EWS60065's Modern-ish Wagon Projects (Weathering, Modifying, Scratchbuilds)

[EWS60065]

Thread dedicated my to weathering, modifying, detailing of, and completely scratchbuilt modern image wagon projects. Primarily engineering and steel but happy to post or discuss any other types. Feel free to comment and share techniques or ask questions!

I'll start off with these two MTA wagons. They are scratchbuilt from 30/40thou plastic card and detailed with styrene strip. Both sit on the classic Hornby long wheelbase underframe as seen under their TTA wagons. It scrubs up well when you strip out all the brake rigging to replace with handmade pieces to suit the prototype.

 

Here are a few photos of my first effort 395001 under construction

And after painting ....

 

 

 

This is another conversion I did to create 395338.

 

Weathered using acrylic paints and rough brushes. The wagons are naturally lightweight so they've been weighted with little steel tablets available online for this purpose. After the photos, draft box Kadees were fitted with ease under the chassis with little height adjustment needed.

Edited November 6, 2022 by EWS60065
Re uploaded images

[EWS60065]

This Cambrian kit-built OBA has received wooden slats and other random bits and pieces inside to add to the realism after looking at photos on the 'ukrailwaypics' site. First coats of paint on the frame have been added, with a tan/black mix on the chassis and tan/grey mix on the lower part of the body that covers the solebar. Next job will be picking out individual planks in various shades of red, pink, grey etc.

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by EWS60065
Reuploaded photo

[Thefatcontroller]

Hi There,

 

Loving the workbench and have clicked the follow.

 

Would you happed to have any more picures of the underframe -at all please? of the ballast box wagon in the first post, Thank you.

 

I think i have figured out how to replicate but an underside shot would be a great help.

 

Thanks

 

 

Ollie

[EWS60065]

15 minutes ago, Thefatcontroller said:

Hi There,

 

Loving the workbench and have clicked the follow.

 

Would you happed to have any more picures of the underframe -at all please? of the ballast box wagon in the first post, Thank you.

 

I think i have figured out how to replicate but an underside shot would be a great help.

 

Thanks

 

 

Ollie

Thank you. The underframe is ex Hornby TTA with the addition of styrene parts in place of the chopped off Hornby ones. Is it these you'd like to see or the actual chassis from underneath? More than happy to get some for you.

[Thefatcontroller]

19 minutes ago, EWS60065 said:

Thank you. The underframe is ex Hornby TTA with the addition of styrene parts in place of the chopped off Hornby ones. Is it these you'd like to see or the actual chassis from underneath? More than happy to get some for you.

Hello-

 

Thank you for your prompt reply.could I see the chasis with your added under frame detail?  I have plenty of Hornby TTA chasis kicking around and this looks like an ideal use for them! 

[EWS60065]

On 25/08/2021 at 21:53, Thefatcontroller said:

"Could I see the chassis with your added under frame detail?"

As requested here are some detail shots of the two ex TTA MTA conversions. 

 

First wagon, 395001

This is the first conversion which, being my first, I decided to base the chassis directly on the Bachmann one. This side has had all the Hornby tank stuff chopped off apart from the handbrake lever which would suffice. As you can see in the image a few styrene additions have been added to the large V hanger on the right. Only other part needed on this side is the spade-shaped thing (no idea what these are, maybe someone will enlighten me??). It is a simple plastic card and strip construction which rests on a stub left from the old Hornby assembly for extra strength. 

 

Moving to the other side, it's a little more complicated. The main rigging starts from the large handbrake, sloping down to the left where it joins another triangular shaped piece of styrene glued on at an angle. There are two central supports which have a wedge cut out of the bottom where they intersect this main piece of rod so that it's a flush fit. Projecting from the left wheelset area is a thicker plastic strip sloping upwards and joining onto the solebar. In retrospect, the strip I used for all this was too bulky but doesn't show too much when weathered.

 

A rear view of this side where the main rigging can be seen planted into drill holes in the underside.

 

 

 

Couplings: 

This wagon was built at a time where my standard was to fit NEM pockets for ease of conversion but after some research, NEM Kadees/EZ Mates aren't as easy to get hold of as the draft box ones so I adopted that system for later wagons. Since I had gone to the effort of fitting a pocket, this wagon did end up receiving EZ Mate NEM knuckle couplers.

 

 

Second wagon, 395338:

 

 

 

395338 has a more prototypical underframe constructed. After a long research session I was able to place a V hanger (left) and another of those strange bits except this time square with vertical rods (right). The original handbrake lever had been removed as part of a different project so it gave me the opportunity to build a new one out of finer styrene strip. It starts from the solebar above the W iron and connects to the V hanger in a little square linkage (v. fiddly!)

 

 

 

The opposite side has a three-part assembly based on pictures of MTAs. From left to right (or right to left on bottom pic) it's a pretty standard handbrake lever ending at a solebar mounted V hanger. Tricky to see but behind this is another V hanger where the second part extends from. It ends at a V hanger on the far right. Overlapping this, starting from the right hand wheel unit, a thicker rod runs to just short of the centre of the wagon. With a smaller upright strip, it connects to the solebar. The central section has two vertical supports like the previous wagon did. One of them is a thin strip wrapped round in an open ended oval shape that fits nicely over the rigging. See right of the lower picture above.

 

 

Couplings: 

Coupling is a simple Kadee #5 mounted to the flat surface left behind by the removed Hornby coupling block.

 

Weights:

Both wagons have had these weights (look online for model railway weights) squeezed out of view underneath. Edges should be painted matt black. 395338 has even had the central floor cut away for more weight room. Wheels are Dapol disc wheels available in packs of 20 for £10-12. Alternatively use Bachmann, Hornby, or finescale equivalent.

 

Sorry for the long post, hopefully it should clear things up for everyone on how to convert old chassis into believable engineering wagons.

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by EWS60065
Re uploaded images

[Thefatcontroller]

Thank you for the image heads up.

 

ive managed to 95% complete one of the wagons using your conversion method.

 

no where near perfect but will fit my small rake nicely.

 

thank you for the inspiration and putting a redundant TTA chasis to use.

 

Next step for me is adding rust! 

[EWS60065]

1 hour ago, Thefatcontroller said:

Thank you for the image heads up.

 

ive managed to 95% complete one of the wagons using your conversion method.

 

no where near perfect but will fit my small rake nicely.

 

thank you for the inspiration and putting a redundant TTA chasis to use.

 

Next step for me is adding rust! 

Nice, that was quick work!

[EWS60065]

Would anyone happen to have some information about SPA conversions into ZCAs? 

I understand that they carried Ballast when sealed up to become ZCA 'Seahares'. Did they ever exist as ZCA 'Sea Urchins' before this or was it a straight conversion from ZAA 'pike'? 

Thanks

[ess1uk]

Nice work on your wagons

[EWS60065]

10 hours ago, ess1uk said:

Nice work on your wagons

Thank you

[EWS60065]

The OBA posted earlier is now complete minus data panels!

 

Scraps like wooden matchsticks, plasticard offcuts, and masking tape strapping added to the floor. The interior was weathered firstly with a brown/black undercoat followed by 'drybrushing' light tan colours with a rough and wiry brush. Metalwork highlighted with a rust wash.

 

 

Rust spots start off with a faint yellow spread over a large area, continually added to with darker, thicker washes in the centre until you reach the stage where you're applying an almost black colour in a small dot. It creates what I think is quite a convincing rust bleed spot.

 

The main bodywork gets a pink covering with odd planks picked out in red, yellow, grey, and brown. Hinge areas and reinforcement bars highlighted in dark grey and door stoppers in white. The planks are drybrushed with light, wood shades to replicate wear. To finish off, a thin black wash was worked into any gaps and brushed downwards with a dry, flat brush to add streaks.

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by EWS60065
Re uploaded images

[Departmental203]

10 hours ago, EWS60065 said:

The OBA posted earlier is now complete minus data panels!

 

 

Scraps like wooden matchsticks, plasticard offcuts, and masking tape strapping added to the floor. The interior was weathered firstly with a brown/black undercoat followed by 'drybrushing' light tan colours with a rough and wiry brush. Metalwork highlighted with a rust wash.

 

 

Rust spots start off with a faint yellow spread over a large area, continually added to with darker, thicker washes in the centre until you reach the stage where you're applying an almost black colour in a small dot. It creates what I think is quite a convincing rust bleed spot.

 

The main bodywork gets a pink covering with odd planks picked out in red, yellow, grey, and brown. Hinge areas and reinforcement bars highlighted in dark grey and door stoppers in white. The planks are drybrushed with light, wood shades to replicate wear. To finish off, a thin black wash was worked into any gaps and brushed downwards with a dry, flat brush to add streaks.

 

 

Wow, this is some nice work on the OBA, I really like the painting on the planked bodysides, it really gives a "wood grain" effect and replicates the very patchwork nature on these wagons, it will look great with some distressed and weathered MFA/MHA/MTA and other appropriate wagons in the same train

 

I also like the ends of the wagons as I feel the rust effects are restrained and well done, from personal experience, it's very easy to get too carried away and the effects start becoming unrealistic

 

On 28/08/2021 at 09:32, EWS60065 said:

Would anyone happen to have some information about SPA conversions into ZCAs? 

I understand that they carried Ballast when sealed up to become ZCA 'Seahares'. Did they ever exist as ZCA 'Sea Urchins' before this or was it a straight conversion from ZAA 'pike'? 

Thanks

 

I'm sure somebody on this thread will know better, but from my knowledge, from 1990, quite a few ZAA "Pike" were converted to ZCA "Seahare" by simply welding the doors shut, putting a top capping on the top of the doors and repacing the floor with plain sheet. They came into privitisaton in significantly reduced numbers, so I assume most were converted into ZCA "Sea Urchin" in the early EWS era. The conversion of SPA's into "Sea Urchins" only occured in the EWS era.

 

In model form, the Cambrian SPA or Kernow's RTR SPA can be fairly easily converted into a "Seahare" by removing the bolsters from the floor and sanding it flat, in addition to adding some plastic strip over the top of the doors. The few "Seahare" that made it into privitisation unscathed were mostly found in rusty "Dutch" enginners grey and yellow livery or Loadhaul livery

 

 

I did this Seahare conversion 2 years ago using the Cambrian kit as a base and as Loadhaul livery suited these wagons I couldn't resist! The particular ZCA "Seahare" I'm modelling is DC460254 which survived in this livery into the EWS era (I haven't got to numbering it yet!)

 

I hope this little insight into Seahares helped and as I say, keep up with the good work!

 

Jules

[EWS60065]

54 minutes ago, Departmental203 said:

 

Wow, this is some nice work on the OBA, I really like the painting on the planked bodysides, it really gives a "wood grain" effect and replicates the very patchwork nature on these wagons, it will look great with some distressed and weathered MFA/MHA/MTA and other appropriate wagons in the same train

 

I also like the ends of the wagons as I feel the rust effects are restrained and well done, from personal experience, it's very easy to get too carried away and the effects start becoming unrealistic

 

 

I'm sure somebody on this thread will know better, but from my knowledge, from 1990, quite a few ZAA "Pike" were converted to ZCA "Seahare" by simply welding the doors shut, putting a top capping on the top of the doors and repacing the floor with plain sheet. They came into privitisaton in significantly reduced numbers, so I assume most were converted into ZCA "Sea Urchin" in the early EWS era. The conversion of SPA's into "Sea Urchins" only occured in the EWS era.

 

In model form, the Cambrian SPA or Kernow's RTR SPA can be fairly easily converted into a "Seahare" by removing the bolsters from the floor and sanding it flat, in addition to adding some plastic strip over the top of the doors. The few "Seahare" that made it into privitisation unscathed were mostly found in rusty "Dutch" enginners grey and yellow livery or Loadhaul livery

 

 

I did this Seahare conversion 2 years ago using the Cambrian kit as a base and as Loadhaul livery suited these wagons I couldn't resist! The particular ZCA "Seahare" I'm modelling is DC460254 which survived in this livery into the EWS era (I haven't got to numbering it yet!)

 

I hope this little insight into Seahares helped and as I say, keep up with the good work!

 

Jules

Firstly, thank you for the compliments. I agree about the rust and have certainly got carried away before myself! 

I appreciate the clarification and info on the ZCAs too! I wouldn't mind trying to make a few Sea Urchin/Hare types, the ex SPA being the simplest. Still could do with completing some of the Cambrian classic Sea Urchins too. Not sure what underframe they run on, ex OBA I was possibly thinking as can't find any other similar looking ones.

[cheesysmith]

Might be worth looking at the DEMU magazine, as they did a big article a while ago on the sea urchins.

 

As for what you are doing, keep it coming. The effects you are getting are excellent, and the conversions of simple cheap wagons are good example of modelling.

[EWS60065]

9 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

Might be worth looking at the DEMU magazine, as they did a big article a while ago on the sea urchins.

 

As for what you are doing, keep it coming. The effects you are getting are excellent, and the conversions of simple cheap wagons are good example of modelling.

Thank you. I'll have a look.

[Grizz]

Great thread subject. Your weathering and detailing is impressive.

 

If you’ve not yet seen it, this book is well the worth the money for scratch building. The 4mm scale drawings are very helpful. 

 

Also have look back through this thread if you get a minute. Marco Blanco’s scratch building is superb. 
 

 

[EWS60065]

3 hours ago, Grizz said:

Great thread subject. Your weathering and detailing is impressive.

 

If you’ve not yet seen it, this book is well the worth the money for scratch building. The 4mm scale drawings are very helpful. 

 

Also have look back through this thread if you get a minute. Marco Blanco’s scratch building is superb. 
 

 

Thanks, that's helpful! Definitely been thinking of getting that book. Does it have pretty much everything?

[Fat Controller]

46 minutes ago, EWS60065 said:

Thanks, that's helpful! Definitely been thinking of getting that book. Does it have pretty much everything?

It's got a pretty wide selection of stuff, though not exhaustive. Not sure who publishes it these days, as it was Ian Allan, who seem to have given up railways.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Fat Controller

[EWS60065]

Some photos I got of 4 wheel engineering box wagons at Westbury Down T.C.    Inspiration for modelling!

Edited July 8, 2022 by EWS60065
Re uploaded images

[EWS60065]

To expand the dropside fleet, here is SPA 460272. Built from a Cambrian kit it's awaiting a rusty weathering and couplings. I decided to go with a standard SPA for this one (not Seahare) for it's versatility as representing a steel wagon too (hence floor bolsters are still present). 

 

 

 

I've also produced a couple of engineering loads for long wheelbase dropsides - wooden sleepers and scrap rails. Thanks to 'The Scrap Line' YouTube for the inspiration to do these. They are glued onto a black card base so can be easily changed around for variety. That's it for now until the SPA is nice and dirty!

Edited July 8, 2022 by EWS60065
Re uploaded images

[EWS60065]

The SPA is complete and out of the works. Based on one of the few SPAs still in revenue service, 460272 is now in engineering use. 

 

The usual deep reddish browns with an old wiry brush were applied in rusty patches over the metal sides. Highlights with drybrushing and powders. Data panels designed in Inkscape and printed in best quality.

Edited July 8, 2022 by EWS60065
Re uploaded images

[EWS60065]

To add to the expanding dropside fleet, this is OBA number 110154 with mesh sides. The construction of the wagon is rather interesting in that it started off with some spare Cambrian solebars and brake levers, the rest being built from styrene sheet and strip (bar the mesh). It isn't something I'd do again for a while but atleast I've got one now! 

It started off as a 40 thou base with scored plank lines. The W irons have had spare springs attached (not sure if the mesh sides ever carried this type but I'll use some artistic license...) and the axle boxes were made using cut styrene tube and some brass bearings. Details like handbrakes and Accurascale buffers get glued on.

The sides themselves rest on three supports and are plated with strip around all the edges, not forgetting the little door stops. The thinner lines within each door were filled in with window glazing glue (this idea amongst others was from...

 

 

 

Data panels as usual designed in inkscape. The main colours were crudely blocked out then weathering commenced.

 

 

Weathering consists of mainly drybrushing and washes of rust colours. I'm not as happy with quality of build/weathering as with the other OBA but still a fun project. Any ideas for the next...? I am thinking a Bachmann wagon but they are hard to come by for a decent price these days.

 

 

Thanks for viewing.

Edited July 8, 2022 by EWS60065
Re uploaded images

[James Makin]

Looking very nice and inspirational! 
 

The variety to be found on the various surviving air braked ex-engineering wagons is incredible, I often think they are almost like modern-day equivalents to the old Private Owner coal wagons, no two are quite the same and offering endless modelling potential!

 

[EWS60065]

36 minutes ago, James Makin said:

Looking very nice and inspirational! 
 

The variety to be found on the various surviving air braked ex-engineering wagons is incredible, I often think they are almost like modern-day equivalents to the old Private Owner coal wagons, no two are quite the same and offering endless modelling potential!

 

Thanks. Yeah, it isn't quite like locos where they are well recorded and people are likely to know how a particular one should look - you can get away with more I suppose!