Packing up (again).

Well bloggers its been a while since Ive made a post on here, As usual theres been plenty going on.

I now find myself packing up another house and moving. This time I hope it will be the last for a while. Myself and the Girlfriend have just purchesed our first house together (her second house) and we have just passed the "handover" stage in the sale of the house we have just baught and are working toward hopfully a early settlement, and moving in.
With the purchase of this new house I now find myself moving out of a small single car garage into a separate double car garage shed in the back yard of the new house that will have the exclusive use for a workshop.

In the 7 months since my last update for you, theres been so much that Ive done out in the shed I dont know where to begin with an update. So ill just post photos to show you.

In January I put the finishing touches on the LCH. It has now been sign written, however im not happy with the results.


Significant progress has also been made with the CV (covered van) bodys. Here we have two assembled bodys ready for fitting to an underframe.

 

Lets not forget the Cattle wagons eather.......

Here is the first cattle wagon with a roof under construction.

In May We attended the Mudgee Blowfly Ralley. For the run I managed to just in time finish the PV and the CW (however the CW still needs final detailing)

The PV and CW just before Mudgee.

Mudgee was a great run. 1248 came away from Mudgee with another award. 1248 was voted most popular Non blowfly locomotive by the people that attended.

The award.

1248 and freight train at Mudgee.

After Mudgee I put the final touches on the CV.

With the month of June comes the annual Hot Pot Run at Wollongong. Every year it is a blast and it is well worth attending. This year was no exception. I didnt take many photos but here is one I did.

So that brings us up to now. In a couple of weeks We will be attending the Birthday run at Grandchester  and the weekend after Track and Tent at Warner (both in QLD for those of you playing at home who dont know).

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!!!
Somewhere Between now and the last update I baught myself another locomotive.

Ive purchesed a almost finished NSWGR 17 class. It came with just about everything needed to complete it. It came with a kit of parts for a boiler but I have since purchesed a complete never fired boiler for it.

Here is the 17 class shortly after delivery.

As well as the CV and CW bodys ive been working on another. Regular readers of my blog may remember I made mention of a scale passenger car.
There has been enough progress I thought I would show you it.
It has taken many months of work but we have finally made some decent progress on our LFX dogbox body. We had to make two patterns for it as the first one wasnt up to scratch.

                              Here is the body shortly after assembly and fitting of the floor.

I made this body for a friend of mine. He and his brother have built a underframe within a couple of hours of taking delivery of the body. They have used a pair of scale NSWGR 2AA bogies they had allready built.

                                                             LFX Body with bogies.

I am very much looking forward to making my own LFX. But ill now have to wait until im in my new shed.

Thats about all for now. Next time I post it will be when we are in our new house.
For those of you who read my blog and have facebook we have a very excellent facebook group going for Live steamers. Check it out and join if you like.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/174843825930887/

Christmas Holidays......

Well tonight ive been flicking across a couple of blogs and ive noticed a common theme.......
Christmas Holidays........ Alot of modelers (myself included) have taken advantage of the time off from work to get some modeling done.
I myself have only just gone back to work in the last two days after a very busy two and a bit weeks (????) off.

Since my last update ive managed to achieve alot out in the shed.
At the begining of November Hare and Forbes held the annual sale. I urgently needed a lathe and having a pocket full of good tax return money I wondered down to Hare and Forbes to purchase my chosen lathe.
When I arrived there was a big red sign on the lathe that read "OUT OF STOCK. Back orders taken."
Ok I thought so I wondered up to the counter and enquired about the lathe, I was told "Yeah thats out of stock we will have stock in 3 weeks we will ring you etc etc etc etc".

So to cut a very looooonnnnng story short the 3 weeks went by and no lathe, 4 weeks went by......... no lathe...... december came and went....... Well you guessed it no lathe....... So yesterday after 9 weeks of waiting the magic phone call came through, "Yes hello Jason my names so and so from hare and forbes your lathe has arrived at our wearhouse"
So this weekend Ill be making the trip down to Sydney to pick it up!!!!!!

So now onto the modeling of the last couple of months.

Well theres no progress to report on the PV explosive van. But there is some other wagon developments happening out in the shed as I type!


The LCH has reached the point where it is allmost finished. About a month or so ago I fitted a set of axlebox's I had in my spare parts to the wagon and just last week I fitted up its couplings. Now the lathe is about to arrive I will be able to complete the LCH by turning up some wheels, fitting a few minor bits and coat of paint and it will be on the rails.

Here I have the LCH frames set up in the drill press, Drilling out the coupler pockets.

Couplers fitted.

Ive also been working on modifying my "new" bum truck for 1248. About 18 months ago I baught 4 wagons off a member of my club. One of the wagons was a scratch built S truck he used once or twise for one of his engines. I found it to be extreamly heavy (i was allmost unable to lift it) and over engineered in the brakes and underneath. Ill go into more detail about the mods on this in a later post but during my time off I fitted a knuckle coupler to one end.

I had to open out the hole in the wagon's head stock to accept the coupler, Then cut up a pocket out of some box section I had in the shed and Weld that onto the back of the headstock.

New coupler.



Over the last two or so months now Ive been working on reviving an old project of Warrick Sandberg's.
Warrick used to sell along side his S trucks a range of bodys to suit the S truck underframe, these being ABV, CV and CW 4 wheel wagons. Warrick used to make these bodys out of some kind of araldite (i think??????) and it was later found that this material doesnt really like keeping its shape out in the sun.

One day myself and Warrick were talking about my up coming wagon projects and he mentioned he had these body's. To cut a long story short I was one day thinking about the wagon bodys and the warping problem, I mentioned to Warrick that I believed making them from Fiberglass would solve all those problems. So Warrick said to me "ok see if you can revive these wagons then".

And its gone from there. I have been making new mold's, Rebuilding patterns and now im starting to make some serious progress in reviving these old favourites.

So as of tonight ive allmost finished rebuilding the Cattle wagon Pattern, This was built onto a chipboard base and had become water damaged.

Here we have the allmost finished CW pattern that for some reasion is upside down (i have no idea how to flip it.... Sorry!!!!)

A cattle wagon end that has come out of a new mold that I made from Warricks pattern.

New ABV/CV end to come out of the new mold I made.

 

ABV/CV sides and ends. I have to make a new mold for these yet.

Shortly all of these will be for sale again. Ill provide details when the time is right. The Cattle wagon will be available first.
Im also working on a scale passenger car. Just tonight I poured new molds for these over the pattern for the end's and part of the sides...... Thats all I will say for now. More info later.

Thats all for now..... Happy Modeling.

More Wagons.......

Wagons, Wagons, Wagons. Thats is where my modeling focus is at the moment.
While im waiting for the call from Hare and forbes to tell me my brand new lathe has arrived, ive been working on various jobs around the shed to get it set up and running.

With the number of wagons I own steadily increasing in numbers, storage of wagons had become a problem.
Until now.
A friend of mine has been moving workshops and on one of the days I was helping him move I was offered some shelving. At first I said no to the offer, But while driving between workshops I came up with a use for this shelving that was on offer to me.

My newly finished wagon storage solution.

The shelves have worked out perfect. With a small amount of additions and modifications to the shelves I now no longer have wagons rolling around on the workshop floor, and the toolbox, box of supplies and the box for the steam engine are all packed away and stored neatly. WIN WIN!

So now to the wagons......
The PV is allmost finished. It now has its first coat of paint and now only needs small jobs to complete it.

 First coat of paint on PV 675.

Also this weekend my brother welded up my LCH for me. I was going to weld it with my newly aquired aluminium welding skills but he wanted to do it.... Who was I going to argue with someone who does it all day????

                                                                        

Welded up LCH.

Tonight I fitted the axlebox's to the LCH. Now Im waiting on the lathe to show up so I can turn the wheels and axles for this.

Im also in the middle of modifing my new bumtruck. But that will be subject of another post.

Thats all for now. Tomorrow im off to Cootamundra for work. There is a 47 class that needs some work done to it.

Another running weekend.

Just last weekend I took 1248 for a run at a mates house in Western Sydney.
I allways look forward to my visits to this track because in my own personal opinion it is one of the best tracks around.
We arrived mid morning and once the engines were unloaded we spent the afternoon running around the track.
This run was the first run for my second S truck that I have been posting about over the last few months. The wagon ran well with no troubles at all. Not even a single derailment.
We all ran from mid morning saturday until the very early hours of Sunday morning.

I didnt take many photos as I was out driving most of the time but I will share a few that i did take.

3805 and 3819 wait for a train in the yard. Unfortunatly they didnt double head.

1248 enjoys a rest in the yard.

A line up of a couple of engines in the yard.

A mate of mine takes 1248 for a run up the hill.

My freight train as it stands at the moment.

5701 undergoing heavy load trials.

Now that this run has been and gone I can now take 1248 off the operational roster. At 35 years of age the poor old thing is starting to become a bit tired. I will also now be decomisioning 1248's driving truck. This has been the engines original driving truck and after reaching 35 years of age, it has reached the end of its useful life and will not be run again.

Today I made the trip over to Hare and Forbes to purchase my lathe. Unfortunatly there was none in stock, once it arrives in a few weeks I will be able to begin working through my full page of repairs and modifications for 1248.

While im here I might as well give a quick update on the PV. Body work has been completed and it is ready to enter the paint shops. However I might just build a new roof for it...... Im not 100% happy with it. We will see what happens.

I have alot of other side projects on the go as well at the moment. There is plenty going on. But they will be subjects of another post some other time.
Thats all for now.

Body Works and the Liverpool train show.

Over the last couple of nights ive managed to complete the body work for the Explosive van.
First I scribed in the lines to represent the doors and the timber work into the plywood sides of the van.

This afternoon after returning to mum and dads place from my trip out to the Liverpool model train show, I managed to glue on the railcraft door hinges and louver van door handles onto the body and now it really is starting to look like an explosive van!

 Body works complete.

PV 675.

Now Ill have to turn my attention to building the roof for it and setting up the running gear.

As I mentioned further up I visited the Liverpool Model Railway show today and as with previous years I attended it was worth the look. Plently of great layouts to see and lots of great things to buy. I had to keep myself from buying the new Austrains pack of a LHO guards van, KP Mail Van and FS pass car. I dont need a smaller scale to model in (however they would look great behind my trainorama 3245!). I was a bit disapointed that Austrains is only selling in 3 packs. Some of us out there only want to buy 1 FS or a guards van etc. 

Thats all for now.

Jason.

PV 675 taking shape.

The PV van is starting to come along nicely now. Since the last post on the van I have managed to get alot done, Here's what Ive done.

A couple of weeks back now I welded the underframe with my MIG welder (after changing the wire and gas). This came about from a discussion with my brother about welding alluminium with my MIG welder and we came to the conclusion that there would only be one way to find out if it would work...... HAVE A GO.
So I did. This was my first time welding aluminium and it wasnt as bad as I thought it would be. Ill have to buy some more S trucks so I can improve my alli welding skills.

Welded up underframe.



After I welded the underframe I then began to work on the body. I cut out the body sheets to size about 2 weeks ago and started to glue it together. Tonight I glued the last of the supports inside the body and that has finished building the body. Now I will have to turn my attention to detailing the body.

Completed Body ready for detailing.

Tonight I have also decided on the number for the PV. A while back I stumbled onto some information on the internet about the PV vans including a list of numbers that a few (maybe it was a complete number list???) PV vans were numbered. Using this list of PV van's I have decided to number mine PV 675.

Thats all for now.

Until next time.......

Name Change.

Just thought I might let everyone know Ive decided to change the name of my blog. Ive been thinking about it over the last week or so that the original name of the blog was a bit long and a mouthfull as well. So now we have The Waratah Railway Workshops.

Over the last 2 weeks or so Ive managed to get a large amount of work done to the PV Explosive Van. Once I return back Home after this weekend and get a little bit more work done on it I will give you all an update on my progress.