On My Workbench

[marknewton]

Thanks! 👍 

 

Which destination signs are you asking about, the ones on the sides or those above the cab?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Kiha66]

I was wondering about the cab signs.  The HO kato Kiha 58s have stickers that you have to cut out for that display, which I'm not very fond of.

[Kamome]

Yeah the Kato ones have to be cut as close to the solid outline as possible to remove it. If you leave any of the outside edge they tend not to fit in the recesses. I’m slightly dreading the round ones that come with the 20 series.

[marknewton]

When I'm adding the cab destination signs to the KiHa58s I cut them oversize, stick them to the plastic block, then use that as a guide to trim them to the finished size. Probably easier to make a short video to show what I mean. I'll try that tomorrow.

 

Tonight I experimented with some "cheap and cheerful" weathering on my OneMile SeRa1 hopper wagons. I want them to look grubby and well used, but I don't want to devote hours of painstaking work to achieve that, as they'll only ever be seen in passing. So I used the Tamiya weathering powders on one wagon as a trial. I used the three colours roughly blended with the Tamiya applicator, then toned the powder down with a wash of neat isopropyl alcohol. I think it's an effective technique for a layout model that will only be seen from a few feet away.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

 

[ianlaw]

I'd be very happy with this result.

[marknewton]

Thanks Ian!  Encouraged by the result of the first experiment, I tried some more cheap and cheerful weathering, this time on a Tenshodo SeKi6000 hopper wagon. I'm happy to keep using this quick and simple method. Which is good, because there's another 35(!) wagons to do. 🙄

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Kamome]

I love those sera and seki, Mark. I really need to get me some.  Those  tones work very well on the black finish and i like the way you have streaked the weathering so it looks like the coal dust has been washed down the wagon. Very convincing.

 

Will you load them up and for coal or limestone?

 

I don’t know enough about JNR freight but i assume the 岡 mark is reference to where they were manufactured or refurbished from Seki 3000 rather than their allocated area. 

 

岡　Okayama 岡山

広　Hiroshima 広島

門　Moji 門司

 

I especially like the fact that Seki classification is 

セ　se- coal use (石炭)(sekitan)

キ　ki- 25 tons or over

 

but in Japanese “seki” also means “cough” as you would if you were mining coal. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Kamome

[Kiha66]

I believe the character on the side is the assigned area, but I could be wrong.  I know the yellow stripe means they are banned from ferry service, and possibly the Kanmon Railway Tunnel as well.

[Kamome]

Thanks Kiha.

 

I didn't know about the yellow band. I thought that it might be a speed limit indicator or something. I first thought that the kanji mark indicated where the wagons were based but as the coal mines were in Kyushu and Hokkaido, only the Moji allocation would make sense due to its relative close proximity to the mining operations in northern Kyushu.

[disturbman]

Japanese Wikipedia seems to agree that the yellow band was, as it's tradition, a speed limit indicator (my corrections): "The maximum speed when loaded was 65 km/h, but it was slower than other freight cars (most of them were 75 km / h or more). A special sign 'ロ' preceded the SeKi title to indicate this speed limitation, 'ロセキ'. In addition, a yellow band was also wrapped around the car body to indicate this limitation. On the vehicles operated in the Hokkaido area, the yellow band was accompanied by the words 'Prohibited outside the road'."

The article about Yellow n°1 also confirms this, freight cars with a maximum speed of 65km/h or less.

[marknewton]

I've been tidying and rearranging the cabinet where most of my Japanese models live. I've found a few freight cars that need to be finished, including these KTM HoKi2500 hopper cars. They're being detailed and lettered as HoKi9500s belonging to Yabashi Industries. Once the lettering is applied and the detail parts are attached, I think some weathering will be next.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

I'm surprised to see that the last time I posted anything on this thread was January last year. I know that my job has been hectic, and I'm a slow worker, but seriously? 🤔

 

Anyway, I've had an evening at the workbench and finished applying numbers, signage and details to this pair of Tomix Ohane17 sleeping cars. As you'd expect, they're very nice looking models when completed. They'll go well with my other blue passenger cars. 
 

 

Now that they're out of the way, the next models to grace the bench will be the rather beautiful Series 381 limited express cars, also from Tomix. 
 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Martijn Meerts]

Looking good!

 

My workbench is filled with all sorts of stuff, but I'm currently putting the finishing touches on the H0j Kiwa90 build. Still a few parts left to add, and there are some minor gaps here and there. Rather than trying to solder those, I'll probably use some putty instead.

[marknewton]

Some progress on the 381 series cars.

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Kamome]

Those blinds look great, Mark.

 

The 381 is such a strange animal with that sleek, smooth roof. So used to seeing these expresses with a wealth of roof equipment and this looks quite modern in comparison. 

[Martijn Meerts]

Absolutely lovely model that 😀 

 

 

[nscalestation]

I've had these Kato platforms for a long time and now cant' find the gates for the ends so I made my own from styrene rod and tube scraps, and Micro Engineering pallets.

 

[cteno4]

Nice Brad, cleaver use of scraps and spare details! Hopefully Joe will have us some etched metal railings, one of the uses everyone yelled for was replacing these lost or broken bits of platform railings!

 

jeff

[Raicho485]

Working on several projects.

This ESU lokliege is useful!

[Tony Galiani]

Not sure if this is the best thread for this but maybe?

As I was leaving YFS after my February visit, the proprietor gave me this small 3D printed shrine.  It is a bit crude and I did not like the color scheme which was red with a black roof.  Most of the photos I have seen show shrines with a red roof and dark wooden main structure so I decided to repaint it.  It is not quite complete - I want to add some light weathering but will wait for that until I find a suitable location for it.  Right now, it is sitting on my one T-Track module.

Tony

[Tony Galiani]

Another small building project.  This time a Green Max kit.  Thought it would be an easy break from some of the more complex Sankei kits I have and it was pretty much except for the window inserts.  They need to be cut to fit into tight spaces so the first one took several tries though the last few were pretty easy.  Also kept the painting simple with minimal weathering.  The stove pipe was a poor fit and took a couple of tries to get right - it looks angled in the picture but actually is straight (at least for now)!

Ciao,

Tony