Grahame's N/2mm bashes

[Grahame Hedges]

Unfortunately, AFAIA, Builder Plus brickpaper is no longer produced (although I could be wrong). I've a small stash of the red brick type although it's not very appropriate for London where yellow stocks dominate.

 

[Grahame Hedges]

I've not done any proper modelling, just a little fiddling about, for weeks now. I seem to have lost my modelling mojo and have been side-tracked by a rescue cat that I've adopted. Nonetheless, I did do a little photography yesterday for an article about structural height that I've written for the DEMU UPDate magazine and thought I share one of the pics. It's New London Bridge House which is a tall tower block, although the model is still just a foam board carcass with details yet to be added. But at over 2ft tall in N/2mm scale it does give an indication of what I mean by structural height:

 

[Tim Watson]

Crikey. You could store some 2mm scale layouts in that!

Tim

 

[Grahame Hedges]

And that's the smaller one of the two tower blocks I'm making (both are just currently foamboard cores). Both of them are quite a bit taller than this low relief building (No1 London Bridge) I'm also making (a little bit more progressed) for the backscene:

 

[Grahame Hedges]

For the last few months I've not been able to get myself back in to a productive modelling mode. Consequently, in an effort to re-kick start my railway modelling interest I've indulged in a little RTR retail therapy and purchased Dapol's N gauge prototype HST. It turned up the following day after ordering and I'm quite impressed. I've not yet closely inspected or test run it as that is the next effort hurdle to overcome, but here's a pic of the two power cars:

 

[Grahame Hedges]

Last week I visited a friend. It was the first time that I've been to someone's house in over a year. The purpose, apart from a chance for a catch-up chat and socialising, was to take some photos of the latest developments of his model railway to accompany a magazine article. Here's a few of the poorer ones that won't be used in the article and, hopefully, they're of interest. It's N gauge and ATM the stock (and vehicles) are mostly RTR although he says he will get around to tweaking and weathering it:

 

[FH47331]

I'd hardly call any of those poor shots!! Nice looking layout, are you able to say which mag its going to be in?

 

[Grahame Hedges]

It won't be one of the commercial newsstand monthlies, but a self published effort I've been putting together during the pandemic that, hopefully, will be available to order through ebay (when it's finalised and printed):



In the meantime here's a couple more of the rejected snaps:

 

[Grahame Hedges]

Back to a little gentle modelling. My efforts are to try and make something like this:



which is a 1973 Bedford TK 220D box truck. So far I've managed this (the pic below). The cab is a 3D print from Osborns Models, the body and chassis are made from styrene sheet and the wheels are from Tomytec. Still some work to do but hopefully I'm getting there:

 

[Grahame Hedges]

Slow progress on the bashed box truck. I've got some main blocks of colour on it, but there still plenty to do like glazing, decals, number plates, a little weathering, etc, and of course final assembly as the parts are just plonked together:

 

[Steph Dale]

Graham,
You're making a really lovely job of that, but have to say the cab just doesn't do it for me - it's going to look very odd without the wrap-around windscreen.

Steph

 

[Grahame Hedges]

The cab is a commercial 3D print and, yes, it is rather too flat fronted, but I guess they've done that to make it easy to glaze for their finished models using flat clear plastic inserts. The challenge will be to add a windscreen that looks more curved at the ends.

Unfortunately, there's no alternative more accurate N/2mm Bedford TK cab available so it's that or nothing. Or learn how to draw up and produce the computer file for 3D printing - and life's to short, especially at my age.

 

[Tim Watson]

You could try filing and polishing some fairly thick Perspex to the windscreen contour, Grahame.

Tim

 

[Grahame Hedges]

I've got three TKs to glaze. The one I've made and these two which are basically as supplied but tidied up a bit and painted by myself. They all do need some details adding like the turn indicators (that stick out like ears so would be fragile while glazing and will be added last) plus number plates and so on:



My usual approach to glazing windscreens is to cut them from a thinnish flexible clear plastic (that can be bent to shape) and glued in place, but it is a tricky frustrating operation. Smaller side windows are formed from Micro-glaze.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Unfortunately, AFAIA, Builder Plus brickpaper is no longer produced (although I could be wrong). I've a small stash of the red brick type although it's not very appropriate for London where yellow stocks dominate.

Scalescenes do a nice yellow London Brick paper which can be purchased and downloaded https://scalescenes.com/product/london-brick/

 

[Grahame Hedges]

Of late I've been trying to find pre-printed examples of 48 sheet posters from the 70s and 80s in N/2mm scale as I don't have a printer to produce my own. 48 sheet posters (with an aspect ratio of 2:1) were very popular then and apparently are still the most popular size for outdoor billboard poster adverts in the UK. Unfortunately most commercially available N gauge landscape posters are not the correct 48 sheet poster aspect ratio. And believe me I've looked at a lot of ranges and companies.

Consequently I've taken to producing some myself (and arranged for a friend to print me a sheet). Unfortunately it is very difficult and time consuming to find suitable images that are square on, without trees, lampposts, shadows etc., across them, of period 48 sheet posters. I've also made up a few and they're not all for the period I want, but here's what I've managed to collate so far:


And here's a quick snap of what they look like (except the spock/heineken one which was a commercial one from Sankey Scenics - I was rather disappointed as the ebay ad showing it mentioned that others posters were included in the pack but none of those were 48 sheet posters and most were small portrait format posters).

 

[Grahame Hedges]

I've spent a few hours putting together some NGS kits of bogie flat wagons (although stopping to watch the football). They're not finished but here's how far I've got (and yep, I've noticed that one of the bolster stanchion pins has fallen out):

 

[Grahame Hedges]

Here's a gratuitous non-sequitur snap that might be of interest although I've posted similar before earlier in the thread. Actually I took the photo recently to accompany an article I wrote for a commercial N gauge magazine about making a pre-fab building, but thought I'd share it here (if that's okay):

 

[Grahame Hedges]

For a bit of fun I've been building a N/2mm scale Beaver white metal kit of an LNER/NER Quad bogie bolster wagon. It's quite a simple white metal kit with few parts and I've superglued it together as the deck is plastic sheet. I've got a bit of paint on it but it could do with some weathering. I didn't have any specific decals for LNER/BR Quads so used some rough and ready generic ones. The huge girder load, made from plasticard, needs chaining down but that's something else I don't have - suitable fine chain. Must get some.

 

[Grahame Hedges]

I've been bashing a couple of old N gauge Farish TEA tankers in to representation of more modern 102t GLW class A bogie tank wagons with continuous sole-bars and riding on Gloucester GPS 25 bogies as built by The Standard Wagon Company in 1980, batch numbered 82200 to 82227, for use by Total in delivering fuel oil to power stations as well as heating oil and petrol. Still plenty to do, like adding ladders, finishing underframe details, painting and weathering, but here's progress to date: