Compound2632

6 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Thanks, Graham - and I hadn't considered the need for a 10 spoke wheel. Was the higher spoke count on the same size wheel to do with weight capacity?

I gather that for locomotive wheels, the usual formula was one spoke per foot run, so 7 ft drivers had 21 or 22 spokes. For a 3' 1" diameter 8-spoke wheel, there's about 14.5 in run per spoke but for a 10-spoke wheel, 11.6 in - nearer the locomotive rule.

The Great North of Scotland used 9-spoke wagon wheels, giving 13 in run per spoke. Does anyone make 9-spoke 3' 1" wheels, in 7 mm or 4 mm?

16 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

Ah but split spoke appear to have been more popular for Private trader wagons, and they were at least half the national fleet. 

Yes indeed; I withdraw.

58 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

plain spoke wheels [--] perhaps not so common as a wheel in comparison with split spoke wheels (which had lots of differences) or disc wheels https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/axleboxes

Admittedly the GWR did seem to use plain spoke wheels more than other companies. 

The balance depends on period, I'm sure, nevertheless I find it a rather doubtful conclusion. The Midland, along with the Great Western, was predominantly a user of solid spoked wheels; the LNWR and NER were largely split-spokers - so that's about half-and-half among the pre-grouping "big four". Disc wheels were rather a late innovation - certainly irrelevant to @magmouse's 1908 date. It comes down to knowing the practices of the particular railway company or private builder.

I see that Slaters offer both solid and split-spoke types; what about Peco and Wizard? (Looking at the Wizard website, the only product in the "wheels &c" category I find for 7 mm scale is bearings.)

1 hour ago, kitpw said:

What is more surprising to my mind is that wagon interiors weren't painted.  The easiest way to enure that a piece of timber warps is to fully paint one side only and then sit back and watch it bend. Obviously the ironwork would assist in reducing that but, even so, I would expect it to move within days and show cupping and shrink across the grain within a few months. On the other hand, wagon building has a long history, tradesmen knew what they were about and the wagons sides/ends don't seem to show evidence of more than a bit of shrinkage, leaving some gapping between boards. So, surprised or not, that's how it is.

Well-seasoned timber. In the MR C&W minutes, there's an annual return on the amount of wood - timber, deals, board of various species - on hand and it's generally two to three years' supply. It limits the rate at which wagon design could change!

5 minutes ago, Western Star said:

<GDB> - I have problems withe idea of wagon sheeting circa 1900 - being made from wood with knots.  I recall reading, back in the midst of time, that wagon specification carried the phrase "all timber to be free from knots...  shakes...  and shivers".  Now if that applied circa 1900 then draw your own conclusions. 

MRSC item 88-1974-58/2 (extracts):   

Midland & South-Western Railway Co.’s

SOMERSET & DORSET JOINT LINE

Specification for 50 8-Tons Open Goods Wagons.

UNDER FRAME.

The whole of the timber forming the Under Frame, including the Soles, Headstocks, Crossbars, Longitudinals. Diagonals, &c., to be of good sound Danzig Oak, well seasoned and cut out of the butt, and free from knots, saps, shakes, and all other defects of any kind whatever.

SIDES AND FLOORING.

End Pillars and Bottom Rails to be of the best Danzig Oak, Planking for the Flooring, Sides, Ends, and Doors to be of the best Swedish Red Deal, to be tongued and grooved and free from sap, shakes, and knots, or any other defects, and to be thoroughly well seasoned.

However:

PAINTING.

All knots to be well protected with patent Knotting before being primed.

This is pretty much word-for-word the same as the specification for a like number of 8-ton wagons in 1882, MRSC item 13683.

They get to you, these S7 types... But from what I've seen, it's an inevitable outcome of your approach to modelling.

Mike @airnimal does some improvement work on the spokes of the Slaters wheels which I confess I've never paid a great deal of attention too but is said to improve the appearance.

1 minute ago, kitpw said:

S7?

He'll have gone full Midland.

3 minutes ago, magmouse said:

The real error, actually, is that if you look at the picture in Keith Montague's book on Gloucester POs of 1409, is that the real one was longer than the kit.

See my second post...

I'm so sorry. I hate the idea of appearing a nark. At least I was wrong about the bottom doors.

41 minutes ago, Schooner said:

It really is astonishingly good. I don't know whether to take notes or cry 😆

Do both; as the bringer of bad news (courtesy of Turton's Fourth Collection, p. 141) I am weeping.

United Anthracite Collieries Ltd. went into liquidation in 1893, its assets being purchased by the neighbouring Gwaun-cae-Gurwen Colliery Co. (There was no connection with the 1920s firm of the same name.)

Wagon No. 1409 was one of a batch of 50 hired from Gloucester in December 1891 - the Gloucester official photo has the date March 1892. As a hired wagon, it will undoubtedly have gone back to Gloucester when United failed; the firm had also bought 50 wagons from Gloucester and was defaulting on payment for those as well as on the hire fees; the Gloucester Co. had unwisely accepted United shares in lieu of cash.

The number 1409 is typically spurious. United had 18 wagons of 1870s vintage from its previous incarnation as the Hendreforgan Colliery Co.; Turton records 129 wagons hired from Gloucester over the period 1888 - 1891, excluding the ones mentioned above, but some of the hire periods were as short as three months. It's possible that 1,100-odd wagons were hired from other firms but from the story of the company's precarious finances, and the size of the wagon fleets of other Swansea Vale collieries, that seems unlikely.

As a final twist of the knife, the dimension board in the Gloucester official photo of No. 1409 records that the internal length was 16' 0", i.e. 16' 6" over headstocks - unusually long for the period - and it looks it from the distance between spring shoes and headstocks. At least it didn't have bottom doors.

Sorry about all this. You have to remember that at the time Slater's first produced these kits, a lot of this information wasn't available. How easy is it to remove the lettering?

I like your adjustments to the brake gear - I shall have to go and look more carefully at my 4 mm models! I agree with you about the spurious floor bolt-heads, The side knees were bolted to the middle bearers and the floorboards shaped to clear them. The wagon as modelled has no bottom doors - which gets you out of making a representation of the release catch on the underside of the solebar - but I'm going to look the prototype up!

I am confident that as your are striving for the very highest standards you will be open to some observations and will take them in the constructive spirit in which they are intended. The interior ironwork of Gloucester wagons of this type has been much mulled over in 4 mm scale. I became so unhappy with my interpretation that I filled the wagons with coal loads! I think @Andy Vincent has got it right with his 3D-printed bodies, available from Brassmasters.

I have to part company with DJ Parkin on several points regarding the interior diagonals. These, I believe, serve a more significant structural function than just bracing the side sheeting - witness the fact that they are bolted to the solebar at the bottom end.

At the door end, the diagonal, I am convinced, extends to overlap the end knee, so that it is bracing that component which, since it supports the hinge bar, is subject to considerable longitudinal forces when the wagon is end-tipped.

The diagonal at the fixed end is a strap-bolt; it projects through the corner plate and carries a large nut on a big angled-profile washer. This is the most significant feature missing from the Slater's Gloucester kits, in 4 mm and 7 mm scale:

[Embedded link to Warwickshire Railways mrs1081.]

Gloucester wagons are over-represented, largely because of data bias in our knowledge of PO wagons of this period - the Gloucester photograph archive is large and relatively accessible. What I have come to realise, certainly for c. 1902, is that they're also generally rather modern - the wagons I've modelled turn out to be no more than five years old or so. (Setting aside those that date from 1903-5!) Even only modelling wagons to the 1887 RCH specification distorts the scene - such wagons were no more than 15 years old by 1902, 21 years by 1908; one needs a good proportion of old dumb-buffer wagons! 

A grey Glasgow day! The pig iron wagons flanking the special wagon are, I suppose, per regulations for working special wagons?

Drummond was wasted when he took that second-rate job down south, where he only had responsibility for locomotive design.

7 hours ago, magmouse said:

You can subscribe to the blog, not just individual posts, which should give you notifications of new posts?

I think I'm now doing that. Thanks.

I'm having the greatest difficulty reconciling myself to this newfangled grey livery for Great Western wagons - it just doesn't look right.

Sorry, only just found this. (That, I find, is the trouble with a blog vs. a continuous topic.) Splendid wagon and interesting discussion. I need to up my work rate to make sure I consistently get to the wagons I have in mind before you big boys get there!

Henson's patent covered goods wagon was discussed recently on my wagon-building topic in the context of early midland covered wagons:

Interesting to see the Great Western getting in on the act. 

1 hour ago, Western Star said:

The five involved in this crazy escapade are  Chris Brown, Ian Haynes, myself, my son and Tony Overton...  yes Stephen, I do mean to say that one of us likes D299, D305 and D351.

Come now, Midland wagons - who could resist? No need to make excuses!

3 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Is there somewhere where we can see the work of your S7 group? It would be great to have a look.

Yes please!

Ah but you have to consider also all those virtual wagons, sitting in your unbuilt kit piles...

For wagons, the formula is N + X, where N is the current number and X is indeterminate, unpredictable, and large.

34 minutes ago, magmouse said:

I have on my list LNWR and SER vans to bring bottled beer from Burton on Trent and Canterbury - they are a thirsty lot in Netherport.

Don't overlook Burton casks in D299s. (You have, I can see, been reading the Sheffield Park article again.)

5 minutes ago, magmouse said:

1. For a pre-grouping layout, you shouldn’t have too many

Which begs the question how many wagons is too many!

6 minutes ago, magmouse said:

2. Where is the fun in that?

Have you seen the one with working sliding door that @Tricky has built?

Then there's poseable roof hatches, of the sliding and rolling varieties...

The possibilities in the senior scale are numerous! 

11 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

But sometimes I may want an empty wagon, or a different load. You know, like on the railway 🙂

There's a lot to be said for modelling vans...

3 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

But then came the roping, so that was that. 

The wagon and the load are one.

7 hours ago, magmouse said:

Thanks - yes, this one is definitely not a ‘shake the box’’ kit, at least if you want it to represent a diagram N13 accurately. It would be close to a later type (N20, N21? I don’t have the books to hand) though the doors were wider on those, I think.

I suppose that the same applies to the 4 mm scale kit?