Been a bit naughty

On Thursday I received my usually email of items on sale at Mwave, a computer online and street front store. Now this time mixed in amongst the items was a Sony NEX 5N 16.1 MP DLSR camera. Now this camera has a small body and two lenses, a 16mm and a 18-55mm and is reasonably suitable for placing into a model scene. Anyway, on Friday morning I went to work to find that my boss had gone to Melbourne so a quick search of the web was done. I found the camera at a shop I had previously used for $200 cheaper ($739) so after a couple of hours of soul searching I buckled, a quick trip and the deed was done.
Anyway, here are a few pictures I took last night.

4823 on goods in the loop at Bylong

4908 and goods on the main at Wollar

And again

3390 on the turntable at Wollar loco depot

The 18-55mm lense has f22 - f32 (f32 at zoom) these three photos were done at f32 which took 30 seconds to expose. I also found it necessary to adust the exposure compensation to get more light. Some contrast and brightness, a bit of sharpening and temperature adjustment was done in my photo program for the final results.
You might notice the Ampol tanker from SDS, this has been modified from the 1970's small Ampol lettered version by removing the 80kph sign and carefully spraying the grey areas around the tank domes black. Here is a photo of a very clean one with 1970 test date, no 80kph sign and areas around the tank domes that appear black not grey. Note that there is no 50mph sign either so the 50mph sign must have been after this photo but before the 80kph, sign appeared sometime later in the 1970's.

Well, I have to go now, I am supposed to be in the garden mowing and planting some new plants.

CW - Not so 'quick and dirty' now

The taller gap of the 'window' area of the Camco CW was distracting, making the CW taller and caused it to stand out amongst the Austrains CWs so it had to be sorted.

I did what I proposed in my last post and cut the top plate of the wagon side out and lowered it to match the Austrains CW. This resulted in the loss of the steel brackets of the internal angled braces but I think it was worth it. If the shortening was done at the bottom of the'window' by trimming the vertical frame'studs' and the angled braces the top brackets would have been saved and it could have looked better.

It's funny how we sometimes see a better way after we have completed something but then too much planning can lead to procrastination.

I used the Austrains CW roof as a template to mark the wagon ends to the correct end profile. The Austrains roof was held in place against the tops of the steel plates on the wagon end and the roof line was scribed with a hobby knife point. Almost 1mm was removed from the top of the end to match the profile, I used a pair of sharp transistor nippers to remove the bulk of the plastic then filed it smooth.

Here are the two CWs, much better.

One day I will replace the handbrake and bracket of the S truck underframe with something more suitable.

A bit of fun with a Camco CW

It has been a long time between drinks as they say (see Craig's Shed blog). It has been a month since I last posted and life has been interesting to say the least. I recently found out that I have a prostate cancer issue. Now this is the lowest grade you can have but never the less I will be having the full treatment (operation later in November is likely). The Doc said I could leave it for up to 10 years however I had lymphoma 10 years ago and it was 5 years before I could relax and safely conclude that it was gone. I have had some full body and bone scans and there is nothing else lurking as a primary or secondary cancer which is good. I am having the operation as I don't want to waiting around watching my PSA level rise and having a prostate biopsy every year - one biopsy was enough!

Anyway, back to the subject line.

I picked up some Austrains GSVs at the Liverpool exhibition and received the replacement pack of correct roofs. Now this left me with some spare CW roofs so I had a look at what wagons I could use them on.
I found that they would probably fit on a Bergs CV but the roof for that one was firmly glued on (see earlier blog of CV as storage shed at Wollar loco depot).
The next wagon I checked was a lone Camco CW that was going to go off the layout now that the Austrains CWs had arrived. The roof of the Camco CW came off easily and the Austrains roof just clipped on as nice as you like. Another reason to replace this roof is that the roof supplied with the Camco CW kit is actually a GSV roof, just the opposite from the current Austrains GSV roof issue.
Well, I thought this modification/rebuild might be fun.
The underframe on the Camco CW was lacking in detail and the solebar was very 'tall' so I decided to fit another S truck underframe to the CW (I refer you back to a previous post in which I fitted a Camco GSV with an Austrains S truck underframe).
Here is a photo of a Protype CW, the Camco CW and an Austrains CW for comparison. I think the Protype CW may be a candidate for an Austrains S truck underframe as well but unfortunately the body is about 1mm longer than the Austrains CW roof but that roof has to go.

Here is a picture of the Camco CW and other 'parts' ready to be glued/screwed together. Note the end of the floor at the right has been modified to allow the floor to drop into the body to reduce the overall height. The left hand end has yet to be modified. About 1mm of the 'floor' is removed down to the 'frame sections either side of the coupler mounting area. The two frame projections sit on the step on the inside end of the body. Study the photo and you will understand what I mean.

And here are a couple of photos of the modified Camco CW with an Austrains CW for comparison.

The Camco CW is a different version and while not up to the quality of the Austrains CW it does still look reasonable so I think it might just stay on the layout. It turned out slightly taller than the Austrains version and it appears from the photo that the top plate of the body side frame is set slightly high. If the top plate was removed and lowered by its own thickness then that would resolve the problem. I should also point out that I could have fitted the new roof to the ends and sides a bit better by filing the end profile of the CW to match the new roof curvature. I think that I might do that as the higher roof line makes it stand out and the intent is to have the CW fit with the Austrains ones.

Anyway, there it is, a quick and dirty improvement.