Rob's 7mm Rolling Stock Workbench

[Robpulham]

Following on from a posting sometime ago on wagon loads from household waste, a gent on the guild suggested that the siphon valve wouldn't really work as a load due to the size of the screw thread. That made sense and at the time I thought that it would make a load that could be sheeted if only I could make a suitable tarpaulin.

Fast forward to Ian G posting a link to an article on making realistic tarps on Western Thunder (http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/a ... tarps/3310) and I thought that I might have the answer. Sadly several attempts were made none of which were good enough to me. The first using Kleenex tissues just disintegrated and using the process on thin cloth worked but it wasn't flexible enough. As a last resort I put a few lens cleaning tissues on one side after they were used to dry out and hey presto they worked.
This is what they look like after being ironed and treated - not much different in looks to be honest but they feel slightly thicker and have a texture. More importantly they can be handled/folded/stretched without mishap.


Next I cut some styrene discs using a leather punch and stuck them to a sheet to make eyelets. When they had dried I drilled holes through them and then brush painted both sides of the sheet black (the original plan was to spray them but I ran out of time last week). Next out came a cheap stencil and the letters LNER were painted on along each edge and some cotton cords tied through each eyelet.



In between this while things were drying, etc. I made up a timber cradle for the load.



Lastly I tied it all on - I had to add a couple of staples made from 0.45mm wire to the cradle ends to allow the sheet to be fastened.

[Dave]

Very nice Rob.

You are right to cover the valve, it as it has stamped on it's side BS 1212/2. This BS was first published on 29th June 1990, so your load would have time travelled.

[Robpulham]

Very nice Rob.

You are right to cover the valve, it as it has stamped on it's side BS 1212/2. This BS was first published on 29th June 1990, so your load would have time travelled.

Thanks Dave, as you say yet another reason to have it covered. One advantage of using it is that it's quite heavy being solid brass so which ever wagon I choose to carry it won't need any extra weight.

[Robpulham]

Following the wagon load theme, after someone pointed out that you wouldn't get terracotta pipes of the length depicted by the Skytrex wagon load I have repainted them black to suit iron pipes.

[Robpulham]

Finally for me on last weekend's endeavours, I also managed to get a bit more paint on the Salt wagon.





I do need to sort the couplings an then get a touch of weathering to tone down the newness..

[Robpulham]

The latest item to pass across the work bench is a Connoisseur Models, Brass/Whitemetal kit of a former GER Sand wagon. I have finished this as a BR example because it's destined for the small adds to raise funds for Telford. I do enjoy building Jim's kits and this is no exception giving about 23 hours of
pleasure to get it to this.








I couldn't resist picking out the eylets in weathered brass.

[Robpulham]

Following on from my last effort on the wagon sheet, Bob Alderman posted a comment on how he does tarpaulin sheets on the Guild forum, which was a commercial paper sheet suitably scrunched up and then wet with dilute PVA until it lays over and takes the shape of the object that it covers.

So I had a play.

I started with this:



placed on the lid of a takeway tray on a couple of coktail sticks to stop it sticking to the lid I covered it in cling film and then draped a man sized tissue over it which had the patterned edge trimmed off.
Then I dripped dilute PVA over it all until the tissue was soak and draped over the load.

I left it a couple of days to dry and then sprayed it with grey paint so that I could see what I was looking at.



It holds it's shape nicely but like many items we model could be crushed with mishandling.

[Robpulham]

At the Guild summer show I collected some kit's that I had reserved with the E&T service.

In amongst them were some Colin Ashby PO wagon kits in between doing other builds I have slowly been putting them togther.

First a note from Colin that was included with the kits.



This makes the kits quite ancient history but that said the detail is pretty good for the age of them.


I have included some of the missing internal washer plate detail but quite a bit was there to start with on the internal sides.


I did have to scribe the floor detail though - which is a reverse of some Slaters kits which have planks on the floor but no internal side detail.


I also had to raid the spares box for the brake safety loops indeed not having enough I had to cut some from styrene sheet.


The brake levers and guards were one piece mouldings which I will replace with a mixture of Slaters/Parkside and Bill Bedford etched spares.

Overall I am quite impressed with them, the only minor discrepancies are that they seem slightly longer than the equivalent Slaters 7 plank wagon and the moulded buffer bases. The size I can live with but I am undecided about the buffers at the minute - the heads were plastic so either way they will get replaced.

[Robpulham]

Tonight I managed to get a shot of them all together - not the best photo in the world but you get the idea



All in all they were worth taking a punt on.

[Robpulham]

You may recall last Christmas I took advantage of a Skytrex offer ad bought various wagon loads? Ones of these loads was some pipes which I originally painted to look like ceramic pipes but then after being advised otherwise I repainted to represent black iron pipes. After a brief discussion on a suitable wagon to carry them Jim Snowdon suggested that I might backdate a Parkside 12 ton pipe wagon. An email to Parkside sorted a kit and the relevant extra bits for LNER clasp brakes to be collected at Telford.

Having collected it the desire to build it got the better of me so last weekend I built the basic body and then I did a bit of research to get the details correct. In his collection Paul Bartlett has by good fortune shots of both sides of DE187868 so digital copies were duly purchased. These in hand I did a little more this weekend in between adding further details to the Colin Ashby opens.


I had to remove the plates where the dropside supports were located on the body because in LNER days the supports were located against the some of the hinges.




Next I had to add some extra washer plates in the middle of the dropsides and some triangular support gussets under the body from the solebars. Imagined that making 8 identical would prove challenging but by making use of my "Chopper" and it's ability to cut angles it was much simpler than I thought. I still need to add the plates to one side top and bottom to replicate the 'C' section that these were made from.

Lastly I had to modify one part of the LNER brake mechanism to accommodate the extended wheelbase





As you can see I did this by splicing a section into the middle of the shaft and then added a thin overlay to increase it's strength finally drilling through and adding a piece of styrene rod to represent the pin.

[Robpulham]

Quite a bit of progress was made on the pipe wagon this weekend in between popping in to the S7 meet up at Shildon.









I took it along to the S7 meet up to specifically ask whether my recently acquired Plastruct Hex rod was actually noticeable (I could feel the difference as I was cutting it but even with my reading glasses on I couldn't tell whether it was hex or round once it was applied to the wagon). I tried quite a few times but this was the best shot I could get.


Still to do are the vacuum pipes and the chains for the drop doors.

[Robpulham]

Hi all,

With the recent articles in the Gazette on 3D printing etc. I thought that I would start a new topic on my journey with my silhouette cutter.

My good lady bought it for me for my birthday and although it's my birthday today, she let me have the cutter a couple of weeks ago when it arrived on the premise that the warranty was running so I might as well be using it.

After reading many of the very useful threads on RMweb and a couple of trials I managed to turn this:



into this





For those that wonder, it's an LNER Ducket, destined to be added to a Kirk 51'6" LNER luggage brake van. - The Kirk kit as supplied represents the earlier diagram without the ducket and it seemed like a worth while small project to start with.

[Robpulham]

Moving rapidly on I have started on a proper project.

While attending the select meeting for Railart 2015 I met fellow O gauge modeller and artist David Halliwell. While chatting David was telling me about an NER Bogie CCT van that he had scratch built using Kirk parts as a basis (for anyone wishing to have a look it can be found in the Guild gallery http://www.gauge0guild.com/gallery/images/11817-ne1.jpg).

He mentioned a drawing and I asked if I could have a copy which he sent though as promised and when I was looking for a project for the cutter I thought that it offered potential. However while looking through Historic Carriage drawings vol one for the info on the Kirk parcel vans I noticed that there was a section on NER CCTs and not only was there information and a set of drawings for the bogie versions (there are two with different window/vent combinations) but there was a 4 wheeled version which I thought might be a better bet than jumping straight into the bogie van.
Tuesday evening was spent scanning the drawings and resizing them etc. and then yesterday I made a start. and this is where I got to.







From the drawing the ends look to be the same on all three so if I move on to one of the bogie versions I can re-use the end drawings.

[Robpulham]

Subject to have a look with fresh eyes tomorrow I think that it's finished.





Assumning that I don't find any glaring errors next I need to export it from Inkscape and then re-import it into Silhouette Studio ready for cutting but that's a job for tomorrow, I need a break...

[52D]

Rob, British Railways Illustrated October 2015 has a couple of salt van pics on pages 26 & 27 which may be of use to you noticed them after reading my friends article Derailment at Duns.