Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[WOOTANG]

who would of thought LEGO would still be useful

[Manxman1831]

I've got gearboxes and assorted linkages in various projects made out of Lego. Easier to come by than Meccano, and a sight more user friendly, too.

Looking marvellous there with them wagons, fella.

[Atlantic 3279]

Fourth wagon body now out of the mould and appears to need very little cleaning up and rectification .

Simple one-sided mould for trussing, brake cylinders and V hangers also poured and curing.


Thinking ahead to the matter of livery: The picture I posted on here some way back
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2443&start=1710
seems to show the GC livery as being grey all-over, save for possibly black bogies.

Although in reality "for loco coal only", as "fitted" wagons I believe these vehicles would in due course have been entitled to LNER brown-red oxide livery. If painted as per other steel framed goods stock, I presumed that the central girder, the trussing, and the headstocks would then have been black along with bogies. Does anybody have an informed view to the contrary?

[Atlantic 3279]

While I had some resin "on the go" I also test cast these:

Shallow Bachmann A1/A2 pattern at rear.
Deep Hornby A3 pattern at front.

I made the moulds several weeks ago, looking ahead to the possibility of further exploration of Thompson A2 sub-classes and maybe an improved V2 as conversions of RTR bodyshells, but this is the only time so far that they've been fired in anger. It may be a while longer before an expeditionary force is committed to action, let alone any full campaign ensues.

[2002EarlMarischal]

I made the moulds several weeks ago, looking ahead to the possibility of further exploration of Thompson A2 sub-classes and maybe an improved V2 as conversions of RTR bodyshells, but this is the only time so far that they've been fired in anger. It may be a while longer before an expeditionary force is committed to action, let alone any full campaign ensues.

Tantalising!

[jwealleans]

Your post on liveries; my initial reaction is yes. That's backed up by my perusal of PT's latest thinking on liveries in the preface to my weekend acquisition.

[S.A.C. Martin]

The wagons are spectacular How many do you think you will build Graeme? That monster of yours must be able to pull a good twenty of those

Those new resin domes look excellent. Will come in handy for those of us looking to modify the forthcoming Bachmann V2 no doubt...!

[Atlantic 3279]

Currently planned wagon numbers are small owing to the rather curtailed scale of the model railway aspect of the Immingham Dock 100th Anniversary event on 22nd of this month. At present I only need a few examples to pose behind the Baldwin in a small display case.
At this late hour, it's a good job I don't need a large number of them, all finished by 22nd, although I would already have addressed the issue more urgently had the plan to have a full operating model of parts of the local railway system not been scuppered. Casting of the bodies is proving somewhat annoying at this stage. Whilst I wasn't too disappointed to find the first two not to be satisfactory, I thought I was near the top of the learning curve when the third, fourth and fifth bodies were okay. Now I'm back to a bare 50% success rate as body number six has come out like a "non-EU standard" (or is that non-Napoleonic or perhaps non-Fourth Reich standard?) banana, and I haven't yet worked out why!

[IAK]

The ingenuity is wonderful...
And the GC beasties amazing - bravo

[Atlantic 3279]

Ta for the encouragement!

I suspect my banana shaped wagon body may have been due to an undetected "something" trapped under one end of the mould when I did that particular casting. Fortunately, body No 7, cast today with the moulds on a clean surface and even more care to get a flat, even weight on top of the assembled moulds, has come out straight as a die with best capture of details so far, so My mould-filling technique is evidently improving too.

In view of the postage cost penalty if I order just a few more buffers at this stage, as a stop gap I had a look at some turned coach buffers, of which I had plenty, these having heads of about the right size. In order to make them look more nearly right (very roughly anyway) I've applied a cheap, simple disguise to the buffers. For each on I slighly bevelled the edges around the end of a pice of plastic tube, then sliced off a ring of the plastic, split it down one edge, eased open the split ring and slipped it over the socket of the buffer, positioning the split at the bottom when fitted to the wagon:

[2002EarlMarischal]

The latest body looks really good and the buffer idea is yet another clever trick - lateral thinking at its best!

[Atlantic 3279]

I forgot to mention above - if you compare the two sets of cast trusses you'll notice the evidence of me having decided to cast-in 0.7mm brass wire in one case to strengthen the queen posts and longest unsupported part of the angle iron.

[Robpulham]

The hopper wagons look superb Graeme, you don't fancy doing them in 7mm do you?

[Atlantic 3279]

If there is some equivalent of a draughtsman's pantograph that would allow me to trace and scale up by a 7/4 ratio, but in 3D, and in solid substance rather than a mere drawing too!

[Robpulham]

If there is some equivalent of a draughtsman's pantograph that would allow me to trace and scale up by a 7/4 ratio, but in 3D, and in solid substance rather than a mere drawing too!

Now there is a dream tool if ever I heard one! - sadly if one were available it would no doubt be beyond the pockets of us mere mortals.