Guy Rixon

This photo, embarrassingly enlarged, shows my attempt to get a working centre-coupling between the halves of the D13 set. Ratio's moulding is no more than a starting point because it won't work well in service; the plastic coupling-link will break if the wagons are handled; the coupling housing simulates a hollow casting (an LMS retrofit?) when the original was a wooden part; it omits the visible detail on the coupling housing; it puts the wagons too far apart (prototype 1'6", ratio ~ 2'). I filled the coupling housing with Humbrol model filler, then carved out enough clearance for a coupling link to swing. I filed down the housings from the back to reduce the over-scale depth. On the full-size wagons, the coupling appears to a link held between a pin on each wagon. The link goes into a slot in each coupling housing and the pins are held between rectangular plates bolted to the top and bottom of the housings. There are bars connecting the pins above and below the housings and the plates holding the pins. (All this is inferred from the GA; I don't have component drawings for this coupling.) I opted to model the plates on top of the coupling housings and to make them functional; hence they are made of brass. I made them from fret waste and pressed the bolt heads through with a rivet press. The functional coupling will be two 16 BA brass studs facing down from a brass bar that mounts above these plates; the securing nuts will inside the coupling housings. I'm leaving out the coupling link in the centre, the bottom bar and the plates that should be under the coupling housing as none of these would be visible in service. Fingers crossed that it will make a working coupling. Also in this shot, you can see the nuts notionally on the ends of the solebar strap-bolts. At the centre-coupling end there are two such bolts on each solebar. The "third nut" on the left is a piece of crud that got aboard while the paint was drying and will be removed. Body colour is sprayed Tamiya acrylics: 50/50 mix of dark sea grey and IJN grey. This is distinctly darker than the grey primer (see the spray shadow at the right on the floor planks; I haven't finished the floor yet and will have to fill that gap now I've seen the photo) and therefore distinct from MR grey while still light enough to represent paint that has not oxidised too far. For aged LNWR grey paint I use the IJN grey unmixed. Some of the bolster work has been done. Because I'd drilled the pivot holes in the wrong place, I opted to open them out large and installed pivots from 2.5mm OD brass tube. The actual pivots are 12BA brass studs let into the bottom of the bolsters. The bolster mouldings were useable with modifications. The full-size, wooden bolsters were shod with iron bands at their ends, the wood protruding by 2 or 3 inches from the iron on each end and the protruding bit chamfered. Ratio's moulding represents the iron bands but not the protruding ends of the wood, so I welded on some 0.040" slabs and filed on the chamfers when set. The bolster moulding is made slightly trapezoidal, which is wrong, so I filed mine to be rectangular in section.

Any of them that was in London, working to Smithfield, in 1908 is fine by me. I'll see if I can get the RCTS books sometime.

One "detail" that matters a lot is changes in the style of boiler: not just minor changes in fittings, but wholesale boiler replacement that changes the centreline height, the firebox type or the presence or position of a dome. For example, I have a part-built GWR 633 class (Gibson kit) that I very much want to finish in condition of 1908. They were built with round-toped fireboxes but the kit has a Belpaire firebox. My reference books acknowledge that the Belpaire fireboxes came later, but don't give dates of the changes (I think it was after WW1, but have no confirmation). Further, I haven't managed to find any photos that show the firebox top, so I don't know how to reshape it in detail. Counter-example: I think the boilers for the SECR H class became an SECR standard and were never changed. For any given class that the RTR folk give us, we need a register of boiler changes. I think the Yeadon registers are the thing for classes that came to the LNER but the information is not assembled so thoroughly for the other groups.

Yes, the part at bottom left of the photo is the bit I was simulating. However, the rubbing plates on that look a bit thin to me. I think they need to rise about as far above the floor planks as do the sides. One could back the etch with plastic and cut round the brass, of course.

The fasteners on for the corner plates are not identified on the GAs for the timber wagons, but the GAs for D1 and D2 are marked '3/8" rivets'. I can't see any indication of plates or rivet heads on the inside.

I've been working on the D13 bodies. The plastic work has not been as straightforward as I expected. The first and obvious stage was to cut down the sides and floor to get the right length - 14'10" - over headstocks. I cut the sides in the centre and the floor at one end, taking off about one plank. This was easy enough, as there is no moulded detail to be damaged when cleaning up the splice in the sides. Stage two, per original plan, was to cut and shut the kit solebars to match. Clearly, there would be one cut in the centre, to reduce the wheelbase to 7'6". However, the distance from axleguard centre to headstock would be longer than the moulded solebar, so I would be cutting between the axleguards and the strap bolts and splicing in more plastic to lengthen the assembly at each end. Three splices, to be made without knackering bolt detail, didn't sound like fun, and the reassembled solebar would have had to be thinned to fit round the BB axleguards. Eventually, I decided to make new solebars from scratch. I cut 0.040" blanks, which are narrow enough to fit round the axleguards without rebating. I made the fastener detail from microstrip, mainly 0.010" x 0.020" and the horse hooks are wire staples. I haven't yet fitted number plates (to be laserprinted and fitted after painting) or label clips (haven't worked out how to make them neatly enough) The body details vary between the GA and the available photographs. The drawing has curb rails and only one (visible) strap bolt at each end; the strap bolt at the end with the side buffers goes through the headstock and one side of the buffer guide, halfway up the solebar, while the one at the other end is at the bottom of the solebar (there's probably another strap-bolt behind the curb rail). The photos show wagons without curb rails, and two strap-bolts at each end. I'd left the curb rails on to strengthen and stablise the body moulding, so I followed the drawing. I hope that the drawing represents the earliest D13 built with sprung buffers and the photos show later practice, but I don't really know. The wagons had corner plates, which Ratio have not moulded, so I added them from 0.010" x 0.060" strip. The plates were rivetted (really!) and the rivets, in the photos, are markedly smaller than the bolts on the solebar. I have not represented the rivets in relief and will attempt some trompe d'oeil rivetting when the wagon is painted. I also added capping irons on the sides and ends: 0.010" x 0.030" strip. AFAICS, the capping was held on by the bolts that held the sides to the curb rails and these were countersunk on top, so I have not modelled them in relief. On the deck of the wagon were two rubbing plates to support the bolster. They were chunky castings, raising the bolster just clear of the sides. Ratio have not obliged, so I made my own from 0.030" x 0.040" strip; the longer side is parallel to the deck. Getting the strip to curve and stay curved while welding it on was not going to be easy, so I heat-formed the strip before fitting. Scaling off the drawing suggested that a 10p piece would be a suitably-sized former, so I made up a jig from a coin and a piece of scrap wood. The coin is super-glued to the wood and the strip is similarly glued where it crosses itself. I dunked it in boilng water for about two minutes, then cooled off under the cold tap. When cut free, the strip was holding its diameter nicely. One has to be quick with this, before the glue lets go in the hot water. I just got it done before the heat pushed button B for me, and I got my 10p back. If I was making a lot of these parts, I'd use different glue for the coin-wood joint. The coin is also a good alignment aid for fitting the rubbing plates to the deck. This "kit build" has got rather close to scratchbuilding, but it's been fun and I've managed to improve the accuracy of the kit somewhat. I'm happy. Next episode: bolster detailing, making the bolster pivot, and reworking the centre coupling between the two wagons. PS: anybody following this path should make sure to get the hole for the bolster pivot in the right place, exactly as I didn't. I drilled through the blind hole moulded into the floor. Of course, since I'd shortened the floor at one end, that hole was no longer in the middle of the wagon...

Dedicated underframe for ratio kits, right. Looks like my timing is spot off, as usual For the record, I considered buying the LRM parts for the bolster wagons (John said that he'd sell the etched from the D12 kit separately), but I'd already bough the BB etches, so I'm going ahead with those for this batch. In other news, I've just about beaten the Exactoscale underframe (for the D54) into submission. Crucial points, other than what is in the instructions: One of the parallel bearings was very tight on the axle. I "reamed" it using a 1mm drill applied with almost no pressure, and that cleared it, so I suspect a burr rather than incorrect ID. The other three bearings were fine. The system absolutely needs spacing washers applied between the wheels and the spring carriers. If assembled without washers, the spring carriers fall inward far enough that they disengage from the axleguards and then jam; and the wheels fall out if you pick the thing up. With washers, all is well. With the chassis up against the wagon floor, the buffer height was about right. No packing will be applied. I have yet to do the break gear on this one. It may be a profanity-limited experiment.

No other prototypes on show, but some more diagrams are to come including "the ballast wagons". Best to email for details. Re D12 converted, IIRC the LNWR sawed off the dumb buffers level with the headstocks and fitted self-contained buffers, the latter being one of the RCH patterns rather than the older, rubber-sprung types used on the furniture wagons. On the LRM model, the dumb buffers and solebars were part of the resin moulding. Looks to me that it should be possible to the same to the resin that the LNWR did to the timber, but you might need to add some extra ironwork afterwards. Then you'll need the buffers. I might get around to doing those on Shapeways if there's interest. Or try Lanarkshire Models.

At Scaleforum today, I saw a prototype of a kit, by London Road Models, for a LNWR D12 single-bolster wagon. It's a mixed-media kit: resin body, whitemetal bolster, etched running gear. This is the bolster wagon with dumb buffers, so not just pre-group but only pre-group. Apparently, the kits will become available in a few weeks, when the castings are delivered.

I do hope they make a reasonable number of the SECR-livery ones.

Five of the six Ratio wagons are getting Bill Bedford axleguards. I made up a trial set to check the alignments, The axleguard units were assembled with Alan Gibson bearings, which typically have the right depth to take out the end float without splaying the axleguards. I removed the moulded axleguards and V-hangers from a pair of solebars, and the ribs from behind the solebars. None of this detail is useful. I kept the two moulded pegs on the underside of the solebars as I think they may locate the brakes (although I only need brakes on one side). As expected, the axleguards are slightly too wide to fit between the solebars. This happens with every wagon that has the scale width between the inside faces of the solebars, so I assume it's a feature of the axleguards, not the plastic kits. (I suspect that the original BB axleguards, for RCH-1923-spec wagons, were set up for solebars 6' 3" apart, as per prototype and that geometry got carried over into the RCH-1907 variant where the solebars are 6' 0" apart.) The solebars can't be moved outward without spoiling the appearance, so I filed rebates to accommodate the axleguards. The rebates are about 0.5mm deep. After I fixed the fettled solebars into the body, the axleguards became a push fit, which gave me a rolling chassis on which to test the buffer height. About 0.5mm too low, which is typical of BB axleguards in a plastic kit. (The height gauge is from the S4 society shop.) I added 0.020" packing in plastic card to the axleguards. Note that the packing doesn't run the full width of the axleguard pair. The suspension has full travel if the spring carriers can retract into those little slots next to each axleguard; if I block the slots up with plastic it won't work properly. The packing pieces are 13mm by 19mm. Now I'm ready to make up all the other BB axleguards ... when I can buy new etches, probably this weekend at Scaleforum. In the meantime, I've started on the Exactoscale chassis for the D54 wagon. This is being built quite strictly according to the instructions, because last time I tried to cut corners with one of these it went horribly and expensively wrong. Among other things, this means that I've retained the V-hanger on the side that won't have brakes because it's needed to align the parts on the side that does have brakes. When folded and filed as instructed, the chassis is a perfect fit between the solebars; no rebates needed here. This part of the build will now stall until I've made up the Exactoscale wheels -- on parallel-ended axles -- for this wagon. There are two Loctited joints in each wheel-set, and the second joint can't be done until the first is cured. Since I've only one set of jigs and gauges, and since I like to let the Loctite cure for at least eight hours (me paranoid about glue strength), it takes 2 days elapsed to do the wheels for one wagon, but only a few minutes of actual work. I generally do one set of joints before going to work and one before bed, like a tiny, glacial production line.

Ratio currently sell two wagon kits for LNWR subjects: the "open goods and traffic coal" and "PW" sets. Apparently there used to be others, but I can't find any, even on eBay. From the two available kits, I'm building six wagons with various degrees of hackery and modification. The open goods wagon is a D4 or a D9 - the difference was in the size of the axle journals and doesn't show in the model. It needs a single-block brake, with a push-rod, on one side only, which is provided in the kit I'm fitting Bill Bedford sprung axleguards and using the axleboxes from the kit. The coal wagon is a D54. This needs double-block brakes, one side only, but with a curved brake lever, whereas the kit provides an angled lever. The Exactoscale sprung chassis includes the right brakes and brake lever, so I'm using that. The kit floor lacks the bottom doors, so these have to be scribed in. The drop-sided wagons in the PW kit are D62. I don't need LNWR service-stock, so I'm converting them to D3 which are nearly identical. This involves cutting down the end posts level with the top of the sheeting, but also changing the brakes. D3 need wooden-block brakes, one wheel only, without push-rods. Grease axleboxes are prints from Coast Line models since there aren't enough in the kit. Bill Bedford axleguards again. The bolster wagons are D48, I think, but Im converting them to represent a late-build D13 twin-bolster. "Late build" means the batch from the first years of the 20th century, which had sprung buffers, as distinct from the 19th-century batches which were still dumb-buffered in 1908. The later wagons also had curb rails, as in the Ratio kit, where the early ones did not. The brakes should be single iron blocks on one wheel per wagon (opposing corners of the twin-set) and without push-rods; this means that I have to find extra parts to add to the ratio kits. D13 is only 14' 10" over headstocks, so the kits parts have to be cut down to the right length. Once more, Bill Bedford suspension. In all these wagons, I could have replaced the moulded buffers with printed, sprung buffers. Or I could drill the moulded buffer guides to take springing. In fact, I decided that the moulded buffers, with the metal heads provided by Ratio, are so neat that I'd keep them. I built the bodies as a batch, as shown here. Zooming on the D54, bottom right, shows the bottom-door work. The bottom doors for a D54 are 4' 4" by 2' 2", according to the LNWR society site. The lateral position of the doors is tricky to find as I don't have a GA for the D54. The doors were (presumably) hinged to the middle longitudinals and I guessed those to be 3.5" thick at 11.5" spacing, based on GAs of similar wagons. I filled the moulded plank-grooves with Humbrol model filler and scribed in the door outlines and planking. The next logical step, to me, would be to fettle and fit the solebars and to get the bodies painted. However, the solebars have to fit the axleguards, and past experience suggests that there will be problems here. So the next instalment is building up the suspension parts.

My projected layout, "Strand", needs wagons for the cross-London traffic, with emphasis on SECR, LNWR, GWR and Met stock. Recently, I've been working up the LNWR side and, since there has been some recent discussion on this site of LNWR stock (and pre-group vehicles generally), I thought I'd describe the build here. All these wagons are to P4 standards and represent the prototypes in condition of 1908, so far as I can determine that. All have flexible suspension, typically sprung rather than compensated, and I like to fit sprung buffers when I can do so without excessive grief. The warm-up exercise was a D32 van, from a Mousa kit. This is an excellent kit that can be built as designed, with no real need to upgrade components. The sprung suspension and sprung buffers are part of the kit. In fact, I replaced the buffer guides from the kit with my own prints to get slightly better detail, but the supplied buffers are OK. The etched axleguards fold down from the floor plate and are at scale spacing. This means that the axles won't fit if you use bearings of normal depth. I fitted Markits bearings, which are bored deeper than the norm, and all was well. C.f. the Bill Bedford axleguards sold by Eileen's emporium where normal-depth bearings are right and Markits bearings too deep. The wheels are Exactoscale. The kit included both printed couplings and etched coupling hooks. One of the printed couplings broke when I handled it, so I decided to use the etched hooks and I'll make some links later. I think the printed couplings are potentially useable, but only if perfectly printed; any flaw in the print makes them too weak. The van took much longer to paint and letter than to build. The grey for the body is Tamiya "Imperial Japanese Navy (Saseo Arsenal) Grey", applied by brush. The off-white on the roof was done with artist's acrylics. The markings are from the HMRS Pressfix sheet, which is fine for the diamonds and horrible for the small numbers. I would be very happy if Fox would do some waterslide transfers for the LNWR. Next up: a sextet of Ratio wagons.

The first springs printed quite well in FUD and are now in the shop. If anybody wants similar springs modelled - i.e. ones mounted on shackles rather than J-hangers - but with different lengths or numbers of spring leaves, then please contact me. I should be able to adapt the model quite easily now. The unit price is higher than I'd like because of the bad exchange-rate; sorry about that. More springs per print would reduce the price per spring, so let me know if you'd prefer a sprue of 8 or 12 springs.

Re O4: even if there were some with conventional brakes, your brake push-rods ex DCI would still be the wrong way round. So no easy way out. Re V4: Atkins et al. don't have a drawing of the V4 vacuum brakes, but they do have a GA for the Y2 fruit van on p443 and a photo of a Y1 fruit van on p.445. The Y2 was supposed to be related to the V4 and the Y1 to V5, but whether this applied to the brake details I don't know. Both fruit vans have slightly odd vacuum brakes. The Y2 has the cylinder on the centre line and the V-hangars offset, possible to bring the brake lever clear of the steps. The Y1 photo looks to be rigged the same, except that it has a DC-style lever in place of the plain lever. Both vans have clasp brakes and the Mainly Trains etch would supply most of the parts. If a V4 is indeed a Y1 with different vents, it's not clear to me whether it also has the offset brake hangers; it doesn't really need them as it doesn't have steps. Re manure wagons: they might have been concentrated in cities where the MR won the contract to remove horse manure from the streets. In London, the SECR was contracted for most of this traffic.

The LCDR wagon-buffers and the LNWR self-contained wagon-buffers, which were languishing in "first to try" status, have now been printed successfully and the samples are on their way to me. Also "printed successfully" and on their way are some shackle-mounted springs. They're 40-inch, 4-plate springs intended for GWR fruit vans, but they might be usable for other vehicles. Now that I have the CAD primitives for these springs I can do similar ones of different sizes, and I invite suggestions. The springs will not be in the shop until I see the samples. There were problems in getting them accepted at all and I need to check that nothing tragic has happened before offering them to anybody else.

The fasteners on some GWR vans look like rivets on the outside, but I speculate that they may actually be dome-headed coach-bolts with the nuts on the inside of the body.

If you have access to old MRJs, Chris Croft's series of articles lists the fastener sizes for 1923-spec wagons. I've just looked at an RCH specification-drawing from the 1906 spec, for a 12-ton wagon. The body fastenings, holding the sheeting to the side knees and the diagonal braces, are specified as half-inch bolts. The only other fastener size I can make out (my scan of the drawing isn't perfectly clear) is some 5/8" bolts in the underframe. I would guess that a nut on a half-inch bolt might be 0.75" across the flats (having just looked at a modern, M12 nut), or possibly up to 1" if they were being generous with the metal. Presumably there was a standard for imperial fasteners. POWsides do dry-print transfers for GE open wagons and ventilated vans in 4mm scale. PS: the village is looking lovely and quite inspiring.

The definitions of scratchbuilding concerning raw materials, above, are all good. However, I prefer a different distinction for a class of hand-built models: one where the builder has researched the prototype and made some parts to the scale dimensions, preferring those to commercial parts that are wrong. To me, this is more significant than the proportion of raw material in the model. I don't think we have a specific term for this approach, although "finescale" in the broader sense comes close. I'm not thinking about finer-scale wheels here, but more the case where one makes, say, new ends for a van because the ones in the kit are 3 scale inches too wide.

I'm building a Mousa D32 at present and I had the same problem with the AG bearings. The advice over at the S4 Society's forum is to use Markits bearings which are bored consistently deeper. Problem is, Markits don't sell "waisted" bearings (apparently), and full-fat bearings are a bit large to move within the moulded axleboxes. So I made my own. I started with Markit's flanged bearings. I made a filing jig by drilling a 2mm hole in a scrap of 0.75mm styrene sheet: it holds the bearing with the flange pressed against the bench and the other end exposed for filing down. I sacrificed one bearing and found that the tip of the conical bearing-surface breaks through as a hole when the bearing is filed down to ~1.0mm from the back of the flange; i.e. when it's standing ~0.2mm proud of my jig. I didn't measure this dimension accurately. The production process is now first to reduce the diameter of the part that sticks out above the jig, then to file down the remaining "pip" to ~0.5mm above the jig surface. I reduce the diameter using a pillar file with its safe edge running against the surface of the jig and the cutting edge vertical. I file a series of flats and then round off the corners until I have a roughly-circular end to the bearing with a diameter ~1mm. I put the first set of wheels in this morning (second set of Exactoscale wheels is still curing in the gauging jig) and the results were good: no splaying of the axleguards and just a tiny amount of end float, enough to let the wheels spin freely.

Hmm. Smithfield is a wholesale market. That means that not all the stock sold there has to ascend to the trading floor. Samples could go up and the bulk of the stock could stay in the warehouse downstairs. By extension, it's conceivable that some of the meat traded at Smithfield could be held at Acton and delivered from there to the final customer. This is purely hypothetical, mind. I have no evidence that this was done, nor do I know how the wholesalers at Smithfield would have organized the delivery. I mention this because the owners of (old) Covent Garden market were taken to task for not operating this way. They had all the stock delivered to the market halls; this was considered inefficient and bad for the traffic flow around the market.

Fox have them on their GWR general-freight sheet: http://fox-transfers.co.uk/transfers/gwr-freight-vehicle-general-pack-60154

The loco is possibly an LCDR "Sondes" class. They had a few Crampton well tanks from the beginning of the line, when it was still called the East Kent railway. The exposed valve gear matches the description - the Sondes class had Gooch gear. The original Sondes class was unsuccessful but too embarrassing to discard. Martley eventually rebuilt them as conventional 2-4-0T, called the "second Sondes" class.

The last leg of the meat haul to Smithfield was over the Metropolitan railway (inner circle), so the main-line engines were exchanged for condensing tank-engines. The 633 class (0-6-0T) were the mainstay, with Metro 2-4-0T filling in. When the early engines wore out, some time in the 20th century, condensing pannier-tanks were built. I think that the exchange was made at Acton. At any rate, all the special brake vans for the Smithfield traffic were allocated there. Smithfield GWR was a depot for general goods, IIRC, and Smithfield was (is?) a market for more than just meat. Therefore, a train to Smithfield might include wagons other than meat vans. In particular, vans for other perishables, such the various diagrams of fruit vans might go there. This might imply that a train conveying meat vans to Acton, for forwarding to Smithfield, would include other traffic. Or it might be that the meat trains were all meat vans and the other traffics were marshalled in at Acton.

This is true in most cases, but you have the advantage that if you talk said enthusiasts into designing things for you, those items remains available on Shapeways indefinitely. They don't disappear when an individual retires. Further, if the drawing time for an item is not too much, an enthusiast may draw up a new product pro bono, with no need to work out a business case. I've done this a couple of times.