firefly9 Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Having recently taken an interest in the railways of the 1980's i've been looking for some unusual and non RTR engineers stock to try and adapt or modify. Much of the RTR stuff made now is ballast/spoil wagons etc and i wanted something a little unusual. Having watched some youtube video's of Doncaster in the 80's i found just the wagon. These wagons operated by the civil engineer were used to carry water and powdered cement. There was also a mixing drum to mix the concrete once on site and pour it. The cement was used during the electrification of the ECML and was for the foundations for the gantries that carried the overhead equipment. purchase of an old Hornby bolster wagon would be used for the basis of the model. Most of the other parts came from the scrap bits box and bits and pieces laying around the house that could be adapted. The cement mixer itself came from a kids toy purchased from poundstretcher for 79p that incidentally is virtually the right scale at 1-72. http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcementmixer/h1714703e#h1714703e This is the prototype wagon. I'll try and get some pics of the model posted when RMWEB is fully back up an running. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eastwestdivide Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Those cement mixer wagons at Doncaster beside the line to Sheffield were still there, looking more and more forlorn, well into the 2000s. Think they finally got cut up only 2-3 years ago. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PhilJ W Posted January 1, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 1, 2012 IIRC similar vehicles were used on the electrification of the GE Southend lines way back in the 50's. They can be seen in some of the BTF films. Look forward to seeing the model. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
firefly9 Posted January 3, 2012 Author Share Posted January 3, 2012 Well looks like i can download pics now so here goes with the project description. i'll run through what the pics are and describe what each one is. pic 1 this is the toy cement mixer that is the basis for the project. It only cost 79p a bargain so 3 were purchased pic 2 is the bogie bolster that is to be converted. pic 3. The first thing was to cut a piece of 1mm plasticard the same width and length as the wagon. pic 4 & 5 After cutting the plasticard to size the black cross braces were measured and appropriate sections cut out so the new deck would sit flush around them. I also worked out where i wanted to position the mixer drum and a recess was cut out of the plasticard to accomodate this. The base of the mixer drum would need cutting in half to fit across the bolster cross brace. A 5mm section was cut out of the drum base. The cut out section of the plasticard was also kept as this would be attached to the underside of the mixer drum base to bring this level with the new plasticard decking. pic 6 This shows the assembly of the plasticard and drum in final position before gluing. pic 7 Once the mixer drum and decking were done attention turned to the water bowser. This is just a plain tank held on two legs. This was manufactured from a sweetener tube with some plasticard ends and legs. It was made the same width as the wagon. I had to check the height by measuring it against another vehicle as obviously it cant be out of gauge. Once i was happy with the height of the legs and tank they were glued together. On either end of the tank is a a removable plate which i think is an inspection cover. For these i used a sequin on each end. Anyway thats all for now. I'll be back with more pics later. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
firefly9 Posted January 3, 2012 Author Share Posted January 3, 2012 Now then peeps. More pics of the wagon build. pic 8 shows the frame of the cement silo holder being built. This was constructed using some plasticard I section. A base was constructed to which i attached 2 A frames which form a saddle to hold the silo lifting arms which are lifted by a hadraulic ram. pic 9 Shows the cement silo itself. After a lot of head scratching about what i could use for this part it came to me that one of the pens in my my modelling tray could provide the answer. I had thought of folding some plasticard, using part of a tube and a multitude of other ideas but none of them worked or looked right. The pen is the tapered nib end and a small section of the pen tube with a piece of round plasticard for the top of the silo. pic 10 shows the silo lifting arms. These have a bit of artistic license as i had to draw and cut these out just by using the shape of them from the pictures. I worked out what room i had on the wagon and tried making the arms the correct length and shape so they could be connected to the front of the frame the silo is attached to. The 2 of the arms were glued together except for the ends which were glued to the silo. the assembly was then attached to the wagon with the addition of a hydraulic ram under the lifting arm. The whole lot having to be kept within the loading gauge. pic 11 The last picture shows the constructed but unpainted wagon. The wagon still has one or 2 details to be added such as handrails, steps, cabling and pipes but i'm pleased with the way the wagon has turned out. The wagon will be masked and primed, painted yellow and transfers added. I'm looking forward to being able to add this to a mixed engineers train with some other unusal wagons. please feel free to ask any questions about the wagons construction and i'll keep ypu posted about more progress. rich Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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