airnimal

Although I have made the brake rack to the length on the photograph it looked to long. When I made the replacement I reduced the length by 1mm and managed to drill the peg holes in the middle of the rack. Both these little things are an improvement in my eyes.

I have cut the brake handle and rack out of 12 thou nickel. I was going to use an Ambis rack until I looked at the photograph and noticed the the rack only had 5 peg holes in it. The Ambis ones have many more holes in them so one of them would not look like the prototype wagon. It was only after when taking the photograph that I noticed the middle hole was out of line, so I will have to make a replacement. Went out again on my bike yesterday which felt a little easier than last week so I must keep at it.

I have drilled all the holes on the ends for the coach bolts / hex nuts. Looking at the photograph show that one end pillar has been replaced because the bolt pattern are different and in different places. I suppose with a wagon that is probably 40 / 50 years old it will have been rebuilt many times. There is still plenty to do including the coupling plates and one complete side's ironwork. I think we have more or less discounted moving house for a couple of years if at all. Coming up to the a big birthday has brought my wife and children a desire to buy gifts to celebrate. I find it hard to accept any expensive gifts, I much rather they spent it on themselves or the grandchildren. They have suggested paying for someone to build the baseboards to go in the workshop to get me going on a layout. I'm not sure I'm ready to start a full blown layout but I wouldn't mind a couple of boards to make a diorama. So for the last couple of days we have been trying to clear some space in my workshop which will also involve clearing out the garden shed of rubbish to store some of those things that we should really just dump but find it hard to let go.

Discovered a few different tins in Morrison's yesterday. This Konrad's stout from Lervig in Norway. It's a sweet stout at a healthy 10.4% but it is very drinkable for such a high percentage. Very enjoyable.

I have managed to do most of the coach bolts on one side. A couple of the washers disappeared when I was reducing the thickness so I have had to reapply them. I have both ends and the other side to do as well as all the interior details before I get to the paintwork stage.

After a day with our grandsons life gets back to less frenetic pace. I have started to rub the washers I glued on yesterday to a more reasonable thickness before drilling out to accept . 7mm rivets or coach bolts. This is going to be a long process, so I will only do a few at a time.

It was my local shed as well as Heaton Mersey. I did take some photographs as a school boy so they are not the best quality but they may prove useful. I have lived in Stockport all my life and end up living just over the road from Heaton Mersey shed only seperated by the M60 motorway.

I have started to do the small details now including drilling the ironwork for the coach bolts. I have also put the washers on before I sand them flatter because they are made from 10 thou plastic which is to thick. I will leave them to go hard before I do that and then drill for the coach bolts. They tend to disappear when sanded or drilled if they are not hard. I have also moved the brake shoes closer to the wheels and cut the ends of the buffers for the straps that prevent the wood splitting. I have made them slightly different to show this old wagon has had a hard life. There won't be a lot more done today or tomorrow because of the grandsons are coming.

Dave, the W-irons have a slot in rather than a hole and the wheels just sit at the top of the slot. I have in the past used a wire to push down the wheels but I found they work just as well using gravity. Not wanting to do extra work I leave them out now unless I get a bad riding wagon. I have done some more work today on the detailing of the ironwork and other bits. We did a small ride out into Cheshire yesterday doing about 40 plus miles with a few small hills. Several of the lads like to explore small off roads lanes and tracks which didn't go down well with one of the ladies who clearly wasn't impressed and turned the air quiet blue. I am struggling with fitness with not going out much last year but if I can keep at it I will hopefully build up a bit more stamina.

I have started to put the ironwork on the body and cut a few marks in the wood where it's had a hard life. The centre door plate to protect the door is slightly off centre in the photograph and the bottom of one corner plate is damaged. I will probably leave it for now and go and do a few miles on the bike. A few friends are going out this morning in Cheshire so there won't be to many hills. I don't always want to go but the alternatives will be worse in the long run.

I have cobbled together the rather ramshackle brake gear to resemble the photograph. The left hand shoe looks to me to be upside down but I am hoping to build it warts and all. I have used one of my own casting which has been cut and shut as they say in the motor trade.

Although I don't appear to have done alot it has taken several hours to put the V-irons on and get it up on it's wheels. I managed to get glue on the body sides at the end but hopefully it is where the corner plates go on so I will be able to hide the mistake.

The bottom of the W-irons is curved so I soldered four bits of nickel together and cut them out as one. I cleaned them up and separated them. When I seperated them I found only three. Where do these things go ? I drilled one and glued a couple of Masterclub. 8mm bolts in. The missing one may become a straight one from my spares box.

I used to make my own rivets until I discovered these resin moulded one from Masterclub. I think they are cheap costing only £2.95 per packet. I get mine from Historex in Dover. They also do nuts and bolts which are brilliant. I have no connection with Historex , only a satisfied customer.

Marc, I see you have done your model in the full Cambrian livery. Mine will very run down like the condition seen in the photograph of wagon No 356. I put the ends on and then I made a mess of the sides last night so I went to bed and had another look at it this morning. With fresh eyes it wasn't as bad as I first thought. So I was able to use the sides with a bit of trimming. At least the basic body is together now.

After scrapping the beer van before it got going I thought I would build a simple wagon with bags of character that had seen lots of life. So a lime wagon from the Cambrian Railway. I have the unusual V-iron and the axleboxes plus a brass casting for the brake shoes in stock. I like the broken corner plate and the replacement plank of a different size. I also have a cast number plate that has been hanging around for far to long. So with all the ingredients at hand it would be rude not to build this wagon. I have got as far as the basic frame and floor. The ends were cut from one long length but the sides will have to be made individually because they are not the same. Having scrapped the beer van I was beginning to think I had lost my touch and it did take me awhile to get going, but I feel a bit better now this wagon appears to be going well. Finger crossed.

Occasionally ones comes across a mongrel that's not going anywhere. This wagon is one of those. When I glued the bottom of the frames on something just didn't look right so I took them off and made new ones. The plastic I am using is 80 thou and is very soft. One side is shiny and one side is matt. The shiny side doesn't scribe very well. I made a mess of the replacements and had to make another pair. Having pulled it apart 3 times it became obvious that this was going to be one of those...... So I will recover the buffer castings because it's the last set I have of these LNWR wagon buffers. I have a nice bottle of beer and the folk show is on Radio 2 so all is not lost.

I have started to build the frames up. I am sure it would be easier to build the sides in the flat and then add them to the frames but I prefer to build them up as the prototype. We will have to see if this is successful or not. There won't be a lot done today because we have our grandchildren today while mum and dad are at work.

Sir Douglas, yes the van in the photograph is a Wirral Railway van. I tried to build one in page 2 and 3 in these ramblings of mine. I am struggling to find parts in my many boxes of bits. I searched around and found 4 LNWR wagon buffers so I thought I would attempt to build a beer van. My wife says how appropriate given my love of real ale. So I made the basic frame which is slightly wider than a standard van and drilled the holes on the headstock for the buffers. When I came to glue them in I discovered that one had a smaller stem on the back than the other three. So I had to sleeve it with a bit of brass tube. Adrian must have made several patterns of the same buffer but the front part is the same. I cut back the solebars to give plenty of room for any nuts on the back of the buffer heads. I think I am going to have to build it like a open cattle wagon. Graham, the other van in the photograph is a M&SLR van like this.

Back to the models. Having run out of brake shoe castings I have cut a couple out of my big brass washer. I am not sure I'm going to use them on the next build but at least they are in stock for later. At least I have plenty of drawings and photographs to go on.

We have definitely given up any attempt to move house this year. My wife loves this house we live in, it's just in the wrong location. So I will hopefully build a few more wagons and finish those already built. I had my second jab yesterday without any problems but when I went out on my bike today I only did 35 miles and was completely worn out. Not sure it was because of the jab or because I am getting old but I did a lot further than that last week without any problems. I don't know how long I will be able to keep cycling or if I will ever get to do a 500 or 600 mile tour of Cuba or India again when we finally get the green light to go ahead. I will be 70 at the end of next month. What to build next ? I really should build a few 2 plank LNWR opens which I don't have any off. They were the standard LNWR open for many years so they really are necessary to have a balance stud.

With the weather being so kind to use I decided to paint all the remaining numberplates I have for my LNWR wagons. First i cleaned them all before sticking them down to some card and spraying them with White primer. I had hoped that once I had painted them Black over the dried White paint I would be able to leave an easy way of just wiping of the soft Black paint to leave a nice White numbers showing. It didn't work out that way because but it will have to do with the nickel showing through. As for the Estate Agents new practice of only allowing cash buyers or those able to proceed quickly seems to me a shoddy business. Because the market has been interrupted because of the virus and is now doing very well, they don't appear to won't to work hard for they money. Well I hope it comes back to bite them.

Dave, if you want to store all my models they come with 3 daughters worth of stuff that they left here when they left home to go to universities. The last one left here 12 years ago but we still have a loft full plus a wardrobe full of clothes that will probably never fit them again but they swear hasn't to be thrown out. As for moving house we are going to put it on the back burner until life returns to normal. We tried to look at some houses but we were told that we couldn't look until our house had been sold. I don't know what other people think of that but I wasn't impressed. Estate agents don't exactly do a great deal other than put people in touch with each other and post pictures on line and in there shop fronts. I know several will never get my business when it becomes time to try again when the market settles down again. Anyway I am still trying to finish some more wagons with little jobs that have been put off like the numbers on the end of this small LNWR van along with the tare weight. I tried using some old meth fix tranfers but they kept coming off so I hand painted them very badly. The ones on on the ends were a mixture of both.

Dave, thank you for the offer about wagon sheets. Please don't think me ungrateful but I will persevere with black tissue paper when my mojo returns. At present it has gone walk abouts somewhere. Trying to find a house and putting ours on the market is not my favourite pastime and with not having done this for such a long time is proving very stressful to both my wife and myself. So what little modelling I have done is going over old projects that didn't get 100% finished like painting the tare weight on my Wigan Coal and Iron wagon. I have tried to paint it so it blends in and doesn't look newly applied. Other small jobs include cleaning out the webbing on wheels that I didn't do when they were first made.

I am surprised that the diagram book has not been brought into the equation regarding the ordering of the correct wagon for any unusual load.