William's Workbench - LBSCR, LC&DR & SER in 4mm, and Gauge 1

[Lacathedrale]

I've tried a fair few scales and gauges since getting back into model railways about two years ago - each one with some areas that left me with some feeling of dissatisfaction - in 7mm I found the models rewarding to build but the size required for even the most simple of layouts prohibitive. I abandoned EM after seeing Peco's new track (and that it would be a pain to rewheel all the EMUs I'd just bought) in favour of OO - but with the layout down I was quickly bored with buying everything off the shelf and  felt a little hemmed in. I have found the most enjoyment so far from 2mm - but I'm starting to wonder if I am cut out for it; it's been over two years and I've attempted to build four locos, none of which have come close to working as intended. The small size meant that I felt I was mostly just fighting with material tolerances and static, surface tensions, etc. than modelling. I did briefly try 3mm but found it had neither the commercial nor society support, and had the drawback that the scale would inherit some of the issues I was having with 2mm.

 

Enter S-scale - 20% larger than 4mm but with almost 70% more volume. No commercial support, and no chance of Bachmann releasing a loco I've just spent six months building. All the fun of track laying, with a scant few kits - and a ton of scratch building. I promised myself I would learn a new skill and while I have been brushing up on Fusion 360 for some resin 3D printing to come in future, it feels like this is a wonderful opportunity to learn to use a lathe.

 

A few emails to Stephen Rabone, Jim Guthrie and Susie Frith and now I'm a member of the society and I'm putting together my first s-scale wagon:

 

 

This is the society's RCH 1907 seven plank, end door wagon. I've taken Phil Parker's lead and used a piece of rod and some strapping (with 20 thou boltheads sliced out of rod) This is my first ever compensated piece of stock actually - the rear W-iron pair are on a separate pivoting sub-assembly.
The next steps are to get the bearings and brake gear sorted. I used a Garryflex block to buff out the brass and it came out a real treat - much easier than scrubbing with a fibreglass pencil.

 

My observations so far are that the wheel standards are really fine and look great, and the size of the wagon seems just about perfect. I'm not sure how I would have done if I didn't have access to Phil's blow-by-blow build process but I guess that's just all part of the fun.

 

I've ordered some styrene and my next build will be a scratchbuild body on an association etched chassis.

Edited March 22 by Lacathedrale

[MartinWales]

Any updates on your S scale projects?

[Lacathedrale]

Hi Martin, I ended up moving my progress to the S scale forum 'What's on your S-scale workbench?' thread here:

 

 

In the meantime, I've finished the above wagon, and spent most of my modelling time scenicking a 2mm layout and learning how to use the Unimat lathe so kindly sold to me by a member of the society. You'll find any new updates in that thread!

[Lacathedrale]

Here's the wagon, if anyone would like to see the update - I'll keep this thread for a showcase, rather than the various in-progress questions in the above mentioned.

 

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

The next wagon on the workbench was an LCDR 3-plank drop-side goods wagon (SR  Dia. 1326) . Chosen purely because it was the oldest wagon I could see in the closest wagon book I had to-hand (Southern Wagons Vol. 3) that had flat ends!

 

 

The buffers and hooks are from the association, the rest of the wagon is scratchbuilt from styrene (taking many cues from @ScottW) and in honour of the imperial scale, I'll try to avoid using metric in this thread. With that in mind the wagon sheeting is 40 thou, with strips of 5 thou cut on a jig for ironwork. The headstocks and solebars are 80 thou sheet cut into lengths.

 

I made a mistake however, and may be worth repeating - is that the side of the floor that faces the viewer in a wagon diagram is capped with a side rail, which is a scale 70 thou thick/wide, rather than the floor itself being that thick. In this model, I didn't realise that and so ended up with a floor too thick (so when I add the W-irons, the wagon will ride approx 1mm too high).

 

With the 'success' of that, I decided to order an olfa compass cutter and tackle a round-end wagon, and leafing through 'Southern Wagons Vol 2' (in order to not deliberately pin me to Kent!) I chose an LBSCR 5-plank open goods, which I felt appropriate regardless of geography given that the Brighton ended up with over 3,500 of these: https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/pics/3346.html

 

 

My first attempt was a bit of a mish-mash - I used 100 thou v-grooved evergreen for everything, which I felt was as close as damnit to the 109 required for 7" scale planks - but it felt like i was being penny smart and pound foolish, so I started over.

 

 

At this point I had also bought myself a Northwest Shortline Chopper II - and it was invaluable in creating identically long strips. The solebars and headstocks were should have been put together with double layers of 40 thou x 188 thou strip. (at this point I have just realised that I didn't double-thickness the headstocks, which is why they look a bit strange!)

 

One thing I'm quite proud of is that I was able to parse the drawing with the knowledge gleaned from arcticles by Chris Croft in MRJ to understand some of the reasoning behind things, and some realistic dimensions for things that aren't depicted in the drawing. For example, the long thin iron plates (not 'strapping') on the outside are washer plates, and are backed on the inside of the wagon sheeting (not 'planking'!) with chunky iron section called knees. These taper up from the bottom to the top and are really quite substantial! (at this point I have also just realised that I should be using thicker styrene for the door bands - which are inverted with the thick section on the outside!)

 

 

This is the current status of the wagon , I have just applied the diagonal braces and side washer plates which overlap the side rail (which I have made as part of the floor) and the pulley-shaped sheet hooks to the wagon sides.

 

There are a fair few bits left to do:

• solebar - i.e. a pair of the wagon hooks (for horse power), crown plates and wooden door springs
• headstock - extra thickness, add draw plates
• door - extra thickness to the bands, catches at the top,
• ends - end stanchions, the wagon rail guide and the bloody wagon rail!
• several hundred rivets...

 

[Lacathedrale]

Progress continued last night unabated - I think I have about 7.5 hours into this wagon so far, including the aborted effort using v-groove styrene.

 

Tasks remaining:

• solebar - i.e. a pair of the wagon hooks (for horse power), crown plates and wooden door springs
• headstock - extra thickness, add draw plate nuts
• door - extra thickness to the door bands, catches and cotter pins at the top,
• ends - end stanchions, the wagon rail guide and the bloody wagon rail!
• several hundred rivets...

 

 

A few small problems - the inside washer plates for the end stanchions aren't aligned - I think I glued them in on too narrow of a centre, but happily one can't see the outside and inside of the same end so hopefully I can get away with that. Additionally, I decided against thickening the headstock for now - it's something I should have realised when the I glued the floor and headstocks together, and then the solebars didn't span the whole distance between the headstock inner faces. I assumed I'd measured wrong- but I'd just used the wrong bloody thickness of styrene for the headstock material!

 

The washer plates (nee 'vertical strapping/corners') on the wagon are made from 40 thou x 5 thou strip (to represent 2½" x 1/4" iron), and the ironwork known as knees, onto which those washers and bolts are fixed, are from 40 thou x 30 thou (to represent the 2½" x 2" heft). These need to be tapered to roughly half the thickness at the top. Easily done with the wagon sides flat on the workbench before assembly with a few strokes of a file. Unfortunately however, I forgot that the door ironwork is inverted, with the thin washer plates on the inside and thicker door bands on the outer. Having already glued on hinges (although I appear to be missing the nearmost in the above photo) and the catches, I decided to add an additional strip of 5 thou x 40 thou and taper the very top. A bit of a bodge, but good to know.

 

The wagon sheeting hooks (the round pulley shaped things) are slightly oversized also, but not enough I felt to detract from the accuracy of the model.

 

[Mikkel]

That looks superb. The wagon rail guide must have been  a bit tricky.

 

Thanks for the tips on some of those tools, they sound useful.

[Lacathedrale]

I can't really take any credit for technique at all, it's all thanks to @ScottW ! However the NWSL chopper is invaluable - you can use known dimensioned pieces to set up the guides and then churn them out. Very handy indeed. I find it fairly challenging to get square edges with a scalpel and since this uses a razor blade held rigid against a steel backplate, no such problems with it.

 

I overcomplicated the curves on this model - I imported the drawing into QCAD and used a three-point circle tool dotting around the outside a given curve to derive the centrepoint and radius, and worked off of that. It was fine for the wagon end tops, but as for the wagon rail guide - I should have just measured in situ - as I mentioned the end stanchions are fractionally too wide - which is no good at all for a semi-circular guide that must fix directly to its supports, not half on the stanchions!

 

I used the same olfa compass cutter I used for the sides, for the wagon rail guide - scribing the surface of a sheet of 10 thou brass. For my test piece I cut through, but for the 'production' run I snipped around with some xuron scissors https://xuron.com/index.php/main/consumer_products/4/29  and flattened them. The lip was just a strip of the same material cut and roughly bent around a suitable mandrel (the lid of a permanent marker!) and then tacked into place in the middle and ends, and then with a healthy spread of flux spread across the full extremity of the piece. buffed with a fibreglass brush and a square file and glued on.

 

I think I could probably do with a set of Xuron PhotoEtch scissors (which have a finer nib) and some Deluxe Materials superglue - the stuff I'm using now are one-shot dispoable tubes and incredibly wasteful.

 

Thank you kindly for the compliment, it means alot coming from you!

[Lacathedrale]

Last update for the weekend - door springs are in place (including a slot for the brake lever in one) as are the repairs to the hinges, the wagon hooks, washer plates for the wagon rail, etc.

 

Tried to represent the middle bearers and so on underneath, I used the wrong timber

 

 

Wagon rail loosely placed in - it is joined to a flat section by the time it goes behind the guide, so this is just for effect:

 

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

The wagon rail in place I used some 0.25mm x 1mm strip bent and drilled out for a pivot (which I subsequently broke) on a 0.75mm rail. Charitably we can say, 'lessons were learnt' - but it at it does at least look like an LBSC open wagon!

 

 

Realistically I should remove the rail, the hinge plates, ream out the holes and start over - not sure I can face it right now, though!

 

I've got 12thou styrene rod being delivered for the rivets, the rest of the items are dependent on the society stores - It awaits buffers, coupling hooks, axle guards, axle boxes, and brake gear.  If anyone is about to tell me this wagon had double-ended brakes on both sides, please do so now!

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by Lacathedrale

[Lacathedrale]

About time I slapped on some paint onto the LCDR 3-plank:

 

 

Each timber is painted individually, and the outside has had grey (with a good deal of brown, if you can believe it) added to it. It needs lettering and washing. And, before I forget, crown plates!

 

I picked what I felt was a very obscure prototype, only to find the latest SECR society modelling gazette to feature not one but TWO of them submitted by different authors!

[Lacathedrale]

The LCDR wagon is approaching completion above the solebar: I have washed alternately light and dark on the inside to bleach it, and with a dirty brown/grey on the outside. I have also attempted to letter it (badly, but I've got to start somewhere). I've added the crown plates and removed those huge rings on the drop sides to replace with what I hope is a better representation of the hinges:

 

 

It's clear that the glue-rivets on the washer plates are not very good at all compared to the salami-sliced rod (left of the 'L')  so I've got some 10 thou styrene rod in the post, and some 5/8" archer rivet transfers too - I'll see how that goes.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Lacathedrale

[Lacathedrale]

I haven't died, I've been practising on my lathe before embarking on the final wagon of my 'southern trio'. In the meantime, the materials to rivet up my lbscr wagon have arrived:

 

 

Absolutely miniscule! Although it is only now that I see in large font 'rivets' of which Chris Croft would be heartily dissapointed to see - they are BOLTS!

Edited May 18, 2020 by Lacathedrale

[Lacathedrale]

I was lucky enough to get an etch of an LBSCR terrier from an S-scale society member, so it will be my first locomotive. This has been boiling away on the back burner for a while. By 'on the back burner' I mean that I keep stumbling over the bag of parts while looking for other things, tutting at my timidity and moving on. Nevertheless, conversations with the same kind gent has lead me towards building this as an original condition A1. My gut feeling is to build this as No. 83 Earlswood, based at .. Earlswood - just down the road from Stoats Nest (Coulsdon), in either Stroudly or Marsh livery - if the former, it would place the layout in 1904-1906 where it had a name and Stroudley livery, and if the latter, then it would place the loco in 1906-1912 (between when it was painted umber and lost its name and when it was sent to Bognor)

 

I was trying to work out a gearbox/motor arrangement for the S-scale terrier in my CAD program (QCAD) and kept thinking to myself - this is bloody bizarre - the scale at the top is accurate, but jeez - 60" between the centre of the drivers and the top of the tanks?  That' can't be right!

 

 

And then I remembered how blinking small they are!

[Lacathedrale]

As an aside, while it's not railway related it is very much imperial - one of the items I have obtained from another society member was a Unimat SL, and I decided to do a small learning project on it to get used to the tools and processes - seeing as I don't have any railway related items to make yet - the result is this cannon:

 

 

It's not quite finished yet - it needs wheels and trunion bearings - but it's given me  confidence that I can in theory handle the machine.

[Lacathedrale]

Not vast amounts of progress, due to a very hot weekend and making half a mandrel to turn the wheels for the above cannon (still pending taps, bolts and washers), but have pushed on with a new scratchbuild (which I was sure I'd posted here before) -

 

Last week I measured out the drawings and half built one side:

 

I realised after finishing this and duplicating for the other side, that the top rail above the door needs to extend the full length of the wagon side - so the tops of the outside framing had to be trimmed back and single pieces installed.

 

And today's progres - the other (!) side and one of the two ends built:

 

The end needs a top rail fitted and fettled to the correct roof radius, which is why it looks a little flat, and then it's the simple matter of adding all the T-shaped washer plates - forty in total!

 

Starting to wonder why I don't just model Gauge One if I'm going to be adding all these details anyway!

Edited May 27, 2020 by Lacathedrale

[Lacathedrale]

The wagon is now roofed with 20 thou plastikard, but even with a former/brace in the middle to match the roofline it's sagging a bit - my gut feeling is to use some 30 thou grey card on top. In other news, my partner suggested I put some models out on display so I dug out some 0-gauge bits and bobs, and a Gauge 1 wagon kit that I couldn't resist. For the sake of a laugh, here's 1:32, 0, S  and N compared:

 

 

And here's the 1:32 wheel against the 1:148 wagon:

 

I've realised I've got buffers and coupling hooks for all of my S-scale wagons, just need the W-irons, a pair of wheels and then to fabricate the brake gear.

[Mikkel]

Russian dolls. An interesting cast, and always a bit of a jolt to see different scales together. The illusion disappears.

 

The Gauge 1 wagon solves your thoughts about layout 'snippets', just fit a 2mm shunting plank inside it  

[Lacathedrale]

3/8"/ft is still Imperial.

 

 

S-scale was originally called H1 (as in, half-1 - like H0 is half-0). This is just plain old 1 Gauge.

[Lacathedrale]

A bit further on:

 

 

The body work is obeche - I was insure of whether to use it but felt like a more simple solution than buying thick styrene. Time will tell how it holds up. The washer plates are 10 thou x 80 thou strip. I've got some 40 thou square strip to make the square bolts, and 80 x 200 thou strip for the inside knees. I think I'll need some fine jewelry chain for the cotter pins on the sides.

 

I'm not entirely sure aboutthe underframe - one option is to go with a commerical underframe from someone like Tenmille, or maybe fret something out myself.

[Lacathedrale]

1/2" to the foot is Imperial:

 

(2mmFS wagon for scale)

 

This is a very fine LBSC D8 covered wagon by William Models. Individually sprung axleboxes, laser cut steel W-Irons, sprung buffers and coupling hooks. These wagons could have been built with a single wooden brake, but the kit comes with a iron shod double-brake, double-sided configuration in keeping with their layout in a latter period. it also has a square builder's plate (adjacent the left hand crown plate) which means it is a post 1911 build.

 

The original livery would have been lavender (red oxide added to light grey) with an illiterate mark only - then LBSCRY, then LBSCR and a darker shade (around 1904) and finally the dark 'lead' colour of GWR from 1911 onwards with plain 'LBSC'.

 

I've still got all the brakes, horse hook, label clip/etc. to put on before I think about colour schemes!

[Lacathedrale]

Mostly done, although it needs the push rod removed, cranked out over the axlebox and then reinserted. I have added the door bangers, label hooks, etc. since I took this photo:

 

 

I'd love to model it in this livery:

 

Edited May 14, 2021 by Lacathedrale

[Lacathedrale]

I figure it's probably about time that I either get busy with S or mothball it indefinitely. I have a Terrier that's half built with castings, etc. but missing a chassis. Sketching over a scale drawing of one, I've come up with this:

 

 

This is using a High level loadhauler gearbox since it has a 120 gear reduction, and a 20k rpm coreless motor - the maximum speed would be 24mph, well under the prototype - but this loco isn't going to be running laps around a large layout, primarily dealing with station piloting and shunting.

I am considering the use of high level hornblocks and CSB straps. The CSB pivot locations seem a bit strange to me but that's what got spat out of a calculator on CLAG.org.uk

Does this make sense? My plan is to turn solid spacers from tufnol, and fixing points for the other components with gapped PCB strip. The idea would be to run the loco dead-rail with battery RC, but provisioning for split frame pickup would permit testing at an earlier stage.

[Lacathedrale]

@Regularity just pinging you in this thread FYI

[Regularity]

27 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

@Regularity just pinging you in this thread FYI

I had already started following it!