42202

Hi Guy's

Just a quick one. I have just finished an Auscision 42202 in Candy. The Modifications were carried out to the same Specifications as 42211 which was the topic of a previous blog. The only differences carried out were to cover any variation pacific to this Loco. As this Loco was powered, as well as raising the body on it, I also had the raise the PC Board by the same amount so that the lighting would still make a circuit.

This is a shot of the Loco complete.

 

Here it is ready to weather.

 

The main Modification to this loco was the opening up of the staff exchangers. Auscision has this filled completely in on 42202. This may of been the case with this loco at some stage. For the time period that I model, The Staff exchanger on the Number 1 end of the Loco was open but with no staff exchanger in the pocket. On the number 2 end, it was covered up but not to the extent that Auscision has done. The biggest problem is that the Chassis behind the filled in exchangers on 42202 model doesn't have a pocket in behind to allow for an exchanger so on the number 1 end you would need to cut it all out. I am not sure if any of the other numbers or schemes that Auscision has available have filled in exchangers so this one has a different chassis to all others. I guess more of this chassis will be used when Auscision runs others like the 22 class for ARG. I have got around this by swapping the Chassis with another loco that I have.

   

 

On the number two end shown here, I only had to remove the bit of white panelling at the base of the exchanger.

Here is a shot of 42202 in action in 1993. This shot I found in my collection. I am pretty sure that Jamie Fisher took this shot.

This is one of David Porters Shots of 42202 in 1991.

 

Here is some shots to finish off. I may lighten the Mansard sections of the roof as these did look very bleached out in the years from 1993 on.

 

Anyway another for my collection of National Rail Hired Loco's. After a bit of research I just worked out the 42202 didn't make it to Hire by National Rail as it had a major engine failure but as far as I can work out 17 422's did. Anyway I am sure I will fine use for it.

 

Cheers Justin Moy 

 

 

 

 

8206

Hi Guy's

I have been working on an On Track Models 82 class for myself. It is a pretty nice model and has some good detail. I guess on thing that I like about it, is that the detail is made strong enough that is won't break off that easy. There is some area's that I have sort to improve to make the model my own. As with any model I look at ways to detail and correct anything that I don't think is right.

This is a shot of the model as it stands atm. I am going to re-visit this 82 at a later date where I will detail the frame and bogies. At this stage I haven't done any work on this area other than a bit of a weathering. I have just realised that I never took a shot of this 82 class straight out of the box, but I have plenty of shots of the work in progress.

One of the first things I noticed on the model was the grill that covers the Dynamic Brake Intake. There is a brass Etch in place that covers a white Panel. This area is see through on the Prototype, So I investigated what can be done to improve this.

This shot taken by Graham Baker that shows this area. This shows a modification that was done to 82's around 1996 to baffle the sound from the Dynamic Brake with some large Louvers added. As my 82 is to represent an 82 as delivered I have modelled it without the Baffle.

This shows the process of cutting out the opening. There is no frame of the model behind this area which is good but I guess this not being done on the original model would come down to cost. There is one body screw that passes through this area which is really need to hold things together. This can be seen on the other side.

With the brass etch grills back in place

I made the dynamic intake area up with Styrene to simulate the area behind the grills

It does make a nice improvement to the model.

 

The other area I looked at was the main radiators. I didn't like what was used behind the grills so I replaced it was the casting that I had from a Bakers 82 class kit that I had. I didn't take a shot of the original but this looks much improved.

This is the model as it stands with these two mods. in place. I also placed a couple of bits of styrene inside the Vestible Area's to push the wiring down so that it could no be seen through the door windows.

 

The only other area I have looked at detailing was the pilots. The air hoses don't look that great so I have replaced them with brass ones. I have also added a bit of styrene to each side of the coupler as the model doesn't look quite right in the area.

I find that the easiest way to add details like this is to use longer pieces of styrene and glue them in place. Once stuck, just use a real sharp razer blade to remove what you don't want.

Here is a shot of the prototype. If I need to remove the coupler at a later date I will need to remove the styrene but I usually don't have any trouble with Kadee 58 couplers.

 

With these modifications done, it was just a case of weathering the model and placing it in service. I have given it a light weathering so most of the work has been done around the bogies and frame of the loco. One thing that makes it is the painting of the coupler yellow to suit the pilot. I have also weathered little details around the hand rails that usually get missed in the cleaning process.

This shows the detail that stands out around the handrails. It also shows the screw behind the grill. It is needed to hold things together. Also the styrene in the Vestible Area can be seen through the window. I can live with the screw as unless you are really looking for it, it is hard to see. When I re-visit this loco I am going to look at replacing the air line detail on the bogies with brass wire. As part of my weathering process I like to darken all the shadow details with washes of Floquil Engine Black. These are the areas around the springs, wheel journals and any little holes or areas where light doesn't get in.

Anyway that about covers it so here is some shots of the finished model

 

 

 

 

As I model from 1990/96, this loco should fit in nicely leased to National Rail working with 80's and 422's on the North Coast Line.

 

Cheers Justin Moy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

42211

Hi Guy's,

I have been doing a bit of work on enhancing the Auscision 422 class. They are a good model as is but I just wanted to make the model my own. There is a few modifications that I have done which I think has really set the model off. There is one big issue with the model that I thought to address as well.

Here I have shots of the finished model and it straight out of the box. As you can see the model straight out of the box isn't too bad. As I do with any new model that I receive, I get out any photo's and reference material that I have and study the model to see what can be done to improve it. Usually a good weathering is all that is needed for an Auscision Model. Well after studying some photo's there was something that bugged me regarding this model. When I looked at the main Air Tanks on the side of the chassis something just didn't look right. The body sits over the top halve of the tank and looking at photo's this clearly doesn't happen.

I come to the conclusion that the Body simply sits to low on the Chassis. So I set about looking at ways to raise the body about 0.8mm. It was a bit a challenge but I think the results have made for a much better looking model.

 

First step was to look at what keeps the body attached to the frame. There is two clips on each side of the body, so on the chassis I used my Dremel with a cutting disk to remove about 1mm from the bottom of the lugs.

 

As I was raising the body I also had to raise the pilots as well. Pictures do tell the story. I had to remove about 1mm from the top of the bracings behind the pilot. I also had the file and lower the coupler pocket to keep the couplers at the same height.

 

I had to add .030 or 0.75mm styrene to the top of the mounts for the Pilots. I think the strip I used here was Number 137 or .030x156". I pre-drilled the holes and used longer pieces for handling.

 

Once glued down I used a razor blade to cut the extra's off. It is important to only just cover the screw plates as if any larger it would get in the way of the lighting circuit for the marker lights that sits in behind the pilot. With the pilot in place and raised it inturn raises the lighting circuit to the correct height to match the body. Because the lighting will no longer sit down tight in its home I had to use a couple of spots of super glue to hold it in place. only enough so I maybe able to break it free if need be.

 

That pretty much covers what I had to do to raise the body. The only other thing that was necessary was to add a bit to the tops of the lifting points as there was now a gap there. I forgot to photograph this step but all I used was the same .030 styrene and glued a longer piece in such as the pilots then cut and filed it down till I was happy with the result.

 

A couple of other improvements

 

I bent up some parts of staples to pin down the sand hoses on the fuel tank side of the bogies. They are a problem bending and not sitting well with the model so this was my solution. I tried to also pin the ones on the pilot side on the bogies but found that it prohibited the movement of the bogie too much. When I weather future models I will remove the weathering from these sand lines as it will only full off anyway as they flex. It will be interesting to see how long they stand up to running and flexing all the time. If they break, I may look at using fine electrical wire or Brass Wire as a replacement. Even though they are a pain to have, when sitting right they do look good on the model.

 

 

 

Other improvements were painting the control stands green. As 42211 was originally an unpowered pre-production model from Auscision, I removed the crew, folded back the Mirrors and added blinds to the windscreens that I had pulled mostly down. 

 

I also painted the front hand rails white, painted the couplers and lifting points yellow and gave the model a light weathering. I found that most 422's around 1992/93 were pretty well kept. As they were regulars on the Southern Highlands Passenger Trains they made it through the Car Washes at ACDEP quite a bit. So it was rare to see one that was really grubby. As my era go between 1990/96, this loco will make a fine addition to running the early days of National Rail when they were leasing 82/80/422 class loco's before the NR's arrived on the scene.

 

A couple of more shots

 

Just to finish off, I found this shot in my collection of 42211 in action. I think this is a Jamie Fisher Photograph but I am not sure.

 

It is a bit of work to raise the body on these 422's but I think it is well worth the trouble.

 

Cheers Justin Moy

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Data Packs

Hi Guy's,

I would just like to share with you something that I have been doing for a while now which can be a great help, when it comes to modelling. When I was living up at Ballina just over 10 years ago, I became involved with the Northern Rivers Fussy Modellers Group. This was a bunch of really good modellers that lived around the Northern Rivers Area. It wasn't a club as such, the guys would usually get together on a Friday night at each others place and model and consume Alcohol. The guy's would travel to exhibitions together and plan field trips, say to say Dorrigo to measure up some wagons and take photo's.

One thing that they taught me was the value of making up Data Packs. Now I guess a Data Pack can be what ever you want it to be. In their case they had made up packs for pacific wagons that they wanted to model. The general idea was to get as much info possible about that phototype. It would start with what Information can be gathered. This is usually an Article from the AMRM or can be the instructions from an available model kit. Any drawings of the wagon are added and then a series of photographs of the wagon including detail shots. I use the Plastic Portfolio's that you can buy from any newsagent to make up mine and photocopy any info that I need and glue in photographs as required. I was very lucky that the guys let me copy much of the stuff that they had. This is probably the reason that I model NSW now and not US prototype as I was at the time.

This is from my pack on the ELX group of wagons. The left side I think is a copy from the AMRM and the right is a plan drawing. Not sure where I got that from but it is handy.

 

This is another page from the same pack. Some photographs and more from the AMRM

 

This is from my VLX pack. These are BGB instruction sheets

 

As I get further into the pack, I try to add as much portrait shots of the wagons as I can. I find this most useful when it comes to painting and weathering. Some of my data packs only consist of photo's as this is all I have needed or could find when I was making it up.

This is from my NLDF pack. These are actually some of my photographs taken at Manildra.

 

After all the portrait shots I would then add as many detail shots that I can find. This is the detail shots from my NGGF file. I hoped to one day to super detail a number of Silvermaz NGGF's but Auscision Models beat me to it. This file will now only be used for the weathering of these wagons.

 

This is the start of my first Locomotive Date Pack. I now have an OTM's 82 class that I want to weather and add more detail to make it my own. It was about 10 years ago that made up most of my data packs. Back then I had to rely on whatever publications that I had and any photo's that I could get. Today with the internet, what a great tool this can be. With all the social groups that you can join on say Face Book for example, sometimes all you have to do is ask a question and you can get all the information that you need. I asked about 82 detail shots and 24 hours later a number of the members had private emailed me a number of detail shots. How good is that.

 

Anyway a data pack can be anything that you want it to be. I like a hard copy as they say so I can sit it beside me while modelling. I could just have it sitting in the computer as well. They come in very handy to me as the information is all there in one place. Anyway I hope this is of interest.

 

Next the shots of the 82 class model

 

Cheers Justin Moy