4mm An EM Workbench: n shades of grey

[Overseer]

Adam,
The Herring looks good. One thing that your close up photos show is the thickness of the plastic W irons. A quick scrape for the edges with a scalpel can reduce the visible edge to closer to the scale 3/4 inch thickness, which I think improves the appearance of wagons from most angles. As an example of what I mean, an HO scale VR 'I' wagon kit by Steam Era Models with RP25 Code 88 wheels to 18.3mm gauge (5'3" broad gauge).






Hope you don't mind the highjack.

 

[AJC]

Thanks for the reminder Fraser, I knew that there was something else I needed to do. I have, by the way, worked out where the other linkages go. Unusually, there is no direct linkage between the hand brake levers and push rods linking the brake shoes: everything goes via the main brake cross shaft at the end. This is a bit confused on the GA because it shows *all* the linkages which, of course, travel on both sides of the wheels.

You can just about see the linkage (behind the rest of the brakegear) on the left hand side of this Paul Bartlett picture, the rest is hidden behind the hopper door bar:

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brherring/h1aec94d9#hd9c7080

Can this be seen? Well I'm putting it in (because I can) but time will tell.



Adam

 

[AJC]

Before boredom sets in, here's the current state of play and with a host of small details the wagon is starting to come together. The main ones left to do are the footsteps (I've tried the Cambrian originals: too chunky and, at the non-brake end, I can foresee having to replace them fairly shortly) and the vac' pipes. Then there's the door mech's which should be relatively straightforward.



And end-on, you can see that I have followed @Overseer's suggestion.



Adam

 

[AJC]

Time for something different (I'm waiting on the delivery of buffers for the Herring) before I fit the steps and haven't been in the mood to concoct fancy vacuum pipes, well, not yet. The underside door gear has been added and all is pleasantly 'busy' down there.



A new wagon project comes in the form of a Hornby BR standard brake acquired for a fiver in their pre-Christmas sale. The rather exciting livery that I've abused will be replaced by more sober bauxite. The body moulding came with a representation of a plywood veranda end (an in service replacement) rather than the original planking. The ply replacements seem to have been a bit later than the period I work on* so I've done the extreme thing and cut out said end panel. It will be replaced with some scribed plastic sheet reasonably shortly.



I won't be doing nearly so much to the underframe on this vehicle since with all those footboards and things the detail can't be seen so outer brake yokes and safety loops only. I've moved the brakeshoes out a bit, spaced out from the solebars with a bit of 60 thou' plastic and trapped it in with some more for added security. The brakeshoes, by the by are grey styrene, painted black. The chassis moulding is self-coloured. Hornby, with their various farcical attempts to reduce production costs, detailed, decried and sycophantically defended over there have missed an easy win.



Oh, and the lamp irons at one end have gone - these will be replaced with Masokits brass ones which will carry the lamps themselves. The plastic ones would have done, but I went and dropped the body...

Adam

* That said, re-sheeting could be quite extensive in the mid-60s, witness this LNER-built van:

https://flic.kr/p/n7eQdZ

 

[AJC]

After a break from the workbench (conference, talks to give, book proofs to check), in my travels I acquired one of the new Hornby LNER 21 ton hoppers and it's well, quite nice though the axles have a lot of slop which must cause a bit of strife for the running in OO. In EM, however, this is not such an issue and the regauging was nice and simple. Here's the thing as it comes (complete with lettering in Comic Sans):



And here's after the first dabbling with bits and pieces left over from the Dave Bradwell chassis kit, the bang plates thus far which seem to have been later additions as were the cat's cradle of handrails at the ends. For this reason, I've replaced those supplied with 0.3mm nickel silver wire for the sake of consistency but I haven't yet worked out which of the (many) variations to fit. I've since changed the buffers with some from ABS as well.



Other projects have come on in dribs and drabs but they'll have to wait for the weekend.

Adam

 

[AJC]

Last night's work




This morning's work:



And what all the bits look like assembled:



There are a couple of small things left to do, but the external detail is, whisper it, done!

Adam

 

[AJC]

Lettering, something that, if you want to do it right, is always a challenge. We have a mixture here, from left, Cambridge Custom Transfers used more or less as supplied, the 'empty to' branding is cobbled together from leftover lettering from a Covhop, also from CCT, the 'Stoneycombe' branding (multiple return brandings seem to have been very common on P22s - the 'Herring' branding seems rare on pictures before 1970 so I've left it off) was pieced together from bits of a KB Scale sheet intended for 7mm. It is sufficiently tiny that the subterfuge with the spelling is all but invisible - there were no 'B's on the sheet... The maintenance panel is from Railtec. The bits you can't see are overhead warning flashes from Modelmaster. Hard work all this.




As you can see, relative to dad's Hornby Trout this is a small vehicle...



Adam

 

[AJC]

Going back to an earlier project, the pair of Coil Rs have seen a little bit of attention, building up the supports for the tent-like hoods, which will be fully modelled like a building, with roof and sides. The structure will eventually be covered in tissue t represent the sheets but only after the remaining hinge and bracket details are added.



Adam

 

[AJC]

Next steps. Roof on, I won't add sides because the tissue will be tough enough and the one clear picture I have sows a certain amount of settlement/billow.



This provides a supporting structure for fairing in with epoxy putty, like this:



This one will use more tissue since the shaping isn't the same, on the inner ends, at least. So the Milliput doesn't have to do quite so much work, I've added some triangles of 40 thou'. I shall get the centre hood done first. but it will be a fiddle. Anyone else contemplating this sort of build might like to consider only adding the outer cradles afterwards...



Adam

 

[SimonT]

Adam,
do you have a copy or link to the photo of the prototype hood? I have never seen the hood and would like to know more as I ought to put hoods on my two vehicles (as well as the vac pipes to keep Oz happy!).
Simon

 

[AJC]

Simon

The only picture I have with the hoods on is in the far distance in OPC's 'The Power of the Peaks', plate 165. All it really does is confirm how far down the sheets go (roughly below the top of the little drop doors) but there are dimensioned sketches - weight diagrams really - to scale here: http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/BRFreight2Issue.pdf on page 82.

Adam

 

[AJC]

Time for a bit more detail before the first lot of sheets go on - the representation of the angle iron bracing between the bays is necessary because it they affect the hang of the sheets - so door hinges went on as well. @SimonT has unearthed a David Larkin picture showing the sheets nice and clearly so I now have a much better idea of what to aim at...



Adam

 

[AJC]

There hasn't been much time for modelling over the last week or so - I'm in the throes of completing work on a book (not remotely railway related) and this has eaten all my spare time. Still, I've managed to get the sheets over the centre of the three bays completed and have made a start on the hoods over the end bays with the sheet rails. These have been tacked onto the plastic formers with cyano and then more firmly secured with 5 minute epoxy. Both wagons have now reached the same stage but I've only photographed the one. The nice thing about this point is that for the first time there's a sense of what the completed wagon will look like. There is a long, long way to go, however.







Adam

 

[AJC]

A bit of a hiatus in coverage owing to a camera failure. Still, now that's sorted, this is where the Catfish has got to:



There's nothing too much to show from this angle, barring the handrails and brakeshoes, but from here:



You can see that I've overlaid the end platforms with 5 thou' sheet and pushed the handrails out a bit having drilled new holes, of course. Pretty much all that's left to do is detailing (vac' pipes, couplings, lamp irons, brake safety loops), the main wagon is all there.

Adam

 

[AJC]

And now - so soon - the Catfish is almost finished. It does go to show how good a kit this is, in terms of detail and mostly, in terms of fit as well, that the additions made are so few. I need to sort some handwheels out for it.





Also on the bench is yet another Coil J which has moved on in its own small way. This is one of the batch of iron ore tipplers that had the full 8 shoe brake gear, the fittings for vac' cylinders but not the cylinders themselves; most were retro-fitted for the Mendip stone workings but some found themselves chopped about. Brake levers are the next bits I think.



Adam

 

[AJC]

Thanks to the good services of Steve at Railtec, I have made one big step towards completing my Rumney Models Strip Coil, last mentioned here. For the last year or so it has gently matured under a coat of gloss varnish awaiting transfers. These have now arrived and been applied. For anyone contemplating buying one of Justin's kits, proper lettering is now available for either of the diagrams it produces and also the later (and heavier duty) similar vehicles used in Scotland. Justin't kit won't stretch to these but the option is there as part of Railtec's range: http://www.railtec-models.com/showitem.php?id=1874 - for reference, Steve is aware that the lettering should read SC. R rather than SG. R and this will be corrected in subsequent batches...



These are really very good. Here's a close up:



Here's the real thing courtesy, as ever, to Paul Bartlett (thank you Paul): http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brstripcoil/h294aa921#h294aa921

Adam

 

[AJC]

Both Catfish and Coil J have reached the stage where the only additions are paint. The physical changes from the last update are brake actuation bits; wheels in the case of the Catfish (from Colin Craig) and levers (spares from Rumney Models chassis kits) for the Coil. All very nice components.

The Catfish wears Gulf Red - in fact, Humbrol #73, matt wine, subject to several coats of Klear to provide a gloss surface for trasnfers - with #98, matt chocolate, underframe.





The Coil is only in the first stage of painting with a bit of matt chocolate applied to the underframe. The quality of the brake lever etches are shown to good effect.



Adam

 

[AJC]

I take that as some kind of compliment Graham, but as I've said before, in 7mm I'd have to include all the detail... Anyhow, I've been tidying up some loose ends last night and this morning so here we are. First, the fully lettered Catfish - the yellow stencilled lettering is prototypical as this Paul Bartlett shot shows: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcatfishzev/h7792c18#h7792c18 - and the Dave Larkin picture this wagon is based on makes the difference between white (which shows up well) and yellow (which doesn't) nicely. The Modelmaster transfers, however, were all white so I spent a little time overpainting the white with yellow. It might look a little ragged here but in reality it is quite tidy and will vanish under weathering.


Here it is with the Herring, which has had a first pass of weathering. Note that the Herring is the wagon with the higher capacity...



Meanwhile, here's another thing, a Rumney Models chassis, much like that under the Shocvan featured earlier. This will go under something a little different but you'll have to wait and see.



Adam

 

[AJC]

After a certain amount of thrashing about with paint brushes, several wagons have inched further towards completion. The strip coil may have almost got there but the interior might benefit from some powders?





The Chas Roberts mineral still waits on lettering, but the paint finish is otherwise just about right.



Adam

 

[AJC]

Evolution of a Hornby hopper using leftover parts from a Dave Bradwell hopper chassis etch based on detail from this picture, taken at Shilbottle colliery. Rap plates, new hopper door catch levers and the usual cat's cradle of wire for the handrails at the end. It's quicker than the alternative options (Parkside, Airfix/Bradwell) but is it as much fun?





As I said, the ends are *interesting*: there are more variant on these than can be easily described.



Adam