The one I forgot to include in the earlier post: Hornby 60 077 Canisp in Mainline's adaptation of the Railfreight two-tone greys, with etched name plates fitted.

A steam man myself but but must admit that looks a smart motor,great colours
:thumbs;-):cool:
Owen

Back to D3219, the Hornby 08 I have been painting and weathering. I finally got round to painting the various handrails white. Unfortunately, this has now emphasised any kinks and bends in the handrails, plus showing up a few odd bits of fluff and cat hair that have stuck to the previous paint.

Still, the effect is not too bad, and the cruel close-up allows me to make the final adjustments to produce a convincing model.

Jeff looks fine mate,and when was the last time you saw a straight hand rail ??
by the way if you are inerested I have a box of loco wheels,all sizes and types including romford, jackson, etc plus ponies and bogies
free to a good home just postage needed,
:thumbs;-):cool:
Owen

Hi Owen.

Thanks for the compliments. I know the real handrails did get bent but I just don't find it convincing on the model. I think it has to be a lot more subtle before it looks realistic.

I wouldn't mind all those Romford wheels, as I have quite a few unfinished projects on the go. I'll PM you later with details.

Every so often, when I show photos of my layout progress, someone will observe and comment on the cream coloured, raw resin 2-car unit sitting on some track in the background on the upper level. This is a Bulleid-style, BR-built 2 HAP unit, utilising resin body shells and seat units from Ayjay Models (bought through Radley Models), sitting on Hornby 2 BIL chassis bought cheaply when Kernow Model Rail Centre had the Southern Railway liveried examples on sale.

I have finally started cleaning up the body shells and seat units with files, and primed and painted them. I have also cut off the moulded on jumper cables on the cab fronts, although these are not too badly done by Ayjay. I still prefer to use finer wire for the cables.

This unit is going into BR blue with full yellow ends. I would prefer the full blue and grey, which suited these trains quite well, but for the time period I wish to represent, blue fits better, drab as it is. The yellow is not yet the final shade as I have used Humbrol #69 for the base coats. I'll use proper BR warning panel yellow for the final coat. I have painted a wood colour for the interior walls and partitions (not sure if they were wood or plastic finishes on this batch of HAPs), and a light green for the cab interiors, but haven't done the seat colours yet. I thought perhaps a mid-grey for the second class seating (BR's 'Trojan" pattern) but am debating what colour for the first class upholstery: blue, black or orange, maybe?

I am still to add the handrails for the cab fronts and guard's doors, as well as the jumper cables. I may replace the moulded on horns with brass or white metal versions I have in stock. The kit comes with both horns and a whistle moulded on, so the modeller just has to cut off the bits he (or she) does not want.

Anyway, enough waffle; here are the photos as it goes until now. Please note that I have perched the freshly painted bodies on the wrong chassis for the last two photos in this sequence!










The seat units had to be modified a little to fit the Hornby chassis. This mostly involved a milling wheel on the Dremel tool to grind away the clearances, but also included a couple of holes drilled to clear the projecting components of the Lenz decoder sitting under the seats of the DMBS.






And finally, one photo with the body shells on the correct chassis!




Once the Bachmann BR Standard-style 2 HAPs become available, I look forward to mixing the types together in multiple. The Hornby mechanism makes this a lot easier than if I had used the original resin chassis and Black Beetle or Tenshodo SPUD motors.

For my pre-grouping goods trains, I have quite a few colourful private owner wagons, plus a few southern area railwy owned wagons (SECR, LBSCR and LSWR) but in reality, wagons from other railways found their way over most of the British mainland. The problem for me was that most of the available kits or ready to run wagons are too new - I wanted wagons from around 1910 or earlier. With this in mind, I ordered some GWR wagon kits from Parkside Dundas.

Today was officially the first day of the mid-year school holidays, and coincidentally, the three wagon kits I ordered arrived this morning. The kits were for a Mink/Mink A of 1907 build onwards, a Mink D of 1906, and a 10T 5 plank open built from 1909 onwards.

I got stuck into doing the Mink D almost straight away, and have completed the build, plus a coat of grey primer all in this one day. The paint is still drying, so no photos of that, but here it is in 'raw' form.






All in all, a nice simple kit to build and the instructions are fairly clear. Painting in GWR grey will also be a relatively simple job as the GW painted everything grey, except perhaps the wheels and buffer heads, and of course, the white roof. At the time I want to represent, the GW lettering should be 25" size where it would fit (not sure about this on the Mink D), but I only have the next size down lettering available anyway. I'll be making do with that for the time being.

And a quick snap of the Mink D in grey primer.

Work on building the Parkside Dundas GWR 10 ton 5-plank wagon has commenced. There are still some components to fit, but progress on the kit was again rapid (like the Mink D I did yesterday).





Adding weight to open wagons is always problematic if one wishes to leave the interior detail visible. I am using some lead ball bearings here, glued on with a liquid contact cement. A few of the balls have stuck in the wrong places but I will clear them out before long. There is still not sufficient weight in this wagon, so I will have to fill a few more spaces in the underframe. I left the end areas clear so I could do my usual NEM coupling arrangement, using two spacers of 40 thou plasticard and the Parkside adapters (actually included with this particular kit). The Hornby fishtails fit better than Bachmann ones, which tend to be bit loose.To fix that problem, since most of my couplings are Bachmann ones, is to add a small blob of mastic in the fishtail slot.





Obvious items still to add include the tarpaulin bar, the door bumpers, handbrake levers, and the tiebars between the axleguards (actually moulded on the kit but they broke when I was cutting the parts off the sprues, so I will replace them with some microstrip).

Here it is again, all but complete now, apart from painting. Parkside include a length of plastic rod to form the tarp bar, but I decided to substitute some brass wire for this, glued into place with a superglue.

they do look good as is Jeff,can`t wait to see them finished
:thumbs;-):cool:
Owen

Thanks, Owen. I'll wait until I have  finished all three wagons then I'll batch paint them.

So far I have managed one Parkside wagon kit per day for two days, and started the third one today, albeit rather later in the day, so it is only half completed. :D

The GWR Mink van has its body shell and underframe with wheels fitted, but no brake gear or buffers yet. the roof is only sitting loosely until I put some lead sheet in for weight.

The 1907 GWR Mink van has now been completed. The photo was taken before I fitted the couplings (using the same methods as before). One addition to this and the 10T open wagon has been to use some brass wire to replace the very fragile tiebar between the 'W' irons.




The next job will be to paint all three GW wagons in the standard grey (or as close as I can get to it).

Continuing with the trio of Great Western wagons, I have now painted them: a coat of grey primer, followed by a coat of matt (or satin) black, then brush-painted with Humbrol #79 blue-grey, and a coat or two of SECR wagon grey (which is the closest colour I have to GWR wagon grey). I removed the wheels and couplings before painting the wagons. The van roofs have had one coat of white primer sprayed over the grey primer, followed by a coat or three of Humbrol #34 matt white.


The photos show them after the black coats then after the first coat of wagon grey. I'll continue until I am happy with the result, then I'll decorate with suitable transfers (more pictures will follow to show these steps).

Coming along very nicely Jeff.


Marty

Now just awaiting transfers and maybe a little weathering.

The first lettering has now been added. As I said earlier, the pre-grouping period GWR wagons really should have 25" lettering for the "G W", but I only have 16" lettering available. This is probably correct for the Mink D, but not for the other two, but it will have to do until I can get hold of something better. I haven't any of the small weight and number transfers in the script typeface they used, so they too will have to wait.

This, then, is how they currently look, posed with my Hornby LSWR M7 0-4-4T and a Smallbrook Studios LSWR 18 ton road van.

I know the platelayers huts were made at Exmouth Junction concrete works, but I've been searching for when the huts were first produced, I had thought they were introduced after grouping. I'm modelling 1930s so I'm OK with using them, just intrigued as to when they first appeared.

Mike, I was hoping no one would notice that! I should have removed the hut for the photos. I think you are correct about them dating from the thirties.
:cheers

All you need to do is refinish the M7 and road van in SR livery. :hmm  :cool wink