More Pre-Grouping Wagons in 4mm - the D299 appreciation thread.

[Craigw]

10 minutes ago, richbrummitt said:

 

Probably more likely a month - shouldn't keep them open too long. It's not the only bottle of port I have open though. 

 

I have two bottles open at the moment - a Muscat and a Tawny. The Tawny was opened by my wife who was drinking it with lemonade. I nearly changed the locks on the house.

 

On the modelling side, I am building two O4 opens using the sides and ends of Coopercraft kits.

 

I mentioned pre-group modelling.

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Craigw said:

I nearly changed the locks on the house.

 

On the modelling side, I am building two O4 opens using the sides and ends of Coopercraft kits.

 

I mentioned pre-group modelling.

 

 

Pouring away the lemonade might be simpler and cheaper though I appreciate it would have its attendant risks.

 

I'd be interested to see how you are dealing with the sheet rails, as I have a couple of O4s in the pending queue.

[richbrummitt]

11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'd be interested to see how you are dealing with the sheet rails, as I have a couple of O4s in the pending queue.

 

Sheet supporters are the reason most of my Opens are not finished. 

[Craigw]

48 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Pouring away the lemonade might be simpler and cheaper though I appreciate it would have its attendant risks.

 

I'd be interested to see how you are dealing with the sheet rails, as I have a couple of O4s in the pending queue.

 

The sheet rails on these will be spares from Parkside Dundas. At one point you could order sprues from Parkside so i ordered the sprues containing the sheet supporter mechanism from the 011-015 kit. I also have some etches from Southwark Bridge Models of GWR wagon brake gear and fittings including the sheet supporter. I use the version of the 04 without the sheet support as the Coopercraft one is dreadful. I hope to get one done in the next day or two, if ok with you I will post a pic on here. I post my modelling stuff on my workbench on the Scalefour Society forum. I find it irritating posting such things on multiple sites.

 

Edit: Quick mobile photo attached of my pair of O11 built from Parkside-Dundas kits with extra detail

 

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

Edited March 28, 2020 by Craigw

[2996 Victor]

36 minutes ago, Craigw said:

 

The sheet rails on these will be spares from Parkside Dundas. At one point you could order sprues from Parkside so i ordered the sprues containing the sheet supporter mechanism from the 011-015 kit. I also have some etches from Southwark Bridge Models of GWR wagon brake gear and fittings including the sheet supporter. I use the version of the 04 without the sheet support as the Coopercraft one is dreadful. I hope to get one done in the next day or two, if ok with you I will post a pic on here. I post my modelling stuff on my workbench on the Scalefour Society forum. I find it irritating posting such things on multiple sites.

 

Edit: Quick mobile photo attached of my pair of O11 built from Parkside-Dundas kits with extra detail

 

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

 

That's what I'd planned to do, although I'm not sure what to do with the Parkside O11/O15 kits afterwards......

 

Looking forward to seeing how yours turn out!

[Craigw]

19 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

 

That's what I'd planned to do, although I'm not sure what to do with the Parkside O11/O15 kits afterwards......

 

Looking forward to seeing how yours turn out!

 

 

I have a few spare sprues which is a big help!

 

Will Peco supply spare sprues?

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

[Compound2632]

@Craigw, many thanks for that - inspiration for my more bodging approach! Plan B is of course to hide it all under a sheet.

[2996 Victor]

1 hour ago, Craigw said:

 

 

I have a few spare sprues which is a big help!

 

Will Peco supply spare sprues?

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

 

Spare sprues would be a help.....! Not sure about PECO supplying them, might be worth an email 

[Compound2632]

Tesco report: pimento stuffed rather than plain pitted olives, jar is 15'5" diameter, so spot on for 8'0" radius roofs. The useable length is, however, only 28 ft. Now to prepare the jar for its intended use - more suggestions please!

Edited March 28, 2020 by Compound2632

[Penlan]

I've used a couple of tall Olive Oil bottles, but what they were I don't know, labels removed. (make etc., though whether they were 'Extra....' or not, it didn't seem to relate to the size of the bottles)
The diameter is less than the roof's to be moulded round them, for as stated in a earlier post, the plastikard does spring out a little bit.
One bottle has a 65mm dia x 150mm flat length useful area and the other (with a shorter neck, though taller bottle) is 60mm dia X 180mm length.
I've used Plastikard because, for me, the etched roof is to thin.
These are for 14 LNWR 6 wheeled coaches, which have stalled in completion due lethargy, and/or a desire to complete the roundy-roundy version of Penlan......

[Siberian Snooper]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Tesco report: pimento stuffed rather than plain pitted olives, jar is 15'5" diameter, so spot on for 8'0" radius roofs. The useable length is, however, only 28 ft. Now to prepare the jar for its intended use - more suggestions please!

 

How did you get a 15ft 5ins diameter bottle in  your car or was it delivered on the back of a lorry?

 

 

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Siberian Snooper

[Compound2632]

On 28/03/2020 at 18:17, Siberian Snooper said:

 

How did you get a 15ft 5ins diameter bottle in  your car or was it delivered on the back of a lorry?

 

 

I and my car are 76.2 times full size. It was a bit of a squeeze at Tesco, observing the 2 m social distance.

 

Being in a handrailish mood, I dug out my D&S Midland D839 ballast brake, that has been languishing half-built for about 30 years, and handrailed it up:

 

 

I used Alan Gibson 0.33 mm handrail wire, along with card spacers to give a constant distance from the bodyside. (Some tweaking needed, looking at the photo.) The Bill Bedford / Mousa handrail jig from the Kirtley brake van kit saw further use, with extra holes drilled at the appropriate distances.

 

I'm not sure why this came to a halt. Possibly dissatisfaction with the handrails - I had done the horizontal ones on one side with 0.6 mm wire - and also trouble bending up the footboards. These I can sort out now, with the bending bars. 

 

This kit is still available, from London Road Models.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[John-Miles]

I built one of these many years ago. It's a brilliant kit, very easy to put together. I also did a rake of 3 plankers to go with it as an engineer's train. What I never finished was the protective covers over the axles boxes. I'll scout around and see if I can find them - and then there is the nightmare of me trying to take a decent photo.

[Penlan]

14 minutes ago, John-Miles said:

.... and then there is the nightmare of me trying to take a decent photo.

John, B/W photo's would be OK .... 
I've used kitchen foil for the axle-guard covers on my Ballast Wagons.

[John-Miles]

I don't think we will hear anything more from Sandy tonight. He is celebrating 12 years of marriage - that's nothing for most of us but for Sandy it's epic.

 

As promised, here is part of my Engineer's train. There should be five 3 plank wagons but I can't find the others. They last saw the light of day about a decade ago on Cardiff 4mm Group's layout Dunvant which was LNWR but I used modeller's licence to run these. These LNWR types need some culture anyway!!

 

 

[Compound2632]

Congratulations to Sandy @Penlan. I trust he and the missus are celebrating with a quiet night in.

 

Very nicely turned out, @John_Miles. Mine - which already runs to three ballast wagons, though as yet without ballast, will be grey, as red only came in for ballast wagons after 1900. Not quite sure about the ballast brakes, however, so I'm guessing the same - the Brecon example, Midland Wagons plate 383, certainly looks more like grey than red to me; it's hooked up to an engine with a Johnson smokebox door and built-up chimney. These ballast brakes were built 1888-1899, so the photo is most likely 1890s. 

 

Only a small amount of progress today - on with the lower footboards:

 

 

As usual, the photo highlights where I need to try again - I thought I had both footboards straight. There will be some bending and faffing to get the whitemetal spring/axlebox castings on but that's preferable to melting them. The only brasswork left now is the lampirons at one end and at the corners, plus the doorhandles.

 

I spent a bit of time today sketching up a Class A 0-6-0T (1102 Class or South Wales Tank) to see if it can be hacked from the Bachmann 1377 Class model. Conclusion: probably not, or at least if it could be done, it would be simpler to start from scratch. I don't have good drawings for the 1377 Class, though of course I have the model. There are a lavish set of original drawings for the later, longer 1121 Class engines in F. James, D. Hunt and R.J. Essery, Midland Railway '1121' Class 0-6-0 Goods Tank Engines, in Midland Record No. 11 (Wild Swan, date?) and a rather hard to decipher Neilsons drawing for Class A in F. James and R.J. Essery, The MR 'A' Class 0-6-0 Tank Engines, in Midland Record No. 21 (Wild Swan, date?) along with front and rear elevations by F. James. The 1102 Class and 1377 Class are very similar in dimensions - so closely so that the first, Neilson, batch of S&DJR "Scottie" 0-6-0s were built from the drawings for the 1102 Class (Neilsons having built the first 25 1102 Class engines) but the second, Vulcan, batch were built from the 1377 Class drawings (even though Vulcan had bilt the last 15 1102 Class engines). Muchanicall, there were differences in the motion, I believe, but they are visually quite distinct. From the point of view of the conversion, I think the killer is that although the boiler is at the same 6'9" pitch above rail level, the tanks and bunker are 3" lower on the 1102 than on the 1377. I'm fairly sure the 1377 has the same tank height as the 1121, although the latter had the boiler pitched 3" higher on account of its deeper, longer firebox.

 

One area I got a bit obsessed with is the arrangement of the cab and bunker on the 1102. Whereas the later engines have the cab the same width as the tanks, on the 1102 it is 13" narrower, a similar arrangement to Johnson's 0-4-4Ts. I think I've worked out how the cab side-sheets are supported on the ends of the tanks, but the arrangement at the bunker has me puzzled. I've looked in vain for a photo of the bunker from above!

 

My interest in the 1102s is that three of them were on Saltley's books at my period - possibly based at Walsall. I've seen a photo of one working the Walsall Wood branch (Aldridge-Brownhills) passenger train. These were Nos. 1129-1131 of the Vulcan batch - the first two having gained the duplicate list A suffix in 1895.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[mike morley]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 These ballast brakes were built 1888-1899,

 

They look very archaic for something built that late.  My knowledge of the Midland is extremely limited, but when I first saw one I assumed there were early Parliamentary thirds that had been given a new lease of life with the PW dept.  Is 1888-1899 not more likely to be a conversion date?

 

PS. I'm still struggling to get the handrails straight on mine.  Is it simply a case of perseverance or is there a trick to it?

[John-Miles]

I have a friend who is currently working on a kit for a 1102 class in 4mm. If it follows the pattern of his other kits it will have a resin boiler with chimney, dome and safety valve included. He does this because the initial master is 3D printed and if you do separate boiler fittings, the flare on the base is very fragile. The rest will be nickel silver. I think, Coronavirus allowing, it should be ready later this year.

[Penlan]

16 hours ago, John-Miles said:

I don't think we will hear anything more from Sandy tonight. He is celebrating 12 years of marriage - that's nothing for most of us but for Sandy it's epic.

Thank you John, you know of course I keep trying, though this isn't the longest one, yet 

[Compound2632]

44 minutes ago, mike morley said:

 

They look very archaic for something built that late.  My knowledge of the Midland is extremely limited, but when I first saw one I assumed there were early Parliamentary thirds that had been given a new lease of life with the PW dept.  Is 1888-1899 not more likely to be a conversion date?

 

PS. I'm still struggling to get the handrails straight on mine.  Is it simply a case of perseverance or is there a trick to it?

 

Hi Mike, I think there is no doubt that the 98 vehicles built between 1888 and 1899 where new vehicles, as they were ordered to Lot numbers (Lot 202 of 30 Jan 1888 is the first) and they were built to a new drawing, Drg. 746. Putting "ballast" as the search term into the Midland Railway Study Centre C&W Database turns up Drg. 746 "10 Ton Ballast Brake", dated 5 April 1888 (after the Lot had been ordered), draughtsman S.S. Watkinson. The Study Centre holds a copy of this drawing. 

 

However, it is clearly a case of warming over an old design, as there is also Drg. 106 "Ballast Brake Van", dated 30 December 1874, draughtsman P. Ellis. Although this marked "destroyed" in the register, the Study Centre has two copies. It is clear that Bob Essery didn't have access to the Derby C&W register when compiling Midland Wagons but I think we can be reasonably confident that M. 816, Plate 381 is a vehicle to Drg. 106. Comparison with Lot 202, Drg. 764 van M. 121, Plate 382, shows that the principal changes for the later drawing are: cast iron rather than wooden brake blocks; boarded rather than panelled doors; and standard plain buffer guides rather than ribbed ones. Kirtley-era or pre-Lot Book brakedown train riding and tool vans have features in common with these ballast brakes.

 

The design is clearly unrelated to any early passenger carriages. Looking through R.E. Lacy and G. Dow, Midland Railway Carriages (Wild Swan, 1986), Chapter 2, by 1865/6 Midland thirds were fully panelled and had a tumblehome to the sides; this date marks the start of a considerable expansion of the Midland's third class carriage stock. Earlier thirds seem to have been of significantly more primitive appearance, eith outside-framed or with stagecoach-style panelling and blank panels in place of quarter-lights.

 

In the photo I mentioned previously, Midland Wagons Plate 383, van M. 332 allocated to Brecon has panelled doors but plain buffer guides. One of the doors has received a patch repair. This looks to me like a Drg. 106 van that has had an upgrade with iron brake blocks and replacement buffer guides.

 

The C&W Database also lists Drg. 5112 "Conversion of Overseas Brake Vans into 10 Ton Ballast Brakes", dated 3 March 1920, draughtsman M.H. Bankes. There's no reference in the Lot Book to brake vans built specifically for overseas use but I suspect this explains the mystery 6-wheel ballast brake DM291, Midland Wagons Plate 385. This vehicle has standard brake van ends and the underframe has all the features of later versions of the D393 6-wheel brake - coil spring hangers rather than links to the leaf springs and self-contained buffers. The body side style is, however, basically that of the Drg 764 ballast brakes - these were 18'3" long over the body; the D393 brakes 18'1". 

 

On the question of colour, I had meant to note in yesterday's post that some pre-1900 ballast brake-like vehicles were definitely red, for example the 6-wheel van allocated to Carlisle, Midland Wagons Plate 386. This van's number, 115054, indicates that it is not a brake van but is counted as goods stock, as were crane match wagons - these seem generally to have been painted red, definitely so if allocated to the Locomotive Department. The red seems almost certainly to have been locomotive red, as applied to cranes. Cranes and match wagons allocated to the Engineer's Department and the Signal Department seem also to have been red. This all suggests that the red used for ballast wagons in the 20th century was also locomotive red, i.e. iron oxide, rather than red lead as used by some other companies for their goods stock.

 

Around 1898/9, the Midland modified some 29 ft composites and brake thirds of 1875 vintage as brakedown train riding and tool vans, replacing most of the quarter-lights with vertical boarding, extending down to (and replacing) the lower waist beading. These vehicles appear frequently in the background of shed photos; in early 20th century photos, sometimes they're a dark colour, presumably locomotive red, but often they are clearly grey as in this c. 1900 photo at Lancaster. In the 20th century, a number of withdrawn D493 31 ft 6-wheel thirds were converted in the same style to provide further brakedown vans and ballast brakes, the example at Midland Wagons Plate 386 is one such, clearly painted red. The LMS continued with such conversions, including ex-LNWR 6-wheelers.

 

[With the exception of the last link, all the linked photos are thumbnails from the Midland Railway Study Centre website, illustrating Study Centre items 64103, 64102, 66802, 64104, and 60808 respectively. The first, second, and forth of these are Derby officials, refs. DY 5822, DY 6500, and DY 6550 - in the Derby Registers it is listed as a brakedown van. Midland Wagons Plate 386 is also an official, DY 11964, dated 14 July 1921.]

 

As to getting the handrails straight, using the bending jig to make them of uniform length probably helps, as does using a piece of card as spacer - make sure the whole length of the handrail is supported. I lay the van down on its side and soldered from the inside, making sure that the tails of the handrails - left about 5 mm - 8 mm long, were perpendicular to the side as the solder cooled. Any final adjustment can be done by tweaking with pliers. There was a bit too much freedom of movement, as the holes were 0.5 mm but the wire was 0.33 mm diameter. I can't recall if the etched holes were originally that size or if I'd opened them up in my first attempt at building the kit. I had to drill through to clear holes blocked by solder, especially at the ends; I was using 0.5 mm diameter for this as the smallest bit I have in HSS steel and hence reasonably confident wouldn't break.

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, John-Miles said:

I have a friend who is currently working on a kit for a 1102 class in 4mm. If it follows the pattern of his other kits it will have a resin boiler with chimney, dome and safety valve included. He does this because the initial master is 3D printed and if you do separate boiler fittings, the flare on the base is very fragile. The rest will be nickel silver. I think, Coronavirus allowing, it should be ready later this year.

 

Keep me posted! One possibility for 3D printed boiler fittings could be to have a recess or hole in the boiler top of the same diameter as the base of the fitting, then the fitting could have a thicker base. @Quarryscapes has done this with his replacement chimney for the Oxford Dean Goods, the Oxford model being made this way.

[Dave Hunt]

I've been helping John's friend with some information on 1102 Class details and he seems to be doing a good job, even though the subject is more complicated than he originally thought. Although I don't have drawings for the 1102s to hand, as far as I know the overall arrangement of the cab and bunker was closely similar to the 0-4-4 tanks, but obviously different dimensionally. The attached drawing shows the arrangement for the 2228 Class non-condensing 0-4-4Ts and may be of help.

 

Dave

 

[John-Miles]

3 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I've been helping John's friend with some information on 1102 Class details and he seems to be doing a good job, even though the subject is more complicated than he originally thought. Although I don't have drawings for the 1102s to hand, as far as I know the overall arrangement of the cab and bunker was closely similar to the 0-4-4 tanks, but obviously different dimensionally. The attached drawing shows the arrangement for the 2228 Class non-condensing 0-4-4Ts and may be of help.

 

Dave

 

I am going to stick my neck out and disagree with the expert on Midland Locos!!!

 

I await brickbats.

 

The shape of the cab opening on the 1102 class was subtly different from later Johnson locos. Also the bunker was tiny and of course had a curved back - this is very convenient when picking them out from other 1Fs. There is a wonderful photo of a 1102 at Brecon with coal all over the cab floor. Presumably the bunker was too small for the coal required to get over the mountains to the Swansea Valley.

 

Now retiring to my bunker.

[Compound2632]

With the bogie tank engines, the sides of the bunker are additional water tanks, of similar width and height to the main tanks, with the coal space being between them. The rear parts of the cab side sheets sit in the tops of these tanks, with the rear spectacle plate straddling the gap - there is then a plate across the front of the coal space aligned with the front of these tanks, with the coal door in it. This is topped off with a plate that curves round from horizontal to vertical on 9" radius, meeting the rear spectacle plate - the latter has a curved turn-under. That's all reasonably clear, though it becomes apparent that there's rather less room in the cab than one would think from the length of the cab side-sheet - a bit under 4'6" from coal door to firebox door and about 5' between the tanks.

 

On the 1102, working from the Neilson drawing in Midland Record No. 21, the bunker is all coal space - no water tanks. The bunker itself is just over 1'6" long and extends the full 7'7" width (outside). The bunker side panels are 2'6" long (not counting the rear flare). The extra 12" is taken up with a box that extends 19.5" into the cab and has a top surface 3'6" above the footplate. (Odd 1/8" ignored here.) This box houses the filler pipe for the rear sandbox. The front part of the cab side sheet sits on this top surface and the rear spectacle plate curves round to meet it. However, the cab side sheet also curves round to project into the coal space, level with the top of the bunker but not quite reaching the rear of the flare. This part projects down about 9" into the coal space. Here's my attempt at drawing it out in CorelDraw, with the cab side sheet highlighted grey:

 

 

The rear curve of the cab side sheet looks very elegant in a side-on view of an engine in as-built condition but it does seem to result in a couple of useless bits of sheet metal sticking out into the coal space. Once coal rails were added, it's no longer visible from the angles at which most photos were taken. On a well-coaled engine, it would all be hidden from sight from any angle.

[Compound2632]

I won't trouble you with another poorly-lit photo showing infinitesimal progress on the ballast brake but my genuine modelling update for today is: lampirons done at the end that didn't already have them; brakes started; and I think my bit's knackered.