Pendle Princess Steam Traction Engine

[Ian T]

12 hours ago, Kallisti said:

Oh nice to see someone else building this  I did one about 3 years ago in the Made in Britain GB - you can see it here:

 

 

 

The decals are tricky as they are so old and the kit is definitely showing its age! If you look closely you can see a copyright date moulded into the plastic - its a very old kit!

I was going to add LEDs and light the canopy but in the end decided not to as it was waaay too complicated

I look forward to seeing your progress, good luck!

Hi Kallisti, thanks for the encouragement, I’ve already looked at your build, most impressive I must say, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve already used it as one of my references. I don’t have the experience to use the Alcad paints yet, so I’ll probably leave the “gold” as per the kit, as long as it doesn’t have marks where the parts come off the sprue, I’ll wait and see on that, but your Alcad work is beautiful.

Looking at your pictures it seems like you “omitted” the green pinstripe on the wheels, is that right? I’ve tried dry brushing them, with no real luck, I’ve looked at pinstriping decals on the internet and found some 0.3mm ones, but to get enough for all of the wheels was going to cost me nearly $100 Aussie, money that would be hard to justify I’m afraid. I’m going to have one more try by firstly airbrushing the wheel yellow, then putting green along the raised moulded line as carefully as I can, then hand brush yellow along the “flat” part of the wheel to leave the raised moulded line green, but I’d have to do that accurately for 20 times on each wheel ........ don’t you love modelling. If that doesn’t work I’ll probably leave it yellow and beg for foregiveness from the purists!!

Best Regards Ian

[Ian T]

8 hours ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

Bandai imported it then dismantled it to make the model. Up to date info is not available.

Thanks bentwater and Alan, I did come across some pictures of the original outside of the Bandai museum, but I don’t know the current status of it, I hope that it’s being looked after.

Regards Ian

[Kallisti]

Yes I did 'cheat' on the pinstriping a bit - I did look at using decals but the curves and the amount would have just made it silly. In an earlier buld I did the Steam Roller from Bandai and it too had some pinstriping on the wheels but I tried a technique on that where i got an old eraser and turned it into a 'dabber# type of brush where I got a small amount of paint on the side and carefully dabbed it onto the raised detail to just transfer the paint from the eraser to raised detail and avoid touching the rest. You can see the results here:

 

 

Its a little ragged, but I was using Tamiya paints which have a habit of drying a bit too fast. It might work better with a different type of paint.

 

You can see my entire Steam Roller build here

 

 

In the end on my build I didn't do and accurate 'Pendle Princess', but 'another' Showman's Engine that shared similar features with the Princess - that gave me the excuse to play around with things a bit since every Showmans engine has different paintwork and even the Pendle Princess has looked different at different times in its past!

 

Good luck!

Edited November 7, 2018 by Kallisti

[Ian T]

This is why I love this forum, help like this is like striking gold, thanks so much Kallisti. I had lots of problems with Tamiya paints drying too quickly when I hand brushed things. So somebody on the forum recommended using paint retarder, this worked a lot better. I’ve also branched out into trying other manufacturers paints.

 

I think that your comment on being “accurate” is very valid; you have to consider accurate to what stage of the “Princesses” life. Anyway I’ll try and make an “accurate” kit as best I can within the realms of my skills and an old, old kit. And best of all ..... I’m having fun and still learning new skills.

 

Thanks and Regards, Ian

 

P.S. The steam roller is great

[Ian T]

A bit more progress with the “Princess”, albeit very slow. I have spent far too long trying to paint the pinstripes on the front wheels, so I moved onto the boiler. This has gone OK except for the lack of locating lugs/pins so getting a circular boiler “circular” was fun. Anyway it’s just about ready for painting as shown in the following pictures.

 

The first picture shows the two halves of the boiler complete with the “front door”, can somebody please let me know the correct name?

 

 

Next up are the two side “cowls” (again, correct name please!!). The ejector pin holes on this kit are about 3mm diameter and even though they are on the inside on the cowls, I know that they’re there, so they had to be filled. The hole in the top right is hidden by another part, to that one got a reprieve.

 

 

Then came a problem, there are two little handles on the front door (you can see that I’m really up on the nomenclature for showman’s engines can’t you?). Well one was missing, possibly from when the kit was given to me or maybe when I washed the bits at the start of the build. This is what they should look like.

 

 

So I set about constructing a new one. I used a piece of sprue/framework and turned it to the correct diameter (2.4mm) and drilled a hole (1.2mm) using my mini lathe. Next up I sanded it to the correct thickness, this gave me the centre boss. I then used a piece of 1.19mm flexible styrene and glued it into the hole, this gave me the pins on either side to locate the “hand” onto the front door and let the second hand fit to the first hand. Finally I got a 1.2mm diameter piece of brass rod, sanded it to a taper with the rounded end and glued that to the side of the boss. This is what the end product looked like and I’m quite pleased with the result. The styrene rod will be cut to length when it is fitted.

 

 

Finally this is how it will fit to the boiler door eventually.

 

 

Thanks for reading, all comments happily received.

 

[JeroenS]

Nice little handle! Even making such a small thing yourself can be very satisfying can't it?

[kpnuts]

Looking good.

[Ian T]

4 hours ago, JeroenS said:

Nice little handle! Even making such a small thing yourself can be very satisfying can't it?

Agreed, I enjoyed thinking “how can I make this” and then putting it into practice. Another really, really positive factor is the fact that over a career of working in engineering I’ve accumulated a nice little workshop, nothing high end, but good enough for me to do small, lightweight work like this handle.

[bentwaters81tfw]

 

8 hours ago, Ian T said:

 

 

The first picture shows the two halves of the boiler complete with the “front door”, can somebody please let me know the correct name?

Smokebox door

 

 

Next up are the two side “cowls” (again, correct name please!!).

Mounting brackets for the generator

 

 

Then came a problem, there are two little handles on the front door (you can see that I’m really up on the nomenclature for showman’s engines can’t you?).

Dart handles. The 'dart' is a pointed locking device inside the smokebox door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ian T]

Thanks bentwaters81tfw 😎

[Ian T]

This is how the front wheels turned out, I had to give up on the green pinstriping that is supposed to be on the raised moulding outside of the gold panel on each spoke. My brush skills, even with magnifying glasses don’t allow me to do this, I tried “dry brushing” but this kit isn’t the place to experiment with a new (to me) skill. So we’ve got reasonable gold panels, red, blue and green rivets in the appropriate order and a wish that nobody zooms in too closely!!

 

 

Obviously wheels need tyres, this is the first time that I’ve had a close look at these. Modern kits usually have a fine moulding line on the middle of the tread area but are otherwise reasonably ready to go. These have a large raised moulding line and the two halves of the tyre don’t line up as shown in this picture.

 

 

So after some considerable time I’ve filed one tyre with this “before and after” result.

 

 

And finally for today, the manufacturers plate on the smoke box door (thanks bentwaters81tfw), this is supposed to be black with gold lettering and surround, but similar to the wheels I took a simpler way out I’m afraid.

 

 

[Jo NZ]

Try sanding the tyres with 240 then 400 grit to get rid of the tails, they will also grey up a bit.

[Kallisti]

I've just realised I never noticed that 'Garrett' on the smokebox door before lol, I repainted the big 'G' with Alclad bit didn't do anything with that label!

 

[Ian T]

1 hour ago, Kallisti said:

I've just realised I never noticed that 'Garrett' on the smokebox door before lol, I repainted the big 'G' with Alclad bit didn't do anything with that label!

 

Ooops!!

 

3 hours ago, Jo NZ said:

Try sanding the tyres with 240 then 400 grit to get rid of the tails, they will also grey up a bit.

Thanks Jo NZ, I did try sandpaper but the stuff I tried was a lot finer. Obviously it didn’t do very much, I’ll get some of the courser grades and see how it goes, but there is quite a bit of rubber to remove.

[Jo NZ]

12 hours ago, Ian T said:

Ooops!!

 

Thanks Jo NZ, I did try sandpaper but the stuff I tried was a lot finer. Obviously it didn’t do very much, I’ll get some of the courser grades and see how it goes, but there is quite a bit of rubber to remove.

In that case go coarser - 150 or even 80 grit!

I took the tread off the Airfix 1/12 Bentley tyres on a lathe with a coarse (I.e. fatherless child) file and then sanded with 150 grit. Here's the difference:

 

 

[Ian T]

Wow, that is a difference, I’m not sure I’ll be going that far, but I really need to get the two halves of each tyre levelled up.

[Ian T]

The front axle assembly is now complete with the wheels and doesn’t look too bad. However the decals seem to have crazed quite badly, the large horizontal decals in both the front and rear views show this particularly. I’d appreciate any comment on why this may have happened, I sprayed a coat of Tamiya gloss clear over them when they were dry, so is it that? Or could it be the old, fragile state of the decals or maybe because we’ve had over 40C weather during the last weekend here in Queensland, so I’d hate to think what it got to in my shed, maybe everything needs to be brought indoors? Any suggestions appreciated, I’m not looking to do anymore decals until I have an idea of what the problem is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JeroenS]

I've read that Tamiya clear could indeed affect decals if not sprayed very lightly and in thin layers. It could also be the age of the decals. Or a bit of both, with the temperature mixed in. If you use a setting solution on them you shouldn't need (a whole lot of) clear I think. Anyway, look at it this way: it's instant weathering 😉 

[Ian T]

59 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

I've read that Tamiya clear could indeed affect decals if not sprayed very lightly and in thin layers. It could also be the age of the decals. Or a bit of both, with the temperature mixed in. If you use a setting solution on them you shouldn't need (a whole lot of) clear I think. Anyway, look at it this way: it's instant weathering 😉 

Thanks JeroenS, I think that the age of the decals has played a large part in this, they were very fragile when I put them on. But I would expect that my clear coat was too thick. I had a bit of trouble seeing where I had sprayed and it is very easy to spray too much. I did use setting solution, so I think that I’ll use a very light single coat in the future, if I use any at all.

Regards Ian

[kpnuts]

Looking really good, brings back many memories. I would love to do this kit again but with the skills I have learned now (never even heard of weathering when I first built this)

[Ian T]

Moving on, the next stages were assembly of the boiler, followed by the water tank, both with mixed results. The boiler went together well and I was particularly pleased with the home made dart handle, which is the one nearest the smoke box door, or the one at the “25 to the hour” position may make more sense in the photos below. But the decals (as expected) were a sort of nightmare. The one that goes around the lower part of the boiler broke into four bits, but they behaved nicely allowing me to get them almost back in position. The one on the left of the boiler (second picture) broke into ten pieces and drove me to drink, well  to drink more, that is!! The carrier film is huge, but I daren’t trim it as the decals are flimsy enough as it is. The ten pieces went reasonably well together but there is a missing piece and I don’t have a clue where it went. So moving onto the right hand side (third picture), I was very wary of what might happen, but it stayed in one piece and went on well, except for the carrier film showing up quite a bit.

Onto the water tank, that went together well, especially as there is very little help in the form of locating lugs etc. But a combination of a hot day and the fact that I had the airbrush further away than normal as I tried to cover the larger area smoothly resulted in some of the paint drying in the air and hit the water tank already dry. If you haven’t seen it before, this dries like dust, which is great if your weathering, but not the effect that I wanted. So I’m contemplating the use of some very wet 2000 grit wet and dry paper to remove the dust but leave the moulded detail. Any other suggestions gratefully received.

As usual, comments and constructive criticism are most welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

[JeroenS]

It doesn't look too bad does it? I think it'd be almost impossible to sand the troublesome areas and not touch anything else, thereby scuffing the paint in areas you would want to leave alone. Anyway you'd still have to touch up your sanded areas, would it mean an improvement? Also I would reckon that ironworks and paintjobs in those days wouldn't be too smooth either. 

[Ian T]

On 16/12/2018 at 16:15, JeroenS said:

It doesn't look too bad does it? I think it'd be almost impossible to sand the troublesome areas and not touch anything else, thereby scuffing the paint in areas you would want to leave alone. Anyway you'd still have to touch up your sanded areas, would it mean an improvement? Also I would reckon that ironworks and paintjobs in those days wouldn't be too smooth either. 

Thanks for the comments Jeroen, I’m pleased with the results so far, I knew when I started that the kit would be a challenge, but isn’t that why we do it?

As for the finish, yes, agreed, the quality of the metal work and paint finish are no doubt far superior now compared to when The Princess was built, but from a scale point of view, my “dusty” finish would be lumps about 10mm high!! No mathematics involved there, just demonstrating that it’s a very lumpy paint finish, maybe I should do some military kits and practice weathering!!

[JeroenS]

Ah, yes, right that would be some big lumps 😄

[Kallisti]

If you have them, sanding sticks are useful for small areas with detail you don't want to damage. Sounds like you might want to move the brush nearer the model if it is that hot (or move tot he UK where it is cold and damp at the moment! )