Summer Time Modelling or Top Landing Gear

With the summer now well and firmly here its now the time when the modelling season like the real world has a holiday. Its the time of year when modelling is fairly low down on the scale of things. Me personally I prefer to fly my RC aircraft despite there being a distinct windy feeling this summer it is still possible to get up to the flying field and fly until your hearts content or until the battery gets flat. My current flight is this

Its an FMS P51D Mustang. It features flaps, retracts with sequenced gear and I quite frankly a hoot to fly. It was always my aim to get one of these and given ive only been flying around a year or so (in fact a year in 7 days time) im pleased my fight skills are now good enough to get hold of one. Loops, rolls and even things like Cuban 8s are possible although it does lack a little power when doing low strafing runs to make it look really realistic. This is all despite it being both electric and foam and it can be had for around £220, the lipo battery, charger and radio gear will cost extra but a dx6i radio set and battery can be had for around £190. Im currently looking at what to get next and my choices are either a P38, lightning, B25 bomber or the DH mosquito. I did find a nice stuka which id get simply so I could do dogfights with the mustang but im not sure whether its worth the outlay or not. Anyway chocks away!

Llwydd Lives again pt2

This last week ive been reconsidering Llwydd's rebuild and im considering reinstating the semaphores as previously I was going to use colour light signals. The problem is the colour lights don't really work and I think id also be doing the layout a disservice. This leads to an important question which is, which signals do I use? The Dapol ones aren't available at the moment so realistically it looks like a lot of ratio kits which to be honest is what the layout currently has. Answers on a postcard please?

Down the Drain

Today ive been working on some transfers for the Birmingham R.C.E drain train. This was a rake of 4 TTA tanks recoded to ZRA which were used to clear the drains in the Birmingham Area. They were bright yellow wagons. . The could be seen pretty much as far as Preston and down as far Watford area but mainly seemed to have been stored at Bescot. The transfers are now home made as the black lettering is pretty standard and I now have a template for the Tops panel which means I can whip up some very quickly. along with a new ink jet printer it means that I can do most of my own transfers again. The trouble being I cant do white however which is slightly annoying to say the least.

Back to basics modelling

One thought thats recently come to me was to get back to basics modelling. This will involve making use of the of older lima locos and using bits of plastic, etches and other bits and ending up with detailed models. Thats how we used to do it but it seems now all we do is get a loco and stick it on the track. That to me isnt really modelling and i have to say i feel like i dont have the skills so i also felt this would be a good way to improve my skills. The bonus being i would end up with a fleet of unique locos and it would also be relativley cheap. There are a few layouts that the stock could run on so it most certainly wont be a wasted effort. My thoughts are on the 31,37 and 47. Obviously they would need etched fans, and in the case of the 37 and 47 there would need to be removal of the roof straping on the 37 where needed and the the boiler port on the 47. On the 47 id also like to do the correct fuel/underframe tanks to the correct type for the loco. The 37 would also benefit from the correct window frames but i might leave this, they also need roof mounted horns as but they might be slightly compromised as the real ones are slightly inset but that cant be seen once the horns are in place. The 47 would also get the flushglaze. The 31 doesnt really need to much modification other than handrails which the 37 and 47s already need. Obviously all of these models will have full bufferbeam detailing. The other classes i will be looking at will be the 50, 56 and 60. The 60 doesnt require too much work and most of the work can be completed with requiring repaint. If you avoid the first 5 sector liveried models 60001/002/003/004/008 have an incorrect sized grill on one side wheras later ones have the grill corrected. The grills themsleves can be replaced without a repaint as they can be masked up once its been replaced. It will also need the internal equipment added as with grills opened up you can see straight through. The 60 also needs bufferbeams and the bogie footsteps. The 56s are only really correct from 56056 onwards without alot more work to modify the front ends. Apart from etched grills and working lights the bodyshell is pretty good. While some of the paint jobs are ok, the yellow is generally a very odd shade so needs to be repainted but again it can be done quite easily without needing a full repaint. Flsuhglaze is also required to help improve it. And finally the class 50. This could do with alot of work as the body has numerous detail faults. Below the underframe the biggest problem is that the bogies are incorrect and undersized however lima class 37 bogies can be fitted with ease with the footsteps modified. Above the underframe the model will obviously have etched grills, opened out exhaust ports and filled in sandboxes as they were removed when the refubished them back in the early 80s. The front ends could do with the wires for the multiple working boxes. Also the indicator box needs to be correctly plated over but etches are available for all of this. One other thing that can be added is the lifting points which are just behind the doors. This model also benefits from flushglaze. most of these models should cost no more than around £30 each and that includes the purchase of the original model. I would then have a completely unique fleet which might not worth much despite all the work its still a one off fleet and it will be all my own work.

New Layout possibility

Well while ive been away ive been thinking about the possibility of doing a small engineers layout. I did build one a few years ago but it was never shown but im planning to do it again as ive too many engineers wagons and need somewhere to put them. The track plan might need a little tweaking as ive been given a few points that I can use which will mean I only need a few small radius points and some lengths of flexi track.

Llwydd goes south!

Some people may be away that Llwydd Town had been sold. Well its now safely back at home in my garage. The plan now is to do a few little jobs that I feel it needs. These are essentially the following - - Fitting DCC - Adding point motors - Boxing the scenic boards up to protect them - Build some legs (they weren't included in the sale) - Replace the semaphore signals, they were only temporary nearly 10 tears ago so I will now have to look at replacing them, just not sure whether I need colour lights or semaphores. At the moment there isn't any time frame on when the work will take place but id like to have it done by next summer. In terms of the stock, some of it was purchased with the layout but there will be additions from myself and the era and location will remain the same.

Its back for good.

Well the blog is back. Ive been meaning to get it back into it so I will get the posts flowing again and begin showing what will be going on as quite a lot has been going while this blog has been off line. I will be updating it over the course of this week and hopefully there will be some interesting posts to follow.