Atso's C&W works

[Atso]

Hi all,

It's been awhile since I posted a topic here and I've not been in a position to do much modelling until fairly recently.

I started playing around with the Peco N gauge refrigeration van kit adapting it into 'layout quality' wagons. The work done varies from simple extra detailing to cut and shut of one or more vans. Still early days but here is my progress to date.



They've still got some work to do one them but I'm particularly happy with the GNR 'hat van' (the longest one) which was spliced together from two of these kits. It still needs a more prototypical chassis underneath it and hopefully there will be more on this later.

Several years ago I purchased a 2mm Association trial pack. This consisted of a length of track and a wagon kit. While the wagon (BR steel) isn't appropriate to the period I'm modelling, I finally plucked up the courage to have a stab at soldering the chassis kit.



There are several construction 'wobbles' here but overall I was quite impressed with this and joined the 2mm association to be able to access more of their kits. My first order arrived yesterday and consisted of these:



Pictured are etches and injection mouldings to produce three cattle wagons; one LNER, one GNR and one GER. I've also got two chassis appropriate for these (one pending as it is out of stock) as well as some conversion axles to allow me to fit N gauge wheelsets, buffers and some 'W' irons to fit to the hat van and (eventually) a GNR 8 wheel brake van. I've also purchased a couple of 9'6 wheelbase wagon chassis to finally be able to print and complete my GNR clerestory ventilated van(s).

Yesterday afternoon I made a start on the GNR cattle van and three hours later had this:



The roof still needs fixing and I doubt my soldering will win any prizes but I'm quite happy with how this has turned out...

[Atso]

Cattle wagon progress:

[Robpulham]

Superb Steve, my hat goes of to you soldering in such a small scale.

I really like the hat van, it's on my to do list with the silhouette cutter. - despite them only running between Luton and Kings Cross.....

[Atso]

Hi all,

First of all; thank you Rob for your kind comments, sorry it's taken me awhile to get back to this thread.

Following a somewhat down and out Christmas, I picked myself up and went to the Stevenage show last Sunday. While there, I came across the BH Enterprises stand and found several etched brass kits. These are all re-releases of kits originally produced in 1991 and included to my joy, a GCR fish van and a GNR brake van!

Anyway, I've finally managed to do some modelling for the first time in six or seven weeks yesterday by soldering up the for kits. Three of them are pictured below (the fourth, another GNR brake van, is drying having received a squirt of primer).

From left to right: GCR fish van, GNR brake van, LNER/NER perishables van.

I'm looking forward to getting some more of these!

[Rlangham]

Very nice - I'm still waiting to hear back from BH regarding an order I placed last year for some of the Thameshead models N Gauge NER Hoppers, fingers crossed they won't be long

[Atso]

Very nice - I'm still waiting to hear back from BH regarding an order I placed last year for some of the Thameshead models N Gauge NER Hoppers, fingers crossed they won't be long

Thanks Rlangham,

Ray's wife sadly passed away last year and I know that he had some problems sorting everything out (I belive that she used to keep track of stock and orders). It might be an idea to give him a friendly reminder and see where he is at with these.

Today's progress on some more wagons I picked up yesterday.

[Atso]

Having soldered the buffers and coupling hooks onto the last two wagons, I had a moment of insanity today. It suddenly occurred to me that all the vans are vacuum braked types and, since the etch provided coupling hooks, I really should add some vacuum brake pipes as well. To complicate things further, the pipe has two bends in it so that it ends up more or less central on the body at the point where the flexible hose attaches.

Out with some thin wound guitar wire and I removed about 10 mm of winding before setting about bending everything to shape. Final trimming to size, a tiny amount of solder paste and a lot of flux and I managed to attach these to the bodies of two vans without unsoldering anything else!



Two down seven to go!

[Atso]

Having soldered the buffers and coupling hooks onto the last two wagons, I had a moment of insanity today. It suddenly occurred to me that all the vans are vacuum braked types and, since the etch provided coupling hooks, I really should add some vacuum brake pipes as well. To complicate things further, the pipe has two bends in it so that it ends up more or less central on the body at the point where the flexible hose attaches.

Out with some thin wound guitar wire and I removed about 10 mm of winding before setting about bending everything to shape. Final trimming to size, a tiny amount of solder paste and a lot of flux and I managed to attach these to the bodies of two vans without unsoldering anything else!



Two down seven to go!

Edit: I also added the grab rails onto the doors of the vans.

[jwealleans]

I hope you're not considering using chain couplings with these, Steve, or you'll really regret putting that pipe directly above the hook.

[Atso]

I hope you're not considering using chain couplings with these, Steve, or you'll really regret putting that pipe directly above the hook.

I don't think so! Despite so far resisting my best efforts to destroy them, I don't think they'd be strong enough to be used as actual couplings... I might put a dummy screw link onto them though... Then again, maybe not!

[Atso]

Well I'm now waiting to see if my soaking the two original vans with badly glued roofs in paint stripper will result in the araldite bond weakening enough to separate the parts and have a second go. However, I have managed to successfully get the roofs onto the other four vans (one was even soldered but a lot of faffing about to achieve that!).

Below is a picture of the progress on other the four vans. The three fruit vans each have a different chassis to create a little variety and represent three incarnations of this design over the years. The chassis are various Peco products representing wooden and steel solebars and 9' and 10' wheelbases.



As you can see in the picture, the middle fruit van needs a bit of fettling to get it to sit properly on it's chassis.

Once I've managed to get the original two vans to the state pictured above, I'll make a start on the third of my GNR brake vans.

[PGBerrie]

Nice to see how its done - I bought two LNER cattle vans from BH about 20 years ago, but never had the courage to try and solder them together, despite buying a brass folder tool, etc. I've also got an even older John Gray bogie bolster. Maybe this is the time to try.

Keep up the good work,
Peter

[Atso]

Nice to see how its done - I bought two LNER cattle vans from BH about 20 years ago, but never had the courage to try and solder them together, despite buying a brass folder tool, etc. I've also got an even older John Gray bogie bolster. Maybe this is the time to try.

Keep up the good work,
Peter

Thanks. Give it a go, they're a little bit fiddly but not as difficult as they look (if you really don't want to, let me know as I'm looking for some more as Ray is out of stock now!). I've never heard of John Gray's bogie bolster, got any pictures of the kit?

[Atso]

A bit of progress with the vans. Roofs are attached to all the vans with the exception of the brake van. This is because I needed to get into the veranda areas using a rattle can of etch primer from Halfords - I couldn't see any way of doing this with the roof on. Not in picture is the second brake van which is still in it's raw brass state.



But wait! There's and interloper in the rake!



An old GNR Clerestory fruit van has made an appearance! This is something I designed over a year ago but kept having problems printing it on my B9Creator. I finally figured out why I was having problems an after a quick redesign it was successfully printed today. Other than remove the printer supports and give it a squire of Halfords red plastic primer, I've not done any cleaning up to the print (although it could do with a bit of smoothing on the roof). The chassis is a Peco 10' wooden solebar version which is a scale two inches too long in the wheelbase (c. 0.35mm) but I think it looks ok.

With a bit of luck the vans will be moving through the paint shop in the next week or so.

[manna]

G'day Gents

Some very nice wagons there ATSO, as expected, I like the GN ones.

manna