Ian Major

Michael, again, thank you very much. I will keep that it mind for when I get around to painting the wagon - though painting and me don't keep happy company. Progress... I started by preparing the buffer housings. The castings still have the plaster cores in place. I used a 1mm drill bit to clean out the base end. I intended to use a 1.7mm drill bit to clean the main part out but I found there were ridges of brass inside the bore. So I used smaller bits and broaches to niggle the ridges out before finally cleaning the main bore with the 1.7mm bit whilst avoiding drilling straight out the other side! The photo shows two of them test assembled. Two things became apparent. First, the nuts were not biting on the base with the springs under light compression when wound to the full extent of the thread. The lower buffer in the thread shows this well. It means the buffer rams slop back and forth a bit. I have no info on BR buffers, but I have a dimensioned diagram of similar buffers in my GW books. This shows the buffers as being 18" over all with the housing being 13". As the lower buffer shows, with the slack taken up they are 18" long. So the answer will eventually be to solder some brass packing on to the base. The other point is that the lip(?) where the ram enters the body looks very thin. The Parkside buffer housings have a separate ring moulding that is glued on. I will try producing some brass rings for this purpose which will bring the housings up to a scale 13" long. Turning to the plastic components, the first move is to drill the holes in the ends, sides and solebars. The holes for the buffer housings I slightly countersunk so that castings would sit down nicely. An issue that I hit was the chalk plates(?) to be fitted on the ends have 4 moulded pins, but the instructions only call for two holes. Also one of the moulded pins is distinctly fat. I decided to cut three of the four pins off then use the remaining one to get the position correct and to get the horizontal positioning by eye. When attached the plate didn't sit square so I put small cubes of 10thou Plastikard under 3 of the corners. The photo shows this in place along with the coupling reinforcing plate on one end. The brass parts are test fitted. I am still using my open wagons to hold parts awaiting fitting!

Hello John, I have seen many fine wagons made with Slater's kits, usually made by better modellers than me. I am relying on on line resources for images since all of my books are GWR or Midland, which doesn't necessarily help with BR designed wagons. Ian Major.

Michael, Thanks for the warning. I have just looked through all of your wagon photos, I can only hope mine will turn out half as well. The Slater's kits have no lettering transfers supplied. What did you use? I am trying to avoid Pressfix type because they and I don't get on with each other. I am thinking about making replacement brake levers, rack, safety loops out of brass sheet. Then again I may just use those supplied in the kit. Makes me sound very fickle I am afraid! Ian Major.

Ernie, Great work. Thanks for posting some very useful photos. I like the tip for differentiating left and right hands. Do you have any tips for up and down? I could do with one. Ian Major.

Michael, Excellent. Thanks for that. I didn't mention that in the castings bag are rather nice brass instanter links. Ian Major.

For Christmas, my wife bought me a Slater's BR Standard Fruit Van kit. I decided to build this before painting the GWR O4 so that the two could be painted at the same time. The kit is supplied in a box that can be used to store the completed wagon which is always useful. The kit can be made up in to some lots of the Standard Van Dia 213 and in to the last lot (3009) of the Standard Fruit Van Dia 233. All these vans had plywood sides and doors. The main difference between the first two and the last lots of the fruit vans are the pressed steel ends. The earlier lots had 3 part ends the last lot had 2 part ends as supplied in the kit. Leave the four air scoops off the lower part of each side and the fruit van becomes a standard Dia 213 van. There is a historical notes page which mostly covers (briefly) the complexities of the standard 12 ton vans. No dates are given for when the fruit vans were introduced. No livery details are given though the coloured illustration on the box gives a clue. Information and diagrams from Parkside kits that I have made hopefully fill in the holes. Transfers to letter the van are not supplied. The instruction text is mainly limited to general advice on how to make plastic kits with metal parts. There are good isometric diagrams of the build process with short notes scattered among them. Finally there is a side on and end on diagram of the (almost) complete wagon. The first items I dug out of the box were the body sprues. Bottom left are the two body and air scoop sprues X7064A. Top left is the floor X7062B (from the BR Van Wide kit). Top right, the ends X7062E (Van Wide), and the roof 7062B (Van Wide). The ends and sides have bevelled edges where they meet, and I like the fact that the moulding sprue does not meet these parts on the bevelled edges. Makes life easier when cleaning them up. There is, fair bit of flash on the ends. The next photo shows the chassis sprues. What an interesting collection this is. I have no idea what some parts are for. I suspect they are for other wagon types. Top left is X7062A (from the Van Wide) which is supplied for the solebars. Below this is X7060C (from the BR Open Shoc Wagon). This supplies the vac cylinder and other brake parts. The solebars, headstocks, shoc springs and other bits are surplus to requirements. Bottom left is X7062D (Van Wide) which supplies the underframe and four clusters of frame gussets. I have no idea what the two bits bottom middle of this sprue are for. Now it gets interesting. The top right are two X7060G (Open Shoc Wagon) sprues. These supply the "W-irons", axle boxes and springs. Finally, bottom right is X7060D for the brake gear leaving the "W-irons"/axle boxes/springs spare. I am trying decide which axle boxes to use. The instructions say the fruit vans were fitted with O/F (open front) type, the model on the box looks to have the RCH split type (both types supplied in the kit) and the D233 shown on Paul Bartlett's site appears (to my inexpert eyes) to have GW type boxes. Good game. The rest of the kit is in this photo. The brass castings include buffer housing, lamp brackets, brake pipes and support brackets. The brass etch has the brake handles on it. I have no idea what the parts on the left of the etch are for. I have a horrible feeling that I am going to do a Barry Bucknell and have bits left over that shouldn't be at the end. Anyway. Time to start hacking bits around.

Ernie, That ain't SPAM it is almost certainly a virus. SPAM emails are annoying, embedded viruses tend to be destructive. I spent 42 years in the IT industry and saw the birth of computer viruses. Do you know it all started with a professor at a Greek university who taught his students how to write viruses so that they would know how to protect themselves against any future attack. The result was that the students tried it out. Their offerings used to just put silly things on your screen. The bad buys saw this and added destructive payloads. I found that the favourite time for new attacks was between 24th Dec and 2nd Jan which seemed to be on the grounds that during that time tech support type guys would mainly be on holiday so all and sundry would be at their most vulnerable. See what happened to RM WEB a couple of days ago. To think that all our vital systems are reliant on the Web and the whole thing is as secure as a wet paper bag. Happy days! Ian Major.

It would serve the driver right for pulling up so close to the stop blocks! Joking aside - I like the way you think through the full size practicalities applied to the miniature. I feel this is one of the main reasons this is such a convincing model. Exemplary work. Ian Major

Perhaps to return to the title of this thread "Locos in The ABC Murders", my own feeling is that I don't mind "wrong" locos if they are real and not modified by CGI. Looking at pre CGI films the footage of locos is often very good, though maybe out of area/time. I hate George Formby, but there are some great railway shots in his films. You want to see a genuine Crosti boilered loco in action, watch Frank Sinatra's "Von Ryan's Express". Even the "Titfield Thunderbolt" has some good, interesting footage. I was always amused by "From Russia With Love" where the day time Railway shots were European, but the night time shots show a Stanier loco storming past a Midland signal box, shot through a green filter to make it look foreign! I saw the Albert Finney version of "Murder on the Orient Express" in a cinema during the mid 1970s when I lived in what was then Yugoslavia. In the film, the murder is committed then the train gets stuck in a snow drift somewhere between Belgrade and Zagreb. When the Poirot character is asked to investigate the murder he initially refuses saying "The local police are more than capable of handling the case". This was met with gales of laughter from the Yugoslav audience. So for me, the rail content in the current BBC TV series are just filler but of no long term interest. At least they don't distract me from the plot! Ian Major.

Ernie, I hope you enjoyed Christmas and will have a prosperous New Year. Your shock wagon is of renewed interest to me. For Christmas I received a Slater's Wagon Kit, 7064 BR Standard/Fruit Van. It has parts to allow some variety in construction. One of the enclosed sprues is X7060C which is supplied for the Vac cylinder and some brake parts. The rest will be unused including the shock underframe sole bars, shock springs, headstocks, axles guards, axle boxes/springs and 8 brake shoe rigs plus other bits. So following your build I should, along with a bit of scratchbuilding, end up with two wagons almost for the price of one. It really is Christmas! Ian Major

Ernie, I thought exactly the same. "Why didn't I think of that before?". I suppose it is the old thing. One needs someone else to state the obvious before it becomes clear! Ian Major.

Ernie, Some interesting ideas here that I will probably borrow (steal?) and certainly food for thought. I have assembled a few Parkside wagons. They are wonderful kits but I usually struggle with assembling the axleboxes. I have one wagon where they would slide down the guides but stick in the lower position. I ended up making them uncompensated. Your method of removing the bridle bars and assembling the axleboxes off the model seems the answer to all these problems. I like the idea of the removable w iron. It would make painting and maintenance a whole lot easier. A Merry Xmas to you. Ian Major.

Lovely work. I couple of questions if I may. Apologies if you have already answered these. The corner plates appear to actually wrap around as per prototype, rather than made from two butted parts (as I do). How do you get this done? Your bolt/rivet detail is very neat. What do you use? Ian M.

Fabulous work. I love the way you think your way through the issues. How many hands do you have? I ask this as a result of seeing your photo of the piercing saw in use. When ever I try to photograph this activity I invariably break the blade! Ian.

To make the blanks for the two handles I sweated two pieces of 0.4mm (15thou) brass sheet together. One side I covered in “blue” for marking out purposes. Actually, at one time I used to use proper engineers’ blue but the contents of my bottle turned a strange shade of green and proved useless for its intended purpose. I have no idea what I did that made it change colour. Instead I use “permanent” markers. We used to use these in our work on good old fashioned paper flip charts and overhead slides. The introduction of white boards required “non-permanent” markers. After several white boards were damaged the instruction went out that all permanent markers had to be immediately binned. This was followed by the unedifying sight of me ferreting in all the bins retrieving them for home use! Marking out. I scribed a line parallel and fairly close to the one edge of the material. Near one end of the line I drilled a 0.5mm hole. Then I set my dividers with the points at 41mm apart. Put one point in the hole and marked across the line. At this “break” point I used my protractors to mark 20 degrees then scribed a line to this mark. This established the centre line either side of which I marked the outer lines as per my notes below. The end opposite the pivot was marked 1cm too long so that it could be trimmed accurately to length once the lever was bent to shape. The following notes also indicate the bend points for the later lever which differ from early version. I roughly cut around this line was a piercing saw fitted with a 6/0 blade, filed it to shape, separated the two parts and cleaned them up. The first one I bent up as per the notes above. The joggling around the axle box was measured from the chassis. This type takes a straight line to clear the axle box then joggles back to enter the rack. Beyond that it is shaped to the open form of hand hold with only an inward turn to prevent the shunters hand slipping of the end. The photo below shows the trial fitting. It also shows the 1mm lengths of brass tube that I used as spacers under each lever. The second one was similarly produced except it has an enclosed hand hold as per the notes in the previous post. It also has a more pronounced outward joggle at the axle box. The test fitting. To finish them off I took some brass rod, end drilled 0.5mm and milled it in to hex shaped 2mm across faces. Parting off 1mm lengths represented the retaining nuts. I could have used 14BA nuts but I prefer to use them as actual nuts. These “nuts” were soft soldered over the pivot holes of the handles. The photo shows the finished items. Early versions on the left. They rather remind me of my son’s pythons. The parts were permanently fixed in to place. To finish off construction I added some door catch chains. I wound 0.5mm N/S wire around some 1.5mm rod and sliced this in to rings. I soldered each ring on to short lengths of 0.7mm N/S wire and added twists of 5amp fuse wire to represent the chain. These were glued in to holes with superglue. Well that is a far as I have got with it. I have an absolute horror of painting so will have to lie down in a darkened room for several days before attempting it. In the meantime, I will take it up to High Lane on Friday to see if it will stay on the rails as part of a train. If so, this will the first time for a quarter of a century (if ever) that will have done so. ***** I forgot to mention something about the 10 thou Plastikard that I used for the corner straps. From the photos you may get the impression it looks a bit grotty. Well the reason is that they were cut from a piece that I have had for more than 50 years. In 1965 (if memory serves me right) I went with a couple of older friends on the train to London to visit the Model Railway Exhibition at Central Hall Westminster. Now up until this time I had spent virtually all of my time in deepest, darkest rural South Worcestershire. So, this trip was daunting for a very young lad. The exhibition was out of this world. I had never seen anything like it. As I wandered by myself around the halls, I came across this gentleman sitting behind a small table. He was making railway wagons out of plastic sheet. I was transfixed. He eventually looked up at me. I had loads of questions to ask, but I froze. He was selling plastic sheet. I had money in my pocket from my Mother to spend on food. I plucked up courage and blurted out that I wanted to buy some. The gentleman was of course George Slater. I finished the day very hungry but also the proud owner of a sheet each of 20thou and 10thou plastic sheet and a small bottle of (the original) Mekpak. The 20thou was quickly used up, but the 10thou lasted until now. So I suppose one could say a bit of history has gone in to this wagon!

OK John, hang on to your hat. More of my OTT on its way. Although I have to admit that I don’t always upgrade the kit brakes, it depends on my mood, and I am a very moody person. The early type rack was made entirely from a piece of 1.5 x 0.25mm strip of N/S, straight from Eileen’s Emporium if I remember correctly. I cut it in two then silver soldered the two parts back together to make an “L” shape. One leg was cut (slightly oversize) to fit in to the solebar channel. Then using a piece of this strip as a shim lying against the web, the shorter leg was dressed down to fit. A small grove was made in the top edge of this leg for the handle to engage and the teeth were cut in to the outer long edge. Now for the origami. I drew the shape on to some graph paper to act is a folding guide. Using drill bits as formers I bent the lower curve, then the upper curve. This is shown in the next photo. The teeth are pointing in to the graph paper at this stage. Then gripping the strip just below the teeth with two small snipe nose pliers I put in a 90 degree twist to point the teeth towards the guard side. The photo shows this and a comparison with the other type. Now it was just a matter of bending the top down, soft soldering it in to a closed loop and trim off the excess. Job done – or as those annoying little creatures in the adverts would say “Simples”. …and a quick test fit. …and my jottings, including some of those for the handles. Next will be the handles and finishing construction.

Hello John. OTT, moi? Well perhaps a little. OK a lot. My approach to scratchbuilding is to look at how the full size version was created then if possible use the same technique in miniature. Compromise invevitably has to made. I also like to understand (more or less) how items on the full size beast works. This allows me, for example, to fit and route pipework sensibly. For me it also adds interest in to the build. There are some wonderful blogs produced by guys working on railway preservation/heritage projects. They give me plenty of ideas about how to approach my models. When I looked in detail at the above brakegear photo, it became apparent that the later version was an el-cheapo job. It quite frankly looks as though it was made by a '60s secondary schoolboy in metal work class. (Have close look at it). Hence it looked easy to copy in 7mm scale. The early version is very much a skilled blacksmith job making the whole thing in one piece. My number 3 son trained as a blacksmith, so for things like this I can consult him on techniques used. Useful! The above probably shows why my wife frequently looks in at me through the door of my workshop with a look of pitying understanding. Mike, Thanks for your kind words. I try not to bin any kit, I quite enjoy the challenge of making a silk purse out a sow's ear, or a least a slightly better sow's ear. Any really poor kits that I have I use for trying out new techniques, or practising old ones. The worst kit I had was a white metal 3 wheel mechanical horse. I went to Telford meaning to get the Classic Commercials version but got this one in error. The best I could do with it was to cast ballast weights and other bits with it. I see we are both in the Stopfordian area. Ian M.

Miss Prism, Thanks for the clarification. It sort of raises hope that somewhere a mongrel like my O4 may have existed. OK - I'm clutching at straws! Ian M.

The brakes….. When I started this rebuild I decided that the DC brakes were out because the existing levers etc were beyond repair and those parts that were intact were simply wrong. I have spare levers, racks and other bits from Parkside kits so as part of the original “quickish” rebuild I would use them to make a Morton type brake. Early on I had fitted a cam style “v” hanger on the non-brake side and to line everything up a piece of 1mm dia rod was glued in place. Having scratch built the body I decided to do more for the brakes. Scratchbuilding the DC brakes would require modification to the new chassis to fit new pairs of “V” hangers behind each headstock. It would also mean discarding the remaining parts of the Coopercraft brakegear. Hum. I had completed the body before I found Gareth Price’s photos of W25190 which is preserved on the SVR. This 4 plank open has the pre DC era single sided brake fitted with tooth rack. To conform to the 1911 brake requirements it had a second set of brakes fitted on the opposite side. This side only had one shoe. See https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/73776-gwr-four-plank-wagon-from-coopercraft-kit-gwr-one-plank-wagons/page-2&do=findComment&comment=1102922 . There are photos of other wagons with this arrangement. For example Iron Mink to Dia V6 number 11152 shown here http://www.gwr.org.uk/nowagonbrakes.html . Looking at the broken Coopercraft brake remains sat on my bench I could see that I could recreate this “reduced” configuration. My rational for following this route? Well DC brakes were introduced at the time that Dia 04 opens were being built. So, in theory, some of the early ones may have had lever brakes. The engineering diagram does not show the type of brake to be used but it does show the push rods which are left over right indicating DC. So I will claim insanity, the 5th, “Rule 1”, whatever to justify the following. The two sides of the brakes work independently so I cut the centre of the 1mm rod. The GWR used a single legged support on the rear of these short shafts. I have some bits left over from Slater’s coach kits which were ideal for this. The broken brake parts had previously snapped off. So I created a subframe from 60thou. The recoverable brake components were butt joined on top of this and thin strips of 10thou glued to the back to give the joints strength. This subframe was then glued in to place. The photograph shows this. The brass pieces in front of the wagon are some of the Slater’s left overs. The following picture shows the detail of the brakes on the two sides of 41277 (reproduced with permission of Gareth Price). The left half of the photo is the original 1890’s type. The toothed rack is a single piece that loops around. It is bolted into the web of the solebar. The brake lever is the early type with the handle in the form of a closed loop. The right half is the 1930’s style. The rack is made from 3 parts. The middle part is angle with teeth filed into one side and with both ends filed flat. The guard is a shaped bit of flat strip bolted or riveted on to the angle. The rack is connected to the solebar by a short length of channel which is bolted to the solebar flanges. The brake lever is the later type with the handle end simply turned inwards about an inch or so. Having seen this photo I decided it would be fun to fabricate these. So away went the Parkside bits and the Plastikard, then out came the brass, nickel silver and soldering irons. Starting with the 1930s style. I milled up some brass in to 4.3 x 3.0mm channel and 1.75 x 1.75mm angle. The angle was cut to 17.5mm length and one side filed to represent the teeth and flattened ends, plus slot where lever is parked when the brakes are off. I sliced off a 1.75mm length of the channel to make a staple shape. This was soldered to the top rear of the angle with 220 degree solder with the open side outward. This was offered up to the solebar to check fit. The assembly was sticking out of the solebar by 1mm too much, so I reduced the channel by that amount. It then fitted fine. The guard was formed out of 1.5 x 0.25mm nickel silver strip. The ends were embossed with rivet detail using the modified anvil. This was soldered to the rack with 145 degree solder and again test fitted. My notes with dimensions. Next will be the early form of rack which I made entirely from 1.5 x 0.25mm nickel silver strip. A sort of metallic form of origami.

For the sides I prepared a strip of 60thou Plastikard slightly over 21mm wide, to allow the cut edges to be dressed. The strip was long enough to make all sides and ends. Using a similar approach to the floor, I scored plank marks on both sides. I cut 2 lengths of this 52.5mm long for the body ends, and 2 pieces 109mm long for the sides. The sides fitted inside of the ends giving a body length of 112mm (16ft). Each side had vertical lines scribed to represent the edge of the doors. Corner plates were prepared from 7mm wide strips of 10thou Plastikard, the diagonal straps were 15thou strip 1.3mm wide, the door straps 20thou by 1.4mm wide, the side strapping 20thou by 1.75mm and door stop plates were 10thou by 1.4mm. The lengths of these items, plus the rivet pattern is shown in the scanned notes below (or strictly nuts and bolts pattern). I use a GW rivet tool. The supplied conical anvils are fine for impressing flat surfaces. However, for trying to produce rivets on angle it is a non starter. To achieve this I turned and milled an anvil with a flat face let into its cone. In the following picture the standard anvil is on the right. The new modified version is on the left. The dimensions of the new anvil are in my scanned notes. Corner plates and “T” profile were fixed to the body end parts. The corner plates being flush with the corner edge. The top of the “T” was bevelled, but the bottom was left over long and unshaped until the ends and sides were fitted. The photo shows an end being test fitted. Internal detail was achieved using small cubes of 10 x 10 thou, a small pile of which can be seen to the left. The ends were then glued in to place and allowed to harden. The length of each side was adjusted to ensure a snug fit between the ends. The sides were detailed with the corner plates overhanging by 1.5mm. The photo shows 1 side test fitted and the other on its face showing this overhang. The sides were permanently fixed. The following photo shows that most of the side detail finishes at the junction with floor. The exception being the side strapping which extends below the level of the floor. This will be tucked under. The lower ends of the “T” strapping have been shaped. The detail on the side edge of the floor were now added. This included short lengths 15thou by 1.3mm to represent the feet of the diagonal straps and short lengths of 15thou by 1.5mm to represent the base of the hinges. The middle part of the hinge was made using strip 40thou by 1.5mm. The end of the strip was rounded off then glued to the middle of the hinge base. When these were dry the strip was cut off level with the bottom of the hinge base and the remaining part carved in to a semi cylindrical shape. The side strapping was wrapped under the floor, and lengths of “L” strip were glued on the edge of the floor under the doors. My scanned notes covering this. Next up those pesky brakes. (Edited entries for last 3 notes which originaly failed due to network T/O.) (Edited 2 to add photo a floor edge detail.)

I made the floor from 60thou Plastikard. To ensure the sides and ends were straight, square and parallel I used the mill to cut out a 112 x 52.5mm piece. The body sides and ends would sit on top of this as in the prototype. Whilst the 60thou was on the milling table I milled some “T” and “L” section. The “T” was for the end strapping, the “L” was for the lip under the doors. The profile sizes are given in my “scratchings” at the end of this entry. I am not very good at marking out evenly spaced lines. To mark the planks I use a method that I picked up from model ship makers that they use to mark the position of planks on hulls. I cut a strip of thin card a few inches longer than the floor. Down one side I drew a line parallel to the edge. I set my dividers to a distance slightly longer than the plank width. I then walked the dividers along the line leaving a row of evenly spaced puncture marks. I marked each puncture with a pencil line, then numbered the spaces in between to make sure this gave me the correct number of planks. The strip of paper was positioned (slightly diagonally(?)) so that the end two puncture marks lined up with the end edges of the floor. A scribe was then used to mark through each of the remaining punctures into the plastic. The point of the scrawker was then used to “find” the marks in the plastic in turn and a square brought up to the scrawker allowed each plank join to be scored. The result was a set of evenly spaced planks without having to make a single accurate measurement. Hopefully the next photo will make this clear. I scored both top and bottom of the floor. My experience of scoring only one side always resulted in a curved part. Scoring both sides seems to even out the stresses and keep it flat. I glued the floor to the chassis and then dressed the headstocks to match the width of the floor. The next photo shows the floor fitted and the “T” and “L” sections waiting to be fitted. The following are scans of my notes covering the headstock and section details.

John, Thanks for the info. I have always find your entries in other logs most informative and your 7mm layout makes me green with envy (in a nice way). When I started this "rebuild" it was meant to be a quick and dirty job. Sadly as a result of the problems I hit the job grew like topsy. If at the start I had realised how much scratch building was going to take place I would have made DC brakes from scratch. Having committed to non DC brakes at an early stage I sort of fell between two stools later on! The daft thing is that when I scratched the sides, if I had made 4 plank rather than 5 plank sides all would have been accurate. 4 plank would have been easier (no diagonal strapping). In the words of the great Homer Simpson - "Doh!" Ian M.

Next up was to make the headstocks look as though they were made from steel channel. To start I cut strips of 20thou Plastikard in 1.5mm wide strips. These were cut in to 4 pieces that were each greater than 53mm in length ie greater than the headstock length, which could be trimmed back to size after fitting. These were then fitted above and below the headstock bases fitting in to the gap left by the chassis overlay. The lower ones lined up with the lower flanges of the solebars. I cut overlays from 20thou Plastikard for the headstocks. These were 52.5 x 5.8mm. Rivet detail was pressed in to it plus 0.5mm holes drilled for the centres of the buffers and the coupling hook. I have details of the rivet pattern in my “chicken scratchings” book. Which I will try to scan in for here. Pieces of 20thou were cut to represent the bases for the buffers and the coupling. Again, I drilled 0.5mm holes in these to help align them to the main overlays. The detailed overlays were then fitted to the headstock bases creating the impression of channels. When the headstocks were fully hardened, I drilled and reamed out the holes to take the buffers and coupling then glued them in place. The couplings were left over from a Parkside kit. A quick check on the track was made against the O24. The height looked pretty good and all 4 wheels were in contact with the rails. Hoorah! At this point the end was in sight. I just needed to refit the ends and sides, fit a new floor and add some brake levers. Perhaps a day’s work? Wrong! On the inside of the body parts the plank boundaries were represent by ridges rather than groves. Out came the scrawker and straight edge to create some groves. The ends and side one were fine. Then I tried to do side 2. I couldn’t line up the straight edge with the existing lines. The side was banana shaped. I tried to correct the shape applying pressure in the vice and heat from a hairdryer. No good. It just wanted to twist or go into a dog leg. It was time to scratch build a body. Not much of the original wagon is now being used in this rebuild!

For replacement buffers I used Slaters GWR sprung wagon buffers (71564). The Coopercraft solebars are very thick and would foul the buffer springs. So, I reduced the width of the solebars just far enough back to clear the buffers. I had given up with the DC brakes and decided to make a Morton style brake. I have various bits left over from Parkside kits and selected one of the clutch type “v” hangers. For this I reduced the thickness of the middle of the solebar that had no brake gear on it. To start I milled some 60thou Plastikard in to 4.5mm wide strips. For the cross members I cut the strip into 41mm lengths. For the thick part of the headstocks I cut two 45.6mm lengths of this strip. When all these strips were assembled with the solebars they were all lined up with the top of the solebars. This left an intentional 0.5mm recess along the bottom of the headstocks. I also added a strip along the rear middle of the none brake solebar which created a pocket in which to fit the “v” hanger. On top of this assembly I added a 20thou overlay 49 x 108mm. This overhung the solebars on both sides to replace the missing flanges. The overlay was intentionally just shy of the headstocks. On the underside of the overlay I created a pair of pockets to hold the ballast weights.

I had a variety of sources to use when doing this rebuild. I have a copy of the combined volume of GWR Goods Wagons by Atkins, Beard and Tourret. For the O4 opens there are: - descriptive text on page 276 and pps 277-8, diagrams Fig 254 (p279) and Fig 266 (p290) engineering drawing Fig 255 (p280) photos Plate 357 (p281) and Plate 358 (p281) Paul Bartlett’s site is an excellent source of railway photographs https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwropenmerchandiseowv which includes a photo of W25190 at Sharpness in 1986. W25190 has been preserved and is now on the SVR. Photos of this appear on Gareth Price’s flickr site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/svr_enthusiast/ . This is another good source of railway photographs. Later I will use some detail (with his permission) in this log. Rather than use a calculator to work out the scale sizes I usually set up a spreadsheet with suitable formulae (it takes me a couple of minutes) to do all the hard work. The following are screen grabs of the dimensions from my spreadsheet.