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

[billbedford]

On 18/04/2020 at 13:28, Compound2632 said:

That doesn't help with the problem that Eileen's don't list the Bill Bedford 4 mm DC1 etch at the moment, only the 7 mm version. I'm reluctant to ask them about that at the moment.

 

Tell me, just how many wagons, or even diagrams, were fitted with these brakes?

 

The only kit I know of is one of the Coopercraft ones, and now all but unobtainable. 

[Miss Prism]

Main DCI brake diagrams were:

 

- V5

- O3 (most)

- O4

- O5

- 4-plank opens (some)

- N13

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Miss Prism

[Rail-Online]

What a great little film (except the mock up carriage interior bits)!  At first I thought the first tunnel was around Nottinghamshire, perhaps out towards Mansfield or Whitwell,  but assuming it is the same tunnel (big assumption!) and looking at the second 4-4-0 bit I now think it is on the Hope Valley line.  Does Bills book help?

 

Interestingly there is no cast iron tunnel length sign, I thought all MR tunnels had these so it must be before they were intoroduced. Does anyone know the date (for some reason 1906 rings a distant bell, did the MR re-measure the distance diagrams at that date?.....)

 

Tony

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

Tell me, just how many wagons, or even diagrams, were fitted with these brakes?

 

The only kit I know of is one of the Coopercraft ones, and now all but unobtainable. 

 

There does seem to be an abundant supply of unmade 4 mm scale Coopercraft kits on Ebay, at reasonable prices - £13 + pp or thereabouts. 

 

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

Main DCI brake diagrams were:

 

- V5

- O3 (most)

- O4

- O5

- 4-plank opens (some)

- N13

 

 

V5 - 320

N13 - 289

O5 - 200

O4 - 2,706

 

O2 as well, at least from the photo of 29301 I have. O10 - but vac braked - is that DC2? - photo of 78499. DC2 doesn't have the swan-neck lever. 1,750 both diagrams together.

 

Any idea which Lots of the 4-plank wagons? (Presumably late ones.)

[Miss Prism]

O2 and O10 are DCII. (No swan-neck lever.)

 

Quote

Any idea which Lots of the 4-plank wagons? (Presumably late ones.)

 

Impossible to tell, The lots aren't dated. But yes, predominantly the late ones. (There were about 24k of these 4-plankers.)

 

Seems to me the etch looks ok, but it would be good to identify the 'technical issues' behind its current withdrawal. Is the bit hanging down from the ratchet a bit too long?? (I don't have a scanner to send Bill the drawing from the bible.)

 

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Miss Prism

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

O2 and O10 are DCII. (No swan-neck lever.)

 

 

Impossible to tell, The lots aren't dated. But yes, predominantly the late ones. (There were about 24k of these 4-plankers.)

 

Seems to me the etch looks ok, but it would be good to identify the 'technical issues' behind its current withdrawal. Is the bit hanging down from the ratchet a bit too long?? (I don't have a scanner to send Bill the drawing from the bible.)

 

 

 

I have some photos of how to load pit props from the 1920 GW appendix - not suitable for reproduction as they're screenshots of online posts of photographs of the book! These include O2 No. 29301, which from Atkins is Lot 496 or 509 - DCI brakes with swan neck lever. From the same source, O10 No. 78499, Lot 522, vacuum brakes so DCII - no swan neck lever.

 

I've reminded myself that these were built c. 1905-7 so always grey. However, both these examples have cast numberplates but of course not cast G.W.R plates - handy, as I can make up more numberplates from the Coopercraft plates than I have G.W.R plates. The easiest number to make would be 78460, which is Lot 522 so vacuum brakes, although 74810, Lot 486, is possible with a bit more dicing. Perhaps the dicing is easier than the vacuum brakes!

[Miss Prism]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

These include O2 No. 29301, which from Atkins is Lot 496 or 509 - DCI brakes with swan neck lever.

 

Ok. No doubt there were exceptions.

 

[Compound2632]

I went for 74810:

 

 

The digits 1 and 0 have ended up a bit too close together but given that it's made up of four pieces from two plates, I'm pleased with how it has come out for a first attempt: [781] + [1460] = [7 / 4 / 81 / 0]. I've still to do the other side and the ends. This first batch of O2s, Lot 486, were numbered 74726-74825, following directly on from the 4-plank wagons of Lot 322 of about five years earlier which were at the end of a long continuous run of 4-planks with numbers from 71001 onwards. The O4s built in the intervening years took numbers in a series starting at 75001, apart from those lots that took old numbers. 

 

I've had a go at representing the straight part of the swan-necked lever using microstrip, vanishing behind the axleguard. It's in a lower position than in my reference photos but they show wagons with the brake on; here the brake is off. I'm not sure if I've got the hand lever in the correct position? Now thinking how to give the impression of the gubbins linking to the end cross shaft - which will be added using brass wire. (That's a detail one can't put in if using tension locks or other proprietary coupling systems.)

 

The circular door bang plates and the doorstops are further apart than in my two reference photos. Maybe there was some variation between lots?

 

On this one, I did break the semicircular sheet rail guides so will have to work out how to replace those, as previously discussed. I've come to realise that the Coopercraft buffer guides are too long for 20th century unfitted wagons, though some 19th century 4-plank wagons appear to have these longer guides. 

 

In assembling the Coopercraft kits, one has to pay especial attention to seating the brass bearings in the 2 mm dia holes in the back of the axleboxes. These were designed to accommodate plastic pinpoint axles that are close enough to the standard 26 mm, so if brass bearings are inserted, they end up too close together - in practice, the axleguards are splayed outwards. The other O2 I have inherited suffers from this and I think is unfortunately beyond correction, since the whole solebar / axleguard moulding on each side is solidly glued at this splay angle. To avoid this, it is necessary to counterbore the hole with a 3 mm diameter drill to a depth of about 0.5 mm. That's reasonably straightforward on an unassembled kit; a little more awkward when the solebars are already stuck in place, but do-able with care. Leastways, I did it here.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Compound2632]

I've done the numberplate on the other side of 74810 - using d-limonene this time, giving a cleaner result. I'm now stumped for the position of the cast numberplate on the ends - bottom plank or second plank up? I've put the question to the Great Western experts:

It's the Great Western, a railway studied in greater detail by a greater number than any other, so I'm looking forward to clear, authoritative answers backed up by photographic evidence...

 

Here's a line-up of 4-plank opens:

 

 

From left to right:

• An Ebay purchase of a built Coopercraft O5 kit, with paint stripped and the DCI brake gear replaced with conventional brakes, to represent a standard 4-plank. With oil axleboxes and cast plates, it represents a wagon from one of the later lots. The cast plates were on the wagon as received; I attempted to slice them off for use eslsewhere but they were too well attached, so I've left them on. The number is 10070, which is, I believe, an O5 number. However, Lots 355 and 392 received old numbers including some in this range, so I might just let this slip through, unless someone can tell be that those lots included numbers such as 10170 or 10071 that I could fudge. The seller very thoughtfully included the unused portion of the numberplate sprue, which is where 74810's plates are coming from.
• Yesterday's build of a Coopercraft O5 kit, another recent Ebay purchase, as a standard 4-plank wagon, with grease axleboxes made by filing down the front of the moulding, adding a rectangle of 0.030" x 2 mm Evergreen strip and a lid cut from 0.010" plasticard. I have one more kit still in the bag; these two will donate their cast plates to O4s.
• A gift wagon: I believe this is an ABS kit, lacking a brake lever. The sharp-eyed will notice that the left-hand push rod is nearly horizontal, as it should be, unlike the Coopercraft moulding. I spotted that too late... This wagon has the advantage that the floor is in the right place.

I've also moved onto the refurbishment (or possibly recycling) of some Coopercraft O4s. I really like kit-built wagons that fall apart in the Superstrip, as two of these have (with a little encouragement). Here's the first one, with the weedy moulded semicircular sheet rail guide and fixed trapezoidal plate removed from the ends and the long bang plates scraped off the doors (this wagon will have the short door springs):

 

 

I also "lost" the buffers off this one and have scraped away the buffer guide base moulding - it will have the luxury of MJT cast buffers.

 

The separate solebar moulding shows the bearing holes as they come. This rather painful close-up shows the holes counterbored 3 mm so that the brass bearings will sit in snugly:

 

 

The job isn't made easy by the hole being too close to the bottom of the axlebox at one end. The hole is in the right place from the point of view of parallelism of the axles, and hence running, so it must be the axlebox position that isn't quite right.

 

A proper non-bodging modeller would have ditched the entire underframe moulding for something altogether more refined, @Craigw.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Chrisbr]

Stephen,

 

I'm afraid neither 10071 or 10170 were ever 4 planks. 10070 was built as part of Lot 345 in June 1901

[Compound2632]

@Chrisbr, thanks. Back to leafing through the number list! My notes don't have Lot 345 but do have Lot 355 as a 4-plank lot with numbers scattered through the range 712-10782, which fits. Is that your typo or mine?

 

Today's lockdown challenge: find a 4-plank wagon with cast plates but conventional not DCI brakes with number 1xx7x!

Edited April 22, 2020 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

On 19/04/2020 at 20:48, Compound2632 said:

@Lecorbusier drawing my attention to a version of the early silent film The Kiss in the Tunnel released by the Bradford film pioneers Riley Brothers in 1899, though there is some reason for supposing that the train sequences may have been shot as early as 1896, just a year or so after that Louis Lumiere's famous l'arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat. It isn't the snogging scene that's of interest here, but the train, which goes into the tunnel headed by a 0-4-4T, which comes out a 4-4-0. Tim is keen to identify the tunnel and station but I wrote him an essay on the carriages instead, 

 

Interrupting the Great Western flow for a moment, Tim @Lecorbusier has identified the station in the second train sequence as Esholt, on the Shipley to Guiseley line. This fits with the Bradford provenance of the film but makes it less likely that it is as old as 1896; probably the year the film was released, 1899. Also, the 6'6" slide-vale 4-4-0 is more likely to be a member of the 1808 Class rather than one of Liverpool's 1312 Class. The tunnel entrance in the opening sequence is yet to be identified. [EDIT: Now thought to be the eastern portal of the same tunnel, though I'm not entirely convinced.]

 

Looking for information on Esholt, I was reminded of the Esholt Junction accident of 8 June 1892 - at the other side of the tunnel. An Ilkley to Bradford train was run into by a Leeds to Ilkley train. The driver of the latter had mistaken a clear signal on the line from Bradford as his own, due to poor sighting. In his report, Maj.-Gen. Hutchinson, condemned the practice of allowing trains to approach a junction simultaneously as a breach of BoT orders made under the 1889 Regulation of Railways Act. Five passengers died, only one of them instantly, and 26 passengers and four railwaymen were injured, including the driver and fireman of the Leeds train.

 

From Maj.-Gen. Hutchinson's report, the make-up of the two trains can be reconstructed. First the Ilkley to Bradford train:

• 0-4-4T No. 1642 (1532 Class) running chimney first; stationed at Manningham in 1892 [S. Summerson, Midland Railway Locomotives Vol. 3 (Irwell Press, 2002) p. 109]
• third brake
• third
• 2 x first Nos. 65 & 66
• 2 x third Nos. 199 & 191
• third brake No. 1502
• bogie third brake No. 372

R.E. Lacy & G. Dow, Midland Railway Carriages Vol 2 (Wild Swan, 1996) p. 264 gives numbers 1486-1525 and 1592-1613 for the 62 short-buffered third brakes of Lot 75, D504, therefore the first seven carriages are another example of a close-coupled set. The numbers of the two firsts fit with the ranges given for the Lot 73 carriages, D292. The thirds of Lot 74, D493, are stated to have mostly taken scattered numbers released by the withdrawal of old carriages, though these particular numbers are not mentioned.

 

The bogie third brake is an interesting carriage: it is one of the thirty 40 ft brake thirds of Lot 3, built in 1878, for which Lacy & Dow, Vol. p. 79, give a full number list. These were the last carriages built with Clayton's early style of clerestory and the only such carriages built at the new Litchurch Lane works. It features prominently in this photo:

 

 

The offending junction home signals, side by side, are on the left of the photo. The sighting of the signal for the line from Leeds was obscured by a bush; that for Bradford is on the outside of the curve to improve sighting. Following the accident, indeed by the time Maj.-Gen. Hutchinson wrote his report, dated 6 July, the offending bush had been removed. 

 

The train from Leeds was made up of:

• 2-4-0 No. 179 (170 Class), stationed at Ilkley in 1892 [S. Summerson, Midland Railway Locomotives Vol. 2 (Irwell Press, 2007) p. 69]
• third brake No. 64
• third
• first
• composite
• third
• third brake

The presence of the composite indicates that this was not a close coupled train and, indeed, the third brake standing behind the capsized No. 179 has a single set of steps diagonally across its end. No. 64 is recorded by Lacy & Dow, Vol. 1 p. 106, as the number of a D504 long-buffer third brake, though of course it is possible that this accident report is the source of that information. The first is therefore certainly not one of the 30 ft ones of Lot 73 but probably one of the 29 ft carriages of 1875. The composite may be one of the 31 ft D512 carriages built in 1884/5 but there is also the possibility that it is one of the many 29 ft and 30 ft centre-luggage composites built in 1874-6 by outside contractors. Like the 29 ft firsts, these were built as 4-wheelers but converted to 6-wheelers c. 1880; they also had the lower 10 ft radius roof so would be distinctive in a photograph. The thirds are certainly D493 6-wheelers - the accident reports, along with Midland documents such as the carriage marshalling books, invariably describe a bogie carriage as such - as in the case of that Lot 3 swinger at the rear of the Bradford train.

 

Now I should go build some wagons.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Mikkel]

On 22/04/2020 at 00:40, Compound2632 said:

clear, authoritative answers

 

Stick it on the second plank up with Blu Tack. Then wait and see.

 

[Western Star]

On 08/04/2020 at 19:49, Compound2632 said:

I've fitted the Bill Bedford axleguards to the D418 fruit and milk van...

 

 

 

 

Here is a different MR Milk Van to D416:-

 

http://www.jimmcgeown.com/Coach Kits Pages/LMS Milk Van.html

 

There are several photos of passenger services at Parkend and Speech House Road, on the Severn & Wye, and some of those photos show that some services include a Midland Railway milk NPCS.  Unfortunately the photos are neither sharp enough nor at a sutiable angle to identify the milk vehicle - which seem to be four wheel examples.  Any one able to offer a reasonable guess as to the diagram used circa 1900-1929?

 

thank you, Graham

 

 

[Compound2632]

On 23/04/2020 at 17:28, Western Star said:

Here is a different MR Milk Van to D416:-

 

http://www.jimmcgeown.com/Coach Kits Pages/LMS Milk Van.html

 

There are several photos of passenger services at Parkend and Speech House Road, on the Severn & Wye, and some of those photos show that some services include a Midland Railway milk NPCS.  Unfortunately the photos are neither sharp enough nor at a sutiable angle to identify the milk vehicle - which seem to be four wheel examples.  Any one able to offer a reasonable guess as to the diagram used circa 1900-1929?

 

The D416 20 ft milk vans were much more numerous - 120 built in five Lots 1881-1893, though the first lot of 30 had the lower arc roof (10 ft radius vs. 8 ft). Numbers of the other 90 included 310-349, 135, 190-5, 144, 391-400, 420-516, according to Lacy & Dow. The D418 25 ft vans were built as a single lot of 25 in 1893. Further milk vans were built in the square-panelled style, with roofs matching the profile of the clerestory carriages though without the clerestory. There was one lot of 25 to D417, 20 ft long, built in 1900; the rest were 25 ft long to D419 - 61 built 1900-1904 plus 12 for the S&DJR. A further 20 were built in 1918; these were to a new drawing so I presume were in the round-panelled style. In 7 mm scale, Slaters do a kit for a 6-wheeled vehicle that they describe as a milk van but according to the diagram book is a fish truck, D1272, forty built in 1920-1922 on old 6-wheel carriage underframes.

 

For 1900, I would thing the 20 ft D416 van would be the most likely; by the 20s there's a wider choice. Is it at least possible to identify the roof profile from the photos?

 

Here's a pair of D419s being unloaded at Cadbury's Bournville factory:

 

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Compound2632]

Continuing with the reconditioned O4s, I've turned my attention to another one, as one of the axleguards on the first one has disintigrated under the pressure of too vigorous counterboring...

 

The parts of this one cleaned up nicely. Again, I scraped off the long door bang plates and the sheet bar components apart from the pivot casting I also scraped off the buffer bases, leaving a plain flat surface for the MJT buffers. Here's the re-assembled wagon:

 

 

It does look rather too annoyingly better with those shorter buffer guides...

 

With both the 4-plank and 5-plank kits, I've found that care is needed to get the bottom of the headstock and the bottom of the solebar aligned - I shave off a wafer from the top of the locating pip on the end moulding, to get it to sit a whisker higher against the floor. This wagon had previously been assembled with the brake lever bracket at the left-hand end on both sides - possibly a misunderstanding of the DCIII arrangement? I've been carefully hoarding the off-cut brackets from wagons built with conventional brakes, so had a spare right-hand end bracket to stick back on. I put the cross-shaft in straight away to give the bracket a bit of extra support.

 

I've still to work out how to give an impression of the rest of the brake gear - the curved end of the swan-necked lever, lifting link, and quadrant. One item from the kit that I'm getting short of is the brake lever, since that's the first thing to fail when stripping the paint off with an old electric toothbrush, after soaking in the stripper.

 

On 23/04/2020 at 13:36, Mikkel said:

Stick it on the second plank up with Blu Tack. Then wait and see.

 

Assuming the representation of the sheet bar pivot casting on the end is correct, my question about the position of the cast plate has answered itself: it can only go on the bottom plank, as in the photo of 77445 that I'd mentioned in my question over in the GWR Rolling Stock sub-forum. I'm expecting this wagon to be from Lot 414, either 76070 or 76081.

 

It's going to have the short door springs, which from the photos I've seen, appears to be the usual arrangement for these wagons as built,

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Compound2632]

I've not done much about wagon loads, other than insist on the near-universality of sheets for anything other than mineral &c. traffic. Timber is a traffic that is often protrayed unsheeted; this may well be accurate for unsawn timber, large baulks, or pit props, but not necessarily for sawn timber, planks, and boards, if this crop from a c. 1905 view of Vastern Road Yard, Reading, is anything to go by:

 

 

[C. Turner, Reading Goods Part 2 - Vastern Road Yard, Great Western Railway Journal No. 81 (Wild Swan, 2012), credited to NRM.]

 

In order to depict such loads, the best starting-point I know is the BR-era document BR20426 – 3 Instructions and Diagrams for Loading and Securing Long, Projecting and Otherwise Exceptional Loads, Also Procedure Regarding Acceptance and Conveyance of Out - Of - Gauge and Otherwise Exceptional Loads, the November 1956 edition of which is downloadable from the Barrowmore Model Railway Group's website. Large parts of this document are pretty much identical to the equivalent LNWR documents reproduced in LNWR Wagons Vol. 1 (Wild Swan, 2001); in fact I think many of the diagrams are the same. This demonstrates that these BR-era documents represent the best practice arrived at at least half a century earlier. The key points to take away from p. 26 of the BR document are: firstly, that the mass of the load is de-rated from the nominal capacity of the wagon as a function of the overhang (because of the asymmetric load on the axles); secondly, the maximum overhang of 6 ft, or 8 ft if the lengths of the planks are mixed (and anything over 25'6" must be carried flat - recalling that the BR instructions were written with 17'6"-long wagons in mind); and thirdly, the safety margin of 8" between the top of the load and the top of the wagon, at the heel end of the load. 

 

I set out to make something like the load in the 4-plank wagon in the photo. In designing the load, one has to take into account that the floor of the Coopercraft model is rather higher, and hence the wagon less deep, than the prototype. Here's my working, including a check that the load meets the regulations for a 10 ton steel-framed wagon:

 

 

Looking at the photo again, the empty 4-plank wagon seems to be a runner, though the load doesn't overhang it by much - say 5 ft overhang maximum. Note also that the lower planks in the load are longer than the wagon but there appear to be a mass of planks about 12 ft long on top, completely hidden by the sheet. I've chosen to assume that all the planks are 12" wide by 1½" thick. The basic structure has been built up in 0.040" Plastikard with the visible ends of the planks represented by 4 mm wide strips of 0.020" Plastikard:

 

 

My first thought was to use Evergreen strip but on the one hand, it seemed an extravagant use of a relatively expensive material, while on the other, I thought it would give too uniform an appearance to the stacks of planks.

 

The underside leaves enough clearance for a piece of 2 mm thick lead to be glued to the wagon floor:

 

 

This also shows that the bottom layer of projecting planks is cut from a single piece of Plastikard.

 

Here's a trial fitting in the wagon:

 

 

... and the exercise is to be repeated for a 5-plank wagon, which, despite its greater volume, cannot take a greater mass of planks.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Western Star]

Quote

On 23/04/2020 at 17:28, Western Star said:

There are several photos of passenger services at Parkend and Speech House Road, on the Severn & Wye, and some of those photos show that some services include a Midland Railway milk NPCS.  Unfortunately the photos are neither sharp enough nor at a sutiable angle to identify the milk vehicle - which seem to be four wheel examples.  Any one able to offer a reasonable guess as to the diagram used circa 1900-1929?

 

On 23/04/2020 at 18:36, Compound2632 said:

Is it at least possible to identify the roof profile from the photos?

 

Here is a passenger service at Parkend and destined for Lydney, date is thought to be circa 1929, the image is courtesy of Ian Pope, photographer is uncertain.  There are three GWR four wheel carriages, then a NPCS, then what is probably a 2021 class pannier tank engine.  I think that the milk van has three sets of doors given that I think that I can see three door vents.

 

 

 

 

This photo of a similar passenger service at Speech House Road, probably in the Edwardian era, is courtesy of Ian Pope, photographer is not known.   The loco is a 2021 saddle tank and the milk van looks to have three sets of doors (based upon visible hinges) and with a roof profile that seems different from that shown in the Parkend picture.

 

Are these MIdland Railway NPCS?  If so, which diagram?

 

Note that I am a 7mm modeller and as far as I know the only similar model / kit is that which I mentioned earlier (D416 from Connoisseur Models).

 

regards, Graham

[Compound2632]

On 25/04/2020 at 00:09, Western Star said:

Are these MIdland Railway NPCS?  If so, which diagram?

 

Note that I am a 7mm modeller and as far as I know the only similar model / kit is that which I mentioned earlier (D416 from Connoisseur Models).

 

The vehicle in the Speech House Road photo does look very like the D418 milk van I'm building - the hinges look very evenly spaced; the panels between the double doors on this diagram are about the same 4 ft width as the doors themselves:

 

 

The etches for this 4 mm scale Connoisseur kit are stated to be reduced from a 7 mm scale version, so I wonder if, though he only advertises the D416 kit, Jim McGowan still has the artwork for the D418 - the castings are common to both. Looking at this example of a build of the 7 mm D416, it looks familiar.

 

The vehicle in the Parkend photo has the profile and door spacing of the D419 van - compare the Cadbury's photo I posted - but it clearly has eves panels with ventilators for the doors. This leads me to suspect it is one of the 1918 batch with in the round-cornered panelling style. The waist panels look quite deep, which is characteristic of the post-1905 panelling style. No known kit for this; indeed I don't believe I have ever seen a photo before. The Midland Railway Study Centre has a copy of drawing 4270 for this lot. 

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Compound2632]

Further progress on the plank loads:

 

 

The O4 5-plank open can't carry a greater load than the 4-plank, despite its greater volume. In the Vastern Road photo, the O4 appears to be loaded fuller but on close inspection, I think it can be seen that the load doesn't take up the full width of the wagon. Pages 27-28 of the instructions apply. The load would be held together with loops of rope; these will mostly be out of sight under the sheet, except at the end where the ropes are tied to the wagon to stop the load  shifting sideways. 

 

The visible part of the load has been primed grey then given washes of Humbrol No. 71 (not a current colour) and off-black. The result looks a bit too dowdy for freshly-planed timber, so I'll experiment to perk it up a bit. Maybe even a hint of brown? Compare well-thinned No. 71 over read lead primer on the inside of the empty 4-plank wagon.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Andy Hayter]

Not brown

Fresh sawn timber is buff, sand etc - unless it's teak or mahogany.

[Mikkel]

On 24/04/2020 at 23:06, Compound2632 said:

Here's a trial fitting in the wagon:

 

 

That looks very good Stephen. The many and relatively thin planks are definitely an improvement over other good attempts I have seen. 

[Tricky]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Further progress on the plank loads:

 

 

The O4 5-plank open can't carry a greater load than the 4-plank, despite its greater volume. In the Vastern Road photo, the O4 appears to be loaded fuller but on close inspection, I think it can be seen that the load doesn't take up the full width of the wagon. Pages 27-28 of the instructions apply. The load would be held together with loops of rope; these will mostly be out of sight under the sheet, except at the end where the ropes are tied to the wagon to stop the load  shifting sideways. 

 

The visible part of the load has been primed grey then given washes of Humbrol No. 71 (not a current colour) and off-black. The result looks a bit too dowdy for freshly-planed timber, so I'll experiment to perk it up a bit. Maybe even a hint of brown? Compare well-thinned No. 71 over read lead primer on the inside of the empty 4-plank wagon.

You could of course use real wood planks. With a small amount of arm twisting it could be arranged....

[Rowsley17D]

12 hours ago, Tricky said:

You could of course use real wood planks. With a small amount of arm twisting it could be arranged....

 

I use coffee stirrers and those extra long matches.

[mike morley]

The little drums Camembert (and probably other cheeses from forn parts) are sold in are a useful source of thin timber.