Adam's EM Workbench: Farewell for now

[Adam]

So here's the result of half an hour's noodling. Spring stops have been added as have the apparently fiddly brake yokes. These are modelled like the real thing, fabricated from rod and strip but because they're assembled in situ with four fixed points (the two brakeshoes, and each end of the transverse brake linkage), it's simply a case of bending the strip into a 'v' - there's a small notch in the centre which clips over the link - and threading the wire through the relevant holes. Should the worst happen, Justin has helpfully provided spares; I didn't need them so there's every chance they'll go on some future wagon from a different source to its benefit. A drop of flux, four touches of the iron, clip the excess wire and, er, it's done. Good design, well executed.

 

 

 

There's not all that much left on the fret now.

 

Adam

Edited April 1, 2016 by Adam

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

 

That chassis is looking very nice indeed! I shall be interested to see how it is going to be sprung. It seems that to get the right effect with springing you will need to add a fair amount of ballast to the wagon. I think 50g per axle is specified by some people.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Adam]

The instructions - http://www.rumneymodels.co.uk/resources/BR+Clasp+Brake+Chassis+Instructions.pdf (page 2) - suggest 50g altogether using 8 thou spring wire which I think is finer than that usually supplied. I say 'I think' because I have only five or six wagons with sprung W irons that I haven't lost patience with and soldered up solid and all those I persisted with had it designed in. To put that in some sort of perspective, the last time dad and I had a census I think there were something like 180 wagons. Since that may well have been 10 years ago now I wouldn't be surprised if the figure is now nearer 300. Obviously, once the chassis is complete I shall put this to the test and will report back. The springing, by the way is by individual spring carriers which is more or less normal for wagons. It rolls nicely, even now.

Adam
 

Edited April 1, 2016 by Adam

[Colin parks]

That is interesting Adam,

 

The wire seems to be quite thin. I wonder if it is guitar string or something softer - hence the 25g per axle spec.. I can see how you would easily get fed up with the moving parts. How on earth is the chassis to be painted without gumming up the suspension?!

 

All the best,

 

Colin

 

(300 wagons? That is some collection!)

[Adam]

Actually, it isn't the painting that's the problem: the spring carriers are somewhere out of the way while paint is being waved about. The problem, generally, is the incompatibility of the brake gear with the W-iron components which makes judging the distance tricky and getting the springs equalised on each wheel so that the thing rides level. Justin's design with springs you don't have to shape seems better in this respect.

 

Painting, by the way goes like this: I generally give the W-irons a dose of metalblack first, in this case it'll be the whole underframe - and protect the axle slots with a bit of masking tape before giving it a waft of primer so that there's no paint on the sliding surfaces..

 

Best

Adam

 

PS: the way you get that many wagons is by not wasting time building locos or carriages.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Adam

[ullypug]

That's a seriously impressive chassis. I feel an internet related purchase coming on...

I've mainly used 9, 10 or 11 thou guitar wire for my sprung wagons (Bill Bedford system) though it's normally the thicker gauges.

[Adam]

Go on Andrew, you know you want to.

 

Seriously, this is an excellent kit and that's just as well; I have a couple of the 10' versions salted away. It takes the pain out of mucking about with brakegear and gives a very good result without too much effort if you don't mind the - unavoidable - small parts. Justin deserves to do well with his rapidly growing range. I'm especially heartened by the possibility of the - long overdue - finescale option for the 12' wheelbase push rod braked chassis and intrigued by some of the planned items, the Shochood B in particular (a kit is the only way I'll ever build another!).

 

Adam

Edited October 21, 2013 by Adam

[Kelly]

Impressive work on those wagons. Liked the 74 too.

[jjnewitt]

 It seems that to get the right effect with springing you will need to add a fair amount of ballast to the wagon. I think 50g per axle is specified by some people.

On the majority of sprung wagon chassis I've come across it's 25g per axle. There's no reason why you couldn't arrange for the suspension to work on 50g per axle but you'd have a hard job getting 100g into a 4mm Lowfit. The right effect depends on how the suspension is set up. I'm convinced that a lot of sprung chassis don't really know what they are doing when it comes to deflections and weights.

The wire seems to be quite thin. I wonder if it is guitar string or something softer - hence the 25g per axle spec.. I can see how you would easily get fed up with the moving parts. How on earth is the chassis to be painted without gumming up the suspension?!

The wire in the chassis is Ernie Ball 0.008" steel guitar wire. It is indeed very thin but this was necessary with the way I wanted to do the spring carriers and the distances between fulcum (spring and chassis interface) points. The following photo shows the arrangement of the spring carriers. The wire is simply soldered into a half etched slot. 

One way of painting a sprung chassis is to remove the wheels. You can arrange to make the axle guards/tiebars removeable on my chassis if you wish to allow the wheels and spring carriers to simply drop out. I appreciate that this is more hassle than it's worth to most people but it is the approach I use and am happy with. See photo above.

 

PS: the way you get that many wagons is by not wasting time building locos or carriages.

I like your thinking Adam! Nice to see one of these things being built by someone else.

 

Justin

[Adam]

On the majority of sprung wagon chassis I've come across it's 25g per axle. There's no reason why you couldn't arrange for the suspension to work on 50g per axle but you'd have a hard job getting 100g into a 4mm Lowfit. 

 

One way of painting a sprung chassis is to remove the wheels. You can arrange to make the axle guards/tiebars removable on my chassis if you wish to allow the wheels and spring carriers to simply drop out. I appreciate that this is more hassle than it's worth to most people but it is the approach I use and am happy with. 

 

A Lowfit is probably one of the trickiest wagons to get up to weight in 4mm (I've no idea how the 2mm types would manage). I would add that Justin used Exactoscale wheels and bearings which make the removable axle keeps near essential since the journals (for want of a better word) act more like the prototype and work better if dropped out as you would the real thing. 

 

Since I'm using conventional pinpoint bearings the wheels can be sprung out by flexing the W-irons in the usual way. So long as you remember to put a fillet of solder in the fold between them and the chassis top plate and don't take the wheels out too often this should not have any adverse effects. Well, that's the hope anyway. I installed the vacuum dummies, coupling hooks and brake cross shaft yesterday evening, but it was late so no pictures eventuated. Brake levers next and then I can muck about with safety loops, castings, vac' pipes and the like. The result will be somewhat crowded!

Adam

Edited October 21, 2013 by Adam

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

 

That chassis is looking very nice indeed! I shall be interested to see how it is going to be sprung. It seems that to get the right effect with springing you will need to add a fair amount of ballast to the wagon. I think 50g per axle is specified by some people.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

Hi Adam,

 

I am so sorry for having said that re. weight per axle. Having now found where I read about it on the Scalefour website, it is clear they recommend 25g per axle on wagons. I think I got the spec. confused with an article on coach bogies fitted with torsion bar suspension where the coaches weighed 200g or so.

 

Apologies for any confusion!

 

Colin

[Adam]

No worries Colin. I also note that there's a mention of Justin's kits in the Small Suppliers Forum bit of the new MRJ.

 

Adam

[Adam]

A bit of a leap and some rather dodgy pictures (I shall have another go in the morning), but I've forged ahead and all soldering is now complete prior to the solid details - vacuum cylinders, lable clips (included, but I shall glue these), axleboxes and springs - being added. The safety loops are formed from 0.3mm nickel wire around a template that is part of the etch fret which is quite neat; they could, perhaps, be more securely located, but I think that's being picky.

 

 

 

The underside view shows off the rather indifferent quality of my soldering! The coupling hooks are Masokits - I have yet to assemble the screw couplings that will hang from them, while the vac' pipes are from copper electrical wire wound round with some very fine stuff from a defunct pair of headphones - since the dummy is modelled in proper detail I left it hanging. A dose of metal black next, I think...

Adam

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by Adam

[ullypug]

Phwrorrr!!!!!!

I wants one of those...

Seriously impressive stuff Adam.

[Adam]

Thanks Andrew (although all you're doing is praising the thoroughness of Justin's work). Where did I hide my supply of vacuum cylinders?

 

Adam

Edited October 26, 2013 by Adam

[Loxborough]

Impressive stuff. I must say, though, that in your position I wouldn't be much looking forward to doing the springing in the middle of all that...

 

G

Edited October 26, 2013 by Loxborough

[Adam]

That's where the kit makes life easy: the springing is designed in and therefore the brake shoes are positioned to take this into account. If I were building the wagon as a rigid chassis then I might have made some efforts to bring the shoes a bit closer to the wheels but that might compromise the brake linkages. The other thing to bear in mind is that the spring/bearing carriers are in a little resealable bag along with the wheels while this is going on. There's no risk of soldering or otherwise gumming the whole lot up,

 

The next question is whether to assemble the chassis to the body before painting. One plus of the design is that the two can be treated seperately and assembled afterwards. In this instance, I think that I'll assemble the two before the other components go on so as to ensure even pressure while the epoxy sets. My fear is that the second vac' cylinder will get in the way!

 

I'm away for a week now so may change my mind before I get back. Buffers are on order and I've located a 'spare' set of screw links so its otherwise ready to go.

 

Adam

[Fat Controller]

Thanks Andrew (although all you're doing is praising the thoroughness of Justin's work). Where did I hide my supply of vacuum cylinders?

 

Adam

If you can't find them, then it might be worth remembering that quite a few had all the brake gear barring the cylinders. I don't know if there's a list of these available; I may have got notes of some from my summer with British Steel.

[dmsmith]

I hope that Adam will forgive my hijacking his thread. However, I was so inspired by his Coil J conversions from Hornby Iron Ore tipplers that I wanted to make some for myself in P4. The Hornby tipplers are excellent value in packs of three from Hattons, and I still have the upper halves of the bodies to turn into sand tipplers.

 

The Hornby chassis is remarkably fine, so I have chosen to leave it as it is and do without either springing or compensation. The internal timbers are a little small; I had relied upon the dimensions quoted in Keith Allen's Railway Modeller article from January 1983 and sourced some walnut wood section from my local model shop, but I may yet try to find something slightly larger. I now need to work out the dimensions of the coils themselves to make some loads.

 

As ever, Paul Bartlett's excellent photographs provided inspiration for the weathering. The rust effect was achieved by spraying a base coat of Tamiya grey primer, followed by a sprinking of salt fixed with Testor's Dullcote and the oversprayed with Tamiya Flat Brown. Transfers are from Fox, finished off with more Dullcote. Finally, I gave everything a dusting with Carr's weathering powders.

 

 

David

[Adam]

Hi David

 

No forgiveness need be sought! I pleased that someone else has seen fit to have a go at this simple conversion. I would agree that the baulks as modelled are too small - the boards protecting the ends definitely overlap the tops of the ends for example which suggests to me that the measurements were guestimates rather than a record of the great big lunps of wood that sat in the bottom of these wagons. That said, I reckon that the colouring and overall weathering on your models is excellent. What sort of project are these for?

Adam

Edited November 14, 2013 by Adam

[dmsmith]

Dear Adam,

 

I'm glad that you like them! I'm also grateful for confirming my belief that the baulks, as I have modelled them, are too small.

 

These aren't for any project in particular. I just liked your conversions so much that I thought that I'd have a go myself. I do have a few P4 turnouts on a bit of baseboard, but much of my modelling these days centres on building things to run on other people's layouts. I am fortunate to know fellow modellers who are are more productive than me. I just don't know anyone round here who models BR in South Wales in the 1970s ...

 

David

[Adam]

If it's any help David I don't model South Wales in the '70s either, or anywhere very much. I simply like building wagons and am currently assembling a rakes of coil carriers, simply because I can. With this in mind, while I was in the mood for soldering, I embarked upon another Rumney Models production, a BR 1/403 Strip Coil: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brstripcoil/h3d61539a#h294aa921

 

As was typical of the early BR coil fleet, only a small number were built - in the case of this particular diagram, only 15 - though there were another 35 broadly similar vehicles (dia. 1/401) but these had different bogies and were built unfitted and later converted to vacuum brake (as dia. 1/407). There's a picture of one of these, loaded, in Mike (Stationmaster's) thread from a little while back: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/66924-the-stationmaster-goes-train-spotting-part-1/?p=914471 The kit will do both the fitted versions but not the unfitted (the reasons are in Justin's instructions if you're interested), but only the BR plate bogies for the 1/403 are available at the moment; these can be had from Cambrian. Because I was enjoying myself, I've got to the point of assembling almost all the etched bits before taking any pictures but, in all honesty, this is a reasonably straightforward kit of a relatively simple prototype. You get two sheets of etch which include some thoughtful touches notably spares of some of the componets that will vanish to the far corners of the bench/room. Being a riveted prototype, there are quite a few to emboss, but roundabout half are represented by the etching process which means overlays and all the associated fun and games they represent; RSU owners would doubtless snigger.

 

 

Note that the bogie mounting haven't yet gone in because I haven't got my hands on a set of bogies. Other things on the to do list are acquiring and fitting the castings and vacuum pipes. I have a etch worth of Masokits screw couplings to do as well. Really the dummies supplied for the vacuum pipes are too short but since they're properly modelled I shall lose no sleep over this! The distinctive interior, shown in this Paul Bartlett picture - http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brstripcoil/h3d61539a#h2b070267 - (note the colouring, muck and scale off the coils), will be assembled on a false floor from plastic sheet and section. The etches give you the strip with the holes. 

 

 

Adam

Edited November 20, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

PS - for anyone wondering, this isn't evidence of my butterfly mentally - well not exactly - since the minfit body has been joined to the chassis and gained a set of vacuum cylinders and some buffers. The one from ABS and Parkside spares, t'other from Lanarkshire Models, and very nice they are too. I still have to sort out the springs and make a set of axleboxes...

 

 

Adam

[Adam]

After what was a longer pause than I thought it might be, the Strip Coil now sits on its wheels. The bogies are a set of BR plate types derived from GWR practise from Cambrian. Now these aren't blessed with absolute dimensional fidelity but this is only really obvious when shown next to a picture of the real thing so I am not too concerned about this. From a practical perspective, they come as a one-piece moulding with seperate axleboxes which is a great improvement on the last set of Cambrian plate bogies I built the better part of twenty years ago. I had to countersink the bearing holes a smidge to get the wheels to run properly but that is no big deal. 

The designer's preference is for compensated or sprung bogies so he only provides a location hole for a bolt. Cambrian provide a suitable bolt (c. 3mm diameter) with the bogies and a moulded mounting plate; I used both. I opened the etched plate out sufficient to clear the bolt and soldered that in, cut the collar out of the moulded mounting plate and epoxied that around the bolt. There isn't much thread protruding above that but there's enough - a bit of thread lock after painting will fix it. 



The bogies need packing to the correct height and the easiest way to do that is a bit of 60 thou' plastic. Using an old dodge, I've placed packing as shown in the picture below to keep the body more or less level at one end and to allow rocking at the other; simple three point compensation really.



Brake cylinders and buffers still to do...

Adam

Edited December 16, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

I know that it's all gone quiet, but now the strip coil is all but finished in construction terms. Curiously, the packet of buffers I had contained one pair each with different sized heads (almost certainly my fault, an error in tidying my castings stock) so it's not quite ready for painting until I get that sorted. Anyhow, the interesting bit is the interior fabricated from plastic sheet and section with etched strips full of holes; on the real thing, these were used for stuffing locating pins (of indeterminate nature) in to stop the coils which were loaded 'eye-to-sky' from shifting. On the model, these strips have been superglued to some Evergreen 30 thou x 60 thou strip glued to a dummy floor of 10 thou'. The interior of a real one is shown in this Paul Bartlett picture:
 

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brstripcoil/h3577f06d#h3577f06d

 

My interpretation is below; yes, I did drill out all those holes and yes, a couple of drills bit the dust. It'll show up better under a coat of paint, hopefully.

 

 

Adam