Building a small stone station

Small progress is being made on building a small styrene station building for a small layout....

Video of the Z26 taking it's first steps

I thought it might be worthwhile putting a video up of the engine with its new chassis in action. It needs to be run in, and had detail fixed up, but its nice that it works!

Z26 Class Steam Engine returns to life.....

Quite a few years ago I scratch built out of brass a model of a NSWGR Z26 class 2-6-2, only trouble is I made it to fit on a Bachmann 0-6-0 chassis. So it never really ran well.....

A couple of months ago I decided it was time to do something for a model, that potentially had a new lease of life left in it. So I started to go about designing how it would go together. Marked out some brass, drilled the chassis, soldered it all together, installed the motor and put the gears in, quartered the wheels, made some pickups and now she's a goer....

Just need to clean up the bodywork and prepare a better paint job. 

Victorian Era English Signal Box Build

Following a period without any modelling taking place, I have regained my appetite and on going into my local hobby shop and picking up the August issue of Railway Modelling I found just the motivation I needed. 

The plans of a Victorian crossing keeper's cabin to 4mm scale appealed to me and I set to work rescaling them down to N scale (in my case 1:160) (as this is the scale I work in) and printed them off and began to make the first moves with construction. 

I began construction by cutting out thick styrene (perhaps 2mm) for the floor, and cut some clapboard siding for the walls. Using my Tamiya thin Cement to glue (this is the best I have ever used) the box began to take shape quickly.

For the windows I quickly decided on an effective method of construction, not wanting to muck around with bits of styrene and glue going everywhere, and resulting in a mess that wouldn't hold together I opted for brass and a jig. 

Taking a pluck of Pine I glued a sheet of the side elevation plan on with PVA and scribed the lines that form the window frame. In these recesses the fine brass rectangular shaped wire was slotted in and held down for soldering. Carrs Red Flux was used to get a good joint, with minimal heat and solder being applied. 

The soldered lattice of framework was removed following soldering and trimmed to size with some small scissors. Trimming was done so that the frame would fit snugly in behind the outer styrene trim used for the window frame extremities.

 The lever frame for the box was made from etched brass levers set into a base i fabricated from two pieces of brass with slots cut into the base with a fret saw.

 The lever frame for the box was made from etched brass levers set into a base i fabricated from two pieces of brass with slots cut into the base with a fret saw.

And thats all for now...