A Wiltshire Carriage Works

[bécasse]

49 minutes ago, Doncaster Green said:

I thought I would post this just to prove I am still here!   Although I hesitate:

 

 

Also, I am not totally happy with the paint job - due to current workshop restrictions brushed rather than sprayed,  Perhaps a little bit of touching up (needed) and some light weathering may improve it.

 

BR paintwork on Gresley carriages, especially "second division" ones, rarely stayed perfect for long. I have always presumed that it was because it was difficult to get the preparation work right when the vehicles had once been varnished teak.

[KeithMacdonald]

On 18/01/2019 at 14:06, Doncaster Green said:

 I should point out that the planning committee has a membership of two and the Chair has the casting vote.   Needless to say, I am not the Chair!

 

That sounds very familiar. is your Chair also the Financial Director?

 

 

[Doncaster Green]

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

That sounds very familiar. is your Chair also the Financial Director?

 

 

The Chair believes they are the Finance Director, however, the other Planning Committee member is also the Chief Accountant - 'nuff said?

 

John

 

[Doncaster Green]

1 hour ago, bécasse said:

BR paintwork on Gresley carriages, especially "second division" ones, rarely stayed perfect for long. I have always presumed that it was because it was difficult to get the preparation work right when the vehicles had once been varnished teak.

Agreed.  I am old enough to remember some extremely shabby examples rolling around the East Midlands in the late '50s.   The mainline stuff was a little better; certainly the maroon stock looked really smart, although by about 59 or 60 anything still in crimson and cream was peeling badly!

 

John

[Doncaster Green]

By Jove!  Is it really nearly 6 months since I posted anything on here?  Where have those months gone?  They say procrastination is the thief of time - I must have been procrastinating Big Time.  But then I'm good at that!

 

Anyway, things have been happening although none of them have progressed to a point that would justify a post:

A Dia105/125 BT/third twin has almost reached the paint shop queue (a queue that never seems to reduce),

A couple of full thirds, my earliest attempts, have been revisited to correct errors and improve them generally, and

I have almost completed a Dia 282 'Shorty' BG, using a 51ft underframe, the sides from a Dia 129 NG Full Brake, a pair of Fox bogies and the ends and roof (much butchered) from a NGS Gresley BG kit, to match a picture on Robert Carroll's Flikr album of one in Maroon being either attached or detached from a train at York by an O3 shunter.

 

Progress on the Silver Jubilee set has been minimal.  As I said previously, it is my intention to build it as the units were running towards the end of their life in the late '50s/early '60s.  This requires full underframes as the side skirts were removed post WW2.  The twin first and the outer units of the dining triplet and triple third had an overall length of 56ft 2in mounted on 55ft 4in articulated underframes (the difference being the overhang of the bow end) while the centre units of the triples were 45ft 11in.   Chris Higgs indicated he had artwork for the 55ft 4in underframes that could scaled for 1:148 to match the Worsley etches, leaving me to concoct a plan for some cut and shut work to produce the 45ft 11in underframes. 

 

And there things stood for some time until I started doing some preparation work on the sides of the twin first, the intention being to put a body box together in order to work out the best way to build the roof.  It was at this point that I found that the Worsley sides are a scale 10 ins too long - they scale to 56ft 2in in N rather than 55ft 4in, i.e. they are 115.7mm as opposed to 114mm.  This is not a problem if you are building the fully skirted pre-war set as the floor, skirts and sides all match and all it means is the set is slightly too long but nobody can tell without a ruler.  What it meant for me, though, building the post war versions, was that Chris' underframe artwork would be short compared to the sides.  So, spurred on by the advice provided by a thread last year plus notes from Bob Jones and Hollywood Foundry, I joined the etching club and designed my own underframes to match the Worsley sides.  (Note for Chris if he reads this - I do still want the 55ft artic underframes, I have other projects in mind).  I received to results of my artwork this week:

 

 

The service was superb; 2 weeks from initial enquiry to product delivery.  The quality is superb.  I've made a couple of errors on the artwork but nothing that stops them being used.  I will admit to flagrantly copying other peoples' ideas!  These frames will be used with brake gear/battery box etches from the 2mm Shop, bits from Etched Pixels and bogies from Chris.  Now all I have to do is build them!  First in line, the twin first.  Onwards and upwards!

 

I will keep you posted.  Regards for now

 

John

 

 

 

[Doncaster Green]

Just a quick update.   There has been some progress on the Silver Jubilee stock; mainly the twin first as shown below.   The intention is to model it as running towards the end of it's life in the late 50's/early 60's (it is listed as withdrawn in 1962); a sort of Silver Jubilee silver jubilee!

 

 

It's riding on temporary bogies for now to make sure all is level, so forgive the stepboards that shouldn't be there!  So far all has gone together OK.  I made a couple of errors on the underframe artwork but nothing that I couldn't work around.  The battery boxes and brake gear come from 2mm Shop etches.  The dynamos (when fitted) will be Etched Pixels.   The roof is a bit of a lash up.  It is a BR Mk1 plastic moulding from the 2mm Shop, split down the middle to add 30 thou to the width and trimmed to length.  It still needs a little bit of fettling to bed it down properly, but, I believe, it is not far off the look of the prototype, although maybe a little shallow.   The vents for the pressure ventilation system are still to be fitted.

   I am not 100% happy with the solebar fairings, so may do a little bit more work on them.   They were most definitely still in place in 1962, as shown in a picture in Harris(the blue reprint).

   When I get to it, painting is going to be interesting.   When in BR Maroon, the bodies were not lined but the stainless steel strips were left bright!

 

Regards  for now

 

John