Brading, Isle of Wight Transitional 1920s (Phase 1, building up stock)

[TeakDB]

41 minutes ago, LBSC123 said:

 

Looking good as always. I didn’t realise the Ex IWC midland Brake Van was painted in SR livery before being rebuilt, do you know when it was rebuilt? 

 

It was rebuilt in mid 1930. Late 1928/ early 1929 seems to have been the date that almost all surviving stock was repainted by, I  have a lot more books/ photos to trawl through so if I see/ read of any exceptions ill be sure to mention it.

[IWCR]

The IWC brake van still exists, currently a garden shed on the Island. Has the double balcony and the interior still has the SR number on the wall.  Yes on the IWSR wanted list.

 

Pete

[TeakDB]

On 29/11/2020 at 18:46, IWCR said:

The IWC brake van still exists, currently a garden shed on the Island. Has the double balcony and the interior still has the SR number on the wall.  Yes on the IWSR wanted list.

 

Pete

Good to hear it, one wonders why someone would not of already donated it or indeed sold it on for the price of a new shed!

[wainwright1]

Judging by what the Isle of Wight Steam Railway have already recovered, a fair bit already restored and put back into service and knowing that quite a lot of other stuff still exists, they should be able to recreate quite a lot of the former railways on the island.  

 

More strength to their elbow.

 

All the best

 

Ray

[TeakDB]

Today I started messing around with the dingham couplings. I made up a few hook and loop ends which was fairly painless. I then dry fitted one of the hoops to the stroudley brake and tested the clearances around the tightest curve- I also hit on the fact that as long as it was set at the right height on the brake I could attach/detach from the terriers current 'hook' by pulling on the dropper. I need to test this with the electromagnets in situ but im hoping this is the case because it would not only save installation time but also improve the look of the locomotives no end as i'll be free to fit cosmetic screw couplings onto the existing 'hook'. The only issue i found was the placement of the brake hose on the terrier which will have to be moved slightly further from centre to provide clearance for the hoop to lift.

(On an unrelated note i noticed the moulded lamp irons on the stroudley brakes are unprotypical and will be filed off for brass replacements)

 

Promise I will eventually get round to finishing up wiring point motors/magnets/ adding point rodding in order to cover up all this bare balsa and cork!

[TeakDB]

Bit of a break as ive currently got two stressful bits on the bench and im moving house.

 

Stress no 1 is the continuing saga of the coach lining- for some reason I thought all windows are lined whicg is wrong and resulted in a lot of lining having to be removed. Currently the left hand half in matt is finished. I am adding handrails from roxey as the finishing touches. Frankly I would not buy these again from smallbrook as the casting quality is very variable and it is hard to try for straight lining when some of the panelling isnt. I have just bought some vans and cattle wagons from them which is a different resin so I will report back in due course on them.

 

Stress no 2 is the roxey (ex chatham kits) Lbscr horsebox which is eliciting a lot of unsavoury words from me. I have finally finished soldering all the detailing to the sides and have fitted the ends and solebars. I massively struggled removing the thin mouldings and strapping from the sprue without distorting them (I was using a snap off knife and dcc concepts cutters). Frankly im looking forward to finishing it so I can laugh about my first brass kit. 

 

 

 

On the plus side I have enjoyed reading through my now extensive collection of iow books- I recommend the once upon a line book for giving you small ideas like having flowers on the front of an engine and a bit of a feel of the operations of the lines.

 

[LBSC123]

Keep up the good work @TeakDB, that lining looks particularly headache inducing! 

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, TeakDB said:

On the plus side I have enjoyed reading through my now extensive collection of iow books- I recommend the once upon a line book for giving you small ideas like having flowers on the front of an engine and a bit of a feel of the operations of the lines.

 

I very much enjoy the once upon a line series - I must have read all four volumes several times over!

[wainwright1]

2 hours ago, TeakDB said:

Bit of a break as ive currently got two stressful bits on the bench and im moving house.

 

Stress no 1 is the continuing saga of the coach lining- for some reason I thought all windows are lined whicg is wrong and resulted in a lot of lining having to be removed. Currently the left hand half in matt is finished. I am adding handrails from roxey as the finishing touches. Frankly I would not buy these again from smallbrook as the casting quality is very variable and it is hard to try for straight lining when some of the panelling isnt. I have just bought some vans and cattle wagons from them which is a different resin so I will report back in due course on them.

 

Stress no 2 is the roxey (ex chatham kits) Lbscr horsebox which is eliciting a lot of unsavoury words from me. I have finally finished soldering all the detailing to the sides and have fitted the ends and solebars. I massively struggled removing the thin mouldings and strapping from the sprue without distorting them (I was using a snap off knife and dcc concepts cutters). Frankly im looking forward to finishing it so I can laugh about my first brass kit. 

 

 

 

On the plus side I have enjoyed reading through my now extensive collection of iow books- I recommend the once upon a line book for giving you small ideas like having flowers on the front of an engine and a bit of a feel of the operations of the lines.

 

 

That horse box looks like fun. I have one of those put by to build. Not sure what the best way is to solder on the fine bits. I have tried solder paste, but cannot seem to get that to work.

I have built two Chatham Kits , the CCT and the Guards Break. The CCT is probably one of the easiest etched brass kits you could build including compensation. The Guards Break was a right  b*gger with double overlays that had to be sweated on. There were also some short comings in the etching including horizontal mouldings on the ends which were missing, no etched separation of the goods compartment doors on each side and running boards, but no brackets for them. I made mine out of Bambi staples ! There was however a full set of brake gear fittings and it is possible to build up the full rigging, soldering and adjusting until you get everything in the right place, and it looks nice with the wooden break shoes.

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by wainwright1

[wainwright1]

Hi TeakDB.

Just had another look at the beginning of your blog. You said that you are on three months leave. Does that mean you will be off again at the end of the month leaving Brading in abeyance ?

 

All the best

Ray

[TeakDB]

@wainwright1 Those npcs look great! Fun is one way to descibe the horsebox- as my first foray into brass kits I definately feel that finding a solution to soldering on all the fine bits has not gone particularly well- I used a lot of liquid flux (gaugemasters or dccs) which seemed to do ok but in truth I seem to have 'tacked' down several parts of each detail rather than soldering the whole piece on. I'd just stress that removing the fine details from the sprue straight seems to be 80-90% of the battle to me. I also found there were some etching issues- i found one of the buffer beams seemed to be on an angle and require a bit of cutting down to get straight. Of course there are also detail differences for the IOW horsebox i'll need to address shortly.

 

As for work on Brading- i'll continue working on the stroudley set and see what I can do about working on one board at a time- in truth its been one of the reasons i've been slow to work on the layout as its far easier for me to move the stock around than the boards. I am hopeful that I will get a good deal done of the actual layout in 2021 though!

 

Cheers for the messages as always,

 

David

 

[ovbulleid]

Can I recommend Wessex Wagons as a great source of PO vehicles- they release new versions every quarter and there are always a few IoW options. They pop up on eBay occasionally for extortionate prices so worth reserving as soon as they announce. 

[Nick C]

On 17/12/2020 at 23:21, ovbulleid said:

Can I recommend Wessex Wagons as a great source of PO vehicles- they release new versions every quarter and there are always a few IoW options. They pop up on eBay occasionally for extortionate prices so worth reserving as soon as they announce. 

Most of the island ones aren't authentic though - there were very few PO wagons on the island. I think just the Blue Circle ones that ran between Shide quarry and Cement Mills. 

 

Not that it stops me having a Ganges of Cowes coal wagon in my collection...

[TeakDB]

So today I made some unexpectedly good progress;

 

I finished (for me always a loose term) building the lbscr horsebox and started a smallbrook lbscr van ( @LBSC123).

 

The horsebox as always was a lesson in reading ahead on the instructions as soldering lamp irons from the inside when the slots arn't wide enough or soldering brake shoes to w irons already in place is not what i'd call a logical order. My additions to the kit were the door droppers in slaters plastistrip, roxey lbscr grab handles,  the iow added handbrake (out of 2 different plastic kits and some 51L V hangers) and  saftey chains in a very lazy manner from some fine slaters chain I was going to use for bolster wagons. Still missing is three steps on one end for access to the roof and the axleboxes are wrong- however as I have neither of these spare to hand at the moment I am going to paint this up now and add those bits later.

 

Another view of the very crowded end 

 

It is now had a spray of halfords etch primer and will be painted tomorrow (roof just perched on for now). For the LBSCR van im ignoring the advice to use the Dapol chassis and am using parts of a peco chassis with abs lbscr axleboxes and inevitably some plastistrip and archers rivets. I will be building this one as the less common (and crucially late arriving) d.1434 as I can get away with one from 1930 (might even add the early version of the fish only transfers). When I have more of a feel for the kit the next two in the pile will eventually be the more common d.1433 which will require small detail differences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TeakDB]

On 17/12/2020 at 23:21, ovbulleid said:

Can I recommend Wessex Wagons as a great source of PO vehicles- they release new versions every quarter and there are always a few IoW options. They pop up on eBay occasionally for extortionate prices so worth reserving as soon as they announce. 

 Thanks for the suggestion @ovbulleid, unfortuantly much as @Nick C says they are generic wagons that arn't as prototypical as i'm aiming for- if I wasnt happy for this to be a sprawling long term project I would be very tempted!

[wainwright1]

Have you seen the latest issue of Model Rail.

Layout plan 4 page 93 - Brading Station. Might be of interest.

 

All the best

 

Keep well.

Happy New Year and good modelling.

Ray

[LBSC123]

On 19/12/2020 at 22:34, TeakDB said:

So today I made some unexpectedly good progress;

 

I finished (for me always a loose term) building the lbscr horsebox and started a smallbrook lbscr van ( @LBSC123).

 

The horsebox as always was a lesson in reading ahead on the instructions as soldering lamp irons from the inside when the slots arn't wide enough or soldering brake shoes to w irons already in place is not what i'd call a logical order. My additions to the kit were the door droppers in slaters plastistrip, roxey lbscr grab handles,  the iow added handbrake (out of 2 different plastic kits and some 51L V hangers) and  saftey chains in a very lazy manner from some fine slaters chain I was going to use for bolster wagons. Still missing is three steps on one end for access to the roof and the axleboxes are wrong- however as I have neither of these spare to hand at the moment I am going to paint this up now and add those bits later.

 

Another view of the very crowded end 

 

It is now had a spray of halfords etch primer and will be painted tomorrow (roof just perched on for now). For the LBSCR van im ignoring the advice to use the Dapol chassis and am using parts of a peco chassis with abs lbscr axleboxes and inevitably some plastistrip and archers rivets. I will be building this one as the less common (and crucially late arriving) d.1434 as I can get away with one from 1930 (might even add the early version of the fish only transfers). When I have more of a feel for the kit the next two in the pile will eventually be the more common d.1433 which will require small detail differences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep up the good progress @TeakDB, I'll watch with interest to see how the LBSC box wagons come along. 

The Horse box looks rather nice too, it's on my list to tackle at some point too... 

Hope you had a good festive period. 

Will

[TeakDB]

Thank you @LBSC123, I did and I hope you did also. Heres a poor photo of the horesbox, im fairly happy considering all the mistakes I made along the way- only thing im not sold on is the weathering on the roof which I may redo when I eventually get round to fitting end steps and the correct axleboxes.

 

Im now really pushing to get the stroudley set finished- I can see a week or so of lining coming up! I've not progressed very far on the lbsc covered goods at the moment as a poor fit of parts has meant it isnt going to be the quick side project I imagined- I will get round to them soon though I promise!

 

On the layout side i've finally put down on paper how I see the layout working. I have knocked up a rough layout plan below with the planned locations of electromagnets and a list of the operations I want to be able to run through it. After I have finally finished the stroudley set I plan on wiring up the left hand board (electromagnet 1) in order to test the dingham couplings i've fitted so far- I also need to get round to fitting the hook end to Ventnor which will be interesting.

 

 

Regards,

 

David

Edited December 30, 2020 by TeakDB

[TeakDB]

As planned, tonight I finished off the tweaks to the remaining three stroudley carriages.

 

Brake shoes;

 

Silver tay models lamp irons to replace the generic moulded on ones

 

 

And now a 24hour wait after an udnercoat of halfords filler primer followed by phoenix precision spray S.R. Maunsell Dark Olive (Eastleigh colour).

 

Ive been waiting for a few weeks for some microsol I ordered to place all the bolts on the IWR wagon which I will be chasing up tomorrow as that would of been the perfect side project to crack on with tomorrow- instead I think I will fit the hooks to ventnor and see about adding route discs and a crew.

 

[TeakDB]

Short update today- unfortuantly I need to spary another coat of maunsell green so I decided to take the discarded lbscr covered goods out of the draw- after some high tech roof forming (read boiling water and masking/cellotape) and removing the w-irons I had previously fitted this is how it currently stands alongside some other stock for a size comparison.

 

 

I then ran into the problem of this being one of the rarer dia 1434 wagons which means very few pictures in my time period to work out brakes and roof vents from as the more commonly photographed dia 1433 show a few different brake layouts. I will have a further look tonight/ tomorrow to try and get it finished before its time for lining. 

 

In any case, happy new years to all.

[TeakDB]

So I could not find a single photo of a pre war IOW  d.1434 Van, however I looked into the more numerous d.1433 and 1436 vans. Seems on shipping to the Isle of Wight the brakes were left as double block brakes and through piped or fitted with westinghouse braking with 8 brake shoes- so called 'power braking'- these vans are easily identified as the V hangars for the handbrake are off centre. As far as I can tell all diagrams ended up with a mix of systems although all the ventilated 1433 vans used for fish seem to have the westinghouse braking.  For this lone d.1434 van I thought i'd go with simple double block brakes.

 

Unfortuantly the kit as supplied comes with the older lbsc ventilators which were replaced with torpedo vents on shipping to the island- ive now got some in the post but I wont be able to finish this van off untill they arrive.

 

I have also ordered some 8 Ton vans from 5&9models as I think they may be a better start point for the other vans- will know when I have them in person.

 

[drduncan]

Love the thread.  Just wondering whether given the amount of kit and scratch building whether you had considered doing this in EM, perhaps making use of the EM gauge society ready to run points? 
Duncan

[LBSC123]

Cracking progress as always, @TeakDB, I can scarcely keep up!

The LBSC Box van looks a lot better for a replacement chassis. I shall watch with interest to see how you get on with the 5&9 Models. 

Inspiring stuff as always!

[TeakDB]

11 hours ago, drduncan said:

Love the thread.  Just wondering whether given the amount of kit and scratch building whether you had considered doing this in EM, perhaps making use of the EM gauge society ready to run points? 
Duncan

Thanks Duncan- to be honest the thought never crossed my mind shen I was deciding on this as a project as its my first foray into railway kit building. Now that i've started I think a few of the kits i've used would be challenging to get the wider wheelsets in without a lot of hacking around and im very happy not having to mess with the rtr terriers and o2s too much- Im already on a sharp learning curve as is. 

 

For future projects I imagine I may well have a go at EM.

10 hours ago, LBSC123 said:

Cracking progress as always, @TeakDB, I can scarcely keep up!

The LBSC Box van looks a lot better for a replacement chassis. I shall watch with interest to see how you get on with the 5&9 Models. 

Inspiring stuff as always!

Thanks- the chassis needs a few bolts in the right place yet. I was going to make the brakes movable to allow some to just sit in the goods sidings on the layout but I ballsed up the brass a tiny bit both times- fortuantly I have a few more vans to practice this on. Im desperately hoping the 5&9 vans scale appropriately next to this smallbrook one so I dont have to build anymore of them in resin!

[TeakDB]

Progress on a few fronts (except taking better photos); firstly this set is now complete bar lining and the end couplings

 

I also used the Southern Railway style book to choose some interior seat covers for the coaches as I couldn't think of a way to quickly paint the first class 'saladin' fabric. I simply chose a suitable looking picture shrank down and printed out on card- not the best but im not lighting my carriages so doubt will be seen anyway.

 

 

Almost finished the D.1434 van but I was unhappy with how the weathered roof came out so this was been stripped back and im now still looking at a way to weather these white/ cream roofs in a way I really like.

 

 

Lastly as @wainwright1 asked earlier I have attached a list of all the current kits I know that suit this 20s/ very early 30s modelling period for the Isle of Wight. I have not yet looked too deeply into the LSWR Southwark kits now produced by Roxey as I am still looking for a copy of LSWR Carriages vol 1 to cross reference these with IWCR stock. I have also included for completeness where items are produced on shapeways as an alternative. If theres anything anyone else can think of I would be glad to hear it- now if only I could get my blender skills up to scratch quicker I might be able to start filling in some of the gaps.......

 

Brading Kit Lists.xlsx