East Barnet Joint Stock - a workbench

[Chas Levin]

More work today on the Falcon Fish van. The strengthening bars - or struts? Ribs? - on the ends:

 

The instructions detail what I thought a rather longwinded procedure involving cutting the lengths and bevelling the tops to match the end profile, then sweating each opposite pair together (i.e. the leftmost pair from both ends, the centre-left pair from both ends etc), then holding a sweated pair in a vice and filing the necessary taper on each side of the pair, then separating the pairs... I decided to cut and fix all 8 un-tapered pieces and then use a large file across the full width, working slowly from below the middle up to the top:

 

Much easier and a very acceptable result . The degree of taper is markedly different between the kit's diagram and that on page 55 of Pater Tatlow's LNER Wagons Vol 1, so I went for somewhere in between the two.

The sides were then added to the body to make a very strong structure:

 

 

Going back to your comments further up the thread Nick about trouble matching the corners, I couldn't actually see what you meant about the measurements: the sides fitted exactly, by positioning them fully inside the ends. Have I misunderstood what you meant? I think this is how the instructions mean it to be constructed - I hope so!

As the eagle-eyed will spot, I had some difficulty in matching the joins precisely, but I hope to be able to clean that up sufficiently to hide it under the final finish. The sides being double thickness, I found it quite difficult to ensure that the outer layer was precisely aligned with the sides and floor whilst soldering the inner layer.

Next, the rather peculiar underframe arrangements...

Edited May 5, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Less time available today, but solebars have been added and W-irons bent up and temporarily fixed in place with wheels to check height.

 

 

The instructions mistakenly refer to bending up both sole bar and W-irons into 45 degree angles instead of 90 degrees, and during construction of the earlier stages I turned this over in my mind, trying to imagine how it could possibly work with 45 degree bends (especially after your words of caution about this part of the kit, Jonathan) but it was very obvious what was required when I came to it. Actually, aside from the somewhat oversize - to my eye - brakes it seems to work perfectly well. Ride height is fine with 14mm wheels but as I plan to use 12.5mm spoked (for LNER period) I'll pad out with scrap etch between the W-irons and the underside of the floor...

Edited May 5, 2022 by Chas Levin

[micklner]

Dump the brakes !!! Otherwise very nice .

 

[Chas Levin]

8 hours ago, micklner said:

Dump the brakes !!! Otherwise very nice .

 

 

Thanks Mick - and agreed on the brakes . They're now history, but so apparently are the spares I thought I had, so some are on order...

[jwealleans]

Chas, I've just checked the Great Northern Railway Illustrations of Wagon Stock booklet (from the GNRS) and I reckon that van has 3'6" Mansell wheels.  Do the instructions shed any sort of light?

 

On another note, we picked you up for carrying sheets flat in a wagon a few pages ago.   Well, I had my Friends of Pendon newsletter today and one of the new additions this month is a pickup goods working towards Oxford.  Pendon, as we know, are noted for their usually thorough research and accuracy.  This is part of the train, with a wagon carrying sheets back for repair and reuse:

 

 

Perhaps we weren't as right as we thought we were.   Not my photo, used here for research/educational purposes, not to be further reproduced, please.

 

[Chas Levin]

Re. fish van wheels, some contradictory evidence: on page 54 of Tatlow's LNER Wagons Vol One (Southern) are three pics of these vans in both Fruit and Fish versions (same basic body, differences in louvres / doors), all in LNER livery and all with spoked wheels.

Opposite them however is a scale diagram by Mr Tatlow showing solid wheels identified with an arrow as Mansell, no size given. The Falcon instructions show 3'2" in the diagram and they look solid centred.

The instructions from my unbuilt D&S clerestory Fruit version, DS 331 give 3'7" Mansells in the general notes, but the diagram shows spoked wheels, and a note underneath says "W-irons supplied with this kit suit 3'7", the small wheels appear to be later builds or retrofits."

I then checked the D&S instructions on three other similar clerestory van kits (I should have said I really like these clerestory vans!), the GNR Fruit, the GNR Fish and the GC Meat, and none of them have that note, but all show 3'7" Mansells in their diagrams.

 

So... going by Danny's notes in DS 331 (and I know he is normally very well researched) and by the photos in Tatlow, I think it would be fairly safe to model a later build / livery LNER version with spoked wheels, no footboards etc. (I plan to do the D&S Fish and Fruit versions in GNR livery with Mansells, footboards and all, so there will be some variety!

 

And re. folded wagon sheets, may I say: Hooray! . Thank you for posting that pic Jonathan, very pleased as I'm aware of Pendon's reputation and hope to visit one day. I couldn't yet face trying to remove the sheets to re-do them and I rather like the way they look, so I shall leave them as they are without embarrassment .

Edited July 1, 2020 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

More work done on the GNR fish van today - strapping, brakes (shoes replaced courtesy of Wizard Models; braking generally not an attempt at accurate representation this time, more a sketch-in using parts from the spares box, as no brake rigging parts are provided in the kit), W-irons and wheels on properly:

 

 

I still need more practice at seating on small flat parts like strapping; this one is better than previous attempts but nowhere near as neat as some I see on this forum... Also, the form of the three-sided ones at the foot of the doors was such that they cannot be properly lined up with the frames and doors as they should, so I had to go for a compromise position across the door edges, which is actually how they're shown in the kit instructions (though not of course in photos). I decided to align the corners at the door top in the same way so that top and bottom match: the discrepancy looks much more prominent at the moment, with bare brass and solder; it should recede somewhat under paint.

In dealing with this aspect, I suddenly realised that this kit has a rather significant error: it's meant to be the fish version of these clerestory vans, and although the fish version had full height doors (where the fruit one had louvres in the upper parts of the doors) the fish van doors were sliding ones, with rails top and bottom. The fruit van had cupboard doors... which is what are on this kit!

Never mind: it'll be a 'layout van' (like a 'layout loco'), seen in the middle of a fish train, perhaps not one to look at too closely and not one to put alongside the D&S version. 

I do still like the scale thickness sides though, and what with all the brass pieces used for that and the end strengthening posts, the full length W-iron pieces on the underframe and the brass roof and brass clerestory, it will be a good solid weight.

Next is the roof: the clerestory sides are completely plain, no attempt at representing louvres, so I think some careful scribing is called for...

Edited May 5, 2022 by Chas Levin

[brossard]

Just found this thread Chas.  Excellent work on the van.  If you have excess solder I suggest:

 

1)  a scraper.  I use an old Xacto curved blade.

2)  fiberglass pen.  I find this indispensable.

3)  desoldering braid.  Use when there is really too much solder.

 

I spend quite a lot of time removing excess solder when building a kit.  Blobs of solder are not a good look.  I hasten to add that your van doesn't appear to have these.

 

I have developed the habit of using a knife to cut off a small amount of solder and picking it up with the iron.  This helps to control amounts.

 

John

[Chas Levin]

Thanks John; constant battle for me between the urge to get a really strong solid bond and the need not to overdo it! For removing excess solder I do use various scrapers, fine files, sanding sticks and fibreglass pen and this van will have more work done on it, never fear . I use desoldering braid for electrical work but haven't so far found it very good with lower melt solders - I think I'll have to revisit it though.

I'll try the suggestion of cutting off small pieces with the knife; I've actually got quite proficient now at collecting the very tiniest amounts on the iron tip when I want to - the problem isn't in how little I'm able to pick up, it's in my intentionally using too much!  I think it actually boils down to my lack of faith in the strength of joins made with very small amounts, so that's where I'm going to experiment next.

Just had a look at your thread on 'having a bash at some older kits', similar issues with scale, and what is and is not supplied with the kit, to my Falcon kit above. Very nice work though . Further up this thread you'll see an ABS Models open wagon - I think the detail casting on the sides of those kits is quite good, fairly crisp and clear - I think I have another one in the pile too...

[brossard]

Glad to know my comments were useful.

 

You will have seen the ABS wagon I built.  It was given to me at a show 2 years ago and I was happy to find that it is very good quality with very crisp castings.

 

Having a look at the rest of the thread, all marvelous kit built wagons and coaches.  I find coaches to be almost as time consuming as locos to build and, to date, I have only completed one in 7mm.

 

I'm also pleased to see you getting into brake gear.  I was developing my methods for that before I switched to 7mm and have continued to do that in the larger scale.  The ex Mainly Trains etches now available from Wizard were excellent.

 

Happy modelling

 

John

[Chas Levin]

26 minutes ago, brossard said:

Glad to know my comments were useful.

 

You will have seen the ABS wagon I built.  It was given to me at a show 2 years ago and I was happy to find that it is very good quality with very crisp castings.

 

Having a look at the rest of the thread, all marvelous kit built wagons and coaches.  I find coaches to be almost as time consuming as locos to build and, to date, I have only completed one in 7mm.

 

I'm also pleased to see you getting into brake gear.  I was developing my methods for that before I switched to 7mm and have continued to do that in the larger scale.  The ex Mainly Trains etches now available from Wizard were excellent.

 

Happy modelling

 

John

 

Thanks John!

 

I agree about coaches being almost as time consuming as locos, and aside from a GE 4-wheeler all the coaches I've built so far have been NPCS, so I didn't even have to deal with interiors and passengers! I do love coaches though, there's a wonderful sense of a complete little world inside each one .

 

Having gotten into brake gear with the GNR OCT, the brake gear on this current fish van build is a step back I'm afraid, to the rather more sketchy rigging I'd done before, but with no brake rigging supplied in the kit and without the necessary spares, I decided not to get into a long job on it. That's one of the nice things about D&S kits - everything's there and it all fits together beautifully.

 

Is there a busy modelling scene in Montreal? And is it mainly Canadian or is there plenty of UK activity too?

[brossard]

When I build a model, whether kit or upgraded RTR, I probably spend most of the time and effort on the underframe.

 

There are not a lot of people in Montreal doing British Modelling, about a dozen I think, all members of the club that has the Facebook link.  You can see some of the club layout in the posted vids.  Even less people doing 7mm.

 

Not surprisingly, most of the railway modelling is North American.  Every year, the local Railway museum hosts a layout weekend which is always fun and a great opportunity to meet other model railway people.  Not sure if it will happen this year.

 

John

[2750Papyrus]

Chas,  your levels of both modelling and research put many of us older modellers to shame.  Thank you, and keep it up!  There's hope for this hobby yet.

[Chas Levin]

24 minutes ago, 2750Papyrus said:

Chas,  your levels of both modelling and research put many of us older modellers to shame.  Thank you, and keep it up!  There's hope for this hobby yet.

 

Thank you - that's very nice of you . You know how it is though, when you look at your own work and all you see is the faults. 

There are lots of other modellers on here whose standard of work is way beyond what I do and that's one of the great things about a place like this, that you can see other peoples' work and be inspired by it.

You'll have seen above the discussion today about using too much solder: I look at some other peoples' work and am amazed by what appears to be completely invisible soldering - something to aim at...

[brossard]

Yep, you know what the faults are and where they are.  If you keep your mouth shut, no-ones the wiser.

 

I too marvel at the standard of work by some people.  As you say, it's a bar to shoot for.

 

John

[Chas Levin]

The fish van has had some more cleaning up done (though as usual, looking at this larger than life picture I see plenty I've still missed!), the roof trimmed, drilled for the vents and marked out for the clerestory; I've also had a go at scribing the appearance of louvres into the clerestory sides, though I'm not sure that the marks are strong enough to remain visible under paint - might have to have another go tomorrow:

 

 

My trick for marking the centre line of a curved roof is probably perfectly well known, but in case not: I take a piece of a post-it note and align one edge - a sticky one - exactly with one of the long sides of the roof, then conform it to the curve snugly and pinch and fold it over the opposite edge to mark the roof width into the paper. I then take the post-it off and flatten it out, which allows precise measurement of the true roof width. The centre can then be marked by a line on the post-it, which is then - equally carefully and accurately - re-applied to the curved roof, where the line can be extended a few millimetres either side of the paper and onto the brass, using a scribe or scalpel blade. Remove the post-it and voilà - you have two small scribed marks along the roof's centre line .

Edited May 5, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Further Fishing: clerestory sides and supports added, followed by the top and vents (which are soldered from inside, now that I've overcome my nervousness about soldering whitemetal to brass!):

 

 

 

And then the roof soldered to the body, plus buffers and axleboxes:

 

 

 

Aside from vac pipes and couplings, pretty much there: I'm not going to go to town on detailing, as there are enough inaccuracies to mean this won't be a front position van. I spent a little time comparing it with the various drawings and with other rolling stock and I think the primary dimensional error is in the height of the ends: the sides are only 1-2 millimetres too high (hardly ideal, but not too conspicuous in normal viewing) but the tops of the ends curve up far too high, so the overall van height... And all the pictures and diagrams show the clerestory roof with a gentle curve, where this kit requires a shallow fold, which I deiced to go with, rather than modify the cross-supports and try to curve the top piece.

Well, it's been an enjoyable build and while I thought the full length W-iron pieces were unnecessarily heavy duty, they do allow for a very rigid chassis and it runs beautifully .

Whilst building it, I referred to the instructions for the D&S versions (Fruit and Fish) and that's left me wanting to build those soon, to see if they look better... I suspect they will!

Edited May 5, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Settling the fish van down for the night yesterday evening, ready for an early start with the primer this morning:

 

Under a coat of primer today, my cleaning up looks more successful as everything's the same colour, but a little filling and filing and a rub down are clearly called for:

 

 

I'm trying out Tetrosyl Etch Primer for the first time on your recommendation on another thread Andrew, and I like the look of it!

 

Meanwhile, also on the go is a Dapol LNER 20T Brake. I'm building I pretty much as it comes, but with brass bearings and a DCC Concepts LED red lamp on the back, wired to phosphor bronze wire wheel pickups. I've been using Train Tech auto lighting for vehicle lighting, but there's no room for a battery holder underneath this one and I didn't like the idea of a removable roof where the whole kit is plastic, so this will be an ordinary LED. The resistor (and a diode on the negative side for protection) will be inside the body - I can live with it not lighting in reverse - so the first job is to thread the LED leads through a hole drilled in the rear face's lamp bracket and then through the open door - the wires are so thin they can be glued to the sides and floor and painted over and end up very unobtrusive:

 

 

Here it is on test, to make sure it's connected the right way to light going forwards. Pickups will be mounted on 5mm copper clad, and the resistor is 990 ohm. This leaves the LED pretty bright but most of the locos I run (or plan to build) use no more than 5-6V on a Gaugemaster controller and I mainly run them in daylight:

 

 

It'll be done in 1930s LNER with the large 'NE'; I know this isn't right for the kit version, which has the concrete ballast of later vehicles, but it's intended as a quick build 'layout' van as the only other brakes I've built so far are the CLC and Ballast ones and I want one to run behind ordinary freight. Earlier ex-NER and GNR D&S brakes will follow in due course .

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Chas Levin

[jwealleans]

Shame you didn't post that before it was so far advanced, Chas.   Conversion to a pukka LNER version is not that hard - certainly well within your capability.

[Chas Levin]

17 hours ago, jwealleans said:

Shame you didn't post that before it was so far advanced, Chas.   Conversion to a pukka LNER version is not that hard - certainly well within your capability.

 

I did look up the conversion Jonathan, but although I agree I'd be able to do it, there is quite a lot of work involved and this van is meant to be an interim quickie, just to have an LNER brake of some sort available for freight trains. Impatience is one of the faults I am least successful in overcoming

I have, sitting in my to-build pile, the D&S NER 10T V4 and the GNR 20T, plus the Slaters NER 10T Dia. V1 birdcage, all of which I much prefer in appearance; the GNR will be done in GN livery and the other two in LNER and once they're done, this Dapol one will probably see very little service... 

Edited July 11, 2020 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

The fish van has had a coat of Halfords red primer on the sides and ends, Halfords matt black underneath and, following some fancy masking, an extra coat of grey primer on the roof, followed by Railmatch matt varnish from a rattle-can (highly recommended stuff, btw):

 

 

 

 

Regarding a discussion over on the LNER forum about different types of Halfords primer and their occasional tendency to give a powdery finish, I have to say that the standard red one always gives a good finish every time; they must all have slightly different ingredients which must presumably have some impact on how they perform...

 

And the Dapol brake van has had pickups attached:

 

 

The wheels are standard Hornby three-hole and I'm not finding them great so far for current collection. The pickups are 0.3mm phosphor bronze wire and there's definitely no problem from pickups to LED, just what appears to be poor contact where the pickups meet the wheels. I'll experiment some more, but I've tried the backs and edges of the wheels, with a variety of pressure.

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Now looking a little less 'pink' and a little more 'oxide':

 

 

 

 

This is my first time using Phoenix Precision LNER Freight Wagon Oxide and I think it's an improvement over the Railmatch version in several ways: it flows more easily (brushed), it's little less red and a little more brown or rust shaded, and I know that Phoenix paints take Ronseal water-based varnish absolutely fine, whereas the Railmatch paints appear to have some sort of water-repellant additive and can be oddly unpredictable - sometimes they're fine, sometimes not.

White brake lever ends, wagon plates, couplings and transfers to do now .

Edited May 5, 2022 by Chas Levin

[jwealleans]

43 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

White brake lever ends,

 

isn't that a wartime/postwar thing?    I'd always thought so.

[brossard]

43 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

 

isn't that a wartime/postwar thing?    I'd always thought so.

 

I thought so too.  I Googled the question but didn't get a ready answer.  The blackout meant that a lot of things got painted white, like car mudguards and, I think, platform edging.  I was just brought to book when I painted a MR wagon brake handle white - wrong.

 

John

[Chas Levin]

Good point Jonathan and John; I've seen both - i.e. I've seen it simply stated that LNER brake levers had white ends, full stop, and I've seen it stated that it was only done during and after WWII for visibility reasons. I must admit that when I first read of the practice, I jumped on it partly for aesthetic reasons: a plain wagon, entirely one colour apart from black underframe, seems to come alive with one or two small colour details - a brass plate, a white brake lever handle. The eye picks them out with a prominence disproportionate to their size and I must admit I like that. For similar reasons, some of the brass door furniture on my coaches has remained brass although it probably should be painted... Less is more though, otherwise things can end up looking like a Christmas tree .

Edited July 15, 2020 by Chas Levin