During the last ten months most of my modelling time has been taken up by the carpentry needed for my new railway. It's taken longer than I had expected, although I keep forgetting that the previous railway took much longer! It's my fault for building a complex three level structure with a 'swing out' bridge and a (longer) cross-room lift out viaduct.
I've been using a separate thread in 'the other place'
....here... to record this, and I will update it again when I've worked out to take some sensible pictures of the recent works!
Meanwhile, I have managed to do a little 'actual modelling'. Added to my cattle train (see above) is now this LMS Dia 1840 fitted wagon.
This uses the same excellent Parkside kit as the Diagram 1661 wagons above, and parts of the most useful LMS fitted underframe also available from Parkside. The Dia 1840 design like the 1661 has timber solebars and an 11' wheelbase, so a bit of careful 'cross-kitting was needed.
Lest anyone complain that this is an LNER forum (and after reminders about the relative numbers of LNER and LMS cattle wagons, not to mention the common user arrangements by 1946/7), here is some actual LNE (ex GN) construction. I was going to wait until there was more progress, but I thought some pictures of work so far might be of interest.
This is an attempt at the ex-GN 19' long 10' wheelbase vehicle, (drawn on Tatlow Volume 1 page 79) using as the starting point the Parkside kit PC50 for the later 9' wheelbase wagon. My vehicle is to be in late LNER condition, so I am using an illustration on Mr Banks' admirable website
.... here.... as my guide. (Scroll three quarters of the way down the page to see the photograph I've used.)
The problem, as several people who are better modellers than I am have pointed out, is that the width of the door on the GN wagon is 4' compared with 5' on the LNER one. One solution (which I think Mr Wealleans demonstrated a while ago) would be to make the 18'2" wagon, with the four end posts. I may yet do this as a future project. However, for this model I decided to do things the hard way, and rebuild the side mouldings within the Parkside frame. To get the new horizontal vertical and horizontal frames in the correct place I marked up a simple jig on the clean board I build my plastic kits on. Offcuts of MDF are very useful for this! Since the sides of a cattle wagon do not provide much material to scribe planks without risking distortion, I built the sides up using Evergreen strip No.135 (.75mm x 2.5mm) strip, with some cheating with No.134 (.75mm x 2.0mm). To ensure that these do not fit too flush - and hide the planking entirely - I bevelled the edges before fitting them. To make fitting easier, some additional thin plastic was used on the 'inside'.
(I will replace this picture with a better one, when I can arrange some better light!)
When all has set, the reinforcement has to be cut out to clear the gaps in the planking. Sharp scalpel blades are essential for this project!
The doors need to be be built up separately, and to make the whole thing more solid I made them in 'three ply' as thick as the doorframe members. Trying to retain some of the Parkside moulded detail I cut out and thinned down the diagonal members. They aren't quite long enough, but this is masked by the later-fitted reinforcing plates at the bottom of the door frames.
The additional reinforcing plastic will require some slight modifications to the ends and floor, but I don't think that this will be an insuperable problem. The sides are now nearly finished. I am adding the door-strapping and the various bolt heads.
I have a 'cunning plan' for the underframe and running gear!
I was worried that this build might be impossible, but so far I'm reasonably pleased.
