On My Workbench

Saturday 4th July 2009

Rubber Up!

Finally, as promised, here is a shot of the finished rubber moulding for the Class 377 'Electrostar' cab, ready for the resin casting - something I'd been meaning to create for months but never quite summed up enough courage to take the plunge!

I'll put some more images up of how this mould was created in the future but it was basically made by pouring liquid rubber over the plastic cab, all within the confines of a wall of Lego. This ensured the rubber set in a rectangular block, and this was done in two stages to create a 'bottom' and a 'top' of the mould, which can be seen to the left and right of the grey plastic cab used as the master. The two rubber parts fit together perfectly so just need resin poured in between to create numerous duplicates of the scratchbuilt 'Electrostar' cab without any fuss!

The rubber was purchased from WP Notcutt of Surrey , along with some Easyflo 60 resin which I will be experimenting with over the next few days to see how it goes - fingers crossed!

On My Mp3:Funk Fanatics - Love Is The Answer (Freemasons Remix)

Sunday 21st June 2009

Completing the set

I told you I've been busy!

Lately I have had the desire to complete long outstanding projects and fulfil all those wishlists of locomotives I planned back during those heady days of building Wells Green TMD in the big rush for DEMU Showcase in June 2005 - of course not everything was finished in time and the layout went on display with a small selection of hastily-prepared AC electrics. In those four years since the layout was completed, strangely I have still not found the time to model the final selection of locomotives on the special list I drew up!

As time goes by, my interests have changed slightly, with new hobbies taking over and even thoughts turning to my next model railway project, but I rediscovered my 'old dream locomotive list' recently and thought it would be a real shame if I did not 'complete the set' and finally model everything I had always planned to!

With that in mind I set about dusting down my collection of unfinished models and whipped out the old airbrush, spanked on the paint & masking tape and hey presto, I have a few brightly coloured Class 90s on their way to completion!

All my locomotives are based on ones I've seen in the now-distant past that are somehow 'special'; here you can see Virgin West Coast Class 90s 90002 Mission Impossible, 90009 The Economist and RES-liveried 90019 Penny Black taking shape.

In the intervening years since choosing to model them all have altered drastically livery-wise, but none of that matters to me anymore - I used to like modelling the most up-to-date livery but I realised now that, scarily enough, I'm no longer modelling the current scene anymore - even the EWS corporate scheme that Wells Green TMD is decked out in is out of date!

I decided to put a little extra effort into doing this batch of Class 90s so sought out some excellent roof photographs after much Google-ing, and this enabled me to go much further in recreating the details around the roof ends, note the cross strapping on the roof, the aerials and the full depth 'triangles' visible in the photograph below. I went for some etched brass grilles whilst I was at it too!

The '90's are at the transfer stage now, the Virgin repaints I am particularly happy with - perhaps its a missed opportunity but it is very tempting to do them up as debranded ex-Virgin class '90's with no stripes or logos (which would be unusual and attract extra attention on the exhibition scene!) but that is not how I remember them, so I'm sticking to the original plan, or so I keep telling myself!

I'll put a few more pictures on here once I've got round to the fun part of doing the transfers and the miniature naming ceremonies, where the little Shawplan or Fox nameplates are applied - always a strange mix of emotions as it is very rewarding but also scary as you wonder if you've stuck the plate in the right place or the worst of all, you do it wonky!

Finally I leave you with a little update on the Class 377 'Electrostar' project - as Intercity used to say, we're getting there!

Below a completed driving vehicle for the 377/2, the shortened sides have been completed as has the roof, all are awaiting resin casting which I have to admit I still have not yet done!

The resin arrived in the post the other week and has sat on the floor awaiting usage, being quite expensive stuff I am slightly afraid to use it in case I muck it up! I'll start with resin casting the cab section before moving onto the sides and roof sections, then if I'm feeling especially brave I was hoping to do some of the underframe boxes too!

On My Mp3:Little Boots - Earthquake

Thursday 21st May 2009

Bodybuilding!

Apologies folks, here's some more shots of the 'Electrostar' taking shape - I still haven't quite got to the exciting stage where it actually looks like the familiar EMUs I know and love but it's getting there!

The sides of the driving car are finished now, as you can see in the photographs the length of the body has been reduced by removal of the centre window, plus a small amount from each end to bring it down to the correct length, after which the bits were stuck back together again.

Work has since moved on to focusing on the roof, and removing some of the Turbostar-specific details and vents and making it look more like an Electrostar! A grand start has also been made on reducing the length of the roof section by bolding sawing it into two pieces!

Despite all this Southern third-rail fever taking over, I haven't forgotten poor old Wells Green TMD, despite it being packed away for the last six months, it will shortly be receiving a few shiny new AC electric locomotives!

More details will follow when I've got some good photographs of the locos being detailed up, meanwhile I've been wheeling and dealing on Heljan Hymeks, getting myself several sets of mechanisms ready for some more Class 90s to be remotored.

Finally, my pride-and-joy Network Rail Class 86/9 'Loadbanks' are also receiving a well-deserved remotoring using Heljan Class 33 chassis picked up for a reasonable price from Hattons, it's busy busy on the workbench currently!

On My Mp3:Miley Cyrus - See You Again (Rock Mafia Remix)

Thursday 30th April 2009

No way back!

Since the cab of the 'Electrostar' is nearly finished now, I've started to move onto some of the other aspects of the conversion, which includes reducing the length of the carriages down, as the real life EMUs are formed of the shorter 20m (ish) bodyshells compared to the longer 'Turbostar' vehicles being used as spares donors for the project, so I took a razor saw to the side of a shiny Chiltern Railways '168' and here it is!

Although it scales up well, it looks disconcertingly short! I am used to seeing 1ft long model carriages, so although correct, it looks a bit strange to the eye! There's no going back now, I've just chopped a reasonably expensive model into four pieces!

Just have to hope it all fits back together again..!

On My Mp3:Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero

Sunday 12th April 2009

Happy Easter!

I can hardly believe its nearly a month since the last update, I've been a little bit pre-occupied with non-modelling activities so haven't had the time to keep the site properly up to date but here are a couple of shots of my scratchbuilt 'Electrostar' cab coming along! I think it's nearly there now, needing only a little bit of tidying up around the glazing recesses before it's time to get messy with resin casting!

The pair of Class 377 'Electrostar's I'm building are being made ready for service on Worthing MRC's spangly new Loftus Road layout, this has seen much scenic work lately, here are a selection of photographs showing the layout as it is now - note the selection of large buildings being constructed by Pete Hollman!

Above is Pete's superb office building, believed to be 'Hollman Communications' HQ or something like that!

The graffiti artists have been at work...I just couldn't help myself!

As you may be able to see, lots of work has taken place on Worthing MRC's Loftus Road and it can be seen at a show in Guildford in the first week of September, hopefully complete with a fleet of Southern 'Electrostars'!

On My Mp3:Lady Gaga - I Like It Rough

Saturday 14th March 2009

Obligatory 'Electrostar' Progress Update!

I imagine its getting pretty boring now but I thought I'd share a couple of pictures of how my Class 377 'Electrostar' cab is progressing!

There isn't a great deal of difference between this update and the previous one, the only main visible changes being the addition of the corridor gangway but in reality hours and hours of modelling time has been spent on this little model!

It's taken ages to get the 'right' shape, particularly over the cab roof and sloping front - only you can be the judge of whether I've caught it but personally I'm very pleased with it so far, a little more time needs to be spent on cleaning up the cab window recesses, as you can see it is a bit rough but eventually it will disappear under some smoked glazing just like the prototype!

Eventually, holes will need to be drilled for the cab lighting which will be challenging, and at some point the corridor gangway plate will need to be constructed, either from plastic or maybe some form of custom brass etching, decisions decisions!

On My Mp3:Haddaway - What Is Love

Sunday 22nd February 2009

The Electrostar progresses!

Just a little bit of an update on how the Electrostar project is progressing, the cab is currently at the slightly boring stage of shaping and constant filing to get it looking like the real thing - I think it looks reasonably alright at the moment but one slip of the file and I could be back to where I started!

There is white powder literally everywhere now, and the boredom and frustration of messing around with little bits of white plastic brings back memories of scratchbuilding my Ford Focus in 2007, hopfully things will get better soon though and I can have some fun resin casting!

On My Mp3:Girls Aloud - Love Is The Key

Saturday 7th February 2009

Long time, no update!

It's February, but Happy New Year everybody! The last few months have been very hectic, busy and amazing for so many reasons, but I have finally got round to updating the website, so here is a little glimpse into what I've been up to lately...!

All is not what it seems...!

...for the white stuff is in fact plastic shavings from my Electrostar project!

I've finally got on with the task of starting my project to build two Southern Class 377 'Electrostars' for the Worthing MRC layout Loftus Road. They are the dual-voltage Class 377/2 variants, used on the services through Kensington Olympia, on which the club layout is based.

The models themselves are being scratchbuilt and heavily kitbashed from Bachmann Turbostar vehicles, with the plan of scratchbuilding key items like cab ends, pantograph wells and underframe boxes, then resin casting these so that it saves time producing multiples of the parts.

I am just working on the driving cab of a '377' at the moment, starting off with a Bachmann 'Turbostar' cab, with tons of added plastic which has been labouriously filed down until it looks vaguely like an Electrostar - hence the huge load of plastic shavings in the first photograph!!

Here's an image of the new cab mounted onto the front of a Bachmann 'Clubman' vehicle - the work is far from over - firstly the bodyshell will need to be considerably shorted to match the Electrostar's shorter length, amongst numerous other modifications to the underframes, roof, bogies and corridor connections - in other words, plenty of fun still to be had!

On My Mp3:Alphabeat - Touch Me Touching You

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