auldreekie

David, Thanks for that. Yes, I'd expect that to work for the cross-braces. Remind me: what are you using for the H columns - brass section? auldreekie

David, Thank you. Well, I'm no engineer. But I really find it very difficult to build a model of something (anything) without a reasonably clear mental picture of how it functions (or might, at least, credibly function). This one has caused more head-scratching than I've indulged in (in a modelling context) for ages. I've probably got more splinters than I did from building the last two baseboards....... I'm interested in seeing how your water tower goes. I suspect that, as and if I ever get around to it (more likely that I shall re-engage first with the main shed building, now that your example has kick-started me) I'm more likely to use styrene sections than brass. (Having said which, my first styrene effort at the tippler guides on the coaling tower has surprised me by its flimsiness, so on that basis too they will have to be revisited... auldreekie

I'm still puzzling how to represent the tippling gear within the mouth of the "chasm". The available photographic cover does not give quite enough information for certainty on several points, but I shall very shortly come to a working conclusion...... For starters, here is a picture of the tippler side with a few of the key pieces partially fabricated (not necessarily quite as they will end up) propped more-or-less in position). After looking long and hard at the pictures, and considering one or two other tipplers (not parts of a coaling stage) to see how they are disposed, I'm coming to the following. - The ground-level tipplers are not helpful in one particular: the counterbalance arrangements for the tippler, since they seem to use the wagon and its cradle as part of the counterweight for the beam: I just don't see how this might be done on a coaling tower. - On the whole, the photographic evidence tends to suggest that the beam is pivoted somewhere on about a level with the first major concrete reinforcing frame above the tops of the main coal bunkers. - It also looks as if the curved steel projections at the base of the chasm and the massive steel static girder which appears to run horizontally between them are key parts of the tippler structure, and the pivot for the "goalpost beam" may well be at the centre of curvature of the steel projection and in line with the end of the static beam. - I see no evidence of how the near-horizontal components at the top of the tippler guide rails are secured at their inner ends. Despite their present configuration as unsecured components of my model, I don't really think they are keyed direct to the reinforced-concrete framework of the jigger side of the structure. Looking at my elevations of the coaling tower, and on the basis of no other evidence, it seems to me that it would make structural sense if each guide rail formed part of a sort of truncated A-frame. It is clear that the guide rails themselves are keyed very firmly to the structure at the level of the top of the hoppers at base of the main bunkers: it would be reasonable for the structure to contain a reinforced-concrete ring-beam at this level. If the rear member of a putative truncated A-frame were based on this ring-beam in line with the jigger-side main legs of the structure, this would seem to provide for a degree of robustness and symmetry which is otherwise absent. All this adds up to a basis for a "believable" (I think) model, with one key exception: I'm blessed (I think that is an admissible word) if I can see how the counterbalance arrangements for the goalpost beam are arranged. The principle is clear enough. But I don't think there's room for a massive enough simple counterweight plus enough room for sufficient angular deflection to do the job. Heigh-ho. auldreekie (Incidentally, the internal "walls" in the model machine-room are not meant to represent reality - they are merely bracing to inhibit bowing-in of the sides.)

At last, a return to the tippler side of things, as yet incomplete by a long way, the main external cladding components on this side being merely propped in place. All machine-room windows and wall-panels are now secured in place. I've chosen to paint the window bars a dirty-looking green, because my memory of ancillary buildings on the ex-NBR in the 1950's is that some such coating was used rather than the Scottish Region sky blue which made relatively limited appearances applied to bits at the "passenger interface", and by no means comprehensively even there. I remember lots of brown and cream on the smaller railway stations, and I'm fairly sure that Waverley's old wooden platform barriers were painted a none too fetching mid to dark green. Some partly-complete components are to be seen lying on the shelf stage right. Next, I have a choice of bullets to bite. Either I can fabricate my best guess about the tippler guide-rails, or I can paint the interior in a suitably filthy condition, so as to enable me to attach the external panels on this side. The tippler guide rails are puzzling me as to their method and location of fixture at the upper end. There surely has to be some very robust anchorage to the main structure so as to enable proper resistance to the forces exerted whilst tipping the loaded coal wagons. Yet I have seen no illustration which gives a clear indication of such anchorage. My best guess is that the upper near-horizontal component must extend through to some form of connection with the jigger-side framing; but I see no external evidence of such an arrangement in the external form indicated by the jigger-side framing. Hmmmm..... auldreekie

Thanks, David. I'm hoping that a Walthers Cornerstone modern fire escape will be amenable to being cannibalised. If not, then I may fall back on Plastruct 1:100 steps, subject perhaps to some thinning-down of the side members, and with the addition of more handrails gleaned from the world either of model boats or of architectural display modelling. auldreekie

Return of the coal monster...... I now have to hand most of the materials needed to finish the job. Main omission so far is the raw material for staircases on the jigger side. So, a start made on one of the easier bits - the railings of the jigger platform, which are now about half done. I realise that I've not yet gleaned from photographs how access is made to that platform from beneath. No matter -- that can be sorted out...... The railing stanchions are from the world of small boats: Caldercraft item 66215, two-hole brass stanchions 15mm tall. After finishing off this particular task, I shall move on to inserting and railing my guess at the winch platform, address the windows, then bite the bullet and start to fabricate the missing elements of the tippler side. Don't hold your breath...... auldreekie

David, Thank you for the kind words. The coaling monster has not gone into serious abeyance. I shuttle between two locations, and I'm not presently at the one to which I've asked various necessary bits and pieces to be sent. Furthermore, I've had to postpone my peregrination for a couple of days. I hope to re-start next week (meanwhile, I've been regaling myself by filling in time with a little narrow-gauge project which can be done in two or three days). Makes a delightful change..... (As you may have gathered from some of my photographs, some of the NG locomotives, the upperworks of which are also confectioned largely from raw styrene, are not without their challenges, and each one takes more like three weeks than three days.) Added to which, the next steps, or very nearly so, on the coaling stage build will be pretty well definitive as to what lives down the chasm on the tippler side. Whilst I'm sure I have the principles right, I live in the unfulfilled (and probably unfulfillable) hope that by magic a precise depiction may emerge of how exactly it was configured in practice. So I didn't too much mind a few days of delay.... But the bullet will soon be bitten. auldreekie

David, Thank you very much for that. It all sounds very straightforward except the crafty recourse to York Modelmaking! I've been pondering those panels, since some pictures suggest that they may be indented in a manner giving slight diagonal folds in the metal of the piece which stands slightly proud (scarcely "folds", but I cannot think of a better way of describing them). Suggests pressed steel(?) panels, rather than the cast-iron ridged ones which might have been employed at an earlier date? auldreekie

I like the model. Any chance of your giving us the low-down on how you made the tank and are modelling the supports and bracing? Silence on my version of the coaling tower, since I've had to reschedule my activities a bit...i auldreekie

David, Water tank I'm just looking at the pictures on pages 51 and 56 of Knox's blue-covered book. There are FIVE sets of H-section columns. I assume that the fat circular-columnar thingies are pipes to do with water outgoing to the various water-columns dotted around the depot, rather than supports. And the main body of the roofing looks to be corrugated something (iron or asbestos?) with the corrugations running at right-angles to the rail tracks. At the top of the access ladder, there seems to be a gap in the roofing, which might have an access-hatch sliding on small-section I-beams. I'm puzzled by the barge-board-like frill which runs right round the top edges: might it be a way for fixing the corrugated roof relatively securely to the remainder? It's odd that there also appears to be no indicator of how full/empty the tank is. I claim no specialist knowledge of this! auldreekie

David, No need to scan for me: I already have Harry Knox's book (as one might expect). I've just never got so far in consideration of the water tower as to identify which pictures seriously clarify the underpinnings. As you have yourself discovered, the water tower tends not to be the first priority which comes to mind as a construction project. Out of curiosity, I'm just off to give Mr Knox's two books some attention as sources of information on that particular subject. Mainly because I'm coming towards a likely pause in operations on the coaling tower whilst awaiting ready-made windows, stairways, stanchions and I-section girder for cannibalisation. I've been considering, and working on, the tippler-side aspect, but there's not a huge amount to show as yet. The Beam does have a very peculiar cross-section, circular in places, flat-faced in others: it took me a little time and effort to work out how to represent this and to do so in practice. I am now almost persuaded that The Beam's supports must have pivoted at about the mid-point of the concrete frame which is level with the top of the upper hopper, the pivot roughly coinciding with a dog-leg in each of the supporting "goalposts", and the lower end on each side of the dog-legged post having attached to it a decent-sized counterbalance weight. If anyone knows different, please shout now, as I am about to embark on a representation of something of this sort. The other challenge in modelling this side of the structure is representing the rest of what is to be seen within the chasm . I suspect that my version of the upper hopper is simplistic, but at least it is functionally plausible.... As to the back of the chasm, the door needs to be represented giving access to the winch for the two-way flap at the exit of the reception-hopper. Well. That's now done but, for plausibility, it entailed a representation of the inner aspect of the concrete frame and of the panelled infill for the upper part of the jigger side of the structure. For what it's worth, here's the present state-of-play. - The main two front panels are merely propped in position as yet, to give a general impression. - Same with the main wall of the machine-room, which has yet to be panelled and to be pierced to represent the double doors (which I assume are for use in loading chunks of kit in and out of the machine-room) . - There is as yet no representation of the (cantilevered?) balcony and winch for the two-way flap. - The Beam is as yet lying on the ground, waiting to be trimmed to length and attached to a mechanism of sorts along lines suggested above. auldreekie

David, That is a particularly good shot of the water tower, because it sorts out what usually appears as a forest of legs. So there are only five sets, each of two. It's less of a chore than I imagined it would be.... auldreekie

A bit of progress. More steps forward than backwards. I think. - Four more panels cut out, overlaid, glued in place and fettled for the machine-room. (The side pieces for the "ears" from which the counterbalance-weights for the lift component of the tippler will be suspended.) - The jigger-platform has now had its business edge chamfered and hacked-out to receive the jigger-housings. Neither of these sub-assemblies is yet fixed in place, but each further phase of activity results in a little more fettling of them, so that by now they are getting to be a comfortable fit. - Likewise, internally I have added small filler-pieces between the edges of the upper hopper and the external cladding of the tower. Invisible in this photograph, but it also reflects a small step towards another of the several subassemblies being ready to be incorporated into the whole. The bad news is that my intended source of very near-correct windows has dried up, so slowing progress even more, as well as obliging me to make do with something a little further (by a couple of millimetres) from the real-world configuration. Just as well I didn't prepare the necessary four panels in expectation....... On the other hand, I think I've cracked the two-rail handrail requirement by aiming to use some (relatively) cheap model boat components. I'm coming round to the view that the Walthers Cornerstone modern fire-escape kit may provide me with an affordable means of faking up the stairways with their associated one-rail handrails. Next up looks like being starting to get to grips with the tippler rails and The Beam.... auldreekie

David, I shall look forward to that. Meanwhile, back at this ranch, progress appears to have slowed a bit. It's really quite tricky making sense of even my own drawing when it comes to breaking down the machine-room into a workable set of components then putting them together. It has taken me all day to fettle and fix the two "internal dividers", then to cut to size, overlay, fettle and fit (at about the third attempt) the outer panel for one of the six projections. And, even although I've now established the pattern of work for the other five projections, things may move even more slowly for a bit, as all "outer" panels remaining plus both main sides of the machine-room involve doors and windows, for which I hope to use etched items currently in the post. And, of course, painting and bedding-in doors and windows is of itself a multi-stage procedure. I may just have to chamfer and hack the jigger-platform..... auldreekie

David, Many thanks. I'd never have found that unaided. Sounds like a product to use with circumspection: I see fire-brigades being called-out to remove unwary modellers from all sorts of heavy furniture, plumbed facilities, and even motor vehicles...... auldreekie

David, That glue sounds fabulous! There are various grades of Loctite which create pretty robust joints between bits of metal, so that one of them might be capable of being pressed into service in this way. Whatever, there'd be a need to fabricate at least two jigs: one for the one-rail railings and one for the two-rail ones. There might also have to be a "sloping" one to cope with the stairway handrails..... For glued assembly, they could be in styrene. For soldering, they'd have to be wooden....... To be honest, the stairways cause me more concern than the handrails. I believe that I COULD produce the handrails, although with little joy other than that of completion. But I'm not so sure about the steps! And I ought to thank you seriously for that reference to BRILL. I bought a back issue, and the picture there is, of course as a full-page print, beautifully clear and detailed. Between that and the jigger side picture of the Kittybrewster tower which I mentioned the coverage is excellent. The main differences between the two appear to lie in the various offices grouped around the base and/or under the jigger platform. I shall not be tackling those yet awhile........ (Although I AM now seriously tempted to dig out the bits and pieces for the shed: I am given pause only by the numerous uncompleted narrow-gauge projects currently on the stocks.) As to "believe it or not", I believe it all too well. There will be several NG locomotives which I've built from scratch from basically one dimension (eg overall length, or rigid wheelbase), a few photographs and a hell of a lot of cross-checking, eg with the known rail-gauge if an appropriate head (ish) or tail (ish) photograph is available. The secret (assuming that I've found it) is to keep looking with a skeptical eye at the drawing as it proceeds and at the model as it is fabricated. Any departure from apparent proportionality is a warning that all is not well -- some assumption has gone wrong. auldreekie

David Stairways and handrails - brass wire: it may well come to that. I'm no dab hand with a soldering iron. I wouldn't say that I'm terrified of the things, but I've never managed to get into a "teamwork" relationship with them...... However, with the right wooden jig, it might work, and I might allay some of my inhibitions...... A lot of "mights" here. I prefer "mays"... Glad my dimension acts as confirmation. That ought to be reassuring for both of us. I did say I'd spent a lot of time arriving at that drawing, building-in such limited cross-checks as I could. From experience in building little locomotives often based on very limited dimensional and photographic information, I'd be surprised and disappointed if I was wildly adrift, although there's no guarantee whatever of ultimate precision. auldreekie

David. That dimension is the same (with due allowance for the imprecision of my fabrication) on the drawing as on the model "in the plastic": 130 millimetres I hope that helps. That water-tank definitely looks like a challenge, although (rather like the shed itself), it's a challenge requiring more than I have been able to muster by way of patience in implementing time and again solutions once they've been devised. My poor old hands still carry a memory of hacking out all those gables with two arched and one circular aperture each...... At least with the coaling tower, whilst it's a succession of one damned problem after another, each problem tends to be a new one. Update on my glacial progress: I postponed hacking into the jigger platform, but made a start on the machine-room. Tricky, because of its complicated shape and because it has to be a precise fit on the tower beneath. I think its complex outline will need to be braced against future distortion. I therefore decided to make it as a rectangular box with two dividers coinciding with the "inner" walls of the tippler-side and jigger-side projections. Not prototypical, but I don't intend the innards to be particularly open to inspection.... The two end-walls of that box are now to be seen in place. The end-projections will be glued on to the outside. If more bracing is needed, then each of the three main rectangular compartments can be bisected by a divider. Still ruminating about stairways and handrails. The world of model boats offers options, but they ain't cheap for such a structure as this. I'll need to think just how the Plastruct product could be slimmed down to look more like steelwork....... auldreekie

Thank you for all that, David. I hadn't really thought about making any representation of the winches in the machine-room. Food for thought..... As is the brilliant presentational ploy of having both wagon-loaded tippler and counterbalance weights poised at half mast. The opposite side is also highly thought-provoking. The Bachmann model has more knobbly interest than the actual Haymarket/Kittybrewster implementation. Are those stairways and railings the Bachman originals? (I'm deliberating alternative compromises right now....) And that is a very interesting and encouraging adaptation of the Peco turntable. In my narrow gauge empire, I had a shot at a similar use of the N-gauge Peco product, but first shot has proved mechanically unreliable. Fortunately the basic cost is low, so that several attempts can be contemplated with equanimity: I hope that when (in the end) I succeed in getting it right it will look as good with my scratchbuilt NG monsters on it as yours does with the ECML cavalry of glorious memory! I too registered the promised Metalsmiths product as a possibility for the planned standard gauge layout, but it would take up quite a few weeks' worth of pocketmoney....... auldreekie

David, Thank you for that. I hadn't thought of that particular complication, about which it is helpful to be forewarned. I think that otherwise I might have fixed the machine room before the tippler-side upper panels, which would obviously have to precede the guide-rails for the tippler...... The bit that I'm most chuffed with so far is the way in which the upper end-panels recede upwards ever so slightly behind the tippler-side framing. I had some difficulty in working out from photographs what was going on here, but I think the effect on the model is about right, except that the necessary small slope remains to be filed to finish off the top edge of said frames. Why the end-panels slope slightly in this way is a bit of a mystery to me: I guess it may have something to do with enlisting the help of gravity to keep the tippler counterweights on track. auldreekie

POSTED IN ERROR auldreekie

That's quite good of the coaling tower, especially given the dearth of readily-available decent pictures of the tippler side. It's super of "Maude". Here are a couple of photos indicating current progress on my attempt to scratchbuild the coaler. This is the tippler side as it was about a couple of days ago. The upper hopper is now firmly and positively located, but I have left it unfixed pro tem, because I wish to be able to remove it for ease of working on the internal cantilevered balcony which will have to be added for access to the winching gear for the hinged flap. I suspect that I shall have to invent such detail of the latter as I wish to include, but I'm leaving it in the hope that further information may turn up. For the same reason the upper two external panels on this side are as yet left off. The finalisation of "The Beam" will have to await completion of all that lot. But I'm still giving that a bit of thought. It occurs to me that in reality the "goalposts" sustaining the beam may have been cranked, which would perhaps have helped the geometry of the counterbalance arrangements. This is the jigger side as of this afternoon. The floor of the machine room is now fabricated and placed on top but not yet fixed, as I intend to fabricate the entire machine room as a separate subassembly before fixing it in place as a whole. The upper panel of the jigger side is now glued in place. To my relief, this and the machine room floor are a good fit. This came about, however, as a result of some very careful filling and fettling to rectify errors cumulating through the height of the building (of the order of 1mm, which is, I suppose, to be expected over a height of some 300mm). The "jigger deck" is now fabricated and friction-fitted between the legs. It comprises three thicknesses of 60 thou styrene sheet, of which the central layer is hollowed out to accommodate a 6cm x 6cm piece of lead flashing in order to provide some weight low down to stabilise the building. It is not yet glued into place, because the chamfer along its lower edge on the jigger side has yet to be filed-in. The two jigger housings are fabricated and loosely located near to their final position, but they each yet need to be cut into the edge of the deck by about an inch, then the whole caboodle cemented in place. At this stage, two aspects of this build have become clear to me: - The shape of the structure is such that great care needs to be taken with accuracy of fit of components in the lower parts. - There is a need to concentrate on producing key subassemblies, but in many instances not to cement them in place as soon as they are fabricated, since dependencies between stages of assembly tend to become clear only as the build proceeds. This is perhaps simply because of the unfamiliar shape of the structure. auldreekie

Further pictures! Great!! Probably more use to me than to David, as he has got so much further ahead with his build. David, Thanks for being understanding. I shall give some thought to the last few days' work, and post drawing attention to points which would help someone else tackling the coaling plant build. I DID think quite hard about making bits operational, but I reckoned that any small amount of mechanical ingenuity I may possess would be better deployed otherwise right now. I think the way I've gone about the build would make it reasonably easy, if taken as a basis, for someone who wished to make the works work. I may, if it's easily done, pivot the tippler beam, just for the hell of being able to move it. As to railings and stairways, I just assumed that you'd cannibalised the Bachmann model. If not, are you willing to tell us what you used? auldreekie

David, That looks superb, especially with the wagon posed halfway up on the tippler hoist. Does it live permanently in that position, or can the hoist be raised/lowered? Also, is there any chance of a view of the jigger side of the model? As to the time needed to scratchbuild, you're right to be cautious about committing. to it. I reckon of the order of 90 man-hours so far (I'm not the quickest or the most precise of builders, so quite a bit of time has been spent on acting to prevent the cumulation of errors), and I might be getting on for half way there..... I stopped posting, as I seemed to be rather hogging your thread. Let me know if it's of interest to be warned where the problems crop up and where the time has to be spent (by no means always where expected...... ). auldreekie

Some more progress. Some sharper pictures, which are, I think, more or less self-explanatory. The tippler side, upper two panels of cladding not yet in place The upper hopper is not yet fixed in place, whence its sitting slightly askew. Otherwise, a fairly clear anatomical picture.... The jigger side. First and second panels in place, third one yet to be fixed. Both ends now satisfactorily assembled. auldreekie