On My Workbench

[disturbman]

Thanks @cteno4, I don't think humidity is actually much of an issue in Berlin - at least in my apartment. I was thinking of covering the sides with some kind of bookbinding book cover type of paper to seal them and act as a sort of fascia. My partner built us some kitchen drawers using similar materials five years ago and they are still in pristine shape. No bending or anything. Though I believed she used a slightly thicker paperboard.

Would you treat the base before adding the cork? I'll have to figure out what "acrylic medium" is in German. It's not always easy to make that kind of conversions.

[Yavaris Forge]

On 10/5/2020 at 9:44 AM, marknewton said:

 

This would make a fine bungalow-train😁

[cteno4]

@disturbmanThat’s good if the apartment is pretty climate controlled. I’ve just learned to seal up papercraft with lacquer to stop this just in case it ever gets humidity.

 

cork on top should protect it from scenery moisture. You might also see if the local flooring shop that does installing has any scrap cork under laminate. They usually just toss all the small pieces.
 

yeah lots of contact papers that would be simple and cheap to pretty up the edges. On these I would cut large and press on and then trim excess off and wrap around as much as you can. There’s also wood veneers that can really look pretty but those are more expensive and a pain to apply on wider edges like this.

 

acrylic medium is the general term (it’s the clear paint base for most household acrylic paints), the art supply term is matte medium or gloss medium. You can buy the clear acrylic base at paint stores but it usually has some talc and other stuff for blending in color pigments that can make the clear a bit cloudy when it dried and make things like ballast look like it’s dusty. Matte medium doesn’t have this stuff in it and is the usual one for scenery as it disappears on ground foam, ballast, etc. it’s my all around scenery glue as it’s stable and a bit flexible, not rock hard like PVA. Dilutes well for spraying or dripping applications. Art store stuff is expensive as very stable for archival life. Craft store usually has a cheaper form, a popular one world wide is mod podge brand name by Plaid. They have a whole line of acrylic mediums for doing craft/art stuff. Probably not as perfect as artist matte medium but we need a decade or two not a century! https://plaidonline.com/brands/mod-podge
 

jeff

[marknewton]

On 10/14/2020 at 3:05 PM, cteno4 said:

Mark, if you want thinner 3m makes a transfer adhesive. Basically just the adhesive bit of the double stick tape. Works and apply the same way just no backing film in the middle so as thin as can be and squeezes into all the nooks and crannies well since no backing film in the middle...

Jeff, since reading your post I had another look at what I've been using. It's actually the stuff you're describing, the transfer adhesive. I shouldn't have described it as double-sided tape, but I didn't know any better. I hope I haven't caused anyone to go and buy that instead.

 

 

Thanks for the correction!

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

 

 

[cteno4]

Mark,

 

great, it’s great stuff and the thinnest you can get. It really sticks when a lot of pressure is applied as it really squeezes into all the nooks and crannies like glue due to no backing and it can be more malleable than the double stick tapes.
 

jeff

[Kamome]

Spent some time numbering and adding coach numbers to the remaining 7 of the 25 series 0 blue train coaches. I then masked up the coach leaving only a small area around the dry transfer and apply some semi gloss topcoat.

 

[marknewton]

In response to a challenge presented on the only other railway modelling forum I belong to, I'm finishing some passenger car kits I started ages ago. One of them is a MaNi50 made by Neko Publishing, the others are some older SuRo34 and SuHaNi31 clerestory roof cars made by Max Models.

 

 

I managed to get a fair bit done today. The roofs  and underframes are painted.

 

 

 

Both were painted with Tamiya rattlecans. The roofs are TS23 USN Haze Grey, and the underframes are TS82 Rubber Black. The black is a recent addition to the Tamiya range. I think it makes a nice basis for a slightly weathered black finish, and I also think I'll be using it a lot in future.

 

Ive added handrails and door knobs to the car bodies, and installed vestibule doors using leftover parts from some Tramway coaches I detailed a few months back.

 

 

Still to add are the downpipes from the gutters, and the diaphragms and their attachments.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Looking good, quite a lot of details on those kits. That rubber black is interesting, it looks very blue on the picture 🙂 

[marknewton]

Yes, it's got that look of black paint that's starting to go chalky from exposure. I think it will be a good base coat for weathering on.

 

Apart from these and some scale model projects, I've been numbering and detailing a trio of 61 series cars from Tramway Models. These were postwar rebuilds of older wooden bodied cars with steel bodies. The models offer a choice of vestibule and luggage doors for different eras. I chose the type that appears most often in late steam-era photos. As you would expect, they're very well detailed and finished. The two combines have working marker lights, and all three have interior lighting.

 

Oha61 Economy coach.

 

Ohani61 Combine car with guard's and luggage compartments. 

Ohayuni61 Combine car with guard's, luggage and mail compartments.

 

I was very keen to get these cars as they were the mainstay of Gono line passenger and mixed trains at the end of the steam era. A  pair of these and some Tora's loaded with logs, hauled by an 8620 class 2-6-0 is the classic Gono line consist. 
 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

Tonight's project - attaching the number boards, builder's plates and other detail parts to my Kato EF81. I'm really pleased with this loco, now I'm wondering why I didn't get one sooner...

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

Today's project - attach numbers, lettering and details to my Tomix Series 159 school excursion train.
 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Kamome]

On 2/20/2021 at 9:11 AM, marknewton said:

Tonight's project - attaching the number boards, builder's plates and other detail parts to my Kato EF81. I'm really pleased with this loco, now I'm wondering why I didn't get one sooner...

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

There’s just something about that rose colour for me. Looks like a workhorse without having to weather it too much.  Good to see you got the “upgrade kit” as well. Should be called the “completion kit” really. 

I’ve currently got the white insulators installed as it’s prototypical of the loco number I installed. Might switch back to those green ones because I think they look better.

[marknewton]

Some more progress on the Belgian Congo project. With some minor modifications the Liliput Austrian passenger cars become "near-enough"  Decauville cars. One has some windows blanked off to represent the guard's compartment.

 

I've modified a pair of Liliput OBB 2095s to look a bit like some of the early Alsthom diesels. One is ready to paint, the other is a work in progress.

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

I was booked off today and the weather was ideal for some more painting. So I went a bit crazy with the masking tape and started painting the American stockcar/cattle wagon and refrigerator car. The cattle wagon is ready for lettering, but the ref car will need a few more light coats of Tamiya Pure White before it's finished.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited March 9, 2021 by marknewton

[marknewton]

After I posted the last two photos I realised I hadn't yet made a shunter's step for the cattle wagon. So tonight I made one and attached it, and lettered and numbered it as well. I also attached the bolsters to the tank wagon. This wagon will be the only model that I provide with full brake rigging and piping, as it will be very noticeable if it's missing.

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited March 11, 2021 by marknewton

[Kamome]

Finally getting around to adding running numbers and car numbers on my 25 series blue coaches. I’m not a big fan of just sticking the stickers of car numbers as the deep blue colour always seems to come through a little. I stick mine on some Tamiya plastic paper. It’s very thin and makes the stickers look more like real car number plates, if not slightly thicker than scale. Sod’s law, i got to the end and realised i had missed a coach running number so that’s for another day. I did get around to measuring the train with an EF65 1000 on the front and it was approximately 3.95 metres. Sadly i don’t have enough track to layout out the Fuji and the Tsurugi at the same time. 

Now just need 27 light units to illuminate them.

[Kamome]

Not a big project but discovered that the coach numbers on the Kato HO

12系 had stuck to the lining plastic in the box, i assume during the house move. Luckily the remanence came off with a q-tip and some unicleaner. Just the side facing down so at least the workload was halved. So I went about renumbering the six and putting a couple of coats of top coat over them to seal them onto the model. You can see a little frosting when you look very close up, but from a normal viewing distance it just looks like white numbers on a blue coach. 

Not content with the included details, i took my pin vice to the coupler mounts and added a couple of holes for some vacuum pipe spares I had. 

[Kiha66]

Those 12 series look very nice!  What do you use to seal the decals, I've never been sure how to blend a topcoat into the rest of the car.  Anyone know any stores still stocking them?

Edited March 27, 2021 by Kiha66

[inobu]

On 10/8/2020 at 2:11 AM, marknewton said:

You're not wrong, Jeff, I won't complain about going to Aldi. A while back I bought a scroll saw there that I've enjoyed learning to use.

 

Even better than the cake turntable though are these height-adjustable trestles that I also got yesterday. I'm sure they'll be very useful for future projects.

 

  

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

 

 

Those are nice but one word of caution. The pinch and slice hazard. I have a set of Dewalt's that are nice but I make it a habit to repeat to myself.

"This thing will slice your fingers off" every time I handle them. The folding points are like guillotines.   

[Kamome]

53 minutes ago, Kiha66 said:

Those 12 series look very nice!  What do you use to seal the decals, I've never been sure how to blend a topcoat into the rest of the car.  Anyone know any stores still stocking them?

I use the Mr Hobby, premium top coat. I mask off the whole car just exposing the dry transfer areas and spray a couple of light mist coats. I generally use Tamiya masking tape around the decal area and newspaper for the large areas. I find the semi gloss gives the closest match to sheen of the carriage. You do get a little frosting which you can see with direct light, close up, As it’s just around the number, I can live it. I suppose i could dismantle the whole carriage and spray the whole body shell, but as i tend to use rattle cans for this, i just do the decal area. If any members could recommend a good top coat i could airbrush, I would probably do the whole coach. 

 

The 12系 seems in short supply new but they always seem to pop up on auctions etc.. The 14s are similar and just been released. I do like the headmark ability on the 14s. A nice Odoriko formation pulled by an EF65-1000 or EF58 would be good.

[marknewton]

It's rained here without pause for 10 days, so when it finally stopped and the humidity dropped below 100% I could start painting again. So the HOn30 refrigerator car has had its finishing coat of White, and the next Liliput covered van conversion has had its body colour - Tamiya IJN grey green - applied. Letters and numbers next.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

On 3/27/2021 at 11:19 AM, inobu said:

Those are nice but one word of caution. The pinch and slice hazard. I have a set of Dewalt's that are nice but I make it a habit to repeat to myself. "This thing will slice your fingers off" every time I handle them. The folding points are like guillotines.

Good advice, thanks for reminding me. 👍

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

On 3/26/2021 at 9:13 PM, Kamome said:

Not content with the included details, i took my pin vice to the coupler mounts and added a couple of holes for some vacuum pipe spares I had.

Nice detail work, but one quibble - they're air brake hoses, not vacuum pipes. JNR converted to Westinghouse air brake back in 1930/31.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[Kamome]

53 minutes ago, marknewton said:

Nice detail work, but one quibble - they're air brake hoses, not vacuum pipes. JNR converted to Westinghouse air brake back in 1930/31.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

Apologies  Mark. 

We don’t all have your hands on knowledge and I did know they were air brake hoses. I should be more careful with my generic descriptions with the wealth of expertise on this forum. That’s all the time growing up with a father into British steam era and vacuum brake pipes. 

I stand corrected 😂

[marknewton]

A simple modification and repaint of a Kato MoHa41 to represent a KuMoHa60.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.