Wright writes.....

[Tony Wright]

Having two new V2s running on Little Bytham, I thought I'd try a few 'comparative' shots.....

 

 

 

 

Firstly, my near 50-year old Jamieson V2 (60821, built/painted/weathered by me) compared with 60948 which I recently built/painted/weathered using a Nu-Cast kit on Comet frames. 

 

I can only conclude that my standards have been 'consistent' or that I've not developed at all in almost half a century! 

 

 

 

A more 'dramatic' contrast between two other Nu-Cast V2s I've built. I made 60885 recently (it's on a Comet set of frames), and Ian Rathbone painted it. I made 60905 when the Nu-Cast kit for a V2 first appeared (how many years ago was that?), scratch-building a chassis for it, and painting/weathering it. 

 

In a 'layout' setting, I think I can just about get away with my painting, but it's under 'studio' conditions where the work of master model painters really shows.

 

Does anyone else run models they've made, side by side, but with a 50 year difference in their ages? 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by Tony Wright
clumsy grammar

[Tony Wright]

I'm carrying on with the Agenoria Kerr Stuart 'Victory'.

 

I believe there's now an RTR equivalent. Does anyone have one and, if so, do they have any pictures, please? 

[RodneyS]

I don't have an RTR 'Victory' but there are photos on the Planet Industrials website.

Rodney

https://planetindustrials.co.uk/victory

[Tony Wright]

36 minutes ago, RodneyS said:

I don't have an RTR 'Victory' but there are photos on the Planet Industrials website.

Rodney

https://planetindustrials.co.uk/victory

Many thanks,

 

Interestingly, none in GWR condition (probably because of all the rivets needed).

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[BMS]

PI "Victory "- got one (black) very impressed with performance  (slow) and love the (DCC ) sound effects esp of wagons being shunted (although short duration at present) - mine is going to be B&M 35 but AD&JR 35 also possible apart from the industry ones. Capable of photos but not to your quality I am afraid. tractive effort enormous - loco weighs 242g.

[Northmoor]

This thread has previously discussed the rights and wrongs of weathering and I've certainly been critical of some "professional" weathering services, charging significant sums for what often looks nothing like real weathering.  So I was surprised and a bit disappointed to see WoR apparently giving a free advert to one supplier - "Giving models a 'scrap yard' look" - that to my eyes are some of the worst examples; the two images in the article might be fair efforts but aren't representative of some of their products. 

 

[Tony Wright]

3 hours ago, BMS said:

PI "Victory "- got one (black) very impressed with performance  (slow) and love the (DCC ) sound effects esp of wagons being shunted (although short duration at present) - mine is going to be B&M 35 but AD&JR 35 also possible apart from the industry ones. Capable of photos but not to your quality I am afraid. tractive effort enormous - loco weighs 242g.

Good afternoon,

 

Does it matter if your photographs are not of a 'high quality'? They're not for publication (In print), so, please, may we see your model?

 

I think it's most-important that this thread doesn't just show what I've built or photographed.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

[Tony Wright]

I've been asked to produce a series of articles for BRM where I take basically 'tatty' RTR models and, with a little TLC, bring them back to life so to speak. 

 

There are two principal reasons behind this request. One, at a time when money is particularly tight, a loco might well be bought for a very low price (for instance, in Grantham's excellent model shop this morning, I was shown by the proprietor boxes of stuff full of potential guinea pigs for the articles; including a non-running Tri-ang Jinty, which looked like all it needed was pick-up adjustment. The possible asking price as seen? No more than a tenner! This is stuff Shane had in for assessment - it certainly wasn't for sale right now. I'll be revisiting his establishment very soon after he's done some sorting, and, with the usual disclaimer, so should others). 

 

Antique (tat?) shops are also worth investigating. In Horncastle a couple of weeks ago, I found a Tri-ang Brush Type 2 (in not-bad) condition for the princely sum of £8.00. The shop owner had no means of testing if it worked, but it does! 

 

And two; the articles (I hope) will encourage folk to have a go at doing some 'modelling' for themselves; even if it ends up less than desired, it won't have cost much and vital lessons will be learned. 

 

Has anyone else examples of models they've 'brought back to life', please?  The 'quality' of any photographs is immaterial.

[jwealleans]

This was part of the theme I adopted for my wagon building demo at Warley last year: start with a wreck (or a really cheap kit) and use it to practice on, then you've much less to lose if it all goes horribly wrong and you'll still have learned something.  

 

Most of the subjects were bought in an Ebay job lot and a number now run on Grantham, but I encourage people to look in the rummage bins under traders stands at shows as you can pick up some decent projects for very little :

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're not happy with what you've done by the time you think you've finished - use it to practice weathering.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by jwealleans

[Tony Wright]

31 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

This was part of the theme I adopted for my wagon building demo at Warley last year: start with a wreck (or a really cheap kit) and use it to practice on, then you've much less to lose if it all goes horribly wrong and you'll still have learned something.  

 

Most of the subjects were bought in an Ebay job lot and a number now run on Grantham, but I encourage people to look in the rummage bins under traders stands at shows as you can pick up some decent projects for very little :

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're not happy with what you've done by the time you think you've finished - use it to practice weathering.

 

 

Thanks Jonathan,

 

These are just the sort of examples of rolling stock I had in mind.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[30368]

Brought back to life Tony, or in this case, resurrected from a very very old Hornby "Winston Churchill" model of around 1969/70. The full story is on my thread:

 

 

This is how it looked when I started, very gruesome.

 

Brass sheeting in progress.

 

Progress to date, it has a Comet chassis, Branchlines gearbox and large can motor. Valvegear, I have no idea, cylinders scratch built. It runs very well with a large section of lead under the roof!

 

It will be 34030 Watersmeet.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

[Barry O]

1 hour ago, jwealleans said:

This was part of the theme I adopted for my wagon building demo at Warley last year: start with a wreck (or a really cheap kit) and use it to practice on, then you've much less to lose if it all goes horribly wrong and you'll still have learned something.  

 

Most of the subjects were bought in an Ebay job lot and a number now run on Grantham, but I encourage people to look in the rummage bins under traders stands at shows as you can pick up some decent projects for very little :

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're not happy with what you've done by the time you think you've finished - use it to practice weathering.

 

 

Notice you have some transfers for @Nicktoix old model of Windermere. The unloading point for the Elterwater gun powder  wagons was next door to the engine shed ash pit.

 

Baz

[Tony Wright]

5 hours ago, Northmoor said:

This thread has previously discussed the rights and wrongs of weathering and I've certainly been critical of some "professional" weathering services, charging significant sums for what often looks nothing like real weathering.  So I was surprised and a bit disappointed to see WoR apparently giving a free advert to one supplier - "Giving models a 'scrap yard' look" - that to my eyes are some of the worst examples; the two images in the article might be fair efforts but aren't representative of some of their products. 

 

Good evening Rob,

 

A few examples of RTR weathering.

 

I'm making no judgement on these, but they're what's been available (might still be) in the past............

 

 

A Bachmann China Clay wagon.

 

 

A Bachmann HTA hopper.

 

 

A Bachmann Mk.1 suburban.

 

Bachmann/Modelzone trio of vans.

 

 

Bachmann/TMC weathered minerals.

 

 

Farish ex-LMS BG.

 

 

Farish trio of vans.

 

 

Hornby ex-Virgin Mk.3 Buffet Car.

 

Bachmann/Lord & Butler trio of cement wagons. 

 

And a Bachmann weathered cattle wagon (with funny spelling!). 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by Tony Wright
to add something

[Tony Wright]

With weathering in mind, a few other examples (not factory-applied)...........

 

 

Tom Wright's weathering of a detailed/altered Hornby A3.

 

 

My weathering on a detailed/altered Hornby B12/3.

 

 

My weathering on a DJH Austerity I built (I should re-weather those slidebars!).

 

 

And my weathering on a DJH Austerity I didn't build - it came in high-gloss black. 

 

My weathering on a Hornby Britannia I substantially modified (now the property of Graham Nicholas, and running on his 'Hills of the North' project). 

 

 

My weathering on a Little Engines O1 I didn't build (it came in high-gloss black!). 

 

 

My weathering on a Hornby non-gangwayed Gresley.

 

 

And on a Hornby gangwayed SR van. 

 

All my weathering is by enamel dry-brush/thinners using a Winsor & Newton sable. 

 

 

Tim Shackleton's trademark weathering on an Ace O2/2 I built/painted. 

 

 

My erstwhile colleague at BRM, Richard Wilson, is a dab-hand at weathering. 

 

 

So is Tom Foster. In fact, Tom's one of the best in the business. 

 

 

I detailed/renumbered/renamed this Bachmann A2 and Tom weathered it perfectly (though I need to change the shedcode!).

 

 

Built (in part) from a Pro-Scale kit by the late Geoff Brewin. I completed it and painted it, and Tom Fostered weathered it. 

 

 

It takes a brave man to weather a professional paint job by Geoff Haynes, but that's what Jesse Sim is. I built this DJH A2 for him. 

 

 

There are few (very few) better weatherers than Tony Geary, witnessed here on this steel-sided LNER artic he made. 

 

 

And, I'm lucky to have several (detailed RTR) vehicles weathered by Rob Davey. 

 

To my my mind, all the above look much more-natural because they're weathered. As I state, nothing on Little Bytham is not weathered to some degree or another. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MJI]

Most weathering is ott the rtr too uniform.

 

Done well you should not notice it

[Northmoor]

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

A few examples of RTR weathering.

 

 

 

A Bachmann Mk.1 suburban.

 

 

 

Farish ex-LMS BG.

 

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

With weathering in mind, a few other examples (not factory-applied)...........

 

 

My weathering on a Hornby non-gangwayed Gresley.

 

 

And on a Hornby gangwayed SR van. 

 

 

So is Tom Foster. In fact, Tom's one of the best in the business. 

 

 

I detailed/renumbered/renamed this Bachmann A2 and Tom weathered it perfectly (though I need to change the shedcode!).

 

 

And, I'm lucky to have several (detailed RTR) vehicles weathered by Rob Davey. 

 

To my my mind, all the above look much more-natural because they're weathered. As I state, nothing on Little Bytham is not weathered to some degree or another. 

 

I know the second image above is 2mm scale, but compared to the work below, well there is simply no comparison (in my view) between the first batch and the second.

 

I agree about Tom Foster's work, an astonishing standard and worth every penny.  I'm still dabbling at weathering (that's what cheap, old models are for!) but would be very pleased to get anywhere near your standard, Tony.

 

@MJIis right, most professional weathering is far too uniform.  To be fair to the suppliers, proper weathering might require multiple approaches with different colours and techniques and could take up to two hours per vehicle (even working in batches).  There are probably too few people prepared to pay a commercial rate to weather a £30-40 coach properly, so they get what can be done within the price ceiling, which is waving an airbrush at it a couple of times.  It doesn't excuse though, apparently doing little more than pouring dirty thinners over a model and leaving it to dry.

[Iain.d]

11 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Has anyone else examples of models they've 'brought back to life', please?  The 'quality' of any photographs is immaterial.

 

I’m not quite sure if this quite fits the ‘brought back to life’ idea, but much of my coaching stock is made up of old rejuvenated RTR with the majority of the donors being cheap second-hand purchases acquired from the likes of eBay or the second-hand shelves of model shops on return trips to the UK. My ‘best buy’ was five heavily damaged 1980s era Hornby Stanier carriages all bought for about £7. I don’t have an image of the five coaches as I received them, they were literally only fit for landfill, but the below show a couple of them during rebuild…

 

 

….and then painted – I think it’s a far cry from the original, but its origins are still visible.

 

 

And a couple more: An LMS D1903 Composite Open

 

 

and an LMS D1999 Third Open

 

 

An awful lot of effort has gone into upgrading them and there’s little of the original visible beyond the roof, those dreadful ‘slide in’ ends, the solebars and sometimes the bogie sides. But what it has done, is given me a range of diagrams that are unlikely to be seen as ready to run. And I enjoyed doing them.

 

Kind regards,

 

Iain

Edited September 17, 2023 by Iain.d

[nzpaul]

 

To add to the resurrection of old models topic, here's Captain Cuttle from the hulk of a Triang Hornby Flying Scotsman. The wheels, valve gear and bogie are spares from the 2005 era Hornby A3. The tender is a Graeme King resin body on a Hornby chassis. To install the modern wheels I had to drill the axle holes and fit 4mm brass tube bushes and treat the gear similarly. The Cartazzi truck is repurposed from an old Bachmann V2, although fixed in position and not waggly. It remains fitted with the MRRC 5 pole motor it came with which is still very strong. Railmatch or Precision paints are no longer obtainable in NZ so it's painted with Tamiya XF5 which is fairly close to Precision Doncaster green once varnished. This was very much a budget conscious build and at the time cost less that £40, I doubt it would cost much more now. To be honest, it's a bit of a mongrel, but I quite enjoy making something useful out of scraps.

 

Paul

Edited September 17, 2023 by nzpaul
correction

[Andy Hayter]

A bit more "new life into old models", some may well  remember the Playcraft range from the late 60s and 70s.  Simplified and robust models for the very train set end of the market (but rtr what wasn't then?)

 

Some of the model produced were based on French prototypes and in particular a range of bogie goods vehicles were based on so called (and sometimes wrongly) "TP" wagons.  These were wagons produced in the US and left in France after the end of WW1.  They were reinforced by purchases made by the French government to the same designs up to around 1921.  Purchased to support the decimated railway companies, they were designated as public works (travaux publics) which gave them the Monica.  

 

In terms of prime dimensions they were surprisingly accurate for the time in terms of prime dimensions but nevertheless crude in the detail.

http://www.playcraftrailways.com/P650.htm

 

Around 1990 I found a shop in York that had somehow obtained quite a stock of new Playcraft wagons and so IIRC 50p was exchanged for each wagon.

 

The wheels were discarded and the bogies attacked.  These were plastic lumps representing the diamond framed types of the prototype with solid backs where there should be a view through.  the backs were drilled through then cut and filed until the open nature of the bogies was obtained.  Spoked wheels with bearings were installed.  [ I have subsequently found out that while this is not wrong, as delivered they had solid wheels - like the original model - and received (or not) spoked wheels as wheel sets were replaced over time.]

 

Underframe trussing was added from plasticard.  The model was painted and paper markings added.

 

At the time there were no commercially available buffers of the correct pattern available, so the as produced ones remain in place.  

 

It will always be a trainset wagon but I think of a standard that does not stick out too far against more recent and detailed offerings.

[coronach]

@Tony Wright, do you lubricate the axle bearings of your rolling stock?  If so, what type/brand of oil do you recommend?  I have generally used Peco brand oil but it comes in very small bottles. 

[coronach]

If the main structure of a Triang Hornby coach remains sound, it is generally possible to turn it around into a reasonable layout model. I dug out an old sleeping car that had been messed around with and buried in a box for years. A bit of a clean up, replacement Comet sides, corridor connector rubbing plates and a pair of Bachmann commonwealth bogies - for under £15 we have a reasonable rendition of a Mk1 sleeping car (I have since corrected to roof so the ventilation is above the compartment side)

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by coronach

[dibateg]

I can't quite make 50 years seperation in models of the same class, but I can do about 30! 90674 was built as a one off in the '90s, long before I moved from 4mm to 7mm scale. 90437 was built in 2017 . Oakville and JLTRT kits respectively - although the Oakville one has had two rebuilds..

[Tony Wright]

2 hours ago, coronach said:

@Tony Wright, do you lubricate the axle bearings of your rolling stock?  If so, what type/brand of oil do you recommend?  I have generally used Peco brand oil but it comes in very small bottles. 

Good morning,

 

Since most of my stock runs in brass pin-point bearings, lubrication is only necessary in small amounts (though regular lubrication is an absolute necessity if RTR plastic bogies are retained; otherwise the bearing holes travel 'northwards' over time and the coach's floor pan eventually catches on the wheels' flanges! I was surprised at this at first, until I noticed that the original wheels' pint-point ends weren't perfectly-machined. Thus, I substitute Jackson/Romford 14mm discs - I bought loads and loads of these years ago. Not only that, it removes dodgy back-to-backs and wobbly wheels, though more-recent RTR wheels have been much better than in the past). 

 

Oil? I buy it in a sort of 'syringe' dispenser (though it's not a sharp point) from Hobby Holidays or Squires. It isn't labelled. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony.

[Mark Laidlay]

19 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

..........

 

Antique (tat?) shops are also worth investigating. In Horncastle a couple of weeks ago, I found a Tri-ang Brush Type 2 (in not-bad) condition for the princely sum of £8.00. The shop owner had no means of testing if it worked, but it does! 

....

What about a 9 volt battery?

[Tony Wright]

15 minutes ago, Mark Laidlay said:

What about a 9 volt battery?

Judging by the state of a tip the shop was in, I'd imagine the proprietor would have difficulty in finding a Land Rover heavy-duty battery!

 

Regards,

 

Tony.