Long Weekends are the Best

Don't you just love long weekends? Especially when there's a Model Railway Exhibition and it rains! Thornleigh was a much better exhibition this year than last year with good quality layouts like Bullenbung Creek, Boorowa and Arakoola to name a few. The other thing I liked about the show was there was plenty of room to move around which was excellent and gave you the opportunity to stop and talk without creating a traffic jam. My son enjoyed the show as well especially the Scenery Clinic and he walked away very pleased with himself. As it was my birthday, I had some cashola to spend on some goodies, like Andian Models BLV's....yummy. Had a chat to Ian and a peek at the upcoming compensators and rodding chair etches which will be superb. Can't wait! It was also interesting when chatting to people how often the topic of kits vs RTR came up. You can probably tell which side of the fence I sit on but it's heartening to see that the kit market isn't dead and is actually getting better I think.
So the plan for this weekend was to finish some painting which had to be postponed due to the rain. Instead, I started off a new kit from the pile in the drawer waiting to be built. Yes I know I was going to start on one of Mike McCormac's superb Doggies but I had an uncontrollable urge to solder. Lots. I haven't made an etched brass kit since I can't remember but it would have been one of the Craftsman models steel S trucks. Anyway, I decided to start on a Pioneer Models Second Class Redfern car. And here is how far I've gone.

1 x FN Redfern Car

This will keep me occupied for a while and I still have the painting to do as well

Done and Dusted

The MLV's are all done now, all 10 of them. Thankfully, my old faithful Badger got the job done and the Paasche will now be consigned to the "Do not Open" drawer. So, after some washes of rust and thin sprays of dirt and soot, this is how they turned out.

MLV23269

MLV's 6705, 23260 and 260

The Lot

I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out so I'll take the tape of the wheels during the week and then start on the next project. I think I'll finish off the passenger cars I painted and do a bit of track laying as well even though Craig suggested getting started on the LFX. That will definitely be next after the passenger cars as I feel the need for a challenge and Mike's wonderful kit will certainly give me that. Besides, I can practice my lining skills on the BKD, EHO's etc. One thing I'm not clear on was whether the BKD was lined at all so I'm going to make an assumption that they were lined similar to a brake van....unless someone tells me otherwise.

Getting Closer

The new spray booth has worked out well with the 10 MLV's getting a coat of etch grey and then top coats of Floquil Grimy Black. And no dust problems either. The booth made a big difference in keeping the fumes down in the train cave so it's been a success I would say. I tried to use the Paasche airbrush again and it failed entirely this time, no paint flow at all so I used the Badger single action and it worked fine first time. I think it might be time to ditch the Paasche and look at something else as it just doesn't seem to want to work.

So here's the louvre vans as they look today.

Before the decals

After the decals

This week I'll finish them off with some weathering and then it'll be on to the next project. I probably should finish off the N cars, horse boxes, GT, EHO's and BKD that I started painting a while back which will mean getting the decals printed for them and working out how to do the lining.

Then again, I might do something else, maybe lay some track for a change. We'll see what turns out.

Off to the Paintshop

The MLV's are done now so they'll be off to the painters over the next week or so to get a coat of gunmetal grey and muck. I'm reasonably happy with them except for the wagon code panel on the side. For the '30's, it should be on the louvres closest to the corner pillar but unfortunately, it's too difficult to remedy so I'll just have to live with it.

One of the MLV's

Here's all 11 of them

I've been contemplating how to scratch build the earlier 28 ton cantilever framed MLV's but haven't come up with a solution yet to replicate the louvres. I've got some spare LV van sides left over from converting some Lima vans to the short LV's so I might get some plans soon and see if I can use them instead. If that fails, then it's scratch build for sure. If anyone has some ideas or techniques, I'm all ears as I've been looking around for methods but nothing has turned up. Also, there's the Andian Models BLV coming plus I've got a couple of the Redfern Models BCV's.....shudder. I love what James McInerney did with his, turning a sows ear into a silk purse as he describes it, but the louvre panels are wrong for my era so it may be better to scratch build some of these as well.

Since building the layout, I had to get rid of the cardboard spray booth as it wouldn't fit under the bench work. So I splashed out on a proper spray booth from Runway 13 that vents outside the train cave.

I reckon it might get a work out soon.

More on the MLV's

Still working on the MLV's with some progress being made during the week. I've added the air tanks to all of them and have started fabricating the truss rods with 2 wagons completed so far. Here's how they look

It's slow progress that's for sure but worth it in the end I think. Well that's what I keep telling myself as each post for the truss rods, has 3 parts which equals 240 pieces for all 10 wagons. Also, I See that Andian models will have the BLV's ready for the Epping exhibition so it looks like I'll have to make tracks to Epping this year. Just in time for my birthday as well!
I also managed to add some fascia to the layout as well as plug some of the holes in the back drops and build some shelves....not very interesting but necessary all the same.
More work to do this week on the MLV's and we have a long weekend next weekend so who knows how much will get done.
Hopefully, lots!

No 179 Fruit Express

Since the house renovations, I haven't felt like building things which means I didn't much feel like working on the bench work. There's not a lot to do to finish and like all good modellers, I decided to leave it unfinished and move on to another previously started project, my No 179 Fruit Express. This train was a regular D57 class roster in the '30's and being a regular runner, just had to be modelled. When loading was high, they even ran multiple trains, 179a, 179b, etc.

As a project, I'd bought 10 A&R MLV kits to match the one I'd built about 10 years ago.

Here's the one I finished about 10 years ago

Photo's of 179 in the early '30's usually show a delightfully mixed train of various types of MLV's and BLV's. Hopefully, Andian Models will release their BLV kit soon but in the meantime, I'll have to be content with the A&R MLV's plus the truly horrible Redfern MLV's of which I have 2. More on these later. I'll have to scratch build the other variants but that will be in the future.

For the moment, I've removed all the detail from underneath the A&R MLV's in preparation for building all of the underframe detail from scratch as the truss rods etc were not to my liking. I also removed the buffers, removed the cast on hand rails on the sides and drilled all the hand rail and lamp bracket holes. I wish the model makers wouldn't cast detail like hand rails onto models and would instead just leave them off. I guess these days with the quality of the models being produced, we won't see cast on details on the RTR models. That being said, I find it difficult not to change things and improve them.
Anyway, I've removed the detail and begun build up the various detail items on the underframe. I've added Evergreen I beams for the bottoms of the queen posts and have cut and drilled sections of 3/64" rod and glued Detail Associates .019" wire in the ends. To these will be added some Evergreen channel and then brass flat bar to make the truss rods. I've built up the brake gear using brass wire and flat bar as well as Evergreen channel for the brake cylinder mounts. I've also built up the bolster gussets out of 10 thou styrene and the hand brake using styrene, brass wire, Ian Lindsay etched brass brake wheels plus some chain.

Here's how it looks so far

A bit closer for detail

Just have to finish off all of them to this point after which I'll tackle the truss rods, fabricate the hand rails and lamp brackets, build up the  extended buffers and I'll be done. Then a trip to the paint and decal shop, a dunk in some mud and job done.

Easy Peasy........I wish!

Emo Whinge Fest #1

Right, it's time to vent the spleen. You may have noticed a lack of posts since Christmas which is due to the ongoing work on the house that has taken up all my spare time. That, plus most of our belongings have been stored in the train cave meant that there was no train time for Mr Picton. I started the work on repairing the floors hoping that only 1 bedroom was needing repair but oh no, it had to be all 3 bedrooms plus the hallway that needed replacing, bearers and joists included. This included all the tiles that the previous owners had laid down so 1 x 9 metre and 1 x 4 meter skip later, we had removed all the floors. New floors were laid and the carpet went down yesterday and all the stuff in the garage is now back where it belongs so I can actually get into my cave again. Woohoo!! It's funny how the absence of trains causes other activities to gain in popularity...like drinking!
So here's the whiny bit. We tried to get the insurance to cough up for it...silly us. The excuse for non-payment was that there was no single defined event that caused it. Slimy @#$%s!!!! Now I know how the flood victims feel like when they try and claim. Additional angst was caused when we claimed for some water damage on a ceiling. They'd pay for fixing the ceiling but not the leak that caused it. Brilliant!!!
Anyway, we're a lot poorer now but the upside is we have carpet in the bedrooms instead of the tiles the previous owner had put in which is much more comfortable.
I see I've picked up a few extra followers since Christmas which is nice to see. Don't worry, I don't normally carry on like this and most posts are about what's going on at Picton, not whining and whinging.

Back to the trains....hurrah!!