sharris

But do you light up a Blow Torch with cocaine?

I think the answer is probably to use the most appropriate method for each part. I can see that the Silhouette would be excellent for evenly scribing planks, door outlines, panels and the fiddly bits, but it might be easier to chop up lengths of microstrip to do the chunky solebars and head stocks rather than trying to print and laminate them with the inherent risk of distortion.

If you don't mind me asking, did the Silhouette cut all the way through the plasticard, or did you just mark score lines with it, and what thickness of plasticard are you using with it? Btw... in case you didn't know, if you want to reduce the number of bits you need to stick bolt-heads onto, the MJT version of the W-iron frets (just a happy customer) also include etches of the sole-bar crown and washer plates and a variety of coupling hook plates.

That's coming along very nicely. Coincidentally, I've just written up my NS wagon construction - a simpler wagon than yours (no round ends or hinges to worry about). I have a different NS Wagon book (the Wild Swan Chadwick one) - I'll have a look, but I don't remember seeing that one in it. Do you know the vintage of that wagon? I get the feeling it might be quite an early one, in which case the brake shoes may well be rather larger wooden blocks than supplied with the PD chassis and/or it may have just one brake-shoe per side (as per my model). A lot of the earlier ones may well only have single sided brakes too.

A livery question here. I've seen photos in Northedge's LNWR wagons book of pre and post-grouping wagon liveries happily co-existing. One picture is dated at 1932. Is there any information that gives proportions and distribution (were some company paint shops more diligent than others?) of vehicles still carrying pre-grouping liveries through the grouping years? I'm adding some pre-grouping liveried (late style MR, LNWR and NS) stock to my collection, but would some juxtapositions of these and grouping liveried vehicles be implausible? I'm considering the period from about 1932 to 1938.

Apart from a curve at the bottom of the ironwork to the sides of the doors, the semi-circular plates on the solebars infront of the w iron tops and a slight chamfer as you go up the end stanchions the D299 is basically made from horizontals and verticals - it probably wouldn't be too hard to create 3D models for printing the body without too much in the way of jaggies. Add your own buffers and underframe bits from the likes of MJT, Bill Bedford, etc. and Bob's your uncle.

I hope it's not bad form in this thread to include pre-grouping wagons in LMS livery, so here are a few variations on a Midland D299. The first is from the Slater's 4mm kit, built something like 20 years ago in a previous railway modelling spell. Built with single sided brakes (which comes in handy later) from the Slater's kit. I removed the moulded buffers on this one and replaced them with Kean Maygib turned MR buffers. Underneath isn't totally Slater's as I pared back the W frames to leave just springs and axle boxes and used MJT compensated W-irons instead. This meant replacing the floor from the kit with a piece of 40 thou plasticard scribed with planking. On the rocking end I separated the axle boxes from the springs with an L shaped cut - downwards a little on the face on face of the springs into the axle box and then horizontally to the back, the idea being that if rocking the visible gap between axle box and springs is less noticeable. The insides of Slater's wagons are quite plain, so I added bolt detail to match the doors and end stanchions. I think this was probably my first Slater's kit. The second variant is not actually a D299, but a D344 manure wagon. My area of interest is principally agricultural so it seemed appropriate. The D344 is essentially the same as a D299, but with no side doors. This wagon was my first attempt at scratch building. The sides, ends and floor were from plasticard that I scribed with plank detail while the solebars and head stocks were 4mm x 1mm strip (looking back on it now, 1.5mm would have been better for the head stocks. End stanchions, bolt plates, etc were a mix of strips, and bolt heads were made from cutting up 20 thou x 10 thou strip into tiny squares. Unfortunately the solvent I was using then was quite aggessive and they've lost a bit of definition, looking more like oversized rivets. As with the Slater's kit, I used MJT W-irons along with MJT springs and axle boxes. Again, buffers were Kean Maygib turned buffers. The W-iron fret contains various plate strips to detail the solebars. The D344 has single sided brakes, conveniently, so I used the spare lever and brakes from the Slater's D299 kit. The third variant is built around the Slater's D299 kit - I must have started building it years ago and left it in the back of a drawer half finished for ages, so decided to get on and finish it now. This is a D299 but from lot 919. The most obvious difference being the extra bolt plates in the centre of each side panel. Unlike the others I had decided to build this one without compensation. Time had taken its toll when I got this one out as the brake Vs had become brittle and snapped. Fortunately I found an Ambis etch of Vs and things to replace the broken ones. Lot 919 had a long brake handle unlike the earlier ones - these (this lot had both-side brakes) came from a Bill Bedford etch, as did the brake safety loops. Unlike the other kits I didn't use Kean Maygib buffers, but drilled out the moulded buffers to take sprung heads (possibly MJT or Alan Gibson, I've lost the card tag from the packet). The additional bolt plates are from 30x10 thou strip, and again bolt heads are from chopping up 20x10 thou strip into tiny squares. A photo (plate 99) in Essery's MR wagons book shows the strips are mirrored on the insides of the wagon. There are a couple of things not quite right using the Slater's kit - lot 919 had heavier duty journals than in the kit, and the number plate is of the earlier design in the kit, while lot 919 were built after the more rounded plate had come in. For the moment I'll live with those slight inaccuracies. It's just noticeable that the number plate doesn't match the side of the wagon - I need to find some tiny numbers!

Let's say I'm building a wagon for which there is no commercial model available, or there is no model that could sensibly be converted into it. I might use ("other manufacturers are available", but this is what I currently have in my collection of bits) Alan Gibson wheels, Keen Maygib turned sprung buffers, MJT W-irons, MJT springs and axleboxes, Smith's (I think!) 3 link couplings, 51L brake push-rods and brakes, Bill Bedford brake levers and safety loops, Comet door handles, and glue all those bits onto a styrene superstructure that I've built myself. Now I've not used any parts from a kit and I'd say it was scratch built even though I've not fettled every component from raw metal. Others may say that the list of parts above (or their equivalents) would comprise a good portion of a kit if there was one, so it's not exactly 'made from scratch'. I suppose it's a spectrum and we all choose where we want to be on it. As David (BR60103) said, probably the only time it really matters is for competition entries, in which case the organisers should be able to clarify what they mean.

Essery has this to say about lettering. Open goods wagons began to be lettered with 21" initials (about 3 planks) from the mid 1880s. There are a few exceptions in his photo collection- some D299s used for loco coal were labelled 'LOCO COAL ONLY across the centre with MR above - all lettering a bit smaller (about 2 planks high). Goods brakes and tariff brake vans followed with 21" initials. Covered goods and cattle wagons got initials from the early 1890s. (Initials generally smaller than open wagons (the big initials don't fit between outside framing - some photos show small M.R. Inside one set of framing about 1 plank high , some show M R in separate panels about 2 planks high. Letters seem a bit of a moveable feast - sometimes on body, sometimes on doors. Inside framed vans appear to have the larger 21" letters. There is an implication in Essery's cattle wagon section that a small MR in one panel is an early version of the covered wagon livery (1890s) while it gets larger and spaced over two panels in a later (190? Livery).

I can only ever remember seeing Midland wagons with no letters or big letters. I've got the MR wagons books at home, so I can check the dates on some photos against the lettering later (later being about 5 hours away!).

Btw, Martin, can Templot easily create the mixed gauge track work templates that the original poster was interested in?

The complete C&L kits come with a ready made crossing assembly ( V and wing-rails already soldered up so you just have to drop it into place), and pre-milled switch rails, along with timbers, chairs, tiebars and cosmetic fishplates. While they make a good introduction since they require very little soldering and filing (just adding droppers and cleaning up cut ends), they are quite pricey (£48 for a standard turnout). This was how I made my first (and so-far only!) turnout. At the other end of the C&L spectrum, their point timber kit just consists of timbers and chairs and you'll have to create your own crossing assembly and switch rails (although you can buy these individually from C&L too if you get stuck), so you need to do some filing and soldering (the books suggested earlier will help you out) but is much more affordable. Can't comment on copper clad options. As far as I know there are no mixed gauge kits, so that might be more of a DIY affair.

Now those points and crossings just makes my brain hurt!

I'd recommend Iain Rice's book - it's about 25 years old now (unless it's had an update), but still a good source of information. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Approach-Building-Finescale-Track-4mm/dp/1874103003 (Other bookshops are available)

As far as my comment goes re: LMS and MR greys, Essery's MR Wagons and LMS Wagons books give similar recipes for MR wagon grey and LMS wagon grey.

What happened with LMS re-liverying of pre-grouping freight stock? I have seen it said that officially LMS freight grey is like MR grey but a little bit darker. Would a re-liveried LNWR wagon keep the somewhat darker LNWR grey but with LMS lettering, at least at first, or were all regions made to conform to the same MR-ish painting scheme on updating the livery?

We seem to be in quite a company (mostly good company I think, not so sure about Hermann Göring though!). I found this list on Wikipedia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_transport_modellers - some I knew about, many I didn't.

Given that the Kitmaster models are from over 50 years ago and created to plastic kit standards of the 1950s and 1960s, I suspect the only value in exactly copying the kits would be nostalgia value, and the time might be better spent redesigning the models to modern standards. It looks like Dave has done some considerable redesigns on his already! Edit - looks like I was duplicating Kenton's thinking there!