BR 21T hoppers

[Neil]

Having made a reasonable start on my fictional version of the York of my youth I've started to look at some of the bread and butter stock I'll need. High on the list are hoppers. Many years ago I had a stab at doing things to a pair of the Dapol unpainted examples. Of late I've been buying second-hand examples of whatever vintage as long as the price was right (you can take the man out of Yorkshire .....etc) and during a recent trip back to my home city the excellent Monk Bar Model Shop supplied me with a pair of the latest Hornby versions. Now my aim is to build a rake for a layout rather than glass case models of museum quality so I won't be sweating over detail or (some) inaccuracies. They will however have to work for their living so will need to run well without buffer locking and couple and uncouple reliably, in places across quite a wide baseboard. To that end I've standardised on the latest small tension lock from Hornby and Bachmann. Though the older, larger tension locks have a degree of compatibility it compromises their reliability and they look worse. My first job has been to sort out the coupling arrangements.

 

Here's what needs to happen to the older Hornby wagons where the underframe is made out of a similar type of plastic to washing up bowls. This plastic is impervious to plastic solvents so the solution is to take off the larger Hornby coupling (top left) from its mounting pad and then cut the mounting pad (top right) away from the underframe. This will leave a rectangular hole which should ten be extended right up to the rear of the buffer beam to leave a near square aperture (bottom wagon, both ends).

 

 

The holes created give access to the underside of the wagon body end platform, a decent sized area of solvent friendly plastic. We can exploit this area by fashioning a plasticard block to fit the hole which can be solvent welded to the body and give a level mounting point for the Parkside coupler mounts. It took me three layers of 40thou and one of 20thou to build up sufficient depth to give a level surface.

 

 

Whilst this works for early Hornby hoppers, early Dapol and Mainline examples, it appears that the later (not the latest) Hornby China made examples have underframes which can be solvent welded. After cutting off the moulded on mounting pad the resulting small rectangular hole can be flush plated with one piece of 40thou plasticard ready for the Parkside coupler mount. China made underframes seem to have the wagon plates picked out in white, they also say 'made in China' but this is only visible with the body off; not handy when trying to sort out the easy examples on swapmeet tables.

 

 

It is possible to bodge the smaller Bachmann couplings designed for screw mounting under the buffer beam to the moulded in mounting pads but this gives a coupling face too close to the buffers to reliably work round sharp or reverse curves. My altered Mainline example at the left of this line up has couplings done this way; I will need to revisit this wagon and convert it in the method described above.

 

Finally can I advise all to steer clear of the latest Dapol 21T hopper. It looks like they've altered the body moulding and not for the better. The lower portions of the side ribs have been shaved back at a funny angle and inside when the load is prised out the middle divider of the hopper is curiously truncated.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Neil

[Neil]

Since last taking a look at the hoppers, I've ordered and applied transfers. Small patches of Humbrol gloss varnish were first painted onto the wagon bodies where the transfers were to go and once dry the transfers cut out and wetted in situ on the hopper sides. I find it takes a little longer for them to want to come away from the backing this way but it gives far more control especially for the smaller items.

 

 

Again when fully set and with all trace of dampness gone Humbrol varnish, matt this time, was brushed over the transfers to seal them in place. Because my weathering techniques are quite hard on the surface I wanted to leave the varnish plenty of time to thoroughly harden so I turned my attention to the insides of the hopper bodies. One of my books, Eastern Steam in Colour, was particularly helpful in showing the internal colour of well used coal hoppers.

 

 

As you would expect they ended up dusty black when in service, however black straight out of the tin is too stark a colour, so I cut the harshness back a bit with my usual choice of Humbrol 100, a light red oxide. Still a bit early to go all out on the weathering so I started on a project I've been meaning to do for some time now, bespoke conversions of some second hand box files to stock boxes. That for the hoppers has become the prototype. The internal divisions are foambord cut into strips, spaced to be a close fit for hight. The base of the compartments are lined with strips cut from a yoga mat. Yet to source and fit is the upper padding between the compartments and box lid which will hold the stock in place.

 

 

 

 

 

[Neil]

Over the last fortnight I've made removable loads for the hoppers. I started by laminating a black mount board base to some 8mm thick black sponge rubber bought from ebay. When set, I roughed out the load shape with a pair of scissors and finished/smoothed it off with some very coarse aluminium oxide paper.

 

 

Crushed and sieved coal was glued on top (pva) and then sprayed with wafts of grey primer and matt black from rattle cans. Why paint coal black? Well the lump I started with was very hard, and when crushed shattered into small brightly faceted chips giving an almost silvery sheen to the load. While coal does aften have a sheen to it, I think it's one of those things which doesn't scale well.

 

 

Once the loads were finished I reckoned my repainted hoppers had waited long enough for the weathering process not to affect the base coat. It's all simply done with Humbrol enamels, a mix of 100 (red-brown) and 33 (matt black).

 

 

 

Hopefully you'll have noticed that no two wagons are the same. Looking at images of trains of 21T hoppers the stand out feature is that they don't present a uniform appearance, the rust takes hold in different patterns and to differing degrees. One of the downsides of factory weathered stock is that it can all look the same.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Neil

[coronach]

Impressive !