airnimal

CKPR, the W-irons are my own LNWR etchings. They are not on the open market but I have sold some to friends who have asked for them. I cut my own ones down because I don't want to solder my brake gear to the wings. Over the years I have produced a couple of wagon kits for myself and a few close friends with the excess been sold by word of mouth. I have made patterns for resins kits for other people and made masters for my own. I keep getting asked to produce more but I don't really want to become a small business. Another reason is I don't have a business brain or the desire to make money. I am not a rich man but I have enough for my modest life. Surly being content is one of life's pleasures. Simon, thanks for the thumbs up. My wife and my other daughters are over the moon. It means they have a reason to go shopping for baby things.

I haven't done any more work on the NSR cattle wagon because my mojo took a leave of absence. I had put boxes under most of my wagons with lead weights in but just recently I had been glueing old brass pins from plugs underneath with double sided tape. After a couple fell off I decided to go back to my old method and do the job properly. I had run out of 12BA nuts and bolts after using 200 over the last 5 years. The last lot I got were at an exhibition so I had to find a source by mail order. I find this stressful but in the end I got what I wanted with very good service from Item Mail Order Ltd. I went on line to enquire only for a gentleman to phone me a short time later and the items I wanted were ordered and delivered this morning. Under 24 hours and they were here. Excellent service. With the weather bright and sunny I went for a ride on my bike on Sunday and managed 60 + miles. I must keep it up and get back to doing this sort of mile regularly. Other news is I'm a grandad again ! My middle daughter in Australia gave us a baby girl this morning. I don't know when we will get to go and she her and the others, it doesn't look likely this year.

Just opened a bottle of Titanic's plum porter grand reserve. Now Titanic's plum porter on draught is one of my favourite beers which is always on form when it's on in my local. I don't know if this is bottle has slightly gone off but it has a slight taste of vinegar and not as good as the standard plum porter. I had another bottle of the same not long ago and that wasn't up to form as well. I don't like to be hard or to critical of a beer with one I have very much enjoyed in bottles and on draught but this grand reserve is not a patch on the standard plum porter IMHO.

Last night I was looking at this wagon and something didn't look right. I had not got the spacing right of the plank widths. I was to far into the build to take out the offending pieces without destroying the whole side and starting again so I put an overlay on with the correct spacing. This has reduced the depth of the framing but looking at the photographs of the real thing it dose not look wrong. So this morning I have started on the other side. Hopefully I will have learned the lesson from the first side and not repeat the mistakes but then again with my track record I won't bank on it !

Nearly finished one side. I made a mistake with the step under the doors which hopefully I have rectified without to much damage. The mistake was because I was looking at the drawing which is in two half's and I mistook the step as being one long one where as it is in two pieces. Not having very clear photographs doesn't help as well.

A small amount of progress has been done this morning. I prefer to do one complete side so I can see if the wagon looks like it should before attempting the other side.

Building up the frames much like the original builders would have done. I think people will think this method of construction is daft rather than building the complete side and then joining it together. But it works for me as long as I don't forget to drill the holes for the top bars before I glue in the upright pillars. I have forgotten them in the past and had to drill the holes in the outside pillars before pushing wire through to the middle pillars and then heating the wire with a soldering iron and pushing them through. That method is nerve wracking with the hot iron next to so much plastic.

Back home safe but not without stress. Not the Hospital but my wife went with some girlfriends for lunch and took with her all my keys in the car ! I left enough time to get to the Hospital on my bike when I searched for my keys only to find they were missing. Words were muttered ! I called her and she brought them back with much cussing. I haven't peddled so fast for a such a long time. Any way back home I've put the ends on the cattle wagon so things are looking up.

I have started again on the frames. I don't believe it was a good idea to try and build something square with a hangover as the result was way out of true. So this second attempt is a lot better with both ends cut out ready. It will be later before I can do any more because I am off to the Hospital for some tests.

All the family has departed leaving me with a hangover but with a lot of happy memories. So it's back to the workshop and the next candidate which is a NSR cattle wagon. I have managed to make a start with the basic frame built but I don't think I will do alot more tonight.

Very little to report with the weather been so kind to us all. With family here I can only do a small amount in the workshop without getting into trouble. So up early while the rest are still sleeping I managed to make enough cattle wagon grills to do one wagon. I am pleased with the consistency and even spacing which I hope will look fine when placed in a model.

I must thank Phil at Intentio for pointing out to me my biggest mistake yet ! I put the chimney on the wrong side of the building. But because the fabulous fit of the parts and the fact that I had only clipped the roof on, I was able to push a rule up underneath and release the roof and turn it around without damage. My track record of kit building has never been great but the fit of the parts which just clip together is so good that I would recommend these kits without hesitation. I must thank my wife and children for all my birthday treats yesterday. We went out into Cheshire for a meal with one daughter and her partner with the two little grandsons who were able to run around a field with a ball for a couple of hours in the sunshine. Better than them playing with computer games. Number two daughter is coming tomorrow with her husband and two more grandchildren to stay for a few days. Number three daughter is in Australia so she may be awhile before we get to she her and partner when when she will have a new edition to show us along with the other grandson.

With so many best wishes make me a little embarrassed ! But many thanks for today. I hope I can keep going for some time yet. I have nearly finished my friend's building with just a little more work on it do. He was pleased with the result and then claimed he taught me everything to do with model making.

Simon, it's fine. There was only a couple of bits that were missing or wrong and I can put them right without much work. I still have the lead flashing to do around the chimney and a bit more going over the colours. I will take it tonight when I have a pint with my friend and see if he is happy so far. We are having a beer tonight for my birthday tomorrow when I reach the grand old age of 70. When I have been on my bike recently I'm struggling a bit with fitness and looking back it was only 4 years ago when I climbed the Transfargarasan Highway in Romania to a height of 7,700 ft. And I rode the whole lot. Could I do now ?

I was unsure how I painted the station building and goods shed on my friend's layout as it was over 5 years ago when I built them for him. He is building a couple of large goods sheds himself to go at the back of his layout and he is having trouble with the mortar courses. I was a bit reluctant to paint this small hut in case I made a mess of it but he say said to me just go for it. It is amazing how quickly one forgets how to do something when you don't do things regularly. I have sprayed his little hut with Halfords red primer and the when it was dry I made up a thin mix of interior wall filler to a very runny consistency. I applied it all over with kitchen roll and wiped it off straight away. The jury is out on the result but I will show it to him tonight because we are going out for a pint together. There is a couple of holes in the chimney stack that I don't know the reason they are there and the last brick course at the top is missing from my box. It could be my friend has lost it our if it came like this when he bought it. I will try and make up some replacement parts for it.

I have not been making wagons for a couple of weeks because I have been doing other things. As well as being out on the bike I have been making a building for my good friend Peter from a kit. This is a G.W.R weigh bridge hut from Intentio. It came to me without instructions so I am having to guess how it should go together. I have come across a few small problems like the odd corner brick cut out wrong or the wrong chamfer. Nothing that a bit of filler won't put right. Intentio web site suggests painting with Halfords grey primer then white gloss to seal the surface. Then spaying again with Halfords red primer before doing the mortar. I don't know if all that paint will fill all the brick courses so I might just spray with the red primer. The weigh bridge I have sprayed with Ford graphite grey and it has turned out well.

Having made a small jig to solder up the bars for the cattle wagon so it match the spacings on the etched bars that I was given, I then looked at the photographs of the NSR cattle wagons. These show that the bars are a lot closer together so I decided to make another jig to reflect the difference. I really should have made the jig with one side adjustable so the soldered up bars could be extracted a lot easier. An adjustable jig would have been useful for different lengths of bars or even fence posts.

When I made the last LNWR cattle wagon I used a small etch of the inspection bars on the lower side of the wagon. This etch was given to me many years ago by the late Peter Korrison. Peter was a very clever man who was into etching at a very early stage of etchings. I have run out of these etchings so Graham Beare was going add them a sheet that he and Chris Brown are making up. Graham was wondering how Peter Korrison had achieved such fine etches without them disappearing in the acid. So I was wondering if I could make my own bars to save Graham the bother of trying to make them and wasting money if they didn't work. So I made a little jig to hold them at the correct spacing so I could solder them up. I riveted a couple of lines on 2 pieces of thin nickel and drilled them through before bending them and soldering them to a base plate. I then loaded them with lengths of .45mm nickel wire and placed a couple of ply wood sleepers underneath and soldered them up. Once removed from the jig and cleaned up they are just what I wanted. The jig could have been made with a bit more finesse but at the end of the day it works.

" Well how much for this old wagon you say " " That's to much " " Then make me an offer "

Just the interior to do now and I think baring the matt varnish, it's done. I don't know if it pleases me but it's to late now. Tomorrow we hopefully we get back to normal and it's my wedding anniversary and I get to talk to my doctor at the hospital. So a red letter day all around.

Second attempt look better.

I am trying to ghost the Cam Rly lettering on the non brake side. Take a photograph and see where I have gone wrong because nothing shows up better than a photograph. I will amend it to get the spacing better and alter all the other letters.

I have found in my bits box a set of axleboxes and springs from the Metropolitan Railway that were just right. I had to cut of the axleboxes and just leave the springs but the shape and the number of leaves was perfect. Once I get them painted and fixed on then it is the matter of trying to distress the wagon to look like the prototype photograph.

Historex in Dover. Go on there website and find Masterclub nuts and bolts. There mail order is excellent. No connection other than a happy customer.

The finishing line is in sight! Just the springs need painting and the all the weathering with the Cam Rly and the Prince of Wales feathers on the non brake side. I probably change the springs to a lighter set because these are a bit heavy.