4mm An EM Workbench: Mini-Signwriting (rough)

[AJC]

I know that it's all gone quiet, but now the strip coil is all but finished (in construction terms). Curiously, the packet of buffers I had contained one pair each with different sized heads, so it's not quite ready for painting until I get that sorted. Anyhow, the interesting bit is the interior fabricated from plastic sheet and section with etched strips full of holes; on the real thing, these were used for stuffing locating pins (of indeterminate nature) in to stop the coils which were loaded 'eye-to-sky' from shifting. On the model, these strips have been superglued to some Evergreen 30 thou x 60 thou strip glued to a dummy floor of 10 thou'. The interior of a real one is shown in this Paul Bartlett picture:
http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brstripcoil/h3577f06d#h3577f06d

My interpretation is below; yes, I did drill out all those holes and yes, a couple of drills bit the dust. It'll show up better under a coat of paint, hopefully.









Adam

 

[iak63]

Whooooosh...
Now that's a corker Mon.
Bring on the primer I say.

 

[Jordan]

That is incredibly neat drilling on those internal restraint strips!!

 

[adrian]

That is incredibly neat drilling on those internal restraint strips!!

Agreed - I'd be interested in knowing how Adam managed it. In the past for the series of ventilation holes along a cab sheet I have used a rivet tool to give a row of regular spaced centre pop marks which were then drilled through.

 

[AJC]

Thanks chaps. The short answer is that I simply stuck the brass strips with the holes etched in onto the plastic strip and took those as a guide using a drill of an appropriate diameter (about 0.8mm). I shudder to think what I might have done otherwise but I guess that some very careful marking out and extremely slow and gentle drilling would have been called for. I should be able to see whether the effort was worth it later today; the sun is shining so it's primer time.

Adam

 

[AJC]

And now, with added primer, almost none of which got to the bottom of the holes. Since I took these pictures, I've given the interior a first pass with a weathering mix of thinned Humbrol Metalcote gunmetal and matt chocolate. While this has reached the bottom of most holes, I daresay that another pass or two will be needed yet but the underframe will come first.





Adam

 

[AJC]

Down in the shed, having a bit of a play with dad's test track - it's has some scenery, but it's not a layout, as such - so here are some rather murky pictures (I like to imagine that they resemble a cheap '60s camera; this might well be delusional) of an afternoon shunt. A handful of locos were seen, though the aim of the exercise was to test my 'in progress' Sentinel which has its own thread. First is Bagnall 16" Carnarvon built from the Impetus kit, biffing around a few minerals.



It's a bit of a bruiser and isn't conventionally attractive, frankly, but runs really nicely and should be even nicer to shunt with when it's had a chance of being properly run-in.



The shiny Minfit has been featured above...



The ex-SNCF mineral is by Parkside, the lettering by me about 10-12 years ago and probably employed a mapping pen. The script on the sides seems to have been done on a local basis with whatever brush came to hand. This is just as well. Another bruiser is 95er D9514 (Heljan via Hattons). EM'ed on the cheap by simply pulling the wheels out this goes rather well and having decommissioned the lighting and moved the buffer beams back 1mm and replaced the buffers it actually looks like one. I've also replaced the bonnet top handrail with nickel strip and that looks much better. The worksplates are by Shawplan; it's taken me months to have them in the same place as the loco. The last thing to do is to sort the rain strips; they're too low. Dad seems to have adopted it as pet shunter for the moment and it looks just the job. Somewhere in South Wales...



The shade of green on the cab seems open to interpretation. I can live with it, others can't.



The bobol has featured here too. Needs lettering and weathering, but it has passed running trials. All this and the chickens didn't find themselves under my feet...

Adam

 

[7mmMick]

Very inspiring stuff as usual Adam, I always enjoy seeing an alert come up to say you've posted here. It usually means getting to see an un common wagon, probably kit built or RTR with lots of details and lovely finishing/weathering. I am continually envious of the diversity in 4mm wagon kits, 7mm is so limited in comparison,

ATB Mick

 

[AJC]

Thanks Mick, that's very kind. There is the point that you need fewer wagons to create a similar impression in 7mm I suppose but I don't think that any of the types featured in the post above are unavailable in 7mm as good quality kits; David Parkins's Minfit is tempting for me simply because of the detail that is possible but I suppose that if you're going to take the trouble to build something from a kit you may as well build something attractive and relatively unusual than something mundane.

I suppose that the big advantage of 4mm is that, thanks to the mass market, more marginal types can be had RTR in 4mm relatively affordably - I wouldn't have believed a RTR D95er would have been likely five years ago for example, never mind an S&D 7F or a Covhop. The big advantage of 4mm these days, of you model the post war period, is that you need not build a kit of the bread and butter unless you really want to; but you can spend a bit of time improving stuff. Reflecting the diversity of the 1960's railway should be a lot easier in model form now because the basics can be had easily and adapted accordingly and you can then go to town on the specialist types of which there were dozens. I now have too many of course...

Adam

 

[Jordan]

It was when you said about the D95xx "Heljan via Hattons" that I was reminded that this is 4mm... (yeah I know - I'd not paid enough attention to the Thread Title ) ... 'cos I thought "but Heljan didn't do the Teddy Bear in 7mm..?!?" D'oh!!!
Somehow these models look like O scale to me - could be the track helps; that is superb as well!!

 

[AJC]

I'm not sure why that might be Jordan. The angle the picture was taken from? The extra detail? The track, for what it's worth is basic Ratio or C&L and the ballasting is that green granite (N gauge) weathered according to my teenage idea of what real track looked like though that was based on lots of photos; I'd do it completely differently now but how often do you see a cess modelled?

Adam

 

[Dog Star]

Somehow these models look like O scale to me...

I agree with Jordan, I thought that the models were 7mm. After reading Adam's reply above I went back to look at the photos again - as there is no easy reference by which to judge size any view as to scale has to be based upon how the models tickle the senses... and in this case the Class 14 and bogie bolster ooze bulk, mass, 7mm.

If there is anything which is a give away then it is the 4mm style of fishplate (wrapped around the foot of the rail and with no bolt/nu detail).

regards, Graham

 

[Jordan]

What Graham said.... the wheel flanges, the wagon underframes - brake blocks close to the treads, for instance - the sublime weathering; it all looked better than OO - which of course it is - and so almost subconsciously I just presumed they were a larger scale. The text did mention Parkside kits, too, and again naturally I tend to associate that name with 7mm.
It reminds me of the photo Jerry ('Queensquare') has posted in the 2mm F/S Section of a Fowler 4F. Without any other references to judge the size against, it is so well detailed it could easily pass for 7mm again, let alone 4mm.

 

[Dog Star]

Adam, your modelling in 4mm is excellent - please do not move up to 7mm as in that scale you would be dangerous.

 

[AJC]

I've no intention of going up to 7mm, I'd get some sort of detail paralysis which is bad enough in 4mm. I'm glad that you picked up on the brakeblocks Jordan. One of my little hang-ups is getting the dratted things as close as is practical to the wheels. This, by the by, is one reason why I am slightly ambivalent about springing as it prevents this to some extent, the other being that I'm generally too impatient to make it work properly (ditto DCC, too much mucking about for my liking). None of this is a patch on what @queensquare (Jerry) does in 2mm really and seeing his stuff without paint is almost more impressive than what it looks like fully finished.

Adam

 

[dibateg]

Yes - I had to look twice too, I thought it my be 7mm. Nice Work Adam!

 

[AJC]

A couple of pictures of my models posed on Andrew Ullyott's P4 layout Wheal Elizabeth (thank you Andrew, if you're reading this) at last weekend's Southampton show. While the AEC is not quite appropriate to Cornwall; it's a Somerset owned and registered lorry, the clayliner tank is, albeit unfinished. Still, I have now made the catwalk for the barrel top and have devised a way of fixing it on more permanently than the blu-tak doing the job currently. The brief exibition appearance also spurred me into finishing the AEC. The small matters of licence discs, wipers and cab back quarterlights have been tackled and it has even been very gently weathered (Bird brothers seem to have kept their vehicles clean).



Yes, the lettering was done by hand and one bonus of this is that the red lettering above the screens has worn away slightly in what I think is quite a realistic fashion; I would never have dared doing this deliberately! Even on my laptop, this picture is about 1.5 times actual size so I don't think that the camera is too unkind.



Still lots to do to the clayliner tank but the scale of the jobs are minor compared to the work that has already been completed. I've just spotted that I've missed the solebar label clip for example. Hmm.

Adam

 

[iak63]

Whose is the AEC please Adam.
Fine looking beastie that

 

[AJC]

Thanks Iak. The AEC Mercury is a Road Transport Images cab, chassis and wheels with a scratchbuilt tipper body. For my money, this and the Mk V Mammoth were the best looking commercial vehicles of the post war period; the last hurrah of the coachbuilt body. I imagine that they weren't an enormous amount of fun to drive though.

Adam

 

[iak63]

Slàinte Adam
IAK