Jim T

Beautiful etches and a great idea, but who puts their washing on coat hangers before they hang it out on the line? Is this a cultural pitfall for modellers of the Japanese scene? Or something that is prevalent amongst those of us who are "special" enough to be railway enthusiasts?

That Bogie Mink is looking great Rich... OMWB over the last couple of days I’ve been doing some Engineers’ spoil wagons. This particular pair are the result of a moment of inspiration while staring at a couple of the Farish steel high goods and wondering how the hell I’m going to rework the chassis on these to get the brake shoes in line with the wheels... Perusing David Larkin’s “Civil Engineers Wagons: Volume 3” there’s a particularly interesting section showing a “Miscellany of Older CE Wagons, Ex-Revenue Wagons and Brake Vans”. It starts particularly well with a Herring and a Pilchard on the first page (p79). On the next page are a pair of ex Soda Ash wagons in engineers service which are right in my period. This is a case of using up bits of things I had lying around so the RCH vacuum braked chassis are from a very cheap eBay bulk purchase of Conflats which are primarily intended for wagons for my salt block train. This uses mostly of the LMS type wooden high wagons with corrugated ends, for which the NGS does a nice little plastic kit. I ultimately need 30 or so so I’ve been planning to resin cast them but the master for the wooden highs is from the NGS kit which comes in a twin pack with one of the steel, LNER style, bodies. So the bodies for and the chassis for the soda ash wagons are really left overs from the salt train project... I’ve started work with the bodies, removing the door securing detail, and the chain ring pockets and chalk boards appropriate to the two prototype pictures (one with the pockets, ex-LNER, one without, a BR build), and added the door closer bars from 20 thou square styrene. The dogs for the upper bar are scraps of 0.030” x 0.020” styrene. I left these to dry then filed them back to thin them down a little. I’ve just started assembly, using a square of tufnol to work on as the sides and ends don’t seem to stick to it. Just a quick question - what do folks use for axleguard tie-bars on fitted chassis please?

Lovely neat work soldering on the panels. What’s your method for that? I always seem to end up with a lot of cleaning up or dry joints... Jim

Nice to know the history of what you’re building! I’ve succeeded in marrying the plastic hopper to Bob’s chassis now (see below) so the next time this appears will be on the workbench thread. Many thanks to all who’ve supplied suggestions or info about the chassis.

Thanks Trevor. Just assembling one of these chassis which is now sold as S2-358. I don’t think the body is available any more but I’m merging the chassis with the NGS plastic and etched brass kit. Only the exploded diagram from Bob’s instructions is now available so your blog has answered a few questions. Glad I found it in time, I could have really messed up the brake levers without it.

Hi Chris Yes, you’re right. I’m thinking rather than cutting away from this hopper body I’ll order a couple more and fix the Moulding for the hopper bottom under the chassis / brake unit cross member, perhaps as two separate pieces. So a brief hiatus with this is on the cards until another couple of NGS kits arrive. EDIT: NGS is out of stock so done a bit of hacking about and the body near enough fits now. Fairly simple in the end, although I have a couple of tricky 45° bends to do on the chassis cross beams to fold down half etched sections which seem to be designed to support the hopper ends. It looks like this might not give me quite enough - if so I can easily cut them away or file them back to get a good fit. Pic and write up to follow in OMWB section. Hi Paul How did you manage to maintain free running after you cut away the axle boxes from the Moulding and replace them. On my chassis this removes the bearing surface... Did you add association bearings? If so what axle length did you use? Thanks for the replies Jim

I’m working at home which has the benefit of a new workbench desk in the living room, so zero commute after a day designing the Chiltern Tunnel for HS2. I’m trying to use the time to progress my 2mm wagon fleet, but I’m stuck with an HTV (21t mineral hopper). The body is the NGS kit and the chassis is s3-258, one of the Fencehouses etches available from the Association shop. I’m quite pleased with how it’s gone together so far (the soldering lesson from Nick’s Jubilee series of videos helped a lot) but the instructions are very generic and don’t really explain how it fits the kit - as you can see it’s currently hung up in three places so the hopper won’t sit down right on the chassis and is about a scale foot too high. What have I missed or done wrong?? Do I need to modify the hopper bottom on the kit? The other one (still very much work in progress) is on a modified Parkside chassis which hasn’t really saved any time and is notably too wide. It’s also quite hard to figure out how to do a roller bearing equipped wagon using this chassis. Thanks in anticipation...

Steve - that's awesome, thanks for taking so much time to explain the process. I have ordered some (different) casting materials (F32 for the resin but a different rubber) and will try a couple of simple things at the weekend before doing a two part mould. I'll post results and the master up on the AQA thread over the weekend. Thanks again for taking the time to explain and inspire... Jim

Hi Pix Lovely work with the casting. What materials are you using currently for the moulds and the resin casts? Thanks for all the inspiration! Jim

A brief question regarding resin casting open wagons. I want to do a large number (ultimately 30 to 40) medium opens (the BR ones with planked sides and corrugated ends). I have built / adapted a one piece master for the body, based on the NGS kit What I’d like help with is which materials to try for creating the mound and casting the bodies because the learning curve seem quite steep and I want to focus limited time on actually modeling rather than experimenting. One specific is that I saw somewhere LEGO being used not just for the mound box but also to register the two mound halves which seemed like a really good idea... Links to any useful relevant threads (I’ve done a lot of reading but it’s a question of not knowing enough to sort the wheat from the chaff) and any personal experience would be greatly appreciated... Thanks in expectation! Jim

I’m hazarding a guess that’s a steel mineral wagon, possibly a Peco kit? If it’s a plastic kit build they can be very prone to bowing inwards, although I’ve never seen one quite as bad as this. I think it’s one thing to do with stresses set up in the material originating in the solvent joins? To quote 2mmMark’s post from another thread: “The 2-551 2mm RCH kit is capable of being made up into a decent looking model... The assembled body does have a tendency to bow inwards but using a less aggressive solvent like Di-Limonene reduces this to almost nil.“ Obviously this is prevention rather than cure! I have a couple of milder cases which I currently store with a fairly thick rectangular styrene “spreader” spanning between the tops of the long sides, and this does help prevent the inward bow. I’ll provide these wagons with permanent loads to do the same job in the fullness of time... Jim

Thanks Nigel I hadn’t appreciated the mound tool costs! Inside bearings it is then... Cheers Jim

Just a quick query as one relatively new to the Association (this time)... Is there any plan to produce 3’6” dia. wagon wheels? Has this ever been looked at? I’m actually after 8 axles worth of 10-spoke tender wheels for two SR bogie tenders, but it struck me pre-group wagon wheels would do a fairly good impression, at least if these weren’t all 8 split spoke...

What lathe are you using there Nick? Looks a fabulous little tool... Jim

A bit more progress with the Grampus (planked floor now in, but it would have been better to have checked before assembling the body and scribed the planks in), and a chassis for a clasp braked mineral. After finally finding a decent block of time for modelling, I’m starting to adapt to the size of things and work out ways of making jobs a bit less fiddly! I wish I’d started in earnest ten years ago though, my eyes aren’t what they were.