and these somewhat stood out!

The coach was painted using Railmatch enamels via my airbrush and some transfers were applied from the Railtec range. The positioning of transfers was loosely based on photographs I found online but was also a consequence of what I had spare in the modelling pile. I also decided to give the glazing a light spray of grime mix before reassembly. I masked the windows with individual blobs of blue tac to mimic someone roughly cleaning the windows. Of course the glazing reacted with the paint / thinners (it always does) to produce a somewhat misted finish - a bit similar to internal condensation on a wet day (the layout is set in summer though - so we shall just have to go with it!!). The door handles were then reattached to the coach sides and olive green was applied to the window glazing units over the painted frames that are moulded onto these units (I initially forgot about these and during a trial reassembly they stick out like a sore thumb!). 

The blue tac glazing on the windows, with some removed after lightly air brushing some grime over the top of the windows. 

The reassembly of the coach took a long time, primarily because it is a job you only ever do once and of course I could not remember how all of the bits joined back together. Once reassembled and placed on the track, the join between the coach sides and ends stood out a little and required a little air brushing to blend them together.  However, when this was finished and the lights were switched on I was really happy with the end result. 

The window glazing looks ok - but rather than dirt it looks more like condensation on the interior....the subtle shades on the bogies are also visible in this photo.

The finished BSK ready to roll in the engineers fleet.

The BSK coupled up to the 12T van, also in engineers green.

There is currently an olive green CCT from Heljan in the modelling boxes having a bit of weathering done and this will run with the BSK and the 12T fruit van in a small engineers rake. I am also building a Slaters BY van, which will be the final vehicle for this small rake, although the construction of the BY van is far from finished and building time for it has been very limited in recent weeks. I am currently focusing my modelling time on finishing off some buildings for the layout, ready to start gluing these in place when I next set up the layout, so construction and painting of rolling stock is now taking a bit of a back seat. However, there are plenty of models in the paint boxes at the moment and I hope to slowly work through these in the coming weeks and months.

O Gauge 12T Engineering Van

A happy new year to one and all!

January seems to be flying by, with the return to work after the Xmas break. My rate of modelling progress equally seems to have slowed down now that normal life has resumed! Over the Xmas period I got quite a lot of modelling time and this allowed me to finish off various models. I am planning to build a small rake of vehicles for the engineers department, being box vans, older coaches and CCT / BY wagons, which have been removed from revenue earning service and taken into the engineering department. One of the pieces of rolling stock for this small rake that has been recently completed is a 12T fruit van that is now in the engineering department, painted in the olive green livery.

Finished 12T box van in engineers olive.

The 12T van having a test shunt on the small DCC test track.

The wagon is the standard Slaters kit and was painted with the airbrush using Railmatch enamels, with transfers are from the Railtec range. The weathering on this wagon was quite light, meaning that the painting process was relatively quick. I am still finding my way through the process of weathering O gauge rolling stock - for some reason the methods that I applied on OO gauge rolling stock need to be adapted for the larger O gauge models. I think I am getting better at the O gauge stock but I a definitely still on a learning curve. 

Anyhow, onwards  and upwards. The BSK in olive green repaint has also been finished and I am currently weathering an Heljan CCT to add to this train, so before long I will have a semi-complete rake of engineers rolling stock to use!  I am now focusing on some buildings for the layout, which I hope to  completed in the next few weeks, alongside various pieces of detailing to put on the platform. The aim is to set up the layout sometime in February and add all these bits to the layout. There is also a piece of track that has been annoying me on the approach to the station, so I am going to bite the bullet and take it up. I know this will be a painful process but I think it is better to get it done now before the next bout of layout detailing.

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!