Rob's 7mm Rolling Stock Workbench

[Rob Pulham]

Some fantastic and inspiring modelling on your thread Rob. Andy (Wagonbasher) pointed me in your direction, and I'm glad he did.

 

I'm a relative newcomer to 7mm but am modelling the late BR steam period and the Southern lines around Bodmin. Different period and geography to yourself but you've given me a lot to think about. I'm particularly impressed with the results you've been getting from the Silhouette cutter...

Thanks Chris,

 

The silhouette has been one of the best Birthday presents ever.  For a few years I have been half heartedly trying to get my head around CAD drawing but without any real impetus to make me stick at it. Being able to cut out what I drew within a few hours of drawing gave me the kick that I needed to get my head around it.- That and Inkscape is much easier to pick up than the other CAD packages that I have tried.

[Rob Pulham]

All the transfers are now on the NBR vans so the next job is varnish and weathering - I didn't take photos not wishing to bore anyone....

[Rob Pulham]

My obsession with interest in all things ex NBR continues.

 

Last year I bought a selection of NBR underframe sprues from Parkside for scratch building wagons (this was before the Silhouette Cutter was even on the horizon. At the same time I also got a couple of ends from the 8 ton Jubilee van kit with a view to making one of the later Diagram 40B vans. Unfortunately when I compared the drawings the later vans whilst having the same style of ends were not only taller but wider too. 

 

So the ends went in the spares box and were forgotten about. That is, until last weekend when I happened to be reading the chapter in Vol 3 of LNER wagons and realised that the first few vans that the NBR built to D39B were not only low roofed but the same width as the earlier Jubilee vans - Bingo! 

 

The next problem was that although I have a few drawings they are all of the taller vans. Tatlow to the rescue. Although there isn't a drawing, there is a pretty good square on side view photo, so I scanned and imported it into Inkscape. I resized it using the wheel base as the known dimension and essentially drew over the top of the photo.

 

I have in mind to do some outside framed vans starting with and NER G1 van and decided that the external framed door on this one would act as a proving ground for doing them in layers. Initially I drew the doors as 6 layers of 20thou - 2 backing, 1 plank detail and 3 for the framing. Once I had snapped them out and compared them to my existing Parkside 8 ton Jubilee vans I came to the conclusion that 6 layers was too thick. I left out one of the backing layers and one of the framing layers and then proceeded to assemble the doors.

 

On the other van ‘kits’ that I have done I have done sides and ends in 3 layers and have sized the inner 2 side layers shorter to allow the ends to fit inside the outer layer of the sides. I had to do it a little differently on this one because the Parkside ends are chamfered to a 45 degree angle. To get around it I made the 1st inner layer 0.5mm shorter than the outer side and the next one another 0.5mm shorter than that.  It was a great idea but fell down in practice because it was difficult to spread Butanone on the layer and then accurately place the next layer central with a 0.5mm gap at either end so the next ones that I do will have a removable registration tab on them.

 

I managed to get them together in the end and then using a broad diamond file (from the ladies manicure counter) I filed them to an angle that fitted against the ends. I took care to mark each side and end where they fitted together to make sure that they went back as I had filed them to fit.

 

In the end I was really pleased with how nicely they fit against the ends bearing in mind that I had drawn the parts from a scaled photo.

 

I had drawn the curved ended bottom runner and the plates that look a bit like birds feet in 20 thou to give them a bit more strength (I also cut some from 10 thou just in case). That left the runners themselves which are very much like pulleys. I hit upon the idea of putting a length of 2mm styrene rod in a pin vice and then using the blunt point of a round file to score/pick at it to make a groove around it that would sit on the runner. I then used a scalpel to cut of the runner by rotating the pin vice and I was quite impressed at how cleanly the “pulley” was cut off.  Since then I have thought of a refinement – grind a curved cutting edge on a piece of 0.8mm piano wire instead of the rather crude file point.

 

Next I assembled runners and the door stops etc. on one side and glued it to the ends/floor. At this point I thought I was onto a winner when the spares box also revealed a pair of spare Parkside sole bars but sadly they were too long and although I could have cut them down the wheel base was wrong too.

 

Enough of the talk on to the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

All the transfers are now on the NBR vans so the next job is varnish and weathering - I didn't take photos not wishing to bore anyone....

 

After no pictures for the last posting. prepare for a photo fest! a bit of Sunshine helped too after snow showers for most of yesterday.

 

In Tatlow there is a super photo of one of the matchboard Jubilee vans at the end of it's life and I could't resist the urge to recreate it in model form.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just need to remember where I put the buffer heads after blackening them now.

[Rob Pulham]

Although I didn't get to doing any painting this weekend,  last weekend along side the condemned van I also got the pipe wagon nearer to completion.

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

In between assembling the vacuum shed I also managed to get the other side and ends of the G1 van assembled. I was most perturbed to see how short the ends are in relation to the sides and for a moment I was convinced that I hadn't transferred the sizes properly when importing into Silhouette Studio to cut them. A look at the photos in Volume 2 of LNER wagons thankfully confirmed that I had cut them correct and in reality the discrepancy is caused by the corner posts being let into the buffer planks. A nice little oddity.

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Right back at the beginning of this thread I built a Slaters 14 ton tank wagon on which I replaced the plastic 3 part tank with one made of rolled brass. I eventually got some of the correct transfers for it and painted it like this in readiness for adding the transfers

 

. 

 

It turned out that the transfers that I bought were of the rub down type and I couldn't for the life of me work out how I was going to get them on over the straps and cables, so it languished on the shelf queens pile for the intervening years. 

 

Move forward to Telford last year and Graham (Western Star) was kind enough to loan me some of his collection of private owner wagon books and whilst browsing through them I found a photo of a Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Tar Distillation 14 ton tank wagon. I thought all my birthdays had come at once because after an appeal on the Guild site for spare Y&L transfers I had a spare set that I had planned to use on another rectangular tank at some point but thought that this would be a much better use.

 

Fast forward again to a few weeks ago when I was spraying the jubilee vans, I repainted the Slaters' tank wagon into red oxide at the same time.

 

Then my dreams were shattered. When I referenced the photo and the transfers to the wagon itself, I quickly realised that not only were transfers physically too big for the available space on the tank, the wording was subtly different too.  So back to the drawing board and plan B (or c,d e, etc.....).

 

The next plan was to try to cut the letters out using the Silhouette cutter and apply them a letter at a time.

 

 

 

 

The first side took 3 sessions to get them all on and the second side took an hour to do the lot - it just flowed.

 

Now all I need to do is remember where I put the buffer heads and blacken them.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Rob Pulham

[Rob Pulham]

Alongside the Slaters tank wagon I also made progress on weathering the Jubilee vans.

 

First up the other matchboard version,  This one is lightly weathered to represent a recently painted example.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Next up is the first of the earlier vans with wide-boards and beaded joints. This one also happens to be the one with a saggy roof - perhaps a sign of it's age by this point.

 

 

 

 

 

I have really enjoyed the making and painting of these vans - probably why I have put so much time into them.

[michaelp]

You have produced some excellent work there Rob, working slowly certainly pays dividends as can be seen by your work.

 

With me it's always s**t or bust which is why I make so many mistakes!

 

Michael

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Michael,

 

It has been a bit of a learning curve too - learning how best to make use of the Cameo cutter. That and there is still a lot of scratch building once you have the basics cut out.

[Rob Pulham]

Last but not least, I did one of them in NBR livery. 

 

I learned when reading Tatlow's LNER wagon collection recently, that the NBR was the second largest of the constituents of the LNER (after the NER). This came as a bit of a surprise to me because I hadn't realised just how big the NBR was. That's probably one of the reasons that so many of the ex NBR wagons made it into the 1930's still in faded NBR livery - there were so many of them.

 

Apart from the shabby paintwork, this one is in quite good condition for it's age.

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

 This weekend saw lot's of little movements on various projects.  One of them being more progress on the GNSR Vacuum cleaner wagon.

 

 

 

The axleboxes are extensively modified Slaters Gloucester Carriage and Wagon spares paired with Parkside BR W Irons that I filled the hole and then cut out to form the 'W'. - They came as optional spares with my  plate wagon kit. The Springs I bought from Slaters by mistake - I thought that I was getting W Irons with springs attached and axle boxes but when they came they were just springs and axleboxes....

[Rob Pulham]

As I said earlier last weekend was made up of lots of small steps.

 

I also managed to get the support brackets added to the solebars of the NER CCT (I got it on it's wheels a few weeks ago but forgot to take any photos). I have also done a bit more at the NBR bogie CCT but not enough to warrant taking any photos of yet.

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

For the last couple of weeks modelling has taken a back seat to gardening, and no that doesn't mean anything further has been done on the Rhubarb Triangle. It's been gardening up North.

 

I did manage a bit of time at the bench though and those of you who look in the small adds may remember me advertising a couple of 3 Aitch wagon kits that I had bought from the Guild E&T lists?

 

There wasn't any interest in them as they were so I decided to build the second one and add some detail and decay to them to portray them as condemned wagons ready for breaking up.

 

The first one was the 5 plank version that I had already assembled. I added a false floor (made from some styrene planked sheet that came with my Dragon models Caledonian single Bolster kit - I must ask Chris Basten for the source of it because it's actually quite good stuff). Over that I added inner sides that were scribed and washer plates etc. added to. Finally after painting I found various bits and bobs of scrap junk to add a bit of interest inside.

 

Unfortunately we have had storms here today which have resulted in odd lighting that has enhanced the reds in the rust which are much more subtle in reality. - Apologies too for the photo overload, I was struggling with the light and liked them all.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Because I hadn't assembled the second wagon I had a bit more scope with what I could do with it and Chris suggested an opening door. Out with the Olfa cutter to add the planking detail inside and to remove one of the doors. A bit more hacking and assembly gave me this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

This little beauty has moved on a bit. It now has buffers borrowed from another kit and brakes from the spares box.

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Meanwhile in between glue drying on the second full brake I made further progress on a couple of the wagons.

 

The NBR Diagram 39B now sports a roof it just needs, rain strips,  wheels blackened, couplings and the painting finishing.

 

 

The NER G2 has had more detailing added to the sides, a start on detailing the solebars (they aren't fixed yet it's just resting on them for the photo and it's roof cut and curved - I still need to work on the canvas roof door covering.

Still a fair way to go but it's nearer than it was.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Hooray,  another one bites the dust,  well apart from weathering that is.

 

The original plan with this was to finish it in NBR livery because the photo that I scaled for the sides is of a van still in NBR livery in 1930 but I had completely forgotten that I had stuck some of my home brewed LNER plates to the solebars so LNER Livery it is - same running number though.

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

As a bit of a change from wagons and the Kirk brakes that I have been working on recently I picked up and made some progress on the NBR bogie CCT last weekend. This is now well on it's way to being ready for the paint shop.

 

 

 

 

I made a jig from a stip of styrene to mark/drill the bolt heads on the sole bars but as is usually the case when taking these photos I discovered that I had missed 8 on one side so they need to be added.

 

 

 

[sleeper]

Rob, excellent work again, it amazes me how you seem to be able to include all the little plates and brackets, hinges etc that go to make such detailed models, well done

[Rob Pulham]

Another little item that I tinkered with last weekend was a couple of Brake van side lamps. I was glancing through one of the LNER wagon volumes thinking that I hadn't built many brake vans and searching for a suitable candidate for scratch building and realised that almost all subjects that I might wish to model need side lamps.

 

I have a few Connoisseur and D&S brake van kits in the stash but I seem to have been a bit sort of time for metal modelling of late so you have to do what you can.

 

 

They were made from assorted bit's of rod and tube. - The marks are where the limonene that I used to glue them together has left a thin surface layer.

[Rob Pulham]

As with the Kirk parcels van the ex NBR CCT has made a bit of progress in the paintshop. Again still some way to go both with the painting and detailing but like BR it's getting there.

 

 

 

[sleeper]

you have many projects on the go Rob so forgive me for getting confused, being easily achieved now in my advanced years. This I believe is your self designed model, cut with the silhouette machine. I love the detail you always seem to get into your models, this one is no exception, looking at the second photo down. Well done mate, hope the cold gets better soon.

 

Roly

[Rob Pulham]

you have many projects on the go Rob so forgive me for getting confused, being easily achieved now in my advanced years. This I believe is your self designed model, cut with the silhouette machine. I love the detail you always seem to get into your models, this one is no exception, looking at the second photo down. Well done mate, hope the cold gets better soon.

 

Roly

 

Hi Roly,

 

Yes, that's one of the home brewed ones,  many thanks for your kind words. Fingers crossed it should look even better when I get the steps and other details added. Sadly there were only ever two of these built so I can't build a fleet of them - I do plan to build two though (the second one has the sides laminated an just awaits further detailing and assembly. This one will go in the small adds to finance other projects.