Dock Green

[alant]

very convincing scene in your photograph Alan. I have no need of a Jinty as they never appeared on GN metals, to my knowledge (dangerous statement?), but I have often admired the one on Jim McGowan's display.

 

Can I ask you about the rather nice yard lamps - where did they come from - whose kits? Or are they your own creations?

 

Chaz

 

Chaz,

 

The yard lamps are scratchbuilt using dowelling, brass wire etc and the shades are backs off ear rings.

 

My layout is loosely based on the Notts/Derbyshire borders so although my current locos are Midland, I feel as though I could excuse other excursions, hence the J50 I have to build !

 

Alan.

[Buckjumper]

Hi chaz - just catching up with the last three or four pages of your thread - amazing to see how a layout in progress can already exude bags of atmosphere. Your photos of the Walsworth J52 were particularly useful as I'd like to build a J53 - or strictly speaking a condensing GNR J14 - Walsworth seem to have put theirs on hold, so I'm resigned to buying the J52 along with the two relevant GA drawings from the NRM and doing a bit of a kitbash.

 

 

There is one error in the Slater's kit - any brake van buffs spot it?

 

If you'll forgive the temporary pedant's hat, both the Slater's and Connoisseur kit follow the mistake made by the early (and current!) Hornby 00 models in providing impossibly curved horseshoe-shaped rainstrips over the four corners of the roof. Looking at photos of these vans in the 50s through to more recent ones the wooden battens are sometimes gently curved, and sometimes straight battens are fixed on in a diagonal position.

 

You'll find a couple of photos here and here illustrating the above.

[chaz]

 

The yard lamps are scratchbuilt using dowelling, brass wire etc and the shades are backs off ear rings.

 

Alan.

 

The backs off ear rings? Brilliant! I have been wanting to make a few yard lamps for myself - it was the shades that held me back. I presume they can be bought from a jewelery supplier - you didn't have to vandalise your wife's collection......

 

Chaz

[chaz]

Hi chaz - just catching up with the last three or four pages of your thread - amazing to see how a layout in progress can already exude bags of atmosphere. Your photos of the Walsworth J52 were particularly useful as I'd like to build a J53 - or strictly speaking a condensing GNR J14 - Walsworth seem to have put theirs on hold, so I'm resigned to buying the J52 along with the two relevant GA drawings from the NRM and doing a bit of a kitbash.

 

Thanks for the comment about atmosphere - I think it may gain a bit more when the buildings and bridges get their layer of grime.

 

Well now, the J52 - my experience of the Walsworth kit is that it is quite a challenge. I would advise you to think very carefully - you would have to do a bit of a kitbash even if you were going to build it as a J52. However if you are confident that you can make a few replacement parts, modify others and are happy to file off tabs and fill slots (otherwise the cab ends up over to one side and too far back) then go ahead.

 

Chaz

[Buckjumper]

Oh I've had some challenges over the years - one kit everything went in the bin except the smokebox door, but most kits end up with replacement bits. This is the latest off the bench, once a familiar sight in both north and east London. The only imported part was the boiler from a J67, the rest of the platework was scratchbuilt, most with a piercing saw, but the spectacles were drawn with CAD and etched.

[chaz]

 

If you'll forgive the temporary pedant's hat, both the Slater's and Connoisseur kit follow the mistake made by the early (and current!) Hornby 00 models in providing impossibly curved horseshoe-shaped rainstrips over the four corners of the roof. Looking at photos of these vans in the 50s through to more recent ones the wooden battens are sometimes gently curved, and sometimes straight battens are fixed on in a diagonal position.

 

Hmmmm, thanks for that. I think you're right. There is a picture on page 7 of Geoff Goslin's "Goods Traffic of the LNER" which includes an earlier van which confirms your "gently curved". And your own photos show the diagonal straight style.

Now, to change the brass ones I will have to attack the roofs with a soldering iron. The Slater's van has the rainstrips moulded on (I think) so they will need shaving off. Changing all of them them is possible but will require the roofs to be repainted. I may well do this sometime but it's going to have a low priority....

 

Chaz

[chaz]

Oh I've had some challenges over the years - one kit everything went in the bin except the smokebox door, but most kits end up with replacement bits. This is the latest off the bench, once a familiar sight in both north and east London. The only imported part was the boiler from a J67, the rest of the platework was scratchbuilt, most with a piercing saw, but the spectacles were drawn with CAD and etched.

 

That J65 is lovely! I now realise that a Walsworth kit would hold few terrors for you, but with your expertise why not just scratchbuild? I suppose those parts you can use will save you time....

 

Chaz

[Buckjumper]

You've got it; the Walsworth kit is partway there, so with a few replacement parts it'll be a real timesaver. Of course I've been caught out before (more than once) thinking a kitbash would give me a headstart, only to find it would have been quicker to scratchbuild, hence my keen interest in your J52.

 

And thanks for the compliment!

[alant]

The backs off ear rings? Brilliant! I have been wanting to make a few yard lamps for myself - it was the shades that held me back. I presume they can be bought from a jewelery supplier - you didn't have to vandalise your wife's collection......

 

Chaz

 

Well funny you should say that . . .

 

Actually my wife ended up with a good bit of her Mother's jewellery including a supply of ear rings etc.

 

Alan.

Edited November 15, 2012 by alant

[chaz]

Well funny you should say that . . .

 

Actually my wife ended up with a good bit of her Mother's jewellery including a supply of ear rings etc.

 

Alan.

 

A quick Google suggests that the parts are called bead caps. They come in a bewildering range of styles but might well furnish me with some shades for yard lamps. Found one supplier....

 

http://www.beadsdire...ings/bead-caps/

 

.....further investigation may well turn up more. The plain ones near the bottom of the page might serve.

 

Chaz

Edited November 14, 2012 by chaz

[alant]

A quick Google suggests that the parts are called bead caps. They come in a bewildering range of styles but might well furnish me with some shades for yard lamps. Found one supplier....

 

http://www.beadsdire...ings/bead-caps/

 

.....further investigation may well turn up more.

 

Chaz

 

I meant to say they're also useful for street lights as well - picture taken a while ago before the street scene and buildings were finished.

 

[alant]

Chaz,

 

The clear ones shown in this link look more like the ones I used for the lamps . . .

 

http://www.marksandspencer.com/Marks-and-Spencer-Earring-Backs/dp/B000OZE76O

 

Alan.

[chaz]

Chaz,

 

The clear ones shown in this link look more like the ones I used for the lamps . . .

 

http://www.marksands...s/dp/B000OZE76O

 

Alan.

 

Thanks for the link Alan, I will follow this up.

[PatB]

If you'll forgive the temporary pedant's hat, both the Slater's and Connoisseur kit follow the mistake made by the early (and current!) Hornby 00 models in providing impossibly curved horseshoe-shaped rainstrips over the four corners of the roof. Looking at photos of these vans in the 50s through to more recent ones the wooden battens are sometimes gently curved, and sometimes straight battens are fixed on in a diagonal position.

 

You'll find a couple of photos here and here illustrating the above.

 

The Connoisseur Toad E is also an offender but I only found out after mine was built and the roof painted. I've decided that I can live with it, at least for the time being, as long as I don't number it as any van which I've seen in a photograph to have straight, angled rainstrips. It does, after all, still look like an ex-LNER brake van and will be just as much fun to shuffle around on a shunting plank.

[chaz]

The Connoisseur Toad E is also an offender but I only found out after mine was built and the roof painted. I've decided that I can live with it, at least for the time being, as long as I don't number it as any van which I've seen in a photograph to have straight, angled rainstrips. It does, after all, still look like an ex-LNER brake van and will be just as much fun to shuffle around on a shunting plank.

 

SNAP, Pat! But isn't this van a nice vehicle (I do like brake vans). A good kit too - I talked to Jim McGowan about it - I seem to recall him saying that he originally designed the kit for a different range and bought it back to include it in his Connoisseur stable, hence the fact that the model includes a compensated (rocking cradle) axle.

 

Now these little interludes are all very well but they do hold up progress on the cobbles - they are going to take longer than I thought so MUST GET ON!

 

Chaz

[PatB]

SNAP, Pat! But isn't this van a nice vehicle (I do like brake vans). A good kit too - I talked to Jim McGowan about it - I seem to recall him saying that he originally designed the kit for a different range and bought it back to include it in his Connoisseur stable, hence the fact that the model includes a compensated (rocking cradle) axle.

 

Now these little interludes are all very well but they do hold up progress on the cobbles - they are going to take longer than I thought so MUST GET ON!

 

Chaz

 

Agreed. A very nice kit indeed and has the distinction of being my first successful completion in etched brass. My first attempt, a Connoisseur LNER Lowmac, languishes in a box and will remain there until the day when I can face its blobbily melted whitemetal castings and broken buffers.

[Buckjumper]

I'm sure we've all got stock with errors we know about, but which we've put on the 'to fix one day' list. I certainly have. Big picture first, fix details later.

 

Pat - give Jim a call, I'm sure that for a few shekels he'll spin you a new set of castings for your Lowmac when he runs off his next batch.

[PatB]

Pat - give Jim a call, I'm sure that for a few shekels he'll spin you a new set of castings for your Lowmac when he runs off his next batch.

 

I certainly intend to. I'm just waiting to see what else I can knacker before ordering so as to save two lots of postage. An ag implement wagon has gone without hitch (although it did need a bit of Milliput around the axleboxes) and the Y7 is still a while off needing most of its whitemetal fitted, although the backhead, brake standard and sandboxes are in place.

Edited November 15, 2012 by PatB

[chaz]

Agreed. A very nice kit indeed and has the distinction of being my first successful completion in etched brass. My first attempt, a Connoisseur LNER Lowmac, languishes in a box and will remain there until the day when I can face its blobbily melted whitemetal castings and broken buffers.

 

Pat, In my experience Jim will help you out with any castings you might have converted into blobs. He has been generous to me in the past.

 

Here's a technique to try when soldering white metal to brass - if you don't have a temperature controlled iron....

1. Tin the spot on the brass where the white metal is to be with 145 or 188 solder - it's easier to get a flat film with 188
    
   
2. polish the underside of the white-metal, where it will contact the brass, so that it shows bright and shiny
    
   
3. put the casting in position and flood the area all round and under it with Duncan's or Carr's liquid flux - the one intended for white metal
    
   
4. clean the tip of your iron really well - a wipe on a damp sponge should suffice
    
   
5. melt a small amount of 70 solder onto the tip - if it won't stay on the iron the tip isn't clean enough
    
   
6. apply the tip of the iron to the brass, very close to the casting but not actually touching - so that the solder blob is against the surface
    
   
7. LISTEN - you should hear the flux hissing as it boils - this will hold the temperature at 100 - think back to your school physics (latent heat of evapouration!)
    
   
8. watch for the solder to flash into the joint
    
   
9. as soon as the solder flashes OR the flux stops hissing take the iron away
    
   
10. let everything cool down naturally - washing the job whilst it's hot might crack the solder - code 70 is not very strong.
     
    
11. Be thorough about washing the job afterwards - all that flux will turn the brass a vile shade of green. I use a squirt CIF cleaner as a neutraliser and then give it a thorough scrub.
    

This method does take bottle - but it does work. Until I bought my temperature controlled iron I did all my castings this way. Hope that's helpful.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Progress is being made with the cobbles, but they are taking longer than I thought, this was this morning....

 

• Closely positioned lamp to show up the work on the white surface
  
• Pattern already marked out with a scriber
  
• setts "drawn round" three or four times with the point of the needle file
  
• very old mop brush handy to shift the dust away
  
• all important mug of tea handy
  
• brain in zomby mode (not optional)
  

Chaz

Edited November 15, 2012 by chaz

[N15class]

I use a chip of low melt solder positioned by the joint and place the iron close but on the brass not touching the whitemetal watch the solder melt. All the rest the same as Chaz described.

[chaz]

My first attempt, a Connoisseur LNER Lowmac, languishes in a box and will remain there until the day when I can face its blobbily melted whitemetal castings and broken buffers.

 

Pat, here's mine - a nice wagon - maybe it will inspire you to finish yours?

 

 

Haven't put a load on it as I can't think of a way of making the load look roped or chained to those rings AND make it easy to remove so that it can also run "empty". Any ideas?

[PatB]

Thanks, chaz and N15, for the whitemetal soldering tips. It's more or less what I've been doing but using DCC Concepts 100 degree solder and their flux. I've still been finding it to be very hit and miss whether the solder flows into the joint or not. I was originally using my 80W iron with a light dimmer but found that the tip temperature was all over the place and took an age to recover after every joint, proceeding to overshoot quite spectacularly. Since then I've sprung for a soldering station which is much better at holding a steady, non-destructive tip temperature. I've also found a major improvement from using good old Baker's Fluid as flux, accepting that I need to undertake full decontamination procedures afterwards.

 

I was also very pleased, when building the Y7's chassis that I succeeded in repairing one of the sandboxes (I failed to read the instructions, assumed the boxes to have been cast oversized and had filed off a couple of mm before realising my mistake) by soldering a filler strip of electrical solder to the whitemetal using the 100 degree and then cleaning up with a file. Very satisfying and stopped me kicking myself quite so hard. I conclude that I'm getting better and should become competent with more practice. Given that I've now got some scrap whitemetal to practice further, my abilities should improve.

 

Lovely job on the lowmac. Yes, it does make me think I should dig mine out again after the loco. Something I was wondering about was how to finish the "wood" floor but yours looks as if it's just painted single colour and looks fine so maybe I've been overthinking it. I was contemplating trying to achieve the sort of mottled grey that old, creosoted wood gets when exposed to the weather but I'm very much a beginner in the painting and weathering field so keeping things simple would be a better bet for now.

 

As to a convincingly secured but removeable load, I can think of a couple of ways I might try it if required but which are only ideas at this stage. For ropes I'd see what might be done with fine, round section elastic if I could find some way of attaching it either convincingly or inconspicuously to fine piano wire hooks to catch the rings. Chains might be easier as they would be expected to have hooks on the end and some sort of turnbuckle or over-centre dog for tensioning. That makes attachment to the rings relatively easy but leaves how to achieve a convincing level of tension. My approach would be to use commercial fine chain but, again, see if I could conceal a link (or several) of fine elastic somewhere in each chain run. Much depends upon the level of scrutiny your stock is expected to bear. Given the nature of your layout and the general standard of modelling, I'd assume that it will need to look pretty good from pretty close up. I'd also emphasise that I haven't actually tried either of these, they're just avenues I'd look at to start with.

 

Oh, and apologies for hijacking the thread. Eventually I'll have enough photographed progress to start my own .

[chaz]

Crikkey, Pat, I was going to say you're up late and then I spotted your location.

 

Thanks, chaz and N15, for the whitemetal soldering tips. It's more or less what I've been doing but using DCC Concepts 100 degree solder and their flux. I've still been finding it to be very hit and miss whether the solder flows into the joint or not. I was originally using my 80W iron with a light dimmer but found that the tip temperature was all over the place and took an age to recover after every joint, proceeding to overshoot quite spectacularly. Since then I've sprung for a soldering station which is much better at holding a steady, non-destructive tip temperature. I've also found a major improvement from using good old Baker's Fluid as flux, accepting that I need to undertake full decontamination procedures afterwards.

 

I avoid "good old Baker's Fluid" - I only ever use it if I want to solder to steel, it's so aggressive it will turn tools bright orange if it gets anywhere near them. If you have a soldering station you should have no further problems with adding white metal to brass. I set mine to 165 degrees. This is just below the melting point for most of our castings but hot enough to get the solder flowing nicely..

 

Lovely job on the lowmac. Yes, it does make me think I should dig mine out again after the loco. Something I was wondering about was how to finish the "wood" floor but yours looks as if it's just painted single colour and looks fine so maybe I've been overthinking it.

 

Thanks Pat. Yes, I painted it a single, worn-wood colour. I do sometimes give wagons the full-treatment with unpainted wood effects but life's too short to do this to all of them (in any case most BR wagons were grubby rather than unpainted.). Still, here's a couple of sad cases, almost innocent of paint.....

 

 

Slater's kit - built as per the instructions - nice kit (must true up that brake lever guide!)

 

 

Coopercraft kit - but with different brake gear (can you see the awful mistake?) and the usual Peco buffers

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

On the subject of removeable loads - with a terminus style layout I don't like open wagons which obviously run in and out again with the same load, or no load. In a yard like Dock Green if they ran in loaded they would be unloaded, and then either used for a different consignment or then run out empty (and of course the other way round). Ordinary opens and mineral wagons can be given removeable loads easily enough, if necessary on a thin false floor, but the Lowmac is a tricky one.

 

"Oh, and apologies for hijacking the thread." No need Pat. It's what a forum is for. It's the conversational aspect, the give and take, that makes it worthwhile, isn't it?

 

Chaz

Edited November 16, 2012 by chaz

[chaz]

I'm sure we've all got stock with errors we know about, but which we've put on the 'to fix one day' list. I certainly have. Big picture first, fix details later.

 

 

Couldn't agree more BUT my problem is how much later later is!

[chaz]

The Connoisseur Toad E is also an offender but I only found out after mine was built and the roof painted. I've decided that I can live with it, at least for the time being, as long as I don't number it as any van which I've seen in a photograph to have straight, angled rainstrips. It does, after all, still look like an ex-LNER brake van and will be just as much fun to shuffle around on a shunting plank.

 

Here's mine. One of the first wagons I built and (I think) my second etched brass kit (a doddle after the J50!).

 

 

I might have overdone the rust a bit, but I hate glaring white handrails on brake vans.

 

Chaz