Parkside Permutations

AJC

Western Thunderer
I know - not forgotten but where to stop? If I fit that then I'll have to fit the safety loops on the end of the push rods as well.

And how’s that a problem? ;)

They’re more apparent than most loco cab fittings.

I think so to - I've not done it on this 2nd van yet but on the first one I've fitted a little bit of strip to fill in the gap. Is this what you meant?
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Exactly. Something that a lot of even quite recent 4mm RTR lacks. Saying this, however, I’ve just bought a Hornby SR cattle van which has all of this and almost all the (complicated) brake gear. Now I could simply rewheel it and change the couplings but I know I’ll struggle not to add a few more bits just to say that I have. Yes, this probably amounts to a problem...

Adam
 

simond

Western Thunderer
My rebuilt second hand rather tatty Mica A is making progress. New brake loops from flattened wire, and made up the steps from some shim, and some 1mm milled brass angle.

I tried Dave’s suggestion of pre-weathering under the top coat, by trying to draw in the plank lines with a sharp HB pencil. This did not work well. :(

The intent was to highlight the gaps without the overwhelming grubbiness of the previous Mica I built, and I think the idea is valid, but I need a 4H pencil or similar, rather than an HB. Anyway, after some remedial work, it may be that my vision is looking “something like”. If I can find a hard pencil, I’ll do the other side & ends too.

Then, once I’ve sorted out the end steps, transfers, and then a blast of gentle grubbiness to bring it together.

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HNY
Simon
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
Inspired by Adrian's lead, I found some time to get out the partially built vans front the box and have started working out what needs to be done to get them finished. The train will be a motley collection of braked and unbraked vans as running during the early 1950s to paper mills and similar, a mix of BR standard, LMS, GW, SR and LNER with the odd pre-grouping survivor. As well as the Parkside kits there are some Slaters and a couple of Freightman.

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Hopefully some more progress soon.
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
Some progress has been made on the vans, all except the two Freightman vans are now on wheels plus another Parkside kit has been put together, a LNER van to round out the post grouping representation. Still working on sorting out all the brakes and deciding which parts to use.
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Better photos to come when more progress has been made.
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
Melbourne has had quite a lot of rain recently, the weather here has been fairly normal for summer - hot (high 30s, sometimes into 40s) for a couple of days then a cool change usually with some rain and a few days around 20 degrees. The wheat crop in the west half of Victoria is very good, unlike New South Wales where they have had practically no rain for a couple of years. The NSW coast usually gets rain from the east and north east but this has not been happening so the NSW south coast is really dry, as is east Gippsland in eastern Victoria, hence the huge fires in areas that usually don't burn. We have had quite a lot of smoke around on some days so Melbourne has looked more like Delhi and been quite unpleasant.

We had Christmas near Bega, NSW, and drove back on 29 December. There were text messages as we drove to all mobile phones in the area telling everyone to leave East Gippsland immediately, which we were doing anyway. There was no obvious fire activity then a few hours later the Princes Highway was closed and hasn't been open since then. The family were meant to be looking after a friends house in Tathra (south coast NSW) for a couple of weeks while I am back at work but they have cancelled their holiday so the family are at home and I am not getting the extra modelling time I was planning.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
and the next thread resurrection and effort to finish a few more projects. I completed these 2 vans bar the painting just before lockdown 1! So again an attempt to clear the workbench saw a concerted effort to finish them off.

I applied a thin lens cleaning tissue over the roof and flooded it with plastic solvent to try and give them a canvas texture. It doesn't really show on the photos but I think it did help. The grey and bauxite are just applied using rattle cans - I think the grey is a little too light but hoping I can make it a shade darker when weathering them. I still can't work out how the overspray from the roof got onto the chassis but rather than correct it I'm hoping it will blend in when they get weathered.

I struggled with the Parkside presfix transfers - they didn't stick that well (probably due to the age rather than the quality of the transfer) but I also had trouble with the alignment as the transfer didn't match that well with that printed on the backing sheet. So after an abortive attempt I scrapped them and got some fresh transfers from Railtec. The Silcocks posters were downloaded from the Gauge O Guild website - printed on transfer paper in my home printer then given a coat of semi-gloss lacquer before applying.

Once all complete the van were given a coating of Alclad Semi-gloss lacquer. They will be weathered at some point but I have a few more wagons projects in the cupboard and will do them all together at a later stage.

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AJC

Western Thunderer
Quite nice, Adrian - I think the grey roofs are fine, they were subject to quite a bit of variation and those are well within bounds. Ex-works vans could have very light roofs and the effect is quite startling when you see one in a train. The black lamp irons look a bit odd - they’d have been body colour (headstocks and buffers seem to have been fairly frequently, too). Later, i.e., very late ‘60s, you might see the tops picked out in white. Note you’ve got the post-63 lettering there so it might be worth using the unboxed lettering for later builds as application was neither universal nor especially quick, and generally on repainted vehicles.

hth

Adam
 
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adrian

Flying Squad
The black lamp irons look a bit odd - they’d have been body colour (headstocks and buffers seem to have been fairly frequently, too). Later, i.e., very late ‘60s, you might see the tops picked out in white.
Cheers for that - they will be suitably amended. I was using photo's from Paul Bartlett as a guide so I can't quite figure out how I missed that!
 

76043

Western Thunderer
Continuing with lamp irons, I've been guided by Essery's LMS wagons book and Paul Bartlett's book and it appears unfitted wagons didn't have lamp irons, but fitted wagons often did, does anyone know why this might be?

It's just an observation, I've not counted or anything like that, so don't all shoot at once...

Tony
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
Continuing with lamp irons, I've been guided by Essery's LMS wagons book and Paul Bartlett's book and it appears unfitted wagons didn't have lamp irons, but fitted wagons often did, does anyone know why this might be?

It's just an observation, I've not counted or anything like that, so don't all shoot at once...

Tony

Yes, that’s right. Fitted vehicles rated XP (so 10’ wheelbase and longer) could be conveyed as tail traffic in passenger trains without a brake van behind them and so needed provision to carry a lamp. So theoretically all vehicles built as fitted or converted as part of the vac’ fitting programme in the ‘50s (which Adrian’s GW vans would have been part of) had a lamp iron. Not that it was always used - I’ve seen more than one picture of a lamp hung on the draw hook of a vehicle hung on the back of a passenger train.

Unfitted vehicles could not and so didn’t. Usually!

Adam
 
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davey4270

Western Thunderer
Van number 2 underway. As a slight variation this is PS28, again GWR 12T van but diag V36/V37 with sheeted sides rather than planked. Again rather than a straight build - all I'm going to cover is any deviation from the kit instructions.

As suggested by @Overseer I took a little more care building the main van body to try and get the corners to fit as snug as possible. With a little sanding and minimal filling I think it should give a smooth finish to the corners. Now I'm not sure whether it was this was as a result of my fiddling with the corners or whether it's a particular issue with this kit - either way I reckon the floor was about 1/2mm too wide and about 1mm too long. So I reckon if you build the body around the floor you'll have some gaps to fill at the corners. If you try to build the body to fit the corners then you'll need to file the floor a bit to fit.

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As mentioned previously - this second kit has the alternative springing arrangement of the wire and hook. This was actually easier to fit as the wire doesn't need any precise bending to match the hole spacing.

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Again following suggestions the W and V irons have been chamfered on the rear to reduce the edge thickness. Hopefully it will be more evident once painted. This also is intended to show the filing of the brake blocks, the lower set is as supplied in the kit, the set in the middle of the photo have been filed along the lines of the coning of the wheels so hopefully it can be seen that the inside of the brake block is thinner than the original.

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These V irons and brake units are drilled out to accept a length of brass wire, the kit supplies a little but of plastic rod to stick between the 2 sets of brake units.

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When initially positioned it's not quite symmetrical - the left hand brake is rubbing on the wheel and the right hand one has a little gap. So for this build, again deviating from the kit build sequence, I glued the brake units in place first. Once in place as everything was connected by the brass rod I could move the V irons to adjust the position of the brakes and equalised the gap on both sides.

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This is my second effort at fitting the vac pipes and cylinder connection. This time I have run the pipe parallel to the chassis frame and then bent the pipe to cross over to the other side, including a tap off to the cylinder on the wagon. The previous van build has also been modified with the same arrangement.
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This time I remembered to fit a little weight to the inside of the wagon before fitting the roof.

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So this is the current build status. So a few more details to add, I will make up a replacement for the brake levers but they should then be both ready for the paint shop.

I've still to add a little weight to the first planked build, it's subtle but the sheeted van is riding slightly lower than the planked version. So I'd like to get them both weighted a similar amount before I draw any conclusion but first impressions favours this second wire and hook method for springing.

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Regarding closing the gap between the Brake shoes and the wheels. The moulded profile of the brake shoe is the reverse to the wheel tread where the back of the shoe meets the slightly wider wheel tread next to the flange.
I reprofile/shave the brake block towards its rear to match the wheel tread.
Slice the brake push rod away from the centre operating crank.
Position the shoe against the wheel and hold in place with ladies aluminium hair grips. You will need to bend the shoe hanger a bit to allow it all to match up.
Pack it away from the wheel with a few small strips of paper as shims and glue in place.
Before cutting the second push rod from the small moulded crank, tie a piece of white cotton to it before it tries to hide from you.
Fit the second shoe.
Thread a piece of 1.2mm brass rod through the “V” hangers and fit the operating cranks and brake hangers with the aluminium clips still holding the shoes in place and shimmed to the desired gap. Glue the pushrods to the operating crank and press together with another hair clip and allow to fully harden.
If any rub just place a small piece of wet & dry between the shoe and the wheel and gently rub by rotating the wheel.
You can withdraw the brass rod when everything has hardened to fit the other side brakes or vacuum gear etc.
I’ve done this on about 80 wagons and the difference is remarkable!
 

John57sharp

Western Thunderer
Spurred on by this thread to resurrect this van that I mad some 30 odd years ago, I am wondering whether it would take a coat of bauxite or should I try to strip it (and what with?)
Adrian I also wonder about the guitar string serials you gave, google failed to turn anything up, but I guess they are just strings?
I usually model in 2mm but this is giving me some light relief during some high stress at home, and I‘d like to thank all posters for keeping the interesting updates going, it helps to see others getting on when you don’t have much time yourself.

Thanks!
John
 

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Overseer

Western Thunderer
Spurred on by this thread to resurrect this van that I mad some 30 odd years ago, I am wondering whether it would take a coat of bauxite or should I try to strip it (and what with?)
Adrian I also wonder about the guitar string serials you gave, google failed to turn anything up, but I guess they are just strings?
I usually model in 2mm but this is giving me some light relief during some high stress at home, and I‘d like to thank all posters for keeping the interesting updates going, it helps to see others getting on when you don’t have much time yourself.

Thanks!
John
Without a vacuum cylinder it would have been repainted pale grey. It appears it was quite common for previous lettering to show through the new paint so I would just paint over what you have. A bit of texture can add to the realism.
 

John57sharp

Western Thunderer
Indeed, it has a vac cylinder, it came off with the brake gear which was not aligned with the wheels…I was younger then…
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Adrian I also wonder about the guitar string serials you gave, google failed to turn anything up, but I guess they are just strings?
As far as I'm aware they are just plain ordinary guitar strings. I just visited a local music shop and picked half a dozen sizes from the display stand - cheapest ones they had.
 
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