woodyfox Posted November 2, 2020 Share Posted November 2, 2020 16 minutes ago, brossard said: I like Slaters lamp irons, the two pins give you a good bond on a plastic kit. The Slaters lost wax ones are good. I invariably solder lamp irons on early and then spend the rest of the build straightening them back out until they succumb to my clumsiness.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 2, 2020 Author Share Posted November 2, 2020 I prefer to leave the fiddly details 'til near the end. Like you I am sooooo clumsy. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 6, 2020 Author Share Posted November 6, 2020 (edited) A bit of an update on progress. I have been pottering through the week and today I actually have something to show: Some underframe detailing. The V hanger nearest the solebar had to be broken off and reattached a couple of mm in so that the W iron casting will fit. Cylinder is drilled 8mm. The floor is drilled and wire soldered in, then the cylinder is glued with CA to the wire. I made the crank from plastic strip. Dynamo was fitted in a similar way but epoxy was used. A piece of brass strip was shaped to represent the belt. Not tested yet but I soldered wire to the chassis as you can see to act as bearings. You can see the battery box castings. These are particularly scrofulous so I am making a pair from plastic card. Roof is ready for paint. The rainstrips are 1mm plastic strip. I took my time with gluing these. End detailing done, well mostly. I broke one of the jumper cables at the other end so I need to cobble something up. Lamp and body brackets were a blasted fiddle. Handrails installed. I believe there's a horizontal rail attached to the RH hand rail, so that needs doing tomorrow. I noticed that the guard's door opens inward and the pictures confirm that there are no visible hinges so these got filed off. I also reduced the height of the other hinges. John Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 7, 2020 Author Share Posted November 7, 2020 (edited) A benefit of photographing your work is that you get to look at it in a slightly different light. As I thought about my handrails I came to the conclusion that they were too thick (0.8mm wire). Today I replaced them with 0.5mm wire and I think they look better. Certainly comparison to the photo is favourable: A common mistake by modellers is to make handrails too thick. In 4mm handrails should be made from 0.31mm wire and in 7mm, 0.5mm. On another subject, the kit notes say that this van was built by BR in 1950. The end drawing provided shows vacuum, steam and Westinghouse pipes. I am thinking that vans built by LNER may well have had WH brakes along with vac. Certainly one of the vans in Paul B's collection appears to have a BR style vac pipe and no WH pipe. Can anyone shed more light on this? John Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 9, 2020 Author Share Posted November 9, 2020 (edited) A bit more progress to report today: I had a think about about the WM jumper cables and decided they would not do. Studying a photograph of a 1950 built van, I thought I could make them look more like the real thing. The white discs are made from three pieces of plastic rod. The center rod goes through the hole in the end. I figured that 0.8mm brass wire looked more like the thickness in the photo. Not quite in focus but you can see I epoxied backing plates from plastic card. Another example of me making things up as I go along. It came out well I think. I got the sides finished. There is a horizontal handrail coming off the guards door handrail. I made door handles and fitted those as well. There is one last job and that is to fit the tee handles. I will wait until after paint for that. John Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwr Posted November 10, 2020 Share Posted November 10, 2020 Looks like a fairly straightforward build John. makes me think about building mine! Paul R Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 10, 2020 Author Share Posted November 10, 2020 That sounds great, I hope you will share that. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmrspaul Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 (edited) On 07/11/2020 at 16:40, brossard said: A benefit of photographing your work is that you get to look at it in a slightly different light. As I thought about my handrails I came to the conclusion that they were too thick (0.8mm wire). Today I replaced them with 0.5mm wire and I think they look better. Certainly comparison to the photo is favourable: A common mistake by modellers is to make handrails too thick. In 4mm handrails should be made from 0.31mm wire and in 7mm, 0.5mm. On another subject, the kit notes say that this van was built by BR in 1950. The end drawing provided shows vacuum, steam and Westinghouse pipes. I am thinking that vans built by LNER may well have had WH brakes along with vac. Certainly one of the vans in Paul B's collection appears to have a BR style vac pipe and no WH pipe. Can anyone shed more light on this? John Never heard or seen any suggestion that the LNER built any of these. They were a BR build. For some reason the toplights were altered during the build. Paul Edited November 11, 2020 by hmrspaul 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 11, 2020 Author Share Posted November 11, 2020 Thanks to Paul for pointing me in the right direction regarding the origin of these vehicles. I did some checking. Thread title edited. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmrspaul Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 Quite honestly I think the usual name for them - Thompson 6 wheel BZ is possibly better - few would know the diag number. Paul Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 11, 2020 Author Share Posted November 11, 2020 (edited) That does seem to be a common name. However, was Thompson even involved? Seems unlikely as he retired in 1946 and died in 1954. John Edited November 11, 2020 by brossard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 12, 2020 Author Share Posted November 12, 2020 (edited) Acid test done today. I installed the compensation units and ran the chassis through my tightest turnouts, it seems to work fine. You will see considerable progress. Comp. units painted, axleboxes installed as well as steps. Note that the spring dampers for the center axle are longer than the others. The kit supplies standard axleboxes and longer dampers. Up to the modeller to remove the short ones and add the longer. Quite a faff really. I decided to paint the battery boxes off kit and these will be added after I paint the underframe. You can also just see the vaccuum and steam pipes. These are Slaters lost wax cast brass, soooo much better than WM. John Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted November 18, 2020 Author Share Posted November 18, 2020 (edited) Underframe complete except for brake pull rods: Body was in paint this morning. John Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted December 14, 2020 Author Share Posted December 14, 2020 This model is, to all intents and purposes, done: Body paint is Humbrol acrylic BR Crimson, RC423. I brush painted it and it has come out very well. This end shot shows the Dapol coupling and Slaters vac and steam pipes. Some touch up is needed. The remainder of the sins will be obscured when I weather. John 3 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwr Posted December 14, 2020 Share Posted December 14, 2020 Looks great John. You've made a god job of this. Paul R 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted August 26, 2021 Author Share Posted August 26, 2021 (edited) So, there are a couple of things that bug me about this model. 1) There are no bearings on the axles. This is on me because I followed what I thought was the design intent of the kit against my better judgement and 2) The wheel carrier swing is not enough. This is because of material behind the axleboxes (dummy) and axles not being flush. Today I took things in hand and fixed these issues: The bearings are brass tube. I was pleased to find I had the right material in stock - 5/32". I used the axle as a jig to set the bearings in place. The bearings did need some broaching to get the wheels spinning freely. You can see where I removed material behind the axleboxes. Hopefully these mods will improve performance. John Edited July 23, 2022 by brossard 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Adrian Stevenson Posted August 26, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 26, 2021 You have certainly done the right thing adding those brass bearings. Cheers, Ade. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted July 23, 2022 Author Share Posted July 23, 2022 More picture reinstating - grrrr! John 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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