What! A Lorry Again?! (1/35)

Well, one could be tempted to think that this blog is slowly changing its primary subject. I can however, assure you that I am not becoming a lorry modeller. Several nice narrow gauge models for Nystrup Gravel are in different stages of construction. Both at my own work bench and abroad.

Inspired by Pete Mesheau from Canada I have begun construction of a Wespe Models' kit of the utterly British looking Fordson 7V. You can see Pete's Fordson in this post - just scroll down, but remember to enjoy the images of his speeder. The Wespe kit is in resin and not one of the best resin kits I have built. I had to replace several parts with parts from my spares box. Removing flash and preparing the parts for assembly took some time as well. But if you fancy a 7V in 1:35 this is the only kit there is, and the main cab part is actually very good.

The very basic instructions for the 7V kit. The parts count is low, so one could probably do without.

The Wespe kit depicts a truck made to tow a semi trailer, so to build a lorry with a standard drop down side cargo bed I had to make some modifications to the chassis. And build a cargo bed from scratch, of course. First I removed the brackets for the semi trailer coupling and made the chassis ready for the new cargo bed. I also had to remove some strange raised areas on the cab front. I think they are meant for markings on the military lorry, but as I'm building a civlian version they are not needed on my model. Info and drawing on a Fordson 7V can be found in issue 92 of the excellent magazine with the long name - Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling Review.

The chassis has received the first modifications while the cab still needs the peculiar raised areas sanded down.

Aligning wheels and drive train took some effort, as there are no clear location points. But with some trial and error I managed to get a chassis that keep all four wheels on the ground. I used Araldite to glue the wheels in place, as the slow curing glue leaves plenty of time for adjusting fit and alignment. An exhaust pipe was added from brass pipe. The kit contains two fuel tanks. I fitted only one, as none of the photos I could locate show more than one tank. As the cab is almost devoid of any interior detail, I added gear lever, hand brake and fire extinguisher from Resicast parts. I am also in the process of building a driver.



Chassis on four wheels ready for a scratch built cargo bed. The major sanding jobs on the cab are done and only minor adjustments to obtain a good fit to the chassis remain The small pencil marks shows me where I still need to sand a little.

Do you still need inspiration for your own building of the Wespe kit the image below should provide all you need. It is from a series of great paintings done by Mike Jeffries. You can see more of his paintings on his website called Transport Artist.

An image that almost makes me feel sorry I wasn't born earlier. This 7V is fitted with a tipping body. The painting shows many of my interests: A long coal train in the background, an excavator and a nice British lorry. Many thanks to Mike Jeffries for letting me show his great work on my blog.



New Skips for Nystrup Gravel (1/35)

Just as 2013 drew to a close the Hesketh and Snoodyk series of skip kits in 1:35 scale were released. I have not yet seen any of the kits built, but hope that Nystrup Gravel will soon take delivery of a number of them. From the images available online the skips looks very promising. With my little railway being a gravel line it relies heavily on skips. So far the skips have been Scale Link skips rebuilt in various degrees and a batch of Slaters Plastikard Hudson skips. From drawings and images the Hesketh and Snoodyk skips will likely be a good representation of the type of skips that has been the dominant type of steel skip on Danish narrow gauge industrial railways.



Painted and weathered skips of both braked and unbraked type. Photo: Hesketh Scale Models.

More info on the skips and prices can be found on the website of Hesketh Scale Models.

Nystrup Gravel's batch of skips will be delivered through the well known Danish dealer of skips, locomotives, rail and spare parts, V. Spøer from the town of Middelfart (and no, the city's name has nothing to do with gas...).

Aerial view of V. Spøer's premises in Middelfart, probably during the 1950's. A few skips can be seen in the centre of the photo, while track panels and rails are stocked on the area to the far right. Cropped part of a Sylvest Jensen photograph (NKS 04382) now residing in the collections of the Royal Danish Library.

I worked a lot with skips in 2012 and below are a few links to earlier blog posts on those activities:
Filling Scale Link skips with gravel
Two skips with brakes
New British skips for Nystrup Gravel

Danish Army Bedford QL (1/35)

During the Christmas holidays I started building a IBG-kit in 1:35 of a Bedford QL-lorry. The build progressed well despite some rather confusing instructions. I had great help from a build log on the military modelling website of Track-Link. The lorry is now finished and has already been out on a few missions around Nystrup - mostly driver training.

The Bedford QL during a pause around Nystrup. The tilt is supplied with the kit and must be one of the best out of the box-tilts made so far. Weathering has been kept to a minimum. The Cold War is on and conscripts are plentiful and the sergeants have to keep them busy - washing down vehicles is an obvious task. But where is the driver on this lorry?. 

I built the kit out of the box. Having had plans for a Bedford QL for many years I had a Resicast conversion for the open cab'ed Italeri Bedford Portee. From the Resicast set I used the seats as they had more detail than the kit's. I also used the Resicast resin wheels as a load to make sure the cargo bed didn't appear completely empty. The tires also hide the fact that the interior of the load area is devoid of any detail. I fitted a little of the missing detail with plastic strips and also added some bolt heads to the most visible part of the interior. The tires were secured to the cargo bed with some wooden balks and rope.


Cargo bed with Resicast wheels. The frame has been primed. In the cab the Resicast seats can be seen.

Cargo bed and tilt painted and ready to be glued together. Notice how the areas farthest away from the rear end of the cargo bed have been left in black primer. In that way the depth of the cargo hold is enhanced. The tires have only been hurriedly weathered.

A view of the cab interior. Not much of this can be seen, so detailing is kept to a minimum. The windows are covered with masking tape.

My QL ready for primer and paint. Fuel tank is from my old Resicast conversion set as is the turning indicator in etched brass on the cab. The yellow resin to the left is parts from the Wespe Models' Fordson 7V semi trailer truck.

The lorry is still missing Danish army license plates. I have sent a message to my usual supplier 'Skilteskoven' (Forest of Signs), and hope they can help. It may seem odd that Danish army license plates were red with a prominent yellow coat of arms (at least from a camouflage point of view) but I'm sure it will add a nice element of colour to the otherwise rather drab military vehicle.

Well, the driver wasn't far away. Here he poses in front of his lorry before he has to make his way back to the camp.

More From the Archives

I am currently in the midst of several modelling projects that seems to drag me into more work than I had anticipated. While that isn't too bad, as I'm sure they will end up being nice models, it can also be somewhat frustrating not finishing anything for some time. I suppose most of you fellow modellers know the feeling?

Fortunately the old Soennecken binder from Nystrup Gravel is able to supply a little content to the blog while you wait for progress from my work bench. This time I publish an image that I'm convinced isn't from Nystrup Gravel. As far as I know Nystrup never owned a loco like the one in the photo and the skips also look a little too large to fit the types used at Nystrup.



Train of skips on an unknown location in Denmark. The loco was built by the Danish company Kastrup Maskinfabrik. The company's logo can be seen on the radiator screening, while the plate with the works number has obviously been stolen, as it normally had its place above the screening. That the loco is missing any lights could indicate that the image is from Nystrup, as very few of Nystrup's locos were fitted with lights. But all known Nystrup locos were numbered, which points to another location. The size of rail (although difficult to see clearly) also suggest that the photo wasn't taken at Nystrup Gravel. Photo: Achive Nystrup Gravel.

One possible source of the image could be from a series of trips the shop manager of Nystrup, Mr. Thorleif Petersen, made to other gravel industries on the Danish island of Sealand. From a few letters in the binder it seems Mr. Petersen had an interest in locomotives and machines that went far beyond what was needed for his job at Nystrup.

Christmas Modelling (1/35)

Besides celebrating Christmas and spending time with the family I've had some time at the work bench. Subjects of the Christmas attention were my Schöma gas generator loco and a Danish army lorry.

I'm preparing the 3D-printed Schöma loco for fitting of the BullAnt I have ordered from Australia. To add strength to the loco's frame I fitted brass bars to the frame's end plates. They also add weight to the loco. More weight will be added later when I have determined how much room the drive unit, decoder and light arrangement takes up.

Like a turtle... The Schöma is having its frame reinforced.

Close up of the operation: the brass bar will provide strength to the frame and prevent the front plate from deforming. I have no experience with 3D-prints' long term stability and I like to be prepared for all eventualities.

The army lorry is an addition to a recovery column I started building a few years ago. So far the column isn't too long, comprising only two vehicles; a CMP with scratch built generator and a Scammell recovery truck.  Most Danish army lorries in the years after the second world war were equipment drawn from the British army's surplus. The lorry I'm building at the moment is a Bedford QL from a IBG kit. Large numbers of this type of lorry came to Denmark after the war. Most were in need of repairs after use in the war, some even had bullet holes in their bodywork. The 1:35 kit assembles with no fuss and I really like to build a kit out of the box now and then.

The chassis of the QL assembled and primed. The cargo bed with a load of spare wheels isn't quite as progressed. The two sitting figures are from Ultracast (figures 35011 and 35036) and very nice. In the fifties the Danish army uniform relied heavily on garments donated by the British army, so WW2 figures in British uniforms only need minor modifications to pass for Danish squaddies. The beret was only introduced into the Danish army in 1958 (in armoured troops) but I really thought it going too far to replace them with forage caps.

I intend to make the recovery column  a little longer in the coming years. Hopefully with two more CMPs to make the column a bit more uniform. Some day, on a stretch of road parallel to the gravel line, you might see the column pause during one of the early Cold War's many manoeuvres in the woods around Nystrup and Skovby.

The Scammell recovery lorry built from an Accurate Armour resin kit in 2008. The Danish army had a few of these imposing vehicles of unmistakably British design. My model still lacks Danish army decals - which are currently being designed.

A Review of 2013 (1/35)

2013 turned out to be almost as productive as 2012. I managed to build a new resin kit of a Jung locomotive. Mostly from the kit's parts but as usual I couldn't resist fitting some scratch built parts, a specially adapted figure and my first custom made etched works plates with the help of Mark Hesketh. One of my older locos was fitted with decoder and new O-rings and could take its place among the serviceable locos at Nystrup Gravel.


The U-Models' Jung ZL 114 with etched works plates on the cab. The image serves as a reminder to me in Denmark that the cold and grey weather I suffer for the moment will give way to spring and summer in three month's time.

I also managed to finish several road vehicles (and a huge off road crawler tractor). Among the road vehicles were Nystrup Gravel's director's Opel Kapitän  and haulage contractor Hansen's Bedford O tipper.

My research in the history of Nystrup Gravel also made progress in 2013. I found a complete binder with papers from the company and quite a few old pictures. Here is one of the company's director's Opel Kapitän about to cross the viaduct over the gravel line.

In 2013 there seemed no end to the support from manufacturers for a modeller like me. A new etched brass O&K MD2 in 1:35 from Hesketh Scale Models and steel sleepered track panels from James Coldicott were very welcome. A surge of 3D-printed locos in 1:35 was suddenly made available on Shapeways. I bought my first and while the quality could be a little better, I was quite satisfied. And last but not least: What would be the release of the year (or the decade, dare I say!) is just about reaching the web shops: continental type skips in 1:35 in etched brass from the 1:35 industrial narrow gauge-alliance Hesketh & Snoodyk. I will now be able to exchange my old skips, first of all my Scale Link, some of which have served Nystrup Gravel since 1999. The Scale Link skips will not be scrapped but kept in reserve. I never throw out anything!

In October this little blog passed 30.000 page views. Just a fortnight later my collection of images on Flickr passed 100.000 view counts and November 2013 was the first month when Nystrup Gravel logged more than 3000 page views in a single month. I don't know if that is a lot in comparison with other related blogs, but I must admit being a little surprised that something so peripheral and downright weird as industrial narrow gauge modelling in 1:35 can attract that kind of interest.

As usual I have spent quite a few weekends at the 700 mm. gauge heritage railway HVB and besides helping explain industrial railways to modern families and preserve history the work also gives great first hand knowledge of what works in reality. An important ingredient in modelling. A few trips abroad provided me with visits to narrow gauge railways.

Surely the weather isn't always supportive of volunteering on HVB, but when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Here the parasol I was holding to protect my friends from the rain has collapsed because of a sudden gust of wind. Working on a 1:1 railway surely is different from sitting at my modelling work bench. Photo: Finn Sørensen.

Despite all other accomplishments at or near Nystrup Gravel, the emergence of a twin to Nystrup's speeder no. 7 surely counts as the year's most notable occurrence. A 1:35 speeder built in Canada that exactly portrayed all features of my own little speeder really surprised me. I was incredibly honoured to see one of my models inspire a fellow modeller to build a model. I'm quite sure it was a once in a life time experience and I must look forward to other things in 2014. New skips, a running gas generator Schöma, a few road vehicles and perhaps the two bogie flats will enter service on my 1:35 version of Nystrup Gravel. The anniversaries of the battles of the Great War will probably lead to some modelling projects in the coming years. I don't expect to run out of inspiration.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Progress (Minor) on Two Bogie Wagons (1/35)

I have been making slow progress on the two Hudson bogie wagons. After having done the four bogies for project from rebuilt Scale Link skips, I started bending some of the etched metal parts while on a small vacation in the summer cottage. Returning from vacation brought a lot of non-modelling demands on my time and other modelling projects even managed to overtake the bogie wagons' place on my worktable. Now it's December and I thought it might be possible to finish the wagons before New Year.



Bending frame/bottom of the wagons. One frame/bottom has been bent up in my little etch bender from Mission Models. A full etch is seen in the top right of the image.

I think I mentioned, that the wagons come without bogies and their associated mountings. After some head scratching I made bogie mountings from scrap brass and nuts to fit my standard M2 bolts. To make life easier I have long time since standardized my use of bolts and nuts for mounting bogies, loco bodies etc. to M2, making sure I'm not in doubt what to do when a nut or bolt is lost. Unfortunately I was one M2 nut short.

My old supplier of small nuts and bolts had closed down so I ordered a nice selection of M2 nuts and bolts from www.modellbauschrauben.de in Germany.


A frame seen from below. Bogie mountings soldered inside the frames. On the other side of the brass piece with a hole in it is a M2 nut to take the bogie mounting bolt.

As a consequence of the missing nut, I decided to concentrate work on one wagon. With the end plates bent up and the associated angles ready to solder in place, it turned out that the angles were too short by several millimetres. Not wanting to worry about who's fault it was (me or the kit designer), I simply soldered the end plates in place. I will fit strengthening angles from brass or plastic profile later.

Being slightly put off by a missing bolt and short angle irons, I put both wagons back into their card board box. I will spend the coming Christmas Holidays doing some preparatory work on my gas generator Schöma and building a Danish army lorry. The wagons will have to wait...