Standing Still

While writing the previous post I realised that I did have some model, albeit a tiny amount, to show you. If you remember from the last modelling post back in April I'd made a few small steps forward with my model of Tallylyn, including fitting the smokebox door. When I posted I'd just about convinced myself that I could live with the moulded smokebox door handles. Usually these are one of the first things I'd look to replace on a model, but I thought I could live with these, but a few comments on that post made me realise I'd regret not altering them.

So as you can see I've now gently removed the moulded dart, fitted a turned replacement, and resprayed the primer. The new dart looks quite different to the handles currently on Tallylyn but I've based these on old photos from the period I'm modelling the loco. I think this looks a lot better than it did before and I'm glad I didn't do any more work on the model before replacing the dart because it was easy to do without doing any damage; if I'd left it any later through the build process I'd probably have had to respray a top coat of paint which would have been much worse.

Unfortunately that was still the last modelling I've managed and I did this back in the second half of April so I've still no real progress to report.

Rail Spikes

So, having arrived at a much better approach to painting rusty surfaces I've now turned my attention to the track, specifically how I'm going to affix the rail to the sleepers. The bridge I'm using as inspiration for my entry to the Dave Brewer challenge, which is still a secret for now, uses a fairly light rail held to the sleepers using metal spikes.

All the track I've hand built before has used copper clad sleepers and I've simply soldered the rail in place. Clearly this won't work for rail held down by spikes. So firstly I'm going to use sleepers made from plywood (hence my experiments at painting wooden sleepers) but more importantly I need a source of spikes that will hold the rail in place. My intention is to use code 40 rail, which is pretty small, and I haven't been able to find anyone who sells spikes for such small rail. What I did find though was a series of articles in NG&IRM Review by John Clutterbuck (which were republished in 2008 as a free download) about making track. While John models in 7mm scale using larger rail, he happens to make his own spikes from..... staples.

The approach I've taken mostly follows John's description but with a few changes to take into account the smaller rail size.

I bought the smallest staples I could find but they are still made from quite a thick metal (about 0.45mm) so having used masking tape to keep them together I filed the edges down a bit to make the corner a lot thinner (I had to use diamond files to really make much impression on the steel). Once I'd filed down both sides I used a set of track cutters to cut off the legs of the staples keeping just a tiny amount of the curve. All the spikes were then separated from each other before soaking for about 5 minutes in nail varnish remover (the stuff I "borrowed" from my wife is acetone free but I'm guessing acetone would also work) to ensure the metal is clean and that the plastic coating applied to staples has come off; you end up being able to see the bits of plastic floating in the solution. The spikes were removed from the nail varnish remover (a magnet makes this nice and easy) and dried before being soaked in Carr's metal black. They turn black almost instantly if they are nice and clean but again I left them for about 5 minutes, before removing and drying them.

I still need to figure out the best way of actually using the spikes to fix rail to sleepers but for a quick test I drilled a small (0.45mm) hole and pushed a spike through the sleeper, added the rail so I could accurately drill a second hole for the second spike. Once both spikes were firmly pushed through I held them in place with a drop of superglue added from below. Once this had dried I cut off the excess spike and filed them flush with the bottom of the sleeper.

For a first attempt at making and using rail spikes I think this has worked well.

Quarry Hunslet: Now With Brass Knobs On!

So today's job was to fit the final detailing pieces to the locomotive; the handrails. I'd put this off as I had a feeling it might not be particularly easy to get all four handrail knobs in the right place so that the rails are both horizontal and at the same height on both sides of the saddle tank. I wasn't wrong as it's taken me a number of attempts to get it right.

I started by looking at a number of photographs and eventually spotted that the knobs were at the same height on the saddle tank as the rivets on the cab front. This made positioning the rear two knobs fairly easy. It also turned out that the 6mm masking tape I had to hand was a perfect fit between the bottom of the tank casting and the rivets. This meant, in theory, that I could lay a piece of tape along the length of the tank to get the right height for the front two knobs. After aligning the tape, I drilled the four holes and test fitted the knobs (these are the short handrail knobs from Eileen's Emporium) and brass wire for the rails themselves. The right hand side (as seen from the front) was pretty much spot on but the left side was terrible; somehow I'd ended up with the hole too far forward and too far down. I filled the hole with some Deluxe Materials Perfect Plastic Putty, waited for it to dry and then drilled a new hole in what I thought was a better spot. I'm not sure how, given how close the two holes were, but this time I was too far back and too far up. So the hole was filled again and then a third hole drilled. This one is much better, although not perfect, but by this point I was running out of casting to drill into so it will do.

I haven't glued the handrail knobs into place as it makes sense to do that after I've painted the tank, which also means I haven't finally trimmed the rails to the right length either, but the video should give you a pretty good sense of how it now looks.

As well as getting it to run further in each direction along the track (just for GB) the eagle eyed amongst you may notice that I've been at the Archer rivet transfers again. the whistle mounting bracket is now riveted to the cab front, if that isn't attention to detail then I don't know what is!

The only things now missing are the things I can't fit until it is painted; the reversing lever (which I can't fit until the cab is fixed in place), the whistle, and name and maker plates, which haven't yet arrived from Narrow Planet. This means the next step is to find a can of primer

Tools: Hold and Fold

When I started to get back into railway modelling the only tools I had were some rather worn paint brushes and a set of small screwdrivers (useful for fixing my glasses), and so far I've added small tools to the collection as the need has arisen. So I've now got a modelling knife, a set of small drill bits and a pin vice for using them, a set of small files, a set of tweezers, and a razor saw. None of these have been expensive and none of them are particularly interesting. My new tool is, however, both more expensive and interesting and so warrants a post of its own.

As I mentioned recently I don't have a tool for rolling pieces of metal to shape but having now tried to do so I can see me buying a tool to help. The same thing happened when I had to fold some of the etched brass parts for the Baguley-Drewry kit (specifically folding the wiper blades was a bit of a nightmare) and so I invested in a new tool before building the Quarry Hunslet; a Hold and Fold from Avonside Works.

Given that it's called a Hold and Fold, you probably don't me to explain what it does or even how it works but... it lets you easily hold and fold metal parts. A number of different sized tools are available ranging from 2 inches in length all the way up to 14 inches. While I could easily shape any of the parts from the kit I'm currently building on the 2" model, I opted to buy the 4" version as I think that will be big enough for almost any model I ever want to build. If you want to have a look at the others then the best photos are probably on the product page at Eileen's Emporium.

So far I've only needed to bend one piece of the kit, the lip on the edge of the cab roof, but it was very easy to do accurately and I'm impressed with the feel and quality of the tool. Certainly something I'd recommend.

Quarry Hunslet: Genuine People Personalities

When it comes to trains there is a long history of anthropomorphism. Everyone knows of Thomas the Tank Engine, where the trains are the main characters and definitely have human personalities, but there are plenty of similar books and TV programmes. My favourite is probably Ivor the Engine, who has a distinct personality without being given a human face. On occasions this even happens to preserved steam engines; some attempts being more successful than others! A couple of examples, from my childhood, were Stepney, seen at Sheffield Park station on the Bluebell Railway in 1984, and Percy and Thomas at Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway in 1986.

The idea of a locomotive having a face doesn't just imply that they have a human personality though. The worst criticism you'll find in a review of a new model locomotive will always be reserved for those cases where the face (i.e. the front) of the engine is wrongly modelled. If you get the face wrong, it doesn't matter how good the rest of the model is, you can almost guarantee it will attract a terrible review. So when building the Quarry Hunslet I wanted to ensure I got the face right.

The kit contains a nice whitemetal casting for the smokebox door, but this casting doesn't include the handles (usually referred to as a dart -- don't ask me why) which is actually a good thing as moulded handles usually look pretty terrible.

Fortunately I've played with fitting smokebox door handles in the past so I ordered a set from Eileen's Emporium. The main locating pin requires a 1mm hole so I went and drilled out the centre of the casting. Unfortunately I hadn't really thought through the fact that these handles are meant for standard gauge locmotives not narrow gauge.

I knew that the handles would be too long, but trimming them to length is easy, what I hadn't thought about was that the central boss would be way too large for the Quarry Hunslet. Once I'd drilled the hole and test fitted the main part the problem was obvious though. The central boss was unbelievably huge in comparison to the door. Fortunately all was not lost. I simply filled the hole I'd drilled, and then drilled a 0.45mm hole through the centre to take a small piece of brass wire onto which the handles threaded nicely. I also filed down the loops on the handles so that they sit closer to each other and the door.

The final step was to then glue the door to the front of the main casting. This took a couple of attempts as I found it difficult to position in easily as the hinge on the right makes it difficult to accurately judge if it is centred or not, although it does help with making sure it is the right way up! While it looks as if the door is very low to the footplate, this appears to be prototypically accurate and it does lead to a pleasing gap of roughly the same width around the sides and top of the door.

I would have taken a more recent photo of the door after removing the stray bit if blutack, but that would spoil the next post in the sequence as it would show you what I did next.

The issue of 4mm detailing parts, such as the smokebox handles, being mainly designed for standard gauge rather than narrow gauge models, does lead me to a question. Do any of you know of a supplier who offers narrow gauge detailing parts? I'm specifically thinking of steam whistles and the myriad of other brass fittings you usually find on the outside of a Quarry Hunslet, none of which are catered for in the kit I'm building. While I can cut down some parts, such as the door handles, to better suit the smaller size of narrow gauge locomotives, I don't think the same approach would work for the majority of fittings so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Quarry Hunslet: Is This Progress?

So yesterday, with no small amount of trepidation, I set about assembling the motion of the Quarry Hunslet kit I'm building from this scary looking selection of parts. It wasn't entirely a success, but I will say it wasn't exactly disastrous either.

The first step is to add the cranks to one side of the motor unit using the coupling rod and brass bushes to correctly align them with the small nuts used to hold the crank and bushes in place for testing. I managed this without any problems and even managed to glue the cranks in place without gluing anything solid that shouldn't have been. Before trimming the front screw and permanently affixing the bush to the crank I thought it wise to check for smooth running with the frames in place, as there is very little clearance between the frames and the cranks.

Unfortunately this is where things started to go wrong. I set everything up on a DCCconcepts rolling road (I bought this when I first got back into railway modelling last year to help service the OO gauge models that had been stored for so long), so I could carefully watch the movement. I gently applied some power and nothing moved. It turned out that I hadn't got the frame perfectly positioned when I built the chassis and while there was enough room for the front crank to rotate the back one was stuck. I did try gently sanding the back of the crank down a little (not easy given it was glued to the wheel), but in the end the only course of action was to disassemble the chassis to realign the frames correctly.

Fortunately having used super glue instead of solder to assemble the chassis it was fairly easy to break the parts down again. Cleaning the old glue off though would have been a nightmare, but fortunately lunchtime yesterday saw the post arrive, which included a package from Eileen's Emporium. The order had been placed for something else entirely (which I'll come back to in a later post), but on a whim I'd added a fibreglass pen to the order, and this made cleaning up the parts really easy.

I have done a little more work since cleaning up the frames (cranks attached to both sides now), but I'll wait to show you the motion in action until I've got the frames back together and everything working. Hopefully that might be later today but it depends how things go.

Glazed

As you can see, other than some weathering, the articulated flatbed truck I started to build from a Langley Models kit a few posts ago is now complete. The final step was to glaze the windows.

Given the small size of the windows, and the relative thickness of the castings, it was obvious that sticking some clear plastic inside the cab wouldn't work at all. One alternative would have been to try and cut some plastic to fit flush inside the frames but that also didn't seem like a sensible route. Fortunately there is a much easier alternative; Micro Kristal Klear.

Microscale Industries' Micro Kristal Klear (I bought mine from Eileen's Emporium) is a PVA like glue that is designed to both dry clear and to not discolour clear plastic. This makes it perfect for gluing windows in place, but it can also be used to make the windows. You simply use a cocktail stick to smear a small amount around the edge of the window frame, and then draw the glue across the opening to make a thin film. You can see this in action above, after I'd just done the first window. Once dry the glue is clear and the window is glazed.

Brass Knobs

After finishing the smokebox door I was going to take a small break from modelling, but I made the mistake of leaving the bits sat on my desk. It turns out that they were way too enticing to leave alone.

Just like the handrails on the cab sides, the moulded version that ran around the boiler was fairly horrid looking, but improving this handrail was going to be a bit more involved though; I was going to need some handrail knobs.

Fortunately along with the smokebox door handles I'd ordered a set of medium brass handrail knobs from Eileen's Emporium. So just like with all the other improvements I drilled holes for each handrail knob and then cut away the moulded version. Fitting the new handrail knobs was more difficult though. I used a small offcut of brass wire to fit and align the knobs down each side of the boiler. I then formed a piece of brass wire into the right shape to fit around the boiler. On to this wire I threaded the final handrail knob which fits above the smokebox door. The wire was then threaded into each pair of handrail knobs one at a time, until it was in position and the final knob could be slipped into the hole. For a first attempt I'm really happy with it, although the photo shows that the wire has ended up quite badly kinked. Fortunately this doesn't real show when looking at the actual model.

The eagle eyes amongst you may also notice that I've trimmed the smokebox door handles slightly. I felt that they were a little long, and I also wanted them to be slightly different lengths to better match the original moldings.

Smokey Darts

So having improved the cab side hand rails yesterday, today I turned to improving the smokebox door handles. The technique was essentially the same; drill a hole (using 1.2mm drill bit), cut off the plastic moulding, and then add the new handles.

The final result is, I think, a lot better than the original moulding. Now while I could have made up the smokebox darts (why the door handles are called darts I don't really know) from brass wire, I decided that would be pushing things slightly so instead I bought a ready made set from Eileen's Emporium (where I also bought the brass wire for the hand rails). They actually come as three separate pieces which means you can easily position the hands in any orientation you want. The downside is that they are very small pieces of brass that require rather good eyesight to fit together. It took me a couple of attempts to get them on right, but I think it was worth the effort.

You'll have noticed that I've also drilled a hole and cut off the moulded hand rail across the top of the smokebox door, but fitting that around the boiler will have to wait for another post.