What is your current Project?

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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby cjbarnes5294 » Wed Sep 17, 2014 5:28 pm

I agree, you really have got a lot of talent. I'm sure if you wanted to pursue it, you could do them commercially, especially after that bloke offered to buy your 4mt. :D

For tightening up the loco-tender coupling, if it's anything like my standard 4 mogul (which I suspect shares the chassis), the drawbar is screwed to the underside of the cab. It's then threaded through the hole in the centre of the front tender bufferbeam, and then you have to awkwardly lever the loco and tender to get a pin on the tender to go through one of 2 slots on the end of the drawbar. A pain the arse to couple them up, which is why I prefer picking it up as one unit. :D

The closest slot is about a scale foot too far from the realistic spacing. However, the buffers on the tender flanking the drawbar are quite long, and solid mouldings. To get the tender coupled up closer, I suspect you might need to cut those buffers off, so they're not in the way when going around corners. If you're conservative like me, you won't like to take a knife to an expensive model, although I suppose they could be glued back on if you changed your mind. :) I would also consider making a replacement drawbar, possibly cutting a small strip of plasticard, and drilling two holes at a measured distance apart for the loco screw and the tender pin.

Chris
The Red Queen Hypothesis, applicable to train sim development?

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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby Crumplezone » Wed Sep 17, 2014 7:16 pm

Thanks both of you, Pete and Chris.

It gives me alot of confidence that the locomotive weathering is recieving a warm welcome. I must admit I felt bothered at first of actually doing them as they are expensive models to begin with, but the personality and individual look the locomotives get after you do it really makes it worthwhile imo.

There is all these lovely models which come out from Hornby,Bachmann and Dapol but they all look so plastic and toy like. I've always been impressive when I've seen locomotives actually look weather worn or ex-works in looks but still contain a level of grime they you know they have been worked upon.

I intend to end more to the Ivatt via screwlink couplings for looks, maybe some new vacuum and break pipes made out of brass/pewter and some crew to and to finish off some lamps which I intend to try and modify to allow them to be removable with some slots on the back of them to fit on the lamp irons.

In regards to you comments about the drawbar, I am thinking along those lines and even taking the drawbar off and drilling a new hole into it. I have no quams about removing the tender mini buffers as they are not very noticable once the locomotive is coupled up anyway.

I think I'll have a look at my pannier tank and Jinty to see if they need any detail weathering, they are both factory weathered from bachmann, the Jinty looks fine but I may add abit of rust around the smokebox and sides. The pannier i think needs slight rust added and then some extra detailing. Not quite figured out the coal bunkers yet, may have to drill hole into the coal and remove or take the body off and see if they are moulded on.

Next on the agenda is probably going to be track down and getting to work on the main part of the layout, I'm mulling over underlay or not in foam or just weather to tac down and add ballast instead. I'd like the track to be raised up slightly like the real railways so opting for a underlay be it foam, cork or woodland scenics stuff may be a option.

Its certainly turning out to be quite fun either way.
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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby Crumplezone » Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:03 pm

Layout Update:

IT BEGINS!

Finally after alot of effort and research I've now taken order of some woodland scenics "road-bed" foam underlay, its different from PECOs and Hornby underlay in that its close form foam meaning its very unlikely to disintergrate over time or crumble and it has excellent sound deadening properties. Also the biggest advantage is its supppppppppeeeerrr easy to get down on your board, you can either use NO NAILS, copydex (fishy glue, ewww) or pva spread thinly.

You get the following results with track and engine:

Image

Rail profile up close:

Image

It is in HO scale but it doesn't particularly matter to much as it creates a excellent sloped side effect ready for track ballasting and raises the track up off the board to be more in line with real railways. The track and board in picture is going to become a testbed for scenery and I should be able to showcase static grass applied on it as I picked up the guagemaster's puffer bottle + static grass start kit. I'll also have pics up eventually of it ballasted with woodland scenics medium grey blend.

I am going to hunt for a jar of woodland scenics brown-ish colour ballast to as alot of my research pictures are showing a brownish rail ballast look. Also on the agenda is to purchase some woodland scenics track painters which will come in both rusty rail and weathered ties colour which will allow me to get a more realistic finish to the tracks than they currently are. I will also need to source some fine grade black cinders/black dust to mix in with the grey blend for around the engine shed area as most research pictures seem to point towards a more ash to outright blackened ballast around engine sheds which is probably due to leaking oils, water and ash from the fireboxes.

All in all I'm extremely happy with the delivered foam track bed as its both easy to use and shape accordingly to track work, so maybe some actual layout progress soon huh? :lol:
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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby Crumplezone » Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:23 pm

Abit of a interlude while doing things, I've been out and about and managed to pick up a book about the 9Fs, being I was interested in the Tyneside iron ore 9Fs recently.

Well I decided to pop onto ebay after that and see if there were any Bachmann 9Fs up at a "reasonable price". Alot of them weren't, ranging anywhere from 140 to 250 quid and most of the 200+ ones were the bachmann club Black Prince models.

Anyway while browsing I hit jackpot! A listing for a slightly weathered via spraygun it seems, real coal in tender, bachmann crew figures fitted in cab and lamp E setup on the buffer beam for fast freight 9F...for £99.50!

Now this is probably the holy grail when it comes to second hand buying, a knocked down price with added gubbins which you would not normally get for under 150 quid, let alot sub 100 quid.

So yes, immediate buy for me even though my layout probably...doesn't have much running room for a 9F to stretch it legs, but whatever YOLO and I've had a rough week, bought yesterday and sent 1st class signed for turning up this afternoon.

But Crump, why a 9F? Well honestly I love these locomotives, they are big, bulky and they used to be everywhere plus as a added bonus the shedcode is Doncaster's shed so its quite likely they would have been slogging around Teesside at somepoint and may have even passed at Thornby so its a loco to heart in one way.

Incidentally a somewhat anxious feeling when it turned up as I wondered if there was something wrong inside the loco or it wasn't a good runner, as at 99.50 for all those added detailing and being weathered to brings to question why is it being sold that low when similar locos with same detailing go for 50-90 more. Thankfully it runs smooth as butter and the decoder socket seems to be in perfect running order, I will need to get another decoder to test it out on DCC but its read to go and being smooth on DC means good running on DCC.

Anyway, I took a few snapshots of it, its quite nice, some areas the weathering has been rubbed off so I may touch up with the powders and also give alittle rust on the cyclinder heads and ash at the smokebox.

3969
3970
3971
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3974

All in all, a nice treat for myself and its going to be a centrepiece to my layout, even if it doesn't move around alot. Hopefully the photos not to bad and you can get a idea of the detailing on it.

Crump
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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby cjbarnes5294 » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:48 pm

Nice find, the Bachmann 9s are superb models. We have 92220 and it's one of the smoothest and by far most powerful steam loco models without a "cheat-band" to give extra traction. In my opinion, once you've run one, there's no going back to the old Hornby Railways model.

I'd love to be involved with an Advanced 9F for TS one day. That, with a couple more 4mts, would probably finish my TS bucket list.

Chris
The Red Queen Hypothesis, applicable to train sim development?

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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby Chris89 » Sun Oct 05, 2014 11:17 pm

The Pig and the 9F look fantastic. The 9F is one model still high on my to get list. Just because i love how they look and so on.

Also agree Chris, a Advance 9F would be great to have. Especially if you could get it to 90MPH as they did on some expresses on the S&Djr and so on.
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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby Crumplezone » Mon Oct 06, 2014 2:16 pm

So been mulling over the layouts trackplan before putting anything down on the actual board, previously the layout plan was to be:

Image

I found some issues with it while dry testing the track down on the board, it didn't feel quite right and honestly the board orientation for trains to leave was just not working for me in the space I'm using it in, so the following trackplan has been devised as a possible alternative:

Image

I'm still not 100% on it and to a certain degree I'm still feeling its kinda "busy" looking with cramping alot of content into a 6x2 but I think it could work.

On another note, I did abit of investigating into my 9F, whoever previously owned it has mixed a tender from another 9F with this one to give this one a high spided tender, when in actual fact the production model had the half high sided varient and also late crest. I don't particularly have issue as I've a fair few early crest locos anyway but the box note is abit misleading when you open it and find it actually different. Incidentally the box note also has a Bath shedcode but the loco has a doncaster shedcode which suits me fine but again not quite what its supposed to be according to the label on the box and the scribbles of writing :D

Anyway let me know what you think.
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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby cjbarnes5294 » Mon Oct 06, 2014 3:04 pm

Sometimes less is more, but I actually quite like the new proposal. It does seem to be a bit neater than the original idea, and there's definitely more opportunities for loco movements around the slightly busier yard area. It reminds me a little of Castle Douglas as depicted on WLoS, albeit compacted, with a loco shed and turntable added and the curve straightened out, but the platform and goods shed, as well as the track layout, are quite similar I think. :D

Chris
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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby Crumplezone » Mon Oct 06, 2014 4:18 pm

Yeah I've pondered over the less is more theme, I posted a post over on RMweb and a gent over there has suggested I don't have enough headshots for both protecting the running line and one running off the engine shed and that only access to the turntable is from the engine shed.

he proposed the following track layout:

Image

I'm somewhat more inclined to go with it over mine since it seems less cluttered and possibility for more scenic content.
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Re: What is your current Project?

Postby Crumplezone » Sun Oct 12, 2014 6:55 pm

Well my internet was taken out by some egads with a mechnical digger so I've not been able to do much with the computer or testing for SSS which has been quite annoying, internet is so terrible still that browsing is still bad, but gave me time to tackle some layout stuff.

I looked at alot of stuff and took a fair bit of advice for the layout and managed to pick up Hornby Magazine's recent layout design manual magazine which covers quite alot of topics, interesting enough mention of their Operation Build it! popped up. I looked into it and mulled over it and came up with the following as I hope, a final design the the layout:

Image

What the plan basically becomes is a Branchline terminus with a small goods yard and engine shed which can be either two road or single road and the track runs off right like previous designs onto either a fiddle yard or another scenic section.

I also unfortunately had to swap all my pointwork for peco pointwork as the hornby settrack pieces have horribly large plastic diamond deadzones which utterly kill 0-6-0 tanks, granted I now basically have the peco version of settrack pointwork but it runs alot better and looks better to, ideally for DCC you want to use electofrog pointwork but its A. expensive by a large margin B. requires soldering modification and other bits to really make them work right.

The 9F, Jinty, standard 4 2-6-0, ivatt 4 and 56xx all work fine over this pointwork tho the 9F requires to sit on the straighter sections due to the 2-10-0 wheel arrangement. However the pannier 5870 class is having issues with its pickups on both dc and dcc and I've done everything possible to try and get it to run well, so that is probably going to the shop for repair/problem solving.

Some sad news however is my Q1 seems to have stopped working well after weathering, even though pickups and wheels are clean its having some serious issues picking up power and I think it could be the way it connects to the decoder socket, so the Q1 might go into storage while I source some parts and find out costs to fix it up.

On another note I should be able to finally start laying the foam underlay from woodland scenics and getting the track down with the new peco stuff and hopefully start to get something looking like a railway going. Abit of a setback with the above things going on, but suppose thats the love and hate relationship of building a layout.

Shopping list left to get:

Soldering iron + wire to start doing power feed droppers and creating a DCC bus wiring
Another tub or 2 of woodland scenics grey blend ballast.
impregnated plaster cloth to create hardshell landscape bits.
Coal staithe kit/bachmann version already built.

So I'm getting there, slowly but surely, some setbacks but alot of fun still and I'm learning quite abit and not so "afraid" of dismantling a loco to find if there is anything wrong with it, before I'd be quite hesitant but messing around with the locos has helped alot to understand how it works and it also shows how simple these locos are under the chassis and well..how crazy the mark up price is for body parts of the loco.
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