Model locomotive kitbashing- COMPLETED Stirling Single, photos page 2...

[James Harrison]

We all know the idea behind this: by taking one or more models we can turn them into another, completely different one.  Usually by use of parts from other, completely different models or scratch-building.  

So, today I took delivery of one of these:


Which I am going to turn into a stand-off scale model of one of Mr Patrick Stirling's G class locomotives of the Great Northern Railway:


Main differences being the shape of the cab, shape of the splashers, the big face on the front ( ), the lack of any cab footplate and the lack of any footplate on the tender.  Should be a good little project.

Anyone else got kitbashes in progress they'd like to share as a work-in-progress?

[tophatdan]

wow, they are so close, i never realized that they used real train types for that show...

[James Harrison]

By and large they don't, but there are one or two which are very, very close to actual engines.  Thomas is based on a London Brighton & South Coast Railway E2 class, indeed Hornby used the moulding for their E2 to make a model of Thomas.  Gordon is based (very loosely) on a London & North Eastern Railway A1 class and James is based on a locomotive from the Furness Railway.  Duck is obviously a Great Western Railway pannier tank, Oliver a Great Western Railway 14xx, Donald and Douglas are based on Caledonian Railway 'jumbos' and Toby is an Upwell & Wisbech Tramway loco.
Of the new engines on the latest series, Murdoch is a British Railways 9F, Spencer a London & North Eastern Railway A4 and Emily a Great Northern Railway class G. 

I don't know which is more alarming, that I can identify so many of the base locos used as the inspirations, or the fact I know so much about Thomas the Tank Engine 

[akumabito]

Kitbashing eh? Yes! It needs gun turrets and rocket launchers!

[James Harrison]

A toy armoured train 

Has already been done:



On the 15'' gauge Romney, Hythe & Dymnchurch Railway back in the 1940s 

~~~~~~

I could always pair it with my LNER Beavertail observation car as a backward streamliner

[James Harrison]

Having taken the face off yesterday, I started in earnest this morning:








Comparing my photos of this morning and the catalogue photo, you can see how I've thinned down the running plate to match that of the tender, pushed out the blanking pieces over the spectacle plate and reprofiled the cab roof, as well as started to remove the plastic lump in the cab.  

Regarding the tender, I think this is a quite a nice model, notwithstanding the issue that at the cab end it resembles more a coal wagon.  Some small-scale remodelling here should remedy this.

[Mechanic Williams]

I love steam locomotives myself, and I also have quite a soft spot for Thomas the Tank Engine. Converting Emily into a Stirling Single seems like a brilliant idea and I wish you the best of luck . Although I would just like to point you in the direction of this webite, it's got plenty of info on the technical side of the series:

http://www.pegnsean.net/~railwayseries/engines.htm

Anyways my own kitbashing projects right now are mainly converting a Hornby 'Little Giant' into a tender engine, as well as using a chassis from an LMS 'Pug' to make a 'Coffee Pot' locomotive like the Head-Wrightson model currenty at Beamish. May have to make my own threat at some point.

Keep Steaming, Laurence

[James Harrison]

Interesting, nice little website there 

By all means feel free to post up your own conversions in this thread- it was my intention we could build a library of sorts of model loco conversions, there being a fair number of model railwaymen/ railroaders hereabouts who may find it interesting and/or of use.

[SteamEngineer]

I thought I should share my model of Oscar with you. Oscar uses an IP Engineering battery powered chassis with an electronic speed controller. The model has hidden off-on , forward-reverse switches. The speed is controlled by turning the exhaust stack. Turned clockwise it runs faster, back slower. The model is built of brass sheet stock , tube , flat bar stock , 1 spring and 12mm length of chain . The headlight and coupling pockets are castings , the only 2 ready made parts on the structure that I used.
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Charles M
 

[Otto Von Pifka]

your image tags are mucked up a bit. your first half of the image tagger (would it be considered a parser?) should be before the http, not after. In fact there seems to be a redundant copy of the http there. I usually just right click and cut the image path from the windows header (from a second open tab makes it easier) and then click the "insert image" button. then you just make sure the cursor is flashing between the two halves of the tag and then rightclick/paste in the link.

excellent work, nice details! here are your pics.

[Arkwright]

Hello All

Can I suggest people have a look at the Gn15 site. It has some real steampunk railways on it.

TTFN

Arkwright

[James Harrison]

That's quite an interesting site.  I think if I ever took up that scale I'd have to have a Bassett-Lowke 4-4-2 in my loco fleet....

.... and that locomotive, Herr Pifka, is absolutely stunning!  A real masterpiece of the miniature mechanical engineer's art.

I've just rectified the problem with the tender, which turned out to be a 5-minute job.  Looking in my spares box I found the front tender detail from a Dapol (ex-Airfix, ex-Kitmaster) Schools-class loco.  Sawed out an aperture in the front of Emily's tender, superglued the new part into the gap and hey presto! the stoker now has a means to actually transfer the coal from the tender to the footplate 

The next step will be a similar one dealing with the boiler intruding into the cab space.  I have the backhead detail from the same kit, which I'm going to glue over the remains of the intruding boiler once I've cut it back far enough to get a crew in.  Although knowing me I'll probably cut it too far and end up with the motor showing in the cab.... 

[The Bullet]

Hi Folks,

talking about Thomas & Friends:

Diesel is a class 08 shunter (of which I have a 5" gauge model powered by a 65cc Norton Villers engine)

Molly is based on a "Claud Hamilton", which pulled the Royal Train (of which I have a 5" gauge model, approaching final assembly and painting)

Steam on!

The Bullet

[James Harrison]

20-second photoshoot of progress 



The cab, with the backhead added and the spectacle plate opened out.



The tender, with the coal shute from the 'Schools' added. 



An Aster Gauge 1 model of the same engine, showing the tender detail I used as the guide to tonight's remedial work.

[James Harrison]

Terribly bad form to double-post I know but there has been progress this day on the Single.  I've actually gotten to the point where I can paint it... a bit, and I have.  When I last posted I was left pondering the smokebox door, and how to get it right, which I did by eventually taking the Dapol Schools one and cutting it down to the point it would fit in the aperture, then sanding every scrap of detail off of it.  Supergluing a piece of paper actually in the aperture may sound a little unorthodox but filled any gaps betwixt Emily moulding and new smokebox door nicely.  

And so onto painting.  The running plate is now matt black along its length from bufferbeam to cab.  I have, for the present, left the orange colour on the sides of the footplate (this will ultimately be a claret colour.)  The biggest and currently most obvious change is the overall colour of the engine- Emily as supplied is too deep a green- looking in The World of Trains entry for the GNR 'G' class suggests a more sombre tone, described as 'apple' but looking more akin to the olive green of the Southern Railway.  A quick check in my paintbox and offering one or two tinlets up to the rendered drawing in the aforementioned book came up trumps- Humbrol # 102 is a perfect match, but lacks the sheen.  No doubt a top coat of varnish shall rectify this.  







And I think this (the final post on that thread) is outstanding.  Although I would probably have gone for a 'Bloomer' rather than 'Cornwall', but that's just personal preference  

[James Harrison]

Terribly bad form to double-post I know but there has been progress this day on the Single.  I've actually gotten to the point where I can paint it... a bit, and I have.  When I last posted I was left pondering the smokebox door, and how to get it right, which I did by eventually taking the Dapol Schools one and cutting it down to the point it would fit in the aperture, then sanding every scrap of detail off of it.  Supergluing a piece of paper actually in the aperture may sound a little unorthodox but filled any gaps betwixt Emily moulding and new smokebox door nicely.  

And so onto painting.  The running plate is now matt black along its length from bufferbeam to cab.  I have, for the present, left the orange colour on the sides of the footplate (this will ultimately be a claret colour.)  The biggest and currently most obvious change is the overall colour of the engine- Emily as supplied is too deep a green- looking in The World of Trains entry for the GNR 'G' class suggests a more sombre tone, described as 'apple' but looking more akin to the olive green of the Southern Railway.  A quick check in my paintbox and offering one or two tinlets up to the rendered drawing in the aforementioned book came up trumps- Humbrol # 102 is a perfect match, but lacks the sheen.  No doubt a top coat of varnish shall rectify this.  







And I think this (the final post on that thread) is outstanding.  Although I would probably have gone for a 'Bloomer' rather than 'Cornwall', but that's just personal preference  

How embarressing.  Quoted myself whilst trying to modify my post to put in the photos...  

[chironex]

I don't know which is more alarming, that I can identify so many of the base locos used as the inspirations, or the fact I know so much about Thomas the Tank Engine 

We all grew up with that, my primary school library actually had the Rev. W. Awdrys Railway Series in a tiny edition, before it was Thomas the Tank Engine (in fact Edward was the first loco I knew as I began to read them. That's the time I think back to when asked about Edward v Jacob...)

I have purchased a HO Model Power engine and am going to convert it to be closer to On30, as a Cryx tramway engine. I am also going to make some rollingstock for it.

I may buy other On30 engines/rollingstock if I can raise enough interest in Malifaux.

I may also buy a conversion kit from:
http://bouldervalleymodels.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2&zenid=2f2t6rdkifd3pncdl95uhtc0b7
http://ozsteam.com/html/ozsteam_kits.html

Except I keep running into the same problem, you have to buy the base model for a few hundred, then rip it apart, in a process one on the Wyrd forums said would make him cry.
Plus many of those conversions are for locos that are no longer available...

[James Harrison]

Some of those conversions are rather beautiful.  I doubt however that I would be prepared to part with several hundred pounds for a model and then set about it with a tool kit- it's a lot of money to waste with one slip of a knife blade! 

I haven't had chance to work any more yet on the Single- aside from remove the coupling hook on the front buffer beam- but today I took delivery of another part of the greater whole:
http://www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=RO612

Basically in 1938 the London & North Eastern Railway built some brand new stock for their Flying Scotsman express, and celebrated the upgrade to the service by finding a rake of old carriages and overhauling them to create a replica of the 1888 express.  There are photos around of a Stirling Single alongside an A4:



So the larger scheme now is to approximate the 1938 replica of the 1888 train.  Ratio GWR 4-wheelers have a longer wheelbase then their Hornby counterparts, more passenger compartments and are more amenable to conversion.  So hopefully soon (if I can find more cheap ones on eBay!) I shall have the full train...

[Gazongola]

Have you checked out Model Zone in Brum yet James?

[James Harrison]

No... whereabouts is it?  If not too far from New Street/Broad Street I can go in my lunch hour... I tend to do a lot of model-based perusing in the Ian Allen store.

I've had 'Emily' a fortnight and this is what I have done to it:



Top- the model as I received it.  Bottom- a roughly similar shot I took about 10 minutes ago to highlight the changes. 

Working from front to back:
 
Locomotive:

1. Front tension lock coupling removed.
2. Front woefully overscale coupling hook removed.
3. Face removed and replaced with plastic blank.
4. Chimney reduced in height.
5. Footplace thickness reduced.
6. Cab spectacle plate windows opened out.
7. Cab roof shortened.
8. Boiler intrusion into cab space reduced and backhead detail added.

Tender:

1. Coal shute detail added.
2. Moulded coal rails removed.

Painting:

1. Bufferbeams repainted in Humbrol #19, Signal Red.
2. Smokebox, running plates and cab interior painted in Humbrol #33, Matt Black.
3. Boiler, splashers, cab, wheels and tender body painted in Humbrol #102, Grass/ Olive Green.
4. Frames painted in Revell #37, Claret.
5. Edging of tender sides painted in Humbrol #88, Dark Green.

The to-do list:

1. Add vacuum pipe and scale coupling to front buffer beam.
2. Add smokebox door detail.
3. Add handrails (possibly).
4. Paint in boiler bands.
5. Repaint tender edging.
6. Add lining, builders plates and other small details.
7. Varnish.

[Gazongola]

It is on Bull Street, opposite the entrance to the Oasis Market,where music zone used to be! 

[James Harrison]

Right-o, shall probably end up in there on Tuesday then!

[James Harrison]

I've just finished the loco!  Photos to be posted shortly- I seem to be have technical difficulties galore this evening- flat batteries in the camera in addition to Microsoft Office woes- but I've just finished the lining out.  Now for transfers for the loco number and the GNR insignia and we're done!

-EDIT-

Right, here we go:







The camera is appallingly poor I know- but I hope you can see what I've done.  Basicaly all of the lining on the tender and the boiler bands, and the gold on the splashers, has been added by (a very steady) hand.  It's surprising how little touches like that turn the toy into a model.

[James Harrison]

Just ordered a set of Historic Model Railway Club GNR/ECJS coaching stock transfers to complete the model.  I'm anticipating that the GNR motif will be suitable for the tender- and the numbers for the cab sides and for the attendant 6-wheeler carriages when I build the train to go with the engine!

[chironex]

So the larger scheme now is to approximate the 1938 replica of the 1888 train.  Ratio GWR 4-wheelers have a longer wheelbase then their Hornby counterparts, more passenger compartments and are more amenable to conversion.  So hopefully soon (if I can find more cheap ones on eBay!) I shall have the full train...

I thought of Ratio coaches to go with my unbuilt Dapol locomotives but when I saw the price from a supplier in Australia it became clear that by the time I got them I may as well have bought Hornby Railroad coaches.