That's a nice looking loco Jeff.  If I didn't hate diesels, I could be tempted ………………..

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

That's a nice looking loco Jeff.  If I didn't hate diesels, I could be tempted ………………..

How about electrics? This one is both! 

I just built another 'quickie' Parkside kit for a GWR Mink D van. It was missing the brass buffers so I have contacted Hatton's to get them to send a replacement set, but in the meantime I have used some brass buffers from my spares boxes. they are too long and also a little too large, but they'll do as a stop-gaps.

For painting the model, I used grey primer then sprayed the whole thing black, before brushing a thin coat of Humbrol grey #67 on. I'm fairly happy with the effect as being close to GW wagon grey. My previous efforts used SECR wagon grey which is probably a little too dark, but looked good. here are the colours side by side. I think the newer one looks OK for a more weather-worn wagon in GW grey. I would welcome other opinions and comments.

After many years, I have finally got around to putting unit and coach numbers on the Bulleid 'Tin' 2 HAL unit. I cheated a little, using ModelMaster pre-formed number sets, I used the transfers for 2649 but swapped the 4 and the 9 over for the end unit numbers, but I didn't bother correcting the individual carriage numbers.

I noted a few paint chips and scrapes need to be touched up, and I still have not fitted driver and guard door handles, or picked out the carriage door handles and grab rails in brass colour. I also had to fix one of the wire jumper cables at one end (I had originally scraped off the moulded resin ones and replaced them with wire).

A task I have been putting off for ages was to print some new labels for the storage boxes. Some of the older ones already had labels I did many years ago, but I am finally catching up. I also rearranged a few so that their contents were a bit more consistent.


There are still a few to do, mostly now for the road vehicle side of things.


Most of these boxes have fixed compartments inside, a few have removable dividers, which can be useful, but can allow smaller parts to slip beneath them. Every one of them has come from bargain shops, occasionally with contents such as rubber bands inside, but mostly empty.

   

Very neat but you’ll still never find the thing you want!!! 

[user=2057]TeaselBay[/user] wrote:

Very neat but you’ll still never find the thing you want!!! 

True, but it means I can narrow it down a bit. 

There's sometyhing to do whilst you have a cuppa Jeff - look for the box marked "little screws" ……………….

I have a fair old heap of assorted plastic boxes myself, also mostly from bargain shops.  The problem is, you find a box you "think" will do the job and when it does, you decide to buy 10 or a dozen more only to find they've sold out and it was a discontinued line ……………… :twisted:

When we could travel to UK - seems like half a lifetime ago - I discovered some excellent storage boxes made by "The Really Useful Box Co" - clip-on lids and very handy for empty (or full) rolling stock boxes.  They were in a "Poundland" type shop so I filled the car with them on a couple of occasions when I was over there in the car.  The last time I drove over, the shop had gone - and taken all the boxes with it !!

It doesn't really matter now because the cost of fuel coupled with eagle eyed customs men post Brexit means such things now attract import duty plus,  the cost of driving to and from northern UK comes in at close to £1000.     I can fly for around half that price but can't bring any boxes back ………….

Labelling them is an excellent idea but what sort of labels will stay put on that type of plastic (a sort of polypropylene I think).  Temperature and humidity changes seem to ruin the label glue ………………

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

There's sometyhing to do whilst you have a cuppa Jeff - look for the box marked "little screws" ……………….

I have a fair old heap of assorted plastic boxes myself, also mostly from bargain shops.  The problem is, you find a box you "think" will do the job and when it does, you decide to buy 10 or a dozen more only to find they've sold out and it was a discontinued line ……………… :twisted:

…

Labelling them is an excellent idea but what sort of labels will stay put on that type of plastic (a sort of polypropylene I think).  Temperature and humidity changes seem to ruin the label glue ………………

My screws and bolts are in a couple of small drawer units.

The boxes I have have changed in their methods of clipping or securing the lids; as you said, the older styles become obsolescent, so different versions have to suffice.

For the labels, they are printed on plain paper, stuck on with UHU Stic, which seems very effective on many types of plastics. I used to use it to stick paper labels onto floppy discs. As you can see, the older labels on my boxes are still very much there, many years down the track. A few that I wanted to replace wouldn't come off, so I stuck new labels straight over the old.

Jeff,

I think you've set a new benchmark of some sort with 3 separate storage boxes for different impedance loco speakers and a dedicated one for "Dapol Cleaning Wagon Parts". I stopped looking at the other labels before my head started spinning :twisted:

Boxes with things like the Dapol track cleaning wagon parts don't need any further labelling - all the parts contained within are associated only with that particular wagon (and there are quite a few different parts for different jobs). Others, like the Diesel Detail Parts boxes have little paper labels added to each compartment to identify the contents. Examples might be "Bachmann class 24" or "Hornby class 30/31", keeping the extra detailing bits that I haven't used on those models easily identifiable for later use, or for repairing loss of or damage to those bits I have fitted. I have some parts that got put aside in shoeboxes earlier and I cannot identify now, so I am more diligent in labelling things as soon as I get them out of the manufacturers' boxes.

This is a bit of a bummer: the UHU Stic must be using a different formula, because all the new labels just curled up as the glue dried and dropped off. All the old labels stuck on with earlier examples of the UHU Stic glue are still firmly attached to the boxes. So firmly attached that they would have to be scraped off to remove them.

That's a pain Jeff.

Maybe they discovered that, if you mistook the old glue sticks for lollypops and ate 5 every day for 300 years you stood a 0.2 % risk of getting cancer ……….     Either that or the new formula is cheaper.  :roll:

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

That's a pain Jeff.

Maybe they discovered that, if you mistook the old glue sticks for lollypops and ate 5 every day for 300 years you stood a 0.2 % risk of getting cancer ……….     Either that or the new formula is cheaper.  :roll:

I think they are claiming it is "greener".

That is a real pain. Clearly there are some superb adhesives used to attach to PE /PP plastics, just buy a storage box from Daiso or Coles and the labels are tough to remove. But not at all easy to get hold of for home use.,

One idea which springs to mind is to first apply a strip of the writable Scotch tape, that should stick ok, then try the UHU glue to attach your label on top.

[user=2170]Colin W[/user] wrote:

That is a real pain. Clearly there are some superb adhesives used to attach to PE /PP plastics, just buy a storage box from Daiso or Coles and the labels are tough to remove. But not at all easy to get hold of for home use.,

One idea which springs to mind is to first apply a strip of the writable Scotch tape, that should stick ok, then try the UHU glue to attach your label on top.

That may well work, Colin. I will have to experiment a bit. I may still have some old UHU Stic, but they do tend to dry up slowly, so if it is too old it might be unusable.

Pva ? It's a wood glue and slightly flexible so might be worth a try ?
Cheers

Matt

[user=2080]Barchester[/user] wrote:

Pva ? It's a wood glue and slightly flexible so might be worth a try ?
Cheers

Matt

Definitely worth a try. I have heaps of it for model railway scenic work anyway. 

:cheers

Jeff,

Another solution if PVA or Scotch tape don't work out, you could get some blank Avery labels on a roll, these do stick well to PE/PP, confirmed as SWMBO has been trying to get an old one off a storage container, well stuck on.

This would form a base for you to glue your printed labels over.

If all still too hard, just attach the labels with cheapest shiny Sellotape, that's how I repurpose old bottles and packs. Lacking elegance but functional.

I decided to take a couple of reasonable photos of a kit conversion locomotive I did a few years ago, and the progress on a similar conversion from the same source I am working on now. Both use resin bodies from Golden Arrow Productions fitted onto ready to run chassis, from Hornby and Bachmann. The resin body shells are fairly basic but a sound starting point. Details such as buffers, handrails, safety valves and pipework have to be provided by the modeller on these kits.

The Maunsell ex-Southern Railway Z class 0-8-0T uses a chopped Hornby Stanier 8F chassis. It sits a little high but there is no way I can lower it any further as the motor is touching the inside of the firebox top. Rotating the motor is not possible because the location into the gearbox has a flat on it meaning it only fits properly one way up.

The partly done loco is a Maunsell ex-SR  W class 2-6-4T, sitting on a slightly modified Bachmann N class chassis. It will end up in BR plain black livery very similar to that on the Z.

In both cases the cylinders should really have a sharply angled in appearance at the top, but I prefer not to interfere too much with the valve gear and slide bars. A fully operational model is preferable to one that looks correct but doesn't run well.