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Rob's 7mm Rolling Stock Workbench


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Almost before adding much more under frame detail I couldn’t resist trying the bogies underneath it for an idea of how the finished van would look.

 

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The outer truss rods are quite interesting on that they have two rod one on the outside and the second on the inside of the solebar. The instructions have you add these in two pieces I did them in one with a square U bending in the middle. This proved a bit tricky to get sitting right on the front face and I suspect that doing it in two pieces wouldn’t have proved equally tricky.

 

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Another two even longer term inhabitants of the work bench from four years ago are two Connoisseur V1/3 Birdcage Brake vans. on a bit of a roll with the V4 I looked at the other two and found that the only things missing from them was buffers. 

 

The reason that I hadn't finished them initially was because I had read On the late Raymond Walley's blog that he had replaced the solid buffers supplied with some sprung ones from NMRS. I subsequently bought some from the late Graham Jones at a show.

Fortunately despite not touching them or the V4 van since 2017 I knew exactly where the replacement buffers were so dug them out and soldered on the buffer shanks and then when I went to fit the heads/springs etc. I found that there wasn't any room for them or indeed access to get the nuts on and tightened. 

 

It is possible to fit sprung buffers, but you need to plan for it and fit them much earlier in the build. In order for them to fit and be able to spring them you need to remove some of the base of the W Iron/spring casting prior to fitting it and adding the wheels brakes etc.. 

 

In the end I spent another half an hour removing them and fitting the solid buffers. 

Here they are scrubbed up and awaiting paint. 

 

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Not wishing to waste a good scrubbing, we had a warm dry day here in North Yorkshire today so I popped out and squirted them  and the V4 with etch primer.

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I forgot to add in the last post that the Couplings, vac and Westinghouse pipes are Laurie Griffin.

 

The kit comes with nice cast brake cylinders which have cast on mounting brackets. The odd thing is that they come with a separate domed end but you can't fit them unless you make the mounting brackets longer. I elected to file them off and replace them with brass strip. This makes them sit a bit lower and I had to put a slight bend in the brake rods to get them to pass over the cylinder.

 

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With it being quite a long van, I added some supports for the middle of the roof from scrap etch.

 

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I have had a few of Dan’s kits over time and one thing that I find odd is that some come with roofs and some come without. Sadly, the road van came without (yet an NER horsebox that I bought at the same time had one). I can only guess that it depends on whether Dan has roof material to hand when he packs the kit.

 

A suitable piece of sheet was obtained and cut to size. It was just too long for either of my sets of rolling bars so I had to resort to rolling it by hand but I got there in the end.

 

When built these vans were fitted with sliding roof hatches over the left hand set of doors on each side. Later these were replaced with canvas or just boarded over so lots of permutations are possible depending on the period being modelled. This van was to have roof doors so I cut an offcut of thicker brass sheet to size (my guillotine needed a bit of muscle to cut through it). This time it did go through the rolling bars…

 

The photos that I have seen with roof hatches had a curved strip across them which is possibly a rainstrip? I represented this with a short length of 1mm square rod.

 

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The roof was still loose at this point.

 

The kit does provide the runners in the form of whitemetal castings so these were duly soldered on. And finally the roof was soldered on to the body.

 

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I had got this far, then while studying photos noted that there was a turnbuckle in the middle truss rod. I made some up using tube and 14ba nuts and then cut the truss rod to allow them to be eased aside and slipped on.

 

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The other V1/3 is at a similar state of play. I was going to say what I am struggling with now is a suitable number for this van but just before posting I had another look in Ian Sadler's North Eastern Brake vans book and on the example shown in there, although the bodyside lettering isn't visible, the number plate 57916 is so I shall use that as my example.

 

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3 hours ago, Rob Pulham said:

The other V1/3 is at a similar state of play. I was going to say what I am struggling with now is a suitable number for this van but just before posting I had another look in Ian Sadler's North Eastern Brake vans book and on the example shown in there, although the bodyside lettering isn't visible, the number plate 57916 is so I shall use that as my example.

 

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57916 was one of the Rosedale vans, it lasted up there till the end in 1929. I see you've noted the extra windows in the topcote end and the rectangular centre topcote window? you can just see through to it in the photo.

 

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On 23/02/2021 at 17:36, Worsdell forever said:

 

57916 was one of the Rosedale vans, it lasted up there till the end in 1929. I see you've noted the extra windows in the topcote end and the rectangular centre topcote window? you can just see through to it in the photo.

 

 

Hi Paul,

 

Yes, although in the photos I have the wrong roof on each van.... The square topcote windowed roof should be on the van with the sidecotes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Road van was painted at the same time as the brake vans but I held off posting photos because they formed part of the GOG virtual show’s lockdown models display. The show was held today so I am not taking anything away from it by adding them to my threads.

I enlisted Chris's help to paint the curved arrows on the plate above the brake hand wheel

 

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Finally I was asked by a friend to take photos of both bogie vans together.

 

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For those not familiar with it the LMS van is the Dragon Models Lancashire and Yorkshire 30 ton Bogie van now with TaffVale Models.

 

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11 hours ago, Rob Pulham said:

The Road van was painted at the same time as the brake vans but I held off posting photos because they formed part of the GOG virtual show’s lockdown models display. The show was held today so I am not taking anything away from it by adding them to my threads.

I enlisted Chris's help to paint the curved arrows on the plate above the brake hand wheel

 

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Finally I was asked by a friend to take photos of both bogie vans together.

 

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For those not familiar with it the LMS van is the Dragon Models Lancashire and Yorkshire 30 ton Bogie van now with TaffVale Models.

 

Another fine pair Rob. I love the offerings by Taff Vale Models and you make them even more special.

Edited by jazz
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To close this particular build off, the Road van is lettered, although I cannot take credit for the fine job on the lettering, it was done by its new owner.

 

This shot was taken part way through the process

 

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All lettered up and ready for the 'road'

 

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In my quest to clear the workbench of its long time inhabitants I took stock of what was needed to finish the crane and runner/match wagons. It turned out that to do the bare bones of the build they only actually needed buffers and couplings.

 

Then I recalled why the build had stalled. The buffers and couplings that came with the kit were a bit of a 'hotch potch' of different makes/types. I bought it second hand so I am not sure which of them might have been included originally.

 

There were a couple of different type of white metal buffer stocks and a nice set of Slaters cast brass RCH pattern buffers but there were only three buffer heads. There were buffer heads/springs and retaining nuts. The trouble was that the springs were a bit bigger than the normal springs that Slaters and other supply.

 

I had a look in my spares box and managed to find three complete sets of Buffer stocks, one set NER, One set GNR and one set LNER. Which I thought would be typical of a railway company using whatever wagon was available to use as runner wagons for the crane.

 

Again, there was a mixture of couplings so I sorted out three assorted sets and added them.

It was at this point that I asked for assistance on the LNER forum as to what colour mobile hand cranes would have been painted by the LNER. I didn’t get a definitive answer but the suggestion was that they might have been lined black the same as the steam cranes were.

 

Armed with this, I masked them up and painted them black. At this point I thought that the runner wagons were a bit plain so I made up some toolboxes from coffee stirrers and added them to what was to become the leading runner wagon.

 

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I couldn’t resist posing them with a shabby NBR van and one of the NER brakes to simulate a breakdown train.

 

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Still some way to go before I and happy with them.

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Having looked at it for a couple of days I felt that the second runner wagon looked a little bare so I knocked up another toolbox and I added some hardware to them all. It's starting to come together now. A friend has just sent me some spare 'Crane Runner' transfers so I now have enough to do both runners (assuming that I can get them to fit of course.

 

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I am still undecided as to whether to line the counterbalance weight on the crane because the gears on the crane itself will prevent me being able to add any lining around the frame if indeed they were actually lined. 

 

A few tools and lumps of timber and some weathering will bring it all together.

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  • 1 month later...

Despite building it at the same time I completely forgot to post this, following on from the Road van my second victim is a conversion of a Connoisseur LNER Perishables van from one of these – photo courtesy of Jim McGeown’s website

 

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To a North Eastern Railway version with cupboard type doors instead of the sliding door on the LNER version.  The cupboard doors and their locking mechanism will need to be scratch built. LNER Wagons Volume Two by Peter Tatlow has photos and a drawing which will prove very helpful during this conversion.

 

 

We start off by cutting out the parts etched in the door openings

 

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Once they are removed and put to one side for later in the build, the openings need to be trimmed back to the door pillars. I did this with the trusty piercing saw with a no 6 blade.

 

Once I had my door opening dimensions, I cut a couple of replacement doors and scored the planking on them using an Olfa Cutter (skrawker).

 

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These were soldered in with some strips of scrap etch soldered all the way around to prevent them being dislodged through handling of the finished van.

 

Once this was done, I started on the hinges. This job was made some much easier by riveting the edge of a piece of 10 thou brass sheet at the appropriate spacing (taken from the drawing) using my GP models rivet press and then cutting the strip from the sheet using my guillotine. I ended up filing a few down to width before I got my eye in despite scribing a cut line…

 

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From there it was just a case of keep adding the details to the doors


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The ‘barrel’ of the hinges was made by filing a slot in a piece of 2mm x1mm bar using an oval file to give the slope where it meets the strap and then rounding off the other end. The RSU came into its own when soldering them on. I think it’s the first time that I have ever managed to solder on some fine detail without at least one part pinging off and requiring a search to find it or to make a replacement.

 

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Next up came the complex but visually attractive NER door locking mechanism.
Made from scrap etch and brass rod. Although I didn't take any photos the mechanism does work. 

 

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Then I made up the basic body and detailed the ends. I was a bit clumsy and managed to melt one of the end post castings so I nicked one out of one of my kits and I will either get a spare from Jim when life returns to normal or make one from brass bar when I get to building it.

 

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Once the doors were finished the rest of it went together pretty much as Jim intended. With the addition of LG vacuum, steam heat and couplings.

 

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I added a floor from the mount board that the kit comes attached to and I made the roof removable so that the back of the louvres could be blanked off should it be required.

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