Adam's EM Workbench: Farewell for now

[Adam]

More work on the Clayliner tank, this time, the Bachmann-based bit of the project. The spring hangers started above have now been completed and installed as has the internal vee; you can see the latter more clearly than I thought might be possible but eventually it will be hidden by the discharge pipe and all the various linkages for the brakes. There's a sense now of how the completed chassis will look but there's lots still to do.

 

 

 

Next up, brake levers. Oh, and a second Coil J...

 

Adam

Edited August 9, 2013 by Adam

[mophead]

Another stunning wagon coming along nicely can I ask what couplings you use? they look amazing

 

Mophead

[Fat Controller]

Another stunning wagon coming along nicely can I ask what couplings you use? they look amazing

 

Mophead

To save Adam re-typing, this is what he said earlier:-

 

"Thanks Martin - the screw couplings are Masokits (not nearly as fiddly as you might expect and very durable*), the instanters are AMBIS, as are the hooks while the links are homemade from tinned copper wire. They are slightly overscale to give a bit of wriggle room while shunting.

 

Adam

 

* I deviate from the instructions by blackening the centre links prior to soldering the rest of the couplings together; I then blacken the whole assembly."

[Adam]

Thanks Brian. Here's the second Coil J; cradle to make and painting to do. I've had to resist the temptation to replace the axleboxes - these plate front types were by far and away the most common. The 10 wheelbase tipplers seem to have had greater variation and that's not a straightforward bash from the Parkside kit (new brakegear and levers would be required - AMBIS do a suitable underframe kit; see the Coil H earlier in the thread).

 

 

Adam

[Adam]

Moving on from the post above we're now more or less back where Bachmann started - albeit hopefully to a higher standard! The brake levers and linkages (a satisfyingly complex thing to look at but relatively easy to do) are easily to most obvious bits and I've knocked up the basic discharge pipe and its associated brackets from bits of brass tube and scrap etch. Check the pictures of the real thing by way of a comparison [thanks, as ever, to Paul Bartlett]:

 

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/stsclaylinertta/h8114c50#h8114c50

 

At this stage it might be worth a quick run down of where the bits come from:

 

• AB Cylinder: No Nonsense kits (it was meant to go under a 4TC until I realised that the AB gear is on the bogies of these units).
• Brake levers: adapted etch from Dave Bradwell (I don't thnk the etch is on his list but he usually has some at Scaleforum. It also has some rather nice lever guides, not used here because I've run out).
• Lever guides: CraigWelsh/Scalefour Society - if truth be told these are not quite the right pattern (they should be longer) and I'm not altogether impressed with them. Being dead scale - I'm not convinced that they're slightly underscale even in their intended use - they're a bit of a fiddle and that's fine but Nickel Silver is too brittle for the number of half etched folds used here. The one visible in the picture below has been re-assembled from the bits that resulted. Yes you get a spare on the etch but...
• Not quite visible are the AB distributer and resevoir cylinder. These come off a new generation Hornby MGR hopper. I had acquired this with a view to making one hi-fi vehicle but what with the strange compromises and errors present in that model one of the earlier versions might be a better bet, The seperately applied details are nice though.

 

 

If anyone is interested I can show how I did the linkages from little bits of 40 thou plastic? In 7mm you might do it properly - i.e., to replicate the prototype - but that's rather fiddly in this scale as anyone who's had a go at early Masokits clasp brakes can tell you. Waving a hot iron around all your carefully assembled existing detail and nicely moulded plastic underframe is not always the best idea either. Still more to do...

 

Adam

Edited August 18, 2013 by Adam

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

 

Nice crisp work on the Clayliner chassis there!

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Adam]

Some work on an existing project (which began here), my backward conversion of Bachmann BDA to a Bobol D. Here it is before painting:

 

 

I'll come clean and admit that I've left off a few of the brake linkages since they really cannot be seen with the vac' pipe and vee hangers that are in the way.

The brake levers and guides are more of the CraigWelsh/Scalefour items and look about right in this application. The levers are simply bent about from items intended for 10' wheelbase Morton brakes. Again, these are somewhat over-designed: I see no reason to make the reversing clutch a serperate item. A half etched line representing the gap between the two bits (or etched through with the fold over layer at the back in one piece) would have been much, much easier to assemble for no loss in fidelity in appearance.

You would be right in thinking that the guides are somewhat fragile; that's unavoidable even at full size! My dodge is to have reinforced them with a bit of 0.5mm Nickel Silver wire soldered to the back of the guides and anchored firmly in the floor. I can't abide bent fittings and this relatively discreet bodge will hopefully make the wagon durable for layout use.

 

 

The full thing is a bit of a sod to photograph but here's my best effort:

 

 

Nearly there, a bit of detail painting and some transfers to go and then it's weathering time.

 

Adam

[ullypug]

Very nice indeed. Look forward to seeing the finished article!

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

Super bolster wagon.   All the detail you have added gives the wagon a very fine appearance - especially effective are those trade-mark chains of yours.

 

Apologies for my late response to your latest photos - my post didn't load yesterday.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[dmsmith]

Have only just found your thread, and am pleased that I have done as it has inspired me to think about a few new projects. I certainly like the idea of backdating the Bachmann BDA rather than using the Cambrian kit or scratch building the underframe in brass angle. Not all of the unfitted Bogie Bolster D's had the triangulare gussets on the Bachmann model, but it looks like the best route to a vacuum-fitted version. I am assuming that the Bachmann bolsters are just glued in place and may be removed quite easily with a scalpel ...?

 

David

[Adam]

Thanks Andrew, Colin (and to all those who hit the 'like' buttons). I've popped the bolster to one side for the moment until I get a few more things ready for lettering and weathering.

 

David - I think I just pulled the original bolsters (not great representations if truth be told) off with a pair of side cutters and tidied up afterwards. I established the spacing for the 'new' bolsters based on the weight diagrams found on the Barrowmore MRG website: http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/Prototype.html.There are holes in the deck which need filling anyway and this is a bit of a faff, but not nearly as much as gouging out the insets in the deck for the chain rings; if you're planning on loading the wagons with anything particularly bulky then you may be better off not doing that particular mod'.

 

The Bachmann BDA is certainly the cheaper option - if you feel you need to rebuild the underframe in brass angle - not that there's too much wrong with the mouldings supplied. The key thing with the Cambrian kit is to add suitable longitudinal reinforcement. This is the case with all Cambrian's 'long' wagons - dad has a couple of Salmon reinforced with bicycle spokes and I'll probably go the same way with the Borail I'm building at the minute. That's only at basic assembly stage so no pictures I'm afraid since there's nothing very interesting to look at. If you add the gussets into the equation then the Bachmann version is the way to go. You will still need to go to Cambrian for the bogies however. 

 

Adam

Edited August 28, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

After something of a hiatus, one evening last week I got back to grips with my Clayliner tank. Aside from actually doing other things this was partly because I'd reached the difficult bit - mounting the ta-nk on the chassis. On the prototype the tank was let into the frame but the thing that stopped the tank parting company with the wagon - and this was true of all monbloc designs, including the 4-wheel tanks known to modellers as the TTA - was length of angle iron welded or riveted to the tank and in turn mounted to a fabrication built onto the chassis forming a sort of pedestal. Now there was one moulded as part of the tank but was far too shallow and left the tank too close to the solebar so it had to go; there's not a lot of the original wagon left now...

 

Anyhow, first I built up the 'tray' inside the top to the chassis with plstic sheet and then with a bit of Miliput to match the height of the solebar and giving a nice flat surface to bond the pedestal onto. The angled sides and ends of the pedestal are challenging to do in plastic (they'd be a fiddle in metal too) so, not being sure whether plan A would work, I assembled it away from the wagon. Basically, I made up a sort of picture frame from layers of plastic sheet - the number of layers and the approximate thickness were gauged from the height of the solebar; this game of modelling without drawings is all about proportions - which was crudely shaped using files and the edge of a knife followed up with a bit of wet and dry paper. This seemed promising and, compared to photos, looked about right so I offered it up to the tank and then blu-taked the whole to the chassis. This looked fine so the pedestal was popped on with some medium thickness cyano'. I realise that some pictures of this might have been nice but I got rather carried away in the making so you'll have to make the best of it with your imaginations.

 

Amazingy, it still looked right so I returned to the tank and gave it another flash of primer to see how the filling was getting on before assembling it to the chassis and pedestal. It bacame very clear that the filler needed another go and a dose of Halford's filler primer (thanks to JWealleans for the tip on this stuff) to get everything nice and smooth (but only on the tank, I masked everything else off). Anyway, here it is. I think it looks about right so the detailing can proceed when I'm in the mood.

 

 

 

It may be a little while.

 

Adam

Edited September 23, 2013 by Adam

[ullypug]

Now that is starting to look very nice indeed. Don't fancy putting some P4 wheels in it and lending it out to certain china clay layouts do you?

[Adam]

Haha! Your's presumably Andrew? If I were to configure the safety loops under the brakeshoes so that the wheels could be removed that's possible I suppose and there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to loan you the vehicle to sit on a siding 'as is' of course. I could always do a "Goodall" (i.e., use EM wheels at P4 spacing) and push the wheels out a bit... 

 

When's Wheal Elizabeth next out? I could do with a target to get this one finished.

 

Adam

[ullypug]

Haha! Your's presumably Andrew? If I were to configure the safety loops under the brakeshoes so that the wheels could be removed that's possible I suppose and there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to loan you the vehicle to sit on a siding 'as is' of course. I could always do a "Goodall" (i.e., use EM wheels at P4 spacing) and push the wheels out a bit... 

 

When's Wheal Elizabeth next out? I could do with a target to get this one finished.

 

Adam

Southampton at the end of Jan next year. Probably about 16 weeks I reckon...If my steam engines can invade diesels in the duchy like they did at Expo North, anything is possible.

[Adam]

Southampton you say? How convenient

 

Assuming I can work out the walkways on the top and don't get too distracted, eminently doable.

 

Adam 

Edited September 23, 2013 by Adam

[ullypug]

Doesn't PHD do a ladder & walkway for the bullets and the TTA? Could that be chopped?

[Adam]

Doesn't PHD do a ladder & walkway for the bullets and the TTA? Could that be chopped?

I haven't kept up with PHD though I know about the bits for the silver bullet, I'm not sure whether they're anywhere near the right size. I'll have to check the website. S Kits do a couple of different TTA walkways and I've used them before; not bad, could be better. Basically, the real thing was angle and mesh (I've lots of signal ladder) so it might be a scratchbuild job, assuming I can find suitable mesh. I've still got the original Tri-ang job and that looks more or less in proportion so I can use that as a template but first there's some detailling to do. Watch this space.

 

EDIT: checked the PHD site and that shows nothing for any form of TTA and that the silver bullet walkways are (unsurprisingly) completely different. Based on the pictures it seems that I need some reasonably fine diamond mesh from somewhere and some 1mm angle (got plenty of that) and a jig of some sort. Hmm.

 

Adam

Edited September 24, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

An all round update of current projects assuming people remain interested. The first picture shows the current state of my Coil J fleet. The Hornby pair have benefitted from a little extra work; number and data panels in the case of the first with some patch painted grey based on a Paul Bartlett picture. The second has received its cradle, while the third - the original one has come in for more work; compared to the others, it transpired that I'd made the sides too high by about 1mm. This could have been left alone, but the three wagons are intended to run together and leaving the 8 shoe wagon a different height would look odd in the extreme as well as being unprototypical.

 

 

 

I should have realised earlier - looking at the prototype photos, it's clear that the sides of the original tipplers were cut down to about twice the height of the solebar. This is a useful point when bashing and scratchbuilding wagons without a properly dimensioned drawing. You can relate unknown dimensions to what Donald Rumsfeld would call '

' - things like solebar channels, wheelbases and the size of wheels. It's best to use dimensions in the same plane of course to minimise distortion. None of this is foolproof but you have to start somewhere. 

 

 

More painting beckons and then they'll be on the home stretch. The Bowaters' tank has also moved forward very slightly with a bit of brakegear knitting; most of which you can't see of course, and what I've modelled is represenative rather than wholly accurate but the impression of business apparent in the real thing needs to be there for the model to convince. You don't need to put everything in... The remaining bits are a few safety loops which, unusually for someone used to 'traditional', 'steam era' wagons, were made from strip rather than rod - http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/stsclaylinertta/h1f314987#h19475b8e - and then I can finish the discharge pipes.

 

 

 

Adam

Edited September 30, 2013 by Adam

[ullypug]

Nice.

[Colin parks]

Well I certainly remain interested Adam!

 

That rake of coil wagons looks really authentic.  They remind me of the work of Ian Fleming i.e. very good indeed. 

 

I can empathise with you about gaining information and proportions from photographic sources.  It is not easy.  I recall someone once wrote an article (or was on this forum?) about calculating signal heights etc. using given measurements to calculate unknown ones.  It seemed to involve  marking the edge of a piece of card and multiplying or dividing the  results.   That would sort of work if a wagon solebar was known to be say, 9" high.  Most other verticals would then be so many % more or less.  (Not sure I have explained that very well!)

 

The brake rigging on the Clayliner  looks very neatly done too.  The brake cylinder and cranks closely resemble those on the thing I am building at the moment.  Not much change in design over the years then.

 

 

All the best,

 

Colin

Edited September 29, 2013 by Colin parks

[Adam]

Thanks Colin - I suspect that there have been several articles in that line (but, given the way the modelling press are, I'd be truly amazed if any were published in the last 25-30 years), and I suspect I'm thinking of something in dad's collection of back issues of Model Railway News/Model Railways or, perhaps, an early issue of MRJ. It's possible that I've retained something of the technical drawing skills I was taught at school! Martin Wynne, I know, can do remarkable things with oblique photos of track and GIMP software but I'm more a 'back-of-an-envelope'/'stray piece of A4' type.

 

It's a really useful skill to develop as a scratchbuilder in any event. Knowing that a wagon wheel is 3' nominal (in use rather than as manufactured) and that buffer centrelines are meant to be roughly 3' 6" from the railhead can get you a long way fast.

 

So far as the model is concerned, your comments are very kind but the AB rigging on the tank is representative at best - as I mentioned in your thread, these 'modern' 4 wheel tanks share roughly the same sort of brake arrangement but use a multitude of different ways of doing that and mounting the components. What I've done looks about right in elevation - and sort of concurs with the detail that emerged in this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75743-air-brakes-what-goes-where/ - and that's what matters...

 

Adam

Edited October 1, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

Having been doing other things  over the last week or so, I've come back round to my clayliner tank which is now complete below the solebar (the label clip needs finishing) which is a relief because all that remains to be done can be seen relatively easily in photographs or, failing that guestimated from known details of similar wagon types. The air pipes are from Hornby, intended for a class 50. I'm not convinced how long they'll last in use but time will tell.

 

 

 

Adam

 

[Colin parks]

Hi Adam,

 

The Clayliner is looking most excellent. Re. the Hornby air pipes, I have used them for a few years now on my EMU models and they are pretty robust even though they are very thin. There is a detailing pack available for the Hornby 08 (X 5410) which includes all kinds of goodies - including very nice screw couplings.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Adam]

And now for something substantially different. Regular readers - and there seem to be a few if the 'read' count is anything to go by - might have noticed that I enjoy mucking around with wagon brakegear. Less exciting that the vagaries of the class 37, perhaps, but in my view, much more fun. Until now, BR clasp brakegear has not been easily available in a form where the amount of detail I would like to incorporate has been easy to achieve. Red Panda’s underframe parts make quite a good start, but provide only the bare bones and working out what was going on between the solebars has proved beyond me, but not beyond Justin Newitt who has brought a range of the things (in both 10’ and 9’ wheelbases) to market. The full Rumney Models range (and the instructions for the available kits) can be found on Justin's website or there is a preview in the smaller suppliers section of RMweb: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/72373-rumney-models/.

 

The chassis are designed to be sprung which is nice to have, but not essential in EM (or even in P4) and, if I’m honest, I cannot usually be bothered to go to the trouble unless it’s designed into a kit. Since it is, I’m prepared to try it. In this instance, I'm building a vacuum fitted, clasp braked 16 tonner. These were not, compared to the common or garden 1/108, all that common, but one of the earliest kitbashes I tried was to turn an Airfix kit into one of these. Paul Bartlett, as ever, has an extensive gallery showing may of the variations: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brmineralclaspvb

 

I was never all that happy with my early kitbash and thus far, it's the only wagon I've ever scrapped, though the components were reused. What follows isn't quite blow-by-blow, isn't a review but will show, more or less, what I did. The body is Parkside, and has only a few minor modifications - the corner reinforcements were modelled properly from 5 thou' plastic together with a representation of the floor plate at the bottom of the sides. Being a fitted vehicle, there were also a couple of lamp irons and I've replaced the commode handles with wire simply because I can.

 

 

Then to the chassis. The first impressions were very favourable, the instructions (downloadable from the website - needless to say, I've deviated from the order of action suggested) are good and the parts fit well. I especially like the way in which the chassis base plate which also forms the top flange of the solebar channel, an approach shared by designers like Dave Bradwell and others who understand that forming a channel from a flat etch is really very awkward and makes the process of building a wagon square unnecessarily difficult. The following picture shows where I got to at the end of the first hour of building; the next one (and there are a couple of 10' wheelbase versions in the drawer) will be quicker. 

 

 

I deviated from the order suggested in the instructions here by adding the bottom of the T section which supports the ribs on the bodysides and by adding the brakeshoes. The brakeshoes, which are quite ingenious,  went on at this point in order that I could set up the springing - not that springing a 9' wheelbase wagon in 4mm makes a lot of difference - and I can report that there is enough clearance to allow the wheels to go up and down. Assuming that people are interested, there is more to follow.

 

It may look complicated, but I can assure you that this folds up very simply and is largely self-jigging and given the amount of research that Justin has put in you can be confident that the bits are in the right place and are the right size. An hour for a basic underframe only seems a long time if you've never tried to work out and model what seems to have been there from photos without a proper drawing...

 

Adam

Edited October 18, 2013 by Adam