What is on the bench was previously in my head !

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Here is the latest update regarding the BAA steel carriers. I have now fitted all of the brass bearings to the bogies and painted them black, the hand wheels have been painted rail grey as is does not seem quite as stark as white. The side frames were coated with gloss varnish before the application of the transfers which are by Railtec.

 

Work yet to do is to apply matt varnish over the transfers and bogies, a sliver of silver on the buffer shanks and then fit the wheels and couplings.

 

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

HAA MGR Wagons

 

Hi Folks,

 

Here are the thirty seven MGR wagons that I started work on last year before I started this thread. I have improved them by way of fairly basic improvements which are to cut off the tension lock couplings and fit three link couplings, I should have used instanter but for some reason I didn't. The W irons were glued into place using epoxy resin which were aligned with a straight edge. I also painted the hopper cradle framework in BR freight stock red and also the insides of the hoppers with Humbrol 56. the inside of the hoppers was painted in such a way that the finish was streaked to make it look like the marks left by the coal sliding down the sides.

 

I have this last week resurrected the project by acquiring some HAA MGR and some maintenance chart transfers from Railtec. There are different styles of number panel and also there are differing positions of the maintenance charts on the hopper cradle frames. The photographs shew the different styles and also the distribution of the styles within the batch.

 

Differing styles and positions.

 

I do like a good line up, although I'm not sure if it is an artistic or autistic trait !

 

Gibbo.

 

 

[RedGemAlchemist]

That's a lot of hoppers.

[Gibbo675]

1 minute ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

That's a lot of hoppers.

Long winters in Westmorland.

[AlfaZagato]

I guess your projects went a little flat, but then you hopped to it!

[Gibbo675]

4 hours ago, AlfaZagato said:

I guess your projects went a little flat, but then you hopped to it!

Hi Alfa,

 

I think what happened is that after thirty seven wagons I got a bit bored with them, put them to one side and did something else until I felt like getting back to work on them.

 

There are plenty other projects in a similar situation, container flats, coaches, cranes and far too many locomotives !

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Here are the almost completed BAA wagons. I say almost complete for I have not yet painted the silver band around the OLEO buffer shanks, worse still, I dropped one of them and damaged the end structure. Fortunately I enjoyed building them so much that I have bought another pair of BAA along with a pair of BBA wagons and have already pinched a spare end out of one of the new kits to effect the repair which needs a second coat of paint locally. I'm not sure if there are transfers available for the BBA or whether I will be cutting and shutting the leftover transfers from the BAA transfers that I have spare.

 

The left hand end of the odd one out wagon is the newly repaired end.

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Here is some more progress with steel carrying wagons, this time the two BBA wagons. Strangely I found that they were easier to build than the BAA type despite being almost identical bye way of the method of construction. The only trouble that I have had is that one of the end structures became detached from the sprue and I have some how misplaced it, I thought it would turn up the moment I made a replacement from plasticard but it didn't. I decided to fit the rectangular buffers for no other reason than I don't have any other stock with rectangular buffers.

 

After looking at lots of photographs from Paul Bartlett's site and also of various models it would seem that the style of decking varies in that the gaps between the corrugations are ether filled in or left open. Both the Bachmann OO gauge and Grafar N gauge models represent opened out decking styles but looking on Paul Bartlett's website some are definitely filled in between the corrugations and others aren't. For the BBA I have done one of each style and the remainder build of BAA will be of the filled in style, while on ebay today another BAA winked at me and so I shall have three to build making a total of eight. Wagons really are a good place to start should you wish to become confused as to what they should actually look like.

 

Unfortunately the project will stall for lack of paint as my bauxite paint has somewhat gone off having a consistency of thick custard, it was on the turn as I painted the last of the previous batch.

 

Decking with one partially filled out.

 

One of each deck type also shewing the replacement part for the end structure.

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Work this evening has brought the BAA wagons, one of which arrived in the post this morning u to the same stage as the BBA wagons. There are only the side stanchions and the end structures to make up and fit before painting the bogies black and in time sourcing some more bauxite paint for the body frames. The BBA wagons are quite a bit larger than the BAA wagons from which they were developed, the frames are quite a lot deeper not just most obviously in the middle but also over the bogies and in the depth of the buffer beams.

 

I shall have to have a good look on Paul Bartlett's site to see the best thing to do about the stanchions along the side of the wagons to see if I shall retain the uprights or cut them off as I did with the first batch of BAA's.

 

The other thing I need to research is if there are any commercially available transfers for the tw BBA's or whether I shall adapt the ones that I have for the BAA's, does anyone know of any ?

 

 

Gibbo.

[Fat Controller]

Have a look here:-

http://www.railtec-models.com/catalog.php?type=5&gauge=4mm&region=1&xfer_type=wagon

[Gibbo675]

2 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Have a look here:-

http://www.railtec-models.com/catalog.php?type=5&gauge=4mm&region=1&xfer_type=wagon

Hi Brian,

 

I've had a good look at Railtec including their search function already, they do sheet 7130, which I bought two of, that is for the BAA but they list nothing for the BBA. The only sheet that mentions BBA is sheet 6804 which are Railfreight logos for various types, BAA included. One reason I can't find anything might be that after looking at such a long list I go completely cross eyed !

 

In have plenty of time to keep looking for my paint has gone off somewhat and need some more anyway.

 

Thanks all the same,

 

Gibbo.

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Brian,

 

I've had a good look at Railtec including their search function already, they do sheet 7130, which I bought two of, that is for the BAA but they list nothing for the BBA. The only sheet that mentions BBA is sheet 6804 which are Railfreight logos for various types, BAA included. One reason I can't find anything might be that after looking at such a long list I go completely cross eyed !

 

In have plenty of time to keep looking for my paint has gone off somewhat and need some more anyway.

 

Thanks all the same,

 

Gibbo.

Apologies for the false lead. I do find their list a little hard to read, probably as much due to my ageing eyes as anything. Having tattled their cage, I wouldn't be surprised to see something appear. Modelmaster may do something on one of the sheets they took over from Cambrian. MM4486 might be the one.

[Gibbo675]

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

Apologies for the false lead. I do find their list a little hard to read, probably as much due to my ageing eyes as anything. Having tattled their cage, I wouldn't be surprised to see something appear. Modelmaster may do something on one of the sheets they took over from Cambrian. MM4486 might be the one.

Hio Brian,

 

No need to apologise, all information is useful. The Modelmaster MM4486 will be looked into as soon as it is reasonable to do so.

 

Thanks again,

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Here is the latest from the Cartic-4 project, there have been some air tanks fitted and also the trial print of the bogies with NEM pocket adaptors have been removed from their sprue to see how they go together.

 

My 3d printing specialist Tom sent over the air tanks which are printed in a sprue of six. They are glued into locating holes drilled into the centre section of the outer end wagons fitting neatly up to a cross member and just clearing the bogies.

 

Shewing the position of the air tank, note the air tanks and bogies on their sprues in the background.

 

The air tank glued into place with the locating pegs yet to be trimmed off.

 

Also in the same package were a test print of a sprue of five bogies with adjustable adaptor brackets for NEM pockets as shewn in the previous posting. This particular sprue is as a compliment to the Cartic-4 kit. The grooves required a very slight amount of filing so the the brackets would locate easily.

Shewing the range of adjustment of the brackets.

 

I plan to get on with the drawings for the brass etchings that will form the hand rails, ladders, &c. as soon as I am able.

 

In other areas of activity I have second coated the latest BAA and BBA wagons with Bauxite paint, I may well apply some gloss varnish for the transfers tomorrow.

[JDW]

Looking very nice, that's a great simple idea for the coupling mounts.

[Gibbo675]

51 minutes ago, JDW said:

Looking very nice, that's a great simple idea for the coupling mounts.

Hi JDW,

 

Not entirely my idea, Tom had a quite a lot of input and also more importantly drew it up on his 3d CAD.

 

Gibbo.

[Signaller69]

Hi Gibbo,

Looking good. I seem to recall the old "K's" whitemetal kit bogies used a similar idea for setting the coupling position.

 

That Cartic will look very impressive when complete I'm sure, very nice work.

 

Cheers,

Martyn.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Here are the almost complete BAA and BBA wagons. The transfers have been applied and now require matt varnish to seal them and tone down the black paint upon the bogies. All of the steel carrying wagons will have various small details picked out such as the silvering on the buffer shanks and the yellow of the axle box covers with then only the wheels to fit.

The transfers on the BBA wagons were cut and shut from the Railtec BAA transfer set, don't look too closely or you may well spot that the numbers of the two wagons are of the number series of BAA wagons !

 

General view of the second batch of three BAA and the two BBA wagons.

 

Closer view of one of the BBA wagons.

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

This evenings work has included steel wagons and AC electric locomotives.

 

First I fitted the wheel sets to the second batch of wagons and had myself a line up photograph of all ten of them. I still haven't painted the silver around the buffer shanks as I wasn't feeling up to such tedium today, other than that they are complete.

 

BAA and BBA wagons.

 

 

The AC electric locomotive work involved AL1 E3013 and AL4 84 009, the first job was to paint the roof insulators of both locomotives with BR Maroon paint as it seems a good colour for the job in hand. The next job was to fit some .040" plasticard strips to the insides of the body of E3013 to locate the top edges of the cut down Hornby AL6 underframes so that they locate vertically setting the buffer height correctly. I measured the depth of the underframes and they are 7.5 mm and so I cut a gauging strip so that I could position the strips at the correct distance from the bottom edge of the body sides and also parallel to the bottom edge.

 

The strips are there should you look carefully !

 

  Locomotive mounted upon its bogies.

 

The AL4 requires a different approach as the bogies are adapted Lima class 33 bogies, the trailing bogie has a plate that will locate into pockets glued into the body with small screws to secure it and the power bogie will use a press-stud glued to the top of the motor and some guide strips front and back of the the bogie. This method works well although the bogie has a tendency to fall out should care not be taken when lifting the locomotive.

 

The location hole for the press-stud can just be spotted although the pockets for the location of the trailing bogie plate have not yet been fabricated.

 

Locomotive balanced rater than mounted upon its bogies.

 

Gibbo.

 

[Gibbo675]

Sad News Folks,

 

In the light of the incident at Stamford exhibition I posted this upon the thread linked:

 

"How about this for an idea;

 

I would gladly use my skills to assist in the replacement of any item that has been lost or damaged and donate it to anyone that would wish to take me up upon that offer.

 

There are plenty of us within RMweb that have a great variety of skills and specialities that may be put to good use and I am sure that between us all we could make a contribution somehow. I'm sure that efforts could be made in either in the manufacture of replacements or the repair of damaged items.

 

Would there be anyone that has the ability to organise a list of items that may be created and gifted to those that have lost out in this ?

Is there be a suitable method of correlating what skills are available by those that may wish to offer so that those affected may make requests of assistance ?

 

Should anyone affected wish to see the standard of my work please view the link below, also should anyone wish to make a request for anything to be repaired or replaced then by all means send a PM and I shall do what I am able at my expense."

 

 

 

There are a few regulars visitors on this thread that have skills aplenty to offer and would hope that you might join with me in offering a little of your time to assist.

 

FACTA-NON-VERBA !

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

The bogies for the class 84 have been receiving attention although I'm not altogether happy with how they are turning out. As you may appreciate sticking any thing to the polythene type plastic that a lot of bogies are made from is tricky, so I elected to screw plates into the bogie side frames and stick the external spring bolsters to these plates. Unfortunately the rest of the bogie did not stand up to scrutiny when looking at pictures or worse still next to a paper template made from the drawings  have. I have as a result decided that complete new bogie side frames are required which I shall have to scratch build, the parts made so far shall be reused. I may need a day or two to rev up to this all the same.

 

shewing the difference in the side frames juxtaposed to the correctly sized paper template and also the method of attachment of the spring bolsters.

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

I have been busy this morning, and half the afternoon constructing the new bogie side frames for the class 84. the main side frames are from .080" plasticard with .020" overlays for axle boxes and various bits of rods and tubes for the axle boxes, brake cylinders and pull rods. as you may note the original bolster brackets have been salvaged from the Lima class 33 side frames and will be reattached when the bogies are fitted as I shall have to ascertain the running height before positioning them. The suspension springs have been formed form some plastic rod that is of the correct diameter to fit down the middle of some spare three link coupling springs which were cut in half and glued into place over the already positioned stubs of plastic rod.

 

I have yet to finish off the brake gear and then add some steps before making the bracketry that will attach one pair to the motor bogie and the other to a sub frame that will also contain the wheels.

 

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

I have had an opportunity to finish off the bogies for the class 84 this afternoon and they are now not only complete but have been trial fitted under the body of the locomotive.

 

Last evening I made some ends and glued them into position with the first job today being to the bogie frames to the motor and pick up units. The motor bogie was fitted in much the same way that the Lima bogie frames are fitted using tabs screwed into the original positions which were trimmed to length to secure the fit of the bogie frames before final positioning and gluing into place. The pick up bogie had the original sides cut off and the new ends drilled through into the original end plates with screws forming the location. To position the bogies I used four  4mm blocks of plasticard as spacers under the horn ties to get the required running height, most conveniently they were made from the .080" off cuts from making the side frames.

 

The added details from yesterday are the actuating rods from the brake cylinders, rigging support arms and the refitting of the bolsters with the associated spring pillars.

 

The completed bogies prior to fitting.

 

The locomotive looks quite strange with white bogies but a good covering of black paint will sort that out.

The added bonus that the steps line up with the cab doors !

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

I have refitted and detailed the underframe detail and also upon the roof I have made the air ram for the pantograph and the expansion tubing for the air tanks. The bogies have been painted and look a lot better, I may paint the underframe detail later this evening.

 

The floor plat that the underframe detail is attached to has a arc formed into the motor bogie end to prevent the motor from tipping, tere will be one at the cab end also but I shall fit this another day.

 

 

Gibbo.

[Gibbo675]

Rail-busses R3 and RB 002

 

Hi Folks,

 

Having noted all the gnashing of teeth over the demise of those appalling four wheeled sheds with leaky roofs, the class 142, I pondered the prototypes of the various classes of appalling four wheeled shed with leaky roofs *.

 

After the conclusion of my pondering I decided that should I purchase a Hornby 142, three spare bodies with windows and three of Peco's Model Scene Leyland National bus kits I could build R3 numbered RDB977020, the BR demonstrator and RB 002, known as The Denmark.

 

For R3 I would use the sides of the Hornby model and the roof and cab fronts of two the bus kits, these would then be grafted onto the modified Hornby chassis. For RB 002 I would do the same thing but utilise the Hornby cab ends suitably altered by narrowing them by cutting the wide sections between the windows. The 142 bodies are 5.5mm wider than the bus kit body upon which the original unit's width were based. There is 4mm to be taken from between the windows and the other 1.5mm may be filled from the sides.

 

I have mixed up two body shells per rebuilt body as it gives the minimum joint line with only one joint per side. The doors are at opposite ends when viewed from the sides for some reason, possibly the position of the driving cab being handed for British and Continental platform facing being opposite. For R3 I used the side with two doors cutting off the left hand end doors and grafting on two windows from the third shell. The side with only one set of doors is used for RB 002 with what was the drivers window cut off and stuck onto the other end of the body side.

 

So far I have only made up one roof section using a full roof trimmed back by just enough to incorporate the roof ribs and a section of a second roof to make up the difference. The body sides were filled to the same length and the roof made to match the dimension bye way of direct measurement. The air conditioning unit s cut from one of the scrap 142 roof sections

 

The bonus of this project is that I shall have windows spare to glaze my Leyland Experimental coach RDB 977091, I shall have to number it and line it out first though.

 

This evenings cutting and shutting efforts.

 

For reference, RDB 977091 as yet unnumbered, unlined and also unglazed.

 

For reference to the various prototypes:

 

http://www.traintesting.com/LEVs.htm

 

Gibbo.

 

* I rode to Preston upon the appalling four wheeled sheds with leaky roofs thirty years ago while attending college, it was party time when the Craven-Park Royal hybrid set was diagrammed !

Edited June 8, 2019 by Gibbo675
Adding title