C504 gets some treatment and a change of identity.

Hello again, my sleepwalking army of the undead.....

Been a bit of action on the workbench this week, in that I've dragged out another long term project in the form of an Austrains C class that I am superdetailing. I removed almost all the molded hand and grab rails, lift rings and (I think it was meant to be an) antenna, horns, wipers and hoses. Now I've begun the process of fabricating new hand/grabrails, the MU hose and coupler lift bar.

I have also fitted the Evolution Models Kadee couple adapter/pilot filler chich is a brilliantly designed piece of kit and only need a very slight sanding to make the kadee draft gear fit. The pilot filler/mount slotted straight onto the pilot without modification. Excellent stuff.

The brutalised 'donor' loco C504 with the modeled detail removed. The cowcatcher/pilot was hit with a dremel and I like the dented effect.

 A blurry close up of the pilot

A change is as good as a new running number.

 C506 I reckon.

Fabrication of the nose handrails begins.

Brass 5-chimes and the Evolution Models Kadee mount/pilot filler in place.

Kadee #158 in place, MU receptacles in for a test fit and the fabricated

coupler lift bar in place

...and an MU cable created out of soft wire bent to suit. Hoses,

'radio equipped' decals, more handrails including the nose grab rails, antennae, wipers, sun visors, paint and more weathering... more to come. You get the idea!

Technically this is my first superdetailing effort on a loco, although the first fabrication work was on the 700. Not bad though, I like where it's going.

Cheers!

My Workbench

Nothing to see here, go away....

706 Update and Bob Hawke

I've done a little bit of work since my return from the colder climes on 'sunny' Melbourne and the 'tropical' Gippsland...

706 (likely to be renumbered to 703) copped a bit fabrication work in the form of bent brass wire in different gauges and some steps courtesy of ILM. I know the 'brake piping' and 'sand pipe' are not strictly prototypical - and I should have replaced the brake cylinders as well, oh well - they are there to add some detail and depth to the otherwise flat and boring bogie sideframes. I like the effect and it will doubtless look better when it's all painted and weathered. The coupler lift bar is also incorrect and a bit rough but when the hoses are on, it will help to flesh things out a bit. Air and MU hoses, blinds/sunshade/visors, the correct horns, lift rings and antennae plus correcting the nose stripes and AN 'snail' and replacing the nose grabrail are yet to happen. Oh and staff exchangers and destination boards.

Another 'long term' project is an old Powerline BL 26 "Bob Hawke" model that I've been chipping away at. The ultimate plane is to retrofit a an excellent Proto 2000 SD45-2 mechanism that I have sitting around. It is going to require some serious work to make it fit (modified chassis and driveshafts etc). But in the meantime I've just bee detailing the body.

From the photo you can see the standard horns have been replaced with cast brass ones, the nose grabrail has been replaced (not attached yet, just posed on the loco!) with a fabricated wire one in attempt to make it 'squarer' and a Powerline Kadee adapter pocket has been fitted.... which was a pain in the arse and required a bit of mucking around and a lot of filing to make it fit and for the #58 coupler to sit at the required height to meet the Kadee coupler height gauge. Underset shank couplers would be a logical and simpler solution!

Flush glazing is waiting in the wings as are visors, hoses, lift rings, antennae, coupler lift bar etc. LEDs and DCC control with sound will follow if I am happy with the final result of the detailing.

Australian Model Trains - Nullarbor Style

Well, there you go. The stats on you, my audience! Amazing! :)

Yes, I'm still here!

Hello all,

Just a quick note to say I've been working interstate the last couple of months and hence I have done little in the way of modeling/blogging. I did do a little bit of work on the 700 last weekend, however and I will be posting some shots shortly.

Cheers!

Just a quicky...

This is a little diorama I've started to get my eye in with scenery,  roadside furniture and to form the appearance of 'broad gauge' trackwork courtesy modified Peco Code 75 flextrack. The sleeper spacings will be altered to match prototype, the lengths trimmed also to give the appearance of sightly laterally-staggered sleepers, with the odd skewed one thrown in to represent SAR secondary mainline.

As usual, more to follow soon!

Another Few Days Past, Another Update

Hello Again Viewers! 

 

 Ah... an ever-growing army of the un-dead...

(A Simpsons quote, please don't be offended!)

Now at the point that I have a Holy Trinity of followers, I'd like to point out that I am merely a beginner in the modeling game... and blogging for that matter. I have built a handful of BGB kits and other models in the past, with varying degrees of success, but I have a long way to go. And that was a loooong time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....

And a shout out to fellow bloggers and consummate artistes Shane McCormack and Pete Michalak (of "Liralau" and now "Bridgewater" fame and prolific builder of locomotives and everything). Please do yourself a favour click on their names to checkout their blogs and works in progress. Pete seems to build models in his sleep and Shane has taken to winding the clock forward on his rollingstock. I am extremely envious of their talents!

The Ozrail 900s

Right, the Ozrail 900s. 909's mech/chassis has been returned to Chris Fretwell at Ozrail Model Trains, who has kindly offered to repair it. Ozrail's customer service - or more importantly after sales service - is second to none. 900 is getting a hatchet job done on it as I want to improve the detail with Model Etch Products grilles/mesh, glass (Krystal Clear) and replace that headlight, super detail and weather it.

900 "Lady Norrie" suffered violent damage to its nose after she 'fell' from my mantle piece courtesy of my ginger kitten "Jones"... Below is a photo of the loco with its nose reattached and factory glass removed. Keep the faith my loyal followers as wonderful things will be happening to this loco... as long as my skills aren't outweighed by my ambition.

WARNING: The following images may be deemed too shocking for some of our audience. Viewer discretion is advised.

 The workshop the other day...

 

900's Nose Job

 

SAR English Electric Shunter no. 500

 My Ozrail SAR 500 (no. 500) will be headed that way too for a new board (replacement, free of charge) and if the Cash Gods are smiling I might follow Pete's lead and get DCC and sound installed.

706

Another update of yet another project I've started - I am making up for lost time - and this time it's my sole Austrains 700 class no. 706 which has come in for scrutiny. I purchased some bits from the very helpful Ian at Ian Lindsay Models namely 442 bogie sideframes and 442/700 Kadee adapter/coupler pockets. The ILM 442 bogie sideframes unfortunately aren't much use to me to represent the 700 bogies, so I'll have to sell those on, but the coupler pockets are perfect. Some filing of the pilots and the pockets was required to make them a snug fits and to ensure the Kadee's met the height gauge. As you can see from the photos, I have sliced off most of the moulded hoses with a scalpel. I'll take the pipes off too and add some thin styrene to replace the half-relief detail on the pilot a la the amazing Justin Moy's work on his 442's...

The Ian Lindsay Models parts

706's pilot with the pocket installed and

moulded hoses removed

 

The pilot drilled for hoses, Kadee #153's fitted and

buffer holes filled

 

My plans for this loco are numerous but achievable. These include replacing the bogiew brake cylinders with cast items, fitting some brass rodding to represent the brake lines and sand pipes, fabricate the coupler release bars, add cast air and MU hoses and pipework on the pilot, add sun shades in the cab, fit the correct horn type, add marker lights, add better fletner vents and MU sockets, drill out the exhaust and fade and weather as per the prototype although I haven't decided for which timeframe.

When funds permit I'll buy a couple of more to convert. One in ANR livery, one in Mustard Pot and another for conversion to 701 in GWA livery... no wait, that's three more! Damn this hobby.... :)

FIN

Well, that's enough rambling for now. Plenty on clickys to click on and I'll try to add some links on the blog main page for my favourite retailers and blogs.

Cheers,

Joshua

Port Pirie, the East-West and the retirement of 909... for now. Oh and Pac Nat S307.

Well, so much (HO scale) activity of late!

Nothing profound, just a few bits and pieces and a bit of a road trip to Port Pirie to run some stuff on the SARMA layout that is open for public viewing, housed within the confines of the disused railway station adjacent the old yards. Whilst the trip was worthwhile there were a few issues around the operation of some of my most expensive items (not the 750, I didn't take that with me).

My Trainbuilder East-West set was brought out its boxes for its first 'mainline' run, with mixed results. The consist was made up of a BD, the Cafe car, 2 ADs and a CD. However, none of my locos could pull the consist. At all! Granted the bends were tight-ish and this was on a grade but the coaches required some decent effort just to drag along by hand. Anyway, in the end a single AD and CD were left as I slowly deducted the other coaches as either there was too much weight or they consistently derailed.

Bogie swing is one of the issues I think will be resolved very easily. Spacers or washers, between the bogie and chassis, may even solve the issue in one go. But a bigger issue and arguably more critical is the bearing, or lack of, for the axles in the bogies. The wheels simply do not spin when there is weight on them and these cars are heavy! More about this when I attempt fixes on them.

Now for the 'tragedy' and I can only blame myself for being a softy. A young girl wanted to 'have a drive' of my Ozrail 909 that was doing laps of he layout hauling a short mixed that included the BD and CD. 909 was coping with this short train, just, but only if you kept the throttle/volts low. So I showed the little girl and her father how to operate the throttle and then Shane appears with my lunch. Off I go outside to enjoy the sunshine and have a chat, forgetting there's a very young girl piloting ~$1,500 worth of model trains.............

....I come back inside to check on thing only to be told 909 has ceased functioning. Full open throttle and continous slipping on the grade = melted gearbox parts and driveshafts.

Yay. :(

I dismantled 909s sister number 900 "Lady Norrie" the night before to begin a rebuild to get the Ozrail models looking 'better'. The cursing must have been heard by the model train gods and I was punished accordingly. Damn.

A top view of the Ozrail 900 mech

 I'm new to the blog scene and I don't understand why it uploaded these as portrait images. Anyway you'll have to bare with me. The following two photos are of the gearbox tower and the driveshaft that has come adrift... if you look carefully you might see the dislodged shaft poking out of the chassis weight...

I'll provide more info on the repairs as I do them.

Now, on a lighter not here is a modified Lima S class that I acquired from the very talented Nathan Peters. It's a dummy, thankfully, and little more work is required to get it up to speed (it'll be 'in the shafts' for most of its life behind NRs/ANs/DLs and when they appear, 93s. Although it was supplied with kadee no. 5s they needed to be fitted. I use scale-head no. 153 or 158s on my locos. Some styrene packing at the rear to suit Piece of cake. Done, done. I want to fit steps on the leading bogies, some additional hoses, sun shades and of course judicious weathering... but not graffiti!

The standard Lima axles were still present and they won't cope with anything less than code 100 so I whacked in some Powerline 'traction tyre-less' axles. A bit too much sideways slop so I had to glue some styrene strips to limit the free play. I reckon these will last about a minute when I get it on a layout...

Until next time... ciao!

750 woes and the ALF (not the one from Home & Away)

Hello again to my ZERO followers...

Jumping around like a blue-arsed fly, I've been fiddling - well my friend Darren and I have - with our Trainbuilder 750 class locos with varying degrees of success. We managed to sort out the tender running issues fairly easily - although it took some experimentation and time - with varying solutions to the problem.

On my 750 (SAR 750) the solution to the tender woes appears to be removing one or both bogie springs and fitting washers/spacers between the bolster and the bogie just on the rear tender bogie. On Darren's 752 we removed the front tender bogie spring and fitted a plastic collar in its place (see photo below). A necessary and additional fix is to remove or slide the rubber/plastic insulating sheath from the connector plug as it was quite inflexible, adding to the tender ride issues.

However, as it is becoming more widely known now, the drivers are mostly, if not all, out of gauge and require correction. That's the next part of the fun....

And bonus shots of my dusty and hair covered 750...

In other news, I now have an ALF body to finish, power etc. I know what the obvious answers are here but I like making things difficult for myself... stay tuned.

 

Parts, pieces...

Oh man, where do I begin?

I have so many projects to do it's not funny and I keep finding extra things to do (if you understand star signs and know mine, this makes perfect sense).

I was in a Junction Models over Easter chasing some detail parts and the latest Australian Railways Illustrated magazine and I stumbled across some need little parts I'm going to try to fit to my TrainOrama 930s and 44s.

These...

Hopefully they're not too hard to fit. At the end of the day the LED headlight upgrade might be the best option. Let's see what happens.

Introductions...

Hi there,

My name is Joshua and this is a blog that will be dedicated mainly to my own HO scale model trains, primarily South Australian late SAR/early AN era but with a fair bit of Victorian and a little of NSWGR and some modern stuff thrown in, too.

As a motivation to myself - and hopefully to others - I thought I'd start this blog to demonstrate any works in progress, any new ideas and new acquisitions but also to track my work.

Please stick around and have a look as the blog progresses and please feel free to provide comments, suggestions etc.

Cheers!