petesworkshop

The main difficulty I’m up against at the moment is trying to make the trim that goes between the boiler and the spectacle plate and which follows round the splashers to end half-way along the front splasher at the front boiler band. The problem is that this trim is right-angled and I realise now, after a couple of failed attempts, that it can only really be made from two strips; one vertical and the other horizontal, I’ve not made much progress with this yet. I think I now know the shape of the firebox top steam valves; they’re not globes as shown in the Tatlow drawing, though it’s possible that Ben-Y-Gloe did indeed have valves of this form when built. I’ve pored over photos of Bens in HR days and even asked a question on HRSchat. I’ve concluded that what I’m looking at is a cylindrical affair, similar to the valve used by the Caledonian Railway. I have a picture I took in the Museum of Transport in Glasgow recently that shows the valve clearly, sitting on top of the CR Single, No. 123. I made a mess of one LGM valve casting while trying to file it into the shape of a tennis ball before I realised my mistake; anyway I’ve ordered another casting from Laurie, meanwhile you can see the valve I did get right on the firebox top. I’ve almost finished work on two completely new crew members for the Ben; there’s very little space between the splashers on the footplate of a 7mm Ben, which was the main design problem to overcome. I’ll post pictures of the crew as soon as I’ve soldered their buttons on, you’ll see for yourselves if I’ve been successful.  

I’m taking my Wee Ben up to a running day next Saturday in Carlisle on the CD0GG’s layout, so I’ve got just over a week to do as much detailing as I can before her public debut; I’m sure she’ll enjoy it. I’ve done a lot of work "in the flat" recently, making sub-assemblies and modifying LGM’s HR castings so they are more nearly Wee Ben components; these are mostly ready now to add to the engine. A case in point are the lubricators on the smokebox front; I had to cut off the cast pipes under them and substitute brass rods bent at a much more acute angle, then finish them off with a little washer where the pipe disappears into the front of the smokebox; it’s time consuming, but it’s a lot easier to modify LGM’s castings in this way than to start right from scratch. I did however make the "piano front" below the lubricators from scratch, I think this is the valve cover, it’s hinged at the bottom and has a couple of catches at the top which were pressed in to open it; I made these from brass pins and the hinges from fine n/s rod. This went well but the smokebox door was another matter; the brass ring that surrounds the door was supplied on the etched sheets, and I was grateful for this and used it, but I just couldn’t modify the LGM smokebox door casting to fit nicely inside the ring, it was too big, and the door has to be exactly the right size because of the surround; so I was left with no choice other than to make a new door myself. I think a lathe would have helped at this stage but I don’t have one. So I cut, as accurately as possible by hand, a circle of nickle silver sheet and hammered it into a shallow domed shape in a doming block. I filed this to the correct profile which was not too difficult. However, undoubtedly the hardest part was working on the door to make it truly circular and to fit it accurately inside its brass surround… it took ages, working by eye with a file, but I think I’ve just about got away with it. The brass door surround will look a treat later whan it’s buffed up along with the other brass components of the engine that the enginemen so lovingly polished up in HR days. The front coupling hook is soldered solid to the buffer beam as the conformation of the chassis behind leaves no room for a spring arrangement; I don’t think this presents any mechanical problems as it seems that the HR didn’t subject their engines to the indignity of running backwards with a train, the front coupling was rarely if ever used, so I’ll take a leaf out of their book.         

I’m still uneasy about modelling fish barrels and turf coverings despite all the information I had from HRSoc members on the chat site; so I decided the best way to liven up the interior of my fish truck was to add a folded wagon sheet which I thought would be appropriate in a wagon in transit. So, using Bellass and Geddes’ "Highland Railway Liveries" for reference, I drew the lettering for the wagon sheet by hand, rather oversize.  This was the time consuming part of the job; after which I simply scanned the artwork  into the computer, sized it, and printed as many as I needed on plain computer paper. I cut a sheet out and painted it with dilute wood glue as I folded it to shape. When it was dry I used Humbrol enamels to colour it, working from dark to light with a good deal of dry brush work. Ropes were added from miniature cordage from a model ship kit which was soaked in more dilute wood glue before being persuaded to lay flat on the floor planking in a realistic manner with more wood glue. The shovel and brush are from my own "Heroes of the Footplate" accessory range.       

Pete welcomes comments and questions, which he actually enjoys answering. Now this morning I realised that "Blogsome" actually blocks comments until I’ve approved them… but without telling me. Anyway I’ve sorted this out now so the site should be more user friendly. However, when I pressed the "approve comment" button earlier two recent comments were unaccountably deleted much to my irritation! I hadn’t read them through properly before they went, but one of them came in on 7/11, the other more recently on 21/11; so if these were your comments perhaps you wouldn’t mind re-posting them. The first comment I recall included a question about the date of my fish truck and asked how I painted the interior. Well the date is 1900-1923, or as long as they lasted in HR livery. The interior of the truck was painted with Humbrol enamels on top of Halfords’ "Acid 8" primer which I baked in a light box for 8 hours at about 30C to help it cure. The base of the truck is Slaters’ plastic planking, scored across with a file to simulate wood grain. I painted the interior a very dark brown, making sure that the colour went into all the scores and cracks in the planking, then dry brushed it with increasingly lighter tones of a browny-grey mix until I was satisfied with the result. It was my intention to add some interest to the interior too and my next post, later today, will show you how I did it.    

Resplendant in Halfords’ "Acid 8" etch primer, this Highland Railway Pasenger Brake Van is from a Lochgorm "etches only" kit, or maybe it’s sold as an "aid to scratchbuilding"; whatever it’s called, the main thing is that it’s accurate and fits together nicely; the result is a basic model that needs detailing. I thickened the window openings and added an inner skin as well so that the glazing slides into the gap betwen the inner and outer skin; I think this treatment gives an old wooden vehicle a real solid feel. I fabricated patterns for the vacuum pipe, the horsehooks and the lamp-tops on the roof, from which I made silicone rubber moulds so I could cast as many as I needed, both for this model and with future projects in mind.   

I made this Caley Horsebox some time ago and I decide it was high time that I painted it; in fact it’s high time I addressed a backlog of unpainted models, shunted into "Forlorn Sidings", gathering dust. When I was in Halfords a few days ago I bought a tin of their "Acid 8" spray etch-primer which I’d heard about and wanted to try for myself. I cleaned the model thoroughly outside the workshop in the garden using cellulose thinners, then dried it and sprayed on a couple of coats of "Acid 8". There was no mention of a critical curing temperature on the side of the tin; neverthess I put the model in my lightbox (just a cardboard box with a light bulb inside), and let the etch primer cure at about 30 degrees C for the rest of the afternoon before I took it upstairs to the studio. After 24 hours the primer was hard and, I’m pleased to relate, resisted my thumbnail when I tried to scratch it off the underside of the model. I’ll certainly use "Acid 8" on future modelling projects, it was a good buy; well worth just over a tenner.    

The corners of the tank flares were made using a formula I found on Nick Baines’ website…  Using this I produced a shape which slotted, with a bit of fiddling, into the gap I’d left at the corners, much preferable I thought to the brass fingers with solder infill method There’s a good deal of tidying up to do still, and a lot of detail to add but I feel I’ve managed to "tame" the tender now; so, as the loco’s still fighting back I’m moving on to work on that now.