Magdalen Bridge 1903

China reds a great colour, particularly on a iron mink! Definately on my to do list. 

Good to see a new blog on my favourite period 

 

I cut the solebar on these, but as you say it still leaves only 3½ plank. Annoying isn't it! Reducing the floor thickness does help a bit more (see this post), but for an extra 0.5 mm it's always a matter of personal opinion whether it's worth it, especially if you're building a number of them. Sheeted instead maybe?

 

 

9 hours ago, Harveyc said:

China reds a great colour, particularly on a iron mink! Definitely on my to do list. 

It is a marvelous colour; though I am still experimenting with the shade, as well as which parts of the wagon to apply it to. I can't help but feel it should be on the frames and w-irons too. I'm glad to hear it looks good on an iron mink... I have a few ABS kits waiting in the wings... 

 

4 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Good to see a new blog on my favourite period 

 

I cut the solebar on these, but as you say it still leaves only 3½ plank. Annoying isn't it! Reducing the floor thickness does help a bit more (see this post), but for an extra 0.5 mm it's always a matter of personal opinion whether it's worth it, especially if you're building a number of them. Sheeted instead maybe?

 

 

 

Hi Mikkel, 

 

I can live with the 3 1/2 plank, especially when loaded. I bought a job lot of old kits cheaply as something to practice on, so each wagon is receiving a different type of glue, primer and finish to see what works best. I figured they would make a good starting point. So far Autotek acrylic spray primer is looking promising; it takes brush painted Vallejo very nicely.

 

As for period, I agree! I've always liked the Edwardian and the GWR, but it wasn't until seeing Farthing's The Bay while still at school that I was hooked by the glorious liveries. 

Trouble is, once one starts worrying about the height of the floor, one inevitably moves on to worrying about the lack of interior ironwork... At which point the sanest move is to reach for a period-appropriate wagon sheet:

I'm on my second bout of Great Western 4-plank building at the moment. Without wishing to sound pushy, you might be interested in my thread, from round about here and sporadically over the following pages:

I've had a lot of help from some very knowledgeable folk, including @Mikkel, @Miss Prism, @Craigw, and @Chrisbr - the latter especially on finding appropriate numbers for wagons in particular condition. 

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Trouble is, once one starts worrying about the height of the floor, one inevitably moves on to worrying about the lack of interior ironwork... At which point the sanest move is to reach for a period-appropriate wagon sheet:

I'm on my second bout of Great Western 4-plank building at the moment. Without wishing to sound pushy, you might be interested in my thread, from round about here and sporadically over the following pages:

I've had a lot of help from some very knowledgeable folk, including @Mikkel, @Miss Prism, @Craigw, and @Chrisbr - the latter especially on finding appropriate numbers for wagons in particular condition. 

 

Yes indeedy. Tomorrow's task is to work out what is the best household material to make tarpaulins from!

Ian and I both made ours by printing onto Rizla. 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2020 by richbrummitt

8 minutes ago, richbrummitt said:

Ian and I both made ours by printing onto Rizla. 

 

 

Now that is a good idea! Thanks for the tip; and what a marvelous tarpaulin template.

Richard should have mentioned that he and I both model in 2FS, so Rizzla cigarette papers are ideal for 2mm scale tarpaulins. For 4mm scale you would need a much larger thin paper.

Ian

While on the topic of @Ian Smith's invaluable artwork, when I've used it scaled to 4 mm, I've printed it on regular printer paper using a very ordinary HP Deskjet printer. Rizla paper is a rice paper, I understand, and there are other brands available - I've not yet worked out what larger sizes there may be*. But what printer do you use for such a fragile paper? @richbrummitt?

 

*I baulked at clicking through to the Swansea Cannabis Club's website!

Edited May 19, 2020 by Compound2632

I used an inkjet. 9 years ago it would have been an HP one I think.

I used a Canon inkjet. Initially printing on ordinary A4 paper, then taping Rizzla over printed tarpaulins, then feeding same piece of paper through printer again to print on the Rizzla.  It will be necessary to print in something like “draft” mode as otherwise too much ink is dispensed onto the Rizzla.

Ian

Thanks all! 

 

my N8 Horsebox kit arrived today, wrapped in white tissue paper. This looks ideal for printing tarpaulins on.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but are the numbers on the tarpaulin independent from that of the wagon? That is, would wagon 65815, for example,  have a tarpaulin with the same number on it?

 

 

On 18/05/2020 at 22:31, Magdalen Bridge said:

 

Tomorrow's task is to work out what is the best household material to make tarpaulins from!

I'm considering printed transfers (on white decal-paper) applied to aluminium foil. The decal paper is due in tomorrow and I'll let you know how it went.

54 minutes ago, Magdalen Bridge said:

Thanks all! 

 

my N8 Horsebox kit arrived today, wrapped in white tissue paper. This looks ideal for printing tarpaulins on.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but are the numbers on the tarpaulin independent from that of the wagon? That is, would wagon 65815, for example,  have a tarpaulin with the same number on it?

 

 

I believe the numbers were in a different series, but had to be recorded in daily returns. Any discrepancy in the number of sheets had to be accounted for. 

To print on tissue paper, I taped it to normal paper:

 

This seems to have worked, and with a varnish, it is not too bad.

 

I am hoping that it can then be set into shape by misting a glue solution over it.

On 20/05/2020 at 15:55, Magdalen Bridge said:

Forgive my ignorance, but are the numbers on the tarpaulin independent from that of the wagon? That is, would wagon 65815, for example,  have a tarpaulin with the same number on it?

 

Sheets lived on an entirely different lifecycle to wagons. Sheets went back to the sheet stores every 15 - 18 months for maintenance. The sheets you've printed have a month / year date on them - 11/00 and 10/03 - these are the dates they are due for return to sheet stores. I think this means the two you've printed could not have coexisted! However, I think that c. 1902 may be the change-over date between the two styles, based on the dates on the Thomas Petith shhets (early style) and Ian's template (later style), taking it for granted that both have done their research. The later style seems to be universal by c. 1905, based on photos of Reading goods yards.

 

For info, “research” was not something I really did when drawing up my artwork. I simply found photos of wagons that had the two different designs and used the numbers and dates that I could see - for me the dates were irrelevant as when printed for 2FS those dates we’re virtually illegible (at the time I wasn’t even sure if the dates were production dates or return to base dates).

Ian