Adam's EM Workbench: Farewell for now

[Adam]

Thanks Pix, that's very interesting, but don't put yourself out; it's surprising how often one (or at most, a pair) of vehicles got themselves in front of a camera.

 

Adam

[Adam]

One last thing. The van is now finished barring the levers and lever guides - I've run out of the latter - including scratchbuilt vac' pipes. Nothing wrong with the cast variety, it's simply that I've run out of those too. I've even gone to the trouble of wrapping fine filiament wire around the 0.7mm brass wire that forms the pipe itself. This isn't necessarily something that I would normally take the trouble to do, especially for vac' pipes which hang below the headstock but since the soldering iron was out and the thing has to be fixed on somehow it takes only a minute or two longer.

 

 

Once the epoxy has fully cured, it'll be in the boxfile untill the lever guides turn up...

 

Adam

Edited April 7, 2013 by Adam

[Colin parks]

Lovely work Adam. 

 

The detail you have applied really shows up well in natural light.  I rather like the scratch-built vac. pipe.

 

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Adam]

Thanks Colin. I'm quite pleased; it doesn't look too crude, even at twice full size as it's displayed on my screen. If it weren't for the fact that I've run out of lever guides, it'd be finished now. Still, I've ordered some up from the Scalefour Society (via the public e-shop) so that will be resolved soon enough and I can get on and paint it. In the meantime, I'll have to move on to the next part-completed project...

 

Adam

[Adam]

Well, here it is, with brake levers fitted (Scalefour Soc. items available via the public e-shop) ready for the red oxide rattlecan once it's washed and the weather dries out again. Quite a satsfying little project this with the result of something out of the ordinary.

 

 

Adam 

[Adam]

And, almost, finally, the van has now emerged from the paintshop - well, been hung out of the door and had a can of Halford's finest pointed at it - and treated to a coat of Humbrol Chocolate on the underframe and an appropriate mix of colours on the roof. Since the sun is shining this morning, there are pictures to be had, and here they are:

 

 

 

It's quite surprising how similar it looks to a standard SR plywood van it looks from the side; you might think the flat roof planes would be more apparent. The differences in the brakegear are also very apparent and I'm pleased with this; it's always a relief to find the additional effort has been worth it! Next up for the sides are two or three coats of Klear to prepare for transfers which, after they've been applied, will be followed up with a dose of Dullcote over the top.

Something less exotic next I think...

Adam

Edited July 24, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

Not much modelling to report, but here's a quick little project and, as I suggested above, something less exotic. This is a Coil J, one of a selection of modified vehicles dating from the mid-60s for carrying strip coil, mostly used in South Wales. The base vehicle was a Hornby iron ore tippler, converted to EM by a change of wheels and moving the brakegear out a smidge (it comes off quite easily - you simply need to trim a bit of the locating pins which position and and glue it back in place).

 

As you can see, this wasn't an especially involved conversion: mark a line 6mm off the bottom of the bodyside, cut along it with a razor saw, tidy up the mess and add a capping strip (I used Evergreen 60 x 10 thou strip). While I had the solvent out, I also added the 'lip' along the bottom from the same strip. Once the solvent had gone off I thinned the lip a bit and that, a couple of boltheads on each end which held some of the internal baulks in place, is that. Paul Bartlett's collection provided some nice clear shots of the other part of the conversion - a crude wooden cradle. Later versions appear to have had removeable transverse baulks hled in place with long pins which could be moved about according to the size of coil. This is based on this example where all baulks appear to have been fixed.

 

The wagon.

 

 

The cradle - 80 thou' plastic sheet cut into 3.5mm strips and roughly shaped.

 

 

The complete wagon. I daresay it'll get painted sometime...

 

Adam

Edited July 24, 2013 by Adam

[cheesysmith]

That coil j is a good conversion, I wonder if Hornby will do one themselves using the underframe with a new body on? Only problem is you do need more than one :-)

[Adam]

I doubt they will if I'm honest - they were rather specialist vehicles and really, no two were alike. The conversion took rather less than an hour altogether and most of that was modifying the underframe for EM; the difficult bit was removing the blocks which support the tension locks (they also hold the body on - mine is now held together with epoxy). I'm gradually building up a fleet of Coil wagons - they seem to have run in reasonably mixed rakes in my period. Here's one I made earlier:

 

 

A cut down Parkside vehicle - the brakegear represents a batch which were turned out as vac' braked tipplers but without the cylinders. The Coil H, described earlier in the thread will run with them.

 

Should another Hornby tippler or two cross my path at the right price then I'll do some more. No rush.

 

Adam

Edited August 7, 2013 by Adam

[Fat Controller]

I doubt they will if I'm honest - they were rather specialist vehicles and really, no two were alike. The conversion took rather less than an hour altogether and most of that was modifying the underframe for EM; the difficult bit was removing the blocks which support the tension locks (they also hold the body on - mine is now held togetehr with epoxy). I'm gradually building up a fleet of Coil wagons - they seem to have run in reasonably mixed rakes in my period. Here's one I made earlier:

 

Yeovil_Christmas 039.gif

 

A cut down Parkside vehicle - the brakegear represents a batch which were turned out as vac' braked tipplers but without the cylinders. The Coil H, described earlier in the thread will run with them.

 

Should another Hornby tippler or two cross my path at the right price then I'll do some more. No rush.

 

Adam

Nice work, Adam- the Reverend and myself have done a short rake by similar means. We put 'plastic-wrapped' coils on some of them, using plastic tubes wrapped in polythene bags.

Whilst in later days, they were confined to local workings in South Wales, in earlier times they worked considerable distances (notably to the North West and West Midlands), often as one or two wagons in a mixed freight.

[Adam]

A mundane van, again, courtesy of the Modelzone meltdown. This time, it's a Bachmann NE 12t unventilated van. As it comes, it's quite a nice model even with an attempt at the brakegear. As you should be able to see, I've made a few changes, adding more brake detail which necessitated replacing the brakeshoes and vacuum pipes and adding safety loops and linkages. The low-slung vac' pipes seem to have occasionally been fitted as replacements for the normal upright type fitted to LNER vehicles. I think those supplied, although nicely moulded, are a smidge underscale. The buffers have been replaced with ABS castings because I managed to break one... Finally, rainstrips were added though not all LNE vans had such things. The biggest difference, I think, is made by adding the triangular brackets to the solebars; the body now seems to 'belong' to the chassis.

 

 

 

Adam

 

 

Edited August 2, 2013 by Adam

[MartinWales]

Nice work Adam! Which couplers do you use?

[Adam]

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.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

Quick update on the Coil J - the van chassis was painted at the same time - so here we are at the mid-stage of the painting and weathering. Lots still to do:

 

 

 

Adam

[cctransuk]

Pent9.gif

 

Pent8.gif

 

 

I thought that I'd read that this wagon had a black Rubberoid covering to the entire body.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[Adam]

All the information I have basically comes from SR Wagons vol. 4 (see previous page of this thread) but if the colour shot here is anything to go by it subsequently recieved a coat of bauxite:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/5846073097/in/faves-91875255@N05/lightbox/

 

Sourced from this earlier thread on the van. I will grant you that this isn't the clearest picture, so the livery is an informed guess: if you have any sound information regarding livery in the mid-60s I'd be interested to see it - it is not too late to perform a repaint. Failing that, it will remain bauxite.

 

Adam

Edited August 4, 2013 by Adam

[mophead]

Supers work Adam been watching your thread since the start amazing work, impressed with your coil j conversion just ordered a iron tippler wagon to convert myself after seeing your work, What colour did you use for the body on your coil j wagon? Humbrol Chocolate? As I can't make my mind up between using humbrol paints or tamiya?

 

keep up the great work!

Mophead

[Adam]

Thanks - the body is a mix of the Humbrol chocolate, matt black and a spot of orange - it's simply what I had to hand. I can't help with the choice of paint I'm afraid since I've never really used Tamiya paint. I would think there are some benefits to acrylics in the case of the underframe since it drys more quickly and if you want to crack on that's a bonus. The way I've learnt to weather is based on enamels, but it's up to you to find a way that works for you and the only way to manage this is to try it yourself; I admit that isn't an entirely helpful answer!

 

Adam

Edited August 5, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

And now for something completely different. A Bowaters clayliner tank (latterly one of the dozens of different things TOPS called a TTA). My thanks to Boscarne and Ullypug for providing some prototype gen'.

 

Paul Bartlett, as is so often the case, has a gallery (and my heartfelt thanks - this resource makes modelling wagons much, much easier): http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/stsclaylinertta

The raw materials are a Bachmann 'TTA' chassis - in fact from one of a pair of heavily reduced Modelzone special edition spoil carriers - and an ancient Tri-ang model of the Clayliner tank. Why on earth Tri-ang chose this prototype I cannot begin to imagine since there were fewer than 20 of the things and they operated of a reasonably restricted flow between Burngullow and Sittingbourne, or from Burngullow to the Potteries. Still, they make for a nice blue tank wagon and it isn't impossible that they made their way in ones and twos on occasion. Besides, they were air-brake only and this makes an interesting change as a project. So far as the tank is concerned, all I have done so far is to remove the stickers and the tampo printed lettering before glue the tank together and filling all the various sink holes and making good the joins: since every aircraft modelling magazine has pictures of identical processes every month I won't bore you with pictures of this process here. I have also removed the pedestal and made a new one.

It's the chassis that needs the work, however. Monobloc tanks are subject to phenomenal amounts of variation in terms of things like spring hangers, vee-hangers, brake levers and the positioning of various components although the solebars, W iorns and axleboxes are reasonably uniform. I've only really got as far as the vee-hangers so far but I'm quite pleased with them so here we are. These are mounted on the outside of the solebars (Tri-ang got these about right) so had to be changed. I fretted them up from scrap etch - three layers, soldered together. The holes were marked out on a 20 thou' plastic template since this is easier to mark out than brass and the template superglued on top.

 

The horrid photo above shows the tail end of the process - the brass sandwich in the foreground and the discared template behind - I made the holes with the trusty dremel bfore fretting the thing out with a piercing saw and finishing with a selection of files.

 

 

The identical vees were seperated and tidied up before being used as guidance for drilling matching holes in the solebars and into a piece of wood to act as a jig for soldering pins of 0.45mm brass into the holes. Finally, the pins were inserted into the holes in the solebars and superglued in place. 

 

 

The rest of the brakegear will follow later. First I need to do something about those spring hangers...

 

Adam

Edited August 7, 2013 by Adam

[Fat Controller]

In the days when Triang modelled them, they didn't even go to the Potteries- they were dedicated to traffic to Bowater's mill at Sittingbourne, and decorated with their company insignia. Triang did seem to have a knack for picking the obscure; when they had to choose amongst the 2000 Vanwides, they did one of the six with ventilators in the doors...

[Adam]

Thanks Brian - I'd forgotten about the vanwide - probably because its scale model potential is non-existant. I wonder whether they just went through Modern Railways and picked new wagons as they were announced? Mine will be in Bowater's condition, eventually, but there's a way to go yet.

Adam

Edited August 6, 2013 by Adam

[Colin parks]

A nice bit of metal work there on the Clayliner chassis Adam.

 

The vees look very neat even in close-up. Forgive me for asking, as I don't read model aircraft magazines, but with what did you remove the Tampo printing?

 

I recently tried a cotton bud moistened with meths on a Hornby model (you might be able to guess which one!) and it proved effective. However it also removed some of the paint too. This is not a problem if re-painting, but not useful if you are just going in for a spot of re-numbering.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Adam]

Thanks Colin - sometimes, things go right first go. I'm pleased with the plasticard drilling jig idea and will use it again. As for the tampo printing, I did much the same as you must have done with your BIL, just to see what kind of job it would be. Much to my surprise the printing shifted easier than the stickers with the numbering and logo. The glue in these seemed to react with the thinners and ate into the surface of the plastic! Nothing a bit of wet and dry hasn't cured, but still... The reference to aircraft mags was really about the filling of the joins: just like fuselage joins.

Adam

Edited August 5, 2013 by Adam

[Adam]

A couple of update shots on the Coil J. One more step on the way to something which will hopefully look a bit like this example, captured by Paul Bartlett at Barry Docks in 1970:

 

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcoilj/h312468c5#h312468c5

 

 

 

Coming on, I think.

 

Adam

[Colin parks]

Lovely work on the coil wagon Adam.  The paint work on the body is very effective.

 

All the best,

 

Colin