S7 scratch building

[airnimal]

Lady Luck has made a visit again today. Looking to modify  the set of brass buffers I went and looked through my bits box and found another set of white metal buffers complete with buffer heads and springs but the bonus was there was a spare body. So I had one extra to try before butchering the brass ones. 

So I cut off 1.5mm and then tinned a 10 BA washer before soldering on to the front of the body with a cocktail stick to hold it in place. I tinned of the normal solder with low melt solder and just held the soldering iron on the washer at 190 degrees. It was a complete success without getting  excess solder on the body. 

[airnimal]

I decided to make my own W-irons because I didn't find anything suitable from the ones I had in my parts box.

I soldered 4 pieces of 15 thou nickel together before drilling a couple of holes to allow in a piecing saw blade to saw to shape. After filing to the required outline they were unsoldered and cleaned up. I had a set of bearings spare that fitted the bill perfectly. A couple of bits of 1 mm bar bar were soldered on to act of guides and 1 mm rod to locate the springs.

I will use some T section on the backs so I will be able to screw them into the floor.

Edited April 30, 2020 by airnimal

[Regularity]

Hardcore.

[airnimal]

Regularity, 

Instead of Hardcore how about old school ?

Mike

[chris p bacon]

1 hour ago, airnimal said:

Instead of Hardcore how about old school ?

 

In which case, they're Eton and the rest of us are Borstal...

[airnimal]

I don't think we should dwell to much on school with my dreadful track record.

Anyway I now have added a piece of brass 5mm X 2mm to the backs so I can screw them to the floor.

I have used T section in the past but I have run out of that so I had to use what I had.

The drawing has this wagon with the buffer height a couple of inches lower than normal. 

I hade made these W-irons overlong so I can fit them first and see what it looks like before cutting them down to size. 

So I removed a couple of millimetres and tried them on a old chassis and placing it next to another wagon.  It looked right   

so tomorrow I will make a proper underframe now I am happy with the ride height.

[Regularity]

14 hours ago, airnimal said:

Regularity, 

Instead of Hardcore how about old school ?

Mike

I was quoting from “Full Metal Jacket”.

[airnimal]

When I tried the wheels in a old underframe yesterday I wedged them in because I had not drilled the fixing holes in the W-irons bracket. So today I drilled the holes only to find out I couldn't get at the screws with the wheels in place.

I had forgotten these W-irons are a lot narrower than the Slaters one I had previously used. 

So I had to make up new longer lengths of the same brass angle and replace the old ones. I will cut off the protruding screw flush before mounting them in the new underframe.

One step forward and one step ba...........

[airnimal]

The basic underframe is now up and running so I fixed the springs temporary to see if it looks right to the drawings and photograph. I got one of the headstocks slightly bent at the wrong angle by a few thou so I had to file it back and put a overlay on. My wife said don't bother as know one will notice. She doesn't quite understand that I will be haunted every time I look at it. I have done the floor with rough glass paper to give a well worn appearance because this is a old wagon that would be about 40 years old at the time I hope to model.

[airnimal]

If at first you don't succeed try and try again ........

i was a little concerned with the text with the drawing which says ( The T brackets supporting the ends are conjectural , but such a build accounts for the planks being misaligned to the headstock in the source picture. ) 

I am not sure what this means but the planks were not the usual 7 inches that most wagons have. On the drawing the planks were 8.5 inches. I increased this to 9 inches hoping this would be a better fit at the ends of the wagon. I didn't want half a plank over at the end wagon.

Anyway after I made the running underframe it looked odd when I came to fit the sides because the doors didn't match the planks on the floor. 

Only one thing to do,  start again. 

My wife was not amused calling me a p.........

I will leave it up to you to fill in the missing words.

[airnimal]

Having invested many hours making the W-irons and a lot more in the first underframe I was not going to give up.

So I awoke early to have another go and went back to the dimensions on the drawing regarding the planks. This time I got this part right only to get the solebars wrong getting them to close together. 

I find when I get something  badly wrong I should have a break for a day or so but sometimes I ignore my own advice.

Anyway I ploughed on and finally I have got the basic body done. 

I was not going to be beaten by a simple wagons. 

 

[airnimal]

This simple wagon is turning out to be mongrel that doesn't want me to have a happy ending. 

This is wagon number 2 with 3 lots of wagon sides so I was being very careful to measure twice and cu.......

Perhaps I was was concentrating to much even making jigs for everything but somehow I still managed to get something out of plonk ! Not by much but enough that when I applied the plates on the solebars something didn't look right. 

Check and double check revealed that that one side is longer than the other by a scale 1". That may not seem like a lot but it puts everything out of true.

I had taken the floor as a datum line to assemble the sides so the door would line up with the planks without checking the door was in the the centre. Big mistake ! 

It was only later when I started to put more ironwork on that didn't line up identical with each other and the door, alarm bells stared to ring. I had spent so much time getting the ends flush with the solebars and other features that I had missed the obvious. One would think after building some many wagons of the years I could get things right. Perhaps this is one of the problems of getting old or have I just lost the plot. 

Am I going to keep going and start again ? 

I think I should do something else before coming back to this in the future.

[airnimal]

Before going for a 4 mile walk with my better half I got my compass out and marked a line from each end in wagon in the interior. Bingo ! It's only a fraction out but it's enough to throw everything out of true by a mile. 

When I mentioned it, I got a lecture on marking out and the error of my ways. Don't you just love them. 

Edited May 5, 2020 by airnimal
Added a couple more photos

[wagonman]

I had a similar problem with a white metal kit for one of the S Wales "shorties" except one side was more like 5 inches longer than the other! Clearly no way back from that son I started to scratch build it – what I should have done in the first place – but it, like everything else, ground to a halt about 4 years ago. Lockdown is causing the first stirrings though... The W/M brute will probably be melted down for recasting as something else if I case find my RTV silicon rubber. And the energy.

 

 

[airnimal]

After a good night sleep I thought I would have another attempt but with more confidence at the marking out stage. 

I am short of Evergreen plastic strip, that is the reason I have been laminating the solebars and headstocks. 

I have a £50.00 order from Eilleens for some more and I should have waited until I had the right sizes for the job. 

Anyway I tried again but this time using a new sheet of yellow plastic rather than the cream I used before. I have never used the yellow stuff before and I wish now I hadn't . 

This is a lot softer than the cream and doesn't seem as stable.

This new attempt is perfect in size and and shape and the planks all line up where they are supposed to be but I am not going to continue untill the order from Eilleens arrives. 

I am not sure what it is about it, whether it the laminating or the past failed attempts but I am not going to accept second best. I can't build something that I wouldn't put at the front of a layout.  

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by airnimal

[airnimal]

While i wait for the Evergreen plastic from Eilleens I thought I would paint the ironwork on this Wigan private owner wagon.  Once this is done I will give it a coat of matt varnish before I attempt to do the lettering. There is still the axleboxes to paint and fit and the interior to paint. 

[airnimal]

First attempt at the lettering without the shading. I tried using a brush first but ended up doing it with a Rotring pen.

[Guy Rixon]

That's the best hand-lettering I've ever seen. If you'd told me that it was rub-down transfers I'd have believed you.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, airnimal said:

First attempt at the lettering without the shading. I tried using a brush first but ended up doing it with a Rotring pen.

Absolutely overflowing with charm.

[airnimal]

Guy, that is very gracious of you to say that. I am pleased I am getting better but it's not in the same league as people like Alan Brackenborough or Ian Rathbone. Some of the hand lettering by these gentlemen and others are works of art. 

Here are examples of Alan Brackenborough's work. 

[Caley Jim]

Still b****y good.!

 

Jim

[airnimal]

Many thanks to everyone who keep giving me praise. I am not sure I deserve a lot of it but I try to do my best. 

I tried to shade the letters on the Wigan coal wagon and made a pigs ear of it. So I rubbed it off and repainted the white letters. I will let this harden untill tomorrow when I will have another go with a fine paint brush. 

In the meantime I decided to fit the etch numberplates to some of the LNWR wagons  that Chris Brown kindly did the artwork for me. 

I have fitted the plates to the ballast wagons but there was still about 10 more wagons to do. 

This is the first of the rest which is a Dia 4 and I have also applied the tare weight and the numbers on the ends.

I must thank Chris for providing me with these excellent plates. 

Going back to this wagon I can see the progression from 4 years ago when I stated to build my present projects.

I haven't trimmed the back of the wheels like I do with present builds. I also fix the couplings rather than spring them and other small improvements. I

Another couple done with plates.

Edited May 8, 2020 by airnimal
More images.

[Regularity]

When can we see them arranged nicely into a train?

[airnimal]

There is nothing more that I'd like to see than my coal tank pulling a rake of my wagons on a fine layout.

I did take them to the Bristol show in January and ran them on the S7 test track. I was more than a little chuffed to see them all behave themselves and not embarrass me by poor running or falling off.

This sign writing is proving more of a problem than I anticipated. I have tried to shade the letters with a brush and several different pens both using inks and paint. I even tried using a pencil but all to no avail. So I have rubbed the letters with fine emery and will have another go tomorrow and try again. If that doesn't work it might get a heavy weathering.

Edited May 9, 2020 by airnimal

[Caley Jim]

What I can make out of the shading looks pretty good to my eye! 

 

Jim