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halfwit's Wondrous Wagons!

A blog by halfwit in RMweb Blogs

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On building up an odd collection of EM wagons...

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Roxey Summers Iron Ore Hopper part 1 - Intro.

I'm about to start work on a Roxey Mouldings John Summers iron ore bogie hopper. These wagons were built between 1952 and 1958 to carry iron ore from Bidston Docks to Shotton steelworks. After steelmaking at Shotton stopped in 1980 some wagons found their way to ICI to replace similar wagons used to convey limestone. Under Summers ownership the hoppers were unbraked, they had to be fitted with vacuum brakes for ICI working. Plate frame bogies were fitted from new, roller bearing axleboxes being

February 19, 2012

7

RT Models Chaldron wagons - part 5.

I've now added the last few etched parts to my rake of Chaldrons. I started with the door catches, these comprise of two small etched plates that are attached to the waggon frames on the opposite side to the brakes. The instructions tell you to just simply glue these in place. As I have 5 of these waggons all of the door catches need to be in the same place on all of the waggons otherwise they will look frankly silly! So I made up a small jig out of a piece of scrap etch... ...which co

February 17, 2012

7

RT Models Chaldron wagons - part 4 brakes.

The brakes are finely etched in nickel silver. This style of Chaldron has all metal brakes, some older designs had the brake gear made entirely from wood. Here is the etch; From top to bottom, left to right: axle washers, brake pivots (above) and door catches (below), main brake etch (2 part lamination), lever guides (+1 spare), horse hooks (+1 spare) and finally the brake lever. All holes were opened out with a tapered broach whilst the parts were still attached to the main etc

February 13, 2012

6

RT Models Chaldron wagons - part 3.

I've now glued the waggon bodies to the chassis. Before I could do this I attached the couplings to the chassis. I wasn't convinced that just glueing the tail onto the chassis would be strong enough when pulled (shear strength?) so first of all I drilled a couple of .45mm holes in the couplings 'tails'. Then the couplings could be epoxied in place. After the glue had dried, I gave it 24 hours, I drilled through the holes into the chassis and then cyano'd a short length of .45mm wire in place, wh

February 9, 2012

4

RT Models Chaldron wagons - part 2 couplings.

Chaldron wagon couplings usually consisted of a forked ended bar fitted with a pin and a chain. The chain was often permamently attached to one end of a wagon only to keep all of the wagons the same way round, so the brakes were always on the same side. There were, of course, exceptions, some were fitted with a crude hook. This of course makes life difficult if you use 3 links and still want an authentic looking useable coupling. The kit comes with cast scale size bars, which gave me an idea...

January 16, 2012

4

RT Models Chaldron wagons - part 1.

Chaldrons (or Chauldron if you prefer) were a very basic and ancient design of wooden coal waggon predominantly used in the North East. They feature bottom doors to be used over coal drops or staithes. The particular style of chaldron that the RT Models kit is based on is of the type used at Londonderry Colliery and at Seaham Harbour. These 4 ton capacity waggons were built in the 1860's and some lasted in use into the 1970's, famously used with Seaham's Lewin and Head Wrightson locos for picki

January 12, 2012

3

Airfix Mineral Wagons - part 2

I've now fitted the solebars and added some hinge detail and body support brackets either side of the doors. The support brackets were made from .015" x .080" styrene strip, radiused on one corner. The strip under the side door is a length of .030" square styrene (as per Geoff Kent's book) and the hinges themselves are cut from .010" x .080" styrene for the baseplate and .030" rod, 1mm long, with a flat filed on the back for the hinge itself. They're not particularly neat but they are a lot be

September 13, 2011

2

Airfix Mineral Wagons - part 1

Inspired by Fen End Pit I'm building four old Airfix mineral wagons using Bill Bedford sprung w-irons. The first job has been to replace the floors with a piece of .040" plasticard 29.5 x 63mm, partly because the original floors are undersize and partly to save me the effort of cutting away the moulded ribs. Axle positions and centre lines were scribed on the floor before the body sides were glued in place; Then I could use these lines to position the w-irons, helped by a Brassmasters

September 9, 2011

6

Skinningrove Steelworks Wagons - part 2.

These three are now finished. Here's a pic of the two mill roll wagons; I first gave all the wagons a coat of red oxide primer from a car aerosol. Then I mixed up some Humbrol Leather and Precision Dirty Black (I used acrylics throughout) to spray them a dark rust colour. The next stage was to give them a light coat of Leather on its own. After leaving the wagons to dry I varnished them, using Precision matt airbrush varnish with a little matt grey mixed in to give a dusty feel. Unfort

July 29, 2011

4

Skinningrove Steelworks Wagons - part 1.

I've started building some RT Models Skinningrove steelworks wagons. The kits are based on open hearth furnace scrap pan cars, used to transport boxes of scrap to the furnaces where the boxes will be mechanically emptied into the furnace. Arthur's excellent Steel Industry Images gallery explains the process better, and also has a photo of a similar wagon. (Thanks Arthur!). Photos of Skinningrove wagons are seemingly rare. There is an image of half a wagon in Bylines vol. 16 issue 8 and a br

July 12, 2011

6

Slag Ladle Wagon - finished.

I've finally finished this one; I didn't use the supplied chain as it didn't fit through the pulleys well enough for my liking (probably my fault fitting them together) so I substituted it for a 110mm length of 27 link per inch North Yard brass chain, suitably blackened. In hindsight 110mm is perhaps a little too long. I attached a single coupling link on each end, from some scale 3-links, which has been glued to the chain hooks on each end. The chain actually looks slightly underscale

June 28, 2011

11

Slag Ladle Wagon - part 6.

Just a quick update on this one. An envelope from RT Models arrived this week with an etch in it to convert the supplied Gibson 6 hole disc wheels to the correct 8 hole flush sided pattern. Here's the etch; And fitted (but not glued); A lovely fit, just needed the boss hole tickling slightly with a broach. I may drill the holes through the wheels although they don't really need it. Now to get on and finish this one.

June 10, 2011

0

Ratio Badger Beer Van

Whilst waiting for some parts to finish the slag ladle I knocked this together. Its an old Ratio pre-printed kit from, I think, the early eighties, found recently on e-bay (thanks to New Puritan for bidding for me whilst I was away). The livery is completely fictional but the van itself is Ratio's rather fine GWR 12T vent van. A couple of pics; Ratio's plastic can be a bit brittle, the tie-bars between the w-irons were broken so I replaced them with .020" x .030" plastic section. I

March 26, 2011

3

Slag Ladle Wagon - part 5.

More work on the weathering. Followings Robert's (RT Models) advice I've sprayed the wagon with a few light coats of Humbrol 62 Leather (thinned with de-ionised water) to hopefully give an unpainted rusty finish. Personally I'm quite pleased with it as some of the dark base colour still shows. I'm unsure whether to add the lime stains, some ladles seem to be stained whilst others aren't. Also to be added are some dark stains around the trunions and springs to represent grease. Opin

March 1, 2011

8

Slag Ladle Wagon - part 4.

I've now started painting. Finding good colour photos of slag ladles is proving a bit difficult, there's a couple in my gallery but its of a preserved example not of a ladle in use. They seem to be dark rust, totally devoid of paint. I started by using red oxide car primer over black to give a rusty base. I've brushed on a mix of Dirty Black and Dark Rust, both from Phoenix Precision's 'Supercrylics' range, to try and replicate the dark rusty look. I'm not too sure about the effect, opinions ple

January 31, 2011

11

Slag Ladle Wagon - part 3.

A bit more work. The chassis and ladle have been primered using car aerosols, red oxide over black. I've drilled out the pulley blocks this morning with a .5mm drill. There are three of these, two for the bottom pulleys an one for the ladle side. The pulleys themselves are turned brass which I've blackened. Here's a pic of a bottom block with the pulley held in place with a drill (I'll fix the pulleys in place towards the end of the build); The spigot on the bottom fits into a hole drilled

January 16, 2011

0

Slag Ladle Wagon - part 2.

Work progresses slowly... The bufferbeams have been attached and the buffers glued in place. The cut-out in the bufferbeam is for the tipping chain to run through, the loops at the end of the chain sit on hooks on the bufferbeam when not in use, these hooks being represented with brass rod glued in place. The top plates are cut from the printed styrene sheet provided, two sets of cutting lines are included depending on whether the wagon is being built to 16.5mm or 18.2/18.83mm gauge. (The fram

January 14, 2011

6

Slag Ladle Wagon - part 1.

RT Models are re-releasing the Clarke Kits range of steelworks wagons. I picked up a couple at Warley, a slag ladle and a mill roll wagon. Slag ladle wagons were used for transporting hot slag (the 'scum' formed when producing steel) from the steelworks to a tipping bank where the slag is dumped and allowed to cool. The wagons are very heavily built and are tipped either by a chain attached to the loco drawhook or by a hydraulic or pneumatic cylinder. For more info see Arthur's gallery. This w

January 2, 2011

0

A Semi-Scratchbuilt Van - part 2.

Well, its finished now except for a final coat of matt varnish. The project has been an interesting one, to me at least, although it might leave some scratching their heads and thinking 'why?'. Some pics; First end fitted; The roof being glued in place; And finished; So what was it all about? Well, after reading relaxinghobby's various threads on card rolling stock I was inspired to seek out some Peco Wonderfull Wagon sides, mainly out of curiosity to see how they compare

December 16, 2010

2

A Semi-Scratchbuilt Van - part 1.

First of all - this is not a 'serious' project, rather a bit of fun between other projects. The van body is made from .040" plasticard and the bufferbeams and solebars from 1.5mm x 4mm strip. W-irons (compensated), axleboxes and buffers (not yet fitted) are MJT, wheels Gibson, brake shoes from a Parkside kit with the safety straps replaced with ones bent from staples, v-hangers and brake levers from a Mainly Trains etch. Some pics; What's it going to be? I'll s

December 11, 2010

2

Parkside Dundas 16T Mineral

These four have been on my workbench for a couple of weeks now. They are the Parkside kit for a BR diagram 1/108 mineral wagon, slightly modified. A pic; I've used MJT rocking w-irons to compensate, perhaps not necessary in EM but I felt like using them; I had a problem with the first wagon that I built this way (on the left in the picture above) in that the w-irons were attached onto the wagon floor and when the solebars were offered up the bearing hole in the axlebox was too

November 23, 2010

8

Intro and converting a Bachmann 14ton tank to EM.

I thought I'd start another blog to cover my wagon building. I don't build many so don't expect regular updates. I prefer to kit build but I do occasionally convert a RTR wagon to EM, RTR wagons being horribly good and difficult to resist. Some of the content of this blog will be pretty basic to a lot of you I'm afraid but hopefully I'll post something of interest at some stage! I'm not a wagon expert or great modeller, if anyone has any constructive criticism I'd be interested to hear it.

November 22, 2010

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