airnimal

Once I had assembled all the parts I was surprised that buffers were to high against other wagons and my wagon height jig. I went back and checked all the dimensions on the body and found them correct. The small drawing in Midland wagons gives the rail clearance as 10" at the ends of the wagon and 12" in the middle. When I measured mine it was 10" all along so something was amiss. I had used the correct wheels so the only thing I could think to do was make new W-irons to drop the buffer height down a fraction. I don't know where these etched W-irons came from but I did have another set. So I cut them slightly longer and made new base plates for them. This has brought the buffers more or less in line with my other wagons but has reduced the ground clearance down to 9". I think I can live with that. I still have to black the buffer bodies and paint the new W- irons which I should have done before I started on the numbers / tare weight letters but I wanted to see how it was going to look ! The numberplate is from an old Slaters sheet with the others a mixture of tranfers and hand lettering. I tried painting the numbers in the numberplate but the surface is crinkled after I varnished it so I was unable to add the numbers. I will have to go cap in hand to Chris Brown to see if he is doing anymore etched plates.

I have turned down part of the steel buffer head to lower the spring which fits inside the collar. After shortening the length of the buffer head it now all fits in to the buffer body with only the nut protruding and when chemical blackened, hopefully won't look to bad.

Nickey Line, all suggestions are welcome, more the merrier. I have used the Peco parallel G.W.R buffers with the lip turned off but I can't use there method of springing on this build because of the open frame nature of this wagon. I have been playing around with a collar over a standard turned buffer from some I had in stock so I can use a 12 BA nut located inside the bufferbeam. I have already shortened the Peco buffer body so that it doesn't protrude beyond the bufferbeam so if I do the same on the turned buffer heads I might have the answer my spring problem. I won't be able to anything now untill Monday at the earliest because family matters are pencilled in which I am looking forward to.

95% complete with just a few items to add. I would like to change the brass screws holding the axleboxes to the frame to countersunk ones so they are not as visible. I still have to resolve the issue with the buffers because they are not sprung. I have racked my brains on how to retro fit springs without success because of my lack of forward planning. I might not even spring them and just glue them up solid. There is not much lettering on this wagon and the small ones about the axleboxes are to small for me to attempt to do by hand so they will probably be left off. Things that would have made a big difference would be a second set of bearings / axleboxes behind the wheels and the bolts / nuts showing on the inside of the frames. I don't have a small pillar drill which would have made drilling the frames in the flat a lot easier rather than drilling by hand once the frames had been assembled. Drilling all those holes and keeping the drill bits parallel is impossible not helped by getting older. I have the large foundry casting my friend made for me as a load but rather than use that I would like to find a large wheel or a beam from a mill engine.

Progress has got a move on in the last couple of days. Even through we had a couple of grandchildren today I managed to get the rest of the bolts / nuts glued in. When they went home the sun came out and I washed and painted the body. All the fittings and wheels will have to wait awhile but at least it is starting to look like a wagon.

A couple of shots of the method finally adopted to make the spring hangers. I length of 40 X 125 thou evergreen strip was drilled and filed to shape ( poorly ) before glueing over the end of the spring. Then a couple of pieces of 40 X 40 evergreen was cut to fit either side at the bottom after rounding of one edge before glueing them in place. A couple of disc's of black was punched out and stuck on. Simple in the end but I went round the house's to get here.

I have managed to drill so many holes in the wrong place and broken more drills than on any other project. This wagon has tested my patience than anything I have ever made before. All the holes are now drilled ready to take the nuts / bolts but the one on the side are just loose and not glued in yet because I and still working on the spring hangers. These nuts / bots are quite soft so rather than damage them I will leave off untill it's time to paint the wagon. All the bolts on the ends are glued in because the buffers protect them. These spring hangers have taken a long time to come up with something that looks like the photos. I must have had about 20 rejects before I finally settled on the present arrangement. I have only made one so far but I think I will stick to how I have made the first one and so I can see the finishing line and get some paint on and hide all my mistakes. While I have been wrestling with these spring hangers other people have been posting about S7 which I have enjoyed reading about. When I moved up a scale from 4mm I did consider S scale which I find delightful but was put off by the lack of parts especially driving wheels. Not being good at loco building I decided to go 7mm before quickly turning to S7. After seeing Geoff Stenner's Oakhurst layout at the Machester show and seeing how well it performed, I was hooked.o

It's funny how other people see your work and what you see yourself. I see myself as a bodger who can't make kits so just blunders on scratch building. I make so many mistakes when building something like this wagon but I try to carry on and overcome problems as they arise. I also only notice details after I am half way through that would have been easier had I noticed earlier on. A case in point are a pair of tie rods behind the headstock that would have been better had I not clad the outside with the riveted plates. I didn't see these until recently but how to reto fit them ? First I drilled a couple of holes through the headstock to take some .6 mm wire and pushed it all the way through till it touched the back wall. I then very carefully placed the tip of my soldering iron on the wire as close to the end and melted the wire in the back plate. This leaves a raised bead around the wire which was withdrawn and the bead filled flat. I will add the cosmetic bolts to the outside when I do all the bolts on the ends of the wagon. I have used this method before when I made my tank wagon. I drilled a hole through the tank end restraining bar at 45 degrees before pushing the wire through until it hits the tank cradle where I place the soldering iron and melt it all the way through until it comes out at the correct angle. This does produce a large burr, but that's easy to remove once the wire is removed.

I'm getting now to the intresting detail parts even though I haven't finished all the bolts / nuts. So i have made the lashing rings for the well back plate. These are made from brass strip 1.5 mm X .5 mm cut and filed to shape and drilled to accept the rings made from .6 mm nickel wire. The carpet monster has quite a few of these bits this morning. The ones on the side of the well are a bit different because the bracket is made from a strip of brass T section 2.5 mm X 2 mm that needed a bit more work to form the right shape.

Tricky, is this the picture you want ? I had the books to hand building my Midland trolley wagon. As for a load my good friend Peter has made me a casting from his local foundry. When the wagon is finished I will chain it down according to regulations.

Schooner, you are very kind and I am glad you enjoy my ramblings. A couple of photos showing the method of glueing the boltheads in the plates. The bolt heads are picked up with tweezers and just touched in the superglue before pushing in the holes. Once dry the stems are cut off and the back filed smooth.

After 2 days replacing floor tiles at my daughters house I have managed to get back to the workbench . The plate at the back of the well was drilled to accept 2 different sizes of MasterClub bolts. I drilled the plates away from the wagon before loading the bolts with a dab of superglue on the stem before pushing them home. Once dry the stems were filed off and the plates were glued to the wagon. Still a long way to go.

Dave, the hand wheel is from this etch. I don't have any idea where it came from but I have had these a few years in my bits box. As they stand they are a bit flat so I wound some .7 mm nickel wire around a former before cutting one from the loop. I then filed a flat on one side reducing the thickness by about a quarter before soldering on to the etch. I then spun it in the mini drill and cleaned it with a bit of wet and dry.

Very little progress to report because I've had my grandad hat on replacing floor tiles in my youngest daughters kitchen. This is her first house and we have uncovered so many things wrong with it but we are working our way through them. I have made a bracket to mount the hand wheel on. I have drilled a hole in the framework to accept a brass rod because I didn't want to rely on glue with the wheel being in such a vulnerable position.

Jim, that's a fine looking wagon. With the open framework you will not be able to fudge hiding the second pair of springs as I am doing on my build. I don't think it matters how we build our models as long we enjoy our hobby. There has always been more than one way to skin a cat. It's just that I don't have the skills to do the modern way to do drawings for etching. I could do the old fashion way with pen and ink but the modern world left me behind long ago. Mike

Tricky, I am sorry that the Masterclub hex bolts were to small. I hope they will come in useful in your 7mm modelling and will not be wasted. I am afraid I model by eye and if something looks right then I will use it. If something is a few thou out then provided it is not to obvious that's fine by me. I have only ever done a couple of things in Gauge 1 for myself plus I have built 5 or 6 etched kits for my friend Peter. I found the Gauge 1 / 10 mm scale a pain that's utterly bonkers. Have you looked at the nuts and bolts from the BA range. I don't know how 16 BA would scale out but it might be worth measuring a few ? Mike

Northroader, this is testing my patience but if I break this down in to small amounts of time doing the tedious jobs I could get to the end. Looking at the photos constantly I keep seeing things I missed first time around. One such item are the plates covering the well which I thought were the same thickness as the plates over the wheels. I have changed my mind and I think there were slightly thinner. They look flush at one end of the wagon but at the other end there is a step down. Obviously the camera angle plays tricks so I have removed the plates on the side of the well ( the blue ones ) which were 20 thou thick and replaced them with one from 15 thou ( white ones ). So I have made a start on the buffers. The backing plates have been built up and drilled to except modified Peco G.W.R buffers. The raised lip on the front of the body has been removed and holes drilled in the backing plates for the .6mm hexagonal bolts. The 2 bodies on the left have been modified while the 2 on the right are as bought. This is going to be a long job !

I have started to add the bolts / nuts and already I am losing the will to live. This is going to be a long and laborious and I think this is going to test my patience. I have only done one corner and I have broken one drill plus drilled a couple of holes in the wrong place. The good thing with plastic is the ease of repairing with a bit of plastic rod. I have found in my never ending spares box a small etched hand wheel with the correct pattern of curly spokes and about the right daimeter. This looked a little flat so I formed some loops of .7 mm wire. I cut one out and solderd it to the etch wheel before smoothing it out in the drill.

ScottW, the first attempt I cut a grove with a scrapper board knife before folding. I used Mek to glue it to the sides which may have been to strong. So I went back to separate pieces but used Limonene to glue it. This has done the trick with just a light sanding once dry. I am now at the stage of adding all the nuts and bolts. Not having a drawing with the sizes on there's going to be a lot of guesswork. Looking at the photos in Vol 2 there appears to be a mixture of both nuts and bolts. If your in to locos and become a rivet counter, what do you become when you are in to wagons ? A bolt counter ? Once I add all the bolts does this wagon becomes one of the rarer Midland spotted harlequin variety.

Dave, it is always good to have positive feedback on models that take quite a lot of time to construct. I was never any good at putting kits together either locos or rolling stock so I cut bits out of plastic. It was the introduction of Evergreen milled plastic section which elevated my modelling from c**p to somethings half decent. I don't get right all the time because I make most of it up as I go along. This wagon has had the overlays stripped of more than once because the first attempt I tried to fold the yellow plastic around the corner after cutting a V shaped grove in the back but when I got up the next morning the corner had cracked along the bend.The second attempt I forgot to allow a little extra so the plate at the front of the well would blend in. So this is the third attempt so I hope I have got right now otherwise I will have to take up drinking beer full time. As for cycling I can't do the very steepest hills nowadays. My brother is 3 years older than myself and he rides them all. He even road the steepest road listed in the Guinness book of records, he's never walked a hill in over 40 years and he smoke and drinks for Britain which is not bad for 72. With any luck when this virus is finally beaten we can get to back to New Zealand and finish where I left of in 2007.

Tricky, I can only point you in the direction of where I obtain my cosmetic nuts and bolts from. I don't know if they will be large enough but I get mine from Historex. I am not clever enough to put a link on here but if you go to Historex and click on brands at the top right hand side, then Masterclub rivets nuts and bolts on the left hand column you will be able to see all the sizes there. There mail order service is first class. Mike

Looking promising ! Just 3 more corners to do now.

Before I get any further I have decided to tackle the steel plates on the outsides because if I can't get these right it would be pointless continue with it. Compound estimates that they will be between 1/2" and 3/4" thick which scales down to 11.48 and 17.22 thou thick. Now if I take the thicker size and round it up I can use 20 thou coloured plastkard which will be easier to see. It will be a bit thicker than it should be but will better to work with. I don't have the finesse of the master Geoff Kent with thinner plastikard. So my first few pieces look promising. I have put a grove in to fold it round the corner. Did another 50 miles on the bike yesterday, was only suppose to be 40 but a couple of wrong turns from our leader added another 10 miles with a nasty climb at the end of the day. The experts tells this cycling lark is good for you and kits you fit. It makes me worn out and very tired so perhaps I am doing it wrong !

Finally figured out a way of mounting the wheels from a small etch of some unknown W-irons that I had in my bits box. I am not sure what they are from but they fit the bill perfectly. I cropped them down and soldered them to a strip of nickel which has a couple of slots cut in to them. At first I just drilled a central hole on which to screw them to the frames but because there is so little clearance and the bearings got in the way of the screw I had to move the holes which became slots to allow for adjustment. There is so little meat around the bearing hole but I am going to elongate this to allow a small amount of movement. I think will be necessary with such a long wheelbase.

I have replaced all the cross members with new timbers. I am still trying to work out how to mount the wheels which isn't easy with such an open framework. I need something that enables me to remove the wheels for painting and provides the correct ride height in the process. Answers on a postcard to .........