30.1.10

"I have a dream".....and now I have a slab to build it on!!!

2 concretors, 6 'volunteers', 4 wheel barrows and 6.8 cubic metres of concrete later....the slab lives!

6.30am...beep,beep,beep etc, this can't be happening.....it's slab day......must.......get......up! Didn't get home from Ron's till 12.30am,.......must.........get.......up! Slowly reality kicks in, noise outside, crikey! concretors already here!

Walk, more like stagger, to back door, geez' it's dark out there? Overcast bigtime! Short conversation with concretor "Might rain mate" Noooooooooooooooooooooo! Not today! "We'll give it half an hour". Tick tick tick tick, longest half hour of my life to date! No rain. YES! Concrete confirmed, 'volunteers' onsite, wheel barrows serviceable. Tick tick tick tick, wheres the bloody concrete? Tick tick tick tick. I know, I'll put the kettle on etc, etc. 8.45 am, what's that noise ?, sound like a truck, a big truck, yep. Lets do this!

Form a queue at the back of the concrete truck, first load done....down comes the rain!

















First barrow load.......also coincides with rain starting.

















Last barrow load......note plastic covering slab to stop rain damage. 20" after last barrow was tipped the rain stopped!

















Plastic off, start floating. By 4.00pm the formwork was off. Two week wait now for a good cure before I can start drilling into the slab to fix dyna-bolts and begin putting the 'Mecano' set together.

20.1.10

3265 in the paint shop.


Had a bit of bench time yesterday so I got out the masking tape and air brush and this is the end result.
I forgot just how fiddly these 'multi colour' jobs are! Dirty, grimy black is so much easier and they all end up like that anyway!
Started with Navy Dressing (Bakers Middle Buff) on the roof after masking up the edge frame which had to stay in black. Gave that a few hours to go off and then masked up the whole roof, smoke box, chassis foot plates and splashers, except the sand boxes and 374 pieces of masking tape later I cut loose with the maroon. Had a little bit of 'blow over' from maroon to black but otherwise went ok. A few touch ups with the brush were required. A bit more tape and the buffer beam was red!
I also fitted another set of pickups to the insulated drivers as well - what a fiddly job that was. Definitely one to be done much earlier in the assembly process.
Will start the decaling soon - mmmm boiler bands and tender lining, can't wait.

Must say this shot looks a lot more 'maroonier' than the last one. Just opened the curtains and turned all the lights off. Natural light and about 20 seconds on F25 provided a much better result.

18.1.10

3265's headlight - Mk 3

As a follow on to previous posts re this little challenge here is the 3rd version (attempt) at getting some forward illumination happening for the P.
I had purchased some of these tiny LED's quite some time ago from Gwydir Valley Models and at the time thought they would make great marker lights for future projects, never realising how much light they emitted until Ray Pilgrims' article in AMRM and his blog (Bylong) post on yard lighting.
They will really be a useful item for many different lighting applications. They come pre wired, which is a major plus for something this size, with about 150mm of two very fine insulated twisted wire attached. The insulation is the paint on kind so be careful when pulling the wires through metal sheet etc or it could easily be worn through and short out. A 1 or 2 watt 1K ohm resistor, spliced into the positive wire, will also required to tone down the output of the LED as well.
When I finished removing the 3mm LED from the headlight housing of the 32 I filled the surplus holes I had drilled with solder and drilled a 1.5 mm hole in between and towards the rear of the two headlight supports. This will take the wiring out of the headlight and into the smoke box via a countersunk 2 mm hole drilled into it directly below where the headlight will sit. I countersank the smoke box hole to make it easier to thread the wires through the two holes at the same time.
Next the headlight housing was soldered to the top of the smoke box. After the obligatory cleaning ritual, the the air brush was pressed into service and the body of 3265 had it's first coat of paint!
After test fitting the LED into the headlight housing I had found it difficult to get the LED to sit square in the housing. After some brain wracking I cut out a disc of 1 mm or so styrene and filed it up almost fit in the housing. I drilled a 1mm hole in the centre, counter sunk it to take the wire connections from the LED, threaded the wire through the hole and superglued the LED in place. After the glue went off I again test fitted the now styrene mounted LED into the housing and carefully employed the file until it was as perfect a fit as possible. I then treaded the LED wires into and through the headlight and down into the smoke box. The LED was a nice snug fit and after squaring up and testing to make sure it still worked, the styrene was fixed into place with a drop of superglue. The finished assembly looks like a rather perfect fried egg ! Will experiment now with a lens to try and diffuse the light and make it appear more 'yellow'.










The 'fried egg' and headlight housing before assembly.










Headlight and 'fried egg' fitted and painted.










3265 loco in black 'Mirotone' and the tender in black and maroon. I don't know about your monitor (or my photography!) but the tender almost looks indian red! I can assure it's not - Bakers Maroon - and it looks a lot more 'maroonier' (new word!) in the flesh. I looked at the Trainorama maroon 32 photo from the website and it looks pretty 'tuscany- indian reddy' to me there as well.

3.1.10

Bogies, logs and brake gear

My first modeling efforts for the new year involved an attempt to progress a little further with 3265 and try to clear a few unfinished project off the bench.

This UME (MLE) is an AR Kits model with a Sydney Hobbies log load chained to the deck, although the detail hounds will notice that the logs are not actually chained to anything! The UME kit has , and still is, been around for yonkers. Whilst not having the detail of the the latest Austrains offering, or the price tag and weight, it is the basis of a fairly accurate model. With some added detail parts it comes up very nicely. I have not given this one the detail treatment as is was more a loading exercise.

The SH log load comes as an unpainted one piece resin casting. First thing is a good scrub with warm soapy water and let dry. A coat of your favorite self etch primer, Bakers in this case, followed by a base coat of whatever med brown you have in stock. I used a 20 year old tin of Humbrol, gotta love that lead, lasts for ever ever and I never had the urge to drink it once ! Follow on by brushing two or three other shades of whatever browns you have and finish off by streaking on some black here and there. Use the dry brushing method on all but the first coat so as not to ply on too thick. I did a second one of these and had to do a bit of work with the back of a knife blade to get some definition in the grain detail so there is some variation from casting to casting. You can also run a fine black line with a thin brush where the logs join together so they appear to be separate logs and not a mass. The chain is from Model Builders and is 40 links to the inch. Cut to length and secured under the logs with a dab of CA. I secured the load to the wagon using PVA on top of the stanchions so it will be easy to remove if needed. The whole thing is then given a good going over with Testors Dulcote to cover the little indiscretions.

Here is the tender for 3265, minus the sound equipment, with its first coat of paint. Mirotone satin black metal primer. Next will be the maroon on the tender sides.









Tender bogies for 3265 with the second set of phosphor bronze pickups added. A small piece of PC board was glued wit CA to the bogie spreader then the pickups were formed and soldered to the PC board. Fine wire was then soldered to the PC board for electrical connection and the pickups adjusted by judiciously bending them away from the wheel tyres till they just touch. Too much pressure and the wheel sets will not turn properly.



Some Bergs BCW and BSV wagons, 2 of each, I purchased from a deceased estate already assembled. I have added brake detail from a number of sources including Ozzy Models, Silvermaz and some scratch building. Full brake gear, including the handbrake chain and release rods, and grade control equipment has been depicted. These have since had a coat of primer but the detail stands out better for the pic beforehand. These four wagons will finish off my stock train of bogie and four wheelers.