Hogwarts Express, Scratchbuild, 1/48 Scale

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday, thanks for the update. And a week early! Well done BB. I agree that a source of spares are invaluable to scratch-modellers. Do I see parts from HMS Hood and KGV (or similar) kits in the spares box? That cabin is certainly looking spiffing, and with a nautical theme. I'm looking forward to seeing more. Regards, Jeff.

[TonyW]

A new thread to me and ten pages of happy reading followed discovery. A fine project and very impressive work from BB and tutor. 

 

The final colour scheme is starting to worry me a bit though. BB is nearing the Goth stage of development. Remove any matt black paint from the work area until it passes.

 

Tony.

[Bandsaw Steve]

8 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

 Do I see parts from HMS Hood and KGV (or similar) kits in the spares box? 

Quite possibly. Most of these bits came from a clean out of the Noranda scale model club rooms so I don’t know much about the original kits or who owned them. Thanks for following along. 👍

[Bandsaw Steve]

3 hours ago, TonyW said:

A new thread to me and ten pages of happy reading followed discovery. 

Excellent! Very pleased you enjoyed all of this palarva. 😀

 

Don’t worry about the Goth Phase we have ‘Emos’ these days.

 

What’s the definition of an Emo?

 

A Goth with a mobile phone! 📱 

 

 

[Brandy]

Excellent update!

Of course you are totally correct in that rail vehicles do not require a compass. However, since this is the Hogwarts Express, and powered by magic, there may very well be segments of its journey which are NOT on rails! Well thought out Baby Bandsaw!

 

Ian

[Bandsaw Steve]

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

 

Work on the Hogwarts Express project continues.  Two jobs were planned for this week:

• BB was going to finish detailing the cab and if time permitted continue with some other assorted detailing
• I was to sort out how to attach the tracks to the display base.

Here's where BB had got to at the end of the last major post - all looking good. So how did we go this week?

 

A few evenings ago Baby Bandsaw and I headed out to the shed and started sorting through the spare plastic bits box to see what should be done next.  It was a balmy evening so - despite being told a thousand times to wear shoes in the shed - BB was in bare feet. We were coming up with all sorts of plans for levers and wheels and gauges when out of the corner of her eye BB caught a glimpse of quick scurrying movement. Something was running straight towards her little pink toes!

 

And that 'something' was one of these! 😱😱😱

 

Neither of us had ever seen one before or or had any real idea what it was.  BB was not sticking around to conduct research! Her 'fight or flight' instincts kicked in very quickly and firmly recommended 'flight'. There was running and screaming and - damned near but not quite - wetting of pants. I honestly can't say I blame the kid; this was one big creepy critter and it was coming straight at her! Remember folks this is Western Australia and a good rule of thumb with animals and insects here is 'if unknown - treat as dangerous'.

 

I had the advantage of a closed in set of shoes and after my initially very strong 'WTF!?!? ☠️😨 😱 reaction' set about calming myself down and then stamping on the damned thing. In the back of my mind I was wondering if I was destroying the last example of some living fossil that had never previously been seen by human eyes. What the hell was this thing? Cockroach? Arachnid? Earwig? Whatever it was it took three good stamps to kill it.  By my rough final estimation it was about 2 inches long - but during the battle it looked at least twice that! I swept its remains into a dust-pan, ditched it in the outdoor organic waste bin and went into the house to see if Baby Bandsaw was OK.

 

BB had found her mum and using very colorful language and wild gesticulations was explaining that that there was 'a scorpion or a cockroach or a giant god knows what! in the shed'; that it was 'completely unknown to science' and was 'literally a demon that had risen from Satan's lair'.  

 

Subsequent to all of this excitement I have done some internet research.  It turns out that this thing was a 'Mole Cricket' 'Gryllotalpidae' from the Order 'Orthoptera'  sometimes called a 'playtypus insect' because - like a platypus - they appear to be made from a bunch of different parts of different species all stuck together in an improbable fashion.   Apparently these are quite common in warm and temperate climates with a widespread global distribution. However, here they are invasive pests, they have been in Perth for less than 15 years and are becoming increasingly common. They are problematic as they generally live underground and destroy plant root networks. Apparently they are 'harmless' to humans but will bite if handled and can spray a smelly defensive chemical from their anal glands... Charmed I'm sure. 🤔

 

Here is a photograph of some lunatic holding one of these things. 

 

Anyhow, the upshot of all if this excitement is that Baby Bandsaw has not set foot in the shed since this unfortunate occurrence, so I have no further progress to report from her side of the bargain. On the positive side, I think next time we see her in the shed she will be wearing shoes. 

 

I however, have been busy working on the rails. These had caused me some concern because, although we have a very nice line of sleepers to lay the rails on, there was no clear means to attach them. Rails are challenging because have to be perfectly parallel and at the exact correct gauge. Hmmmm... Tricky.

 

Upon close inspection I noted a small number of small notches on the outside base of each rail length. My guess is that these are probably something to do with the electrification of model railways but I was going to use them for something different. I used this little notch as a fixed point into which a pin could be driven that would temporarily hold the rail in the correct position while work was being performed.  See the picture below.

 

Now with a series of pins physically delineating where the first rail would sit it was a relatively simple matter of smearing some 'Selly's Power Grip' onto the bottom of the rail and repositioning it back into its correct position. Then using masking tape and clamps to hold the rail in place while the glue set.

 

I was unsure if this glue alone would be sufficient to hold the narrow metal rail onto painted wood but it turned out to be fine. This particular glue has turned out to be a real find. I first used it on the PZH 2000 project and never want to be without it again. Here the first rail is in place and is being 'strength and straightness' tested. 

 

When laying the second rail the tender turned out to be an ideal gauge setting tool. I used it over and over again to ensure that the two rails were at exactly the correct spacing.

 

Using more tape and pins I let it sit for an hour or so to let the glue harden up a bit.

 

While the glue was still slightly soft and workable I carved away any surplus mess.

 

And here's the result. The Hogwarts Express is now sitting on its rails!

 

So - the project progresses - albeit a bit slower than hoped.

 

As for 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them...?'

 

Try my shed!

 

Bandsaw Steve

 

[hendie]

really nice work Steve.  Rails are looking good

When Baby Bandsaw calms down and puts some shoes on, tell her I'm really interested in seeing how that cab turns out - great start

[Bandsaw Steve]

Thanks @hendie anything to keep the pressure on her is appreciated.

 

Personally I can’t wait to see some red paint on this thing! I’m still hoping to have the locomotive constructed and painted by 01 Feb 2021 but that target is tight and I fear that the schedule is slipping a bit.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Steve, I've seen mole crickets here too. I didn't know they were an introduced species. I've found that a really sharp and heavy axe can deal with them, although it means coming within about a metre of the things. Personally I'd prefer to use a .50cal machine gun on them but a few problems with that - I don't actually HAVE a machine gun, and they're a little bit illegal to own and fire around here. Plus, although I get on well with the neighbours they might draw the line there. 

     I placed a blanket rule here many years ago - ALWAYS were footwear in the shed. I stick by that too, and if you ever see the inside of our shed you'll know why. 😬

 Hopefully BB will pluck up the nerve/courage/resolve to continue with the detailing of the Hogwarts Express soon. I'm looking forwards to seeing more progress. And well done with the tracks.

     Regards, Jeff

[bentwaters81tfw]

I see BB is becoming a true modeller, did I spy blood?

On the question motive power, looking at your spares box, I could just imagine you opening the smokebox door to reveal a radial engine. Used in multiple, you could have a veritable 'corncob' in that boiler.

[Bandsaw Steve]

17 minutes ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

 

     I placed a blanket rule here many years ago - ALWAYS were footwear in the shed. I stick by that too, and if you ever see the inside of our shed you'll know why. 😬

 

Hmmm...

 

Rules and daughters...🤔

 

In the past I have had mixed results.

 

 

[bar side]

1 minute ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Hmmm...

 

Rules and daughters...🤔

 

In the past I have had mixed results.

 

 

🤣🤣🤣

[stevehnz]

1 hour ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Hmmm...

 

Rules and daughters...🤔

 

In the past I have had mixed results.

 

 

You probably won't need to enforce that one from now on, I don't like the look of those, sort of weta meets huhu beetle meets junior lobster, stuff that.  The Express is looking promising.

Steve

[Bandsaw Steve]

Lumnos!

 

In Harry Potter's world when folks need light they just pull out their wands and say 'lumnos'. 

 

In the muggle world things aren't quite so easy.  Ever since my Carpathia build I have been harassed by various troublesome individuals who want me to put lights on or in my models!  @SA80A2AR @brianthemodeller & @Martian come to mind...  🙄   This time however it was my own daughter who was guilty. 'This will look so cool with a light on the front of it dad!' she would say, or 'look - the real Hogwart's Express has a light on the front; will our one?'  

 

 

So bowing to pressure, a few months ago I trudged down to the local hobby shop and spoke to the guys there.  'It's really easy' they said discouragingly. I'm always discouraged by 'It's really easy' because for me it's generally a prelude to 'No! You're supposed to...' or  'no-one else has this problem'... or 'Everyone knows that!'   Anyway, apparently putting lights on a model these days is 'really easy'... 'you just use LED's' 

 

That's it - that's the instructions right there 'just use LED's' no more explanation needed. 

 

So let's see what's involved. I have now had a chance to fiddle about with these things and am happy to post what I've learned, just in case anyone else is wondering what's involved.  This is very much a beginners guide to using LED's in models. I'm going to assume you know nothing about them and have never used them before - because that was my starting point.

 

Firstly - the purchases. At the hobby shop I bought a small bag of about a dozen 2mm LEDS (light emitting diodes) for $19.99. I also bought a single battery / switch set for $16.99.  Both purchases were manufactured by 'Green Stuff World' the same people that make 'Green Stuff Modelling / Sculpting putty.'

 

In case you are one of the five people on the planet (other than me) that don't know, LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) are a bit like tiny light-bulbs except instead of being fragile and hollow they are tiny little solid chips of (who knows what) which glows vigorously whenever a small amount of electricity passes through them. I think they are bit like a small solid state transistor. When the LED is not glowing it looks like a tiny yellow rectangle of ceramic material. In the photo below the LEDs are the tiny greenish yellowish squares each with two hair-thin black wires attached. By comparison with any lightbulb they are much smaller, more robust and generate almost no heat. These particular LEDs glow white but apparently other colors are available. 

 

 

These particular LEDs are powered by 3V 2032 lithium pill batteries; a widely available standard size battery. The battery fits into the mounting as shown.

 

In the photo below I have held the various exposed ends of the wires together to form a circuit from the battery to the LED just to test that it all works OK. 

 

These LEDs seem to be sensitive to the direction of wiring; i.e. there seems to be a 'right' and a 'wrong' wiring direction relative to the battery terminals.  Strangely the LED wires were not colour-coded, so each time I wired them up it was trial and error. In the end I put a dot of red paint on the LED wire that went to the red battery wire and that solved the issue. Out of interest I checked if it was possible to wire up two LEDs in parallel from the one battery and yes, it was no problem at all.

 

Now - as an aside - the dude at the hobby shop also sold me a bottle of this stuff; conductive paint! This stuff allows electricity to be delivered to the LED without having any actual 'wire' present. I have not used it on this particular job but I thought I would give it a test run just to check it out.

 

Here is a block of composite decking (plastic and completely non-conductive) with two stripes of conductive paint connecting the wires from the battery with the wires to the LED. The electricity is passing along the layers of paint and is still reaching the LED and forming a circuit.  According to the guy in the shop this conductive paint can now be covered in final paint finishes without the conductivity being affected at all.  So this stuff allows a convenient and highly concealable means of delivering electricity to practically anywhere on - or in - a model.  This is a product with the potential to be very handy. Apparently it's very popular with figure modelers who sometimes want a figure holding something glowing and magical but don't want ugly wires running up and down the figure's arms. I'm sure that there are hundreds of other uses.  

 

Back to the task at hand. In this case I chose to use wires and not the conductive paint so I had to drill a series of access holes into the underside of the vehicle and thread the relevant wires though.

 

Then solder the wires together so that the battery and switching unit was firmly attached to the LED wires. I was a bit worried about the soldering because the wires were so thin I thought they might break or melt or something, but in the end it was not a problem.

 

Now I had to find - or fashion - a light housing for just under the front of the smoke-box. This is a piece of scrap plastic salvaged from an old set of headphones that did not work and were about to be thrown out thanks to some shoddy soldering by the manufacturer.  

 

A bit of judicious cutting and sanding yielded a light housing that could be glued onto the right place and into which an LED could be inserted as shown below. Note how the back of the lamp housing has a hole in it through which the LED can be passed. I don't know if LED's ever 'blow' or wear out like a light bulb, but if they do I will need to be able to replace this one without cutting the entire locomotive apart.

 

Now I needed some double-sided tape and it turned out that this was the only stuff in the entire house. According to my wife it's used to hold critical bits of clothing in critical positions... I'm not asking any further questions. 😬  Anyway given it's obvious importance it's very strong and it worked well for what I needed.

 

Which was this; a strip along the bottom of the locomotive onto which all the switches and wires and batteries and things could be stuck securely...

 

as shown.

 

So now the moment of truth...

 

Wave your wand, say 'Lumnos' & hit the switch.   🤞

 

Yes!    I am happy with this!

 

However there was massive light leakage both through the white plastic and out that hole in the back of the lamp.  Short of making a new metallic housing for the light - which is not going to happen - the only counter I can think of is to slop copious black paint about on the the lamp and on those surfaces directly behind it. So that's what I've done.

 

And here's the finished result.  Not perfect - but not bad for a first go either.

 

Here's Baby Bandsaw's reaction when she first saw it.

 

I'm also happy to add that she has really been focused on this project lately and she has made progress every day.  I'll be posting further updates so you can see her work quite soon.

 

Till then - good bye and Merry Christmas.  🎄

 

 

 

Bandsaw Steve

 

 

[bentwaters81tfw]

Good work Steve.

Thanks for the 'Idiot's Guide'. I have some LED's like that to use on a project, so it's nice to know things works as I thought they should. My kit is from Green Stuff World too.

[bar side]

Looking good Steve - and a happy daughter too.  
When it comes to light leakage I tend to go for some aluminium foil on the back.  Cheap & easy.

Don’t show her what they do with Christmas specials on the preserved steam lines over here though

 

 

Happy Christmas to you & yours

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Steve, Baby Bandsaw reminds me of someone but I can't quite remember who, at present. And a diode is polarity conscious - current flows through it one way but not the other, but then you've figured that out already. I've never heard of conductive paint before. That has a lot of potential, but I think in this case wiring was the way to go. Easier to replace a broken wire than one layer of paint under another layer. And speaking of paint, are we seeing BB let loose with a red paintbrush soon?

Best wishes for the season, to your and your family. 🍷🎅 Regards, Jeff.

 

PS - glad I didn't get blamed for the light suggestion. 😁

[hendie]

3 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

they are tiny little solid chips of (who knows what) 

 

ah... I think I can help you out there Steve.   They're made of two Odes, hence the term, di-odes.  See?  LED'a are easy!  But be careful as they can be extremely dangerous and can only be used at certain times of the year

They can be a myriad of different colors and resemble Jelly-Tots without the sugary coating.   

I think Spring is when they're at their most dangerous and I believe Julius Caesar was killed by trying to eat them. Hence the term - "Beware the Odes of March"

Personally, I'd stick to Jelly-Tots and forget the LED's. Much safer.

 

 

Nice update from BB - I'm still intrigued as to how the cab is going to turn out

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

11 minutes ago, hendie said:

 

ah... I think I can help you out there Steve.   They're made of two Odes, hence the term, di-odes.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does that mean I can use ‘de-ode-errant’ to get rid of them, especially any errant diodes.

 

 

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

On 24/12/2020 at 21:30, ArnoldAmbrose said:

are we seeing BB let loose with a red paintbrush soon?

Best wishes for the season, to your and your family. 🍷🎅 Regards, Jeff.

 

 

Yes Jeff - Red paint soon! I’m hoping within a couple of weeks.  But then I’ve been saying ‘red paint soon’ for nearly a year now, so who can say? 
 

Have a great Christmas mate. Am looking forward to catching up at WASMEx in the new year too. 👍

[bentwaters81tfw]

47 minutes ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Steve, Baby Bandsaw reminds me of someone but I can't quite remember who, at present. And a diode is polarity conscious - current flows through it one way but not the other, but then you've figured that out already. I've never heard of conductive paint before. That has a lot of potential, but I think in this case wiring was the way to go. Easier to replace a broken wire than one layer of paint under another layer. And speaking of paint, are we seeing BB let loose with a red paintbrush soon?

Best wishes for the season, to your and your family. 🍷🎅 Regards, Jeff.

 

PS - glad I didn't get blamed for the light suggestion. 😁

Conductive pain has been around for a while. If you damaged an element on your heated read window, a dab of paint will fix the dead section.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

1 hour ago, hendie said:

They can be a myriad of different colors and resemble Jelly-Tots without the sugary coating.   

I think Spring is when they're at their most dangerous and I believe Julius Caesar was killed by trying to eat them. Hence the term - "Beware the Odes of March"

Gidday, I'll take your word for it regarding the lack of sugary coating - I've never tried to eat one. Probably just as well when I consider what happened to Julius. I thought he died of natural causes - a rash of stab wounds. Regards, Jeff.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Get on with it!

 

During the boxing-day sale frenzy I bought a can of Tamiya Oxide Red/Brown primer for this job and I'm dying to use it.  Despite the fact that the locomotive below - at first glance - might appear to be ready for priming it's actually missing a few details that are better added before the final 'spray, inspect, fill, sand, repeat' cycle that follows. So together Baby Bandsaw and I have decided to get on with it.

 

 

BB got busy and added the hinges to the smoke box access.  Easy job really - no problem here.

 

Meanwhile I started working on the water dome at the rear of the tender.

 

It was a very simple turning job - just rounding the end off a piece of dowelling.

 

Meanwhile, Baby Bandsaw was inside - away from mole-crickets - making a cylindrical tank that sits on top of the tender behind the water dome.

 

She also made four sets of steps for accessing the footplate, the bits indicated with the red arrows below.

 

Gridded plastic - although about twice as expensive as unmarked plastic -is really good for this as it helps get the steps parallel and evenly spaced.

 

She made four of these units.

 

Which - forgive the very poor photograph - each sit in place like this.

 

So - from above and behind - our locomotive and tender set is now looking much more complete.

 

I pressed on with the side frames on the front bogies.  The word 'bogies' attracted some of Baby Bandsaw's 'wit' - I will leave this to your imagination.

As I was in a hurry I only referred to the rather vague set of construction plans that we have used throughout and decided to make some side-frames that looked feasible if not highly accurate.

 

A 1:700 scale Royal Navy battleship provided some axle boxes for the side frames.

 

And this was the result. Which I was happy with until this morning when I bothered to look at some further references and discovered that these side-frames are actually inboard of the leading wheels. Which means building these frames was effort expended to make model less accurate. It was more accurate with nothing at all here.  Oh-well, the damned things are super-glued on now so they are here to stay. 

 

BB and I then braved the shed and drilled a hole straight through the steam dome (I think that's what it's called).  We then threaded a length of 1.5mm florist’s wire through the hole and...

 

wrapped it down each side of the boiler and through a hole in the footplate as shown. I think that these tubes carried high-pressure steam to the main wheel brakes and on the real loco actually ran on top of the footplate to each of the four rearmost main wheels - the ones that had the brakes? We decided not to model that as we are trying to 'get on with it' and the way we have done it is is much much quicker and easier.

 

On the real train there are quite prominent bulges sticking out of the side of the steam dome. You can see them quite clearly in the photograph below. We have to model these as they are highly visible but they are slightly tricky as they are an odd sort of 'organic' shape.  

 

Firstly we cut a cut a slot in the steam dome and then fitted a sheet of plastic - cut to an appropriate template shape - into the slot. We then cut the large white tab off as that was there purely for positioning the thing.

 

When the glue set BB used the 'wings' sticking out of the side of the dome as the base for some mill-putt sculpting. The grey green 'bogie' colour attracted further comment. 

 

Anyway, Here's where we are up to. Note that I've taken a few minutes to tidy up the top of the chimney which was a bit rough-cut.  There are plenty more small details to add but I think that anything more is likely to get knocked off by the 'spray, inspect, fill, sand, repeat' cycles to come so now she's ready to prime.   Now we just have to get on with it and start priming!

 

 

 

 

That will be the next post - which I don't think you will have to wait long for.

 

Hope you all had a good Christmas.

 

Best Regards,

Baby Bandsaw and Bandsaw Steve

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday BB and BS, it's good to see continual progress. I'm very impressed with the sets of steps, the front bogie (no snickering BB) side frames and the work on the steam dome👍 but I must admit I nearly cried when I saw the mutilated gun barrels 😥. Oh well, I'll get over it eventually. 🙂

     Soldier on, both of you. Regards, Jeff.

[albergman]

Hi Steve and BBS

 

Hope you all had a wonderful Xmas down there.   Lovely to see progress again on this terrific model.   However, I wasn't too happy to see that creature you found in your shed ... one more reason not to visit Oz!!    Crikey, you really have some weird wildlife down there.   I was sure after you said there was "a lot of running and screaming and maybe some wetting of pants"  that you'd say "and BBS was pretty scared too".

 

Anyway, I'm taking notes on how to finish the interior of the cab as that's something I've never addressed so keep up with pictures for my sake.   Can't wait to see this beauty coated in red and black paint.   It's going to be a stunner.   

 

Frank