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

[Guy Rixon]

19 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Good looking kits. Having that ladder on the meat van as part of the print seems impressive (but what do I know). 

Thin pieces on prints seem to come out well and to be moderately robust, provided that they are connected at both ends and the unsupported length is not too great. Anything thin exposed at one end is doomed. Thus, a brake lever on a MR wagon is typically OK, but a LNWR one, which sticks out beyond the headstock, is very vulnerable. Lever guards are chancy, too.

[Compound2632]

20 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

Lever guards are chancy, too.

 

You're telling me. The coaled-up D299 is one of my Mousa ones - I had to superglue the brake guard back on after a mishap in handling while pushing the coal insert home. I do think mixed media with etched brass for details such as that is the way forward though I fully understand the attraction to cottage industrialists of printing everything. Some printable plastics and resins seem to be less brittle than others but it is a weakness of the technology that the material is layered, unlike injection moulding where the plastic flows and hence is isotropic.

 

But I hope I've made it evident enough (by laying out money) that I think the possibilities opened up by 3D printing outweigh the limitations of the technology.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Compound2632

[Guy Rixon]

The degree of curing matters too. I printed some LNWR brake levers on a banana-van chassis and they actually survived for a while, being somewhat bendy. Then I cured the print and all the sticky-out bits broke off. IIUC, curing is progressive anyway, even one doesn't inflict UV, so bits will get brittle.

 

What I have done for the banana vans, which have levers vertically curved to clear the axleboxes, is to print a template for accurately bending brass levers. At least, I've designed it, to be printed later; that way, I can't lose it.

[billbedford]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

You're telling me. The coaled-up D299 is one of my Mousa ones - I had to superglue the brake guard back on after a mishap in handling while pushing the coal insert home. I do think mixed media with etched brass for details such as that is the way forward though I fully understand the attraction to cottage industrialists of printing everything. Some printable plastics and resins seem to be less brittle than others but it is a weakness of the technology that the material is layered, unlike injection moulding where the plastic flows and hence is isotropic.

 

The pale grey resin I use for open wagons and van underframe is not at all brittle. If you try to snap it it will bend and stay bent and like metal it will be almost impossible to unbend it. The dark grey I use for van bodies and roofs is more brittle and the ladder, for instance, will be likely to shear off if hit from the side. 

 

Resin prints are isotropic. This is because the light which forms each layer spills into the previously printed one so there is at least some cross linking between layers. Curing will enhance the cross linking to the point that the piece will be essentially isotropic. 

[billbedford]

23 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Question: what could the industrial lowlands of Scotland be producing, that the industrial midlands of England would be wanting?

 

 

Shale oil, fish meal, engineering stuff. 

[billbedford]

23 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The latter have many features in common with the longer D372 vans of 1896*, the drawing for which, Drg. 1102, is on the Midland Railway Study Centre website [Item 88-D0192]. The model generally follows the 1892/4 version, though it has the early 8A axleboxes of the 1879 batch. The 1892/4 vans had the Ellis 10A sort. So I'm psyching myself up to a spot of vandalism, replacing the printed axleguards, springs, and boxes with etched and cast replacements. I'm also wondering how one would do the end ladder on a scratch-built D372... it's a delicate and probably fragile piece of resin printing here.

 

 

My website has the facility for offering variations of products, so I could offer as well as either OO and P4/EM gauges different axle boxes and brakes. What has stopped me so far is the possibility of confusion (mine mostly) with different options. After all there is really a stand-out difference between an 8A and 10A axlebox at a normal viewing distance. I'll probably start when I up date the early LNWR 15' wagons and offer a choice of brakes. 

[John-Miles]

34 minutes ago, billbedford said:

 

The pale grey resin I use for open wagons and van underframe is not at all brittle. If you try to snap it it will bend and stay bent and like metal it will be almost impossible to unbend it. The dark grey I use for van bodies and roofs is more brittle and the ladder, for instance, will be likely to shear off if hit from the side. 

 

Resin prints are isotropic. This is because the light which forms each layer spills into the previously printed one so there is at least some cross linking between layers. Curing

Iwill enhance the cross linking to the point that the piece will be essentially isotropic. 

I dropped the roof of one of your Kirtley brake vans from a height of around 1.2m onto a laminate floor and thr corner broke off so they are quite brittle. No problem though I rolled a new one from nickel silver. Nice kit by the way.

[Compound2632]

40 minutes ago, billbedford said:

 

The pale grey resin I use for open wagons and van underframe is not at all brittle. If you try to snap it it will bend and stay bent and like metal it will be almost impossible to unbend it. The dark grey I use for van bodies and roofs is more brittle and the ladder, for instance, will be likely to shear off if hit from the side. 

 

Resin prints are isotropic. This is because the light which forms each layer spills into the previously printed one so there is at least some cross linking between layers. Curing will enhance the cross linking to the point that the piece will be essentially isotropic. 

 

It is true that yours are less brittle than some I've tried. I can't absolutely blame the material for the brake guard I broke - it's a delicate piece that would be fragile in any plastic.

 

Interesting point about curing there, which is counter to @Guy Rixon's suggestion that prolonged exposure to light will make the material become more brittle. 

 

34 minutes ago, billbedford said:

Shale oil, fish meal, engineering stuff. 

 

Shale oil: barrels again, if not a PO tank wagon.

Fish meal: bagged? so probably sheeted. Or one of those Jubilee vans (hint, hint).

Engineering stuff: avoiding anything that would need a special wagon, probably crated and maybe sheeted.

 

I need to find out about NBR sheets!

 

9 minutes ago, billbedford said:

My website has the facility for offering variations of products

 

Which is one of the advantages of the technology, with print-on-demand.

  

4 minutes ago, John-Miles said:

I dropped the roof of one of your Kirtley brake vans from a height of around 1.2m onto a laminate floor and thr corner broke off so they are quite brittle. No problem though I rolled a new one from nickel silver. Nice kit by the way.

 

That is a relatively severe test - certainly not qualifying as use within the manufacturer's instructions! But true, one would expect an injection moulded part to survive.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

On 24/01/2021 at 21:56, Compound2632 said:

Somewhere, sometime, I've seen a photo of an accident involving a number of Midland D342 coke wagons (foreground) and PO coke wagons (further away), possibly at a platform, possibly a L&Y location. I can't track it down. Any ideas?

 

Found. Midland Railway Study Centre Item 68524. Holme L&YR, 27 September 1907.

[richbrummitt]

On 10/02/2021 at 12:07, Compound2632 said:

Hopping about as usual: revisiting the Monk Bretton Colliery wagons. I've had some correspondence with Ian Pope of Lightmoor Press, in the course of which these wagons came up. He has a copy of the colliery photo, with a little bit more on the left. This confirms the word "NEAR" plus, from a wagon in the background, it's possible to guess that the rest of that line is "Co Ltd". So here's my take on the basic dimensions of the wagon and layout of the lettering, assuming 15 ft over headstocks and 9 ft wheelbase:

Many details missing of course, including the scotch brake.

Wondering if I can justify such a wagon in the early 20’s somewhere - as yet undecided - between Reading and Westbury...

[Asterix2012]

3 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

From 1907, aluminium from the plant at Fort William. Not lowlands, but definitely NB territory.

 Hi Guy Kinlochleven from 1907, Fort William was built in the 1920’s.

 

 I was fascinated by the history of the construction of these when I was a kid, particularly the narrow gauge railway involved with the Fort William one.

 

But the first smelter was at Foyers on the banks of Loch Ness in 1895, so aluminium from there would have initially travelled on the Caledonian canal.

 

What about products like jute sacking or canvas from Dundee.  Barrels of salt herring, seed potatoes, Caithness flagstones.

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, richbrummitt said:

Wondering if I can justify such a wagon in the early 20’s somewhere - as yet undecided - between Reading and Westbury...

 

The colliery photo has a definite c. 1900 feel to it me and the Elstree photo is 1898 IIRC.

 

Monk Bretton Colliery had a lot of new wagons built by Harrison & Camm 1888/93 and Stevens 1902/3 - which all had higher numbers than the No. 139 on view. I think there's one of these later wagons in the background of the photo, with larger lettering. They'd hired wagons from North Central in 1873 - these might just possibly be the cupboard door ones, or these might come second-hand from Scotland. [I'm indebted to Ian Pope for the data.] I think that if the cupboard door wagons survived to the early 20s, they would have been repainted with the colliery name in larger letters.

 

Nobody knows (yet); the only way to find out is to build such a wagon and exhibit it on your layout, ideally at a show in the Barnsley area. Then someone will produce a photo of their great grandfather alongside a Monk Bretton wagon.

[Dave Hunt]

4 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

If you had some very thin, waterproof plastic as a liner, then you could "cast" the load in the wagon and still have it lift  out. The plastic postal wrappers used on some goods posted from China come to mind.

 

I've used clingfilm for that quite successfully providing the sides don't have a slight taper in towards the top (how do I know that ?).

 

Dave

[Crimson Rambler]

Dundee was famous for jam and marmalade manufacture and its jute mills for producing sacking, all of which would have been consumed in the industrial areas of the rest of Britain.

 

 

Crimson Rambler

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Crimson Rambler said:

Dundee was famous for jam and marmalade manufacture

 

Last Jan/Feb I failed to get any Seville Oranges so for the last four or five months I've been eating Mackay's Dundee Marmalade (or their three fruit) - after some experimentation it seemed the most satisfactory commercial brand. My usual market stall fruiter wan't an option this year but Tesco came to the rescue, so I'm stocked up with two years' supply.

 

5 minutes ago, Crimson Rambler said:

and its jute mills for producing sacking, all of which would have been consumed in the industrial areas of the rest of Britain.

 

Also The Beano but not as far back as 1902.

[Asterix2012]

20 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Last Jan/Feb I failed to get any Seville Oranges so for the last four or five months I've been eating Mackay's Dundee Marmalade (or their three fruit) - after some experimentation it seemed the most satisfactory commercial brand. My usual market stall fruiter wan't an option this year but Tesco came to the rescue, so I'm stocked up with two years' supply.

 

 

Also The Beano but not as far back as 1902.

Even Toblerones were made in Dundee by Keiller’s for the Swiss company between 1932 and 1967.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Asterix2012 said:

Even Toblerones were made in Dundee by Keiller’s for the Swiss company between 1932 and 1967.

 

Now I'm picturing twin or double bolster wagons with triangular-section loads...

[Rail-Online]

16 hours ago, richbrummitt said:

Wondering if I can justify such a wagon in the early 20’s somewhere - as yet undecided - between Reading and Westbury...

Most of the house coal for 'The Vale of the White Horse' came from the Midlands coalfields so not totally inappropriate for your model..........

 

Tony

[Rail-Online]

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Experimentation with mineral loads continues:

 

 

 

A clear drawback of the off-wagon loading is that the load doesn't spread evenly up to the edges. I'm a bit reluctant to pour PVA directly into the wagon, with a lead weight attached to the underside of the table, so I'm thinking of a plasticard frame - although I'll need a different size for each type/size of wagon.

I built a special oversize 'dummy wagon' for making removable loads.  Basically a lash-up of plasticard on a base all held together with elastic bands. Cut the base the exact size for the wagon to be modelled.  I use black plasticard as the removable load floor, score it heavily with a craft knife then fix the coal with PVA -works fine.  When hardened and the shape 'set' (takes 2 goes to get the hump) I remove the bands allowing the sides to be removed and the load drops into the wagon. Hopefully the pic below is self explanatory.

 

You wil need different width ends for different sized prototypes but the sides are over length and suit all.

 

This allows a removable load to be cast right up to the sides of the wagon with no gap.  My personal hate is coal loads glued in place with glue up the sides and coal lumps and dust stuck to it.

 

Tony

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Rail-Online said:

I built a special oversize 'dummy wagon' for making removable loads. 

 

Tony, that photo is the very image of what has been in my head, though I was picturing black plasticard!

 

I am trying to work out if I can get away with two L-shaped side/end pieces, to the minimum width - variation in width is about 1 mm - as I'm not casting as you are but at worst pouring dilute PVA.

 

In my case, the frame doesn't have to be deeper than the wagon; I'm thinking shallower - the thickness of the card base plus about 2 mm - 3 mm. The working depth could be varied using packing pieces under the card base; the coarse coal will need a greater depth than fine ballast for ballast wagons.

[Rail-Online]

Yes Stephen, it seems to work for me.  It can be a little messy but it is only PVA so peels off easily.

Making it oversize allows me it use it on many sizes of wagon, but I am 1930 so there is more height variation than your period.

 

 

Cheers Tony

[Northroader]

1. Cut a block of wood to fit inside your wagon, roughly three quarters the body height. Make it an easy fit, and rub the corners round.

 

2.Wrap a strip of paper round the block with the width of the strip higher than the wagon body, and glue between the strip and the block to fix in place, with the strip and the block flush at the bottom.

3.Paint round the outside of the strip and inside the top, and the top of the block, with Matt black paint.

4. Apply pva glue with a spatula over the block top and the inside of the paper strip. It helps if the join between the strip and the block is covered with the glue.

5. Immediately fill the top with crushed real coal, so it meets the bottom of the paper strip, and forms a hump in the middle. Follow up with an eye-dropper, dripping watered down pva glue with some washing up liquid mixed in, just like you were track ballasting. (Having covered the join with neat glue in stage 4 helps to prevent seepage down the sides, but don’t do it on the dining room table) The diluted glue should fill all the gaps in the coal.

6.Allow this to dry out and set hard. Then go round the top edge of the strip with a sharp craft knife and trim the strip down to where it meets each piece of coal, to give an irregular edge. It just needs touching up with Matt black paint to cover the cut edge.

7. Then place inside the wagon. It should fit snugly, but fairly easy to tweak out, and the gap between the coal and the wagon will be very hard to spot.

 

whilst I'm passing through, here’s an example of a nice wagon getting tucked behind a loco.

 

 

[Regularity]

7 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

Most of the house coal for 'The Vale of the White Horse' came from the Midlands coalfields so not totally inappropriate for your model...

Just "Vale of White Horse" - no definite articles...

[Rail-Online]

15 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Just "Vale of White Horse" - no definite articles...

No, we were discussing this at Pendon. Looking at pics of Wantage Road and Wantage back this up. This is Wantage Road around 1938, not a high enough Res scan but GRIFF from Nuneaton is clear. Marriott with the broken back is from Witney and presumably 'stopped.  The wagon carrying straw appears to be a LNER wagon with simplified small lettering livery which supports the date.  Can anyone identify the lorry and tell us when that type was introduced?

 

Tony

Edited February 15, 2021 by Rail-Online
Additional info and asking about the truck

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Rail-Online said:

This is Wantage Road around 1938, not a high enough Res scan but GRIFF from Nuneaton is clear.

 

Stephenson Clarke No. 4829?