Thomas Modeller - Message Board.

I am in the process of building a message board soley for Thomas Modellers around the world, the board will have strict guidelines as to what contents can be posted, and registration will be limited, meaning that only 5 to 6 people can register each week, this is being done due to my experience with these forums, so don't be suprised if your account is not accepted.
However, the Thomas Modeller will be screening all new members before they have their accounts activiated to ensure that they are between the ages of 14 and over, under 13's will need to ask permission from their Parent/Guardians before they can acess the board.

The board at current is still in the building stages, so a link will not be posted just yet, and unlike the other message boards i created in my time, this one is going to be set to private and it won't be open to guests, so you will need to register an account in order to start viewing the boards.
I have not yet given an estimated date for the boards opening, so it will be left a while till such time as i can post the link here.

0-8-0 Crane Engine - Next New WIP in OO

Recently, i have come across some interesting pictures of what appears to be a Narrow Gauge Crane Locomotive, i model quite abit of 009 stuff, and figured i could make this NG crane engine into a Standard Gauge locomotive. The design of this engine is not like our other British Built locomotives, this engine appears to be based on an American design, which is good as there appears to be a sever lack of Sodor engines from other regions, and although a debate has already started about Hank and Hiro being too large for our UK loading gauge on other 'Forums', i personally don't see any real issue with locomotives from other regions of the world running on a fictional railway.

So, this project is to commence later in the week and will be made once again, using my most favourite of all materials, plasticard and an 8F Hornby chassis.

Flora the Steam Tram - OO Gauge!

Flora the Steam Tram has been a project that was started last year after the Twelfth Series had aired completely on Channel 5s' 'Milkshake' mornings, originally, i had originally planned to use the Hornby Toby body and re-model it, but, this proved to be quite complicated. So, as always ,my method for making Flora was to use plasticard to build the body and using a Hornby Toby chassis as the donor for this model.

The body was drawn onto the plasticard using a permanent marker, i used the Toby body as a base to draw the cabsides, front and rear facing ends. The plasticard ws then cut out and stcuk together. To make the body more sturdy, i cut extra side-walls and stcuk them to the inner sides of the main body, this has helped to make Flora extra sturdy on the rails.

The main problem was cutting out the little windows to make Flora's cab 'see-through', but the windows came out horribly, so i decided to print out some computer drawn windows and glue them onto some rectangle cut plasticard strips. These have come out better than the other windows, so once this was done, i then went on to re-prime the model as the colour before, was too dull in the sunlight.

After being left overnight to dry completely, i then bought some Humbrol 'Insignia Yellow' paint and masked off the lower half of the model all the way around, i did this as the model is painted yellow and red, (Yellow for the top half and Red for the bottom half). I painted two coats of Insignia Yellow onto the model and let each coat set thoroughly, before masking off the top half and painting the bottom half in Humbrol 'Scralet Red'. Once all the paint had dried, i bought some HMRS Green lining and lined the cabsides before adding Flora's nameplates.

The cab roof was them painted in a second coat of grey and left to dry, before the funnel was then painted in Humbrol 'Satin Black'. The 'Sodor Tramways' headboards were made using two more rectangle plasticard strips, with the banners being made on the computer and printed off before being cut and glued onto the plasticard. These were then gently placed onto the sides of the cab roof and glued into position, i used Romfords 'Screw-link' couplings on the front and rear of the model and the face mould comes from a Trackmaster Flora model, which i will be using to make some new moulds in plaster and latex later in the week.

Images Copyright © Daniel Snell

Flora the Steam Tram - Almost Complete!

It's been a while since i last posted about Flora, she was put on hold due to a chassis problem, which has now been sorted and runs perfectly. The model itself like most of my other scratchbuilds, is another plasticard model with computer printed features.

The bodywork has been re-primed and the first coat of yellow has been re-applied, the only parts of the model left to do are the lower runningboard, cowcatchers, lining and the cab roof, pics will be posted over the weekend of the completed project, which also uses a Trackmaster Flora face mould.