Nile's NG Modelling

[chuffinghell]

Wonderful stuff Neil, it’s always a joy to catch up with your work

 

Chris

[cp409067]

3 hours ago, Nile said:

.....

 

 

.....

 

*

 

May I please ask what the chassis is under the right hand van in the above shot?

 

CP

[Nile]

It's the Colin Ashby chassis as sold by the 009 society. It's fitted with Farish wheels.

[Nile]

With both vans rebuilt they just needed some Greenwich couplings fitting. I've had to use the NEM version as I'm low on stock. Instead of folding up the tail I've kept it flat and filled the half etched fold lines with solder.

These were glued onto the existing mounts, which previously had Peco couplings on them.

The finished models.

[John Besley]

Lovely stuff, given me some ideas for my Exhill Works project

[Nile]

This next build was inspired some modelling I saw at NGRM-online.

In my sg kit pile there are some LSWR box vans from Cambrian. I noticed that one of them had suffered a bit on its travels.

 

Rather than try to fix it I decided to adapt the body for ng use. The idea is this will be a ng van built by the LSWR from standard parts.

The main change is the width. The model is about 8 feet wide, I reduced this by 18 inches by removing 3mm from either side of the middle section of the end piece.

 

Testing time. I fixed the modified end to a side, added a temporary floor and some bogies. The body is set as low as possible without fouling the couplings. Next to some other large vans it doesn't look too out of place.

[Compound2632]

That has something of the L&B Howard vans but with enough difference not to define the location of the layout.

[Nile]

That reminds me I have some Nine Lines L&B kits to build.

I built up the van with the narrowed ends, adding extra cross members that will also support a new roof. As I'd cut the buffers beams in half horizontally I covered the remaining half with strips.

 

Underneath I've used some Plastruct L strip to give the impression of a chassis. This looks similar to a WDLR ambulance van. The floor is from the kit, trimmed to fit.

[Nile]

Rather than try to adapt the kit's roof ,which wasn't a great fit anyway, I made a new one. Two pieces of 10thou plastic card glued together with D-Limonene while wrapped around a bottle that matched the roof profile. After leaving overnight to fully dry this was the result.

 

It needs a bit more trimming, but it's a perfect fit.

[Nile]

The van has been sprayed with a mixture of brown and black paint to act as an undercoat for SR brown.

 

The bogies are 3D prints from Shapeways of my own design. It's a 4ft wheelbase archbar type, with a tab sticking out onto which a Greenwich coupling can be glued. It will look better when painted and weathered.

[TangoOscarMike]

On 21/05/2020 at 20:35, Nile said:

The bogies are 3D prints from Shapeways of my own design. It's a 4ft wheelbase archbar type, with a tab sticking out onto which a Greenwich coupling can be glued. It will look better when painted and weathered.

 

It already looks good to me - I know what you're up against when you work with "White Strong and Flexible".

 

Did you simply make conical recesses for the ends of the axles, or are there sockets for metal bearings?

[Nile]

Yes conical recesses. Nylon is tough enough not to need bearings. Some American kits come with Nylon bearings.

[Nile]

A coat of SR goods brown was then followed by a load of agro with methfix transfers. I gave up after the "SR" as I couldn't get any of the numbers to release, maybe these sheets go bad with age. I switched to pressfix which gave no trouble.

This was taken after weathering.

 

To operate the brakes I've fitted one hand-wheel per side on the right. It controls the brakes on the adjacent bogie.

 

Finally for now two photos of the finished model showing its two identities.

[Nile]

Some more photos, with other stock.

One day I'll build a railway to run this lot on.

[Nile]

Using the airbrush to paint things can be a bit of a faff as I have to lug the compressor in from another room. So I like to maximise its usage when I get it out. I've had some other models that I've wanted to paint SR brown for some time, so I did these at the same time as the one above.

I have a couple of bogie cattle vans I bought secondhand some time ago. I think they were made form Triang TT models. This is one sitting on a pair of my bogies, they came with N gauge bogies.

 

And this is them after painting and lettering.

 

I remarked earlier that I was having trouble with Methfix transfers. After finding this post by Izzy I used his method successfully on these models. I think I was using too much meths and not enough water before.

 

 

[BernardTPM]

http://www.tri-angtt.org.uk/Cattle.htm

6 hours ago, Nile said:

I have a couple of bogie cattle vans I bought secondhand some time ago. I think they were made form Triang TT models. This is one sitting on a pair of my bogies, they came with N gauge bogies.

Not Triang; their TT cattle van is based on the BR design. I think they're Ninelines W&L catle wagon parts with some added diagonals.

[Nile]

Thanks Bernard, it's obvious now you've pointed it out.

I think the Triang idea dates from when I first bought them, and I've never really thought about it since.

[BernardTPM]

It's the addition of the diagonal framing that really makes it look quite different. It would probably work as a good disguise even on a 4-wheel version.

[Nile]

Adding diagonal framing is tempting, maybe if I make any more WLLR ones.

With the bodies done I just needed to sort out the bogies and couplings. The simplest solution would be to use the same method as with the previous van. The problem there is that I only got four of those bogies made as a test, and one of those has gone missing.

So onto plan B, use ordinary bogies. They are actually listed as HOn30 and work out as 3'6" wheelbase in OO9. As a washer is needed between the bogie and body my cunning plan was to somehow attach the coupling to this washer. An ordinary Greenwich coupling wouldn't be long enough without an extension added. Fortunately I have some test etches of CPL.4, which is designed to fit into a NEM362 socket and is much longer. I cut off the swallow tail and soldered it to a washer.

 

I made this just long enough so that the loop didn't hit the brake pipe when lifted.

 

The central boss of the bogie needed a chamfer on one side to make room for the tail end of the coupling.

 

This is how the coupling and washer fits onto the bogie.

 

This was super-glued together using a highly sophisticated jig to hold them in place.

[TangoOscarMike]

On 30/05/2020 at 17:41, Nile said:

This was super-glued together using a highly sophisticated jig to hold them in place.

 

It's the only way to achieve the necessary precision!

 

[Nile]

Both bogies assembled, painted and weathered.

 

And then fitted to the van. In the middle are the handbrake wheels attached to a brass rod, the only addition I've made to the body.

 

The right way up.

[Nile]

The bogies for the other cattle van.

The odd one makes use of my one remaining test print. This is handy as the second van has a washer glued onto one of the bogie mounting points that doesn't want to move.

And now for some photos of the finished models.

 

They sit well with the previous van conversion.

[Nile]

Last year I made a tank wagon using the tank from a TT wagon.

As I now have all the parts needed I'm going to make another one. But before that I wanted to replace the wheels on the first one. They had steel rims, and one was a bit wobbly, so they had to go. I replaced them with new Greenwich 8mm wheels, removed from their axles and fitted to the longer axles needed for these T&D chassis. The insulated wheel was a nice tight fit, the non-insulated one was slightly loose. I super-glued this on with the aid of an improvised jig. The N gauge b-t-b needs 0.5mm added for these wheels, the insulated wheel can be adjusted later if needed.

 

Old and new wheels fitted to the chassis, quite a difference.

Because the brake shoes on this chassis were set to line up with the wider wheels I ended up doing a wheel swap with those from the new Dundas chassis I had for the new wagon. These are brass wheels from Markits and match the profile of the older (Gibson?) wheels. The Greenwich wheels are now in the new chassis below.

 

The new wagon is all in black, it just needs some couplings and weathering to finish.

 

[Nile]

And now for ......... yet another Nine Lines W&LLR brake van. This is actually the first one I've built from the kit, all the others I have were already built.

But what's this? Something's going on already.

I'm making it a bit shorter by removing parts either side of the door.

After a bit of assembly here is a comparison with one as it should be.

[Compound2632]

How short can he go?