RMweb Premium Andy Hayter Posted April 18, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 18, 2019 You might like to consider "L" section metal - probably brass - for bracing the sides and keeping them true. Stuck at cantrail level or if that is not practical just below the window line they should hold the sides straight. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted April 18, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 18, 2019 As far as I'm aware D&S kits were only ever etched brass and whitemetal. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 I've heard somewhere that they did do at least some plastic Barnums at one point- how many, and whether they were on general sale, I don't know. Having carefully dismantled one of my new acquisitions I now believe them to be scratchbuilds. My first thought is to use some plastic L-section to bring the sides back into line, than a decent structural interior to brace it all up. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted April 18, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 18, 2019 (edited) The D&S list I have - from 2005 when Danny Pinnock was winding up general production - lists three etched brass kits for Parker corridor carriages: composite, third, and what is listed as van third which I understand to be Great Westernese for brake third. Edited April 18, 2019 by Compound2632 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 Intriguing; are these the same etches now sold by Worsley Works? Somewhere I do have the old Railway Modeller issues with Parker stock drawn. One day, maybe, I'll get around to a third go at them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Andy Hayter Posted April 18, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 18, 2019 31 minutes ago, Compound2632 said: As far as I'm aware D&S kits were only ever etched brass and whitemetal. Some of the early ones had plastic composite sides and etched ends. I have built a GCR outer suburban matchboard coach so constructed. I have a feeling this was numbered 22 in the catalogue - so as said an early model. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard i Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 3 hours ago, James Harrison said: Intriguing; are these the same etches now sold by Worsley Works? Somewhere I do have the old Railway Modeller issues with Parker stock drawn. One day, maybe, I'll get around to a third go at them. Oooh which month and year was that? please. richard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 19, 2019 Author Share Posted April 19, 2019 7 hours ago, richard i said: Oooh which month and year was that? please. richard January 1981- First class corridor carriage June 1981- Buffet carriage August 1982- Van composite and brake third. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard i Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 3 hours ago, James Harrison said: January 1981- First class corridor carriage June 1981- Buffet carriage August 1982- Van composite and brake third. I might have read these at the time, but back then I used to skip those articles to look at the railways features, especially the one or two with a colour picture. It would be great to track these down as I have a rake of Parker’s to build. many thanks richard 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poggy1165 Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 D&S definitely did some plastic GCR stock at one point. I used to have a whole pile of them before I changed to 7mm scale circa 1991. They were Robinson mainline and suburban stock, plus Barnums. My ex-coaches may be circling someone's attic as we type! They were quite decent models by the standards of the time, though not up to Rocar quality. Great pity such things are no longer to be had as they were a lot simpler to build than any etched kit. But the world has moved on... 3D printing may be the thing if it eventually becomes cheaper. Or maybe laser-cut timber/card/whatever will be the new technology. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poggy1165 Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 As to the Parker stock, I believe it was originally etched privately for the Whetstone layout, which was famous in its day. I think the GCRS has the right to produce them and may have done so. (I have rather lost track on 4mm matters.) The Worsley etches are another product again. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 19, 2019 Author Share Posted April 19, 2019 Parker stock is on my to-do list, but it is far, far down there. I had two previous attempts at it and it didn't go too well. At which point, somewhat disheartened, I put the project back on the shelf, figuratively speaking, and converted some Hornby Caledonian carriages into GCR Edwardian stock. The bodies lent themselves better to that conversion and I got four rather nice, if not quite exactly 100% accurate, carriages out of it. Still, one day I'll come back to it and- who knows? Today's work has been to continue investigations on the carriages from yesterday. One of them is a full brake, then I've tentatively identified another as a 60' corridor brake 3rd and the last (the one currently being rebuilt) as a 1911 56' luggage composite. Once completed, I'll put them up as a rake with my open third and restaurant composite as my principal Rufford- Marylebone direct service. Immediately after gently dismantling the luggage composite the sides started to curl up... Some plastic L-strip was deployed but as you can see although this worked on the compartment side the corridor side required further work. A second level of L-strip, just below the windows, improved matters somewhat. The body was then re-assembled and the roof loosely sat in place. Success!- it's lost that hogging in the middle. Wheels and bogies were missing, so I bought some LMS bogies and these were screwed in. Work is now progressing on the interior and then the roof needs fixing in place, then there's some filling to be done and I need to work out why the body still rises in the middle of the underframe- whether it's the underframe which is sagging or the body still slightly hogging, and how best to fix it. 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 Look what arrived this morning. They're really quite astonishingly tiny. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 Right, realistically- plans for this weekend. Yesterday a lot of effort went into the first of the restoration carriages, the open third of my own also crept a little closer to overall completion. Today, I think I'll continue with the lamps and the running-in boards. Then there's some work to do with a building a ballast brake van. My experiment with scratching in matchboarding on the open third suggests a way of being able to model the planking, so possibly the brakevan will be a fairly simple plastic sheet box. I keep saying this every weekend but I want to keep up with the drawings of the station-that just keeps seeming to come to a stop for a while. Maybe park that a while until I next get the urge to break out the drawing board. The three restoration carriages have jumped to the front of the queue pretty much- sheer enthusiasm and excitement I guess- realistically though the longer they stay in bits the more opportunity there is for some small but critical component to go walkabout so in terms of rolling stock they pretty much have to have priority. Those three new open wagons arrived last week too, so now I have a rake of eight GCR coal wagons to build. As work is starting to wind down on Cremorne for Pittance so it is starting to ramp up with carriages and wagons. It's also been quite a long time since I did anything locomotive based... 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 Lamps fitted; work proceeds with the running-in boards. I've had to change things slightly as 'for' in small text wouldn't fit. I think 'and' expressed as an ampersand is perhaps more GC-ish anyway... 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 All done! 6 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 I think that last photograph is about my favourite of the first batch. The way that the footpath curves down and around onto the platform, there's something quite appealing about it. I want to try and get that sort of developing vista arrangement into the overall arrangement of Red Lion Square. A few initial observations from setting up, firstly it's difficult getting all of the wheels on the track, for the layout I think some sort of putter-onner road will be welcome. I'm also finding that some of my couplings vary in height and Kadees only work if they're all at the same level. Unfortunately now further layout construction is something for the future- at least a year away by my estimation and probably longer- so from now on the emphasis will be more on stock building and embryonic town planning than actual layout building. On which note... Leicester Belgrave Road station. The architecture is quite different to what I'm planning but the overall ambience is stunningly close to what I want to achieve. Look at it... you've got the quite compact passenger frontage to the station, you've got the goods yard and warehouses right next door, you've got the tramway running right outside... I could, literally, just plug my building designs into it and it would be exactly what I have in mind. One for the reference folder and my collection of lantern slides then. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 The first fruits of the massive carriage rebuilding programme... First, my restored 1911 open third. And then, the luggage composite that arrived last week. Still a little work to do on this one; a bit of a crack in the roof to fill and some corridor connections to fit (Ratio spares, ordered this morning). I'm quite pleased with these two, so onto the next carriage. Another rebuild job from last week; this time a 1919 full brake. Bit of an odd one this, there's no panelling or matchboarding on it. Reference to vol.3 of Dow presents a line drawing- again, neither panelling nor matchboarding, but also a reference to two ambulance trains under construction in late 1918 that were converted to normal stock in 1919 including 'five parcels vans'. There were five of these full brakes built... I wonder if the parcels vans and full brakes are one and the same series of vehicles? I've not found any photographs of them so am powerless to speculate whether the drawing merely omits any matchboarding, or if they really are slab sided- and if so, what the surface finish was. 'Teak' scumbled over steel?- and if so which way did the 'grain' run? 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 Work has begun on the underframes; bogies and bolsters were missing. Bolsters were cut from the plastic body of a biro, and glued to some bogies (LMS type bought very cheaply from eBay). Then some screws secure the bogies to the frames. Being a full brake there are few windows so it was possible to use some longer screws. Next step: bracing of the body sides to take that bowing out. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 26, 2019 Author Share Posted April 26, 2019 Yes, it's the weekend once more! There is I think one last job to do on Cremorne & Pittance- and that is to build a new barrow crossing. The original Ratio one isn't suited to use with code 75 bullhead. After that- the edges need painting. I have a nice big tube of black acrylic for that job. And then onto the rolling stock. I've actually been able to get on with the full brake this week, which is now not only back in teak but back in one piece with corridor gangways fitted. It just needs some final paintwork on the soleboard and roof. That then neatly frees up the bench for the last of the rescues- a brake third- which I have decided to simply fit a new floor and interior to, as the bow in the bodywork is insignificant (about the same right now as the full brake and luggage composite are after bracing and rebuilds). 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted April 27, 2019 Author Share Posted April 27, 2019 First fruits of the weekend... Both the luggage composite and the full brake are finished now. You might also notice that work has started on the brake third. The bowing on this one is, I think, so slight that to break the model up and try to take it out would not result in a measureable improvement, so this one will just get new running gear, an interior and a repaint. The allure of the Replicars also proved irresistible. This is the 1913 Morris Bullnose Oxford. It came moulded in a bright blue colour throughout so I gave it a bit of a repaint in acrylics and, as the designer intended, push-fit it together. For a 1960s (?) kit it's remarkably well-thought-out, I think. It measures up as a wheelbase of 32mm by 16mm track and an overall height of 20mm. I thought this was perhaps too small- these kits are, after all, to 'fit-in-the-darn-box' scale- but recourse to Wikipedia this morning suggests that if anything the kit is slightly larger than 4mm scale. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted May 3, 2019 Author Share Posted May 3, 2019 Another weekend! Right, plans. 1. Progress the brake third. 2. Progress the ballast brake. 3. Build another Replicar. 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted May 4, 2019 Author Share Posted May 4, 2019 Second of the Replicars- a 1904 Mercedes. My comments really are as-per the 1913 Bullnose Oxford- it's a nice little model, went together well enough, just needs some final painting. Rather a lot of final painting, actually. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted May 4, 2019 Author Share Posted May 4, 2019 Hednesford no.2 shop, carriage and wagon, got around to the ballast brake today. Turns out that clay sculpting tools are also good for scratching plastic sheet. 3 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted May 5, 2019 Author Share Posted May 5, 2019 The last of the rescued Robinson stock nears completion. A bit of tidying up on the paintwork, add the corridor connections, transfers, varnish and I think we're done here. 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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