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

[Worsdell forever]

22 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I've not given the Slaters cattle wagon very much thought as it's the 1905 version, so after my period. Looking in Midland Wagons, there are two drawings, Drg. 2242 for construction from 1905 and Drg. 3256 from 1911. Wagons to the 1905 drawing were undoubtedly built with brakes on one side only [plate 253]. The 1911 drawing introduces both-side brakes - the date coincides with the BoT requirement for such - the Midland Railway Study Centre has placed a copy of this drawing online. If I've read it right, this shows independent brakes on each side, with double V-hangers and no cross-shaft. I think this is what most of the LMS and BR era photos in Midland Wagons show. As Essery says, it's likely that the earlier cattle wagons were gradually given both-side brakes; I would expect these also to be independent, as that would be the simplest arrangement. The only exception is the photo of the fitted wagon.

 

Thanks Stephen, they'll stay both sides, independent.

 

22 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

How do the cattle cope with the Rosedale incline?

 

It's an up hill struggle.

[Compound2632]

I've had a first pass with the weathering wash on the 4-plank wagons, as a result of which I've discovered I've lost a buffer head and, worse, forgotten to add the brake lever to the ABS wagon.

 

Not so very long ago I was rather startled to come across a photo showing a Midland 4-plank wagon - I think in an interior shot of St Pancras or Somers Town Goods Stations. The construction looked pretty much the same as a 5-plank D299, notably the layout of bolts on the corner plates., suggesting that it is not an ex-PO wagon. It's clearly a bit more modern than the late 1860s Gloucester-built wagon illustrated in Midland Wagons, plate 34, but must pre-date the 5-plank wagons of Lot 29, Drg. 402 built in 1879, Midland Wagons, plate 90.

 

A trawl of the Midland Railway Study Centre C&W Database reveals Drg. 89 of 17 Nov 1874 "High Sided Wagon", along with Drg. 103 of 14 Dec 1874 "Details of Ironwork for High Sided Wagon"; unfortunately neither appears to survive in the Study Centre's collection. The Litchurch Lane C&W works lot book did not open until 1877, so it is possible that these drawings are for 4-plank wagons built either in the old carriage & wagon shops or by the trade. I'm not quite sure when the wagon diagram book was first issued but I think it is early 20th century, by which time these wagons had probably been withdrawn as life-expired.

 

I must find the photo again!

 

EDIT: Here's a thumbnail of it, Midland Railway Study Centre Item 61369; the date given is 1894; the wagon is in the foreground on the right. I think it's a Derby official and I probably saw it in the Midland Railway Society Journal rather than Midland Record.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

With the Great Western red livery, I've wavered between black running gear and red. In this round of weathering, I've gone for the compromise of being quite generous below solebar level. Here's No. 49012 with its plank load fitted and roped:

 

 

The instructions (pages 26-28) give detailed instructions on the roping of the projecting load, which I've attempted to copy - though skimping by only going twice round the load. The cross-bracing isn't as neatly horizontal as it should be - it was fiddly enough without trying to properly tension the rope! (I think this will be easier with the more projecting load of the O4.) The instructions also specify a rope across the middle if the load projects above the rave at that point; I've gone for one at about the point where the planks do reach rave level, as that seems to be what's going on with the wagon in the Vastern Road photo. 

 

The elaborate roping at the end is vital to stop the load shifting sideways; the rope across the middle is, I suppose, to stop the planks bouncing up above the rave at the bottom end.

 

For the sheet, I chose to use one from my stock of Thomas Petith sheets, as the tissue is more amenable to attempts to represent furling than the ordinary paper one I'd printed from @Ian Smith's template. The Petith-pattern one was certainly current at my period - one appears on a O4 here, possibly a photo to demonstrate the new sheet bar. The Ian Smith type, distinguishable by just having the letters GW rather than GWR, appears to be universal in the Vastern Road and Kings Meadow photos, which are c. 1905, so just after my target period. Given that sheets had only 18 months or so in traffic before being returned for overhaul, it's possible that any change in lettering could happen fairly quickly, i.e. there would only be an 18-month window when both types would be in circulation. I'm choosing to believe that I'm in the middle of that window. 

 

Anyway, here's my attempt to represent the arrangement of the sheet on the 4-plank wagon in the Vastern Road photo:

 

 

At the sides, the sheet is secured by tie ropes from the eyelets in the triangular tabs sewn into the first seam on either side - triangles laboriously cut out but scarcely visible! I've not really mastered the furling - how do modellers of sailing boats / ships manage that? The tie ropes are lashed to the lifting holes, axleguards (naughty) and imaginary solebar cleats - all secured with a very small dab of cyano.

 

Here's a view showing more of the design of the sheet. I've tried to show the hollow where the planks are below rave level but it hasn't come out very well defined:

 

 

And here's a reminder of what I'm trying to emulate:

 

 

There is a 56 mm x 25 mm piece of 2 mm thick lead flashing stuck under the plank load and a couple of the Coopercraft steel weights on the underside; giving a mass of 49 g, comparable to a whitemetal wagon of this size.

[Northroader]

Happy 100th pageday, there’s some really good stuff on this thread.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Northroader

[A Murphy]

That looks excellent Stephen. Also,  100th page congrats from me too and totally agree with Northroader above.

 

best,

 

Alastair M

[Compound2632]

Thanks - I hadn't noticed! I think this landmark deserves a motivational picture:

 

 

How many D299s? Washwood Heath, March 1905. NRM DY 2799, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

[mike morley]

Has anyone successfully modelled the puddles that inevitably collected where the sheets sagged and formed hollows?

My own attempts, using varnish and Woodland Scenics Realistic Water  with Smiths wagon sheets were a disaster.  The 'liquid' soaked in then wicked up the sides of the sag to form a very shallow, concave puddle that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the real thing.  IIRC, the Realistic Water was slightly worse than the attempt using varnish.

[Compound2632]

58 minutes ago, mike morley said:

Has anyone successfully modelled the puddles that inevitably collected where the sheets sagged and formed hollows?

My own attempts, using varnish and Woodland Scenics Realistic Water  with Smiths wagon sheets were a disaster.  The 'liquid' soaked in then wicked up the sides of the sag to form a very shallow, concave puddle that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the real thing.  IIRC, the Realistic Water was slightly worse than the attempt using varnish.

 

Interesting. That would, I suppose, commit one to modelling a wet day - rarely done - so one would need to really be on top of one's puddle technique. But I agree, the usual medium for wagon sheets, at least for ready-made ones, is paper - virtually tissue for the Petith ones - which isn't very amenable to anything wet. I am thinking, though, that I might experiment with a rattle can matt varnish for this wagon. That might provide the necessary waterproof barrier for a puddle, though I don't plan to try. It's a dry day with me.

[mike morley]

Puddles tend to last a lot longer than the rain that caused them, so you wouldn't necessarily have to model a wet day.  Also, the wagon could have arrived from somewhere wet.

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, mike morley said:

Puddles tend to last a lot longer than the rain that caused them, so you wouldn't necessarily have to model a wet day.  Also, the wagon could have arrived from somewhere wet.

 

I'll remember that if I do a sheeted Cambrian open.

[Guy Rixon]

3 hours ago, mike morley said:

Has anyone successfully modelled the puddles that inevitably collected where the sheets sagged and formed hollows?

My own attempts, using varnish and Woodland Scenics Realistic Water  with Smiths wagon sheets were a disaster.  The 'liquid' soaked in then wicked up the sides of the sag to form a very shallow, concave puddle that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the real thing.  IIRC, the Realistic Water was slightly worse than the attempt using varnish.

Semi-successfully. As noted above, too much liquid destroys the paper sheet, but thin layers of varnish can be built up.  This was with sheets printed at home on 80 gsm paper. My main problem was that my available varnishes didn't want to dry glossy when blobbed on. I may try again now that I have other makes. 

[Siberian Snooper]

How about using lead foil for sheets,  I believe that the military modellers use the stuff, what it's like for painting I couldn't say, but it should fold and crease ok and is waterproof.

 

 

[Northroader]

Cooking foil does it for me.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107190-“washbourne”/page/49/&tab=comments#comment-3866702

 

[mike morley]

55 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

How about using lead foil,

 

A friend has used lead foil for modelling purposes and admitted that it was extremely expensive.  He used it for covering a platform canopy and it looked superb.  It was undoubtedly worth the outlay for a job of that nature, but for something as mundane as a wagon sheet, I'm not so sure.

Edited May 7, 2020 by mike morley

[Compound2632]

39 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Cooking foil does it for me.

 

That is cunning - I am surprised it took the paint. The hand lettering is very neat - that's the tricky bit with not using a printed sheet. I wonder if the printed sheet could be stuck to the foil? Whimping out on the number of tie ropes, I see...

 

13 minutes ago, mike morley said:

A friend has used lead foil for modelling purposes and admitted that it was extremely expensive.  He used it for covering a platform canopy and it looked superb.  It was undoubtedly worth the outlay for a job of that nature, but for something as mundane as a wagon sheet, I'm not so sure.

 

How thin, I wonder? It's a pretty ductile metal. Again painting and lettering would be the challenge.

 

I repeat my question: how do the ship modellers do furled sails?

[Mikkel]

4 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

How about using lead foil for sheets,  I believe that the military modellers use the stuff, what it's like for painting I couldn't say, but it should fold and crease ok and is waterproof.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Northroader said:

Cooking foil does it for me.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107190-“washbourne”/page/49/&tab=comments#comment-3866702

 

 

I experimented with the foil sheets, and eventually made my own. I  ended up with a combo of kitchen foil (to facilitate shape) laminated with paper (for ease of printing). However I think Northroader's solution and the clingfilm technique (see comments to blog post below) have a lot of potential and might be good for puddles.

 

 

[Compound2632]

Moving on to diagram O4 5-plank opens, these two have gained some details but not yet the things that most characterise them as O4s - sheet rails and complete DC1 brake gear:

 

 

No. 76081 on the left is destined for the planks; No. 76001 will be the wagon in the Aldridge photo, loaded with pipes, I think:

 

 

Both wagons are from Lot 414, 200 wagons numbered in the block 76001-76200. Dicing the Coopercraft plates, the lack of the digits 2, 3, and 5 pretty much restricts one to numbers from this lot or the second half of Lot 426, 200 wagons numbered 76301-76500. The d-limonene really helps with assembling the numberplates - there's time to tweak the pieces into position then give them a gentle squeeze from the ends to close up the joints. 

 

Both wagons will have the sheet bar resting to one side, although in the case of No. 76081, it'll be mostly hidden by the sheet. 

 

Thinking again about the two designs of sheet, I've noted the date on @Ian Smith's is 10/03; the Petith sheets have a range of dates, from 6/01 to 4/02 - he would change this if requested, likewise sheet numbers, to avoid duplication. Assuming both gentlemen have done their research, which I have no reason to doubt, this puts the change in sheet design around 1902/3, which suits me down to the ground. There would be a 15 - 18 month window during which old and new designs would both be in service. 

 

Just to test this, the photo of No. 12325 of Lot 410 shows the old design of sheet - what's the build date? (I'm assuming the photo was taken when the wagon was brand new, to illustrate the sheet rail.) EDIT: Apologies to @Chrisbr who had already given me the answer:

Fits the theory nicely!

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Compound2632

[Northroader]

On the question of lettering, I use a bow pen, and you need to get the paint consistency just right, not too sludgy and not too runny. Usually it’s small tins of Humbrol, and a fresh tin is usually about right, older stuff needs just a smidge of white spirit, hardly any or it just runs off in pools, and don’t get too much on the pen, a small amount and the meniscus stops the  paint running off too fast. I try to mark the lettering off lightly, as exact as I can in a sharp pencil, and go over it with the pen.

Having done the lettering, let it dry then touch up with the background colour. I never use black on its own, but lighten it with some grey or white to get a charcoal grey. With this I go along with a straight edge, so the tops and bottoms of the letters are in line, then try and get square cut ends, like on the prongs of “E” and “F”, as the first white run leaves them blobby. The holes in “A” and “R” also need a touch, and look for any other bits. Then you can go back to using white for another touch up and tidy up some more, and repeat the process as needs be.

Ropes? Well, I do skimp on the proper number, to me in modelling scales the right number looks overfussy, and it is a fiddle fixing them in any case.

[Compound2632]

A work of destruction:

 

 

... achieved by easing the buffers out of the headstocks, plucking the brake yokes out from between the outer brake blocks, and undoing a couple of screws. Then a firm yank for the partition, a quick push-and-twist with the flat of the knife to unglue the glazing, and finally some gentle tweezering to remove the handrails.

 

My inspiration for getting to grips with the Oxford AA3 goods brake van is Gerry Beale's article in Model Railway Journal No. 268 (Cygnet, 2019) and also @ullypug's blog:

In both these cases, the starting point has been one of the later versions with sheeted sides; these have some specific faults not relevant to my model, which is the early version with planked sides, as I'm aiming for c. 1902/3 condition. Here Russ Elliot's article on gwr.org.uk is invaluable. It might also be useful to have Atkins to hand but I think I can get by without; Russ' article gives lots and numbering. 

 

Russ' article has a couple of very useful photos - of AA1 No. 55964 giving end and handrail detail, and of Crewe-allocated AA3 No. 17539. From these various sources, I have arrived at the following list of modifications:

• the windows at the non-verandah end should be the earlier type with a central horizontal transom;
• the central window should be a horizontally-boarded hatch door;
• the diagonal strengthener on the verandah side should be flat, not angle iron as depicted on the model;
• the handrails should be separate vertical and horizontal pieces of ¾" diameter iron - 0.3 mm straight wire will be only slightly over-scale; the long horizontal handrail has no intermediate supports (so there are some holes to fill on the body);
• at the verandah end, the sandbox fillers should be out of sight underneath individual box seats in the corners (thanks to @Miss Prism for clarifying this point) - but it would be useful to know when the change was made to the full-width bench across the end, with sandbox fillers on top, bearing in mind that all the AA3 vans had been built by my target date;
• the footboard backboard on the model is correct for early condition, apart from the spurious gap midway along;
• the footboard width should taper slightly at the ends - roughly from the axlebox;
• the buffer guides ought to be of a longer type than those provided, I think like MJT's "GWR fitted wagon buffers"*;
• the cabin door needs correcting - this is a bit obscure to me for lack of good photos but from Gerry Beale's article I think this simply means horizontal boarding all the way to the top and not the blank "window" panel of the Oxford partition moulding.

Query: given the notorious error in the end windows, are the partition windows in the right place?

 

Anything I've missed?

 

Perhaps this post ought really be in the "Modifying & Detailing RTR stock" sub-forum but my argument is that my RTR model has become a kit of parts! I've not forgotten my other little project for the front end of my Great Western goods train...

 

*These look to have the same guide length as the ones provided by Coopercraft, which on my O4s I've replaced with their "GWR non-fitted wagon buffers".

 

EDIT: Here's what I'm aiming for:

 

 

[Crop from a photo in the Huntley & Palmers Collection, c. 1890s.]

Edited October 12, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[brumtb]

Interesting!  Having had a go myself I shall follow your undoubtedly more accurate version closely.  I've already realised I should have changed the buffers!

 

Tony

[Compound2632]

Looking through photos of model and prototype, I've come to realise that the end windows on my fully-planked version are differently wrong to those on the plated versions. The latter extend one plank to low, so the bottom needs filling in and making good, per Gerry Beale's article, whereas on mine they extend one plank to high. They should be four planks high, with five below and one above.

[Compound2632]

Hopping about in my usual unsystematic manner, today I replaced the buffers on @TurboSnail's 3D-printed Brighton Cravens Open A with MJT Midland ones, as I had previously done on the Birmingham RC&W Co. one. Lessons learned, including rotating the 2 mm drill bit widdershins, so all went smoothly. These wagons join their Great Western brethren in the sheet bar queue.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Compound2632

[Rail-Online]

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

widdershins

Now that is a term I have never heard before - had to look it up - Scottish origins?

 

Tony

[2996 Victor]

1 hour ago, Rail-Online said:

Now that is a term I have never heard before - had to look it up - Scottish origins?

 

Tony

 

The opposite of turnwise 

[Compound2632]

I've made a start on the brake van body:

 

 

The three openings in the cabin end have been opened out by careful trimming, filing, and scrawking, making sure that corners are nicely sharp and square. Unwanted raised detail was removed - including trimming the rainstrip and lower lip for the hatch to just the width of the hatch, rather than the full width between the end stanchions, and removing the beading strip on the inboard side of the windows. The end wall is 1.0 mm thick, so the hatch was cut from 0.030" (0.75 mm) Plastikard. Once it was trimmed to a tight fit, it was fixed to a backing piece of 0.040" Plastikard, about 2 mm bigger than the aperture all round. With this plugged in place, the planks were added from 0.010" (0.25 mm) x 0.080" (2.0 mm) Evergreen strip, using just a touch of d-limonene. There is a small gap between each strip, since the pitch of the planks is about 2.3 mm. Once I was happy that everything was well lined-up, I popped the hatch piece out and applied more d-limonene to fix the planks firmly. Once this had dried out, I ran a triangular needle file along the gaps, with one face vertical, to reproduce the chamfering. Comparison with the prototype photo in the background (from Russ' article on gwr.org.uk) shows that on the real thing ther chamfer was much less prominent than on the model but it's best to be consistent with the latter than religiously follow the former and end up with something that looks out of place. 

 

I've started preparing some pieces to fill in the top plank above the windows, using the same method. Looking closely at the photo, I keep changing my mind about whether there is a recessed frame around the glass or not - I'm beginning to think there is, which is a bit more challenging. I've also spotted that the lamp iron is one plank higher on the model - likewise on the Crewe-allocated van - but I'm doubtful I'll try to move such a fine moulding.

 

I have removed the angle from the diagonal ironwork on the verandah side. I have a feeling that the flat piece I'm left with is a bit on the wide side but that's probably another thing I'll have to live with.