Atso

My lining of the C1 is progressing slowly.

Hello all, A modelling offering to this thread from me this time. The C1 in the process of being lined out. Unfortunately, one of my home made boiler band decals failed to stick so I'll have to make up some more and replace it (I think I'll replace the second band on the firebox at the same time). This side of the locomotive, other than some tidying up, is just about done in terms of lining. All the lining is bow pen, brush work and/or hand painted decals, I've just got the other side of the loco and tender to do. I also spent a little time making up these today. The above will be split electrical pins for the loco/tender drawbar (taking inspiration from the current Farish design). These have been made from some 2mm brass rod and some small washers (12BA, I think) which have been carefully reamed out to be a snug fit. Once soldered together, I tidied everything up, filled some flats on the washers and carefully cut down the middle of the rod using a piecing saw before introducing some Araldite into the gap. Once this has hardened, I'll cut of the excess and fit these into some pre-prepared holes in the chassis blocks. I dare not use a soldering iron around these now so I will have to figure out some kind of sprung wire arrangement between the frames/pickups and the pins. The drawbar will be a simple affair made up of some copper clad board and a couple of bits of phosphor bronze wire.

Graeme, your comment reminds me on an amusing incident back in the early 2000's when I was part of the management team at one of the London ice rinks. We had many real celebrities walk through our doors over the years and, almost without exception, all of them were very pleasant who just wanted to be treated as normal people. However, I digress. We were holding one of the annual figure skating competitions and my best friend and I were the duty managers for the day. As per usual during such events, we decided to undertaken some of the occasional jobs that were sufficiently unpleasant in nature that we never felt comfortable asking the staff to undertake them. Therefore, we'd both changed into some old staff uniforms as we were going to get quite dirty during the day. At lunchtime, we were both in the staff room when one of the figure skating judges walks in and starts rummaging through the draws and cupboards; making quite a racket and mess in the process. My friend (who was senior to me) politely asked if he realised that this was the staff room and that it was off limits to the general public. The judge puffed out his chest and screams back (and I mean screams!), 'I've asked your manager and have been told I can come in here. Besides, don't you know who the hell I am?' My friend, keeping his cool, states that he could not have possibly asked a manager as the sum total of the management team on site were presently seated in the staff room and neither of us had spoken to him that day. He goes on to say that he hadn't a clue who the judge was but did have a fair idea from his attitude what he was. The judge was then again invited to leave - although nowhere near as politely as he was asked the first time. Apologies for the non-railway related story.

Eventually but I need to clear some more commission work before I can start that one. The CAD has existed for some time though.

Thanks Chris, The body is to 1:148 scale but I've designed up a set of replacement cylinders which re-use the Farish slide bars.

Wonderful footage Tom. However, I have to ask, did somebody forget to talk home some locomotives following the 1938 weekend? I spy some apple green in the background, could you tell me a bit more about them please?

Thanks Jerry, that is good to know. I've not wired in the resistor and it doesn't seem to have had an detrimental effects, do either you or John use it?

PIZZA BOXES!!!!!

Wonderful work Tom. I've done something similar with my Atlantic project albeit from necessity (the tender is far too small for the Dapol model) rather than any desire to improve performance or fit sound (which is wonderful in your Schools btw). That said, the locomotive ran better with the coreless motor during its initial tests than it did when I tested the Hall donor before I started work. Mine uses a Lawton 8mm motor simply because I'm of limited means at the moment and £6.50 is more appealing than £23 - I'll accept that the Lawton motor is only rated for 10V for now but might upgrade it in the future.

Well, the laser cut baseboards arrived today from Grainge and Hodder (several weeks early!). Naturally this afternoon's work plan went out of the window and the first of the boards got built! Two more boards to build before I sand and seal everything; then I can start to think about laying some trackwork. Speaking of track, last weekend saw the construction of the first of the two production 'super scissor' crossings for the fiddle yard. The above formation was the result of around ten hours work - I can't wait to get the other one out of the way! As this formation is for the fiddle yard, I decided to try and simplify the double slips so that I only need two blades at each end. By making the outer blades also act as continuous check rails, and paying careful attention to the clearances in the center, all of the items of stock tested seem to be happy enough to negotiate this formation. Next will be the fun of isolating the various rails using a piercing saw and trying to wire it up!

Thanks Knuckles, The greens are Precision Gloss LNER Doncaster Green and Precision Gloss BR Loco Green (post 1954). However, the C1 also had an air brushed coat of Ronseal Hardglaze polyurethane gloss varnish as an experiment to provide an additional layer of protection, durability to the base colours (as per Ian Rathbone's methods) which has given the Atlantic a very high gloss sheen. The actual colour will tone down a little once I've finished lining it out but the rather strong sunlight yesterday did affect the tones a bit.

Another person who has been reading with interest about traction effort, haulage and weight. While I wouldn't call myself a fan of traction tyres, I will admit that they, in my opinion, have more benefits than downfalls in many N gauge applications. For my C1 build, the front driving wheels are fitted with traction tyres as otherwise I don't think I could cram enough weight into the body to allow the four coupled short wheelbase to haul anything substantial. I could've done some things to help like gearing the rear radial wheel or transferring weight from the tender (what little there is) but these exceed my present skill level. I might have been able to cast the body in white metal but again, I lack the skills (at the moment) and equipment to ensure that this would be successful. Interestingly, I have one of the new type of plastic bodied Farish 4F which is not fitted with traction tyres and the haulage capacity is quite low. My tender driven Farish J39, which is fitted with traction tyres, on the other hand walks away with pretty much anything I put behind it (within reason) and will out haul my older Farish 4F which has a die cast body and much heavier than either of the other two locomotives. Not the solution I would like to have but they allow me to put a decent length train behind the loco while catering to my current level of modelling development - like Tony is with regard to EM gauge, I'm too far along in modelling N gauge to seriously consider making the move to 2mm Finescale for all my existing stock and really wouldn't want to part with most of it.

Hi Steve, Being an N gauge modeller myself, I'm afraid I can't answer your question. I have made the County as close to scale as N gauge and the references I had available allowed though - splashers are a bit far apart for dead scale I'm afraid.

Thanks Knuckles. The Atlantic has been a must have locomotive for me ever since I turned to N Gauge! I think you're right and, once I've finalised the design, I might well make it available for those determined to have one. The C1 is home printed and has now had some of the details picked out prior to lining out. The County prototype print has also been progress with the lining. All the lining above is hand painted; although I did the straight double lining using hand painted clear decal sheet as it was easier than trying to do this on the model. All the corners are brush work.

A bit of progress with the blocking in of details on the C1 and the 3D printed GWR County that I designed (N Gauge to fit a Farish Black Five chassis) and am now hand lining.

Thank you gentlemen. Things have been progressing on various bits and pieces recently... The C1 has had various features picked out in brass, black and polished steel and will move to the lining stage once dry. Apologies for the quality of the pictures, the sun is not being helpful to my phone camera today! The County has not be neglected though and has seen the double lining applied and the valances painted green. The double lining was created using clear decal paper sprayed in the colour of the outer lines and, once dry, a black line was ruled in using my bow pen (Tim Watson's technique). Once this was dry, I lined up a ruler against the edge of the black and used a curved no. 10 scalpel blade to cut the decal out. The taper of the blade results in the thin outer line when cut and I use the curved blade to ensure that the tip isn't in contact with the decal as I've found this can lead to a fuzzy or tore edge (despite always using fresh blades for this kind of work). The corners are brush painted in once the decals have been applied, painting in the out lines first and the inner black line a day or two later. As I don't think Orange 'scales' well, I used Ian Rathbone's technique of using Humbrol no. 9 gloss tan, mixed with a little red, to represent the orange lining. When placed on the dark green surface, it looks better to my eyes - and who I am to argue with Mr Rathbone! I've still got the splasher lining to do and then the other side - I must remember to buy some copper paint for the chimney! The BR V3 has also had its lining finished but the present lighting conditions have defeated any attempt to get a half decent photograph of this loco this morning. I'll be added crests and numbers in due course.

Just finished watching Tom, great video!

Hi Ian, Just exquisite modelling. Not just the cattle dock but the whole layout and its stock too!

Welcome to my world!

Tony, I think that working (and correctly operated) signals really adds to the realism and operating (play?) value of the layout. Working as the signalman on Little Bytham last year (looking forward to the return visit) was a very pleasurable experience and I learnt a lot from my, all to brief, time that day. More because of my experience with Little Bytham than anything on the exhibition circuit, I've just got to make working signals for Hadley Wood. Given that three of the four are somersaults, that should be an interesting challenge in N Gauge! I'm not going to say a word about lamps as not a single locomotive or guards van of mine are so fitted. That said, I did buy some Modelu LNER loco lamps at Milton Keynes the other weekend so I really have no excuse now.

Another locomotive that is progressing through the works. As it uses a modified Dapol Hall chassis/couplings rods/connecting rods/modified cross heads, Britannia driving wheels, Farish large bogie wheels and Peco tender wheels, I'm not sure if I should offer it up for sale. The tolerances on this one are incredibly tight and it's taken me several attempts over the last ten years to produce something that is both as dimensionally accurate as I can make it and actually work! If anyone is interested, this one will end up as part of my own loco fleet as 4452. 4452 gained some fame on 4th September 1936 when it deputised for a failed A4 (actually it replaced an NER Atlantic that had replaced the A4) at Doncaster and took the Silver Jubilee set from there all the way to Kings Cross (156 miles) in 139 minutes - an average speed of 67.3 mph which wasn't bad for a 26 year old Atlantic!

Hi TurboSnail, I found your thread through Gareth's direction on another forum. Wonderful work on your locomotives and it is so nice to see another modeller make use of CAD and 3D printing! Everyone is mortal CarriageShed but I'm sure it took Gareth some time to reach his current standards. Give the F1 a go - you never know, you might just surprise yourself!

I've finished the basic colour scheme for the C1 which will become 4452 as it was one of two Atlantics that deputised for a failed A4 that hauled the Silver Jubilee set into Kings Cross during the late 1930's. I've also found some more photographs of this locomotive and, as it achieved it's Silver Jubilee feat during the summer, it is the better candidate for me over 4446. Anyway, here is the current state of play. I've still got the wheel centers to line but it is starting to look the part (to me anyway). It's been temporarily reassembled as some friends were over from Holland who wanted to see it. We met for breakfast this morning at the local service station (they're on their way to Derby for some American Railway meetup) and spent an enjoyable hour or so discussing this and Robinson locomotives (one of them is a big fan of Robinson's work!). It has got to come apart again for the painting of details and lining. I also have to sort out the tender pickups and how I'm going to connect the loco and tender, both physically and electrically. The County hasn't been neglected though. At the moment it is being hand lined but I'll hold off posting any photos until things are a little further alone. What I will say is that brush painting double lined corners is taxing on one's patience!

I found this review on Youtube.

Hi Tom, Great to see you posting here! You're coach conversions look excellent and it looks like you're well on the way to solving the problems of the Observation Car.