Wagonologie

[Nick Mitchell]

Yesterday, on a whim, I raided my gloat box to find the Chivers D.2069 body kit I mentioned in the previous post.

The mouldings are really fine, but as with nearly all plastic kits, the thickness of the sides is way over-scale.

Also, being made to 1:148 scale, it is too long and too wide.

 

There are three potential approaches to a kit like this - 1) don't use it; 2) build it as intended and don't worry about the discrepancies; 3) spend ages trying to adapt it.

Anyone who knows me will be in no doubt as to which approach I will take, as off I go on another modelling tangent.

I wanted to see if I could make something that would sit alongside my 1:152 etched plate wagons in terms of scale and also general fine-ness.

 

Thinning the sides was the first job. I did this by chamfering them over the height of the body so they are just over half the original thickness at the top.

Below is a before and after photo. I have lost the moulded bolt-head detail on the inside, but on balance, I think the overall thickness of the sides are far more noticeable than the interior detail. The plastic is very flexible, so getting an even thickness over such a long side was not particularly easy. I think it came out OK in the end.

 

 

Next job was to tackle the length of the side, which needed to "shrink" proportionally over its length by 1.25mm

I have a razor saw with a blade 0.3mm thick, so took 4 strategically placed cuts vertically up the sides and glued the bits back together with Mek.

The arrows in the picture below show where the cuts were made, tucked up against the door pumpers to make them less obvious.

The top edge of the side was held against a steel ruler while the solvent did its work to make sure the modified side ended up straight.

 

 

The width of the wagon was only 0.4mm over-scale. Rather than narrowing the end pieces, I thinned the sides a bit more where they overlap the ends.

The ends did need chamfering, however, to bring the planks closer to scale thickness.

The integral buffer beams looked like wooden planks rather than steel channel, so I filed a wide slot in the end to suggest the channel. When assembled it should fool the eye.

 

 

The floor (which usefully has the battens moulded on) needed reducing in length and width to fit its reduced circumstances. I overdid the shortening at one end, and have a slight gap that will be easily filled with a sliver of microstrip.

Fortunately, I had the foresight to remove the moulded ridges from the underside of the floor (there to align the plastic underframe components of the original kit) before assembling it, to give a smooth flat surface for the etched replacement.

 

So, the ultimate question - does the modified plastic body stand comparison with the etched one? And was turning a half-hour job into a couple-of-hours job worth it?

 

 

For me personally, I think the answer is "yes" on both counts, although many people would be happy not to bother.

Having built a few 1:148 wagon kits in the past and put them on finescale underframes, I have always been a little bit dissatisfied with the scale discrepancy when viewed alongside true 2mm scale wagons... and wagons are the sort of thing that tend to get mixed and matched in trains.

 

In an Illustrated History of LMS Wagons Vol. 1, the dimensions given are 27'0" outside the end planks for the D.2069, and 27'0" inside the top angles for the D.2083 steel vehicle. The comparison shot below shows my plastic surgery has come out spot on, and the scars have healed quite nicely. Looking at the picture now I notice one of the door springs has snapped off, but it will be easily replaced.

 

 

The Masterclass chassis I have lined up for this wagon fits perfectly length-wise, once the fold-down ends have been removed.

Below is the inner chassis unit folded up and tested in position for fit.

 

 

Of course being designed to fit under N Gauge kits, the wheelbase will be a scale 18'0" than 17'6".

Pragmatism dictates I'll have to live with this discrepancy. Besides not wanting to take any chances with its free running, I'd have to start worrying about the brakes and everything else.

These D.2069 wagons were effectively a shortened version of a much more numerous earlier design which also had a 17'6" wheelbase, and consequently look like the wheels are too close to the wagon ends anyway.

 

The sole-bar overlays are considerably longer than the chassis sides, to allow for it to be used on a variety of wagons. They will need trimming back.

They feature a half-etched representation of the channel, which is not my preference, but underneath the overhang of the body it will be hidden in shadow.

On the one photo I have access to of one of these wagons, it is impossible to tell whether there are any brackets connecting the solebars to the underneath of the body, so I guess anything goes detail-wise in those murky depths. I know the saying "never model a model", but I haven't found any photos of models of these wagons on-line that feature support brackets or ribs. The drawing in the book referred to earlier shows no underframe detail either.

One change I will make to the chassis, however, is to replace the springs and axleboxes. The etched springs attached to the solebar overlays look a bit too undernourished when compared to photographs.

 

[Nick Mitchell]

The Masterclass LMS 17'6" chassis went together nicely.

I don't think these are available at the moment - maybe now that the Chivers kits are becoming available again, they will be reintroduced?

I have one more tucked away to go with a Chivers LMS tube wagon... one day!

 

In the photo below, you can see the difference between the springs I cut off the etches as being too skinny for the type of wagon and their cast replacement. These were superglued in place after all soldering was completed.

 

 

To the underside of the wagon I have added tubes for Electra couplings, and coupling hooks from the 2mm Scale Association etch. These have been trimmed to length so that when butted up to the coupler mounting boxes, they protrude an appropriate distance form the plastic headstocks.

 

 

A thin slot has been sawn in each buffer beam to accommodate the coupling hooks, which will in their turn centre the chassis under the body. Also visible in the photo below is the restored door spring.

 

 

The only other tweak I made to the chassis etch was to add an extra little bracket over the reversing lever  where it is joined to the small V hanger.

The body has been epoxied to the chassis, and the cast buffers affixed by the same means.

 

 

So there's another wagon ready to join the queue for the Paint Shop, and my expanding collection of assorted long lows / plates. Two wagons made in one week??? Something is wrong here!

 

 

[Chris Higgs]

15 hours ago, Nick Mitchell said:

The Masterclass LMS 17'6" chassis went together nicely.

I don't think these are available at the moment - maybe now that the Chivers kits are becoming available again, they will be reintroduced?

I have one more tucked away to go with a Chivers LMS tube wagon... one day!

 

 

 

Let's wait and see if the LMS open kits reappear, as well as the GWR Open C. So far they have not.

 

Chris

[2mm Andy]

On 01/01/2021 at 10:59, Chris Higgs said:

 

Let's wait and see if the LMS open kits reappear, as well as the GWR Open C. So far they have not.

 

Chris

 

The LMS kits are now listed on the Five79 website as "coming 2021" (along with the Blue Spot fish van and the GWR Open C.

 

Andy

[Nick Mitchell]

It has been quite a long time since I posted anything on this thread - or indeed any other... mainly because it has been a very long time since I've done any significant model making.

Back at the start of the year I embarked on a quest to build some Stephen Harris wagon kits. I had about a dozen of his kits of various types in the "not started" pile, and I began with a pair of LMS D.2083 plate wagons.

The original idea had been to build them as a batch of two, but I got bored about half way through, and just finished off the first one. Then I got side-tracked modifying the Chivers D2069 plate wagon body kit, and never went back to the other one.

 

I did get as far as priming the first plate wagon a few weeks after completing it, but I experienced the dreaded "cobweb" effect from my airbrush. I posted a picture of this in my Hunslet 16" loco thread. Since then I spoke to Nigel Hunt about it, and he takes a less gentle approach to removing the cobwebs that I had previously. I'm glad it isn't just me who experiences this sort of thing from time to time. Anyway, this weekend I tried Nigel's method of giving it a vigorous scrub with an old toothbrush and water, and it worked a treat - despite them having been left in situ for 9 months.

 

Here are before and after pictures. With handling, most of the cobwebs from the body had already rubbed off the body sides, but there are dense concentrations round the brake gear. I hadn't got very good coverage with the primer in any case...

 

 

After less than a minute, not a trace of cobweb remained. Where the primer had stuck originally, it stayed stuck.

 

 

At the ZAG yesterday it was suggested I try U-Pol Acid8 primer in a rattle can as a more reliable alternative to the Precision 2-pack primer i used here.

i have to say that when I don't get the cobwebs, the results from the precision precision primer are really good, but it would be interesting to have something to compare it against.

 

Also at the ZAG, I finally completed the twin of this wagon, save for fitting tubes for Electra coupling and gluing on the axle-box castings (both of which were done after the photo below was taken).

 

 

Fitting the timber battens to the wagon floor was the final soldering job, and the photo below shows I still have a bit of solder to clean up inside the wagon before this one heads for the point shop. The ends could benefit from a bit of filler where the top flange bends forwards.

 

These really are lovely kits, as you would expect from Stephen. My next wagon project will be a pair of his LNER all-steel high sided goods wagons... unless something else takes my fancy in the mean time.

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Nick Mitchell
replaced lost photos

[Sithlord75]

Google throws up some amazing results.  I decided today (working at work during Covid - tomorrow working from home!) that I would draw up the D1804 to replace the poor prints of same I obtained via County Rolling Stock's Kickstarter way back when.  Looking for details on the chassis and lo and behold...

 

Small world.  I know one shouldn't model models, but I did start with the drawing in An Illustrated History of LMS Wagons Volume 1.

 

Not entirely sure how the chassis is going to go - most likely I'll print as much as possible and then do the drop in W iron approach.  I'm thinking there was no connection between the brake handles as the hopper was in the way.

[Nick Mitchell]

Well, I promised my next wagon project would be a pair of Stephen Harris' All-Steel High goods wagons.

Up until the Jubilee Expo, I had spent most of my modelling time this year working on my Challenge layout, but as a bit of a "layout detox" after that, I have finally begun work on said wagons.

As it happens, another pair of these wagon kits were on the Bring and Buy stand at the Jubilee, and I couldn't resist.

So - two became four - and I am part-way through the batch.

 

They're turning out to be not as quick and easy as some wagon kits, but are enjoyable to build nonetheless. And if I do them justice, they will be far finer than the off-the-shelf N gauge offering.

As one would expect with one of Stephen's kits, the research has been thorough, and a number of parts are included to make an accurate portrayal of many variants of this humble wagon - allowing me to build four slightly different wagons.

Here are a few pictures of how things are going:

 

For wagons not featuring wood-planked doors (which 3 of mine will be) the first task is to punch the "dimples" a.k.a. securing ring pockets in the half-etched wagon sides and ends. For this a special alignment jig and punch need to be constructed. The punch is nothing more exotic than a wagon axle with the points filed off.

 

 

The jig forms a sandwich round the wagon side while it is still attached to the fret, holes in the frame ensuring accurate alignment. The instructions warn against punching too enthusiastically less a hole is formed rather than a dimple.

 

 

Interestingly, of the four kits I have, to seem to have over-etched slightly in production, and the half-etched parts are very thin indeed. The other two seem to have under-etched slightly, and have lots of cusp, and in a few places haven't quite etched through.

 

The corner folds of the wagon sides/ends are also scored while the parts are still attached from the fret, and then removed.

Here are the sides/ends for one of the two LNER-bodied wagons that will receive steel doors, ready to be folded up. The rails along the top edge are to be folded down and soldered on the inside of the wagon side, so there's a reinforcing rib around the top edge inside and out.

 

 

Once folded up, the sides/ends attach to the 2-layer wagon floor.

This is the BR-bodied version, where the ends of the floor planks are visible under the steel sides.

 

 

Attention then moved to the underframes, which make up separately, with various styles of break gear available. Several layers are built up, including spacers, brakes, axle-guards, and sole bars.

Below is the beginnings of the RCH 4-shoe brake option fitted:

 

 

By the time I had all four wagons built up to this stage, I had examples of 2, 4, and 8 shoe brakes, plus 3 different body styles. I started needing to be careful to keep them matched up.

Apologies for the slightly blurry picture below.

 

 

As more parts started to be cut out and formed into sub-assemblies, I finally got organised and resorted to my trusty Pringles lids. I dread to think how many cans of Pringles I've had to eat in order to keep up with my model making hobby!

 

 

Still with the underframes, the sole bars themselves are a complex piece of origami, and incorporate part of the body-side framing for the doors, as well as the door bangers.

 

 

Lining these up to solder them onto the chassis (once the axle-guard layer was already in place) was a bit more tricky, as unlike all the other layers, there wasn't a really positive location tab or slot.

 

 

At this point there are lots of fragile bits sicking out in all directions, and the whole thing is really rather vulnerable. Adding the buffer beams - which incorporate the base layer of the end stanchions - makes things even worse. So bad in fact that I didn't take a picture of them.

 

But the next stage after that is to fit the body to the underframe. It is held in place by the end stanchions, and once they're soldered to the body and the side "wings" folded up and soldered, the whole thing becomes much more rigid and robust.

 

The photo below shows one wagon with the body and underframe united. This one has been taken a couple of stages further, and vertical ribs have been fitted to the end stanchions and either side of the door.

I've also fitted buffers and top-hat bearings. Having high-top-rib spindle buffers in the Association range of castings is a boon. Early-build instances of this wagon type appear to have been fitted with them all round.

 

 

The same wagon seen from underneath, now with more of the brake gear added, helping to further strengthen the parts vulnerable to damage.

 

 

This is as far as I've got so far, but at this stage it is prudent to temporarily fit some wheels and check everything is okay.

There are still a few bits left to add - doors, couplings (cosmetic and functional), springs/axleboxes, and the remainder of the brake gear... but it's starting to look the part.

 

 

[Sithlord75]

Good to see a new installment on this thread.  I'm looking forward to seeing other projects appear in due course...

 

[Nick Mitchell]

So, four weeks have passed and slow progress has been made in-between a family holiday and a pile of re-sit exams to mark.

As of tonight, two of the wagons are complete and ready for painting, and the other two are not far behind.

 

Those of you who know me may recall I favour Electra couplings, which require the fitting of a bearing tube.

On many Association wagon chassis kits, there is a coupling mounting platform provided. These kits don't have one, so I have provided a support behind the axle for the rear end of the tube.

The picture below will probably explain better than words. It shows the bearing tube resting on its support, which will also support the rear end of the vacuum pipe.

You may also be able to make out that I've cut away part of the brake operating linkages to the "inside" bake shoes. This is to make a space for the Electra's weight to dangle down behind the axle.

 

 

 

A visit to the NEAG 40th Anniversary party yesterday saw a brief encounter with the Central Shop, and I decided to give these new-fangle 3D-printed springs and axleboxes a go.

I'm really impressed with these. It's really hard to see the detail in their raw state, but they are very crisp indeed, and a big improvement on the whitemetal castings.

I found that by carefully twisting a 1.0mm drill in the hole, I could fit them without having to file down the top hat bearings.

 

Here are the first two wagons cleaned up and ready to roll...

 

From the early LNER batch with wooden doors, no securing ring pockets, and 2-shoe Morton brakes:

 

 

From a later batch with clasp brakes, the more familiar steel doors and "dimples":

 

 

These feel to have taken an awful lot of building, but I'm delighted with the results so far.

[PaulCheffus]

1 hour ago, Nick Mitchell said:

A visit to the NEAG 40th Anniversary party yesterday saw a brief encounter with the Central Shop, and I decided to give these new-fangle 3D-printed springs and axleboxes a go.

 

I'm really impressed with these. It's really hard to see the detail in their raw state, but they are very crisp indeed, and a big improvement on the whitemetal castings.

I found that by carefully twisting a 1.0mm drill in the hole, I could fit them without having to file down the top hat bearings.

 

 

Hi

 

I’ve also found a 1mm milling cutter does a similar job but leaves the hole with a square bottom rather than the drill shape.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[Nick Mitchell]

Construction work on my batch of four All Steel High wagons has been brought to a successful conclusion.

(why do I hear Rita Coolidge singing every time I type All Steel High? If only the GWR had had a steel high-bodied Octopussy wagon...)

 

This is the second clasp-braked wagon to roll off the workbench.

 

 

I made two of these type as there were so many more of them built, but so they weren't quite identical I fitted this second one with tall vacuum brake pipes. It also has cast rather than welded LNER axleboxes.

 

 

Because the tall vacuum pipes dangle from the wagon's centre-line, one must remember to fit a left-hand and a right-hand version. The brake pipe can then go straight from one end of the wagon to the other without crossing sides.

This is the other end:

 

 

i made an arbitrary decision about which side of the wagon the pipe should go... but when  found the brake cylinder in the way, I'm wondering id I made the wrong decision?

You'd have to turn the wagon upside down to know, and I'm not planning on modelling a train wreck... but it will always bug me if it turns out to be wrong!

 

 

 

The final wagon to be completed is the one with the BR body. I've straightened the buffer at the right hand end since first looking at this picture!

 

 

This one has RCH vacuum brakes, BR 2-part axleboxes, and with the extra reinforcements to the sides and doors, and exposed floor plank ends, it seems somehow more characterful.

 

Rather than high-top-rib buffers, the BR body has plates to secure the ends to the headstocks. It also has different body end stiffeners, and the chalk boards moved to the opposite side of the end.

 

 

 

So these four can at last join the long queue for the paint shop. I wonder which wagons will be next onto my workbench?

 

 

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Nick Mitchell said:

i made an arbitrary decision about which side of the wagon the pipe should go... but when  found the brake cylinder in the way, I'm wondering id I made the wrong decision?

You'd have to turn the wagon upside down to know, and I'm not planning on modelling a train wreck... but it will always bug me if it turns out to be wrong!

 

Like Manuel, when it comes to vacuum braked wagons 'I know nothing', so how was the pipe connected to the cylinder?  Did it pass above it with a connection on top, in which case you've probably put the pipe on the correct side, or was there a branch connecting the main pipe to the cylinder, in which case it may have been on the other side?

 

Jim

Edited September 17, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[65179]

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Simon

[Nick Mitchell]

At the ZAG last night, there was a discussion about articulated 6 wheel chassis.

 

It reminded me of the LMS D.2115 6-wheel fish van that's languishing at the back of my workbench, waiting (surprise, surprise) for a top coat of paint.

It's been primed with Precision 2-part etching primer, and suffered the dreaded cobwebbing.

I put it away before I discovered the "toothbrush and water" remedy, which I tried this evening, and it's looking alright now.

 

 

The wagon has been built from the 2mm Scale Association kit (2-518), which I think was designed by Bob Jones.

There are excellent instructions on the Association website with diagrams and illustrations, but I thought It might be interesting to show how the articulation system works.

 

The W-irons and axleboxes you can see in the photo above are cosmetic, with a cunningly articulated functional chassis hidden between them.

 

Below is one of the outer functional frames. The frames rock from side to side on the brass pin, and the pivot arm rotates about a loco frame bearing on the chassis.

 

 

 

Below is the centre axle frame, which can float vertically slightly as well as moving side to side.

It is suspended on the inner ends of the pivot arms through the slots you can see in the frame.

 

 

As the centre axle moves sideways on a curve, the outer axles "steer".

 

 

Because of the slight vertical play in the bearings, the chassis is articulated in the vertical dimension as well as horizontal.

 

 

The pivot arms can rock slightly on the bolsters on the underside of the floor. 12BA nuts to secure the bearings are soldered on top of the floor.

 

 

The little tabs that fold up from the floor restrict the centre axle frame, and also keep the pivot arms captive.

 

 

Once everything is assembled, it's quite "busy" in-between the frames.

The sideways movement of the centre axle is about 1mm in total.

 

 

The design is brilliant. It runs smoothly and freely, negotiating tight curves and vertical transitions with ease.

My plan was to use it as a stores van delivering parts to the loco shed on my layout, as their use for their original intended purpose had mostly fizzled out by the 1950s.

I probably don't need another, but I like it so much it's only a matter of time...

[VRBroadgauge]

The engineering is truly superb. Frightening but superb.

I'm hoping my 6 wheelers will go around my curves without alteration to the chassis.

To be honest I'd like to have a go at articulation. Both wagons and locomotives....

Thanks for the post Nick. It's very useful.

 

Bruce

[65179]

Neat work as ever Nick. If you finish yours then I might just have to get mine beyond NSLR livery!

 

Not for use with your L&Y and LNWR tanks I presume if you're using it for stores?

 

Simon 

[Nick Mitchell]

Earlier this month I spent a very nice weekend at The Christmas Model Railway Show in Manchester.

On the Sunday, I spent the day with Edward on the Association Roadshow, with the fabulous Drws-y-Nant behind us. Edward was assembling wheels (which many people found fascinating) and I began assembly of a Stephen Harris wagon kit for a BR Catfish ballast hopper. These are right on the verge of being too modern for me, but if I can have a 9F (or two, eventually!) then I can have a Catfish or two too.

 

Here is the "before" shot - quite a work of art:

 

 

 

There are two distinguishing features of all Stephen's kits: Firstly there is no compromise on detail, no matter how fiddly that makes things (which is right up my street), and secondly, the design work is really clever.

For example, here is the hopper in the process of being folded all from one piece:

 

 

...and the fit is atom-perfect:

 

 

My soldering is a bit messy on the inside, but it will clean up easily enough.

 

 

At the show I didn't make rapid progress, as people kept wanting to talk to me(!!!), but I did get as far as having the basic hopper with its side ribbing, and chassis with solebars assembled.

Here they are slotted together to check the fit - which was perfect, even down to the little notches in the top of the sole bar to accept the legs of the hopper support ribs.

 

 

Since Christmas, with the Loco department on holiday, I decided to finish off the Catfish.

 

Here it is starting to come together, with the hopper joined to the chassis with more struts attached - including the "fiddly" (according to the instructions) separate angles  on the uprights:

 

 

Underneath is nice and open.

 

 

I added self-contained buffers from the Association cast brass range.

The vacuum cylinder is an ordinary association on, altered in the lathe to have a curved top.

 

 

The handrails were fun to fit. The instructions recommended Phosphor Bronze for them, which I duly followed. They seem much more resilient that if they'd been made of nickel silver, and it is easier to work with than steel.

 

 

The final details from the kit were added this afternoon - steps, brake wheels and yokes, chute, coupling hooks. I also added tubes for Electra couplings, and vacuum pipes from 0.6mm copper wire,

 

 

I haven't fitted axleboxes and springs yet. Rather than some from my collection, the correct ones are now available in the new Association 3D printed range (BR welded heavy duty type) so I will order a set of those in due course. After that, there are two little pieces that slot into the brake rigging, but these can't be fitted before the wheels. They'll have to be glued in place after the wagon is painted.

 

Here are some posed shots of the (almost) completed wagon with a set of wheels temporarily fitted before it goes to the paint shop:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sithlord75]

Very nice - I’ve 11 in the “to do” pile.  These pictures will help enormously.  I take it the etch doesn’t include axle boxes?  If not I’ll have to get on to Shop 2.

[Nick Mitchell]

19 minutes ago, Sithlord75 said:

Very nice - I’ve 11 in the “to do” pile.  These pictures will help enormously.  I take it the etch doesn’t include axle boxes?  If not I’ll have to get on to Shop 2.

 

No axleboxes in the kit, I'm afraid Kevin. The ones I'm opting for (based on photos) are shop item 2-440.

I've only got one more in my "to do" pile... for now!

 

I forgot to post this comparison picture in my previous post - the Catfish alongside the Gannet that began this thread - from the sublime to the ridiculous as far as kit designs go! I've got two more of those to wrestle with at some point. Looking at the two together, it becomes obvious why BR enlarged the Catfish to make the Dogfish design.

 

[Nick Mitchell]

Did somebody say ridiculous kit design? Oh, that was me! Well, here's another...

 

One wintery night in Bradford, not very long ago, my friend @2mm Andy enticed me with one of the "mystery etches" he recently offered for sale to 2mm members.

I don't know where he got them from - I suspect he did a deal with a fiddle-playing demon at a crossroads somewhere outside York, because it feels very much as though I've been thrust into a battle for my soul in the form of an etch-building contest with the devil.

 

The kit in question is a "Rectank". No, not a rectangular tank wagon, but a first world war Railway Executive Committee Tank-carrying bogie machinery trolley.

Here's the etch as inflicted on me:

 

 

 

There's not a lot of it, which turns out to be a blessing, but it was initially quite fun trying to work out what the bits were for and guess how it was intended to be put together. It was only when the putting together started that the fun disappeared...

 

As Andy noted, the etch is a reduction of the long out of production Connoisseur Models' kit. It was available as a 4mm scale Pocket Money Kit which was itself a reduction from their 7mm scale kit.

I found a photo of an original 4mm kit for sale on W.M. Collectibles' website (a good source of imagery for obsolete kits)... the £55 price ticket being orders of magnitude more than any pocket money I ever received!

 

 

The blurb on the back of the Connoisseur packet says it is a Great Western wagon, but several railway companies built examples of these wagons for the war effort. I've found good pictures of them in the L&Y (Coates) and MR (Essery) wagon books in my library, which helped with understanding how it should go together.

Some of these wagons still exist, including an L&Y-built example owned by the Scottish Railway Preservation Society, albeit shorn of its screw jacks.

 

Besides the etched fret, the 4mm version looks to have come with cast bogie sideframes and buffers. I'm struggling to tell if any other castings were provided - I'm wondering if the screw jacks were?

The strip of brass in the packet looks intriguing. And I assume the rectangle of plasticard was for fashioning the timber deck.

For the 2mm version, the etched LMS diamond frame bogies in the 2mm Association's range will fit the bill nicely, and for buffers I will identify an appropriate self-contained type also from the Association.

 

I had a bit of spare time yesterday, so I decided to make a start and see what I could do with the etches. 

Being a photographic reduction from a much larger scale, there were always going to be challenges making the parts fit, and in that respect this kit hasn't disappointed me so far!

Most parts that have under-etched, leading to a fair amount of cusp needing cleaning up... but on 7 thou. brass (!!!), under-etching is erring on the right side of caution, since too far the other way and there would be no parts at all! I suspect this is right on the limits of the production technology.

 

The photo below shows in close-up that some of the parts haven't quite separated from each other.

Also some of the half-etched pieces, like the inserts to the channel sections, have poorly-defined shape. Being very thin brass, cleaning them up is rather challenging.

A further problem has been that fold-lines aren't deep and wide enough.

 

 

in several places there are rivets to press out. These have worked out okay so far. Firm pressure into the dimple with a scriber on a hard surface has produced rivets comparable to the half-etched ones. (You may spot some I'd tried in the photo above.)

 

Below is one of the main side girder pieces, seen from behind.

Some of the marks are to align the cross-members (more of which anon) and there are five tabs to fold back which form the floor supports. These tabs hadn't etched through properly, and I needed to run round them on 3 sides with a knife blade - being careful not to cut through the fold line!

 

 

I really struggled folding the top and bottom flanges over the length of these parts. Even after scraping out the half-etched fold line, and with the aid of a hold-and-fold, they were a right royal pain.

As is usual with these things, the second one was much more difficult than the first, and getting the half-etched strip to sit inside it really tested my resolve.

I don't like soldering brass at the best of times, but this was a nightmare.

 

With the side girders prepared, I made a start with the cross members. The photo below shows half of these soldered to the first side.

The ones in the centre were tricky, with the under-etched slots in the top and bottom flange pieces to clear out so they would fit over the vertical piece.

The bogie supports were also ticklish. Although there are half-etched indentations to align them, one side of them fits mostly over a gap in the side girder, making it hard to get them perpendicular to said girder!

 

 

Eventually I got all six cross-pieces reasonably straight and in roughly the right position, and was able to add the second girder.

Unfortunately, the cross pieces turned out to be not all quite the same length! Maybe I'd been too enthusiastic removing some of the cusp - or maybe some had more cusp than I'd removed. Either way, I had to make a few adjustments. It's still not quite perfect, but I think it's close enough.

 

Another problem that became evident was that not all the half-etched marks to align the cross members lined up with each other on opposite sides of the wagon, and I ended up with several cross pieces sitting at jaunty angles.

In the photo below, you can see how far I needed to move the cross piece in the centre of the picture to the right of it's slot in order to get it to sit at right angles!

 

 

Having spent some time adjusting everything to get the basic framework square and level, I called it a day.

The two pictures below show from underneath and on top where I've got up to.

 

 

I'm sure there will be a nice wagon emerging at some point that makes the pain worthwhile, but all I can say at this point is: "Jidenco, eat your heart out!"

[Sithlord75]

The Midland D418 Milk and Fruit Van was so much easier!  (Particularly since @VRBroadgauge had done me a replacement chassis 😉)

 

[2mm Andy]

Excellent work there, Nick. I suspected that the Rectank etches were probably at the "tricky" end of the different etches I had, although you going from a Stephen Harris etch to one of these has probably highlighted the problems of a shot-down etch a bit (from the sublime to the ridiculous?!). I had intended to keep one of the Rectank etches for myself, but a late enquiry from a 2mm member has resulted in me selling it. I'm now feeling mightily relieved that I did...!

 

The etches came via Ebay, although the idea of a fiddle-playing demon at a crossroads would have been more interesting (maybe I've been listening to too many M.R. James ghost stories over Christmas...)

 

Andy

[Chris Higgs]

I think we have to treat shot-down etches for what they are, and accept they will present some challenges. I have built a number of kits from this range in 4mm, and found them to be simple and easy to build, and value for money. There is no way that 4mm one was 55.00 pounds when they were in production. Perhaps I should dig out my unbuilt ones and flog them off.

 

Chris

[richbrummitt]

For anyone else that acquired wagons from Andy some but not all of the instructions are available on http://www.jimmcgeown.com/ I found those for the Loriot and Hydra, but not a Crocodile, on there. 

[Nick Mitchell]

On 02/01/2023 at 20:54, 2mm Andy said:

I had intended to keep one of the Rectank etches for myself, but a late enquiry from a 2mm member has resulted in me selling it. I'm now feeling mightily relieved that I did...!

 

At least it will leave you lots more time to focus on your Jubilee, @2mm Andy 🤪

 

23 hours ago, Chris Higgs said:

I think we have to treat shot-down etches for what they are, and accept they will present some challenges. I have built a number of kits from this range in 4mm, and found them to be simple and easy to build, and value for money. There is no way that 4mm one was 55.00 pounds when they were in production. Perhaps I should dig out my unbuilt ones and flog them off.

 

Well, the 2mm version is certainly value for money - if you measure it by hours of fun per square inch of etch!

 

Lest anyone think otherwise with my talk of devilish dealings and dastardly designs, I do actually enjoy the challenges of building this kind of kit... and managed to make a bit of progress yesterday.

 

I bent up some .25mm phosphor bronze for the truss rods and soldered them in place. I was petrified of damaging the very vulnerable looking ends of the queen posts without the rods there to protect them.

 

 

I still wasn't happy about the square-ness of everything, and there was a lot of flexibility sideways along the length of the thing. The bent up ends were flopping about alarmingly, and I'd lost a bit of flange from one end.

 

I'd been working on the assumption that a plasticard floor would be added as the last stage of the assembly, but I changed my mind, and decided I wanted a floor that could be soldered in place. After some thought, I decided to use 0.25mm double-sided PCB rather than sheet metal for the floor.

 

I made the floor out of three separate sections. The central, flat one being installed first. With this in place, everything felt so much more square and rigid. I did need to make a few more adjustments to some of the existing cross-pieces to get everything properly square - even though I thought it already was pretty good, but the presence of a true rectangle between the girders gave the lie to that notion! I also ended up re-fixing the truss rods more than once in the process.

 

 

Thinking about it, it would probably have been better to assemble the sides around a floor rather than the cross-pieces as I had done.

 

 

The end sections of floor were tricky to fit, as there was nothing really to align them against height-wise.

 

I made two support brackets (bits of bent-up scrap etch) to hold the two floor sections in registration in the middle. By sliding one end of these under the bogie support stretchers, it allowed me to set the correct height of the middle of the floor section at its two extremities. (You will notice how the floor is soldered directly to two of the other cross members. Actually, the cross members were adjusted to sit on the floor!)

 

 

The buffer beams (which fit over and around the side girders) were much easier to fit and make square with the floor sections in place.

There were half-etched ends to the sole-bar inserts that are supposed to bend out and solder to the inside of the buffer beam channel. They didn't quite line up, so in the end, I decided to just cut these off. Given the thicker-than-scale buffer beam channel, I think it looks okay without the additional half etch anyway.

 

I'm quite pleased with how this is coming along now...