building

Breda LRV - Flywheel

Work continues on my Breda LRV project ...

No train is complete without a motor, and so it is time to motorise my LRV. I've used a chopped up Kato B-train shorty chassis for the power bogie on this train, but the motor it came with wasn't amazing. No flywheel, and pretty high speed. So a quick rummage through my motor bin netted a very long and skinny motor, 6mm high and 8mm wide, and about 20mm long. But it still lacked a flywheel...

Which brings me to my other new toy, a lathe! Xmas was pretty good to me this year, with a very large box under the tree waiting for me. All this came about after I had a brainwave to sell a few unused models and tools, and after a few lucky (for me!) bidding wars on my auctions, I soon had more than enough for a brand new lathe.

Breda LRV - Laser-cut window masks

Work continues on my Breda LRV project after many many months of silence...

After a rather long break from Utrainia I am back and building things again. Perhaps I should explain the gap... first we rebuilt our bathroom, then as Christmas approached I built a garden railway, then I discovered we had a free laser cutter in town, and then I caught the bug and built my own laser cutter.

It's a little rough & ready and needs some fine tuning, however the important thing is, my 2.5W laser cutter is surprisingly useful. I am easily able to cut out cardboard up to 1mm think, and my offcuts of 1.3mm picture framing mat board cut beautifully. I can cut out thin balsa and basswood up to 1.6mm thick, as well as pap...

Ranuska gets a beach!

After months of inactivity on Ranuska, I decided to take a break from bathroom renovations and dedicate a bit of time on a rainy weekend afternoon to finishing off Ranuska. The single largest gap in Ranuska? No sea!

So wasting no time I got stuck in. I dug out my black paint and gave all the deep water areas a good coat of black, with just the tiniest hint of dark blue mixed through. Around the beach I painted the same sand colour (Resene Sandcastle) down onto the ocean area, then feathered it into light blue. Looking at photos from tropical paradises, the water is so clear that the transition from beach to sea barely even changes colour.

Around the rocks I mixed up a thin wash of brown (Resene Sambuka) and muddied up the black around the rocks, then washed the bottom inch of so of the rocks with the brown. Later I did the lower half inch or so of the rocks with a dilute black wash. Being plaster the rocks just suck up the colour and look wonderfully worn and...

The birthday garden shed

It was my birthday earlier this month, which meant a trip down to Christchurch to see family. Naturally the thought of spending a week away from my modelling bench terrifies me, so I stuffed a few bare essentials and some styrene strips into the suitcase, hoping to get a few days modelling in while down there.

Fresh on my mind was a great post about scratchbuilding some delightful OO scale garden sheds from cardboard and paper, and while down in Christchurch I bought some assorted 1960s Model Railroader magazines. While the adverts have aged ("Millionaire's house, $2.49"), the actual articles are still gold. The first magazine I opened had a 10 page E.L.Moore article, full of plans and inspiration. Each issue has a "dollar model" article ideal for scratch building.

Breda LRV - Painting and weights

Work continues on my Breda LRV project...

With the sides made and the chassis mostly done, attention turned to detailing the bodies. I needed some rooftop detail, and since the roofs are what you normally see of model trains, I wanted something reasonably detailed. Knowing I couldn't make anything that detailed from scratch, I turned to my parts box to see what I could scrounge:

The grey bit on the rear shell is a small air conditioning spare part from a US loco. The black bit is a winterisation hatch from another American loco. The smaller cream part is a chopped down casting of a roof top air conditioner from a series 24 Japanese coach, while the two large cream parts are duplicated A/C units from a Japanese Yamanote line train...

Breda LRV - Body, bogies and chassis

I can't remember the reason, but a while back I decided to make a model of a Breda LRV, from the San Francisco Muni light rail network. I rode on one of these when I first visited America, from underground out to the beach. They are an interesting vehicle, running on both underground subway-style lines, and running on the street.

So they have unusual features for a train, like indicators and side mirrors. They also have a high level floor for subway platforms, yet once they emerge into daylight and start running on the street, steps down to street level magically appear inside the doors.