airnimal

I have a done small amount to the cattle wagon including a bit of straw in the interior. It has a coat of Matt varnish sprayed on but I am still awaiting the etched plates from Narrow Plant.

Although I try to check all the drawings when making models there are traps for the unwary, and I have just fallen into one such trap. This was on the pattern for the one plank L&Y wagon. Nigel asked me to mark the position of the brackets for the drop down doors but when I came to mark the position, something was not right. The L&Y draftsman who did the original drawing wrote the distance as five foot eight and a half inches but actually drew the distance as five foot ten inches. That's only a scale one and a half inches out but it was enough to make the hinges slightly in the wrong place. I had got the distance right as to were the buffers were to be located but I have had to remove the hinges and relocate them. When they would have been made at the works this would have been pick up and moved accordingly by the works foreman. Just another little pitfall for us modellers. I am now glad that Nigel asked me to provide a location mark otherwise this may have not been found before it was to late.

Marc, the lime wash was done using Winsor & Newton white ink which is water soluble. i will try going over it with Humbrol Matt white to give it a stronger dept of colour. I have just had a visit from Nigel Thornley who is one half of Lanky kits. He had come to collect the master for the L&Y wagon that I made for him. After a discussion he ask me to add marks on the master to locate the position for the brackets which hold the drop down end doors. I am also going to finish another part made master for a L&Y sand wagon that was made by someone else. He also gave me a couple of etches for some L&Y underframe parts which will come in useful. If I had them several months ago I would not have had to cut out the brake shoes by hand which would have saved me a few hours work when I was building the L&Y one plank open.

Gentlemen, thank you all for your input but I am not going to change my view on what I call my modelling. The name scratch building has been around as long as I have been cutting bits of metal and plastic. I personally don't think the name infers any hierarchy or elitism but just acknowledges the origins of of the model involved. i found I was not competent at kit building to the standard that satisfied me so I started to "scratch build" which gave me the results I was looking for. I have now weathered the cattle wagon with lime wash but the photograph I have been working from shows I have done this to lightly, so I will go back and do it it again.

Tricky, thanks for that, much appreciated. Back to the wagons ! Nearly done on this one but it will be heavily lime washed as the photograph taken in 1890 in a Coventry goods yard shows. The photograph appears on the LNWR society forum under goods yards.

Oh dear ! Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water .......... i was a member of the O Gauge Guild for over 35 years but I have not renewed my membership this time because of the corrosive and negative comments by a couple of people on their forum. I hope the same thing doesn't happen again here. I do demos at exhibitions to help people try building models without using kits. I find helping people gives me enormous satisfaction as well as learning from others which helps my modelling to improve. if we are going to take issue with what we call it them I will be out of here pronto. i don't claim to be any better modeller because I very rarely use kits. If I had to wait for the kits I wish to have models of I would be waiting a very long time. So I scratch build, simple !

This is a million miles from the era I wish to model. But quality modelling works every time no matter the era or prototype. Brilliant modelling.

The L&Y wagon is being made as a pattern for a resin kit for the L&Y society and Lanky kits. This is the reason I have not drilled out the holes for the buffers or couplings. While I was painting this latest wagon I also painted the cattle wagon. I can't wait to finish this one to go with one I did a couple of years ago. I still have just enough etched fret of the bars left to do one more so I might do one with a roof.

I took advantage of the good weather yesterday to give the wagon a coat of primer.

I have made some rings out of 11thou phosphor bronze wire by rapping it around a 40thou drill. Then I twisted some 5thou brass wire to act as chain and solderd them together. It was just a matter of forming it to look like the end door fixing chain. It looks a little over size but I don't think I couldn't do it any finer. i drilled a small hole in the body and bent everything to shape and superglued it in place.

After much head scratching I have decided that the hexagonal bolts were wrong. The reason I used the hex ones was because I was looking at a photo in Vol 1 of L&Y wagons to check I had got the shape of the side knees right and noticed that it used hex nuts. But the photo was in LMS livery and my brain should have told me to look more closely at the drawing and ignore the obvious. So I have removed all the hex nut and replaced them with square ones cut from plastic strip.

I have done a small amount of work on the L&Y wagon. The hinges have gone on both ends as well as the side knees. The inside ones are a bit unusual because they protrude through the floor. I presume the bolts would be countersunk so they would not get damaged by cart wheels when loading and unloading.

I went to Doncaster yesterday with my good friend Peter , we had a good day but didn't buy much. Not much to report on the modelling front as I am painting the lounge while my better half is in Australia cooing over our new grandson. i have done a little on this L&Y wagon. Because it is not for myself I have made it to take cast wagon axleboxes. So they are easy to locate the the axleboxes I have added a couple of strips of plastic to hold them in place and at the correct wheelbase. The end doors have had the top row of .7mm MasterClub hexagonal bolts put on.

Are you sure it's LNER ? It looks more LNWR to me. Typo error maybe.

I tend to use superglue. I have also drilled holes the right size for the stem to go in, but because they are very slightly tapered they can be pushed in without any glue.

Glies, rivets are available from Historex but made in Russia by MasterClub. Historex has a web site which when you find your way around it to MasterClub lists all the sizes with pictures. They are very crisp mouldings but you can't stick them using mek-pak. I use them all the time on my 7mm wagon builds.

Now that the cattle wagon is finished I am turning my attention to a wagon for a friend. It's a L&Y furniture wagon from a drawing in Vol 1 of L&Y wagons. It is to Dia 14. The blue coloured plastic is because I made the body slightly to short so I have overlaid with a piece of 20 thou plastikard at each end and sanded them back to size.

I am near the end now with just a few bits to do. I have made the tie bars from .7mm nickel wire and filed a flat at both ends to solder them behind the etched w-irons. I held the wire down on my home made filing jig which make it easier to get them both parallel. I first filed one end first and used my dividers to get the correct length before filing the other end.

John, thank you for your endorsements. I do try my best as I am sure everyone else does in our hobby. Rich, I will look forward to seeing your layout again and meeting you. I did see your layout at Swindon last year and was impressed. I made up the couplings from parts from my box of assorted bits accumulated over many years from various sources. The hooks were from an etch that came via an exchange for some wagon parts and the top link is from Exactoscale and is a GWR D link. The other links were acquired at the Telford show from Ron Chaplin who I believe has stopped trading. I have made them up and soldered the gap in the bottom 2 links then dipped in Birchwood Super Blue.

I phoned about the 4 issues and what I was told made me laugh. Apparently they are afraid that they are getting old and don't want to have to refund any money if one of the team falls of the perch ! This must be catching because I have told my better half this is the last time I will be decorating because at 68 this will last at least 10 years and I won't be doing it again at 78 if I live that long.

Regularity, many thanks for your input. I do enjoy sharing with others that is why I demo stands at Northern shows and it does work both ways. Many times people bring along models that they have made and discuss there techniques together. I have now completed the side with the single brake shoe with the other side still to do. The brake handle was cut out and bent to shape and the square fixing shaft made from a .9mm square brass rod turned to size in my mini drill. Once it was soldered in place it was cut to size and cleaned up. MRJ and the S7 newsletter both came this morning with lots of good reading as well as all the news about forthcoming exhibitions. My wife goes to Australia next week to see our new grandson so I will take advantage and go to a couple of far flung exhibitions and stay with our daughter in Swindon. So I plan to go to Railex which I haven't been to before and the Warminster show which I have been before. Does anybody know which day is the best at Railex ?

There is not a lot more to see for 4 hours work and I am being to wonder is it all worth it ? i still have all the bolts to do on this side as well other little bits before I even start on the other side. When I did a demo stand a couple of weeks ago at Leigh a gentleman sat down and said how nice he thought the models were before asking where he could get the kits from. i explained that they were all scratched built when he asked again who's make of kits they were ! After telling him I cut out every part by hand he asked again where he could buy these kits as he had not seen them on the market. I then gave him a A4 sheet of white plastic and told him that most model shops sell them but they don't come with instructions. He didn't stay long after that.

With a steady hand and good light a start has been made putting the chamfer on the framework. I have only done a quarter of the lower side and I am having to take a break. This is not a job after being in the pub ! I am not sure if they can be seen in the photos.

I am about to start on the detail work, but first I have made some inserts to sit between the framework. These are just bits of nickel that don't need to be to precise. The framework is marked with a pencil mark and a small nic cut in to it. The blade of the scalpel is then drawn along at 45 degrees while resting the tip on the nickel. I count the number of passes I make to make them all bevel edges even. That's the theory anyway. Anybody contemplating trying is method I would advise to make up some bits to practice on first before ruining a good model. I will not doing the cutting of the chamfer today as we have our 18 month old grandson all day.

I have now done one side of the door safety bars by melting the .7mm nickel rod in to the back of the doors to half depth. I then did the same to some more 30 X 80 thou plastic strip. With all the burrs cleaned off it was a simple matter to clue them in trapping the .7mm rod in place. Just the other side to do now.