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

[Rowsley17D]

2 hours ago, Knuckles said:

I use HMRS Pressfix as water slide Decals, technically wrong but works perfectly, prefer to spend longer positioning.  Am I the only one?

 

Yes, me too. Especially when the sheet is getting old and the tackiness has worn off. A cocktail stick comes in handy to position the numbers etc.

[jwealleans]

Quote

when the sheet is getting old and the tackiness has worn off

 

Use them as Methfix when that happens.  They are very easy to position, just take forever to then stick.

[Compound2632]

Some painting, in preparation for lettering:

 

 

Drake & Mount No. 2 has the red stripe - my interpretation of my still from the film is that the lettering has black shading; No. 6's lettering appears to be on the body colour, which is Humbrol matt No. 64, light grey. Unlike many of the more military greys, this has no blue tinge (photo notwithstanding) - indeed, I was concerned it had a bit too much yellow but it's dried to a good colour - lighter than Prescision LMS freight stock grey. The red patches on the Pelsall wagon are an Experiment. I realised I'd forgotten to add the solebar ironwork (from an MJT etch) before priming, so have left the solebars in primer for the moment.

 

Parkside O11 and O15 lurk in the background.

[Ian Major]

Hello Compound2632,

 

I have been catching up on this very informative thread - I look away for a few weeks and come back to another 4 pages. Great stuff.

 

Back on May 7 ( page 100) you asked how ship model makers do furled sails. I have not seen a response to this.

 

My favourite ship modelling site is Model Ship World ( link ) .  There are very many informative logs. The best of these are boiled down in to articles  and published in the "Articles Database" ( here ).

In there is a section on "Rigging and Sails"  ( here )  . There you will find a pdf article on "Making and Forming Sails for your Model".  This may give you your answer - there is a lot of info in there so is a good start.

 

A word of warning. There are some seriously good, interesting modelling logs in there. The risk is that you get drawn in to reading them and end up doing no modelling. How do I know this...?

 

Keep up the excellent work.

 

Ian.

 

[Compound2632]

@Ian Major, glad you're enjoying the thread! Many thanks for those links - I've had a skim of the sail-making article, which looks to deserve a more careful read. Perhaps I shall put silk handkerchiefs on my father's day list - I wonder how they'll go through the inkjet printer... 

[Andy Hayter]

Thanks for that Ian.  I am just at the point of thinking about sails for my reproduction of an East Coast Barge

[Ian Major]

On the same site, you may be interested in an article about producing cloth flags  ( here ). It describes painting/printing on to transfer paper then ironing the pattern on to the cloth.  Don't know if this would work for tarpaulins but it should stimulate some thought if nothing else. 

 

Ian.

[Dave Hunt]

Sorry to be dim, but how do you apply pressfix type transfers either as water slide or methfix ones.

 

Dave

[Guy Rixon]

5 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Sorry to be dim, but how do you apply pressfix type transfers either as water slide or methfix ones.

 

Dave

Water slide: position the transfer, but don't press it so that it's held on by its glue. Wet it with water, remove the backing paper, then slide it around in the water film. Usually, surface tension in the film holds it to the model. When it's dry, after 10 minutes, varnish it immediately or it may curl up and fall off (applies to single letters and numerals; bigger transfers are less likely to do this).

 

Meth fix: position it and hold it in position with a tool. Brush on 80-20 meth-water mix to melt the transfer onto the model. When it dries it should stay put without curling. Don't do this on an acrylic finish because the meths will disrupt that. If you absolutely have to meths on an acrylic finish, use a more dilute mixture, maybe 50-50 meths and water, and not to much if it. Cured acrylic varnish seems to tolerate meths better than bare acrylic paint, so I varnish before and after transfers.

[jwealleans]

As Methfix, when they've stopped being sticky, you place them where required and then apply (i use a brush) a dilute solution of Meths.   Mine's about 50/50, I think.   That reactivates the glue, but it takes a while - leave about 20 minutes, brushing on more Meths when it dries up, then the last time it starts to look dry, just brush on water and the backing sheet should float away leaving your transfer in place.

 

Pressfix I plonk on somewhere near and then use a cocktail stick to push into exact position before applying water.

[Compound2632]

The Methfix/ Pressfix/ waterslide discussion is one I'm bearing in mind, as I have some recalcitrant old Slaters Midland transfers of both types, but it's moot right now, as I've been using POWSides rub-down transfers:

 

 

The black shading is a separate sheet; it was actually quite easy to line it up. Just a little bit gone astray on the N on the all-grey wagon.Comparison with the still from the Bushey film shows that the POWSides lettering, which copies a photo of a later wagon, No. 33, is a bit narrow and consequently not as spread out as it could be, with too much space either side of the ampersand. I can live with that.

 

 

The transfers have thin white lines above and below the lettering, per wagon No. 33 I believe. I did apply these, then used them as a guide for wider lines draw on on with a Posca paint pen. This didn't work too well - the pen lifted the transfer, so there was a bit of scraping off and trying again. I've drawn the ends of the boxes vertical but on closer inspection of the film still I think the box is rectangular - that should be easy enough to rectify. I need to have a rummage around for shaded transfers for the numbers. I'm not quite sure what the small lettering on the bottom plank says, under MOUNT. It seems to be shaded. It could be BRACKNELL or LIMITED. The transfer sheet does have BRACKNELL, but unshaded. I think the lettering on the LH end of the side rail is the tare: 4.xx.x. Then there's the other side to do...

 

I've had a go at completing the representation of the DC1 brake gear on the O4s:

 

 

These are a complete fudge, hewn out of 0.030" Plastikard, with the quadrant, lifting link, and curved end of the swan-necked lever cut, drilled, and filed as a single piece:

 

 

Not very pretty close up; I'm hoping that they will pass in the dark with the light behind them. For reference, I found some very useful photos in this old thread:

 

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Compound2632

[Rail-Online]

Another D299 in the back of a neg. I guess this gives one more running number!  1937 Crewe. Looks like it has RCH brake blocks - was this usual at that date?

 

Tony

 

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by Rail-Online
Add location and year & add RCH Q

[Compound2632]

Not a D299 I'm afraid. It's one of the later designs of 5-plank open, D302 (built 1913-20) or D663A (built 1921-23). The chief tell-tale is the vertical washer plate on the side to the left of the L of LMS; this extra strengthener mid-way between the side knee and corner plate took the place of a long vertical rod that passed through the planks on the D299 - no doubt the later design was easier and cheaper to build. The projecting half-round lip under the door, wider top and bottom planks, long brake lever, and D-shaped RCH standard numberplate are also distinguishing features. D299 was 2'10¾" deep, D305, 3'0", and D633A 3'2". The later designs were also longer and wider than D299, with 9'6" wheelbase, though this helps less in distinguishing them than does the difference in plank widths. D633A had steel T-section end stanchions. The RCH style numberplate was introduced in 1913. There was a very late batch of D299 built during the Great War that had some of these features but can be distinguished by the uniform plank width. 

 

D302 and D663A were equipped with Midland design brake blocks with just a mounting lug on one end but brake blocks were consumables so it's not surprising to see RCH standard ones fitted by 1937 - they're reasonably common on photos of Midland wagons in late LMS / early BR days.

 

A further point is that I doubt there were many D299 wagons around by 1937. There were 62,000 built to lots ordered from 1882 and 1899, with perhaps the last being completed in 1900 or 1901. There was then a 13-year gap before any more 5-plank opens were built, by which time the oldest D299s were 30 years old. In the last decade of the Midland's existence, 27,500 new 5-plank opens were built, along with 16,000 higher-sided 12 ton wagons built from 1906 onwards, compared to 39,000 D299 wagons ordered up to 1893. D299 wagons were built for mineral and loco coal traffic as well as merchandise. So I believe that there was a programme of replacement at 30 years old, albeit dislocated by the Great War. The LMS completed this programme with the mass production of D1666 / D1667 5-plank 12 ton merchandise wagons up to 1930.

 

I think a similar policy can be seen with 3-plank dropside wagons. There was a 10-year gap in production between 1887 and 1897, followed by 20 years of steady building - replacing life-expired wagons built from the late 1860s to 1887. The LMS didn't then build any 3-plank dropsides until the mid 1930s.

 

In short, No. 46073 in this photo is not a D299 but there is a very high probability that this number was previously carried by a D299, likely one built in the 1880s.

 

Data from R.J. Essery, Midland Wagons Vol. 1 (OPC, 1980).

Edited May 30, 2020 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

Work in progress:

 

 

There's a variety of media here, with different reflectivities.

[Compound2632]

Now I've just got to do the great and glorious A (to quote Eeyore):

 

 

The lettering is the 5.6 mm non-condensed style from HMRS sheet P4P. This isn't sufficiently non-condensed for this wagon, so the Es and Ls have been stretched by about 1 mm. The Ls at the right hand end use half an I each - which needs a bit of fudging since the verticals are a whisker wider than the horizontals. The E is made from two Es while the remaining L uses an I and the upright of one of the Es. (There are only four Ls on the sheet.) The A needs to be widened too, but that's not a straightforward operation as it means changing all the angles. 

 

Red shaded lettering on black would usually have thin black line dividing the red from the white. I've not attempted to represent this but curiously in this photo it looks as if it's there! I think that's an artifact of the way the digital camera deals with contrast. 

 

Another optical illusion is the apparent curling upwards of the dumb buffers. This is because of the change in shadow at the ends and the underside having been painted black, with some leakage round onto the solebar face.

 

Solebar furniture is from the MJT etching for the axleguards, chemically blackened before being glued on, though everything will be painted black in due course. One of the vertical pieces went ping! so there are only three on the other side - but the brake lever guard can go in that location. I've also added drawbar plates from this etch and the brackets that support the ends of the siderail from Microstrip. 

[Compound2632]

Gloss varnish, ready for the Archer rivet transfer "boltheads":

 

 

The A is made from two condensed-style Is from the largest size of lettering on the HMRS sheet, with the horizontal from a condensed-style I of the middle size. I'm not really happy with the S - too thick - but the alternative on the HMRS sheet is even less like the S seen in the film.

 

Axleguards and axlebox/spring castings are from MJT - the latter the Birmingham RC&W Co. grease boxes, which do for a generic round-bottomed box.  The V hangers and brake lever are from a Cambrian Gloucester RC&W Co. underframe and the brakes are Slaters Midland, with replacement microstrip safety loops as usual. I made a paper box to go over the wagon body, held in place by a rubber band, then gave the solebars and running gear a quick waft of Humbrol No. 33 from a can - I wanted to avoid building up too dense a black. Then Humbrol gloss varnish, again from a can. 

 

At some point I need to paint what's visible of the inside!

Edited September 9, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Lecorbusier]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The A is made from two condensed-style Is from the largest size of lettering on the HMRS sheet, with the horizontal from a condensed-style I of the middle size. I'm not really happy with the S - too thick - but the alternative on the HMRS sheet is even less like the S seen in the film.

I have vaguely wondered if it would be possible to print lettering like this as a fine black outline onto a sheet of waterslide and then block in the colours very carefully by hand. Then apply like any other transfer with microsol. Wondered if you might have tried this as a technique? It would then be possible to set up the lettering quite accurately in CAD working at large scale and then reduce to 4mm scale. Might that work?

[Compound2632]

On 02/06/2020 at 09:37, Lecorbusier said:

I have vaguely wondered if it would be possible to print lettering like this as a fine black outline onto a sheet of waterslide and then block in the colours very carefully by hand. Then apply like any other transfer with microsol. Wondered if you might have tried this as a technique? It would then be possible to set up the lettering quite accurately in CAD working at large scale and then reduce to 4mm scale. Might that work?

 

I've not experimented with printing transfers. Years ago when I hand-lettered some PO wagons, I started off by painting the lettered area white and then building up the body colour and shading - relatively straightforward with unshaded white lettering on black, using a range of Rotring pen sizes. Grey bodywork was trickier as this had to be done with a fine brush, though with black shading using the Rotring pen for the right and bottom of each letter, it wasn't so bad. I think I've shown this before:

 

 

The script lettering for tare weights and empty to instructions is less than ideal, if one has one of these alongside a wagon with transfers. The Pelsall and Drake and Mount wagons don't have such small lettering, fortunately.

 

I've used a variation on this technique for the Pelsall wagon, painting the red background for the shading then filling in with the Rotring pens. An advantage of full-on hand lettering is that one's not limited by the transfers and can follow the prototype more closely. But the letter S is a nightmare. That's why I like POWSides, even though the rub-down transfers require great care - they do reproduce lettering styles most faithfully.

 

At an exhibition I went to last year - Scaleforum or possibly ExpoEM at Bracknell - there was a demonstration of hand lettering. I'm afraid I forget the guy's name but hi was using Rotring pens to apply white lettering directly onto the wagon body colour - I'm afraid I can't recall if he was using a Rotring ink or paint. And advantage of the white basecoat method is that one can get sharp outside corners to the letters; conversely it's hard to avoid a rounded inside corner, unless one goes back and touches up the white.

 

Any form of printed lettering ought always to win out for sharpness.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Lecorbusier]

My thinking for looking at the waterslide idea was that you can carry out the lettering on a flat surface  ... rather than lettering directly on the the wagon side .... which should in theory give a crisper and more regular outcome. Like with loco lining I would normally spray up the transfer with body colour first. When I finally get round to it I will let you know if it is succesfull or not.

[simonmcp]

7 hours ago, Lecorbusier said:

My thinking for looking at the waterslide idea was that you can carry out the lettering on a flat surface  ... rather than lettering directly on the the wagon side .... which should in theory give a crisper and more regular outcome. Like with loco lining I would normally spray up the transfer with body colour first. When I finally get round to it I will let you know if it is succesfull or not.

In all probability the highly skilled signwriters that lettered the wagons would have taken account of the distortion of the strapping and would have made the lettering appear correct from a distance, which means that you would need a distorted transfer to account for the thickness of the strapping, only a small amount on 4mm scale of course but more noticeable in the larger scales. Sorry to be piccy but I was a Typographer (lettering) by trade so notice these things more than most. Simon

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, simonmcp said:

In all probability the highly skilled signwriters that lettered the wagons would have taken account of the distortion of the strapping and would have made the lettering appear correct from a distance, which means that you would need a distorted transfer to account for the thickness of the strapping, only a small amount on 4mm scale of course but more noticeable in the larger scales. Sorry to be piccy but I was a Typographer (lettering) by trade so notice these things more than most. Simon

 

Quite so - and a bit of an issue with the A on my Pelsall wagon as I'd made the door hinge quite thick. On the prototype, the side knee washer plates would be typically 3/8" thick, with the hinges a bit thicker - perhaps 3/4" at the hinge and tapering.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Compound2632

[Northroader]

All you need is a steady hand..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-23313762/incredible-skill-of-old-fashioned-fairground-signwriter

[Welchester]

Sorry if this has come up before. Is this a D299? I'm currently building the Slaters 7mm kit, having built a couple of the 4mm ones, and the livery is attractively simple.

[Rowsley17D]

16 minutes ago, Bishop of Welchester said:

Sorry if this has come up before. Is this a D299? I'm currently building the Slaters 7mm kit, having built a couple of the 4mm ones, and the livery is attractively simple.

 

 Great to see the Leek & Manifold in this photo. Cannot really help with the wagon as I don't have my books with me but it has the looks of a D299.

 

The caption on the photo is incorrect as it's Waterhouses exchange goods yard not Hulme End. Too many tracks for HE.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Rowsley17D

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Bishop of Welchester said:

Sorry if this has come up before. Is this a D299? I'm currently building the Slaters 7mm kit, having built a couple of the 4mm ones, and the livery is attractively simple.

 

Yes, this one is a D299 - another number for the list... I suspect the entire 56xxx number series was D299 - at least, the only counter-example I've found is a D607 12 ton wagon, almost certainly taking the number of a withdrawn D299. The very worn state of 56741 here, c. 1930, illustrates my point about D299s not surviving much beyond this date - I've not come across a photo of one in 1936 livery. It's at least 30 years old, probably more like 40.

 

How is the 7 mm kit to build? I presume it avoids some of the faults of the 4 mm kit, with its designed-in misalignment of solebars and headstocks?

Edited June 4, 2020 by Compound2632