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Hogwarts Express, Scratchbuild, 1/48 Scale


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On 3/17/2020 at 8:45 AM, Bandsaw Steve said:

I could go to the West coast of New Zealand but travelling all that way for a lump of coal might raise eyebrows.

Gidday BS and BBS, rather topical right now I would think. Good luck getting through international, state and regional borders. Unless, of course, you can convince the authorities that it is "essential travel".

 

And on a more serious note (if that's possible on Britmodeller), how's the model progressing? I gather in these unusual times it means more modelling time for some, less for others. Regards, Jeff.

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Hi Jeff,

 

Its more time for us as I’m now working from home full time and BB is home schooling. However much of the motivation that was keeping BB working on this was her goal to have this ready for WASMEx 2020. With that event now scratched she seems to have taken a bit of a breather from this project for a while.

 

I’m going to try to get her back into it over the Easter break by pointing out that we really aren’t far from the first coat of red paint. 🎨 

 

I think that’s going to be an exciting landmark moment in this project.
 

 

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10 hours ago, bar side said:

Only just found this thread Steve - or Baby Bandsaw should I say.  Just to share, this is the one at the UK Harry Potter World a few years back featuring Barside Junior

 

mwtVsdU.jpg

Good photo Barside! We can use this one! Almost all photos of this locomotive are taken in a 3/4 front view so this is, perhaps surprisingly, a slightly unusual angle. If you have any more please post them up; there’s good detail in this shot.👍

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Gidday Steve, yeah cancelling WASMEx 2020 was a bit disappointing, but expected and completely understandable under the circumstances. And I can understand motivation waning without a goal now. Hopefully the 'red paint' carrot on the stick might help.

     As for working from home, I know many are doing it, our daughter's boyfriend is one, and going stir-crazy from time to time. As for me, working from home is not an option - I'm a school cleaner, and even with very few kids my work load has ramped up, I'm disinfecting everything. (Even the teachers, if they don't keep moving! 😁 Well, maybe not the teachers. Not just yet, anyway.)

     Wishing you a happy and safe Easter, to you, BBS and the rest of your family. Regards, Jeff.

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Think this is my only clear shot I am afraid

 

HcoZAx9.jpg

 

was hoping the GWR Society might have something - found this about another Hall class

 

https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/78/6998-burton-agnes-hall

 

Personally never understood what a GWR loco was doing up in Scotland.  An LMS Black Five, or an LNER K4 maybe, but a Hall?  Even some GER B12s ended up in Edinburgh & would be a lot easier with no outside cylinders

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On 11/04/2020 at 01:14, bar side said:

Personally never understood what a GWR loco was doing up in Scotland.  An LMS Black Five, or an LNER K4 maybe, but a Hall?  Even some GER B12s ended up in Edinburgh & would be a lot easier with no outside cylinders

 

 

I must confess @bar side that I too have some reservations about J K Rowling's knowledge of Muggle railway history. Let's have a think about this quote regarding the origin of the Hogwart's Express from 'Harry Potter Wiki' ….

 

'In 1830, the Ministry of Magic conducted a large-scale operation involving one hundred and sixty-seven Memory Charms, as well as the biggest Concealment Charm ever performed in Britain, in order to acquire the locomotive. The morning after this operation, the residents of Hogsmeade awoke to find the gleaming red Hogwarts Express and a Hogsmeade railway station that had not been there previously, and the Muggle railway employees in Crewe had the feeling they had misplaced something, which stayed with them for the rest of the year.'

 

So - this 'Hall class Locomotive was stolen from the muggles in 1830! Just one year after the Rainhill trials that are generally regarded as the first practical demonstration of use of the steam power for rail transport.... By my reckoning J.K has this story about one century out of alignment. 🥴

 

 

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And let’s just look at that reference to Crewe.  That was the LNWR works, later LMS (London Midland Scottish) under William Stanier.  Now Stanier was ex GWR where the loco in the film comes from.  He moved there in 1932, so out by 100 years.  And an LMS loco in red - quite probably a Royal Scot

 

Grenadier_Guardsman,_Royal_Scot_Class_lo
 

Or maybe a Jubilee like Leander

 

1490830_05bb82a2.jpg

 

Now the Jubilees look like the GWR Halls as Stanier moved from the GWR with their designs in mind and built them at the LMS.  Anything like the Princess or Dutches class would surely have been too big for a little station like Hogsmeade. And the Black Fives, were, well, black.

 

Now am I overthinking this?

 

 

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8 minutes ago, bar side said:

Now am I overthinking this?

Probably, but being an LNWR/LMS fan myself, I like your thinking. 
 

I suspect the GWR loco was dreamt up by the publisher's art department because there must be hundreds of stock images they could call on, and then pushed on with the film franchise. It seems Ms Rowling wasn’t at all specific about such details, apart from colour.

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1 minute ago, Heather Kay said:

Probably, but being an LNWR/LMS fan myself, I like your thinking. 
 

I suspect the GWR loco was dreamt up by the publisher's art department because there must be hundreds of stock images they could call on, and then pushed on with the film franchise. It seems Ms Rowling wasn’t at all specific about such details, apart from colour.

Plus at the time of the first film I don’t think there were any LMS red 4-6-0s in steam.  And there are enough Halls about to repaint one without anyone minding too much.  I guess we should all just be grateful it wasn’t all CGI

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Maybe I'd better read this Hairy Potter stuff to understand what this banter means!    I do hope you find a way to motivate young BBS to keep going.   Tell her "Uncle" Frank in Canada is counting on her.    There aren't many of us loco scratchbuilders around any more and we need to keep the hobby alive.

 

Frank

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2 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I’m just pleased that the locomotive didn’t hit the flying Ford Anglia! 🤪
 

My mum & dad had a Ford Anglia when it was a kid.  Didn’t make me live under the stairs though

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24 minutes ago, albergman said:

I do hope you find a way to motivate young BBS to keep going. 

Don’t sweat it Frank. We have made a few more hours progress of late and we are getting close to finishing the ‘motion’. After that it’s a bunch of detailing (including the rivets that she’s quite keen to do) and then it’s red paint! So I think we will be back on track soon.

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  • 1 month later...

No...   🥴

 

Sorry to say but all of Baby Bandsaw’s spare time of late has been spent playing ‘Animal Crossing’ and FaceTiming her friends. 
 

About once a fortnight I gently remind her about the express and get told ‘OK maybe this weekend’ and then nothing happens...

 

I think that without the hard deadline of WASMEx to meet, her focus has drifted. This Project will get finished I swear,  but I’m not going to finish it for her and right now, I don’t know when. 🙁
 

Maybe this weekend...🥴

 

 

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Does she read this forum? There are members who need to see progress. It’s for the greater good!

 

merely a reminder of a time that I’m sure many of us went through, drifting away from modelling as life gets in the way. Many of us have since returned. 
 

i have to say that more people are video calling friends and family more than they normally would, which is great as many us don’t take the time when life is too busy. 
 

looking forward to some more progress along with the rest of the baying, frothy mouthed crowd.

 

maybe this weekend 🤣

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On 5/19/2020 at 6:38 AM, Bandsaw Steve said:

but I’m not going to finish it for her

Gidday Steve, you'd know what's best but I think I agree with you there. That way it still remains her project. I'd like to see progress also but not at the expense of enthusiasm, hence I believe you're correct in leaving it for BBS to finish in her own good time, and not push it. I had a model sitting half done in its box for thirty years (HMAS Perth II), but finish it I did. Eventually.

 

Of course, there's nothing wrong with a bit of encouragement to help BBS's motivation, like taking away all her electronic and social media gizmos until she does! 😁

 

Regards, Jeff.

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On 19/05/2020 at 06:53, Cooper645 said:

Does she read this forum? There are members who need to see progress. It’s for the greater good!

 

 

Life's a Happy Song

 

Well @Cooper645 cheer up mate. I have it on good authority that 'Life's a Happy Song'.  Taking your need into account,  I've decided to post an update on this thread to bring it up to date, just to clear up a few bits and pieces that were achieved on the third of March before the whole thing, at least informally, went on hold.  I'm not sure when we are actually going to see some more action on this as BB is currently working very hard at school and at Animal Crossing and at - God forbid - 'Pokemon on-line'.  🥴 

 

Still, can't complain! Remember 'Life is a Happy Song' as we shall see later on in this catch-up thread. 

 

Here's where we last left off. The cylinders are just sitting in place in this photo, not glued on, and will be popped off in a moment so that some more work can be done on them.

ftgH2g0.jpg

 

Yep,  here's one completely removed and getting some holes drilled in it.

ZUfr43D.jpg

 

Here's the same bit with a couple of fine brass pins from a beading supply shop stuck in it to form a couple of whatever these things are called. Guide rails perhaps?

N8NasP7.jpg

 

Now here's a bit of practical advice to any would-be scratch-builders out there. If you are ever in a hardware store and see a box of assorted brass fittings like this one grab it! I have used bits and pieces from this box on just about every build and they are certainly coming in handy on this one.

ULIq0v8.jpg

 

See what I mean?  Now this is a long - long way from accurate model building, but it is quick and gives a fairly good impression of something busy and mechanical and sort of 'steam like' going on in this part of the machine. In order to keep going we'll run with it.

ZJwR0yr.jpg

 

See, to the uninformed (and that's definitely me) this kind of looks OK.  Note the blob of car bog filler in on the side of the smoke-box. it's there to hide the big chunk of wood we managed to rip out of the side of the loco when we drilled the hole for the big pipe thing. (I think it might be a 'blast pipe'?)

5TOHyhu.jpg

 

Now to some soldering. This is B.B's favourite job, especially if we get to use a blow-torch as she loves the sense of drama and danger. On this occasion however, she had to settle for a soldering iron and not a flame.  we set up a jig using balsa and drawing pins to hold the various bits of brass at just the right angle.

Z2ADk9k.jpg

 

And soldered away.... This is definitely a job where four hands are better than two and Baby Bandsaw is a real asset when it comes to doing any soldering at all. She has the 'knack' for it and makes a nice tidy job.

SdJZorS.jpg

 

See what I mean. This is only half done because there were some little 'knobby bits' put on later where the motion met each wheel, but this gives you an idea of where we have got up to.

SsMtYH0.jpg

 

There were only two more jobs that we accomplished before the project went into hibernation.  

Firstly, fitting the buffers onto the rear of the tender and secondly watching 'Life's a Happy Song' by the Muppets.

How shockingly wholesome!  Don't show this to any of Baby Bandsaw's friends, she is a teenager after all and 'happy songs' don't really cut it.

pmddZqR.jpg

 

So for now alas, this project is in stasis. ⏱️ I'll just post this photo to remind  you all just how awesome a subject this is and how fantastic this is going to look when it's done.

NNtCv4O.jpg

 

And it will get done. That I can promise you.

 

Bandsaw Steve

 

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27 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Guide rails perhaps?

Slide bars. They guide the crosshead on the end of the piston rod, which transfers the steam power to rotational movement at the driving wheels. 
 

Above the piston rod and slide bars will be another hole. This is where the valve rod goes in. The valves control the admission and exhaust of the steam to the cylinders. On GWR locos the valves are driven from eccentric cranks on one of the driving wheels axles. On proper railways - joke! - it’s all driven from outside where you can see and maintain it. 
 

49933560443_800caf7966_b.jpg

 

Here’s a model cylinder block I’m working on. You can see they slide bars are actually quite wide rather than pins. There will be brackets, huge cast C-shaped things, that support the outer ends of the slide bars.

 

Coming along nicely, BB! Good luck with the schoolwork, too. 

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There was talk a couple of pages ago about other locos for Hogwarts caste, I'm surprised that Taw Valley hasn't been brought up.  She was repainted for the Harry Potter films but the director thought that it looked to modern, and Olton hall was used instead !

 

 

SCAN-025

 

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