This diagram P4 ballast wagon was an eBay purchase, cheaply bought as a 'fixer-upper'. It's built from the PECO (ex Websters) kit, and the original builder had made a reasonable job of construction. The paint finish wasn't great, with a fair amount of dust in it, and the brake gear was smashed:

 

 

The first job was a good clean up, and remove the broken brake gear and couplings - the buffer rams had to stay in place, as the retaining parts on the rear of the rams were very firmly glued on. I scraped the paint back on the main panels, but decided a full paint strip wasn't needed. The wheels needed changing for S7 ones - with these kits, they will spring out of the axleguards, though you have to bend them quite a long way so it is a bit nerve-racking.

 

 

With the destruction complete, it was on to rebuilding and detailing. For me, the things that give the wagon its character are:

• the riveted body platework, which the kit does very nicely
• the door retaining pins with their chains, which are rather anaemic on the kit
• the large wooden door bangers
• the axle guard covers, which the kit omits - more on those later.

 

I did the new door securing pins and chains as follows:

 

1. I took a length of 5A fuse wire and folded it round the shank of a suitable sized drill (the diameter the ring needs to be). The ends were secured in a pin vice and twisted to form the chain, with the wire still around the drill. Slip the wire off the drill and release the pin vice, and you have a ring and chain.
2. The securing pins were made from brass wire, about 0.3mm diameter. One end was bent over to form the loop at the top of the pin, and before tightening, the ring of the chain made in step 1 was put into the loop. That gives you a pin-ring-chain assembly.
3. The pin was held in place on the wagon side with a length of the fuse wire folded over and the two ends put into a 0.5mm hole drilled in the wagon side. A drop of thin CA glue (Rocket 'hot') applied on the end of a bit of wire holds the assembly in place. This is definitely the fiddliest part of the whole operation.
4. The 'chain' was formed into a loop so it looks like it is hanging down, and the lose end put into another 0.5mm hole and secured with CA glue.
5. Repeat another seven times...

 

 

I fitted one at this stage to make sure it worked as planned, but left the others off until later, to avoid damage to them.

 

The door bangers provided in the kit are OK, but suffer a bit because the draw angle required to release the parts from the mould goes across the width of the bangers. They therefore look oddly unsymmetrical when looking at them straight on. Also, the original builder had glued some of them on not quite straight, so I decided to remove them all, square them up with a file, and re-attach them.

 

I also noticed, looking at prototype photos, that the bangers have shallow holes drilled in them, corresponding to the rivets on the door strapping, so that when the door drops down the contact area isn't just the rivet heads. I decided to drill these holes once everything was assembled, so I could position them correctly relative to the door rivets.

 

The prototype photos show that when built, GWR ballast wagons had sheet metal covers over the axleguards - a very distinctive feature. Later photos don't show them, so they were presumably removed at some point. Checking as many photos as I could find, I was fairly sure that for my 1908 period, the wagon should have the covers - and in any case, how could I resist such a characterful detail?

 

Working from photos, I drew up the covers in CAD. The drawing was printed at the correct size on a sticky label, which was stuck on to four pieces of 5 thou brass sheet, previously sweated together:

 

 

I cut out the outline with a fine fretsaw blade:

 

 

I left a large 'tab' at the top to make it easier to make the fold where the cover attaches to the bottom flange of the solebar - it is much easier to made the bend this way then try and get an accurate bend parallel and very close to the edge of the material.

 

The label was removed with white spirit, and the four pieces separated and cleaned up:

 

 

I folded up the pieces in the vice, and trimmed the top flange to size:

 

 

The part that goes over the axle box is made by bending the main piece to form the sloping top and short front edge. The sides were from scrap etch, chosen to be the same thickness as the saw cuts. They were cut oversize, soldered in place, and filed back to make a neat final assembly:

 

 

 

 

I did a dry assembly to fettle the covers to fit - I made a mistake and glued the door bangers on first, and had to cut away parts of the covers to accommodate the bangers. It would have been better to do it the other way around. I numbered the covers to ensure they would go back in the right place, as each one needed slightly different adjustments.

 

 

The brake gear was rebuilt using the kit brake shoes and hangers, and WEP and Ambis components for the vee hanger, push rods, and lever. The brake lever guard was my usual combination of the ratchet from the Ambis component, and nickel silver strip bent to shape.

 

 

After a waft of etch primer on the not-yet-attached metal parts, the final assembly got me to a physically complete wagon:

 

 

A coat of paint always brings things together, revealing any blemishes but also giving confidence that perhaps it will be OK after all:

 

 

Lettering was from a sheet of HMRS pressfix transfers, which had the 'PT WAY' text I needed, but which I find difficult to get aligned accurately. I had to get a new sheet to do the 'PT WAY' on the ends as you only get one pair on the sheet, so I bought methfix this time, which allows adjustment more easily.

 

The lettering isn't strictly accurate - the 'PT WAY' should have the characters all the same size, not a larger P and W. The lettering is generally slightly too big, and as a result there is no room for 'To carry' that should precede '8 tons'. There should also be the word 'Construction' on the ends, in italics. These observations are based on a photo of a diagram P5 - I haven't found a photo of a P4 in pre-1904 livery, so I can perhaps get away with these inaccuracies...

 

 

I don't really have a need for a ballast wagon at Netherport, so, after some discussion:

 

I decided to load it with sand being delivered for the sand boxes of locos and brake vans. The gradient inland away from the harbour at Netherport is steep, so it is important sandboxes are well filled before departure.

The shape of the load was formed with a layer of thin corrugated cardboard followed by some cat litter, glued in place with diluted PVA and moulded to shape. As this was an experiment, I put cling film in the wagon first, so I could remove the former if the cat litter didn't work out:

 

 

The result was OK, but it took a long time to dry and shrank considerably, so I am not sure I would use the cat litter again.

Before gluing the load in and adding the 'sand', I did some initial weathering:

 

 

With the former in place, I could add the sand. This was made using a product called 'Terrains Sandy Desert Acrylic' by AK Interactive - it's aimed mainly at military modellers for dioramas. I used a variety of tools to put it in place, with my biggest concern to get the edges to look natural, and keep it off the sides. I failed to keep it off the sides, and the edges took a fair amount of fettling, adding additional material to fill slight 'sink holes' and scrapping off material that had got in the wrong place.

 

 

 

As a result, the inside of the wagon sides were rather scratched - the acrylic sand medium also seems to soften the paint quite effectively, which didn't help. I ended up repainting the inside of the wagon, being careful to keep the paint off the sand.

 

 

 

With some final weathering, including the repainted insides, the wagon was complete. The weathering was mainly done with water-soluble artists oil paints, plus some weathering powders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nick.