Miscellaneous bits and pieces

I have started this thread to include the occasional jobs that I do which are loco related but not full builds.

Starting of with some steps that I made yesterday for a 7mm Scale DH/Piercy Models J27

A fellow modeller had bought a second hand kit for the J27 and it came without any parts for the steps so he asked me if I could makes some for him.

My guillotine and some offcuts of brass sheet made fairly short work of making them. In fact the longest time came from working out how big the parts needed to be. Although I had been provided with a section from a drawing it had been photographed rather than scanned so it wasn't square on enough to be certain that measurements could be scaled exactly from it. What it did allow was confirmation that taking sizes from the steps in an NER J21 kit was as near as I was going to get.

 

This afternoon saw me making another part for a future project in between waiting for Milliput to dry. This time more lathe work and a little more complex than I have attempted before.

This is a brake cylinder for an LMS 4000 gallon tender.





I will eventually start a new thread for this build but it can sit here for now.

 

Prompted by the recent oil can production, I decided to scratch a long time itch.

Way back in 2010 for my first 7mm scale build an LMS Period One Full Brake, I scratch built a full interior from brass. As part of that interior detailing I made a couple of fire extinguishers, not having a lathe at that time I made them from brass tube and other bits and pieces finishing them with a couple of 4mm scale etched plates that I had in my spares box.



I fitted one in the coach and the other sat in my spares box for a long time. I can only assume that I fitted it to a brake van at some point because I can’t find it.

I made them from tube etc. because that’s the only way that I could see to make one up and I was really pleased with the result. However since then I have had a longstanding itch to make one of the tapered/cone type fire extinguishers. My recent success with the oil cas prompted me to have a go. I found a few photos and had a go. The first attempt wasn’t that great because my rivets were to pronounced so I changed the punch on my rivet press and had another go. This time I was happy and although they look big in the photos because that are massively magnified they do look the part when viewed at normal distances.

 

Having been quite pleased with how the tapered extinguisher turned out I decided to do a second along similar lines to the original two but a bit more period.









I have to say that I am immensely pleased with this one. Sadly it will almost certainly never be seen again once I add it to a brake end coach or brake van. But I will know it's there.

 

Hi Andy,

I would have liked to have milled them out but I didn't have a small enough cutter and holding such a tiny part to drill them out is a struggle too far. The grooves on the underside were done very carefully with a small file which was bad enough.

 

A friend (Richard) were discussing painting whitemetal safety valve covers with 'brass' paint. I had idly mentioned to Richard to polish the metallic paint after it dries with either a cotton bud or kitchen paper. It was during this discussion that it occured to me to use a buffing wheel in a mini drill instead.

I dug out a whitemetal safety valve casting from my H2/J79 kit and after buffing up the casting I brush painted some Vallejo Old Gold onto it. and then when dried overnight buffed it with the mini drill. Getting decent photos of it proved quite a pain but I got something.




Then it occured to me to to add a coat of Johnsons Klear




I still wasn't too happy with the result but at this point I thought that it was down to the finish of the casting so instead of using a buffing wheel I used a wire cup brush in the mini drill. At the same time I thought it prudent to also polish up a brass casting so I could have a proper comparison the casting in question is a Gladiator example as I had bought a number of them from David to replace the whitemetal casting in a number of ex NER loco kits.




It was at this point that I realised that my Old Gold was not the right colour but I was part way through the next experiment so I ran with it.

My third example is another whitemetal casting this one from my J71 kit and the sequence was was polish the casting with a wire brush then spray rather than brush more Old Gold but this time let down for spraying with Johnsons Klear.

Here are the three together. The polished and sprayed example is by far the best in terms of finish but the colour is wrong when in direct comparison to the actual brass.




I consulted my good lady as to what I might need to add to the old gold to make it more like the brass example and she suggests white or silver to make it paler. I don't have anymore safety valve castings to hand so I was going to use a dome instead but in the interests of keeping them all similar I elected to stripp the paint off the first expample so that I could polish the casting with the wire brush before trying again with a lighter hopefully more brassey colour. TBC

As an aside I thought perhaps I could cut out the stripping stage by attacking the painted casting with my wire brush in the mini drill. I was really surprised that it didn't budge it. Despite giving it a good going over all it did was further polish the surface so those who doubt the toughness of modern acrylics take note. Now the casting is soaking in some clean spirit to soften the paint before i have another go.

 

Thanks Paul, it was also pointed out that brass castings that we use in our kits are not all the same colour and if we turn our own parts or use turned parts from the trade they are a different colour again. Also new brass when polished is completely different to old brass that has been polished many times.

So it seems we are on a bit of a hiding to nothing, whatever we choose as our solution in miniature. But that's part of the fun of modelling isn't it.

 

I have done further trials with my Vallejo Old Gold paint mixed 2/3 -1/3 with Vallejo Natural Steel then let down for spraying with Johnsons Klear.

In the first two photos I used the same brass safety valve cover as a comparison piece but realised after taking the photos that the brass had tarnished slightly in the intervening time since I did the last comparison.



I used an image editor (Picasa 3) to add some contrast to the same image.



Then I took another photo after polishing up the brass valve cover again so the comparison is more like for like than the first photo.



And again with a some contrast added



I have reached the conclusion that it is possible with good preparation of the whitemetal casting to make a decent fist of painting it with brass paint as long as there is no actual brass in close proximity to allow a direct comparison. I thought that I would pain the dome too to see what a difference a bigger subject made and while it looks okay to use it in practice I would need to fill some holes in the rear of the casting that you cannot see in the images.

 

While I was in the midst of making the washout plugs for the 8F I had a look through the kits stash to see if I needed any for other models while I was on with them. most are covered but I do need some for my B16. These are slightly different in that they are inset with a raised rim. Having made a number of spares it was a relatively simple job to turn half a dozen or so collars that the washout plugs would fit into.





The idea being that I will solder the inner plug into the collar then cut the base off allowing them to be fit into the loco fire box. In the meantime they are now in the B16 box, in a little bag awaiting their day to shine