Edwardian has been pressing for the promised photo-tutorial on how I put together one of the old Slater’s Midland wagon kits – in this case a D299 8 ton high-sided wagon (kit 4027) – I hope it won’t be found too pretentious or tedious. Before going further I’d like to mention that, that following the acquisition of a wide format scanner, the Midland Railway Study Centre has made scans of a few of the many Derby Carriage & Wagon drawings in its collection available on its website, including Drg. No. 550 of 1882, to which the 63,010 wagons of this diagram were built. The Centre’s copy of the drawing is endorsed “for and after the last 242 wagons of Lot 513” – i.e. the very last wagons of the 18 years of mass-production, Lot 513 having been ordered in 1899, so it shows some very ‘late’ features such as sprung door banger and even oil axleboxes; it’s also got additions in red ink for the very last 1,000, Lot 919 ordered in 1917.

As I have pointed out on another thread, the Slater’s kits are not perfect we now have the Mousa 3-D printed resin kit as an alternative. However, I have a stock of the Slater’s kits,, some bought quarter of a century ago, others the fruit of a bout of ebay bidding early this year – a dangerous habit to be kept in check; I’ve stuck to a sense of value informed by the prices of modern commercially-available injection-moulded wagon kits and resin kits – I won’t be pushed into paying more for a 35-year-old kit than I might be paying for its modern resin counterpart.

The photo below shows the most glaring problem: if assembled according to the instructions, the bottom of the headstock sits a little over  0.5 mm above the bottom of the solebar; in other words, the solebar moulding is too high:

(The photo shows one of a batch of half-a-dozen I bought second-hand, with the intention of rebuilding.)

I start by ignoring the problem! I could set about shaving 0.5 mm off the top of each solebar but that seems to me tedious and hard to do accurately and repeatedly. Instead, I begin by sanding down the axleguards and brake V-hanger to something less chunky than the nearly 1 mm of the moulding – these are supposed to be ¾” metal not 3”! Left, raw; right, sanded down:

In my opening post I described skrawking the back of the axleguards – seems I’d forgotten this sanding method – though some scrawking helps tidy things up; I also wash and scrub with an old electric toothbrush to get rid of the dust. The strength of the moulding is all in the spring and axlebox; I suppose if one wanted to go the whole hog and replace the axleguards with etched brass ones one could just keep sanding until there’s no axleguard left. Mine are down to about 0.5 mm – scale 1½”. These are ‘layout wagons’ not exhibition pieces.

Not illustrated here but as described in my opening post, I carefully scrape off the numberplate and builder’s plate, which are in the wrong place on the solebar for most wagons.

When I dabbled in P4 I used MJT inside-bearing compensation units, so from force of habit I remove the longitudinal pieces at one end of the floor moulding, just in case I should ever go that way again:

Next, I deepen the bearing holes to take 2 mm top-hat bearings – the axleboxes are quite chunky so there’s not too much danger of going through. I countersink with a 3 mm bit – the flat face of the bearing needs to be nearly flush with the back of the axlebox. A dab of MekPak usually holds the bearing in place – when it doesn’t, walking round the room in stocking feet is usually an effective way of locating the missing bearing…

The first solebar is MekPak’d* to the floor, taking care to line up the inside diagonals of the axleguards with the transverse ribs:

*What is the verb for “to fix in place by the application of a solvent”?

Next the second solebar, with the wheelsets to check all is square and free running; in particular to check the bearings are in far enough to avoid the axleguards splaying outwards. This wagon will have brakes on one side only, as befits my very early 20^th century period, so one V-hanger has been removed. (My convention is to have the brake lever at the end where the compensating unit might be fitted…)

A little bit of fettling is required to ensure the ends of the solebars are aligned and the floor doesn’t project too far, then one end is MekPak’d in place. Crucially, the bottom of the headstock is lined up with the bottom of the solebars, rather than having the top of the headstock fixed to the floor:

As a result of the too-=deep solebar, the floor sits about 0.5 mm to high – i.e. the wagon is 0.5 mm less deep inside than it should be. I use a small steel engineer’s square to make sure the end is square on – also handy for setting the headstock and solebars level.

The other end is fixed in the same way, then the sides, taking care that the corner plates are aligned, despite the small gap between the headstock and side rail. The corners are skrawked and filed to a smooth round profile and then the wagon is turned upside-down and given I quick rub on the sandpaper to give a uniform finish:

The little circles that represent the outer ends of the buffer housings are very carefully cut from the sprue and trimmed to round, then the buffers a pushed through – gently, don’t want to split the plastic.

The buffer housings are flooded with MekPak, the buffer shanks pushed in and the plastic rings gently pushed home, taking care that they are square on.

The brake gear moulding has the solid struts representing the safety loops cut away and replaced with microstrip. I realise there are other bits that shouldn’t be solid but it’s the safety loops that have the biggest visual impact, I think. The V-hanger/brake lever moulding is one of the biggest compromises – I thin it down as much as I dare but nowhere near scale ¾”! Visually, the biggest omission is the nuts on the bolts holding the V-hanger to the solebar.

I’ve drilled through the brake crank (is that the correct term for this part?) and inserted a bit of plastic rod to represent the operating shaft. This time round I wasn’t feeling quite brave enough to try drilling a hole in the inner V-hanger. I could have drilled into the back of the outer V-hanger/brake lever part to locate another piece of rod, so that both would meet at the inner V-hanger but didn’t… As with the axleguards, the brake gear could be replaced with etched brass components which would undoubtedly give a finer appearance.

With the break gear fitted, the wagon is more-or-less complete. I fit the Slater’s three-link couplings after painting:

The other finishing touch still missing is the door-banger (on the brake side only) – a 2 mm square of 10 thou plasticard with four embossed rivets. I’d added it by the time I took the comparison photo with the Mousa D299.

Here are some I prepared earlier:

There is some variation in the shade of grey.

I have some Slater’s kits for D342 coke wagons that I’ve started looking at – these have the same solebar/headstock mis-match, which is trickier to correct as the floor locates in a groove in the side. I think the vans go together in the same way too. I’ll post a report in due course!

I've decided it's about time open up a workbench thread. Postings may be sporadic but I'm hoping to get some impetus and finish off a lot of the unfinished kits I have about. It'll be mainly plastic wagon kits, although I will be making my first venture into brass kit building too. I have finished a few kits last year so these will get included eventually. So on to the first victim kit... a Parkside GWR O11 open wagon I made sometime last year.

I always paint the insides before assembly, I find it's easier to get the brush strokes for the wood in the right direction.You can just spot the extra micro strip that had to be added to the floor to make it the right width (as per the RM review of the kit). This was one of my first attempts at replicating internal wood. I started off with a dark-ish base coat...

And then added highlights...

Before finally bringing it all together with a wash of gouache diluted with Microsol. The acrylic GW paints I used for the wood effect are in the background.

The underframe was detailed as far as I could with brake rodding. The tarpaulin rail as supplied was just a bit of plastic rod. I've no idea how they expect you to bend it so I used brass wire instead. (visible in the background).

Finally, painted and lettered. 

The glossy effect noticeable around the 'G' is the Klear that I put on to help the Pressfix lettering stick. I have since found they will stick just as well on a matt surface, I think gloss is only really need for waterslides. I need to matt varnish over the lettering still and apply some light weathering.

All in all, a gorgeous little kit. I have to say, Parkside kits are my favourite to put together at the moment.

Hi All,

Here we go then! This is No. 56. Built in 1908. It’s used as occasional staff accommodation and general storage. A few things have been changed but it is essentially as it left BR Service.

We entered via the guard’s compartment.

The guard’s seat is on the other side, against the wall to the officials compartment. This is the end withcthe chimney and the two windows.

The signage above the seat is original BR(W).

As is the BOC sign on the adjacent wall!

Although not operational, most of the brake gear is intact except for the missing setter which should be on the top of the open pipe. This is on the portion to the workers compartment.

The official’s compartment has padded sides next to the beds. The mattresses are obvious modern replacements but the originals are stored for when the vehicle is restored to museum display only condition one day. Under the bunks are 2 long storage draws per side.

On the one wall is just the door and then a space...

... and on the other, a door and then a sink and water tank arrangement.

Stored along the top edges of the walls in here are some P/Way gauges both sides. Notice that all windows have rolling blinds and not curtains.

This end also remarkably has an unrestored but complete gas lamp assembly.

Moving into the workers end, against the partition are two cupboards.

The flooring throughout is of the diagonal board type - the same as was found in the broad gauge era.

Under the centre windows are two little seats / chests.

Sorry about the picture! The far end has bunks as well and can be set up with two bunks either side. It’s just a less plush version of the official’s end and has a door in the end instead of the heater.

It has original BR(W) water fire extinguishers in a rack. The third one is still in the van but has been removed to be emptied. The vehicle has a modern extinguisher in the guard’s compartment.

This compartment also has gauges at the tops of the walls.

No. 1 was also built in 1908. This is used as a rolling store for the buildings and structures department and as such is full of their stuff!

Of interest just inside the doors are the small swing out derricks that were used for lifting equipment in and out of the vehicle.

There isn’t much original stuff inside the van as it is essentially a store on wheels! These pigeon hole like units are on opposite sides of the centre doors.

I hope that was useful or at least vaguely interesting!

All the best,

Castle