Wantage Road 1880 4mm Broad Gauge

[Charlie586]

We're back. Some might say this thread looks better without any photos, but I couldn't possibly comment. 

I've done little bits here and there over the past few weeks. I'll do a proper post over the weekend. 

[Charlie586]

Don't know how or when the photos will come back so here's rough progress of first board before I put it away

 

and board 2

 

 

 

It turns out there's not much worth photoing from the downtime. I was doing a little bit here and to track, Rover chassis, hawthorn body and signal box. Probably best to do a post on each when more done.

However, on the track I've been sorting out the wibbly wobbly bit that's just above the square (you may have to zoom in to see it). I should have laid the frogs first, but thought I'd found a quicker way. Turned out I was wrong. The track is nearly all down now,

 

 

I've started filing the bits of rail for the second switch, still a long way to go. The switch plates are ready 3d printed and painted so hopefully be quicker to put together than the first.

 

[Charlie586]

So, possibly like others, during the RMweb downtime I sort of lost the habit of checking the forum and also doing modelling at the times I used to and rediscovered other things. And am still doing other things I rediscovered. So there's no great progress to really show off yet.

 

I deleted a load of photos off my camera a month or two back, so not sure if I'll be able to recreate all the posts from the last year. Having the time to go through them is another problem, but I'll sort something out eventually.

 

What I did finish recently is this:

 

 

Broad gauge brake van. These were convertible, narrow body on broad chassis, built in 1890 which is too late really for me, but I like them. Didn't take that long to do, and I can reuse parts to make other vans / wagons. I don't think a photo of them in the wild exists, I used the datasheet drawing. I need to get the printer working again now as I'm building up a bit of a backlog with the Metro and other assorted bits and bobs to print.

[Northroader]

I do like those brake vans, i suppose its the narrow body and wide underframe you get with convertibles, and, of course not used otherwise for freight stock. I saw a model of one on the Lelant layout, and decided I must do one, so copied the details, not having the data sheet. It was easy enough to do, as I had a second hand model made up from a 7mm Peco kit. Luckily the person who made it used a plastic cement rather than a solvent, so push the sharp point of a Stanley knife in the joins and give it a twonk, and it fell to pieces. Then it was separate the solebars from the body, and insert a wide plastikard deck between the two, and reassemble with broadgauge axles and new headstocks. It has a slightly broken back appearance around the verandah entrance due to this treatment, but I’m fond of it.

one small detail I’m not sure of, I moved the handrails from the bodyside to the top of the deck as being easier to reach for anyone riding the footboards, but maybe this didn’t happen?

Edited April 11, 2022 by Northroader

[MrWolf]

That's an interesting project and a neat method of creating an obscure vehicle. 

Early wagons and particularly broad gauge has always interested me,. but I don't have the patience for track building. I scratch that itch by having outside framed brake vans etc running about.

[Northroader]

Well, once you’ve got to your new home, emptied the removal van, set up Aston, and had a scratch, then.....  Broad gauge track is quite easy to do as a basic job like what the van’s standing on, keep it simple and all that. G’wan, g’wan.

[MrWolf]

Googles: "How far north of Bristol did the Great Western broad gauge extend?"...

[lezz01]

Gloucester and Cheltenham....it wasn't GW at Gloucester it was Bristol and Gloucester who were taken over by the Midland.

Regards Lez. 

[lezz01]

Correction Hereford is farther north than Gloucester. It was mixed gauge from Gloucester to Cheltenham. The B&G and GW both ran into Gloucester and there was a mixed gauge line to Cheltenham. The Br&G ran north from Gloucester to Birmingham, which was very badly built standard gauge baulk road. The Directors of the B&G and the Br&G were going to London for a meeting with the Directors of the GWR who were offering to absorb both lines ON THEIR TERMS. But John Ellis the No2 at the Midland "just happened" to get into the same carriage and had words with them during the trip to London and even though there is no record of what was said both lines ended up in Midland hands which kept the hated broad gauge away from Birmingham. The Midland then contrived to make the transfer of goods at the break of gauge at Gloucester such a farce when the Board of Trade came to inspect that the said Board of Trade said "this is no good at all" and made the GWR change to standard gauge. Bad news for the GWR and great news for everyone else especially the Midland.

Regards Lez.     

[Annie]

4 hours ago, lezz01 said:

Bad news for the GWR and great news for everyone else especially the Midland.

Why isn't there a scowl option amongst the reaction buttons.  ☹️

[Northroader]

The North end of Oxley viaduct, just above Wolverhampton racecourse. This was so b.g. goods trains coming from the low level direction could do a back shunt into Victoria Basin goods depot, just short of the high level, as it belonged to the former Shrewsbury and Birmingham, subsequently GWR. Oakengates tunnel in Shropshire was built to b.g. dimensions, but it never happened.

[Northroader]

Whilst I’m banging on about b.g. affairs, there’s quite a useful thread running on the WT web about the old terminus at High Wycombe, still some of it preserved in the goods yard, which should be of interest.

https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/threads/high-wycombe-broad-gauge-station-1854-64.10128/#post-237976

(I’m afraid it takes time to load, if you’re going from RMweb to WT web, you have to be strip searched, flow tested, and fill in a where domiciled form)

Edited April 12, 2022 by Northroader

[Charlie586]

On 11/04/2022 at 20:29, Northroader said:

I do like those brake vans, i suppose its the narrow body and wide underframe you get with convertibles, and, of course not used otherwise for freight stock. I saw a model of one on the Lelant layout, and decided I must do one, so copied the details, not having the data sheet. It was easy enough to do, as I had a second hand model made up from a 7mm Peco kit. Luckily the person who made it used a plastic cement rather than a solvent, so push the sharp point of a Stanley knife in the joins and give it a twonk, and it fell to pieces. Then it was separate the solebars from the body, and insert a wide plastikard deck between the two, and reassemble with broadgauge axles and new headstocks. It has a slightly broken back appearance around the verandah entrance due to this treatment, but I’m fond of it.

one small detail I’m not sure of, I moved the handrails from the bodyside to the top of the deck as being easier to reach for anyone riding the footboards, but maybe this didn’t happen?

Sorry I was awol for a few days (or absent without Internet anyway)

That's a very nice model. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a thing for them. 

The Dutch scale seven group have attempted one too, I think from the same donor model, small view in 3rd photo 

https://dutchscalesevengroup.blogspot.com/2013/01/dutch-scale-seven-group-report-nr-14.html?m=0

As there's no photos or even drawings, I don't think we'll ever know the handrail position, so it could be right. The datasheet worked backwards from other records, and I'm pretty certain has handrails in usual position, but I've not got the sheet to hand at moment. 

 

[Charlie586]

On 11/04/2022 at 22:23, MrWolf said:

Googles: "How far north of Bristol did the Great Western broad gauge extend?"...

The Holyhead breakwater was broad gauge so possibly the furthest North, but not Great Western though.

[Charlie586]

Had the printer out over the holiday  weekend 

First print for months. The base peeled away during printing and there's a few holes in the side, which isn't ideal. I think it's salvageable, a bit of filing to get the bottom level then some filler in the holes. We'll see.

It might still be too cold to use the printer, I'm pretty sure whenever it peeled before it was too cold. We've turned the heating off in the spare room due to the price rises and it probably needs a few more weeks of warming up.

Next things to print are some springs, w irons axleboxes etc and the metro, I did a few slight variants to that but don't think I mentioned it before. I'll do the smaller bits first until I get it printing correctly. 

 

[Charlie586]

Bit of real life stuff going on that's involving a lot of travelling, so not had much soldering time. However I have printed a cabless metro

 

Didn't peel, but as you can see there's vertical marks / holes again. I can use filler and file back but got to be careful because of rivets etc.

 

I'm trying to investigate why it's making the holes. I gave the tray and glass sheet over the light a good clean and put the light on as have a horrible feeling it's the light (it prints upside down if you didn't know - the light sets / cures the resin that's in the vat a layer at a time - any blemish between the light and vat stops it from curing so would look like a vertical hole)

With the vat both on and off there's a couple of little dark areas, and a few not really visible in photo, but not enough to cause that many holes. There's nothing on the screen, so I think part of the light matrix is failing. As I watched it for a while, the light flickered occasionally so, yeah, it's going to fail soon.

I printed a wheel carrier for the brake van (I'll put inside bearings in etc). This is fine, the odd blemish is fine if it's hidden, but I'll leave printing anything else until I've had the thing apart.

New screens are about 30 quid by the look of it, but it's old now so something else will no doubt go wrong soon. A new model, which is quicker and has much larger build plate, is 2 or 300 upwards. I'll have a think about future ones, but I've got enough prints of carriages, loco bodies etc to keep me busy for years.

[lezz01]

Loving the metro Charlie.

Regards Lez.

[Charlie586]

Cheers Lez.

I'm going to dig out my airfix 14xx chassis later today to see if it fits backwards or not.

[ChrisN]

1 hour ago, Charlie586 said:

Cheers Lez.

I'm going to dig out my airfix 14xx chassis later today to see if it fits backwards or not.

 

Charlie,

I think it does, but it may need hacking about.  I have a resin Metro which came from a now defunct supplier and is due to go on one of my 14xx chassis with the aid of a hacksaw.

[Charlie586]

4 hours ago, ChrisN said:

 

Charlie,

I think it does, but it may need hacking about.  I have a resin Metro which came from a now defunct supplier and is due to go on one of my 14xx chassis with the aid of a hacksaw.

Thanks Chris. I've taken some photos 

Airfix on the left and a white metal kit and chassis on the right (no idea who made this?)

The unknown chassis isn't a bad fit apart from the front. The cabless floor might need hacking a bit though.

 

The airfix one

 

The milliput is on standby for the bodyshell 

 

There is a fair bit to saw off, but it's definitely the start of motorising it. It doesn't run very well, but I think the springs in the plunger pick ups might be clogged up.

 

For making it p4 to work on the broad gauge rails I'm probably better using the other chassis as a start point, need p4 wheels though. But for the grandad oo layout, that I've not really done much at all on yet, this will be the one. If I can get the same body to fit both chassis that would be perfect. 

[chuffinghell]

On 18/04/2022 at 18:36, Charlie586 said:

Had the printer out over the holiday  weekend 

First print for months. The base peeled away during printing and there's a few holes in the side, which isn't ideal. I think it's salvageable, a bit of filing to get the bottom level then some filler in the holes. We'll see.

It might still be too cold to use the printer, I'm pretty sure whenever it peeled before it was too cold. We've turned the heating off in the spare room due to the price rises and it probably needs a few more weeks of warming up.

Next things to print are some springs, w irons axleboxes etc and the metro, I did a few slight variants to that but don't think I mentioned it before. I'll do the smaller bits first until I get it printing correctly. 

 

I found reducing the lifting speed helps, the larger the item being printed the higher the peal forces.

 

Additional

My apologies if you already know this. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m interfering

Edited May 2, 2022 by chuffinghell

[Charlie586]

2 hours ago, chuffinghell said:

I found reducing the lifting speed helps, the larger the item being printed the higher the peal forces.

 

Additional

My apologies if you already know this. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m interfering

Thanks Chuffing, you're not interfering,  totally the opposite.

 

 The lifting speed is probably the only thing I haven't adjusted, it makes complete sense to try it slower. Mine will still be set to the default. Assuming it survives me fiddling with it to see if the vertical holes can be fixed I'll try slowing it down. 

[chuffinghell]

I’ve got my Anycubic Mono set at 50mm/min lift speed, I can’t remember what the default is though

 

Ive also changed the lift height from 5mm to 6mm to make sure the layer releases from the FEP

 

You might find these interesting

 

https://youtu.be/BluqWRkBRHw

 

https://youtu.be/aklWU2edioU

 

Chris

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by chuffinghell

[Welchester]

8 hours ago, ChrisN said:

 

Charlie,

I think it does, but it may need hacking about.  I have a resin Metro which came from a now defunct supplier and is due to go on one of my 14xx chassis with the aid of a hacksaw.

 

Supposedly still available from Phoenix Precision Paints:

 

https://www.phoenix-paints.co.uk/products/deansidings/deansidings-gwrkits/ds453a

[lezz01]

Gibson does main frames for two 517 and a 1400 Charlie. Might be a better way to go mate.

Regards Lez.