Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Scrubber Car No 15 in "O" scale part 6

Back to my model of a Brisbane scrubber car for awhile and I am still waiting for the Brill 21E side frames. So I decided to mask off where the side frames are to be glued and press on with the painting regardless.

I had airbrushed the cabins brown as per the prototype by using a fine jet on my airbrush and poking the nozzle in through the windows. There was a certain amount of over spray as is clearly visible in the first photo. I mask up all the openings from the inside and all goes easily in the beginning but as you progress there are fewer and fewer openings to work through. I leave the doorway till last and that masking tape has to be fed in through a hole in the roof. A set of dental picks makes it easier to insure that the tape is sealed well and no paint can get under it. I find it amazing how far an airbrush can force paint into the smallest of gaps.


I wanted to depict the car in a very faded grey. What one would expect from too much exposure to the sun in a subtropical climate. These days I'm using Tamiya Acrylics and I find I have to blend colours to get what I want. My first blend looked good in the bottle but once on the model it was way to light. It could have been almost mistaken for white. So back to mixing and my second attempt came out OK but still not exactly what I was after. The ads have been ready for some time so I have put them on and the result can be seen in the next photo. I am still trying to determine when Coke and Fanta became available in cans in Australia. I believe it was generally available in the US in the early 1960s and this ad was on the car in March 1969 and I don't think it was very old at the time the photo was taken.

I took the opportunity to paint the internal cab fittings shown in the last photo but making most of them may have been a waste of time. With the roof on and the brown colour it is too dark to see well and when the motorman has been fitted it will be even worse. Looking through the door in the centre photo the air cylinders and the air compressor are just visible. The built in toolbox and locker are at the other end. I suppose that at least I will know that they are in there.


Now I have run out of work for the time being so I have no excuse to not get back onto the layout modules.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Advertising Car No 71 in "O" scale part 3

As the trucks for my two 4 wheelers have arrived, I decided to do some more on No 71.

I painted the model by first airbrushing the inside light grey. Then I had the difficult job of masking all the openings from the inside. I was able to do the windows using tweezers and reaching in through the doorways. The doorways were done last by feeding the masking tape in through a hole in the top of each cabin. It probably took two hours to do the masking and two minutes to airbrush the green.

I got a good match with the green and was very pleased with it. The green in all the photos I have has a bleached appearance. Sadly when I over sprayed the model with the clear coat the bleached effect disappeared. So I will have to try to recreate the effect when I weather the model later.

The photo shows my current progress. The truck isn't in place in the photo and all the glazing still has to be done followed by adding the the controls and of course a motorman.

The view through the motorman's door shows the original ten bench bulkhead complete with the original seat back which was still in place on the prototype. Above the door is the flag holder which was made from a piece of brass tube with the centre filed away. The flags will be printed on paper and glued to a piece of brass rod and will be removable.

Still a lot of work to do but I am pleased with the way it is turning out. It is a model of an unusual prototype and I hope it will create some interest when people see it.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

A Modular Layout for "O" scale trams Part 3

I've been doing what all modellers do! I've been fiddling with a number of different ideas and consequently I haven't achieved much for awhile. While I have been waiting for the side frames and the trucks for my two 4 wheelers I have been looking at the end boards for my modular layout again.

I didn't realise that it was May the last time I worked on them. How time flies. The tear drop back scenes are in place. These will extend above the roadway the width of a sheet of A4 paper. Space is really restricted on these end boards so I intend to glue photos of Brisbane houses to these boards to make a continuous scene. I'm going to have to go out and photograph some suitable houses very soon.

As I said space is very restricted and the next photo shows the footpaths tapering away to nothing on these end modules . Both boards have been given a thin coat of mat varnish to seal them so I am ready to put down the plaster roadway.


The 1/4" holes are already drilled for the steel rod I have for the span poles. I have created a problem for myself now. The inner row of holes are so close to the back scene that I can't get a drill in to clean them out after I have plastered the roadway. No sure what to do but I have a friend who can weld a 1/4" drill to a rod for me and get it to spin true which is something I can't do. That will let me keep the drill chuck above the back scene.

The end modules are not that far from being finished and I have been thinking about the rest of the modules. They will have full with footpaths so I'm thinking that the next two boards will be a typical 1950s/60s set of suburban strip shops with their false fronts and awnings that came out to the curb. Often the awnings had holes cut in them to fit around the span poles. But I had better finish these two end modules first.

Plus my trucks for the two 4 wheelers have arrived and the truck side frames can't be too far away either. So hopefully I will be back on those models soon.