Sunday 22 February 2015

Gas Generator Citroën and Ford Double Cab (1/35)

I'm currently waiting for parts for a loco project. For that reason most of what I model just now isn't on flanged steel wheels, but on rubber tires. Besides having finished my gas generator Citroën I'm building an unusual lorry.  I have begun working on the double cab Ford belonging to haulage contractor Hansen. Last summer I bought some resin parts from Brazil and they are now being united with a converted chassis from the ICM-kit of a Ford T917G.

The Citroën ready to receive the upper body. Painted Nemrod-figure and home made sack for fire wood on the back seat glued in place. Meanwhile the Ford lorry is having its Brazilian cab test fitted in the back ground.

After assembling the gas generator with AC-glue it was painted medium grey and given a wash with heavily diluted brown oil paint. That served as foundation for the rest of the weathering. Due to unclear instructions I'm not sure I mounted the gas generator the proper way on the car's rear end. I couldn't find any useful info on this particular type of gas generator in my books or online.

The Citroën painted glossy black with chrome radiator grill and white visibility mud guards.

After fitting the gas generator only the lengthened gas pipe to the engine needs to be fitted before windows are fitted and the model finished.
A snap shot of the finished car. With white mud guards, gas generator but head lights without black out covers the car dates to immediately after the German occupation of Denmark. As such a little out of the time frame I normally model.

Not all roads around Nystrup had a hard surface, so I gave the car some dust on the lower sides and wheels.
A view of the rear mounted gas generator and lengthy gas pipe to the engine. I now have a narrow gauge loco, a tractor and a car mounted with gas generator. It could be fun having a lorry with a gas generator, too.

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Fuel Transport to the Pits (1/35)

In the days before the Gauge 1 exhibition I built a little load for one of my old wooden flat wagons. They are some of the earliest 1:35 scale wagons I built. Nystrup Gravel had two and used them for many different tasks. An archive photo shows one of them loaded with cast iron stoves. On a second image one of the wagons (they were unnumbered, so it's difficult to know which one) is loaded with jerry cans with fuel for the machines in the gravel pits. The cans were loaded in a large low-sided open wooden crate covered with a tarpulin.

Morning train with fuel for the gravel pit machinery. The first rays of the sun are hitting the wood behind the cutting.
I built the crate from plasticard and plastic strip filling it with jerry cans from several sources. I was careful when placing them in the crate, as I wanted only one type of can to show where the tarpulin had been rolled away. The tarpulin was made from thin copper foil cut to fit and modelled over the loaded crate. Easier than rolling out a thin piece of Milliput and using it as a tarpulin and less messy than using a piece of paper towel and thinned white glue.

A view down on the jerry can box.

The load is painted in somewhat bizarre colours; the crate being sligthly pink and the tarpulin light tan. A splash of colour is refreshing among the dark, dusty and rusting skips normally rolling over the tracks at Nystrup Gravel. A nice, quick project!

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Chubby Driver with Funny Hat (1/35)

A great advantage of modelling in 1:35 is the good quality figures on the market. Even though the majority are military figures some of them can be rebuilt into civilians. The number of true civilian figures in 1:35  is steadily rising, though. A marked contrast between the new railway modelling scale of 1:35 and the traditional of 1:32 is in fact the detailed figures in 1:35 scale. Most of the figures I have seen available in 1:32 looks like toys and not miniature versions of humans compared to the figures in 1:35.

Recently I found a new colourful figure from the Czech company SKP Models which I thought would fit in well on Nystrup Gravel as a lorry or loco driver.

A new driver for a loco at Nystrup Gravel.

Assembled but unpainted figure. Photo from Jadar Hobby's website.
While I think the figure is meant to be from more recent times than the 1950's, I think it will be a believable character on the Nystrup scene. The figure is available directly from SKP-Models, but I bought mine from Jadar Hobby in Poland as I was having a package sent up north anyway.