Hogwarts Express, Scratchbuild, 1/48 Scale

[Bandsaw Steve]

Oxide Red

 

OK folks - this is it - the primer is going on! Not much commentary on this post as it's all fairly self-explanatory. Perhaps the only thing worthy of note is that we chose to use 'Tamiya Fine Surface Oxide Red Primer' from a rattle can rather than my usual grey Mr Hobby primer. The sole reason for the change is that I think it will be much easier to apply the final coats of red over a red-brown primer than a grey one.

 

Not much more to say really. Here are a couple of photos of Baby Bandsaw going nuts with a rattle-can.

 

 

 

And here is what I consider to be a most satisfactory outcome!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say; this seems like a major milestone.  👍

 

Best Regards,

Bandsaw Steve

[CrazyCrank]

outstanding result, Steve 👍 she's coming to true life 😉

[ArnoldAmbrose]

2 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Needless to say; this seems like a major milestone.

Gidday Steve, I was thinking of the same word myself, even before I got to the end of your post. Congratulations BBS, and don't stop now! Regards, Jeff.

[Bandsaw Steve]

25 minutes ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

don't stop now! 

We won’t!

There are still a few steps before the final colours go on but not many. 👍

 

Completion of the locomotive by the start of Feb is still the goal. 

[Brandy]

That looks really nice, and to top it all, BB's wearing shoes!

Lesson learned?

 

Ian

[Spiny]

That's looking great now, the paint has really brought it to life. Hope BB is pleased with how it's coming along, she should be very satisfied with it.

 

Be interesting to see what it would look like if you could get one of those cricket things painted as well.

[Bandsaw Steve]

8 hours ago, Brandy said:

BB's wearing shoes!

Lesson learned?

 

Yes I think maybe so. It seems that one mole-cricket is worth more than 100 safety lectures. 😀

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

2 hours ago, Spiny said:

 

Be interesting to see what it would look like if you could get one of those cricket things painted as well.

Hadn’t thought of that, but BB is now keen on the idea of me catching one and setting it in resin. About a year ago we found a sizeable dead dragonfly in our patio and set it in clear resin, just for fun. It came up really good too. Now she wants a mole-cricket to suffer the same fate.

 

Strange kid. 🤔

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

Bling & Rivets

 

A few months ago I was following @Model Mate as he built his Wolsley CP Armoured car. During that build he got in touch with his feminine side and ordered a few packets of 'nail caviar' which is a kind of bling that women - and I daresay some men - use to beautify their fingernails. According to @Model Mate 'Nail Caviar' consists of tiny (sub mm diameter) spheres of plastic that are applied to the nails using nail polish as the adhesive. I'm not sure how he learned about this, but I am very open minded and fully accept that has every right to seek & find happiness in whatever form he wishes, so long it does not harm others.

 

Anyway - he used at least some of his store to create very convincing-looking rivets on his armoured car - leaving me to wonder if I could do something similar on the Hogwart's Express.  From the start Baby Bandsaw has specified that this model ‘must have little dots on it,  just like the real thing.’ So this seemed like a good way to go about it. I set about doing some internet shopping in some parts of the internet that I am not highly familar with.  It turned out that genuine nail caviar would have to be shipped all the way from the USA, which under current circumstances could take months. So Instead I bought some local 'nail bling' to see what would eventuate. 

 

Here's what arrived a few days later. Thousands of little bits of plastic of all sorts of different colours, shapes and sizes, all beautifully wrapped and absolutely singing out to be used in some scratchbuilding projects. This is really good stuff to have and it didn't cost much at all.

 

I was keen on the very smallest bits as they looked promising to make rivets out of. 

 

I'm afraid to say that most of what follows was my work.  Baby Bandsaw was primed to detail the cab but was not too excited about doing the rest of the loco so to keep things going I pressed on alone.  Note how the nice even oxide finish has been knocked flat by quite a severe round of filling and sanding. To her credit BB did most of that. For some reason she likes sanding but is less keen on sticking on bling. 

 

Here's a beautiful example of a job that suits this stuff perfectly. I don't know what these four hemispherical bumps are on top of the firebox but they are genuinely present on the original and are very easily replicated with a few carefully  placed bits of bling. 

 

Here are some rivets replicated using some of the smallest available pieces.  Unfortunately, despite their small size (about 1mm across) they still appear a little bit overscale in this particular application. I think true 'nail caviar' is a bit finer in diameter and would probably do better.

 

Here I'm marking out some positions for the rivets that will surround the smoke box.   

 

Once their positions are ascertained just press a braddel into each hole to make it big enough to house...

 

a short length of fine plastic rod can then be glued in place with cyanoacrylate. Obviously from here each rod can be cut and then sanded down to a bump on the surface that represents a rivet. This is how I made the rivets on AE2.

 

I added some completely bogus details to the front of the tender and whacked some brass handrails on as well.  I promise steam fans, if I ever do another locomotive - and I think I will one day - I will show much more respect and try to make these sorts of details at least a little bit accurate. 

 

Here's the back of the tender with a very dubious coupling on the back, once again made from one of those electrical clip things.  Look carefully and you will see I've also added a chain.

 

I gave BB a good KUTA and she carried on with a bit of detail in the cab.  Some big lever / pipe things on the starboard side and a seat for the driver stuck on the Portside wall. We have also found some bits and pieces that look like pressure gauges but have decided to leave them off until the painting is complete.

 

This express train will have a driver. A driver that looks suspiciously like a 1/48 scale Spitfire pilot. He will be painted and installed later on. I think we will provide a fireman also.

 

So here she is - all sanded-back and  'blinged up'. Ready to get yet another layer of oxide primer; after which she will look like...

 

this...

 

and this...

 

So now - finally - she's all ready for her actual colours.

 

Bling on & makeup to follow! 

 

Bandsaw Steve

[Heather Kay]

16 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

four hemispherical bumps are on top of the firebox

They’re covers over plugs that can be removed that allow the firebox water spaces to be washed out with high pressure hoses. There’s usually a couple of uncovered plugs lower on the firebox side, but they can be ignored for a magically powered loco like this. 

[Bandsaw Steve]

Ok - thanks @Heather Kay 👍

 

So much to learn on this subject. I’ve really enjoyed learning a little bit about these fascinating machines and can see a more ‘serious’ build of another locomotive in my future. Just another static model of course- nothing so clever as one that actually runs.

[Heather Kay]

 

Here’s one I made earlier. It’s a different loco to Hogwarts, but by the same designer, sharing many similar features. You can see the various plugs on the firebox. There are also two pairs mounted on top of each end of the boiler barrel. I’m just engine detail picking! 

[Bandsaw Steve]

That’s breathtaking! Just beautiful!

👍

[hendie]

Another exciting episode of 'Pimp yer Hogwarts' there Steve.  

 

If you Google 'findings' you'll find (See wot I did there?) Lots of very reasonably priced little bits that are great for scratch building - even down to little gear wheels and all sorts of interesting looking greebles

[Bandsaw Steve]

2 hours ago, hendie said:

 

If you Google 'findings' you'll find (See wot I did there?) Lots of very reasonably priced little bits that are great for scratch building

Oh yes! Just did it. There are some real finds there! 👍
 

(see wot I did there?) 🤪

[Bandsaw Steve]

Pure Red

 

The shade that the real locomotive is painted in is a bit difficult to ascertain simply by watching the films due to all of the mood lighting and shady spooky scenes it's in.  I guess I should really have consulted with my brains-trust here on Britmodeller before actually committing to any particular shade but in the end I just wandered down to the local hobby shop and bought a rattle can of Tamiya TS-86 'pure red'.  Before I let Baby Bandsaw loose on the the model though I thought I would conduct a quick test-spray just to make sure that the colour-scheme we had planned 'worked'.

 

Here's the result - just sprayed on a bit of scrap timber.

 

And here is the test piece posed beside the locomotive before it got her final coat of oxide red.  BB and I agreed that the proposed scheme looked fine and decided to press on. BTW the gold stripe is just gold metallic 'washi' tape available at many stationery shops. We foresee some metallic gold trim going onto this model right at the end of the project.

 

As always when painting there was a bit of masking to do. We decided to leave the interior of the cab oxide-red so just taped off the windows and stuck a block of upholstery foam in the aperture.  Good stuff upholstery foam it has myriad uses in this hobby.

 

So here it is folks - the very first blast of 'Pure Red'.  I know that i'm telling you all how to suck eggs but here's what I kept telling delightful daughter:

• Keep the can at least 30 cm back from the subject
• Keep the can moving
• Apply thin misting coats - don't 'flood' the paint on.

It must be said; she followed these instructions beautifully.

 

Here is the tender getting the same treatment.

 

After the first misting coat, which gave really good coverage due to the red undercoat, we let the subject sit outside in the warm sun to dry for about 20 minutes or so. Then...

 

repeated the process. Here is the second coat going on.  I'm happy to say that BB did all of the painting. She seemed to really enjoy it too. 

 

After three coats the coverage was complete and beautifully even.  We left the model sitting outdoors in pleasantly warm shade for about 3 hours for the paint to really dry. 

It's certainly very satisfying to see the project get to this stage after such a long gestation.

 

We then bought the thing inside and did not touch it at all for another 24 hours, just to give the paint a real chance to fully cure.

My other daughter - teen bandsaw - fully approves of this colour.  She's a very dedicated artist and declared this shade of red 'beautiful.'

 

O.K. All good! 👍

 

Next up - lots of masking and matt black paint!

 

Best Regards,

Bandsaw Steve

 

 

 

 

[Heather Kay]

Looking fab! Good luck with the masking and black paint stage. 

[hendie]

excellent. I'm so please for BB to see her getting to this stage and everything looking so good

[JeroenS]

The Bandsaw family project is turning out very nicely indeed! My daughter and I have done a couple of projects together where she did the design and I did the airbrushing on her commands of "a little bit more here". Good fun.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

On 11/29/2020 at 9:14 PM, Bandsaw Steve said:

She might listen to you lot -  she sure doesn't listen to me!

Gidday Steve, you said this back in November I think. My first reaction was - "She's your daughter, she's not supposed to listen to you!" 😁

But it appears that with rattle-canning she certainly does. At her age my urge would have been to flood the thing in paint to get it done pronto, but BB appears to have shown commendable patience and restraint. And the result speaks for itself. (Then why am I prattling on?)

     

10 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Good stuff upholstery foam it has a myriad of uses in this hobby.

I've used it to line 'transport boxes' I've made to transport my models to shows etc.

 

And the use by you both of unusual items (such as nail bling, drawing pins for fenders etc) quite interesting, as is the use of a Spitfire pilot as a train driver. (But then I guess it beats being made redundant)

 

Do we see a finished project in sight, just this side of the February deadline?

Regards, Jeff.

[Bandsaw Steve]

30 minutes ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

 

Do we see a finished project in sight, just this side of the February deadline?

Regards, Jeff.

I think there’s a good chance that we will finish the locomotive by then. The main uncertainty around that date now seems to be the creation of decals. 
 

We are going to try making our own hogwarts decals using photoshop, our home ink-jet printer and some ink-jet decal paper. This will be the first time for me so I don’t know exactly what’s involved and whether-or-not it’s a nightmare . Baby Bandsaw is fairly slick with a computer so she might take the lead for that part of the project. Teen Bandsaw is very good with computer graphics so she might become an ‘expert consultant’.

 

So - if all that runs smoothly- we might have a finished model by the start of Feb. That’s the main uncertainty at this point. 
 

Another consideration is whether-or-not to weather the model. My understanding is that train crews typically take great pride in the appearance and maintenance of their vehicles so I’m thinking just a light bit of work with some oil filters in spots most likely to be heavily exposed to smoke and steam.

 

Any thoughts or advice welcome.

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday again, I know as much about computers as I do about astro-physics, nuclear physics and quantum ergonomics (I made that last one up but I think it sounds good). Rely on BB and TB for computer help. As for weathering, I'd imagine a simple flick of a wand would take care of any dirt. Not a very taxing or onerous task so I would think that the engine would be kept in a high state of cleanliness.

     I'm looking forward to the next installment. Regards, Jeff.

[mdesaxe]

4 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

My understanding is that train crews typically take great pride in the appearance and maintenance of their vehicles

When I was working in China in the early 1990s, the rail system divided into three sections as far as motive power was concerned. The northern division used electric locomotives, the central division used diesels, and the southeast division still used steam locomotives. All the rolling stock was pretty shabby (I am being polite) and so were the diesel and electric locomotives. But every trip I took in the southeast was behind a gleaming black steam locomotive with its red wheels trimmed with white tyres - and the crews invariably spent quite a bit of time before starting from the terminal each time to polish their locomotives. The crews at that time all belonged to work units and it did not benefit them to do this work of keeping up their machinery but they certainly were proud of them.

 

Maurice

[Bandsaw Steve]

4 minutes ago, mdesaxe said:

the crews invariably spent quite a bit of time before starting from the terminal each time to polish their locomotives

[Bandsaw Steve]

I remember from when I was a kid being told essentially the same thing about NZ railway mainline steam operations.