Blog- halfmoon colliery railway - Another one but this time a proper one

RSS Fetcher · October 1, 2014

Hi,

It seems that i regurly haveto make a new rolling stock box for my steadily growing stock and as the old one wears out, but this time ive built one that is big enough because ive now got to a point where i know how much stock there will eventually be.

I have recently been doing some work as a building site labourer, one day the site got a storage container but first we needed to empty the stuff inside from the previous owner, most of it went in the skip but I and some of the tradesmen put the odd bits aside for our selves (with permission), I got myself some timber, chipboard, plywood, hinges and kitchen drawer handles.

For reference, here is a pic of my last rollingstock box

The new box was built to the same design as this but out of 9mm & 3mm cross ply and 3mm chipboard,

First was to work out the measurements for the top tray such as the compartments plus the partition thickness. The 8 compartments each measure 50 x 224mm, 70 deep with 3mm partition. The overall size of the top tray is 427 x 230 x 73mm.

with these worked out, i could then work out the rest of the box in which it will sit inside. giving 1mm gap around the top tray for any discrepancy during construction.

An issue which i have overcome that has caught me out before is one involved in measuring, If i were to just pencil in the measurements of the partitions onto the base of the box consecutively such as measuring 50mm and marking it then from that marking 3 then 50 then 3, and so on... then when you measure the total length of your markings and it it does not match what it should be, there is tiny discrepancy in each measurement, I started by first working out a cumulative frequency of all the measurements like this:

Measurement: 0, 3, 50, 3, 50, 3, 50, 3, 50, 3, 50, 3, 50, 3, 50, 3, 50, 3

C.F. : 0, 3, 53, 56, 106, 109, 159, 162, 212, 215, 265, 268, 318, 321, 371, 374, 424, 427

So if you mark it all out using the CF, it will be right.

The construction started with the outer box, made with 9mm cross ply. the corners of the sides jointed by finger joints, PVA and panel pins, the botton was fixed on by PVA and panel pins. those handles mentioned earlier came into use with this project, The heads of the handle screws were set into the side of the box as to not get in the way of the top tray. I did not have a small enough spade bit nor a big enough drill bit for this so i countersunk the holes.

The top tray was built in a similar manner but on a smaller scale, i used third height finger joints instead of quarter and Peco track pins instead of panel pins.

Next will be the lid and the final finish, i think i will test out an idea for a make shift wood stain from a watered down brown acrylic on a scrap of wood.

Also ive had a visit to my local model shop to get the required materials for the next batch of wagons, more on that when i start building them.

Regards, Sam.

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