Charlie Strong Metals (and Watery Lane Sidings)

[eastworld]

19 hours ago, Corbs said:

Just for a bit of fun, reproduced from 'Charlie Strong - a lifetime as an honest businessman' by Wild Goose Publishing.

 

So he was a secondhand car dealer too?

 

Stu

[Ruston]

I think I'm probably taking these minerals a bit too far now, since almost none of it can be seen when it's the right side up. The previous conversions of Airfix kits to clasp brakes were a bit of a bodge, made from bits of plastic kits for the levers and V-hangers. The set up was also fudged but now I've studied photos, including one of the underside of one being cut up, and now this one is far more accurate.

 

The V-hangers, lifting links, levers and all are milled brass and the brake cylinders are turned aluminium. Buffers, yokes and whitemetal cast brake shoes are bought in.

 

All that's left to do on the underside is to make and fit the safety loops. I also need to make brake lever guides and then its on to detailing the body.

 

 

[Gibbo675]

21 minutes ago, Ruston said:

I think I'm probably taking these minerals a bit too far now, since almost none of it can be seen when it's the right side up. The previous conversions of Airfix kits to clasp brakes were a bit of a bodge, made from bits of plastic kits for the levers and V-hangers. The set up was also fudged but now I've studied photos, including one of the underside of one being cut up, and now this one is far more accurate.

 

The V-hangers, lifting links, levers and all are milled brass and the brake cylinders are turned aluminium. Buffers, yokes and whitemetal cast brake shoes are bought in.

 

All that's left to do on the underside is to make and fit the safety loops. I also need to make brake lever guides and then its on to detailing the body.

 

 

Hi Dave,

 

Who cares so long as you are having fun !

 

Gibbo.

Edited September 4, 2020 by Gibbo675
Spelling

[Ramblin Rich]

28 minutes ago, Ruston said:

I think I'm probably taking these minerals a bit too far now, since almost none of it can be seen when it's the right side up. The previous conversions of Airfix kits to clasp brakes were a bit of a bodge, made from bits of plastic kits for the levers and V-hangers. The set up was also fudged but now I've studied photos, including one of the underside of one being cut up, and now this one is far more accurate.

 

The V-hangers, lifting links, levers and all are milled brass and the brake cylinders are turned aluminium. Buffers, yokes and whitemetal cast brake shoes are bought in.

 

All that's left to do on the underside is to make and fit the safety loops. I also need to make brake lever guides and then its on to detailing the body.

 

 

First class stuff.  It seems a shame that all that work will be near unseen! 

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Ramblin Rich said:

First class stuff.  It seems a shame that all that work will be near unseen! 

Doesn’t matter. 
Only a fool would add details like this to please other people: he’s doing it for himself. (Even competition-entries are built for the pride of their maker.)

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

If you're going this far, as nice as it is, you might as well use a Rumney chassis?

 

Mike.

[Ruston]

2 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

If you're going this far, as nice as it is, you might as well use a Rumney chassis?

 

Mike.

I've seen the Rumney chassis. They're very nice but it's the kind of thing you build for the sake of building one so that you can have a specimen model that's right to the nth degree. I wouldn't fancy building a load of them. I think that would do my head in! It would also add a tenner to the cost of each wagon!

 

12 hours ago, Regularity said:

Doesn’t matter. 
Only a fool would add details like this to please other people: he’s doing it for himself. (Even competition-entries are built for the pride of their maker.)

I'm doing it to see how far I can go with profile milling - some of these parts are getting to what is probably the limit of this old technology. The lifting links are under 4mm long and 1mm wide and with parts so small it becomes very easy to mash them or to see them fly off and land somewhere on the garage floor, never to be seen again. Elsewhere on the interwebz, someone asked why I don't just get this stuff etched or laser cut. The answer is that I draw with pencil, paper and steel rule; I don't have the faintest idea how to do the CAD drawings that would be needed for etching or laser cutting and, besides, I have a pantograph miller whereas I don't have a laser cutter. I like to do as much as I can for myself. There's also the question of money and if I pay out for all this then what start out as £4 a piece wagon kits soon become very expensive. On the ones that I've built so far I've bought the brake shoe assemblies and the yokes but I can make these myself and cut the cost per wagon.

 

It's just interesting and challenging to do something like this. I enjoy scratch building and converting kits and this is still one that the bloody RTR manufacturers haven't got their claws into, so not every man and his dog have one - yet.

 

There's also the point that when I originally converted one of my minerals to clasp brakes I didn't have a clue how wrong it was and a friend took the Michael, so I'm showing that I can at least make it look as if I know what I'm doing.

 

[Ruston]

Almost ready for paint. I've to fit safety loops to the brake gear and tweak the fit of a couple of the brake shoes. Vac hoses are on order and couplings will be fitted after painting.

 

 

[Sandhole]

20 hours ago, Ruston said:

Almost ready for paint. I've to fit safety loops to the brake gear and tweak the fit of a couple of the brake shoes. Vac hoses are on order and couplings will be fitted after painting.

 

 

As usual, Dave, this is what I call proper modelling.
Taking a decent basic kit that a lot of people disregard and making it into something special.
Love it.
On my layout, I do belt and braces modelling. Rakes of wagons all of the same sort of standard, They fit.
The layouts you build let you go beserk with your skill to produce stuff like this.
I hope, now,more people realise just how good the Airfix wagon kits are as a basis on which to improve.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Sandhole

[Ruston]

The clasp-braked one above is painted but awaits transfers. I have now run out of wheelsets and transfers but I had enough to finish this unfitted example. I have also had to make more scrap loads.

This one is carrying, among other things, the mortal remains of one of its brethren.

 

The layout extension will have a coal and coke merchants siding, which will allow the addition of a BR loco coming in to shunt the siding. I have made the first coke load.

To allow a small rail-connected coal merchant I am going to draw back the time period of the layout. The current broad period takes in the whole of the 1980s so that I can run the air-braked POA and HSA wagons but, to be honest, I don't find them half as interesting as the older unfitted and vac-braked wagons and apart from for photos, they have run only once. I'll probably sell them and change the time period to something like 1972-82.

[5050]

More scrap required?  I've got a small paper bag full of swarf scraped off my lathe bed you can have.  Rather oily but you could wash it

 

Never chuck anything away!  That's my motto.

Edited September 8, 2020 by 5050

[Enterprisingwestern]

52 minutes ago, 5050 said:

More scrap required?  I've got a small paper bag full of swarf scraped off my lathe bed you can have.  Rather oily but you could wash it

 

Never chuck anything away!  That's my motto.

 

Don't encourage him, Dave will turn it into another wagon underframe!

 

Mike.

[5050]

45 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Don't encourage him, Dave will turn it into another wagon underframe!

 

Mike.

If he does there'll be more solder than brass!

[Ruston]

1 hour ago, 5050 said:

More scrap required?  I've got a small paper bag full of swarf scraped off my lathe bed you can have.  Rather oily but you could wash it

 

Never chuck anything away!  That's my motto.

If it's free, I'll have it! Leave it out in the rain for a while and it'll be reyt.

 

The extension plan.

 

The the left is the connection to the existing scenic part of the layout. At the bottom is the track to what will be the new fiddle yard.

The low-relief buildings at the RH side will be an engineering works, or a foundry. The siding on the left will be a coal and coke merchant.

The area toward the front will be open rough land and an unmetalled road.

[Ruston]

Shunting with chain.

 

[Ruston]

The clasp-braked MCV from a few posts up the page is all but finished (no, it isn't - I have just noticed that I haven't put a vacuum brake changeover valve lever on). I'm just waiting for transfers now.

[Ruston]

Cable drum.

[sb67]

Like that! he texture on that MCV is great too, nice photo 

[Ruston]

Here's a bit that I've meant to do something about for a while now. I left the near part of the end backscene off so that I could take pictures from the end but it has meant wasted space and really limits photos that I can take in the direction of that end of the layout.

As the idea of the yard's setts/cobble surface, and the brick wall and gate pillar is that it was once a railway goods yard I am going to put in the goods warehouse frontage. I can then use the space in the foreground as either extra scrap space or even a lorry servicing area.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Ruston

[Ruston]

Not a bad morning's work.

I'll put some thin ply on the front that will follow the curve. As with my other recent baseboards, it is a 9mm ply top. There is no bracing underneath, just 40mm strips of 9mm ply around the edges to form a box, or in this case, an L-shape. This leaves me free to place points anywhere and to use copper tape instead of wire for the DCC bus.

[Northmoor]

I've just been to the local tip today and watched people throwing out "model railway baseboard sized" panels of MDF and marine ply.  I already have a garage full of "useful" items, but it was gutting to see it wasted.

[Ruston]

The Clasp VB mineral, from further up the page, is done.

 

The skip lorry is also complete with transfers.

 

 

[Ruston]

Baseboard trial-fitted. I managed to get the holes drilled in the correct places so they line up with the T nuts in the existing board and have got some pieces of copper clad araldited in place, with two lengths of track soldered on. These lengths of flexitrack will be cut down as necessary.

 

 

And on the opposite end, on the existing baseboard...

[Ruston]

The goods warehouse, and the addition of a photo backscene above the wiggly tin shed, have transformed the look and feel of the left-hand end of the layout and reinforce the idea of it being a former main line railway goods yard.

 

 

[Ruston]

Charlie Strong's Peckett shunting the Metal Box siding. Or rather it will be in a few months' time. Nothing is wired up yet but this particular siding will serve Metal Box. The vans take out finished products (paint tins) and inward will be strip coil. Oil drums are also made here and will depart in 13-ton goods high wagons.

 

My usual precautions for electrical continuity have been taken.

The wires that connect the two parts of the wing rails have been removed and feed wires soldered to the stock and wing rails. To ensure continuity in the tongue rails or "blades" I have soldered wires to the tags that hold them in at the pivot end. The frogs will be fed from microswitches to change the polarity as the control rod is moved. The control will be as before - piano wire. Simple, cheap and reliable.