Rebuilding Bankes Bakelit (1/35)

I'm currently rebuilding the factory building at Bankes Bakelit. Quite an accomplishment as I never managed to finish the first version of the building. The upgrade from card board mock up to foam board building was planned. Now the building has (due to the unforeseen intervention from good friends of Nystrup Gravel) progressed to laser cut 4 mm. MDF. In fact several friends came up with ideas for improving the building. I really like getting suggestions and advise. I consider it the main benefit of this little blog. Thanks a lot.

Per Møller Nielsen, the owner of Epokemodeller, a small Danish producer of all sorts of useful accessories in scales from H0 to Gauge 1, offered to laser cut both walls and windows. Sketches with the main measurements were mailed and the finished parts delivered only a week later. I paid Per a small sum for the service, but surely the result merits the investment.

The building from Larsen's Toy Factory I'm using as inspiration for my bakelite factory. Workers beside a pile of the wooden toys they were making inside for more than 60 years. Too bad I can only build one end and a single row of windows. I can see that H0-modellers have one advantage over my 1:35 scale...

I assembled the three main parts (front and sides) with white glue. The parts came chamfered and they fitted perfectly together. I added a small rear reinforcement of foam board. The major rear foam board wall of the building will be integrated with the internal structure and interior.

I filed the lower window edge to allow for the mounting of a window sill. On the prototype the sills are quite prominent and I didn't want to leave them out. The sills were fabricated from plastic card and painted a rusty red to match the window frames, although you from the old photo above can see that they originally were white.

The outer walls of the building were covered with a layer of white glue that was worked with a short and stiff haired brush while drying. This gives the wall a three dimensional structure which I think is necessary in 1:35 scale. After two layers of white paint I fitted decals with the company name. I had those made years ago by my usual supplier of decals 'Skilteskoven' in Odense.

Ready for paint. The covering of dried white glue is vaguely visible.

White paint added and decals fitted. Gloss varnish provided a smooth surface for the decals but it still took a considerable amount of decal solution to make the decals conform to the irregular surface.

Foam board interior during construction. Grain of wheat bulbs test fitted - one in the front room right and two in the office left.

Lights on in the front room. I plan to fit the lighting so I can turn on the light in each room individually.

The windows were also laser cut by Per in thin card board. I carefully assembled the windows with thinned white glue. After the glue had dried, I gave the windows a cover of Vallejo matt varnish on both sides to protect the surface and provide a little extra stiffness.

Each window is made up from five parts. Here they are in company with an assembled window. Clear plastic card will be glued on the frames' rear as glass.

The interior is currently being glued up from foam board in the form of a 'drawer' that can be pulled out of the building. Two rooms on the ground floor (office and front room with stove) and a single room with tanks and piping on the first floor.

Land Rover Fire Tender (1/35)

This week saw me standing in line at the local post office (well, actually a corner of a super market operating a post office service). The time waiting was truly worth it. My package contained a long sought after kit: the Roadcraft Land Rover Series 1 fire tender in 1:35 scale!

An understated package. 

The rugged Land Rover was popular in Danish fire and rescue services, particularly in rural areas. I remember seeing one in action from a first floor window in my grand parents' farm. While I was having my afternoon nap ( I must have been about 6 years old) the neighbour's pig stable caught fire. All the noise woke me op, and the first thing I saw when I looked through the curtains was a little red Land Rover fire tender laying out hoses to a small pond.

Whitemetal chassis and resin body parts. This vehicle is perfect for putting out fires around Nystrup.

The kit is made from white metal and resin with etched brass for small and delicate details. I have built a Roadcraft Bedford O lorry and being impressed with its quality, I knew I had to have a Land Rover. The problem is that Roadcraft kits are as rare as hens' teeth. I have only seen them advertised on the Scale Link website. Having left a mail some time ago I was contacted recently and told they had tracked down a few of the rare kits.

Page 1 of the assembly diagrams - and a lot of parts!

Usually a short run multi media-kit will be accompanied by some awfull instructions, sometimes leaving the builder with more questions than answers. This is not the case here! Not only do Roadcraft kits come with nice drawings showing where the parts go, they also have a written up assembly manual. No less than 16 A5 pages of helpful text comes with the fire tender. I'll have a hard time to keep my hands off this kit. But I have other projects to finish first.

A Change of Track (1/35)

No. Nystrup Gravel is not about to change scale or gauge - or even worse go standard gauge. Recent test running of locomotives on the steel sleepered track on the factory module showed that the track laid down was a little under gauge. While narrow gauge is great, you can actually have too much 'narrowness'. A track gauge of 16.0 - 16.2 mm. is obviously too narrow to safely operate several of my locos. I also noted that my Magic Train steam loco bumped the bolts on the sleepers. I have consequently lifted my Coldicott-track.

Having mentioned my troubles on the NGRM-forum a good friend from the Netherlands came to the rescue with track panels of his own design. Just at few days later I had a generous number of 3D printed steel sleepers on Code 83 rail to install.

The old track ripped up and new track panels being laid. The brick wall is still very far from finished and removable - which makes track laying easier.

I am using track spikes from KBscale. The small spirit level is perfect for checking if the track is level. The light yellow resin sleepers are Blitz French army sleepers. They fit Code 100 rail.

I laid the new track panels in the same way as I had laid the Coldicott panels. I inserted wooden sleepers under the rail ends and connected the rails by soldering them on brass plates. In real life the wooden sleepers would provide stability to the track. Current to the rails is supplied by wires soldered to the underside of the rails connecting to heavier wires under the base board.

I used up my remaining few Blitz resin French army sleepers in one end of the module. I hadn't many left and I thought it fun to include an other type of steel sleeper on the module.

Shims of plastic of differing thickness are used to 'tamp' the track. 1:35 scale track building isn't that far from putting together full size track panels! The dummy fish plates are from KBscale.

Testing the track with different vehicles help me determine if there are problematic spots in the track. Here the little speeder is being run back and forth on the module. The Q-tips are used for rail and wheel cleaning.

The Fowler also ventured out on the track panels. My foam board factory building has been exchanged with a laser cut MDF structure. More on that later.

I'll probably keep testing the track a little longer before I start to paint and weather rails and sleepers. New parts for the bakelite factory arrived last week and I have been planning how to equip it with lights and a partial interior.

A Lorry Load (1/35)

Between other projects I recently finished a load for a lorry. Having used a number of Scale Link skips for either flat wagons or bogies I had some of the kits' resin skip bodies surplus to requirements. 

Four Scale Link skip bodies. I used six to build a lorry load of spares on its way to a industrial railway.

To make some of them useful, I cleaned the bodies, glued them three on top of each other and gave them a spray with black primer. In each of the two stacks I painted one body dark grey to create a little variety. The skip bodies then received a wash with diluted oil paint 'burned umber'. The two stacks of skip bodies were mounted with glue on a simple frame of wooden profiles. EZ-line were used to represent the rope holding the bodies in place. The end brackets for the skip bodies were glued into a wooden crate. Any type of crate would do, but I picked one from an old Tamiya kit. I added only two pieces of thread for rope handles. The brackets would be mounted when assembling the skips after arrival.
 

Painted skip bodies, wooden frame and roll of EZ-line. In the background my assembly of a 1:35 Volkswagen 82E kit is progressing.

Here is the result of an hour's work: A load for a lorry. All from left over parts. An easy way of making a load for a lorry - or a standard gauge wagon in Gauge 1.

Building Bankes Bakelit (1/35)

Last March I started planning Bankes Bakelit, the small bakelite factory just north of Nystrup Gravel's 600 mm. track. The factory has now progressed from a card board mock up to a proper structure of foam board. I adjusted the size of the building slightly as there was room for a little larger foot print on the module. As I wasn't aiming for a scale model of the factory building, I just enlarged the building as much as space allowed while keeping the proportions. The building now makes a more prominent presence. I didn't want trains to dwarf the building - rather the opposite.

Test assembly held together with pins from my latest shirt purchase.

The building is made from a double layer of 6 mm. foam board. Window openings in the inner foam board layer are a little larger than in the outer layer. In that way I hope to fit windows in a realistic depth in the wall. I still haven't found any suitable window frames to fit in the holes and I suspect I will not. I will probably have to build the window frames from plastic profiles.

Windows cut out, double walls fitted and all parts glued.

Floor fitted - still unglued.

Interior floor and dividers have been built to allow for lighting and a little interior detailing. With floors the building don't need bracing.

Narrow Gauge and Snow

In Denmark we've had almost three weeks with snow on the ground in January. Several trains have been run in the snow covered landscape. A train of skips went to pick up a load of small stones for a project in HVB's large shed at the Hedehusgaard station. Not too often one gets to take a train of skips through a snow covered landscape in Denmark.

On our way to Brandhøj station to pick up a load of small stones. We are pushing the skips - here on a piece of the line that had new sleepers fitted in the autumn.

Stone loading in progress. One of the younger members has become quite good with the excavator. M 12 was built in Denmark in 1943 and is still going strong.

Skips filled, we make our way back - here going down hill from Sølund station. 

In the head shunt ready to take the stone load into the shed. The setting sun is barely visible above the last skip.

Not all locos have stood the test of Danish weather too well. Here is what happens when you leave a steam loco in a park for more than 30 years. This engine is now going into storage. The train is moving slowly pulled by M 12 which has the lowest gearing while M 24 provides braking. Photo: Peter Hansen.

A lot of stuff had to be moved to allow steam loco No 3 to be positioned in the rear of the shed. Four diesel locos and an excavator was running when I took the photo. 

Running narrow gauge trains in full scale surely gives you a better sense of the practical workings of the prototype for your model railway. If you have a heritage railway in your vicinity consider volunteering and take part in the work there. You will no doubt be welcomed and you will ‘cash in’ on three ‘key performance indicators’: help run a real railway, pick up good ideas for your model railway and enjoy the good company of fellow railway men and women (probably mostly men…).

Kit Frustrations (1/35)

Last summer I had endless trouble getting a kit bash of a lorry together. In the end I succeeded. I'm in a similar situation now with the MMK kit of a Bedford O. With vague or non-existent location points for the cab, front mud guards and bonnet I have decided to give the kit a break. Together with the instructions everything has been wrapped in tissue paper and stuffed in a card board box. I seldom pack a kit up like this once I have started, but this one had to go back on the shelf to mature. Hopefully things will go much better when we meet again!

As far as I got with the MMK Bedford O. The tipper in the back ground from Roadcraft Models was an easier kit to assemble. I'm confident that the lorry will end up a nice model. I'm not easily defeated!

I have no shortage of other models to build. After a little clearing out and book managing I'll be getting on with track laying on a module.