Wagon kit builds - Mcgeordie Palbrick Wagon

[The Bigbee Line]

The tie bar aspect is really interesting...  some people may yawn at this point, but for me it is a case of 'curiosity killed the cat..."

 

Just spent a few minutes looking on the internet.

 

What I did noticed is that some LMS long wheelbase wagons had an extra brace to the W iron.

 

John Turner has an excellent picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue-diesels/45287158184/

 

The W iron looks like this..

 

 

 

The brace is connected to the solebar and one of the bolts on the 'bridle bar'.  Not sure when these stopped being used, or if it's use was workshop related.

 

 

[brossard]

Well spotted Ernie.  That is an interesting point.  Now that you mention it I can see the brace on D2069 wooden sided wagons in Essery's book.  The picture you linked to is one of these.

 

I can't see a brace on the steel D2083 wagons.

 

Have to admit I told a porky above.  The only wagon without tiebars is an LMS wagon.  The other two in BR ownership have tiebars.  Perhaps this was something BR added.

 

Always exciting to learn something new.

 

John

[brossard]

Back to the MCV, I cobbled together a set of clasp brakes from my spares box:

 

 

 

On the left is a 4 shoe clasp brake from a Slaters kit.  My LMS 20T brake kit has these so I guess they were designed to provide enhanced braking.

 

As you see I cut off the shoes.

 

I have frets from MMP mineral wagon kits that I replaced with Peco underframes.  MMP kits are marvelous but the underframes defeated me. (I did manage to complete the bodies)  Nevertheless there are a lot of bits that can be harvested.

 

In this case brake shoe etches were laminated in 3 layers, 4 if you count the shoe itself.  I soldered these but used CA to attach the links.

 

I measure up a clasp brake drawing from Essery's LMS Wagon Drawings and the wheel fits between the shoes quite well.  Now I just have to make 3 more.

 

John

Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard

[brossard]

Yesterday, I was not feeling particularly ambitious having been 12 hours without power and the house being pretty chilly.  The power came back at noon so later on I felt better and decided to weather the above two wagons:

 

 

 

My approach usually follows the same formula.  Use my airbrush to apply a light coat of earth, followed by a light coat of black.  I then add umber and black powder to the axleboxes, W irons and solebars.  I put a bit of rust around the springs and brake shoes and then tone that down with black.

 

I had a go at coupling and found that to be very easy using the tool pictured.  A simple home made thing.

 

John

Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard

[Hal Nail]

I came on here with the intention of mentioning I've been rooting through my stash all morning and found that the Peco 9' underframe has spare brake levers of the type needed for the 16T mineral with 8 shoe clasp brakes, only to see you'd already posted that! Could have saved myself some valuable brain cells if my memory wasn't so bad.

 

I may well do a Dapol conversion using up Slaters and Peco spares.

 

Your MCV kit doesn't seem to have the top doors of the original mid 50s fitted batch. Is it meant to be a mid 60s retro fitted 4 shoe type?

Edited January 15, 2020 by Hal Nail

[brossard]

I find it always useful to rummage about in my spares box, you turn up all manner of useful and forgotten bits.

 

I soldered up the wagon body yesterday and will have to study my photos to see how I tackle the doors.  I rather favour original configuration.

 

What Dapol wagon will you convert?

 

John

[Hal Nail]

17 minutes ago, brossard said:

I soldered up the wagon body yesterday and will have to study my photos to see how I tackle the doors.  I rather favour original configuration.

 

What Dapol wagon will you convert?

 

 

I got 4 of the mineral wagons: 3 fitted and one non-fitted re-bodied (without top doors) as a package. The intention was just to backdate to standard non-fitted, weather them up and sell a couple on but I can't resist playing where modifications are involved - particularly if I end up with a couple of variants you cant buy.

 

I've already de-fitted one which freed up a set of brake shoes. I could use these to change the re-bodied one to a pre-BR bottom door example, with independent brake gear. I'm also tempted to do an 8 shoe clasp braked fitted (which would free up a spare clutch-less brake lever that I will need for the independent brakes)

 

All fun! 

 

 

[brossard]

I reckon these mineral wagons have great possibilities for playing around, they were long lived and the subject of numerous mods and repairs.  I have 4 steel  minerals, 3 from MMP and 1 Parkside,  These are all different, 1/108, 1/109 and 2 ex LMS pre nationalisation diagrams.

 

I hadn't planned to get more but this fitted wagon has intrigued me.

 

John

[brossard]

I've done the clasp brakes:

 

 

 

I wanted to illustrate the jig I used to productionize the prototype.  That is a piece of foam board.  I drew the circles to locate where the brake shoes are supposed to be and then made impressions in the paper from the original.  This enabled me to accurately and consistently locate the holes for the pins.

 

It all looks a bit of a mess right but will clean up.

 

John

Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard

[brossard]

Some good progress today:

 

 

 

Brakes cleaned up and primed.

 

Two vacuum cylinders.  The 21" dia cylinder is on the left.  This is more or less as supplied.  I did add the "bolts" to the top plate.

 

I struggled for a while to get something of the right diameter (18") until I happened to look at the Peco underframe kit.  The sprue contained two pieces of exactly the right diameter, how prescient of Peco.  These were glued up, filed, filled and filed again.

 

Bolt representation is done by drilling 0.032" (0.9mm) and inserting wire.  Piston is brass tube and wire, as is the vacuum line connection.  Trunnions are plastic strip carved to shape.

 

I think these are the tricky bits so everything should be straightforward now.

 

The body is well advanced:

 

 

 

 

 

All the soldering is done and whitemetal details will be glued on with CA.

 

You may spot that I have installed the Peco underframe floor.  I had to cut out the brass floor very close to flush with sides.  I decided to add the floor to reinstate the body integrity.

 

John

Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard

[brossard]

Working through the underframe aver the last several days.  Took me 3 tries to get the V hangers right, of all things.  I didn't immediately notice that they were off center for one thing.

 

The state of play right now.  The Peco underframe trusses were cut short to accomodate the Peco buffer/coupling arrangement.  You can see what I did with Evergreen strip.  I also didn't like that the buffer beam is only glued at the ends.  I added strip to reinforce that.

 

 

 

My main reason for posting is to ask if anyone can shed light on how the center crank connects to the brake actuators at each end.

 

 

 

The yokes will connect to rods in the top holes of the links.  Nothing is glued down yet.

 

John

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard

[Hal Nail]

Do these help? 10' conflat but presumably the same principle? Safety loops omitted for clarity!

[brossard]

Ah yes Hal, they do indeed.  I had a feeling there was a reversing linkage involved and so it is.  Very helpful indeed.

 

I had the V hangers on back to front in the picture so back to square one.  I think I have a soft spot in my brain for brakes.  I have such a lot of trouble getting them sorted.

 

Thanks

 

John

[Nickey Line]

On 11/01/2020 at 14:03, The Bigbee Line said:

The tie bar aspect is really interesting...  some people may yawn at this point, but for me it is a case of 'curiosity killed the cat..."

 

Just spent a few minutes looking on the internet.

 

What I did noticed is that some LMS long wheelbase wagons had an extra brace to the W iron.

 

John Turner has an excellent picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue-diesels/45287158184/

 

The W iron looks like this..

 

 

 

The brace is connected to the solebar and one of the bolts on the 'bridle bar'.  Not sure when these stopped being used, or if it's use was workshop related.

 

 

 

Geoff Kent covers these in his excellent book, "The 4mm Wagon (Part Three)".

There are several pictures of plate wagons fitted with them.

[brossard]

I have Geoff's excellent books and they have been extremely useful.  My reference for the plate wagon came from Essery's LMS wagons.  There are three plate wagons pictured, built shortly before nationalization.  I didn't see any struts on these.

 

Cheers

 

John

Edited January 21, 2020 by brossard

[The Bigbee Line]

1 hour ago, Nickey Line said:

 

Geoff Kent covers these in his excellent book, "The 4mm Wagon (Part Three)".

There are several pictures of plate wagons fitted with them.

Thanks for the tip. What are the wagon numbers. 

[brossard]

Just had a look at the book.  It has pics of the wooden sided plate wagon with W iron struts.  The later steel wagon (22T) is not addressed although a 12T LNER wagon is there.  Sorry, I didn't take note of the numbers.

 

John

[Nickey Line]

15 hours ago, The Bigbee Line said:

Thanks for the tip. What are the wagon numbers. 

 

The wagon numbers covered in the book are:- 45461, 43160, M43143, all Diag.1798 and M49754 Diag.1924

 

14 hours ago, brossard said:

Just had a look at the book.  It has pics of the wooden sided plate wagon with W iron struts.  The later steel wagon (22T) is not addressed although a 12T LNER wagon is there.  Sorry, I didn't take note of the numbers.

 

John

 

Oops yes should have realised the subject was steel bodied... fools rush in etc. etc...

 

Just for completeness, it seems the LMS also used these struts on wooden bodied tubes and double bolsters.

[brossard]

I will just have to build the other wagons in the series I guess.

 

John

[brossard]

OK, back to the MCV.  I've been toiling over the brakes and I think I'm just about there:

 

 

 

 

 

Notice the odd sized cylinders.  I added representations of V hangers to the cross shaft.  I toyed with the idea of making a new shaft but decided to keep the part as supplied.

 

You can see the vacuum pipe secured with wire hooks glued into pads.

 

I made a reversing linkage that enables the single crank on the cross shaft to move both sets of brakes.

 

The cranks on each side of the cross shaft that connect to the brake levers are too thick.  I will remove them and use the brake levers supplied in the underframe kit.

 

I decided to add a steel weight inside the body and disguise it by making a false floor from plastic.  With all the white metal the wagon is pretty weighty.  I want the sprung axle boxes to be under some pressure although the wagon seems stable enough.

 

John

Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard

[Hal Nail]

Very nice. How are you going to do the levers? Does the Peco one fit as I think designed for a central, not offset v hanger? The levers were different either side (as shown on the conflat above) in order to work with the offset crank.

[brossard]

I've been looking at the levers.  Two sets are provided, traditional ones for the 4 shoe config and offset ones that I plan to use.

 

It is coming along nicely but the kit is a bit of a curates egg.  ie good in parts.

 

John

[brossard]

I have more or less finished the MCV build:

 

 

 

The Peco supplied lever was too long so I shortened it and made a fulcrum bracket.  Links are from my spares box and scrap brass strip.

 

Lever guide is from the MMP kit and the guide bracket is scrap brass strip.

 

You can make out the safety loops, these are 0.020" (0.5mm) brass wire.

 

The builders plate comes from the MMP etch.

 

 

 

Cruel closeup of the door end.  One of the grab handles has gone ahoo.  Note the lamp bracket.

 

Next job is paint.  I will start with metal grey primer and then, once that has cured, I will paint the body red oxide.

 

John

Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard

[brossard]

Well, I finished the MCV.  It is what it is and the weathering is going to be subjective.

 

 

 

 

 

For those that are curious, I started by spraying the wagon all over with grey primer for metal.  Then I sprayed the body with red oxide primer.  The underframe was sprayed black.  A lot of masking involved.

 

I used enamel rust (Testors) to touch in the areas that I wanted to look distressed.  While the paint was wet, I sprinkled table salt on.

 

When all was dry  I painted on the bauxite colour.  The wagon was given a coat of gloss varnish (Tetsors Glosscote).

 

Transfers were applied next.  When dry, a couple of coats of matt varnish (Testors Dullcote).

 

Next the scary part.  The salt dries very hard and getting it off is a pain, despite soaking in water.  This a violent process and some of the paint came off.  I touched up with enamel rust again and sprinkled rust powder on that, wiping with a medium soft brush.

 

Of course the transfers got very distressed.  There isn't a lot left of the stripes and the number on one side is mostly gone too.

 

The next steps are more traditional, light coats of airbrushed dirt and black on the underframe and body.  This was followed by umber and black powder on the underframe.  The body got a heavy coating of black powder (by the way my umber and black powder is paint pigment from an art store).  I then used window cleaner (the blue stuff) and small brush and Qtips to remove most of the black powder on the body.

 

I think it looks like what it's supposed to. It is based on a wagon picture found in Paul B's collection.

 

A few drops of oil on the bearings has the wagon rolling very nicely.  It is sprung too.

 

John

Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard

[The Bigbee Line]

John,

 

Do you oil bearings as a matter of course?  Does it stop any sqeaking?  I am going to try greasing some bearings to see how they perform.

 

Thanks

 

Ernie