bangle Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 ah - the joys of building a Trumpeter kit huh? More work than you expect.... You've really banged this one out so far - miles ahead of me! It's really starting to take shape now. Always looking forward to an update from you MH Indeed, a LOT more work. Just when i've sorted one thing I spot another two... or three ... or four things that need working on. I must confess that I do have plenty of spare time to spend on model making though, being a housewife. It keeps me away from the hoovering and out of trouble . The frames are beginning to come together, but as with the rest of the model, one thing seems to have a knock on effect on the other. One of the frames is very much attached to the big bar on top of the piston so it looks like i'm going to have to venture into that area soon. I also need to get round to building the water tanks so i'm going to have a bash at that next, so I can have some idea of how it's all going to go together. Of course some adjustments are required so it's back to the reference photos for me now. So much for painting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breaker Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Rail looks excellent, coming from a track engineer! Wish mine all looked that straight and had all the bolts in place and I'm 1:1 scale! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyC Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Great work - been watching this from Day 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangle Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 Rail looks excellent, coming from a track engineer! Wish mine all looked that straight and had all the bolts in place and I'm 1:1 scale! Thanks Breaker, that's a high compliment. You mean I didn't have to glue the bolt I knocked off back on? I missed a trick there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangle Posted April 12, 2014 Author Share Posted April 12, 2014 (edited) Well it's been 2 days and I still haven't got these water tanks together. To begin they looked like this:- The first thing I did was take the non-slip finish off the top, nice and simple. Next, as usual I seem to have decided to make my life complicated and try and replicate the skin on the side of the water tank. I made myself a template on the computer Then i spent a long time chain drilling the original kit part. It took me so long David took a photo of me for prosperity's sake. Once it was all chain drilled then came the painful task of cutting it all out. This took a looong time! After that I applied plastic glue to the frame and added a very thin sheet of plastic card (the excess will be trimmed later) At this point it all went terribly wrong. I decided the best way to make the plastic card dip in was to use plastic weld on the reverse and let it suck the plastic cards downwards. In theory this was a great idea. In practice it really was not. The sucking effect worked a little too well and I ended up with a very messy looking part with wrinkles and very prominent ribs. I didn't take a photo, instead I began the task of peeling and scraping the offending plastic card off my frame. Then I tried again, this time I decided to use my hairdryer to heat up the plastic. Then used my nail to depress the plastic until I was happy with the degree of distortion. This worked much better. Finally I achieved the look I was after. It's not so easy to see but you can feel it so I think it will work once it's painted. I was hoping to put it all together today but I had neglected to do some copious filling on the rest of the water tank so i'm going to have to wait for my filler to dry. Edited April 12, 2014 by bangle 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Ye gods! You're not cutting any corners doing this are you. Interesting technique and I'll look forward to see the end result. Stu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 OMG, there are certainly no short cuts taken here. It looks great so far and if you pull it off all the way - and I have no doubt by now that you will - it will add a lot to the finished model. Fantastic work! A word of caution though Amanda; Please, tie up your beautiful long hair in a tail out of harms way when using that drill. If it would get caught in the drill at full power the resulting mess will hurt. Please take care. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangle Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 A word of caution though Amanda; Please, tie up your beautiful long hair in a tail out of harms way when using that drill. If it would get caught in the drill at full power the resulting mess will hurt. Please take care. That's a good point, I tend to forget when i'm in the middle of something. My husband has been regaling me of the times his sister got her hair caught in an electric whisk... Ouch! Not too many short cuts, only in the places that you can't see I don't see too much point in adding detail when it can't be viewed in the finished product. I'm going to be making a lot of additions to the rear frame though, it's a little sparse to say the least. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Wow.....This kits' really getting the treatment! I'm still a bit scared of my 1/72 version.....There's just so much of it (compared my usual AFV kits)! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangle Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 Wow.....This kits' really getting the treatment! I'm still a bit scared of my 1/72 version.....There's just so much of it (compared my usual AFV kits)! What gets me is the 1:72 scale version looks like it has better detail than my kit! I just take mine a section at a time. If I thought of everything that needed doing I think i'd have to go lie down somewhere! Then it would never get finished! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spookytooth Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Very interesting build Bangle, I must admit I have never seen a railway engine being built before and yours looks great. Seems a lot of work to get to the standard you want it but it is paying off. Look forward to seeing it finished. Simon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangle Posted April 15, 2014 Author Share Posted April 15, 2014 Thank you, Simon, still a long way to go! I've just found more detail to do, i've just noticed that I need to do some major works on the second frame with the oval hole to get it to look right. Ah well, at least I appear to have got the water tanks mainly sorted. Apart from adding the handle and the steps it appears they're done. The strips and bolts I added should help location of the frames on final assembly, i'm quite happy with my test fit of the first frame, it looks just like it should. Next I'm going to begin on the pistons, lots of work to do here. For a change it looks like i'm simplifying parts! At least they are mostly simple shapes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangle Posted April 19, 2014 Author Share Posted April 19, 2014 (edited) So much for the pistons, it seems my attention has been drawn elswhere again. I started by removing a few holes and flattening out some bits on the housing. I took a nice picture of the origional parts with the other one I was in the process of filling. The fit wasn't nice so it was beginning to take some time to do the sand and fill thing so I turned my attention to other parts. Now the working parts of said pistons go through the second frame so I turned my attention to that. Now if I hadn't decided to buy Libor's lovely resin I think I may have just lived with the kit parts, but I didn't. The can of worms has been opened and there's no going back! Below is what the kit part looks like. So I jumped on CAD, scaled down a picture of the real thing to the correct size, and took some drawings. Then I made up a template for the main part and cut it out with my scalpel blade. I decided to use brass rod to go through the holes, it's very sturdy and does a good job of holding the curve that the part needed. On the edges of the part I used some very thin plastic card which I shaped to make the raised edges (i'm having trouble with my descriptions here, if in doubt just look at the pictures, they make more sense than I do!) I then set to work on the back, this was the easy part, the hood like bit is just a bit of shaped plastic card bent and stuck with plastic weld and the back is just thin plastic card with hex rod. Pretty standard fare really. It really does add to the overall look though. Finally i'm finished with front of the frame. I haven't glued the main part on yet as I do need to put other bits on the brass rod. Having them unattached will also be helpful as i'm not done with this frame yet. I need to turn my attention to the back! It appears to be less complicated, however of course now i've got the front done the kit part that goes on the back looks horribly thick and clunky. Ah well, back to the model making table it is.... (Edited so this post actually makes sense! I seem to be a little incoherent this morning!) Edited April 19, 2014 by bangle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted April 19, 2014 Share Posted April 19, 2014 I love it when the CAD, be it 2D or 3D, is fired up in the scratching process because then you now things are probably going to get even more serious. And again this is no disappointment, that's some really nice and detailed scratch building happening here. I'm really impressed. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madhatter Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 that is going way above what I'll end up doing! Brilliant work - very precise. You should make some castings of them and sell them as AM parts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Vale Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Great attention to detail, particularly the way you've shown the framing under the tender skin. I've seen a very few people do that on OO locos and it makes for fantastic low-angle photographs. I must say this thread and Madhatter's are making it very unlikely I'd ever attempt one of these kits! Although if Trumpeter did a BR-85 with Witte smoke deflectors... Cheers, Will 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangle Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 I love it when the CAD, be it 2D or 3D, is fired up in the scratching process because then you now things are probably going to get even more serious. And again this is no disappointment, that's some really nice and detailed scratch building happening here. I'm really impressed. Very serious indeed, it's funny i'm not the kind of person that has to have everything perfectly accurate, but that part really bugged me! I'm glad you like my work that is going way above what I'll end up doing! Brilliant work - very precise. You should make some castings of them and sell them as AM parts I actually thought about it! Then I decided to stop getting distracted with the idea and get on with my model. I believe LZ models do a resin casting service as well now which piqued my interest as my limited experience in resin casting suggests I need to practice more! Great attention to detail, particularly the way you've shown the framing under the tender skin. I've seen a very few people do that on OO locos and it makes for fantastic low-angle photographs. I must say this thread and Madhatter's are making it very unlikely I'd ever attempt one of these kits! Although if Trumpeter did a BR-85 with Witte smoke deflectors... Cheers, Will I'm hoping it's going to work well, most of the 86's don't have a water tank that looks like that. For the older ones it's just a solid welded box. 333 appears to be quite atypical in many respects though. I do sometimes wonder how many people look at my thread and think that maybe it's a little complicated! Honestly though, i've seen many builds of this model where they haven't gone crazy on the extra details and they still look great. A lot of the added details are also really simple to add, the most recent part not so much but the rest is simpler than it appears. The main flaw with the kit i've seen is the lack of anything in the area between the tank and the boiler. I notice that a lot of people do high or low angle photos to disguise the fact that there's a big gap where light just shines though. I'm going to be adding some pipes and things down there to make sure that it's not so obvious. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madhatter Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 I'm interested to know how you achieved such nicely curved pieces like that out of styrene? How are you cutting and shaping these bits? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shar2 Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Stunning work Amanda. There are parts you've made that I'm definitely going to borrow for my build. Having access to a 3D printer I will print them out rather than cutting them out of styrene. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Vale Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Sorry not tender, tank. I was getting mixed up between the threads... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangle Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 I'm interested to know how you achieved such nicely curved pieces like that out of styrene? How are you cutting and shaping these bits? Well the explanation will probably disappoint you greatly and take away the mystery but here goes... With the curved piece I first worked out what it would be like if it was all flattened out. Then I got all my dimensions to make up a flat shape (top left on the CAD drawing image), which I cut using just an ordinary scalpel. I then drilled the holes for my brass rod. At this point a certain amount of fudging was involved. I wanted to get my styrene sheet to bend but of course it doesn't want to stay put, it just springs back. I didn't want to bend it too much as it would just snap so I tried heating it then bending it over some brass rod of various diameters. This worked a little but of course it's too thick so in the end I cheated. The rod is a tight fit in the hole so it pushes on very snugly, hence the bent plastic stays bent and doesn't spring away, it is under a little tension though but nothing too serious. When it gets glued on later the tension will also be reduced. It's the same with the arch above the part. It's literally just a piece of plastic card bent and plastic welded on, that's it. You have to do it a little bit at at time starting with the top of the arch and working to the edges but it works perfectly fine. (see now this is where you all get disappointed by the sheer simplicity of it all). For the raised edging I just used plastic weld to stick plastic card on the edges of the plastic card part i'd already made (a bit like adding edging tape) then trimmed it to the shape I liked with a scalpel blade. In summary it is literally just flat pieces of plastic card plastic welded onto other bits of flat plastic card! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddball Posted April 22, 2014 Share Posted April 22, 2014 Mmm, having an anorak moment with these lovely loco's being built. You're certainly putting in the effort where the detail is concerned and I reckon you'll have something pretty special when you're all done. This is definitely something I'm looking forward to seeing finished. Odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elmarriachi Posted April 22, 2014 Share Posted April 22, 2014 Wow... wonderful build..... the interior is looking absolutly fantastic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Grumpylee Posted April 22, 2014 Share Posted April 22, 2014 I'm not a train person but Bangle this looks a good detailed build, good effort Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.P. Posted April 22, 2014 Share Posted April 22, 2014 I do sometimes wonder how many people look at my thread and think that maybe it's a little complicated! Honestly though, i've seen many builds of this model where they haven't gone crazy on the extra details and they still look great. A lot of the added details are also really simple to add, the most recent part not so much but the rest is simpler than it appears. For what it's worth I check in on your build daily....or at least whenever there's an update. Really enjoyable to follow along and I'm looking forward to seeing this one done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now