What's Been Going On - All caught up

The last thing going right now is a project for ReaperCon. Not sure I can pull it off at this point, time is pretty short but I'm going to give it a shot. This is a little vignette from Scale 75 called Charing Cross 1940, Alice and Johnny. I reviewed this box of parts a couple of years ago and I'm just now getting around to putting it together.

I have cleaned up the parts and put together everything that I can before priming. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what carriage Johnny is leaning out of and it mostly resembles a 100 seater. These were built by South Eastern & Chatham Railway (SECR) in 1923 and were in main line service up until 1961. SECR was merged into the Southern Railway so the red livery is not right, actually it was never right it should be an olive green (although I certainly wouldn't say olive based on what I have seen in photos). I'm not sure I can match the rather odd pattern on the bench so that may just be painted in a solid color.

I modified things a little bit to closer match the actual carriage. I filed off all the big bolts on the inside and I'm still debating if I should include the brake system which I don't see on any of the surviving carriages. I'm definitely dropping the lamp which certainly doesn't show up on a carriage.

Anyway enthusiasm is slowly returning so hopefully things on the blog will get back up to speed.

Alice and Johnny (Charing Cross 1940) By Scale 75

Time seems to be a rare commodity these days. Spring has threatened to come early here and we have been trying to take advantage of that and get our yard and patio area ready for summer. Here in Colorado its typically not safe to put in the garden until after Mother's Day and its safer to wait for Memorial Day. Just depends on how much you like to plant everything twice.

I started messing around with this kit from Scale 75 about a month ago and its been slowly coming together. There are a couple of areas that are being contentious because the fit wasn't quite right, but nothing that couldn't be overcome. I did remove all the massive bolt detail on the interior side though. Unfortunately I waited until I had done some assembly work...oops. The sub assemblies are just about ready for painting now. Here's a little look at the work so far.

Note the large bolts on the ends of the interior wood panels.

The casting is a little rough under the seat. Odds are it won't be noticed but I'll fix it anyway.

The side doesn't sit square to the floor. Higher on the right, exposing the edge.

Fixed it here, the "pins" that hold it in place needed to be filed down to allow the side to fit correctly.

Floor, end and side walls glued together. Leaving off some of the more delicate components at this point.

Sub Assemblies so far. The truck is not fastened to the base at this point. Otherwise I can't paint the base completely so what looks like one assembly (upper right) is actually two. The roof does not fit correctly so I'll add that after everything has been painted but before I finish weathering. Johnny's left arm is at a pretty awkward angle. I considered assembling him in place but that would have made painting really difficult.

Still in the box; Alice (in three parts), plus various detail parts both inside and outside the train carriage.

Scale 75 - Alice & Johnny (Charing Cross 1940) - A closer look

While I contemplate how to approach rebuilding the Captain's Cabin on Sophie's Revenge, I decided to take a closer look the "Charing Cross 1940" vignette from Scale 75.

This vignette is built in 1/35th scale and while I haven't run a ruler across the parts (and probably won't) everything at least feels proportionately right. My goal was to dry fit everything and get a feel for how its going to go together and how I can approach the painting. This will be the first vignette that I have worked on were I didn't have to figure out the story, its pretty self evident in this case. I am contemplating adding one or two more figures to add a little more context but I can put that off for now.

I have broken it down into sub-assemblies and I should be able to paint each sub-assembly completely before the final assembly.

1st Sub-Assembly: Tracks and under carriage. All of this lies below the level of the platform and is definitely going to need all of the painting done or almost done before I can even put this assembly together. The gap between the passenger truck and the platform wall is to thin to get a paintbrush in there, so that base platform piece and most of the rest of the pieces will need to be painted before this can go together. There are a fair number of fiddly bits that go down into this and some of them have curved and will need to be straightened.

These are three major pieces for this sub assembly. the platform, the passenger truck and a single wheel. The platform could use a couple of more ties, there is only one and you should be able to see at least two more and maybe even a third. I don't think it would be to difficult to add those and it would give a little more to look at.

The passenger truck has a locating pin to attach it to the side of the platform. The clearance is tight.

Then the wheel attaches to the truck with another locater pin. The odd extension on the top of the wheel is the locator pin for the base of the passenger compartment. It all fits really tight. There are a couple of more detail pieces that go here and the backside of the passenger truck could do with some more detailing.

Here is a look from the platform side. Looks pretty good, almost all the painting will need to be finished on the passenger truck and the bottom of the platform before I can actually put them together.

2nd Sub-Assembly: Passenger Compartment. This bit is more straight forward and I should be able to build the entire piece before needing to paint any of it.

Here are the four major pieces of the passenger compartment

A quick dry fitting, there are going to be a couple of gaps that will need filling and there is definitely a bit of clean up work required. Again there are some extra fiddly bits to go in here as well.

A look with the roof in place. The edges of the bottom of the passenger compartment definitely need some cleanup, but I should be able to assemble and then paint the whole thing. I might leave off the roof and attach it last.

3rd Sub-Assembly: Alice & Johnny. This one is pretty straight forward as well. Both figures can be completely assembled and painted and then added to the compartment.

Alice only needs to have one leg and her head attached. Johnny needs a bit more work with a torso and two arms to put together.

4th Sub-Assembly: Misc Pieces. The two extra bits that come along are a rifle and an odd bag. The rifle is pretty straight forward, however, the bag will probably be discarded. It looks a lot more like a bag to hold knitting in than a soldiers hold-all. I'll peruse the 1/35th scale aftermarket scene to see what kind of extras bits I can come up with. Otherwise its going to look pretty barren on the inside of the compartment. The same is true for the scene outside the compartment, one or two more figures would not be amiss to give a sense of urgency to the scene.

After a little dry fitting and closer examination I'm still quite impressed with the quality of this kit. It should be pretty easy to clean up and assembly. The only thing that seems to be missing is a spot for the lamp that goes on the end of the under carriage. Getting it into position shouldn't be a problem and quite frankly I'm not sure it should be there. A little research on WWII Era British passenger coaches is now in order!

Trains and miniatures how can you go wrong?