Dave's Workbench- Porthole Coach

[PenrithBeacon]

Like this thread although it's something I would never attempt myself.

 

It is surely one of the most peculiar aspects of the RTR business that a satisfactory Class 24/25 has never been introduced. All the modern technology and neither Hornby nor Bachmann have got it right.

 

Regards

[drgj]

It is something I certainly won't be doing again! It is easy to give up on something like this but I have managed to plough on to the end with this one. It is during the glazing part that I start to think that I must have gone barmy.  I wonder if the new class 24/1 from Bachmann will be different to the earlier ones? It is certainly a long time coming. 24 133 was the other class 24  I saw about a lot.

 

I have a Bachmann class 24 no 5087 and it is a nice model but I will gain some money when I sell it because this new one was cheap to make.

Edited October 13, 2015 by drgj

[drgj]

Have finally finished this class 24. Here are some pictures of it on its own and with my 25/3  7067 and Bachmann 5087 pre tops 24. I am pleased with it although my latest lot of  pressfix transfers didn't settle as well as those I used on 7067. I still like the Bachmann  class 24 because it is very nicely detailed and also has the raised grilles on the sides although this isn't that noticeable omission on my one.

 

Dave

Edited October 18, 2015 by drgj

[jonny777]

I have to say that is one of the most realistic models of the cab and general "look" of a 24 that I have ever seen.

 

The glazing looks superb, and close-up photographs are invariably very unforgiving.

 

I can't praise your work high enough.

[drgj]

Thanks, Jonny. I appreciate just how much effort that people put into their models on this site. Plenty of other nice 24s on rmweb.

Edited October 18, 2015 by drgj

[Scottish Modeller]

Hi Dave,

 

As someone who started his diesel era modelling by doing this conversion - way back in 1979/80 - I have to say your conversion looks great.

 

I would be pleased to get a similar result if I did one these days.

 

Thanks for posting about it.

 

Just added it to my saved pages - just in case!

[drgj]

Thanks for that. I certainly won't be doing another one! 

 

Dave

Edited October 18, 2015 by drgj

[drgj]

I have been very interested in this loco as it hauled the last normal train on the Waverley route- IM82- the sleeper from Edinburgh to St Pancras. What a terrible thing to do to close a main line so late that  steam had already gone and diesels were blue back in 1969!

 

This started out  as 46 053 which I bought off eBay. The seller didn't tell me that the bogie fronts were mutilated so I had to rebuild those.  Having looked at the pictures taken at Hawick on the last day I removed the blanking plates for the water fillers and foot steps to them.  That didn't go well as they were well glued in so I had to completely rebuild the latter and do some filling on the former. There were no warning flashes on the radiator end so I left them off. Couldn't see the other end so I left those in place. Numbering was by HMRS and the nameplates Jackson Evans. Headcodes 1M82 (normal passenger and sleeper) and 1S68 (The Waverley) were added using Fox Transfers. I made the battery boxes look more like those on a class 45 by removing the unwanted detail and scribing crosses. The famous bonnet seams were drawn on with a 0.05mm pen. I did try making one with a scalpel but it didn't look too good meaning more work to fill and repaint one end! I then touched up all the bad areas of blue, varnished it  and then added a bit of weathering  using my Badger 200 plus the trusty spare wheel from  our old Mini for air.

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by drgj

[John Tomlinson]

This has turned out well and a shame you had so much work to correct the mistakes of others.

 

An interesting project as IIRC no.60 was one of the first Peaks to go for refurbishment, including the air braking. On the early ones it was only a part job, hence the bodyside handholds remain, as do the roof spaces for the water fillers. All in all quite a tricky area, and a lot of investigation of detail differences was done by others on this forum some years ago.

 

John.

[drgj]

Thanks, John. I originally looked at some slightly later pictures (still numbered 60) where the hand holds were plated over but then noticed them in situ in the Hawick photo. To be extremely pedantic I have noticed after I had finished that the Hawick picture also showed that the loco had no data panels but mine has. I'm not too bothered if it isn't totally accurate. The general idea is ok for me.

 

I will try and find the info on here that you are referring to.

 

Dave

['CHARD]

I note you say you aren't overly fussy about detail, and it may be a typo where you mention 1S68 above, but that was the code for the Thames-Clyde.  

 

The Waverley was 1S64. 

[drgj]

Thanks for that, 'Chard. 

[drgj]

Have had a quick go at getting the windows right on a Tri- ang sleeper. Did one window to see what it would look like. The aperture is opened out slightly and the frames removed. I then masked the new frame on the surface of a piece of glazing I cut to fit noting that the horizontal frame is narrower on one side. Cost nothing but is time consuming! I had repainted the coach a while back and just thought it was a shame to just give up with it.

Edited March 6, 2016 by drgj

[drgj]

i have been working on my full yellow ends Bachmann class 40 D211. I have so far sprayed the ends yellow. With these I first tried masking the light lenses and then spraying but by the time I managed to get the Maskol  off the main part of the lights looked a bit messy. I found after that the lenses pushed out quite easily so I stripped the noses down to the plastic and sprayed white and then yellow again. Once the lenses were refitted they looked very neat. I painted a narrower off white line on the body sides because the wide original defeats the improvement in the body side depth on this more recent class 40 (in my eyes, anyway). I carefully scraped the original stripe off with a scalpel and masked and painted the new one. Because I wanted to even everything up with a coat of varnish I removed the glazing but I managed to break the front windows! First I thought I would be able to use them but one had a terrible stress mark across it. Usually they come out easily. I tried to repair the stressed one by polishing but it looked terrible afterwards. I tried then to remove one raised "rubber seal" and polish it to see if I could remove this from all of them so as to be able to make one plain replacement piece. This was hopeless as after the polishing it looked like the bottom of a glass bottle. I asked Bachmann for spares but no go. I ended up making a whole new set which was difficult because of the complex shapes. Anyway I did it and you can see them in the pictures unfitted and fitted. Not taken from a good angle but they acually look bigger than the originals due to the lack of the raised edge. I could have used Shawplan frames, etc, but I thought I would just get to work instead. Fitting the Shawplan frames isn't that easy because you have to seal them in carefully so they don't just look stuck on. This was a straight repair job and is not supposed to be an improvement so I don't recommend making glazing for this loco! The other thing I have done is to replace the buffers with those from a Hornby class 31. They are slightly shorter but look a lot better as you can see in the pics. Will post a picture of the loco together soon.

Edited April 6, 2016 by drgj

[Downendian]

Dave

Terrific modelling, I still have one of my old class 24 body shells built from a Hornby 25 but with Craftsman bits. I may finish it sometime, your thread has given me the impetus to do it.

Neil

[drgj]

Thanks for that. That new SLW class 24 is very tempting and looks better than my class 24 but I will have to resist after all that work. I was lucky with that one in that my enthusiasm didn't disappear before it was finished so it was all done reasonably quickly. I have had projects for  months or years before. The latest class 40 was supposed to be a quick job but has been going wrong at every step. These days I have found that just about any problem can be sorted out somehow. A Lima class 40 project did defeat me because however much I did it still didn't look much like the prototype.

[drgj]

I don't know how I got sucked into this detailing madness.  I am running out of steam for it. I need to get back to using my imagination rather than trying to get things perfect. Where does one draw the line? Anyway, I have finished the class 40 which turned into a mad repair job as much as anything. I was getting a bit worried because in my books it was an expensive locomotive at £85 (sound removed before I bought it). i will post some pics tomorrow.

Edited April 9, 2016 by drgj

[drgj]

Here is the finished class 40 in circa late 60s/ 1970, approx., style. I added some nose handrails which the loco acquired and the new buffers from a Hornby class 31.  The thinner body side white line looks better than the original Bachmann one, I think. A light airbrush weathering was added last. The front windows look ok and I am quite pleased how it turned out.

 

Dave

[drgj]

This black 5 was a straight repair job except I changed it to a BR loco. It started life as a very bad condition renumbered LMS loco with a terrible finish that I bought on eBay. The tender was missing the sloping coal bunker and a set of steps. Here I made a new set of steps and made an insert with crushed coal.  I gave the tender top and boiler/ firebox/ cab a bath in brake fluid to  strip off the old finish. i don't know what the thick pipe down the side of the boiler is for but I had to make a new one from copper and used brass wire to fix it to the boiler to look like the original which was broken. I then refinished  in plain black with my Badger airbrush and managed to get a Hornby factory finish. I chose a number to go with the boiler type and used pressfix transfers for the cab sides and some Modelmaster waterslide type, cut and shut, for the smoke box door. When I went to refit the smokebox dart it flew off never to be found, as usual, (hyperspace?) so I had to make a new one. Finished with a coat of Ronseal satin varnish again with the airbrush. Not very keen on the Hornby bogie wheels so may change these.

Edited April 11, 2016 by drgj

[drgj]

I am thinking that the chimney on my black 5 above is too tall for a BR loco. When I did the resparay i was unaware of the chimney changes.

 

Dave

Edited January 24, 2017 by drgj

[drgj]

I worked on another Hornby 25 recently. I lowered it a bit to get the buffer height a bit better , raised the gangway to the middle window like I did on the 24 a few posts back and added a little to the lower cab edge. This time I used laserglaze which as someone else said isn't particularly quick to fit well. They are all different sizes to cope with slight  variations in the mouldings but I couldn't figure out which went where. Not as easy as I thought it would be as each piece need a fair bit of fettling. I didn't do any work on the side windows like on the other type 2s apart from the flush glazing so there isn't much wrap around of the yellow front panels. I fitted some smaller couplings to match the other locos. This one retains the Hornby chassis like the 25/3.

 

 

 

Dave

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by drgj

[drgj]

My latest model is a porthole third D2170. This started life as an Airfix LMS suburban brake. I fitted some Comet sides to the body after cutting away most of the original sides in the usual fashion. The ends of the roof and gutters are thinner on the Airfix  suburban than on their  corridor coaches so I didn't have to  do any of the work to make them look thin this time.  I used Comet corridor connectors after filling in the end windows of the old brake coach body.

 

I filed off the long steps and solebar raised edges until they were flat and then added some new edges from microstrip. This was easier than trying to get the long step out from between the original edges. I had some Hornby close couplers so I copied the arrangement from a Hornby  LMS coach. This was a bit fiddly but was ok in the end. I used Comet underframe parts to detail the rest of the chassis.

 

I used some Halfords normal grey primer and then mixed up some maroon coach  roof grey. I find that mixing a grey and then adding a bit of green makes a good match. Railmatch BR maroon was applied to the sides followed by  Replica Railways lining and pressfix transfers for the numbers.  Finally I used some Railmatch satin varnish and weathered with a little dark brown. I used my usual badger 200 airbrush for the finishing.

 

The interior is an adapted Peco Kitmaster card kit. This was actually quite difficult to get to look neat because the corridor wall windows were not cut very well at all. However, it looks quite bright and cheery in there! 

 

I like the look of the etched sides and prefer them to the Hornby Staniers although these are good looking, too. I am looking forward to buying a Bachmann maroon porthole corridor composite to go with this after all the work! I  I just like making some of my coaches.

Edited March 5, 2019 by drgj