Castle Aching

[uax6]

The nice thing about using the Bow pens is that you can get bow-compasses, so you can off set from a straight edge. So you effectively put the pointy bit against the top edge and the bow will follow the top edge. Can you get the paint pens in a normal set of compasses? (Or modify a set to make them fit).

 

Andy G

[Dave John]

I too have done panels like Jim. Very thin paint, let the surface tension do the work, several coats. 

 

Hmm, might be me but paint just isn't what it used to be. ( A good number of threads about saying just that. ) I now find that all enamels need several well thinned coats and with things like red or yellow four or five coats. Drying times seem longer too. 

 

Mind you it does lead to a paint job taking a month.

 

 

( As an aside you would have laughed if you had seen me at the SECC kneeling down at the 2mm stand with my nose about four inches from Jims models so I could get them in focus. ) 

 

 

[Skinnylinny]

A quick question, James. Did you strip the old paint off before using the paint pens? I have found that they follow raised edges pretty exactly if used at a flat angle. If there's lumpy paint, the pen will follow the shape of the lumps rather than giving nice straight edges.

One thing I have found which makes the ex-Triang clerestories easier to use this technique on is the lack of raised bolection mouldings around the windows - the Ratio kits feature these and they make the paint pens a little trickier to use. With a bit of practice, I managed to do this to a Triang clerestory (it won't be staying that shape for long!) and tried out a Ratio 4-wheeler kit I have lying around. Verdict? The Triang one was much easier.

 

 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'm adding black over the "gold" - but following in the footsteps of Larry Goddard (Coachmann as was), no longer using gold but a yellowish shade that gives the impression of gold. If got right, I should have a 1 1/4" black line (0.4 mm) between two 1/2" yellow lines (0.15 mm).

 

I've just fished out Midland Style. On a Clayton round-cornered panelled carriage, the gold line is 5/16" (0.10 mm in 4 mm/ft scale) and the black line is 3/8" (0.13 mm); there was also a 1/8" (0.04 mm) vermillion line between the gold and the black. I won't be attempting that. The overall width of the lining is 1 5/16" (0.44 mm) so the 0.7 mm Posca pen is a bit over-scale but since the paint follows the beading (i.e. painting a raised surface) this isn't a problem. Looking again at photos I'm reminded that the gold lines look roughly the same thickness as the black. So I need to switch to a finer Rotring nib for the black, at least on the horizontals and the verticals that are not adjacent to a window bolection.

 

This looks promising for Midland and Great Western liveries. What would be trickier with this method is those liveries that don't have black on gold/yellow for the lining but instead have the body colour between the gold lines - LNER (plum), NER (lake), etc. For the plum, I did long ago make up a purple by mixing Rotring black and blue inks, which was passable. 

Edited March 6, 2019 by Compound2632

[Andy Hayter]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Interesting, and precisely how it was done, except that the wagon was a Thames Trader, when I remember it. That method can only have applied up to a certain distance out, though, unless they had very fast horses.

 

 

 

It is worth remembering that Covent Garden was the prime market for fruit and veg across the UK, so Kent strawberries would be sent by horse and cart, but might well be sold at Covent Garden to someone in Manchester, who might well then use a number of rail companies to get his product "home" the same day for sale the next.

[Nearholmer]

I was thinking about how deep into Kent, which is after all a fairly large county, is within a sensible night's cart plod of Covent Garden. My gut feel is that anywhere East of the Medway would be pushing it.

 

If I'm correct in that, then either the SER/LCDR was transporting soft fruit and perishable veg from these further-out areas in non-specialised vehicles, or these areas simply didn't serve the London market with this particular produce ........ maybe the preponderance of hard-fruit orchards in mid-Kent is a clue ........ but, that area grew cherries, and they are fairly perishable .......

 

Those pictures of LNWR vans in Hampshire, one bound for Edinburgh, suggest that there was also wholesale buying direct from farms, bypassing Covent Garden altogether, or that CG was being used as a "trading floor" for such deals. and, getting back to jam for a moment, major jam-makers actually grew at least some of their fruit on heir own farms.

 

What we need here is a specialist in the finer points of the C19th greengrocery trade.

 

Evidence of fruit traffic by rail from mid-Kent, from a website about Marden: 

 

Outgoing agricultural traffic was mainly top fruit en route to wholesale markets in London and further north. At one point, it was reckoned that Marden shipped more fruit traffic by rail than any other individual station in the country and this in competition from road haulage firms like my father’s. A non-stop express goods, known as ‘The Bullet’ ran from Marden to London for several years.

 

And, the nearby Hawkhurst Branch was built to serve fruit and hops.

 

So, what wagons are they using??? 

 

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The grounded coach body in this page of my thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/120371-deliberately-old-fashioned-0-scale/&page=5&tab=comments#comment-2661340 was done using what I think is the technique advocated by Mikkel - a gentle 'blob' of paint into the middle of the panel, then a combination of natural flow and the lightest of teasing with the brush to get it into the corners.

 

It was all heavily weathered afterwards, to make it look very faded, so doesn't show-up very well, but it was actually a pretty neat job, and the technique is not at all difficult.

 

 

This technique was recommended to me by Chris Basten  ( Then Dragon Models now Minerva) for Cambrain Coaches which meant the body could be sprayed green and then jjust the upper panels filled with the pale colour using slightly thinned  paint. Thus avoid any complicated masking.

 

Don

[martinT]

9 hours ago, Donw said:

 

This technique was recommended to me by Chris Basten  ( Then Dragon Models now Minerva) for Cambrain Coaches which meant the body could be sprayed green and then jjust the upper panels filled with the pale colour using slightly thinned  paint. Thus avoid any complicated masking.

 

Don

 

This is the method used by the legendary modeller Jim Whittaker c50 years ago & described by Jim Russell in his 'A Pictorial Record of GW Coaches (pt1)' published in 1972. This includes some photos of some of JW's models, see esp. p101 where his painting method is described alongside a full-page photo of  a V6 4-wheel clerestory van.

 

Martin

[wagonman]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

And, the nearby Hawkhurst Branch was built to serve fruit and hops.

 

So, what wagons are they using??? 

 

 

 

I would expect hop pockets would have been carried in sheeted opens...

[Nearholmer]

Hops, yes, although the breweries owned some vans for the purpose, which they seem to have used partly as rail-mounted store-houses, to buffer seasonality.

 

Its the fruit that is in question, there being an apparent contradiction between the lack of specialised vehicles in the SER/LCDR fleets, and the amount of fruit produced in Kent, which I think is only partly explained by use of horses and carts direct to London. I still suspect that these two perennially broke railways used sheeted opens for fruit, as they did for almost everything else. A few hours in a sheeted open railway wagon getting to Bricklayers Arms, followed by a cart-ride to Covent Garden, is no worse for a strawberry than a night in a cart lumbering up Watling Street direct to Covent Garden, is partly my thinking.

[nick_bastable]

2 hours ago, wagonman said:

 

I would expect hop pockets would have been carried in sheeted opens...

 

http://www.bygonebodiam.co.uk/Loading Hop Pockets into a Goods Wagon.html

 

loading Hops on the KESR

 

Nick

[Guy Rixon]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Hops, yes, although the breweries owned some vans for the purpose, which they seem to have used partly as rail-mounted store-houses, to buffer seasonality.

 

Its the fruit that is in question, there being an apparent contradiction between the lack of specialised vehicles in the SER/LCDR fleets, and the amount of fruit produced in Kent, which I think is only partly explained by use of horses and carts direct to London. I still suspect that these two perennially broke railways used sheeted opens for fruit, as they did for almost everything else. A few hours in a sheeted open railway wagon getting to Bricklayers Arms, followed by a cart-ride to Covent Garden, is no worse for a strawberry than a night in a cart lumbering up Watling Street direct to Covent Garden, is partly my thinking.

FWIW, some of the Wainwright-period vans did have roof ventilators. I have no evidence that these were used for fruit, but it seems reasonable.

 

One might also wonder how the SECR moved milk to London.

[Nearholmer]

Intriguing, isn’t it?

 

Latterly, i’d guess that the LWB ‘utility van’ family of vehicles came into play. Did they have a lot of passenger-rated brake vans before that? Or, brake thirds with big van sections?

 

BTW, I found an ancient journal, with stats for carriage of various items by various railways back into the 1840s, and the SER was carrying c10 000 tons of perishables each year as far back as 1845, so it must have been carried in something!

Edited March 7, 2019 by Nearholmer

[K14]

6 hours ago, martinT said:

 

This is the method used by the legendary modeller Jim Whittaker c50 years ago & described by Jim Russell in his 'A Pictorial Record of GW Coaches (pt1)' published in 1972. This includes some photos of some of JW's models, see esp. p101 where his painting method is described alongside a full-page photo of  a V6 4-wheel clerestory van.

 

Martin

 

The 'Whittaker Method' (for card/shellac models) is stated thus:—

 

The difficult task of getting a clean edge between the cream and the brown* is overcome thus:— The mouldings are completely finished first (3 coats) before starting on the panels‡. For the latter, paint is diluted right down with turps, and 'splodged' on. The brush is loaded with the extremely thin paint and applied to the centre of each panel in turn. The diluted paint then creeps and spreads itself over the entire panel with only slight assistance from the brush. When it reaches the surrounding moulding, it creeps up to the edge, reaches the top, and stops dead, without going on to the dark top face of the moulding, so producing a sharp edge between panel and moulding. About 8 coats are necessary to obtain the correct depth of colour, but this system does give a real first class finish.

 

* Should read 'black' for GW.

‡ Russell states that Whittaker painted the mouldings before fixing them to the bodyside.

 

I've tried it on Ratio bodies & the technique works well, but paint consistency is key; too thick & it won't flow - too thin & it'll creep right over the moulding. Don't think I ever got up to 8 coats though - even on the cream.

 

Pete S.

 

 

 

[nick_bastable]

5 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

FWIW, some of the Wainwright-period vans did have roof ventilators. I have no evidence that these were used for fruit, but it seems reasonable.

 

One might also wonder how the SECR moved milk to London.

southern diagram   1490 where SER ventilated vans   Kent is not renowned for dairy products  I would also speculate they used cattle vans in picking season(s)  EKR is quoted as carrying fruit in the passenger guards coach

 

Nick

 

 

Edited March 7, 2019 by nick_bastable
edit for duplication

[Martin S-C]

Regarding the Kent-to-London perishable traffics although I am actually completely 100% ignorant of the historical situation it strikes me that these are, compared to some other perishables traffics such as the Scottish fish-to-London or Liverpool bananas-to-London traffics, extremely short haul. Even from Ramsgate, Romney Marsh or Weymouth we're talking not more than c120 - 180 minutes or so via 40mph passenger rated goods vehicles. Its quite likely, as Nick suggests, that the SER, SECR, LSWR, LCDR, LBSC, etc, etc just didn't need dedicated perishables vans and squishy stuff could get where it was needed sufficient quickly in luggage vans, guards vans or something similar pressed into service (like a CCT) in a passenger train in enough time that it didn't rot or stink!

[Nearholmer]

But, the LSWR and LBSC did have specialist vehicles, whereas it seems that the Kent lot didn’t.

 

Btw, I'm glad to think of Edwardian fruit traffic conundrums(dra?), because otherwise I might accidentally start thinking about all the things I read in the news.

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, K14 said:

 

The 'Whittaker Method' (for card/shellac models) is stated thus:—

 

 

 

 

* Should read 'black' for GW.

‡ Russell states that Whittaker painted the mouldings before fixing them to the bodyside.

 

I've tried it on Ratio bodies & the technique works well, but paint consistency is key; too thick & it won't flow - too thin & it'll creep right over the moulding. Don't think I ever got up to 8 coats though - even on the cream.

 

Pete S.

 

 

 

This technique isn't limited to coach panelling:

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/94350-mid-cornwall-lines-1950s-western-region-in-00/&do=findComment&comment=2117927

 

[Compound2632]

Don't overestimate the average speed of 19th century south-of-the-river services. As E.L. Ahrons' friend observed, "better to be a dead mackerel on the North-Western than a first class passenger on the London, Brighton and South Coast".

Edited March 7, 2019 by Compound2632

[Guy Rixon]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

Regarding the Kent-to-London perishable traffics although I am actually completely 100% ignorant of the historical situation it strikes me that these are, compared to some other perishables traffics such as the Scottish fish-to-London or Liverpool bananas-to-London traffics, extremely short haul. Even from Ramsgate, Romney Marsh or Weymouth we're talking not more than c120 - 180 minutes or so via 40mph passenger rated goods vehicles. Its quite likely, as Nick suggests, that the SER, SECR, LSWR, LCDR, LBSC, etc, etc just didn't need dedicated perishables vans and squishy stuff could get where it was needed sufficient quickly in luggage vans, guards vans or something similar pressed into service (like a CCT) in a passenger train in enough time that it didn't rot or stink!

Quite. I've just stumbled upon a photo of a train loading fruit at Bexley. It's three PBVs and, I think, one grand vitesse PLV.

Bexley-fruit-train.pdf

 

BTW, the SECR had very few passenger-rated good-vehicles. It had rather more that were rated "express" meaning springs, journals and wheels built for speed but no vacuum brakes. The presumption (for which I've never seen proper evidence) is that these express vehicles allowed selected  goods-trains to run from Dover and Folkestone at perhaps 30mph with few or no stops.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Guy Rixon

[Martin S-C]

It's ten past ten, G&T number 3 is by my side and I just stumbled on this James... and thought of you.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dapol-Limited-Edition-oo-wagons/264219611861?hash=item3d84b752d5:g:zYYAAOSwKgtceSd3&frcectupt=true

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dapol-Limited-Edition-oo-wagons/264219611861?hash=item3d84b752d5:g:zYYAAOSwKgtceSd3&frcectupt=true

 

Refraining from comment...

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dapol-Limited-Edition-oo-wagons/264219611861?hash=item3d84b752d5:g:zYYAAOSwKgtceSd3&frcectupt=true

 

Refraining from comment...

[Nearholmer]

I shall refrain from commenting that your two comments, each claiming to be a refrain from commenting, are in fact, when taken together, a comment in themselves. But (hopefully) I shall do so only once.

[Hroth]

Not to comment in ANY way, but I'm going to be completely shellfish - I've never liked crabs AT ALL...

 

(Especially the Lima ones, which wobble sideways, just like their namesakes!)

 

 

Edited March 7, 2019 by Hroth