The wagon and carriage shop - West Country China Clay Co wagons
The Empire Mills project's next phase is, as I may have blamed Gareth for in the past, back-dating the china clay dries to the Edwardian period, which means it needs a new set of china clay wagons. I managed to find an interesting picture of what appeared to be a line of china clay wagons which had peaked ends and a solid roof - rather like salt wagons. Gareth, clearly in a mood of contrition, found a drawing of such a wagon belonging to the West Of England China Clay company. It looks like it was an ex broad gauge wagon converted to standard/narrow gauge in 1892. Now I had no excuse not to try to make them - blast the helpful chap.
I decided that a batch of four would be a good start, on the basis that marking out four wouldn't take much longer than doing one. I used 40 thou sheet and marked out four sets of ends, sides and floors, and then scribbed the planking on the sides (the ends appear to have been covered in sheet steel - possible as part of the conversion to standard/narrow gauge). after this it was a matter of moments to snap out the components along the lines scored with a scalpel.
With the components for the bodies ready, they were assembled with plasticweld.
Finally solebars were added.
However, there are still a lot of things that need to be done:
- Corner plates and door strapping have to be added
- Brake gear has to be made as the wagons have a 9'6" wheelbase, worse luck
- All the solebar and rivet detail has to be added
- The buffers have to be sourced and fitted. Anyone know where I can get self contained buffers for BRCW wagons that are possibly pre RCH standardisation?
- The roofs have to be constructed and fitted
- W irons, springs and axles boxes (grease) have to be added
- Painting and lettering
- And of course the AJ coupings need to be fitted.
As always, I'll keep you posted with any progress.
drduncan
- 3
6 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now