TFW’s workshop

[Tim Watson]

Just been using the Mangle, built by the late Peter Clark to finish off two loops at the South end of CF.

We have been re-working the layout control systems, which will hopefully be operable, for our next Keen House Open Day on December 10th. The two turnouts were made by Mark Fielder and will have final installation on Sunday.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Third Copenhagen tunnel & lines under construction. Can you spot the contractor’s loco?

 

[Tim Watson]

Lamp irons are little beasts that are always vulnerable and need to be well attached. I normally drill a 0.5 mm hole to locate the irons.

They are made from 0.5 mm wide nickel silver strip.

The strip is bent back on itself leaving a small piece visible, which will be the future lamp support base.

The long arm of the strip is then bent at ninety degrees to make the upright lamp support.

This is then tinned and soldered where the material is double thickness and then the long arm cut to length for the upright.

A few strokes with a file and the lamp iron can be put in the hole and with a bit of flux and a fairly dry iron sweated into place.

Final trimming (the lamp base is a touch too long) and fettling can be done when all four are in place, to ensure consistency.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Found some castings for the tender axle boxes at the show which with a bit of work, at work, will save me quite a bit of time.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Just finished detailing the tender front for LP. It is very unlikely to be visible, especially with the tarpaulin over the top. Still, God and I will know it’s there.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

A successful evening making two massive components for LP: the atomiser valve for the cylinder oil feed and a couple of wick feed oilers.

The atomiser was made from some fine brass tube for the unions either end of the body, which was represented by a piece of nickel silver strip wrapped around it and also acted as a peg into the boiler cladding. The globe valve handle was represented by some phosphor bronze wire, which passed through the tube to also make the pipe feed. The twist drill is 0.3mm; used to make the locating hole in the cladding.

The wick feed oilers are quite conspicuous. The sand box covers may be represented by some transfer film at the painting stage: difficult to represent them to scale, otherwise.

The oil reservoirs were represented by a bit of brass bar filed in the middle to visually separate the two oilers.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Realised after looking long and hard that I hadn’t put in the rear two brake hangers. These make a big difference to the appearance and, frankly, take away from the need for the brake shoes themselves, which are tucked up well behind the frames. Ironically, the brakes themselves, being attached to the body, are not part of the internal chassis and so the advantages of split frame pick up don’t work here.

Exhibition maintenance on our locos on CF is a constant battle against fluff, not always helped by brake shoes. The engines can attract enough of the stuff over a weekend to set a Hotpoint tumble drier on fire.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

At last the brake gear is complete and rigged (representative, rather than accurate).

The close up shows it filling in the bottom half of the chassis

It scarcely shows in the general view, as it is currently too black.

Lord President is almost complete on the LHS. There is a gubbins on the front of the Cartazzi frame extensions that ought to be modelled, but I don’t have a decent image or drawing of it. And of course the whistle and safety valves: a nice little turning job in non-tarnishing alloy.

Would be nice to get some good photos of LP before painting.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

After filling a couple of silver solder porosities in the Wooten firebox and a very light rub down, the P2 has had a second coat of primer. The photo picks up two witness marks filed in to the top of the boiler cladding to show where the boiler bands will go. On a conventional round boiler, I turn very minimal grooves to achieve the same result.

This will again be rubbed down with very fine abrasive paper before the apple green is sprayed.
My tin of green had become very gloopy.

It was therefore strained through a nylon stocking into a glass jar.

Looking at the sediment that had accrued, there was no way that was going to go through a deVilbiss air brush and give a decent finish. Time will tell if it’s been successful. I often strain paint in the big scale stuff that I do: it’s surprising what comes out sometimes.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

After fiddling around I still wasn’t quite happy with the finish on MM, so she’s been repainted over the last ten days.

Bit sharper now. Will be improved by weathering.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

I have recently rebuilt / made a very tall and elegant bracket distant signal for Copenhagen Fields. It was originally made by John Greenwood 30 years ago, but this is its second re-building because of exhibitor knocks - probably not too much of the original remaining now. The spectacles need to be filled in and the sign needs to read “All engines must stop here if the signal is at danger”.

The next individual to damage it on the layout will meet a slow and painful demise....

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Can you tell what it is yet?

Well it’s fairly obviously two sets of 2mm Scale Association etched rods. The one in the foreground is sold for the modern Farish Jinty conversion, whilst the rather more robust version is also sold for Farish conversions. I think that the one in the foreground is too delicate, being only 10 thou thick across the rods, as it is half etched both sides. Anyway, the thicker ones were used for the Farish Jinty conversion below:

After one days work, it now needs some couplings and weathering; the chimney has been replaced with a correct shaped casting. Quite ironic that the previous Grafar Jinty had a good chimney and poorly shaped dome. It runs really rather well, although I had to make new plain muffs, as the supplied ones were a touch too loose for my taste. All the running gear was chemically blackened before assembly. All in all, a really good introduction to making finescale locos - who would have thought that thirty years ago we would have such high quality commercial models available?

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

My students have sourced these loupes:
https://emea01.safelinks.protection...6yV/1VjZWSttS0u5fNsnZ6AYTNMKpipQs=&reserved=0

They are incredibly good value,
with reasonable optics. They cannot be fitted with prescription lenses, however. Obviously, not quite in the league of the ones I use, but the box is pretty good anyway!

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Telegraph poles are often a bit of a Cinderella subject on model railways. On top of Gasworks Tunnel there was the mother and father of a telegraph pole that probably terminated some of the wires before sending them down through the tunnels. In fact the base of it still in-situ.

I played around with this and other images to try and work out what the pole consisted of. We are very fortunate that Bob Jones made some rather good telegraph cross arms to our design many years ago and these can be adapted quite well to a number of configurations. The pole was made from brass rod turned to a long taper, suitable length cross arms were added, soldered on at 90 degrees to each other, as well as bits of brass for the wiring conduits and other bits. The pole is firmly located in the ground of the tunnel top (it may remain a removable item), whilst the railed fence leading up to it was made from square brass section and rod, again well fixed into the ground. There was very little painting, as the pieces were chemically blacked and then dry brush weathered.

Cecily thinks that a mascara brush would have been just as good. Maybe she has a point.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

There were a number of memorial engines specifically so named after the Great War. One of these was Valour, made by the Great Central Railway. It’s name plate commemorated the employees lost during the conflict.

These engines have always been one of my favourites and very appropriate for Copenhagen Fields.

So this will be my next 2mm scale engine. Made a start on the tender frames this evening, so that at least I will remember when the model was started.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

One of the advantages of modelling a real location is that there are some wonderful prototype shots that it might one day be possible to reproduce.

If you look carefully, you will see a splendid sign advertising petrol at 1/- a gallon (1p a litre for the youngsters). That is actually remarkably cheap petrol even for the 30s.

This group of buildings is being made for CF by Richard Wilson and so we have used this photo as a basis.

The sign was made by hand drawing some artwork at four times oversize and then reducing in a colour photocopier. I have used digital imaging for signs on buildings, but the effect is a bit too perfect and lacks the character of old sign writing.

I’m not sure if Tony Wright will be able to bend his camera to reproduce the opening shot, but at least it’s one our boxes ticked for CF.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

There has been some over-night inflation:

These are the correct 1930s prices - I had not looked closely enough at the original.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

A method for making ghost signs of a complicated design or those directly written on walls is to use colour photocopied / printed computer paper stuck to the walls. The trick is to make the paper fag paper thin by scraping away the backing with a scalpel blade (No 15 is good) until it is almost down the the ink.

It will almost be transparent when held up to the light and very delicate.

If the background to the sign is light, then the area of wall should be painted white otherwise it may darken the image. The sign is stuck onto the wall using dilute PVA glue. When it’s dry the glue shrinks the paper down onto the brickwork; a sort of poor man’s decal / transfer. The artwork can then be distressed with paints to show bricks weathering through.

There is lots more careful weathering to do. Richard Wilson is making a superb 1930’s garage to go on the northern end of the complex so we will soon start to get the area more detailed. It is quite thought provoking, that the small area of CF that we are currently working on is as big as some 2mm layouts!

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

A little taster of Tom Knapp’s Paget Christian Mission in place on CF. This area is currently being worked up, scenically.

Will need a bit of gap filling between the pavement and the road.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

On a layout one can often end up with awkward corners, which should have a building, but would probably entail cutting through it at a funny angle, only having part of it modelled. We have always tried to avoid this ugly effect on CF; although the York Road tube station will be an exception to this rule. A building in a dilapidated state, or being demolished is an alternative which Matthew Wald very successfully used on the south end of the original Caledonian Road scene.

At the south end of CF, behind Tom Knapp’s Paget Christian Mission is a very awkard piece of real estate. It is one of the most obvious parts of the Belle Isle section on top of Gasworks Tunnel, and so needs something interesting to hold the eye: there are only just so many trees that you can plant on CF.

I therefore started making a cameo of a building being demolished, as a demonstration at the Model Engineer show at Ally Pally. Whilst building it, I was fortunate to get lots of advice from retired civil engineers and carpenters, and it has now been completed with a few more hours work at home. The building was obviously a small 3rd rate London terraced house, of which there were examples on this road.

The ‘one holer’ will have a tin roof on it when complete and there will be pavement at the front. Our home made brick styrene sheet is very useful for helping to get this sort of decrepit appearance in a building. The workmen have been incredibly tidy so far, clearing away all the debris as they work(!) It will be painted in this condition and then piles of timber, bricks & detritus added, subsequently. Painting will be fun...

Tim

P.S. From certain angles it does look a bit like the Alamo.