Adam

Thanks Simon. Here's the completed wagon waiting for the thermometer to creep up a bit so I can give it a coat of primer. Back to the bogie bolster now... Adam

Well spotted Colin; I haven't mentioned it (I think). You're almost right - the original solebars went as a donor to a model of a Conflat B (one of dad's models) leaving the body and much of the brakegear spare. I had a spare 10' wheelbase chassis so this seemed a sensible conjunction of parts. Ironically, the Conflat Bs were conversions of Pipe wagons, albeit with LNER clasp brakes. Adam

The same stuff but in this case tinned copper wire from an old phone cable (an offcut left behind by a sparky) twisted round a 1mm drill which forms the ring using a pinchuck. Pipe wagons don't have a whole lot of detail that isn't on the moulding but these were missing. Easy and well worth is. Adam

Mercifully, the 'one piece' (it isn't, much of the detail is seperate) bogie doesn't suffer this problem though I do wonder if it's a smidge on the wide side. No more on the bolster at the moment, but this parallel project took half an hour or so of my time before the Rugby yesterday morning. Lots of little brackets and door controllers. Door bangs still to add with capping clips and the brakegear. Probably another hour or so. Adam

More dodgy photos, but at least they show some progress in that the bolster pins and their retaining chains are fitted and a start has been made on the brakegear. The bolster pins are a typically neat etch from Masokits, laminated from two thin layers to form a much stronger unit than a single, thicker etch would be. The chains are simply lengths of twisted tinned copper wire with the rings at the end formed around a 1.5mm drill. These rings are then cut to loop them through the holes in the bolster pin. A touch to the soldering iron and there you are. A bit of a fiddle, but a detail well worth adding - the original can be seen here in this Paul Bartlett picture: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brbolsterd484/h2edcd928#h2edcd928 The rivets are still to add... Finally, evidence of the brakegear; spare Parkside brake cylinders, etched V hangers from goodness knows where and the vac' pipe which, for whatever reason, was suspended from the underside of the chassis rather than bolted to it. Shown here: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brbolsterd484/h2edcd928#h2173d355 Adam

This is a particularly fine juxtaposition - and to me at least, quite appealing: an ex-Crosti 9F (it could easily be an EE type 4 or a Derby type 2) alongside what is apparently a new signalbox - with coal bunker and freshly painted bufferstop but with a jumble of various minor buildings behind them - with sign in the new Rail Alphabet and everything is, actually, pretty tidy: the traditional railway in its last days. http://www.flickr.com/photos/64215236@N03/8466174346/in/photostream/lightbox/ Adam

Given that the map was surely surveyed before 1913 (and was probably only an amendment of an existing survey), why is that surprising? There must have been surveys done for the construction and there's an even chance that they survive either in the town, county or possibly railway archives. They may even be in the big Wild Swan book on the line. Like all sources they have their limitations - and many of these are designed into the process of production. Another factor, of course, is the interests of the surveyor in question! Things like the odd siding or crossover which had no effect on property boundaries, road formation or topography are unlikely to have been included (this would be the same for just about any piece of private industrial plant). Real time recording by satellite imaging has made this easier but for things like track layouts, a dated aerial photograph is usually better. These are now more readily available than ever before though, I admit, not much good if you want information from prior to 1930. Adam

Most were not - though Sentinel did good business in the '30s converting other companies' conventional locomotives to vertical-boilered machines using standard Sentinel parts. Some steam Sentinels were converted in the way you describe in the '60s, but most of these were done by Thomas Hill of Rotherham, a Sentinel agent. The design of the chassis was fundamentally similar. Adam

Maybe a smidge Jon, but now all has hardened off I can trim it back a bit with a sharp blade - perhaps 0.5mm - though to an extent I'm accommodating the slightly over-prominent axlebox covers. The Gloucester bogies weren't my first choice either but that's what Rural Railways had at the Southampton show so that's the variant I'm doing (I had the plate back roller bearing sort in mind; maybe next time). It's what was available and the older pattern weren't so it doesn't bother me especially. The springs and axlebox covers are separate mouldings and they're far from perfect whatever you do to them; the springs aren't nearly prominent enough for a start, there should be a cut out in the frame behind them and so on. The axles are parallel and they're reliably square without effort - which as you state, the old ones weren't - but they're representative and thus it's a trade off. They'll do. Adam

In the odd five minutes I had to do bits and pieces I've turned my attention to the Cambrian Gloucester bogies which, while the one piece frames are a boon leave something to be desired in their overall appearance. The chief problem to my eyes are the bolsters above the springs which on the prototype stick out quite a distance. They're also rather crude and slightly lumpen in appearance. Here's the real thing: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/bogies/h20004d98#h20004d98 And here's a three-quarter view which shows the amount by which the bolster casting protrudes: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brbolsterd484/h2581317d#h2581317d And here are my modified efforts: Note that the plastic on top is merely there to bring the pivot hole down to the correct dimension. There are plenty of other things that could be done to these bogies if the mood were to take me but this, really is enough to get the overall 'look'. Adam

Andrew, I see what you're saying, and its an old saw in these sorts of threads, but 'benefit of the doubt' over what? Brian merely said he preferred how the loco' looks that way: that isn't negativity, it's a personal preference and, since it's a separate part, something which is easy to do if a modeller so wishes. EDIT: this refers to a quote originally included by 'Brushman47544' and since edited away (apologies for any confusion this causes) I already have a model of a Sentinel diesel from the Judith Edge kit, and I don't really need another but if I were to buy one, the two would have to run next to each other and be to a comparable standard so that's my starting point. The Hornby model - as it stands and yes, it may change - has two errors of detail: the size of the axlebox covers and (apparently) the wheelbase, though the one emphasises the other. I doubt that the mech' will be altered at this stage because that's fundamental to the design but the axlebox covers might. I hope so. The other features are production compromises but to a greater or lesser extent, compromises which badly affect the appearance of the finished model (in my view). The footplate sidesheets are fair enough: it would be an utter swine to mould any other way and look far from terrible if assembled correctly - there is a join there on the real thing but it's welded up. Modelling the handrails might be an option for later Hornby releases, who knows? The chassis skirts would require modification for me (but apparently not only me) to be happy with it especially if they were delivered with the black outline (I don't think they will for what it's worth), but the join line will spoil the look of the model. The clean lines are characteristic of the prototype and the join is very obvious because it isn't there on the real thing and - unless painted flat black - will show up. My desire to repaint the model is simply because I have a prototype in mind. Adam

An LMS example with riveted door too. Adam

Since we have an elevation drawing of the actual model and the dimensions of the real thin, I've indulged in some attempts at scaling (in the old fashioned method of printing it out and attempting to scale from an independent known dimension - in this case, the centreline of the buffers to the railhead which on the prototype should be c. 3' 6" or, in 4mm scale, 14mm. Since it isn't immediately obvious whether the CAD shows the base of the flange or the tread (I think it's the former, but I'm not sure) there's a degree of variation here, but a bit of basic maths suggests that the mech' has a wheelbase which scales out between 5' 3" or 5' 6" (22-23mm). Hmm. Adam

Thanks Mike. I'd worked out that there must be a pivot in there somewhere but I couldn't quite spot where. Adam

That's a nice looking mech' Mike. I'm not quite sure how the wheelbase thing works (probably being thick) since surely this is set by the gear train or the chassis? Adam

Then that's fair enough. I'm aware of surface mount LEDs, but you've still got to wire them in and that is a fiddle. Can you get them in a clour that looks like a tungsten bulb (yellow-white)? Unless you find space for large resistor or like playing in DCC they're massively too bright and are - as in the case of the Heljan/Hattons class 14 - likely to cause other detail compromises.* I'll stop banging on about this now - a lack of lights on '60s prototypes really doesn't bother me. Adam * In that case, the size of the marker light casings and possibly the overall length - the bufferbeams are spaced out by 1mm at each end.

The latter. The 'rules' (made to be broken) were that the stripe should go where there vast majority were, i.e., bottom corner to the top of the hinge. Of course, the painter had to know this but they seem to be remarkably consistent so this is an error on someone's part. It's pretty rare but it did happen, probably as the result of a repaint somewhere along the line. Adam

Why sadly? I'm curious. If you want to represent the prototype the 'headlights' were hardly ever used if photos are anything to go by (and if included would be a massively too bright LED) I can't see why this is a problem - unless you run trains in the dark of course. The little marker lights might well have been lit more often but they're barely visible in pictures and a right fiddle to do. We're probably talking a 1960s car type bulb here so to add to realism they should be 1. pretty dim, 2. used only in poor light or in the dark, and 3. it's likely that at least one would be out of action at any one time after a while because of 1 and 2. I'm just not sure what lighting would add except cost and, from the point of view of producing a quality model (in terms of a replica of the real thing), there are several other things mentioned in this thread which would be more usefully attended to. Adam

I doubt it, but I think you may have tracked down the prototype Hornby measured. Brian: There doesn't seem to be any indication of lights on the diagram (not that this bothers me). There were relatively few industrial railways that operated extensively in the dark and fewer still which bothered to replace the bulbs, the lights were seldom all that bright... https://www.flickr.com/photos/69947186@N08/6358322333/in/set-72157631129428694/lightbox/ Should there be any, the first thing I would do is decommission them and this would be the case even if they were a realistic level of brightness: they never seem to be. The removal of side sheeting was an in service mod', I think - but am not certain - that the handrails were there all along behind the sheeting. Adam

Not sure exactly what you mean there? There's a hole in the middle for a coupling, but the ground clearance is the same whichever bufferbeam is fitted and for things like uncoupling ramps (been years since I saw one of those!) you'd think the underside of the loco was more likely to be an issue. Adam

Not 'wrong', but unusual, certainly. Those loco's were bought as a batch by the Preston Dock company so I'd expect that they were the same. They have slightly different marker lights as well - which are also like the rod drive ones. All the preserved prototypes Hornby (and all of those linked from this thread before these) have chosen have the straight cut buffer beam corners and these were by far the most common. Thanks for proving the point that they're not all the same though. Adam

If you compare CK's head on view with the Hornby isometric graphic you will see that the latter has a 'stepped' cutout on the corner while the loco in CK's picture has a straight cut corner. As Mike [Edge] points out, it seems that Hornby have copied a rod drive (i.e. 0-4-0 or 0-6-0) example which did have buffer beams shaped like that. It is an error which really shouldn't be there and would be a bit of a pain to fix. Adam

Quite so. Should have spotted that - I have those too, of course. Adam

A minor update assuming people are interested. A solution to the oblong hole issue has been devised and it seems to work. I won't do it next time because a better option has occurred to me; I'll explain that in a minute. What I did in this instance was to file the end of a length of 2mm brass rod to a rectangular section, heat it on the gas ring and melt the previously drilled round holes into oblongs. Laborious and not all that tidy if truth be told, but since the bolsters on the real thing were subject to all kinds of rough treatment this can be easily hidden by distressing them later. What I should have done was to make the bolster tops from a laminate. First a layer of 40 thou, marked out and drilled at the appropriate centres, then apply a 20 thou' layer over the top from strip; two strips down either side, short lengths in the middle to match the holes. Fiddly? Yep, but it would look better. The 'deluxe' version, of course, would be to do the top in two layer of 10 thou' so that the metal 'socket' that exists on the real thing could be represented. In 4mm, life is far to short. Might be worth a go in 7mm though. Adam

The side sheet split is an issue - not that it would be an easy thing to mould parts of the cab integrally with it; there would have to be a join somewhere - but quite a number of Sentinels, especially in later years, lost the sidesheets altogether or had handrails substituted in their place. I imagine that this was because getting in to maintain them was a bit of a pig to do. I have an idea how to hide the join in the chassis side sheet: a sheet bass overlay - I have one left over from my Judith Edge version since they were a different shape on the rod-drive variety. That's getting into full repaint territory too but that's something I would probably want to do in any event. A similar solution might apply for the side sheets. If I'm honest, I wouldn't be considering this at all - price permitting - were it not for the spare Judith Edge parts I have in the bits box! Adam