airnimal

I have added the leather buffer heads from 60 thou plastikard stuck on with superglue and when set, turned in a mini drill. I have also started to apply the rivets to the corner plates from .4 mm MasterClub rivets. These are tiny and trying to them in line is a nightmare. Even though I have drawn lines to follow with a pencil I have still managed to get one out of line. And drilling with a 12 thou drill without breaking any is a heart in the mouth job. There is still lots to do but I am already thinking about some more wagons. I would like to do some more wagons from the 1860's or 1870's. I know there are kits from Parliamentary Trains but I tend to make a hash out of kit building. It must be me because other people make excellent models from them. I need to drill the holes for the fixing bolts in the buffer heads. I have done it before but I can't remember how I did to get the holes in the right place. The joys of old age.

I was not convinced I had the ends of this wagon correct, so I went back to the photos on the Warwickshire Railway web site and had another look. This is of the accident at Leek Wooton where a freight train fell through a unstable bridge. I have based this model on one of the wagons in this set of photographs. I had originally just used the side views in the recently published book on thr diary of Thomas Baron. But when I went back to the web site there was a better shot showing the ends with a clearer view.. This shows the corner plates curved around the ends rather than bent at a right angle. So I decided to take all the details off both ends and started again. I am not sure if I have got all this 100% correct nor do I believe any body will know any different.

While I decide what to do about trackwork I am going to build a few more wagons. First up is a LNWR Dia 1 ex dumb buffer wagon that has been converted to parallel sprung buffers. i struggled to set the wheels so that there wasn't any side play. After playing about for about an hour, i did what I should have done first thing and checked the axles were both the same length. Sure enough I have a rogue axle that is .5mm shorter that all the rest. It may not bit a large amount but when you try to get zero tolerance side play it was enough to make a difference. I want to build a couple more dumb buffer LNWR wagons along the same lines as this one. They may be a bit mundane for most people but I find them attractive. I went to the Keighley open day yesterday and they was a very nice little NER small layout there with some early rolling stock on it. The locos were battery operated and were very smooth runners and the layout had some beautiful early period buildings on it. Overall I was very impressed and I should have taken some photos of it but I was distracted by meeting lots of people I wanted to meet and forgot the name of the layout. Anybody who is a gauge O modeller and lives in the North, the Keighley open day is a good day out with lots of interesting things to see and the food is amazing. All home made by the local scouting group.

Thanks to all who has added information about this subject. I now realize the the second bolt was not square but hexagonal and I could use items from the MasterClub range but because the base was different I have decided this way is not going to produce track that is accurate enough. Not having a great deal of interest in track doesn't help but I don't want to produce something that is so obviously wrong. I may put this to one side for the moment until I can find a way around this.

Chrisbr, many thanks for the kind offer of help getting LNWR chairs 3D printed. I am afraid I don't know enough about 3D printing to make a judgment about the suitable of making chairs with this method. Would 3D be strong enough for track parts ? I have been going through all my books and journals to see if there is any articles about LNWR trackwork. I am very surprised about the lack of information on this subject or am I looking in the wrong place. I don't have indexes to look up where important articles are, I am not that organised. I have found one photo of a chair with not a square bolt but a large hexagonal bolt. But the shape at the base of the chair hasn't got the curved parts as on the Midland chair. For this reason I don't think method is going to be a runner.

Obviously it will only be a small bit of track. I can use the 2 bolt chairs for sidings so I only need a small amount of 4 bolt chairs elsewhere. I put this out to see if other people would come out of the woodwork with a solution. I'm going to get flack if I use the wrong chairs to model a LNWR section of track so this is an attempt to try and make it right.

Planning a small shunting plank layout with a LNWR flavour has thrown up the problem about trackwork. What do you do about the chairs ? LNWR chairs have one square bolt and one coach bolts on each side of the chair. Nothing as far as I'm aware is available on the market to model the correct type of trackwork. How do other people model the correct track for this railway. I have been playing about with modifying a standard Midland 4 bolt chair by removing the slight web and cutting off one of the coach bolts and replacing it with a 30 X 30 bit of Evergreen milled plastic. I did look to see if MasterClub did any square bolts without success. I am not sure if this is going to be a runner or not untill I make up a small length and to see what it looks like.

Argos, good to see you yesterday as always. Below is a couple of photos from this weekend at the Wigan show. One is of the part built dock tank with some of the parts laid out. The pile includes 18 cab sides which may give an indication of why I am not going to build any more locos. The other parts here are only a small part of the total I have made and discarded. The time has come when I realised that I and not going to be the next Beeson. I will stick to the things I can do to a standard that satisfies me and obtain when I can the things that I can't do. it seems a sensible thing to do in my own funny way.

Jim, I was brought up going to the Manchester show from a very early age. I marvelled at exquisite models in brass and nickel and wondered how they were made. It never left me. I later met Sid Stubbs and visited his house and was enthralled at his fantastic loco's which came apart in seconds and went back together the same way. The chopper tank when I first made it worked just as well as the loco's I had seen at Sid's house but due to using a drawing that was wrong I tried to improve it with disastrous results. A lot of my disappointments have been with other people's involvement. People turning the cast wheels wrong several times was a major set back. Etch kits with the smoke box the wrong shape, the tank top with both sides the same when one side had a dip on one end and the cab side's in one piece when they overlapped. This is just a small amount detail of this build. I could go on but I think you know that I am not prepared to accept second best. I am prepared to pop my clogs without achieving the standard I am hoping for. I don't think this is what most people want today but then I probably live in a world that no longer exists.

After much debate with myself I have decided to abandon my build of my chopper tank. I have come to realise I will never make a loco builder. Also I have made bad decisions in choosing kits that were inaccurate. So far I have gone through two complete kits and two sets of wheels to end up with a scratch built model that is 90% complete and it still doesn't satisfy me. Perhaps I should have planned the build better from the start. After nearly twenty years of messing about I don't think I have the heart to try again. I will stick to building wagons and buy in locos when I can.

I had a good day today and finished the L&Y wagon. I hope to hand it over at the Wigan show in a couple of weeks time.

I have put a bit more detail on the L&Y wagon. There is still a long way to go before its finished.

I am back home after spending 10 days helping our eldest daughter with decorating while her husband was in China. I have made start on a pattern of a L&Y Dia 15 fruit wagon. This is for resin kit for Lanky Kits. I hope to complete this over the next couple of weeks so I can hand over at the Wigan show.

I didn't think I would be able to finish the second small ballast wagon because I had left my packets of MasterClub rivets at home. But my better half posted them to me here at my daughters house. So the second ballast wagon is finished up to a point. I will paint the w-irons and blacken the wheels when I go home sometime next week. I must thank Rob Pulham for the label clips done on his fancy machine.

I am not at home at present but down in Swindon at my daughters house helping out because her husband is in China. I did bring some tools and a few wagons that still required work doing to them. I have finished a loco coal wagon, a one plank Dia 1, and one of a pair of ballast wagons. I will paint the under frames when I get home.

Wagonman, the loco is a brass model made by San Cheng and sold by Tower models. I believe it was painted by Warren Heywood for Tower models. I do try build most things myself but I do not enjoy building locos. At the price I paid for this engine I would struggle to buy a kit and have it painted to this standard for the same amount. I have been building / rebuilding my chopper tank and it is still not finished after nearly 20 years. It makes sense if I am ever going to finish a layout within the next ten years.

I think it is time to get back to the models. i am pleased with my purchase at Telford which will be converted to S7 when I next see Colin Dowling. I will ask him to replace the crank pins while he has it apart. That is the only part I do not like about the model, they are over scale. ScottW, the L&Y and LNWR meet in lots of places so it is not unreasonable to see them together. Rule No 1 will apply anyway. When I was at Telford I also ordered some laser cut track bases and bought an assortment of track chairs from C&L. I made a Scaleseven point about 10 years ago on a paper template that has been in my workshop to test rolling stock. But being on paper only it did not stand up well over the years with rough handling, so I am hoping these laser bases will be better when I get around to the baseboards.

Many thanks to all the people who have been kind regarding my poor knowledge with my language skills. I knew from the first few weeks at school over 60 years ago that I had a problem but I was never able or clever enough to do anything about it. My father never spoke to me for over 10 years when I was young because of his battle with depression which didn't help me at the time when I needed it most. I am not asking people to feel sorry for me. I have made my way in the world with some success. My children are my both mine and my wife's success. I spent the last 10 years of my working life making parts for the scientific industry teaching myself to tig weld at the age of 55. I was part of a team that machined the graphite core of 2 nuclear power stations as well as spending time on airfield maintenance / aircraft recovery. Spelling has been embarrassing all my life but it never stopped the phone ringing in the middle of the night when an employer was in deep trouble because they had an aircraft with a collapsed under frame blocking their main runway. Meil comments didn't bother me, I can see funny side of things with the best of them.

Thanks meil. As most people reading my post will be aware I have suffered with dyslexia all my life. I used to shy away from social situations were it would be apparent that I was assumed I was a dunce. But now having brought up 3 daughters who have 6 degrees between I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of. I left school at 15 but I didn't go much in the last 3 years because I struggled with English. I had months of English lessons in my 40's without any improvement so I gave up and accepted that I was thick. Perhaps I should just provide pictures without words in future.

Grandad has been a very naughty boy. He was aloud out to go to Telford for the weekend provided he was back by 13.00 hours on Sunday and he came back with this.

Compound2632, Thank you for the link to the Warwickshire Railway website. I have seen a couple of good photographs on the LNWR society's forum of early goods yards at Coventry with open roof cattle wagons from this website so I wonder what else is available to us who model early wagons. The angle of the photograph in the link you provided of the D1 show that this has been converted from a dumb buffer wagon with self contained parallel buffers. I will put this on the long list of wagons still to make.

Yesterday the postman brought me a new book from the LNWR society. And what a fabulous book it is. For any one wishing to model the Victorian era and the LNWR in particular it is a must. The book is about a railway worker from a long forgotten time working very long hours at a time when the health and safety brigade were not invented. The book is illustrated with large format photographs that are clear and well printed. I have seen a lot of them before but not all together in one place and there some new to me. A couple of an accident at Leek Wooton near Kenilworth are magnificent with some early wagons in great distress. I have not been in the workshop while all the family visit but I have secured a pass out to Telford for the GOG meet providing I am back home early on Sunday for a large family gathering.

Tuesday night was quite eventful with very little sleep with the arrival of our latest grandson in the early hours. But it has given me a few hours modelling time today because all the femails have gone shopping again for gifts / presents / baby clothes etc etc. The fact that they had already bought things before this new addition came along doesn't matter. But I'm not brave enough to mention any of that. Anyway I have found my stock of sheet metal in the workshop. I have made a new tank top and folded a lip on the back edge and side after scribing with my Olfa cutter. i also made a new front panel for the tank but rather than solder this to the tank I have soldered it to the sand box which is screwed on. I have drilled holes for the bolts in both parts but as yet I haven't soldered any on. The 1mm x1mm square brass rod was used as a filing jig to gauge the height of the lip on the tank top.

I have had an hour to myself today as all the family have been doing different things. My better half has gone to hospital after her operation on her hand and all the girls / grandchildren have gone shopping / entertaining. So I was going through some pictures on my tablet when I came across one of the tank top on a chopper tank. I had made the top of my model quite plain without any detail because I could not find information about it. Now I had a picture I feel I have to revisit my model and try and incorporate this detail. The edge of the tank has a raised lip all around with a couple of lines of bolts at the front end. Rather than take all the tank apart to provide this detail I have decided to see if I can add an overlay of thin nickel sheet on top and just renew the front part only. I cut a piece of nickel to size and bent up one edge to see if this is going to be a runner or not. Not having much time to find my metal stock I have used a piece of nickel which is to thick but it does give me an indication that the idear will work. I will have to cut a bit of angle to form the back edge of the tank, but that should not be a problem. I have marked with a blue pencil where the bolts will be. I still have a small stock of Scale Hardware brass bolts which will do. When I get time ( probably after Telford ) I will find my stock of the correct material and have a go at adding this missing detail.

Absolutely zero modelling done over the last 3 weeks and none likely for the next 5 or 6 weeks as well. Even Thomas and friends have made an inroad in to the collection. The workshop has been taken over for the storage of toys and other items so that the spare bedrooms can revert back to there original functions for the returning daughters and grandchildren. At least I have a pass out for Telford.