Rob's 7mm Rolling Stock Workbench

[Poggy1165]

Very common on L&Y vans, and to my knowledge on quite a few LNWR wagons and a few GC ones. The idea was certainly to assist loading large and bulky items, but they had this 'orrible tendency to leak, and on the GC at least a fair few were replaced with conventional boarding in pre-group days.

 

I'd love to know what the huge L&Y vans were used for. My guess - and it is only a guess - is that one traffic might have been raw cotton from Liverpool to t'mills. But if anyone knows better please say, as I'm working out whether I can justify one of these beauties. (Probably not, but there's a 75% chance I'll end up buying one anyway.)

Edited May 8, 2013 by Poggy1165

[Rob Pulham]

 I'm working out whether I can justify one of these beauties. (Probably not, but there's a 75% chance I'll end up buying one anyway.)

 

I didn't really try it appealed that much

[Rob Pulham]

All has been quiet on the modelling front due to my preparing for and having an interview. I was thankfully successful so I start my new role in late July. 

 

This was followed by taking Chris's paintings along to be adjudicated for membership of the Guild of Railway Artists by the guild council (she had already been told that she would be accepted based on the photos that we submitted but it was nice to have it confirmed and have the opportunity to meet a few of the top railway artists in this country. 

 

So all in all the only bit of modelling that I have achieved in the last month has been fitting a roof hatch to the Midland van and painting it ready for transfers. 

 

I got the idea for the roof hatch from the Midland Wagon book by Bob Essery in which he has a drawing but no photo (and none in existence that he knows of). So I am not 100% certain that it it strictly accurate but it looks okay to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my first successes in scratch building with plasticard.....

 

[Rob Pulham]

Last Friday night I was invited along to the Wakefield show as an extra operator on the layout Assenby St Peter. This prompted me to get my finger out and put the transfers on the L&Y Bogie van. Chris even had a bit of time to start weathering it.

Here are a few shot's of it, the Parkside horsebox and Severn on Assenby.

 

 

 

 

It was good to finally meet up with Warren too

 

[Rob Pulham]

While doing the transfers on the L&Y van a couple of weeks ago I also put some on the Midland 8 Ton van. It just needs the coupling hooks blackened and weathering before joining the fleet.

 

 

 

Chris also finished weathering the Midland brake van that has featured here a few times - this need the roof sticking down and the buffers blackening before it too joins the fleet.

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Since the 2nd of Jan I have been side tracked yet again. This time I have been a bit selfish in that I have built this straight from the pack, following the instructions and without taking any photos along the way - just for the pleasure of building it.

 

The only problem that I encountered was when drilling out the buffer shanks, the only 4mm drill bit I had wouldn't cut butter so I had to buy a new bit, the rest of it went together just as the designer intended. It is worth mentioning that because of the amount of rivets in them some of the strips need to be straightened after rivetting but I would expect this so I don't see it as a deficiency of the kit.

 

This is the Dragon Models Cambrain/LMS Leeds Forge 30 Bogie Coal wagon which I have fancied ever since seeing it on the Dragon  stand at various shows. Chris bought me it as a surprise for Christmas so it would have been rude not to build at least one of my Christmas pressies.

 

I have even managed to get it primed too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Painting is still progressing and Chris seems to have the bug too - she has finished weathering the L&Y bogie van while I have the coal wagon ready for it's transfers.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

All today's modelling time has been spent putting the transfers on the bogie coal wagon. Unusually these wagons seem to have had four sets of numbers on sides and ends. Thankfully I have quite a few sets of partially used Slaters MR/LMS wagon transfers in stock that I was able get the numbers from. I must admit that I much prefer methfix transfers to pressfix these days. When I first tried them I didn't really get on with them but by chance I discovered that the recommended 3:1 mix of meths was too strong. I probably use 5 or 5:1 now and find them really user friendly allowing much adjustment to take place before letting them set.

 

So here it is just awaiting coaling and weathering - which Chris is just about to start on.

 

The white stuff just visible in the first photo is a piece of the plastic foam that electrical goods come in these days in place of polystyrene.

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

My New Years resolution is still holding firm with shelf queens being worked on and completed. 

 

The next long time inhabitant of my work bench is the Connosseur LNER refrigerator van. It has been painted fo quite some time but I had misplaced the buffers!

 

Buffers found body weathered by Chris and chassis weathered by me - my very first attempt at weathering.

 

I had the figure lying about too, I seem to recall it coming with a brake van kit but I struggled to fit him appropriately until I spied the ladder and tried him for size. It does restrict what I ought to do with the wagon - i.e. have it sat stationary in a siding but as always rule one applies......

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bogie coal wagon is now drying after it's trip through the Wakefield weathering workshop.

[Rob Pulham]

Chris has finished weathering the Bogie Coal wagon so it will now joint the fleet. She went for a grubby used look as opposed to a rusty and decayed. 

 

We tried something a bit different in terms of gluing the coal in on this one - using satin varnish (the water based type) and it has come out very well with a lot less needing remedial treatment than the last time that I used dilute PVA.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Seeing Ian G's efforts on weathering wagons has stirred me to have a go myself rather than relying on Chris to do it for me.

 

Some time ago this featured on my work bench - a Slaters Midland open wagon.

 

 

It now look like this......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

I am still working away on the can for my A3 which is now ready for glazing but in between that I have been progressing the shelf queens and doing some more weathering.

 

First up is the Slaters Midland van that featured earlier in the workbench. This is a joint effort in so much as Chris had made a start by weathering the roof and I picked it up and did the body and underframe. Some said to me that weathering is addictive and I have to agree...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

After developing my techniques on the LMS van I started on an LNER Plate wagon another Parkside kit that graced the pages earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

That's all for now but I will probably start on another tonight in between other jobs.

[Rob Pulham]

I made a start on another wagon last night and made a discovery that I thought worth sharing.

 

When using enamels I am aware of and have used the technique of using a cotton bud soaked in white spirit to remove unwanted enamel paint - as long as it hasn't been on too long. I have seen examples of the technique used in weathering. 

 

What I didn't know or appreciate until last night was that you can do something similar with acrylics by using a cotton bud soaked in meths. 

 

These are a few shots of the wagon that I am now working on that I used the technique on last night.

 

 

 

 

 

It has quite some way to go but I feel that I have a bit more freedom to experiment knowing that even when it's gone on quite thick and had some drying time it's still maneuverable.

[Rob Pulham]

A bit more work on the bolster wagon revealed that you can in fact take the acrylic weathering coats back to the base paint finish with a cotton bud and meths - assuming that you have left that to dry long enough. 

 

The wagon that I am working on has had it's grey top coat for 12 months or more and I haven't been brave enough to try it on something that has been painted recently. But I may for curiosities sake - I have a couple of wagons that are ready for transfers that have been painted in the last couple of weeks, so I will try a little on the undeframe to see what happens.

[PeterR]

Hi,

 

You are correct in thinking that the tarpaulin roof sections in the big L&Y vans were for loading purposes, mainly for  for cotton bales. They actually had wooden slats in them with multi layer tarpaulins on each side' not forgetting a clean layer before the sticky, and possibly smelly cover was fitted; the had a horizontal bar at the bottom of them that secured them in position (being fixed on the centreline). The first ones had just a single pair of hatches; I made a 4mm version of them a long time ago.

 

There were also open wagons, and flat single plank wagons as well as the L&Y Vans. The flat and open wagons naturally all had to be sheeted up after loading (thus need lots and lots of wagon sheets.

 

There was a huge traffic of cotton bales from Liverpool (which came by sea from the southern USA) to the Manchester area, thus the large wagons, which were the capacity of 3 'normal' wagons..

 

The tarpaulin centre section was used with the large lucams (hoist towers) on the big warehouses - it allowed easier loading. There were also solid sliding hatches as well on a lot of railway vans  -also for the same reason.

 

Cotton bale sizes are mentioned at the following link http://www.cotton.org/tech/bale/bale-description.cfm

 

It was worked out that a large mill could deal with a bogie wagonload of cotton per day. The L&Y were said to have the largest fleet of bogie wagons in the early 1900's when there was a lot of them built, generally the genre were too large for the trade intended - lack of infrastructure generally being the reason for their failure to proliferate.

 

 

Finally don't forget that the L&Y were also in the Yorkshire Woollen district, which used wool bales shipped from Australia - and they were both solid (being compressed by steam powered compressors), and big. 

 

Yours Peter.

Edited March 16, 2014 by PeterR

[Rob Pulham]

The bolster wagon is now finished unless I get feedback on what might be missing....

 

The Parkside kit very usefully comes with chains and shackles, so it would have been rude not to add a load to be shackled down!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The load is made from bamboo barbecue skewers - really good value at 69p per pack.... I didn't use a whole pack and the pointy ends will make another load for a different wagon (I just have to built it....).

[Rob Pulham]

In between the weathering projects another couple of shelf queens have reached completion.

 

First up is the GWR Horsebox that I started some time ago followed by an LMS Brake van. Both are from the Parkside stable and make up into nice models, albeit that the steps are quite vulnerable on the brake van - they have been stuck back on at least three times....

 

 

 

The groom is modified from a Slaters seated figure - I am not really sure what he was meant to be but I filed his hat to represent a flat cap.

 

 

 

 

I have left the roof loose so that I can get in to weather the insides of the verandas.

[Rob Pulham]

Continuing the Bolster wagon theme, here is another heavily weathered LNER example. This time a Parkisde LNER 20 ton Hopper wagon. 

 

I have a couple of the DJH/Piercy kits for a couple of these too when I get to them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

This is the last of the wagons that I have attempted any weathering on so far. 

 

Again from the Parkside stable, one of their very early kits - The NBR 8 ton covered van that featured on the workbench previously. 

 

Before:

 

 

And after a few 'years' in service:

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

In between weathering and slowly putting the A3 together for what I hope I the last time I needed a bit of build therapy this took the form of a Connoisseur Models LNER Lowmac L. As with all the kits from Jim that I have built it was very straight forward to put together.

 

The only deviations that I made to the instructions was: 

 

1. I bent up and soldered the reinforcing plates on the deck using my micro flame before any further assembly took place. I did this so    that I wouldn't have lot's of solder to clean up around the edges.

 

2. I replaced the white metal buffer heads with some nickel ones from the spares box and soldered the coupling hook solid.

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

While I haven't had much to post recently I have been beavering away at a couple of projects the first of them being a couple of Parkside LNER Fitted Cattle wagons. One of them I built some time ago but I recently built another and I have then made a start on weathering them.

 

This is the inside of one of them as it was before I added a few more rust stains around the blot heads -  I have tried to go for a look of regular scrubbing of the inside. Scrubbed wood is something that I am very familiar with because in a former life I was a butcher and scrubbing the wooden cutting block was a daily feature of my work. This particular wagon is the one that I did originally and it was painted with Halfords Red Oxide primer and satin varnished before adding the transfers

 

For completeness this is the second recently built one which was painted with Vallejo Game Color Dark Fleshtone and again satin varinshed before the transfers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have used two differing techniques on the exteriors with these - the first one was made grubby and work stained using a mixture of Vallejo black, Flat Earth and Dark Sea Grey which was painted on and then cut back with meths.

 

The second had a couple of wash coats of dark fleshtone, german orange and cream to lighten and fade the base colour before applying the mix above for the grubby in service look. 

I still need to paint the roofs and sort out couplings for one of them - and fill them with cattle of course.

[Rob Pulham]

In between painting a herd of cattle for the cattle wagons that I have in the process of being finished/weathered I thought that I would revisit the weathering on the LMS open that was my first real effort at weathering. 

 

I am much happier with the latest iteration and I don't think that I will be touch it again. It has made me hanker for more opens though - to my embarrassment until very recently I only have this one, a Slaters Charles Roberts 7 plank and a MMP LMS 16 ton steel Mineral that I bought by mistake. I have recently picked up 3 Quainton Road Models brass kits for open wagons to add to them but I think that I will be looking to pick up more from various sources going forward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

What turned out to be a very satisfying modelling day started with adding the transfers to the lowmac. This will now move on to the weathering queue.

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

The LNER Lowmac has been through the weathering shop and received a load. I would like a traction engine or steam roller in time, but this will do for now as I have it in stock. Jim provides chain,  etched hooks and in this kit etched shackles too (I didn't get any in the implement wagon, but I suspect that its an older kit). I do like the way that Jim continually improves and enhances his kit's!