ECC Wheal Imogen / Rosevean Station: the expansion

[The Fatadder]

The test fit of cdl lights to the Bachmann 150 is now pretty much complete, all be it I can’t test due to needing a decoder.  
 

I realised after soldering to the pins that I could have made life easier and just soldered to the track leading to the positive pin, so will do that next time.  (Edit, the positive broke off while refitting the body  so I’ve now done this)

 

orange LEDs are then glued into position, before securing all the wires with electrical tape.   It’s now ready for a decoder as per the 153.

 

I think some remapping will be needed as the cdl on the 153 are on aux3 and on the 150 they are on aux 1.  I will want both to trigger on the same button when in a consist.  
 

seeing as the job works, there’s no excuse not to get the other 150 wired up with its cdl now (although I will need to work out the interconnect between coaches first).

[dj_crisp]

Looks good!

I've always wanted someone to do a nice lighting kit for the 150 (or any 2nd gen DMUs). What size LED did you use for the CDL light?

[The Fatadder]

2 hours ago, dj_crisp said:

Looks good!

I've always wanted someone to do a nice lighting kit for the 150 (or any 2nd gen DMUs). What size LED did you use for the CDL light?

Will have a look and let you know, from memory they are 1.5mm.  I then use either the Hurst moulding for the actual light or my 3d print 

 

[The Fatadder]

I 

thought this had posted earlier, but it appears to have vanished...

 

This morning I took some annual leave in order to crack on with some of the bigger jobs on the layout while there was no one else in the house (to complain about me setting up a layout on the landing..,)

 

As such Wheal Imogen and Rosevean have now been bolted together, followed by track laying.  The bolting together is once again a little more tricky thanks to the design of the custom 500mm board for Wheal Imogen which doesnt have alignment points that align with a 4ft board!   So I have ended up fitting the wooden location dowel to one side only, and a pair of 10mm coach bolts secure the two halves together.

I have not got any copperclad sleepers for the baseboard joints so for the moment I have not glued down the 2 sleepers on the end to allow for replacement once I have a delivery.

 

Here is a view of the new board complete with platform core glued into position, I have half an Alphaline 158 in the station for clearance testing.  There are a couple of areas which will need attention, somehow there is a gap in the backscene between the two boards, not quite sure what happened there so hopefully it can come off and realign easily (I dont recall if I glued as well as screwed it on...) 

The back of the bridge obviously needs a lot of work, my original plan had been to model this on both sides with expansion in mind when I built Wheal Imogen, but I didnt have enough embossed sheet and with the exhibition deadline in mind I had to move on.  Retrofitting to the rear of the bridge will not be straight forward as I dont have a drawing and the bridge is none removable...

 

The river is a bigger issue, first up the baseboard edge was never cut down to the river bed level so there is a lump of 5mm ply in the way (blue arrow).  Worse though is a second layer of ply visible through the water (red arrow), this should  have been hidden by the deep pour water, but the leak put pay to that.   

I think there are two options after shortening the baseboard edge.  Either repour the river on the Wheal Imogen board to increase the depth and hide the effected area (on the assumption that it wont leak any more than it already has).  Or, model a weir under the bridge and have a higher level of water on the Rosevean board.

 

 

I am still unsure as to what I will do for the backscene on the right hand side, where the backscene cuts the platform in half is a particular issue.  There is the option of the Bugle style bridge with platform access, but I am less keen on the idea of having two bridges on the layout.  A house in front would obscure from some angles, as would trees at the rear.  It is going to take some more thought.

 

Finally I am trying to put some sort of context into the track plan, a little test with some spare track shows the route the line would have taken through the other side of the bay platform before the track plan was rationalised. 

 

 

[drduncan]

I think the weir option might be effective and visually interesting when looking along the original baseboard.

D

Edited May 15 by drduncan

[The Fatadder]

Accurascale’s hint toward their next announcement has spurred me to crack on with some long overdue work finishing off my Class 58s.  (Just in case…. The plan has long been to eventually sell

my Heljan pair to replace with a single top spec 58.)

 

the loco was previously rebranded and renamed to 58049 and has been awaiting weathering ever since.

 

A few steps were completed this evening with the roof sprayed with a black/grey mix, before adding a wash off dirt down the panel lines on the sides (a door guard fell off on the process!)

 

still needs more dirt build up on the sides and underframe.  A few more colours blending into the roof, and the white top

handrail painting 

 

58015 still needs a set of OO wheels which I’m hopefully sorting at Showcase

Im tempted to use the same panel wash to tone down the dirt in the panel gaps

[The Fatadder]

a little more on 58049 last night, I think it’s pretty much there for now.   Going forward I’m tempted to upgrade the top handrail to separate parts, and would love an upgrade Extreme etchings standard set of grills for it should such a thing ever appear.  
 

 

[The Fatadder]

Onto the next project, one of TMC’s £129 37/0 from eBay a couple of weeks ago.  I wasn’t overly impressed with the deluxe weathering, not that it mattered as it was straight into the IPA to strip the paint (after first removing the ends).    

 

The paint was a little harder than usual to shift (due to the thickness of paint around the cabs), I also had an odd occurrence where some sort of salt was building up on the inside of the body after a soak in ipa.
 

 With the paint gone the next job was to prep the replacement 3d prints for the new nose grills, on the big grill end it required the original grill be sanded back

to get a flush side (I still need to work out how I will tackle the square plates to the side of the grills).  If anyone has a spare etch of these kicking around please let me know   
 

more to come once the new grills are in place. 

[The Fatadder]

Progress on the loadhaul 37/5 conversion:

 

modifications to the inside of the flush end to clear the 2022 lighting board.  Blacktac will be used to seal the edges.

 

marked up for the new grill 

 

roughly drilled /cur  to size before opening up with a file 

 

new grill test fitted 

then it was onto the other end, first removing the bodyside panel and preparing the roof detail.  All 4 grills are now cut ready for fitting 

 

i still need to find a suitable etch for this, if hoping someone may have spares fr a hurst etch.

 

the remains of the old grills have been filled, and need sanding back before the final for of the new grills. 
 

the final job this evening was to fit plasticard blanks in the windows that were covered up by the Loadhaul logos (giving the 37/7 appearance).

Again these will be filled flush and filled once fully cured.  
 

The semi heavyweight appearance of these locos certainly adds to

their appeal.  While not needing to fill body side steps or worse, remove boiler ports! 

Edited May 28 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

More progress before work this morning has seen the grills glued in position and the gaps around them filled.  As well as sanding back the plastic bung blocking the bodyside window.

 

at lunch this was followed by a light coat of primer, and more filler as required.   Hopefully after another sand / fill this evening it will be ready for spraying orange later in the week. 

Edited May 29 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

The 37 is currently drying after another coat of primer.  I’m going to have to redo one grill as it’s not quite aligned correctly on the bottom edge.  

while it dries I’ve been messing around with a Hornby 08.  
 

I printed a set of “ironmink’s” wooden cab doors when I printed the 37 grills.  Annoyingly despite printing spares both of the LH doors broke removing the supports so I have only fitted the RH door.  The cab was a real pain to remove so won’t be replaced until both are fitted (along with a driver)

loco in bits

the new door

test fitted (without glazing)

 

 

While the loco was on the bench it was also fitted with a new set of pickups, no idea of the source for the very nice pcb (I got it at DEMU many years ago).

This is the first time it’s worked since the mid 2000s when the old pickups got tangled in the wheels and mangled the cranks.   (Thankfully those wheels are now @Southwich’s problem!)

 

 

Once the 08 is fitted with its other door it will return to the shelf awaiting a layout to run it on…

Edited May 29 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

The next step was to modify the 2022 split box lighting boards to fit the earlier flush front noses. 
 

this requires a little plastic removal from the boxes around the led to clear resistors etc that are in different places on the new boards.   It also needed a high intensity headlight fitting (which is what has held this up for the past few days waiting for a new battery for my multimeter to fault find why it wouldn’t work.).  Naturally after all that I discover a broken wire was the root cause…..

 

the lights were tested, before gluing the completed boards into the noses, and fixing the noses to the body.  This will be followed by a final coat of filler blending the nose and centre body together once the glue has fully hardened ready for the orange paint to be sprayed over the weekend.

 

one small point I’ve forgot to address is that the new ends have a different profile to the inner edge compared to the old ones, so material needs removing from the end to clear it.  I remembered in time to do one end, but the other will need doing once dry.   
it will then be a case of trial and error removing more material until it fits on the chassis 

Edited May 31 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

A bit of paint on 37517, I have ran out of white primer so against my better judgement have used grey. 
 

im not convinced by the colour, im hoping it will look a bit better once I have the black sprayed 

[The Fatadder]

Had a good day at Demu yesterday, (other than a mad scramble moving the RCTS stand when the roof started leaking!   Followed by half an hour of walking the hall looking for other leaks.

 

Highlights for me were Bluebell Summit (which I finally saw for the first time) and Deadman’s lane (I hadn’t seen the Eurostar before).

 

 

 Cavalex Class 60 is certainly looking the benchmark, going to be interested to see how the magnetic bufferbeam works in practice once you’ve fitted dinghams.  I’m guessing a bit of superglue will be needed.

My first will be finished as 60064 in loadhaul triple grey, I’m torn between sound (and keeping my Hornby EW&S loco) or non sound and getting two Cavalex models…..

 

the Accurascale class 60 certainly seems to have less quality in the grills and some very questionable bogie details 

 

on the other hand the AS 89 looks amazing, one of those I will no doubt regret not having ordered.

 

The 50 is also looking rather tempting, and reminds me I must get on with repairing my Hornby ones to get them sold off 

 

On round to the Bachmann stand, very disappointing to see that yet again EFE have screwed up a new tooling with a stupid mistake.  This time missing off the inner cab window, (Hattons had this right…..)  I don’t understand why EFE never seem to get anything right!

Hopefully the cab will be easy to remove so you can cut the missing window into the side.

 

Long rumoured the new Bachmann 08 showed its face at last, sadly showing that Bachmann appears to have given into the lift out roof panel craze!  Aside from the rather crude rods it does look rather nice.   And has been modelled with the retracted buckeyes that would be perfect for Laira.  Not to mention the benefit that it would mean I wouldn’t need to retrofit lights to the current 08 pair of Hornby models.  Will give it some thought…

 

finally from the Revolution stand, wish these had been around a couple of years earlier in Fag Packet to try and squeeze one in.

 

Not a whole lot of shopping, I did at least manage to get some Shawplan plates for a couple of projects and a jar of Loadhaul orange paint to finish off 37517.   

 

Edited June 16 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

It’s been a while since I last had a total failure painting, so naturally it’s happened on the worst possible loco…. I’ve never got on with Railmatch paints, I always found they just don’t spray as nicely as Phoenix.   But it was the only option for Loadhaul orange.

 

do I started spraying it this afternoon, and the paint just couldn’t get a good finish.  To the point where it needed to go in ipa for a complete strip.   
 

not usually an issue, but on this the lights were fitted and ends glued on (plus a lot of water based filler) all of which is trashed.  Will have to carefully remove the lights now before spraying. I’m thinking about modifying the ends to allow for fitting the lights with the end glues in place (as per 37025).  
 

I am also now giving thought to a big mix up of bodies, fitting 674 to this chassis, 517 then going on a last gen chassis.  All of which requires a new set of lighting boards for 674 (seeing as it’s been modified to work with the old pcb), so will need to buy another /4 shell from Kernow. Naturally I had planned to buy one at Demu yesterday but forgot to phone in advance….

 

white primer has been ordered and is due later this week, after which I will crack on…

 

[Siberian Snooper]

How does it brush paint? I have used Railmatch in the dark and distant past and it seemed OK. I thinned it with a drop of white spirit and applied several thin layers. You may need to experiment with the thinning.

 

 

[The Fatadder]

13 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

How does it brush paint? I have used Railmatch in the dark and distant past and it seemed OK. I thinned it with a drop of white spirit and applied several thin layers. You may need to experiment with the thinning.

 

 

Yea I think it’s exactly that, play with the thinning until I’m getting the desired results.  It’s now half stripped, and I think I have a way forward.  Hopefully should have the rework finished before the primer arrives 

[The Fatadder]

37517 is once again in paint stripper after a bad reaction with the primer.   Hopefully it will paint properly tomorrow….

 

 

 

in the mean time, onto the layout and completing the wiring on the Rosevean expansion.  
As well as the wiring a couple of rail lengths needed shortening to complete isolation gaps and a short section removed to fit the buffer stop which is currently drying.

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

37517 is once again in paint stripper after a bad reaction with the primer.   Hopefully it will paint properly tomorrow….

 

 

 

in the mean time, onto the layout and completing the wiring on the Rosevean expansion.  
As well as the wiring a couple of rail lengths needed shortening to complete isolation gaps and a short section removed to fit the buffer stop which is currently drying.

Make sure you've got enough clearance on the curved part of the platform!

[The Fatadder]

9 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Make sure you've got enough clearance on the curved part of the platform!

In theory it should all be ok, geometry having all been set by Templot and then checked with a mk3 coach before gluing down.  However saying that I can’t remember if I allowed an extra 20thou for the brick facing so the whole thing may need some rework!

 

will dig out the trusty mk 3 and recheck at lunch!

[dj_crisp]

7 minutes ago, The Fatadder said:

In theory it should all be ok, geometry having all been set by Templot and then checked with a mk3 coach before gluing down.  However saying that I can’t remember if I allowed an extra 20thou for the brick facing so the whole thing may need some rework!

 

will dig out the trusty mk 3 and recheck at lunch!

 

My Heljan Cargowaggon turned out to be a good clearance checker. Think there's a step or something similar that clipped my platforms.

[derekdoestrains]

On 15/05/2024 at 07:48, dj_crisp said:

Looks good!

I've always wanted someone to do a nice lighting kit for the 150 (or any 2nd gen DMUs). What size LED did you use for the CDL light?

It you google Track 3D Railway parts they do a lighting kit for CDL’s or BMAC’s

[The Fatadder]

 

while It needs some replacement lamp irons, I’ve fitted new headcode boxes to 37670 (given Bachmann fitted the wrong ones on the Kernow model).    As the loco has already been fitted with new windscreens and fuel tanks, this will be the penultimate improvement (with just the brake chains still to add). 
 

these ends are now awaiting a quick spray of mat primer before being refitted.

 

[dj_crisp]

5 hours ago, derekdoestrains said:

It you google Track 3D Railway parts they do a lighting kit for CDL’s or BMAC’s

Thanks. Will check those out

[The Fatadder]

 

ready for some spraying this afternoon, hopefully I will have more luck with the orange on 37517, while what will become 50031 will be getting the roof resprayed into grey.  I have just touched in the scars from the removal of its previous name ready to fit new Shawplan plates.  It has been treated for the full set of Extreme Etchings parts previously (although the roof grill has just been replaced due to damage). It’s going to take some careful masking to avoid damage to the transfers.

 

Also on the bench is what will (hopefully) become 37902.  The new windscreens are giving me a lot of difficulty at the moment and I’m giving thought to buying a 37/4 body from Kernow. I have the Extreme Etchings roof conversion kit ready to go