Ian Smith

Mikkel, I did the lettering on my 2mm Outside Framed Brake Van using Fox transfers. Obviously the numbers alone are quite small, but I wanted a "G.W.R" to fit between the framing so ended up cutting one of their transfers into it's component parts - the full stop is particularly small :-) Awkward and fiddly but very satisfying when done!! Ian

Roger, Possibly a silly question, but what class?

Tim, Thanks for directing to your images. I knew about the chimney in the corner where I've built the office from the plans in Great Western Branch Terminii, however the stove pipe towards the other corner is new to me. I'll re-check some earlier period photos as I suspect this is a later addition. Thanks anyway, Ian

Nick, What a lovely model of an unusual prototype. You didn't go for red livery then? ;-) I only ever had one Jidenco kit, never finished it - I think it was a fruit van and without the experience (and patience) that I have today decided it wasn't worth the effort! Ian

Nick, Thank you for that positive comment. Hopefully, this week I will manage to complete the roof, I intend to print some slate strips on the inkjet printer which will simply have cutting lines and overlap lines on self adhesive paper. Once applied to the roof they will be painted. I'm not sure whether I need to go to that level as a lot of 2mm structures seem to use printed sheets to quite good effect but I do prefer texture on a roof as that is the most visible part of a model building and having overlapping slates would give that relief. I've also made the outside steps to the office (hence the cut away quoin on one corner of the building), but I want to make a handrail for it which will almost certainly be soldered wire construction :-) Ian

As a bit of a diversion from soldering bits of wire together to make a tree, I've spent a few more hours on my version of Mortonhampstead Goods Shed. I've been trying to get the roof on. To this end, I'd already made the main part of the roof from 0.030" plastic sheet, but because of the rather open nature of a Goods Shed I wanted to put in the roof trussing, etc too. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the interior of Mortonhampstead Goods Shed actually looked like so I've based the roof support structure on a couple of images I do have of Newbury Goods Shed. These seem to show a main beam running centrally along the length of the shed (which provides the top support for the crane), the ends of which are supported on large pieces of stone set in the end walls. From these ends, further diagonal support beams radiate out to further support the ridge beam at the apex of the roof. Transversely across the roof are more beams running up from the top of the sides to the ridge beam. The central one of these has a supporting structure of almost horizontal beams with diagonal and vertical beams providing support. All of this structure has been represented with strips of plastic sheet (either laminations of thinner material or 0.060"). I have painted these beams in GWR Light Stone. Roof Supporting Beams I have also built up the barge boards on the ends of the roof with laminations of 0.030", and the gutter and soffits from the same material. The gutters are simply represented by gouging a U shape along the edge of the plastic sheet, turning it over and sanding the edge to a rounded profile, then a 3mm wide strip sliced off which can be cemented to the underside of the roof. The soffits were built up below the gutter and when all was thoroughly set the barge boards were filed / sanded back to give the characteristic end profile. I will not worry to much that the ends of my gutters are open as once painted I don't think it will be noticeable. Barge Boards and Gutter prior to filing back Roof temporarily fitted. Building up the Barge boards and gutter around the edge of the roof means that I've been able to make it a tight fit around the walls so potentially I won't need to glue it on. I've also provided the shed with an interior wooden office. One image I have of Mortonhamstead seems to show such an office, and clearly shows windows looking out over the road entrance. The window was drawn onto Cobex sheet with a ruling pen, when dry a plasticard frame from 0.005" sheet was carefully fretted out and fitted and the whole lot fixed behind the wall. To provide a bit of interest inside the shed I've added 3 P&D Marsh barrels, and some sacks (which may be Fleetline - I've had them so long I can't remember). I also built up some plastic packing crates (just laminations of plastic shaped and 0.010" strips around to represent wooden boxes / crates). Ian

I think that Mikkel's positioning of the G and W is fine. Closer inspection of the Large version, shows that the diagonal framing extends all the way to the framing below the roof line. However, on the Medium wagon, the diagonals converge half way up the end. Effectively there is more room on the Medium wagon for the lettering. Ian

Mikkel / Buffalo, Managed to locate the image I was looking for. It is of Bath Goods Shed on page 350 of "A Pictorial Record of Great Western Architecture" by Adrian Vaughan. It shows the GW occupying the top 3 planks of the available end, on the plank immediately below G is LARGE, and on the plank below that the number (xx921). Immediately below the W is the tonnage (8 Tons), and below that is the tare weight I think. As for the wagon itself, it would seem to have a one side lever brake, and open slats between the bottom two deep planks on the end for dispersal of the lime wash. Apologies for the quality of the image, I do not have a scanner so took a photo of the book. Hope this helps, Ian

Mikkel, As usual, lovely modelling and another suberb tale to go with it. Now the but... I'm not convinced about the transverse strapping on the roof, my belief is that this was used on steel rooves (or more modernly roofs) to cover the joins between the panels. The photos that I've managed to find of outside framed cattle wagons tend to show a plain roof with no rain strips which I take to be wooden planks covered in a tarpaulin of some sort. Rather annoyingly, I came across a photo of an end of an outside framed cattle wagon the other day in the 1904 livery but I'm damned if I can find it again now! (I've just searched through the 3 books that I know I have been reading in the last week or so to no avail). Unfortunately, I cannot remember what lettering was where on the wagon although it was one of the Large sized wagons rather than the Medium that you're modelling but I suspect that the lettering positions would be the same. I will endeavour to locate the offending image to let you know though. Ian

I was hoping that I would be able to add this entry to the 2mm Midland Area Group's St Ruth blog (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/595-st-ruth/), but despite assurances from Andy (D869) I don't seem to have the ability. Never mind I'll post it in my own blog for now. At the last Area Group Meeting, I rather foolishly / bravely / enthusiastically (delete as appropriate) said that I would have a go at making some trees for St Ruth - We plan to have a wooded section behind the branchline just before it disappears off scene. In the past I have made a couple of 4mm scale trees using bowden or bicycle brake cable, which is the very devil to cut, and tends to inflict a certain amount of injury to ones finger tips as it is bent into branch and twig formations. It also has relatively few individual strands, which could be aproblem in a 2mm scale tree. I therefore decided to try to make a tree using some electrical cable that I had to hand. This is a 12 wire shielded multi-core cable where each individual wire has 7 individual strands. Raw Material - doesn't look much like a tree yet I remembered seeing an article way back in the early '90's in a 2mm Association magazine detailing the use of a similar wire for making trees / shrubs, unfortunately I cannot locate the article so cannot attribute this method to the author (apologies to said author). However, the idea is to construct the boughs, branches and twiggier parts of the tree using the individual strands of cable. The (to my mind) clever idea though is to effectively double up on the number of individual strands available by looping the strands back on themselves. About 6 inch length of stripped cable doubled back and twisted together to secure. The loops are then separated into groups of 3 or 4, twisted together for a few mm and new loops formed by doubling up again and again. This is continued until all of the loops are used up. The end loops are cut open, the individual wires spread apart, and solder applied to the whole lot. The resultant branch and twig assembly is then bound with wire strands to other previously formed branches and trunk, and secured in place with solder. The branches and twigs being carefully bent so that they "grow" in the direction of light. (Hopefully it's starting to look a bit more tree-like now) This will be continued until I have enough branch structure to the tree, at which point i will spray the whole thing in primer and then paint in a suitable grey / green colour for the trunk and branches. At the moment I am undecided how to foliate the tree, initially I was intending to glue Woodland Scenics "Foliage" material to the twiggy bits at the end of the branches, or use their foliage net stuff. However a visit to a model shop in Coventry last week provided me a bag of Woodland Scenics "Poly Fiber" (sic), and a bag of Woodland Scenics "Bushes" both of which may produce a better looking tree in the long run - I can feel a bit of experimentation coming on. Hopefully, the next installment will allow me to show a completed tree. Ian

Dave, What a lovely job you've made of her. Really conveys the look of a Dean Goods around the turn of the century. Is the back head removable? If not you've got some very careful masking to do there!! Just a question (not to you in particular), does anyone know what colour the inside of GWR cabs was c 1905/6? I've seen some models with what looks like a cream colour interior, but have never found anything definitive. Ian

Thanks both for the encouraging comments. I hadn't intended actually printing slates on my inkjet, what I'd thought about doing was to use the printer to print some dotted lines on the sheet so that I can more accurately judge where to cut the slates and more importantly where the overlap point would be. I would then paint them once fixed to the roof. I don't intend modelling Moretonhampstead itself, so no I won't be building the Engine Shed / Signal Box. My intention is to model a fictional location in South Devon (Modbury), which would originally have been built by the South Devon Railway to Broad Gauge, but by 1905/6 would have been narrowed but still retain the Baulk Road trackwork. The plan I have would be a passing station on a single track line. The turnout off stage will be the other side of a road overbridge scenic break. The goods shed will be sited behind the main platform, a cattle dock siding alongside it and a long back siding also form the yard. The diamond isn't really, it will be a single slip I just haven't worked out how to draw it in Templot yet! I think that I can get all of that in to a 6 foot length with up to 2 foot traversers on each end (enough for about 10 wagons and engine). Ian PS Dave, you really don't want to go into the 2mm section, the standard of modelling is awesome and you will spend so much time looking and drooling that you'll never finish your Dean Goods or Goods Shed!!

It's been a long time since I posted anything in my blog. However some of the items I've been working on have been documented elsewhere on RMweb : GWR 1854 Saddle Tank conversion from Graham Farish 57xx http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=904684 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=922762 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=925638 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1025075 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1028773 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1045639 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1066142 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1067384 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1071008 3D Printed Outside Framed Brake Van http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1072380 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1075225 Goods Shed http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1098981 The shed itself is based on the drawings of the one at Moretonhampstead in GWR Branch Line Termini Vol 2. It is constructed from 0.030" plasticard with Slaters embossed stone plastic sheeting each side. The corner stone quoins are small rectangles of 0.030" welded on, and made good when dry with a file. The shed crane has also been documented elsewhere (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1102447). The office door is simply another rectangle of 0.030" with a 0.005" panelling section welded on (after carefully cutting out the panels of course!) The window frames are also 0.005" plastic sheet carefully cut to shape and size (a little at a time for the arch until happy with the fit in the window opening). The glazing bars were drawn onto thin Cobex sheet with a ruling pen and fitted behind the frames after they had been paintetd. To accomodate the windows, the rear of the 0.030" inner core of the wall around the window openings was carefully chiselled away to form a rebate to allow the frame and glazing to not interfere with the fitting of the interior embossed stone sheet. The stonework was given an all over coat of a mortar coloured buff enamel that I mixed from a humbrol pale brown colour and white, and when dry the stones themselves were tackled by dry brushing various shades and tones of grey enamel diagonally across the stone surface so as not to clog up the mortar lines. The wooden weatherboard above the rail entrances was built up from 3mm wide strips of self adhesive printer paper from Rymans, each strip overlapping the one below by about 1.5mm. These strips were built up on 0.010" plastic sheet, and once a suitable sized piece was made, a circle cutter was used to provide the archway, and the remainder trimmed away until the item fitted neatly in the rebate provided by the embossed sheet and quoin surround. Weatherboard under construction Weatherboard archways fitted in position I've just made a start on the roof, which has the soffits (? or perhaps they are gable ends? or eaves?) built up from layers of plastic sheet added so that it is a snug fit over the end walls. Once this is thoroughly dry (tomorrow) I will file the layers back to give a smooth finish. I will probably make the slate roof in the same manner as I made the weatherboarding, but because of the prominence of the roof in a model I may well draw up the slates on the PC and print them onto the self adhesive sheet first - I can feel an experiment coming on :-) Trial fit of the roof. The interior roof trussing will be added before final fixing

Richard, It will be a shame if you are unable to exhibit Littlemore, I was looking forward to seeing it at St Albans. However, I quite understand the issues with moving. I gave up railway modelling in the early 90's with the advent of a young family and a couple of house moves. All I can say is that I now regret not finding a little time to pursue this hobby - my P4 layout came with me in every house move (although each time got confined to the loft and no work was ever done on it - it's still there now!!) Still I wish you well with any house move and also with whatever you manage to do for relaxation. For me, you're blog has always inspired me and hopefully quite soon I'll get one of your low siphons trundling up and down to St Ruth! Ian

Dave, That is really coming along very nicely. It really has the look of a Dean Goods, and I can't wait to see the next installment. One day I hope to build one in 2mm - a couple of kits have been promised for ages but nothing as yet is forthcoming. The N Brass one is possibly nearer readiness but when I spoke to the guy on the stand at Railex it is waiting on a preformed tender (flaring of the tops of sides being pre done I think). 2mm locos are supposed to be bringing one out as a 3D printed affair, but I'd want to see one up close and personal before I parted with any readies ;-) In both cases I suspect that I'd need to make my own boiler assembly anyway because I would expect any kit to come with a Belpaire firebox (not suitable for me either). Ian

Thankyou for your input guys. I have looked once again at the threads you've all highlighed. If I paint the window frames chocolate (and the goods office door), what colour(s) do we think that the large rail and road doors would be, would they also be chocolate or light stone with dark framing? Dave, I've not put anything on my blog for ages, I've tended to add entries in the 2mm section. A couple of entries relating to the goods shed are here : http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1098981 and here : http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/?p=1102447 Thanks. Ian

Broad Gauge Goods Shed : Crane I have now made a little crane for the interior of my goods shed. The model is based on an image of the one inside Newbury Goods Shed in "Edwardian Enterprise". The first stage was to construct the woodwork, but without suitable sized plastic rod or bar, I elected to weld together strips of 0.060" then file back to a 2.5mm square section. This was then cut and filed to length and fixed together. One of the most noticeable items on the crane is the large wheel at the top, so I turned a little wheel rim from 10mm bar, and made some spokes (in pairs) from plain rail folded into a V : Once soldered up a trial fit against the woodwork looked like this : It was then a "simple" matter of adding some detail to the structure to represent a light weight crane that would be suitable for inside a Goods Shed : The finished article in place in the Shed : As I have no actual drawings of this type of crane, I do not claim it to be 100% accurate, and because it will be fairly difficult to see I have not gone overboard on the detail side either (especially since the mechanism at the foot of the crane is completely invisible in the views I have, apart from the hand crank being turned by one of the workers). I think that I may habe made it a bit to beefy, but the size was guesstimated from the size of the cahp using the hand crank's head!! So far I am quite pleased with the results, but now have to wait to some responses to a query raised elsewhere on RMweb before I start applying paint. Ian

I am in the process of building a 2mm Scale model of Moretonhampstead Goods Shed, and am unsure what colours to paint it. My model will be based c.1905/6, I have looked in my copy of Great Western Way (1978 version) and from this discussion thread it would appear that things have moved on somewhat from the "white window frames and light and dark stone woodwork". I have been feverishly looking through all manner of books in my possession (including "Great Wester Architecture") for period images of goods sheds that might illustrate what I need to know. In short, colours of windows and doors (including the large doors for the entry ways of railway and road traffic), colours of internal woodwork (including roof supporting structure), colour of an internal crane, etc. I have posted a photo of my build to date for info. The inside of Moretonhampstead Goods Shed is a complete mystery to me, so the road traffic entrance area, crane, and the eventual roof support structure will be for the most part conjecture although based on a couple of internal views I have of Newbury goods shed. Thanks in advance, Ian

Although I haven't actually decided on whether to build a full blown layout or a smaller shunting plank yet, the one thing that I decided on long ago was to build an imaginary location, but with structures typical of the South Devon area, that would also be suitable for an originally built Broad Gauge line. With that in mind I have made a start on a Goods Shed. A look through the few plans I have of such things led me really to a choice between Ashburton and Moretonhampstead, in the end the coice came down to the larger shed of the latter. A few hours up to my ears in plasticard shavings and dust has left me at the current stage : The main structure is pretty well complete, the side with the windows in it has yet to have the inner skin of Slaters stone plasticard fitted - I want to ensure that the rebate that I've formed around the windows to the top of the walls is sufficient to allow the windows to be slid in after the stonework has been painted. The interior is pretty well going to be guess work, the size of the cart pull in (or whatever it might be called) in particular. The real shed has an interior office (judging by the chimney stack), but whether it was stone built or wood I have no idea (I will probably make mine wood). I've been studying a couple of images that I have found of Goods Shed interiors (particularly Newbury in Edwardian Enterprise), so that I can build a wooden crane in the centre of the shed, and also fit a fair representation of the roof beam supporting structure. The third image is a little blurred but hopefully illustrates my own interpretation of what might be under the floor boards and be visible in the area where the rails will be (I need to put something similar on the cart pull in bit too. So far I'm pretty pleased with my endeavours. Ian

Mikkel, I'm glad that they may be of use to someone. Richard Brummitt pointed out that the diagonal numbers on the corners of the tarpaulins should probably be closer to 45 degrees rather than the about 60 degrees that I have drawn them. I will be interested to see what they look like in 4mm - they should be fine for the larger scales as I drew them at a pretty high resolution but will be interested to see what you print them on as I used a green Rizla for 2mm. As for plates on on red/grey bodywork (and black underframes, etc), I really think it's a case of "you pays your money and takes a chance" because at the end of the day until someone invents time travel we really will never know (and I suspect that if time travel does become possible folk will be more interested in going forward to see what next weeks lottery numbers will be than going back to the late 19th century to see what colour the GWR painted it's wagons) :-) Ian

Mikkel, Fantastic modelling as usual!! And also a very well reasoned argument for the Red livery changeover. However, for myself I will continue to put plates on GREY wagons rather than RED. I can't help but feel that your image of the red 4 planker with the plates reinforces this for me - in my view the grey background plates looks absolutely horrible against the red!! Whereas on the grey body they just look right :-) Obviously this is purely a personal view, and I have no evidence to support my view. I do however look forward to images of these wagons on the Farthing modules! Ian

Dave, The revised corbels really look right now. The whole building looks very convincing. I look forward to seeing the completed model. Ian

Tim, See posts 351 and 352 above - I asked the same question :-) Ian

GWR Outside Framed Brake Van Over last couple of days, work on the brake van has progressed. A roof of 0.006" nickel sheet has been gently run over by some brass bar on a mouse mat to impart a suitable curve. A stove pipe chimney was quickly turned up on the lathe (which included the little "skirt" around it where it exists the roof), and finally a new brake standard was also quickly turned up to replace the 3D printed one which unfortuantely fell foul to my cleaning process - The handle on the top is simply a bit of bent 0.2mm nickel silver wire soldered on then the tail cut off. Completed model ready for painting : Completed model : The body has been painted with humbrol dark grey enamel, and lettered with a combination of Fox transfers for the G.W.R and number (having separated the "G.W.R" into component pieces as the spacing was too great to fit the space), the home branding is from a very old sheet of Woodhead transfers, which unfortunately have lost their tackiness so had to be retained in place after dabbing dry with some varnish (all I had was satin so I will have to re-visit them when I get some more matt). I tried to dull down the whiteness of the transfers with some dilute matt black as I was dirtying the coal wagons at the time but should have used my usual method of dry brushing body colour over them as under the flash it looks horrible!! The 2 dumb buffered coal wagons are scratch built in plasticard on some old Colin Waite W Irons, and hand lettered in white ink using a Rotring pen - I ran out of ink in the pen on the red wagon so that clearly needs to be completed at some point That's it I'm just about ready to take St Ruth back to the Edwardian period with a little goods train now Ian

3D Printed GWR Outside Framed Brake Van With an almost complete loco, I felt that I ought to try to put a tail on the end of my wagons by attempting to complete the GWR Outside Framed Brake Van that I had printed up some months ago. The printing was a complete body minus the roof, and some J Hanger/spring/axleboxes with both Grease and Oil axleboxes (luckily I had a good many of these included on the sprue as they are very delicate and several lost a J hanger in storage or trying to manipulate them into position on the model). The print included recesses to facilitate the fitting of the Association W Irons and V hangers, and these items were simply super glued in the relevant positions. The footboards were folded up from 0.006" nickel sheet strips and soldered to 0.3mm brass rod that had been bent to shape and retained in holes that I had incorporated into the print (although they did need opening out as the super glue used to secure the W Irons had flooded into the holes. Manufacture of the footboards : The brake gear was fretted out of a couple of laminations of 0.010" nickel silver using an old 11'0" brake assembly etch as a master that I had kicking about in my box of bits. These brake assemblies were soldered onto some 0.3mm wire with a pair of V hangers from the old Association etch of 9'0" and 10'0" brake gear. The completed assembly was then manipulated between W Iron tie rods and footboards and soldered into position. Association turned wagon buffers were super glued into the holes povided in my print. Once all of the underframe was complete, I turned to the body, in particular the handrails. The knobs for these were produced in my usual method of spinning a thin wire loop held in the pin chuck around handrail wire, to produce a pile of little knobs. These were poked into the holes in the framing (which I had to open out to 0.3mm) as the waxy stuff seemed to have clogged most of them. The handrail was threaded through them and secured to each with a little solder. I decided to cheat a bit and use a single length for the whole side rather than separate bits across the door etc. Hopefully, I will be able to complete this by ExpoFest. Ian