Tricky's Workbench

[Tricky]

Hi all and welcome to my new thread.

You may recall I started a few blogs a while ago but thought rather than ping off with all manner of individual blogs, just have one workbench thread where an attempt will be made to keep all this stuff under control. It will also encourage me to finish a few projects as mentioned in the said blogs. I do find it helps immensely to focus the mind when posting on here.

 

All being well tomorrow I will be able to get back in the train shed for a bit as I am off work recuperating after having had an op. So gentle pottering is the order of the day.

 

More annon.

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Tricky

[Tricky]

Might not be as easy as I thought to even just potter today - have to take the stairs one at a time and that leaves me needing to sit down and catch my breath. Feels like my lungs just can't breathe deep enough. Still, my mind is active on what I will do once enough strength returns. Then I'll be able to get this thread going with some of its intended content...!

[The Bigbee Line]

Might not be as easy as I thought to even just potter today - have to take the stairs one at a time and that leaves me needing to sit down and catch my breath. Feels like my lungs just can't breathe deep enough. Still, my mind is active on what I will do once enough strength returns. Then I'll be able to get this thread going with some of its intended content...!

Take it easy..  In 2010 I spent a week in intensive care.  was off work for months, modelling was to taxing mentally and physically for some time..

 

But it is good for the soul.  Share some pictures...

 

Regards

 

Ernie

[Tricky]

Take it easy..  In 2010 I spent a week in intensive care.  was off work for months, modelling was to taxing mentally and physically for some time..

 

But it is good for the soul.  Share some pictures...

 

Regards

 

Ernie

Thanks Ernie, my head says get on with it, my body says not yet!!

 

What pictures would you like? Only keyhole so just 3 plasters, or were you meaning something else...?!

 

Richard

[The Bigbee Line]

Thanks Ernie, my head says get on with it, my body says not yet!!

 

What pictures would you like? Only keyhole so just 3 plasters, or were you meaning something else...?!

 

Richard

We could play the my scar is bigger that your scar, but mines the equivalent of 4 aces....  No pictures of wagons please....

[Tricky]

Ok then...

 

By way of a re-cap on the drop-side 3 plank, the idea is to take the standard Slaters kit and adapt it so that at least one side will be able to hinge and drop but still be able to be fixed in the raised position. The experimental candidate was kindly provided by a well-known auction website and was I would say of average build quality. So nothing too tragic if it ends up consigned to the R&D department.

A start was made to saw off the side with a razor saw and clean up the cut ends to represent the ends of the planks. My idea then was to make 4 hinge knuckles on pins. The pins insert into holes drilled up into the side. This first photo shows the knuckles being cleaned up in the vice.

 

Next, the knuckles where glued up into their holes and kept in line with a length of wire.

 

The tricky bit now is to make 8 hinge pins which get glued into corresponding holes in the solebar.

 

This last shot shows it all fitted together but somehow ended up with quite a large gap between side and solebar. I think it will need filling with a thin strip of styrene. Conveniently though there is enough friction in the hinges to keep the side either up or down on its own.

 

Next up will be to fabricate a representation of the catches and chains, together with refined details below solebar. I also fancy having a go with Slaters individually sprung axleboxes. Having previously stated that I didn't think it made any difference if a 7mm wagon was rigid, compensated or sprung, I think I am going to retract that rash statement! I think I am now forming the opinion that rigid or compensated both have a lurching motion whereas individual springing has got to be smoother in theory. If I get on well with this wagon, it would be a nice idea to roll out a program of upgrading the other stock. Not a massive task as I think at the moment this runs to about 15 in total - well, maybe not all of them then...

[Tricky]

 

One thing occurs to me, is that I am going to need to apply accurate and convincing internal detail. I must confess my knowledge is scant: I could probably guess but would like to know if anyone can steer me in the right direction? Prototype photos seem as rare as hen's teeth.

Come to think of it, I do have a Midland drawing of 8 ton drop sides but they tend to be so full of lines and difficult to interpret.

[Compound2632]

Is this D305 one of the ones built to Drawing 213 in the 1880s or Drawing 1143 from 1897 onwards? Drawing 213 shows the slope-ended headstocks acting as door stops, like the wooden-brakeblocked pre-Lot Book wagons; Drawing 1143 shows the standard square-ended headstocks with door bangers on the sides.

 

I think the Midland Railway Study Centre copy of Drawing 213 I linked to is pretty clear about the interior ironwork - rather sparse. Washer plates for the drop-sides. the outside hinges being the structural element, and also washer plates for the bolts through from the wooden end pillars and iron knees, together with a transverse bit that sticks out to for the catch for the dropsides. I agree the later Drawing 1143 is a bit harder to follow but I think it shows the same ironwork.

 

Here's one with its dropside down between two with their sides up. I think the first two sheeted wagons are D305 as well. From the date (1885) they'll be to Drawing 213 or possibly its precursor. I doubt they'd be allowed to move with the dropside down out on the main line.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Compound2632

[Tricky]

Is this D305 one of the ones built to Drawing 213 in the 1880s or Drawing 1143 from 1897 onwards? Drawing 213 shows the slope-ended headstocks acting as door stops, like the wooden-brakeblocked pre-Lot Book wagons; Drawing 1143 shows the standard square-ended headstocks with door bangers on the sides.

 

I think the Midland Railway Study Centre copy of Drawing 213 I linked to is pretty clear about the interior ironwork - rather sparse. Washer plates for the drop-sides. the outside hinges being the structural element, and also washer plates for the bolts through from the wooden end pillars and iron knees, together with a transverse bit that sticks out to for the catch for the dropsides. I agree the later Drawing 1143 is a bit harder to follow but I think it shows the same ironwork.

 

Here's one with its dropside down between two with their sides up. I think the first two sheeted wagons are D305 as well. From the date (1885) they'll be to Drawing 213 or possibly its precursor. I doubt they'd be allowed to move with the dropside down out on the main line.

I was hoping you would come to the rescue Compound! I don't know what the drawing number is that I have, or indeed what the Slaters kit is meant to represent. They are both in the train shed so can't get to them at the moment.

[Tricky]

I also found this photo:

 

 

 

So would the strapping bolts just be a nut and washer on the inside?

 

Sorry, can't rotate it on an iPhone!

[Tricky]

I also found this photo:

 

So would the strapping bolts just be a nut and washer on the inside?

 

Sorry, can't rotate it on an iPhone!

 

 

Edited November 10, 2017 by Tricky

[Tricky]

[Tricky]

....lots of probs posting with the iPhone it would seem...

[BG John]

[Compound2632]

That's a good close-up! I think this is one to the earlier drawing 213 - it's a very good view of the extended headstock with angled end to act as door-stop. As far as I can tell the only significant difference between the two drawings is that the later drawing 1143 has the standard square-ended headstock and a block screwed to the dropside to act as a stop. If the Slaters 7mm kit is like the 4mm one, then it has the standard headstock per drawing 1143 but lacks the doorstop - I described how I added my own here.

 

On the inside, rather than an individual washer for each bolt, there's a strip of iron 2" wide by 1/4" thick as a washer plate. Click on the link in my earlier post to see the drawing, which is much clearer than my explanation. (Your antivirus software may try to tell you that www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk is a dangerous, virus-ridden site, which it isn't.)

 

This photo also gives the best view I've seen of the flap covering the axlebox of a ballast wagon, though I still can't quite make out how it's fixed.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Compound2632

[Tricky]

That's a good close-up! I think this is one to the earlier drawing 213 - it's a very good view of the extended headstock with angled end to act as door-stop. As far as I can tell the only significant difference between the two drawings is that the later drawing 1143 has the standard square-ended headstock and a block screwed to the dropside to act as a stop. If the Slaters 7mm kit is like the 4mm one, then it has the standard headstock per drawing 1143 but lacks the doorstop - I described how I added my own here.

 

On the inside, rather than an individual washer for each bolt, there's a strip of iron 2" wide by 1/4" thick as a washer plate. Click on the link in my earlier post to see the drawing, which is much clearer than my explanation. (Your antivirus software may try to tell you that www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk is a dangerous, virus-ridden site, which it isn't.)

 

This photo also gives the best view I've seen of the flap covering the axlebox of a ballast wagon, though I still can't quite make out how it's fixed.

This is my rendition on an ED wagon of the stop block which you've very helpfully identified as being from one of the earlier batches. As far as I could tell the canvas guard tucked under the solebar between the spring anchor points but actual fixing is impossible to know. The close-up photo above seems to suggest some sort of reinforcement along the top edge.

I think this version (which won't be ED as I've got 3 already) will be the later drawing and I'll increase the ends of the headstocks to produce the sloping ends.

Thanks for the clarification about the washer straps. I think I knew that really, don't know why I thought there would ever be individual washers! Blame lack of sleep....

 

Edited November 11, 2017 by Tricky

[Western Star]

I also found this photo:

 

IMG_3384.JPG

RMWeb says that I cannot open what is not there...

Edited November 11, 2017 by Western Star

[Tricky]

RMWeb says that I cannot open what is not there...

'Twas the picture in post 14.

[Compound2632]

This is my rendition on an ED wagon of the stop block which you've very helpfully identified as being from one of the earlier batches.

 

Beautiful. The ones with the stop-blocks on the ends of the dropsides like your model are to the later Drawing 1143. I have too many like that - there were only 1,500 built to this drawing by my 1902/3 target date against 4,750 to the earlier Drawing 213 - all built 1877-1887, there being a ten-year gap after this when no more dropside wagons were built. In 1894, there were still 15,749 even older low-sided wagons in use, many (all? most?) of which were of basically the same design but with more primitive wooden brake blocks. Certainly some of these were being used as ballast wagons in the 1890s; the open question is whether any of the Drawing 1143 wagons would have been being assigned to the Engineering Department by c. 1907, when the 1,500 were about ten years old but a further 3,600 had been built 1905-7. Please excuse my pedantry on these dropside wagons - I recently went over the published information on them when Lecorbusier was asking about ballast wagons. (Note that in my post of last year on my model of one of these I didn't have the facts straight - I had failed to realise that the Drawing 213 wagons had the sloped headstocks.)

[Tricky]

Beautiful. The ones with the stop-blocks on the ends of the dropsides like your model are to the later Drawing 1143. I have too many like that - there were only 1,500 built to this drawing by my 1902/3 target date against 4,750 to the earlier Drawing 213 - all built 1877-1887, there being a ten-year gap after this when no more dropside wagons were built. In 1894, there were still 15,749 even older low-sided wagons in use, many (all? most?) of which were of basically the same design but with more primitive wooden brake blocks. Certainly some of these were being used as ballast wagons in the 1890s; the open question is whether any of the Drawing 1143 wagons would have been being assigned to the Engineering Department by c. 1907, when the 1,500 were about ten years old but a further 3,600 had been built 1905-7. Please excuse my pedantry on these dropside wagons - I recently went over the published information on them when Lecorbusier was asking about ballast wagons. (Note that in my post of last year on my model of one of these I didn't have the facts straight - I had failed to realise that the Drawing 213 wagons had the sloped headstocks.)

When I said earlier, I meant later...! I'm easily confused.

[Tricky]

Beautiful. The ones with the stop-blocks on the ends of the dropsides like your model are to the later Drawing 1143. I have too many like that - there were only 1,500 built to this drawing by my 1902/3 target date against 4,750 to the earlier Drawing 213 - all built 1877-1887, there being a ten-year gap after this when no more dropside wagons were built. In 1894, there were still 15,749 even older low-sided wagons in use, many (all? most?) of which were of basically the same design but with more primitive wooden brake blocks. Certainly some of these were being used as ballast wagons in the 1890s; the open question is whether any of the Drawing 1143 wagons would have been being assigned to the Engineering Department by c. 1907, when the 1,500 were about ten years old but a further 3,600 had been built 1905-7. Please excuse my pedantry on these dropside wagons - I recently went over the published information on them when Lecorbusier was asking about ballast wagons. (Note that in my post of last year on my model of one of these I didn't have the facts straight - I had failed to realise that the Drawing 213 wagons had the sloped headstocks.)

Looking back through your thread, thought you might like this:-

[Compound2632]

Looking back through your thread, thought you might like this:-IMG_1554.JPG

 

Of course! After being posed for the "how to load your wagon" series, it went straight back into traffic without the description of the load being rubbed off - just as would happen!

[Tricky]

Small steps today on the 3-plank. I've added a secondary floor on top of the original one to close the gap under the dropside. Also added some internal strapping which needs tidying up. Next will be ordering the sprung w-irons and attending to re-building the brake gear and other detail bits and

[Tricky]

I have three 3 plank opens currently in Midland ED livery which you may have seen on some Midland in Bristol photos on here. I am considering removing the rigid w-irons and converting to individually sprung ones. Also re-painting to grey goods livery to help with a lack of rolling stock on Bristol.

Does anyone have experience of fitting said sprung w-irons and if so, whose would you go for?

Cheers

[Western Star]

I have three 3 plank opens ... I am considering removing the rigid w-irons and converting to individually sprung ones.

 

Does anyone have experience of fitting said sprung w-irons and if so, whose would you go for?

Exactoscale etched nickel silver underframe.... individual sprung axleboxes...  option for etched brake gear...

 

Worth the effort, wagons using these parts just glide through crossings.

 

There are several types of underframe, the D305 needs 9'0" wb for 12" wood solebar.