S7 scratch building

[Crimson Rambler]

Please forgive me David but I would like to make a slight correction – Bob Essery was converted to S7 a little earlier. I visited him in his home which was then in Solihul in early 1989 (or late 1988) with a 33mm gauge point I had made. He placed an O gauge wheel set on it. With one wheel on the crossing nose the other ran on the back of the check rail – he was convinced. When I reminded him, I had tried to convert him to S7 at the previous Manchester Show he told me I was a rotten salesman!

At that time S7 was quite low key and very much a niche gauge. I knew Bob Essery as a fellow MRS member and had seen his input into the Scalefour Society – he was the person needed to popularize S7 – hence the visit.

Once converted to S7 the ScaleSeven Group was soon set up with the inaugural meeting comprising about 24 of us held at Ken Cottle’s house in Luton – RJE became member No 1, Ken is member No 2 and Dick Ganderton No. 3. Unfortunately Bernard Laycock another important S7 pioneer didn’t join.

In a re-run of Heckmondwyke and S4, RJE decided to build a large S7 layout – Dewsbury – I helped with the track while Ken built the baseboards. It was not long after we had started that I met John Horton – a member of the LMSS who RJE had enlisted to help. At the time JH was trying to build an Ivatt class 4 2-6-0 (Doodlebug) in gauge O and had encountered the problems with a narrower than scale gauge. He quickly became a convert. He loaned me a book by Brian Reed about Crewe works. In it was an instruction from Ramsbottom to the men – work to dimensions. This became our mantra and our approach to S7 - depart from the prototype as little as possible. JH built a number of locomotive frames on this principle for RJE and, in conjunction with gauge widening they worked without problems - refer to MRJ No. 60.

With Dewsbury under way, David was subjected to the Chinese water treatment by JH and myself until he saw the light. Three-throws not withstanding I don’t think he regrets the change!

[airnimal]

I have managed to drill so many holes in the wrong place and broken more drills than on any other project. This wagon has tested my patience than anything I have ever made before. 

All the holes are now drilled ready to take the nuts / bolts but the one on the side are just loose and not glued in yet because I and still working on the spring hangers. These nuts / bots are quite soft so rather than damage them I will leave off untill it's time to paint the wagon. All the bolts on the ends are glued in because the buffers protect them.

These spring hangers have taken a long time to come up with something that looks like the photos. I must have had about 20 rejects before I finally settled on the present arrangement. I have only made one so far but I think I will stick to how I have made the first one and so I can see the finishing line and get some paint on and hide all my mistakes.

 

While I have been wrestling with these spring hangers other people have been posting about S7 which I have enjoyed reading about. 

When I moved up a scale from 4mm I did consider S scale which I find delightful but was put off by the lack of parts especially driving wheels. Not being good at loco building I decided to go 7mm before quickly turning to S7. 

After seeing Geoff Stenner's Oakhurst layout at the Machester show and seeing how well it performed, I was hooked.o

[ian@stenochs]

Snap Mike!

I followed a very similar path. Moving to 7mm scale from P4 I did build one loco in fine standard 0 but soon converted it to S7 and have never looked back. Being able to lift dimensions straight from a GA drawing makes modelling so much more satisfying.

 

I am thoroughly enjoying following this build of yours. It is a bit of a cliche but modellers tend to favour the less usual prototypes when in reality they were quite rare. We have seen you produce some exquisite 'ordinary' wagons and this special you are building will truly be a 'special' example!

 

Ian.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, airnimal said:

I have managed to drill so many holes in the wrong place and broken more drills than on any other project. This wagon has tested my patience than anything I have ever made before. 

Does this mean that you might reconsider your aversion to finishing off that lovely loco?

 

After seeing Geoff Stenner's Oakhurst layout at the Machester show and seeing how well it performed, I was hooked.

Funnily enough, Geoff's SER 0 class loco was one of the first S scale locos I saw, which set on that path.

But Oakhurst gave me severe temptation.

[airnimal]

A couple of shots of the method finally adopted to make the spring hangers. I length of 40 X 125 thou evergreen strip was drilled and filed to shape ( poorly ) before glueing over the end of the spring. Then a couple of pieces of 40 X 40 evergreen was cut to fit either side at the bottom after rounding of one edge before glueing them in place. A couple of disc's of black was punched out and stuck on. Simple in the end but I went round the house's to get here.

[airnimal]

Progress has got a move on in the last couple of days. Even through we had a couple of grandchildren today I managed to get the rest of the bolts / nuts glued in. When they went home the sun came out and I washed and painted the body. All the fittings and wheels will have to wait awhile but at least it is starting to look like a wagon.

 

[NeilHB]

That really does look superb Mike - a job very well done.

[airnimal]

95% complete with just a few items to add. I would like to change the brass screws holding the axleboxes to the frame to countersunk ones so they are not as visible. I still have to resolve the issue with the buffers because they are not sprung. I have racked my brains on how to retro fit springs without success because of my lack of forward planning. I might not even spring them and just glue them up solid. There is not much lettering on this wagon and the small ones about the axleboxes are to small for me to attempt to do by hand so they will probably be left off. 

 

Things that would have made a big difference would be a second set of bearings / axleboxes behind the wheels and the bolts / nuts showing on the inside of the frames. I don't have a small pillar drill which would have made drilling the frames in the flat a lot easier rather than drilling by hand once the frames had been assembled. Drilling all those holes and keeping the drill bits parallel is impossible not helped by getting older. I have the large foundry casting my friend made for me as a load but rather than use that I would like to find a large wheel or a beam from a mill engine.

 

[Caley Jim]

Wonderful stuff as always, Mike.  They just get better and better!  

 

Jim (a fan of unusual wagons)

[Tricky]

Superb. 

[Nickey Line]

4 hours ago, airnimal said:

I still have to resolve the issue with the buffers because they are not sprung. I have racked my brains on how to retro fit springs without success because of my lack of forward planning. I might not even spring them and just glue them up solid.

 

I wonder if it would be possible to make up springs of a suitable length, just under the diameter of the inside of the buffer housing, then securely glue them on the backs of the buffer heads, lastly gluing the other end to the rear face of the housing.

That's probably completely unfeasible so feel free to ignore me!

[airnimal]

Nickey Line,  all suggestions are welcome, more the merrier.

I have used the Peco parallel G.W.R buffers with the lip turned off but I can't use there method of springing on this build because of the open frame nature of this wagon. 

I have been playing around with a collar over a standard turned buffer from some I had in stock so I can use a 12 BA nut located inside the bufferbeam. 

I have already shortened the Peco buffer body so that it doesn't protrude beyond the bufferbeam so if I do the same on the turned buffer heads I might have the answer my spring problem.

 

I won't be able to anything now untill Monday at the earliest because family matters are pencilled in which I am looking forward to.

[Nickey Line]

1 hour ago, Nickey Line said:

gluing the other end to the rear face of the housing

 

That should of course read '...rear inner face...'

[Compound2632]

Could you make dummy inside bearings? Maybe just with a U-shaped cut-out to sit over (but not in contact with) the axle?

[airnimal]

I have turned down part of the steel buffer head to lower the spring which fits inside the collar. After shortening the length of the buffer head it now all fits in to the buffer body with only the nut protruding and when chemical blackened, hopefully won't look to bad.

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by airnimal

[airnimal]

Once I had assembled all the parts I was surprised that buffers were to high against other wagons and my wagon height jig. I went back and checked all the dimensions on the body and found them correct. The small drawing in Midland wagons       

gives the rail clearance as 10" at the ends of the wagon and 12" in the middle. When I measured mine it was 10" all along so something was amiss. I had used the correct wheels so the only thing I could think to do was make new W-irons to drop the buffer height down a fraction. I don't know where these etched W-irons came from but I did have another set. So I cut them slightly longer and made new base plates for them. This has brought the buffers more or less in line with my other wagons but has reduced the ground clearance down to 9". I think I can live with that. 

 

 I still have to black the buffer bodies and paint the new W- irons which I should have done before I started on the numbers / tare weight letters but I wanted to see how it was going to look !

The numberplate is from an old Slaters sheet with the others a mixture of tranfers and hand lettering.

I tried painting the numbers in the numberplate but the surface is crinkled after I varnished it so I was unable to add the numbers. I will have to go cap in hand to Chris Brown to see if he is doing anymore etched plates.

[Jack P]

Fantastic work! I've only just stumbled across this thread, and am looking forward to going back through and catching up.

[airnimal]

I have lost my mojo of late like a lot of other people probably not helped by the continuing virus. 

I finally finished this wagon but cannot decide about a load. My friend Peter made me a large casting and I have made a large wheel and shaft from bits in the scrap box. Both would require blocks and chains to secure with the wheel probably needing a cradle as well but do either look suitable for a wagon load ? 

[chris p bacon]

For me the casting looks better.  The wheel would undoubtedly be in a cradle.

 

Top class work 

[Caley Jim]

The wagon was obviously designed for a load that was out of gauge if on a normal trolley wagon, so I would suggest something high, like the wheel, would be more appropriate - mounted in a timber cradle.  Or how about a ship's propeller?

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

The Midland had some wheel wagons - one to D315 and two to D316 - also referred to as pulley wagons. Indeed, the one photo in  Midland Wagons of one loaded shows what looks very like the pulley wheel for a mineshaft headgear.

 

There are a couple of photos in Midland Wagons of these D310 18 ton trolleys loaded. One load is a tubular fabrication from the Sheepbridge Co. - corrugated, possibly threaded, on the outside - which looks to be about 12 ft in diameter, so well out of gauge, 17 March 1921:

 

 

NRM DY 11846, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

 

 The other load is a tender for a NCC locomotive. If one was to model that, one would probably have to build a D309 30 ton trolley together with the locomotive, along with several wagons to carry the wheels, chimney, dome casing, cab, etc.:

 

 

Derby, 13 July 1914. NRM DY 10248,  released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Compound2632
Added photo of out-of-gauge cylinder load.

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

There are a couple of photos in Midland Wagons of these D310 18 ton trolleys loaded. One load is a tubular fabrication from the Sheepbridge Co. - corrugated, possibly threaded, on the outside - which looks to be about 12 ft in diameter, so well out of gauge, 17 March 1921:

That looks like the winding drum for a colliery pit-head winding engine.  the grooves would be spiral to guide the winding rope.

 

Jim

[airnimal]

I have made up some timber supports similar to photos in Great Western wagon loads. I still need some angle iron brackets either side of the shaft along with nuts and bolts before painting everything. I have plenty of chains and shackles in stock.

[airnimal]

I have put some brackets on along with the angle iron plates that restrict the movement of the wheel.

I think the MasterClub bolts really look the part in this application. I still have to make up the hooks on the ends of the other chains and paint the wood parts. I think it was the right move to model the wheel rather than the casting. 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

Are you going to depict some means of holding the various wooden beams etc., that are supporting the wheel, in place?