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

[billbedford]

1 hour ago, richbrummitt said:

There was a row of recently painted vans at Didcot last time I was there (Christmas for TTTE) and they have a noticeable blue/green tinge. I've observed this elsewhere too. Is this due to modern paint technology, or intended?

 

Yep, the use of titanium dioxide for the white pigment instead of lead carbonate. 

 

When mixing your own greys it's better to use a cream or beige for the lightener rather than plain white. 

[Compound2632]

36 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Since you live in a glasshouse, stop throwing stones.

 

Ouch! Caught out there fair and plain. 

 

BTW I should make it clear that my comments only applied to the two Midland wagon bodies; I don't have enough depth of knowledge to comment on the two Great Western bodies - to the extent that I've acquired some familiarity with those through building and attempting to improve Coopercraft kits guided by those with considerably more knowledge, including @Mikkel, @Miss Prism, @Craigw, and @Chrisbr - there was nothing that leaped out at me.

 

I do however think that if something is offered for sale, especially at what is a premium price, it is reasonable to subject it to detailed, and where appropriate, critical review - a different standard applies, compared to the comments on might make on someone's handiwork made purely for their own enjoyment and posted for the possible interest of others. There are of course always compromises due either to manufacturing limitations in the one case and individual skill or patience in the other, quite apart from the limitations of scale and chosen track and wheel standards.

 

I've made numerous compromises that I'm reasonably content with, including of course the major visual compromise of 00 standards - a compromise made because it gives me the opportunity to see my stock running on club layouts etc. Other compromises include persisting with plastic axleguards and brake-gear when a finer appearance could be obtained using available etched components - although I do try various dodges to improve the appearance of the plastic components. One I'm less happy with but resin transfers give me less excuse for, is the omission of bolt heads on the side-rails of my Slaters D299s and D305s. That's the sort of detail that a modern CAD-designed 3D-printed wagon body ought to include, as, for example, @billbedford's Mousa D299 demonstrates.

Edited May 16, 2020 by Compound2632

[Miss Prism]

AA3 looking very good. Suggest increase the chimney height a bit. Not sure what the official dimension is (the top of the AA3 GA is lopped off), but this one is a good example.

 

[richbrummitt]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

 

Yep, the use of titanium dioxide for the white pigment instead of lead carbonate. 

 

When mixing your own greys it's better to use a cream or beige for the lightener rather than plain white. 

 

I read my post back. I asked because, although I failed to mention, the colour reproduced in GWW 3rd ed. also has a tinge. I trust that the colours are based on the best information available. Some are based on model paints that are based on hard evidence, but there will still be some judgement, maybe even guesswork applied to others.

[Compound2632]

Before I painted, I rebuilt the benches in the verandah, making them scale 3 ft long - I think they know match the ones in the reference photo:

 

 

As @Miss Prism noted, the stove chimney needs to be taller.

 

Still in first, well-thinned, coat of Precision GW freight stock grey.

[Guy Rixon]

5 hours ago, Regularity said:

What wheel profile do you use? The real thing divided by 76.2, or the P4 profile which has an S Scale flange width?

Point of detail: the P4 standards say "The tyre profile is based on BS 276 contour A." Possibly it's the EM standards that use a thicker flange?

 

P4 standards decrease the check gauge (and therefore the maximum back-to-back) below scale dimension. S4 standards use the true-scale check-gauge.

[billbedford]

8 hours ago, richbrummitt said:

 

I read my post back. I asked because, although I failed to mention, the colour reproduced in GWW 3rd ed. also has a tinge. I trust that the colours are based on the best information available. Some are based on model paints that are based on hard evidence, but there will still be some judgement, maybe even guesswork applied to others.

 

Titanium dioxide replaced lead white during the 1950s and 60s in this country. Any paint formulated after that time is unlikely to have contained lead, and especially those intended for modellers, as models legally go under the heading of toys. Whether any of the model paint suppliers made a chromatic correction to remove the blue cast I have no idea, but I find it difficult to believe that their hardest of evidence would have include a chemical analysis of a paint sample. 

Edited May 16, 2020 by billbedford

[richbrummitt]

On the left Eshin grey and on the right Dark reaper. The roof on this one is Corvus black, which seems about as black as grey can be without being black. The Dark reaper did not come out the colour I thought it would. 

 

 

and with flash

 

 

The roof isn't white. 

Edited May 17, 2020 by richbrummitt
Unhelpful word prediction.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, richbrummitt said:

The roof isn't white. 

 

There are some photos showing evidently recently (re)painted van roofs (not especially guards vans) that do look pristine white but they would discolour soon enough. I'd say the roof of that Crewe-allocated van is starting to go. They always look lighter because of the angle.

 

I masked the roof while priming the body; it'll get some attention once I'm happy with the body colour.

[richbrummitt]

28 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

There are some photos showing evidently recently (re)painted van roofs (not especially guards vans) that do look pristine white but they would discolour soon enough. I'd say the roof of that Crewe-allocated van is starting to go. They always look lighter because of the angle.

 

I masked the roof while priming the body; it'll get some attention once I'm happy with the body colour.

 

Oops. What I meant was the roof on my model isn't white. It will be finished further and the right hand one will not stay so dark. If it's not the angle making it what then it can often be due to over-exposure of that area so that the bodies can be seen in detail, often evident in side on views.

 

Which grey do you like? 

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, richbrummitt said:

 

Oops. What I meant was the roof on my model isn't white. It will be finished further and the right hand one will not stay so dark. If it's not the angle making it what then it can often be due to over-exposure of that area so that the bodies can be seen in detail, often evident in side on views.

 

Which grey do you like? 

 

Sorry, I was referring to roofs in general and the one in the Crewe van photo in particular, not specifically yours.

 

I prefer the Dark Reaper on the right; the eShin Grey looks to have that blueish tinge we're taught to avoid. I'd be happy using that for post-1904 wagon grey. But I can't help thinking the Corvus Black may be the right thing for pre-1904 goods brake vans.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Compound2632

[Lecorbusier]

Somewhere recently there was some discussion about ED wagons on the midland and paint colours ... red oxide or grey - could you point me to the relevant page please, I can't find it!

[Compound2632]

34 minutes ago, Lecorbusier said:

Somewhere recently there was some discussion about ED wagons on the midland and paint colours ... red oxide or grey - could you point me to the relevant page please, I can't find it!

 

Challenging!

 

This post about the ballast brake, colour discussed towards the end:

 

There's also some discussion here and the following post, about lettering though not about red:

In brief, I think the earliest conclusive evidence I've seen for ballast wagons in red (iron oxide) is in the well-known photo of Wigston, 20 March 1905:

 

 

NRM DY 2810, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum. Locate the cattle wagon above the locomotive chimney, then count eight to the right. Wigston had a wagon repair shop (the building in behind and to the right of the coal stage) so some of the wagons on view are in ex-works condition, including, I believe, the ballast wagon. 

 

So if I was modelling c. 1905, I might have one ballast wagon newly repainted red and the rest in tatty grey; for c. 1902 I think tatty grey rules. Which reminds me I should actually load mine up with ballast!

 

 

[Penlan]

In one sense the tops of the vans may be very dark, but look light because of the sky, I doubt if the top of the loco boiler in the photo above has been painted a lighter colour than the sides etc., of the boiler.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Penlan said:

In one sense the tops of the vans may be very dark, but look light because of the sky, I doubt if the top of the loco boiler in the photo above has been painted a lighter colour than the sides etc., of the boiler.

 

Yes, though one additional factor is the reflectivity of the surface. The locomotive boiler has been varnished and polished - it's a goods engine, so maybe not to the very highest sheen by 1905 - whereas a van roof is unvarnished lead-based paint on canvas. 

[Lecorbusier]

11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Challenging!

 

This post about the ballast brake, colour discussed towards the end:

 

There's also some discussion here and the following post, about lettering though not about red:

In brief, I think the earliest conclusive evidence I've seen for ballast wagons in red (iron oxide) is in the well-known photo of Wigston, 20 March 1905:

 

 

NRM DY 2810, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum. Locate the cattle wagon above the locomotive chimney, then count eight to the right. Wigston had a wagon repair shop (the building in behind and to the right of the coal stage) so some of the wagons on view are in ex-works condition, including, I believe, the ballast wagon. 

 

So if I was modelling c. 1905, I might have one ballast wagon newly repainted red and the rest in tatty grey; for c. 1902 I think tatty grey rules. Which reminds me I should actually load mine up with ballast!

 

 

So ... let me understand this further. Is there a start date for the painting of ED wagons in red?  You suggest the 20th century being the start of the tradition? You intiate that for 1902 on the Monsaldale line I should be thinking in terms of grey for both the 3plank wagons and the ballast brake? What date are these do you think and what colour?

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Lecorbusier said:

So ... let me understand this further. Is there a start date for the painting of ED wagons in red?  You suggest the 20th century being the start of the tradition? You intiate that for 1902 on the Monsaldale line I should be thinking in terms of grey for both the 3plank wagons and the ballast brake? What date are these do you think and what colour?

 

In Midland Style, Dow says "From about 1900 these units [ballast wagons] were painted red oxide with initials ED in white, 2½ planks in depth, taking the place of MR." [p. 141]. (I'd forgotten this when writing my previous; one could have a freshly painted red ballast wagon in 1902.) The Wigston photo is the earliest I know of that shows this unambiguously. It's very difficult to distinguish between grey and red wagons once the shine has worn off the paint. The Tuffley Branch photo was taken on 23 March 1914; I expect both wagons may well be red. 

 

[Lecorbusier]

38 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

In Midland Style, Dow says "From about 1900 these units [ballast wagons] were painted red oxide with initials ED in white, 2½ planks in depth, taking the place of MR." [p. 141]. (I'd forgotten this when writing my previous; one could have a freshly painted red ballast wagon in 1902.) The Wigston photo is the earliest I know of that shows this unambiguously. It's very difficult to distinguish between grey and red wagons once the shine has worn off the paint. The Tuffley Branch photo was taken on 23 March 1914; I expect both wagons may well be red. 

 

Thanks Stephen ... your ability to find the relevant passage never ceases to amaze! I suspect that for a routine ballast train pootling between Rowsley and Buxton/Chapel-en-le-Frith it is perhaps unlikely that shiny new stock would have been prioritized. More likely some older stock perhaps even with some woodenbrake blocks? If it was older stock, would it have ED lettering  ... or perhaps more likely the standard MR? Same perhaps for the brake van?

Edited May 18, 2020 by Lecorbusier

[Compound2632]

50 minutes ago, Lecorbusier said:

Thanks Stephen ... your ability to find the relevant passage never ceases to amaze! I suspect that for a routine ballast train pootling between Rowsley and Buxton/Chapel-en-le-Frith it is perhaps unlikely that shiny new stock would have been prioritized. More likely some older stock perhaps even with some woodenbrake blocks? If it was older stock, would it have ED lettering  ... or perhaps more likely the standard MR? Same perhaps for the brake van?

 

I think there's plenty of evidence that the ED lettering is of long standing, e.g. Leicester c. 1894:

 

 

NRM DY 471, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum. Ideal use for @billbedford's Mousa pre-Lot book 2-plank ended dropside wagon, BWK1711 - with wooden brake blocks (plenty of these in a photo of St Albans loco c. 1890s) - or if you're feeling bold the 1860s style with internal end knees rather than external end pillars, as seen centre stage here. Whether those would have lasted until 1902...

[Compound2632]

A bit more on @TurboSnail's SER express coal wagon. I've patched the hole I made in the siderail by snapping off the sprue to vigorously, scraping and chiselling it to a rectangular shape then filling in with a piece of Evergreen strip. Also lampirons and brake lever bracket from nickel silver strip, and a brake lever filed from some brass etch scrap, with a plasticard representation of the big nut at the pivot:

 

[TurboSnail]

Looks good! You've got me looking at my efforts at brake gear on my one, using plastic strip, and reconsidering... I've also realised I need to add lamp irons.

[Guy Rixon]

13 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

A bit more on @TurboSnail's SER express coal wagon. I've patched the hole I made in the siderail by snapping off the sprue to vigorously, scraping and chiselling it to a rectangular shape then filling in with a piece of Evergreen strip. Also lampirons and brake lever bracket from nickel silver strip, and a brake lever filed from some brass etch scrap, with a plasticard representation of the big nut at the pivot:

 

 

The "big nut" is not a nut. The end of the brake shaft is square in section and passes through a square hole in the lever, the latter being retained by a pin (either a really chunk split-pin or a solid cotter). Still, it's nice to see the square end represented. I should go back and add this detail to my wagons.  

[Guy Rixon]

3 minutes ago, TurboSnail said:

Looks good! You've got me looking at my efforts at brake gear on my one, using plastic strip, and reconsidering... I've also realised I need to add lamp irons.

51L brake levers and guards are very good for this. You get enough for many wagons in one packet. But Stephen's scratch-built lever is very good too.

[Compound2632]

38 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

 

The "big nut" is not a nut. The end of the brake shaft is square in section and passes through a square hole in the lever, the latter being retained by a pin (either a really chunk split-pin or a solid cotter). Still, it's nice to see the square end represented. I should go back and add this detail to my wagons.  

Looking again at my reference photo, Southern Wagons Vol. 2 plate 23 (not a coal wagon but a round-ended open also with express fittings) I realise that you are of course quite right - mechanically, that makes much more sense than a nut and bolt - but also that what I was seeing as a large round washer is in fact the end of the lever, forged to double-thickness to give a greater surface in contact with the square brake shaft, so I shall re-visit that. I'm not doing the split or cotter pin though!

[Regularity]

On 16/05/2020 at 18:42, Guy Rixon said:

Point of detail: the P4 standards say "The tyre profile is based on BS 276 contour A." Possibly it's the EM standards that use a thicker flange?

If you run a P4 wheel through a genuine Scale4 turnout, the flange will get stuck. Ask Ray Hammond, who devised the exact scale standards.

As you say, the P4 tyre profile is based on BS 276 contour A, but adjustments were made for manufacturing tolerances applicable at the time, at least to the understanding of the MRSG. They were doing the best they could with what was available, and no criticism is made of that, merely an observation that Scalefour (used as the name of the Society that split from the MRSG-dominated P4 society) is not the same as the scale four standards which preceded it. This has all been documented in the model press.