S7 scratch building

[Regularity]

6 hours ago, airnimal said:

Not having a great deal of interest in track doesn't help but I don't want to produce something that is so obviously wrong.

I do have an interest in track, but this was not as obviously “wrong” as you seem to think. 
The hexagonal bolt head would have more impact than the shape of the base.

[wagonman]

I should think the relatively high cost of 3D printed chairs is not really a problem unless Mike's concept of a "small shunting plank" is. like the rest of his model making, of a higher order than ours. Edge Hill perhaps?

 

Choice of material might be important though...

[airnimal]

 While I decide what to do about trackwork I am going to build a few more wagons. 

First up is a LNWR Dia 1 ex dumb buffer wagon that has been converted to parallel sprung buffers.

i struggled to set the wheels so that there wasn't any side play. After playing about for about an hour, i did what I should have done first thing and checked the axles were both the same length. Sure enough I have a rogue axle that is .5mm shorter that all the rest. It may not bit a large amount but when you try to get zero tolerance side play it was enough to make a difference. 

I want to build a couple more dumb buffer LNWR wagons along the same lines as this one. They may be a bit mundane for most people but I find them attractive. 

 

I went to the Keighley open day yesterday and they was a very nice little NER small layout there with some early rolling stock on it. The locos were battery operated and were very smooth runners and the layout had some beautiful early period buildings on it. Overall I was very impressed and I should have taken some photos of it but I was distracted by meeting lots of people I wanted to meet and forgot the name of the layout.

Anybody who is a gauge O modeller and lives in the North, the Keighley open day is a good day out with lots of interesting things to see and the food is amazing. All home made by the local scouting group.

[Worsdell forever]

3 hours ago, airnimal said:

 I went to the Keighley open day yesterday and they was a very nice little NER small layout there with some early rolling stock on it. The locos were battery operated and were very smooth runners and the layout had some beautiful early period buildings on it. Overall I was very impressed and I should have taken some photos of it but I was distracted by meeting lots of people I wanted to meet and forgot the name of the layout.

Anybody who is a gauge O modeller and lives in the North, the Keighley open day is a good day out with lots of interesting things to see and the food is amazing. All home made by the local scouting group.

 

It will have been 'Hope Street', a very nice layout, well, it is North Eastern... I spent quite a while watching it at Shipley last month, there's a couple of photos at the bottom of this post - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/146870-shipley-model-railway-society-2019-exhibition/&do=findComment&comment=3672881

 

[sir douglas]

ive been once but its quite a treck for somebody that doesnt have their own transport. train to keighley via leeds then either walk up or get the worth valley up to ingrow and walk down

[airnimal]

Quote

 

I was not convinced I had the ends of this wagon correct, so I went back to the photos on the Warwickshire Railway web site and had another look. This is of the accident at Leek Wooton where a freight train fell through a unstable bridge. I have based this model on one of the wagons in this set of photographs. 

I had originally just used the side views in the recently published book on thr diary of Thomas Baron.

But when I went back to the web site there was a better shot showing the ends with a clearer view.. This shows the corner plates curved around the ends rather than bent at a right angle. 

So I decided to take all the details off both ends and started again.

I am not sure if I have got all this 100% correct nor do I believe any body will know any different. 

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by airnimal

[Western Star]

Oh so very noticeable.  I shall be pleased to see this particular model in the future.

 

Best wishes, Graham

[airnimal]

I have added the leather buffer heads from 60 thou plastikard stuck on with superglue and when set, turned in a mini drill. I have also started to apply the rivets to the corner plates from .4 mm MasterClub rivets. These are tiny and trying to them in line is a nightmare. Even though I have drawn lines to follow with a pencil I have still managed to get one out of line. And drilling with a 12 thou drill without breaking any is a heart in the mouth job.

There is still lots to do but I am already thinking about some more wagons. I would like to do some more wagons from the 1860's or 1870's. I know there are kits from Parliamentary Trains but I tend to make a hash out of kit building. It must be me because other people make excellent models from them.

I need to drill the  holes for the fixing bolts in the buffer heads. I have done it before but I can't remember how I did to get the holes in the right place. The joys of old age.

[Coal Tank]

Hi ya Mike 

  Where did you get the buffers 

John 

[airnimal]

John, 

They are PECO  GWR wagon buffers from there 7mm range. I file the bolt heads off the base plate and replace them with Masterclub .9mm hexagonal bolts.

I then stick a piece of 60 thou to the buffer face and let it dry before turning it in a mini drill to the required diameter.

I hope this helps.

Mike

[airnimal]

Looking at the photo above of the prototype wagon and looking at my own model, I can see I didn't get the holes in the right place. I may go back and do them again sometime. 

This time I have marked a circle with a pencil in the lathe on the face of the buffer heads. I then drew a cross over this circle and drilled the 4 holes necessary.

 

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by airnimal

[airnimal]

On the photos I am working from there appears to have 6 pegs spaced under the sides I am assuming were for anchor points for ropes to tie down loads. I marked them equally and drilled the 6 holes to accept .45mm nickel wire. I left the wire slightly long to trim them back later. I drilled a piece of 40 thou plastikard and slipped it over the holes one at a time and filed them to size. This way they are all the same length.

The photos don't appear to show them as hooks just length of metal rods.

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by airnimal

[MarcD]

As a side issue what are you doing for LNWR transfers? I would used HMRS but you can't get hold of them for the moment.

 

Marc

[airnimal]

Marc, I was lucky enough to be given a lot of HMRS meth fix transfers many years ago when a friend gave up building models. Being meth fix they still work after all this time and I have enough for my needs.

What I am running out of is casting for LNWR wagons but I still have lots of castings for other companies.

[airnimal]

More or less finished with just the castings to go on and painting to complete. I do like early wagons, so simple yet so full of character. 

[airnimal]

I was convinced I had finished this wagon but something didn't look right but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I had to go back to the photographs and look again. What I had done was bend the brake handle to clear the axleboxes which would have been correct for 99% of wagons, but this one was different because it had a straight handle without any bends. Because I had made so many wagons I had allowed myself to assume they were all the same and acted accordingly, so a new handle has been made and fitted. I have checked that the handle will clear the axleboxes which it does.

Edited October 24, 2019 by airnimal

[Compound2632]

Never assume, always look. I've fallen into that trap often enough!

[Guy Rixon]

What's different about this one that it doesn't need the bent lever for clearance? Does it have different axleboxes?

[airnimal]

Guy, the axleboxes are the same but the brake lever is spaced off solebar which I hadn't noticed when I first built it. I also used the wrong section of brass when I made the spindle that goes to the brake shoe. This has now been corrected with a smaller piece of brass. 

 

One problem i find scratch building is that I am not very organised. I have boxes of parts scattered everywhere along with materials. So sometimes I pick up a bit of brass to make a part that looks right with out checking it with the callipers and get it wrong. I try to have discipline as well as a tidy workbench but it never lasts for long.

[airnimal]

After finishing the last wagon I have not done a lot of modelling.  I finished a couple of old builds that had been hanging around for some time but family matters have been taken priority over modelling.

I have decided to wait until spring before doing anything about building or buying baseboards to start the layout, So having boxes of wagon bits I will build some more stock. 

This one is a 4 plank  private owner wagon base on a photo of Oldham Glegg Street  taken in 1879.

I have based the size on a drawing of a similar wagon in Len Tavender book on railway equipment drawings. 

The basic parts have even cut out and the frame made. The sides have had the door scribed on but the ends have yet to be shaped with the curved corners.

[airnimal]

The ends were cut to size and glued on the frame and left to set. Them the first side was glued on and trimmed to the correct length before the second side was glued on and clamped in place with a spacing piece in between the sides and left to go hard. This second side will then be trimmed back to size.

[airnimal]

I am going to use Slaters Midland W -irons on this wagon for no better reason than I have half a dozen in stock. Because the photo is of a wagon is so distant I am not sure how close they are to the prototype but I am going to use them anyway.

When I have used them in the past I have cut off the fixing tags and let them into slots in the solebars.

This time I wanted to be able to screw them into the floor.  Slaters supply them with self tapping screws which may be fine with kit built wagons with solid plastic floors but would not work with my method of floors made from 60 thou plastkard.

I wanted to use my own method of using 12 BA nuts melted in a second piece of 60 thou plastikard and then the W-irons screwed in to that.

So I have modified the W-irons by soldering a length of 3mm X 3mm T section obrass on the back of each one.

I then drilled through fixing tags before removing the same tags. 

I made a couple base plates out of 60 thou plastikard and melted the 12 BA nuts in pre drilled holes with the tip of the soldering iron and cleaned everything up before glueing both units to the floor.

Edited November 10, 2019 by airnimal

[Western Star]

The penultimate photo seems out of place in your most recent post....  black floor whereas the Wigan model has a white floor...  slot in solebar for the axleguard rather than the 12BA nuts in a 60th layer.

 

So what is the next delight for us?

 

regards, Graham

[Tricky]

Just a thought you might want to blacken the axleguides and boxes. Paint can easily gum them up- I speak from experience...!

Edited November 6, 2019 by Tricky

[ian@stenochs]

19 hours ago, airnimal said:

I am going to use Slaters Midland W -irons on this wagon for no better reason than I have half a dozen in stock. Because the photo is of a wagon is so distant I am not sure how close they are to the prototype but I am going to use them anyway.

When I have used them in the past I have cut of the fixing tags and let them into slots in the solebars.

This time I wanted to be able to screw them into the floor.  Slaters supply them with self tapping screws which may be fine with kit built wagons with solid plastic floors but would not work with my method of floors made from 60 thou plastkard.

I wanted to use my own method of using 12 BA nuts melted in a second piece of 60 thou plastikard and then the W-irons screwed in to that.

So I have modified the W-irons by soldering a length of 3mm X 3mm T section obrass on the back of each one.

I then drilled through fixing tags before removing the same tags. 

I made a couple base plates out of 60 thou plastikard and melted the 12 BA nuts in pre drilled holes with the tip of the soldering iron and cleaned everything up before glueing both units to the floor.

 

Mike,

That is a very neat idea which I must try on my next wagon build. I have a few wagons with the self tappers showing through the floor, easily hidden by a load but not all wagons run loaded!

In the past I have soldered the w-irons onto a piece of brass which I have then glued under the body but I have usually left the under frame timbers off the model.

Ian.