Make do and Mend - Keeping going

[jwealleans]

It's a McGowan kit, long out of production and not great quality castings. Goes yogether easily, though and can stand a bit of upgrading.

[kimballthurlow]

It's a McGowan kit, ...

Thank you Jonathan.

Kimball

[drmditch]

Progress!
(By the way the footboards are 3x1mm brass - and do bend a bit!)

The basic work is shown here:-

You can see the combination of plastic and brass details. This design only has 'short' ventilators over the door/lavatory window/saloon droplight. Other designs have the longer ventilator over the full length of the saloon. I was going to try these in brass, but plastic was easier if a little crude. The gas tanks are re-cycled propelling pencil. The 'anchor' shaped chimney is re-cycled copper electrical wire. (This is over the gas fire in the saloon.)

The only parts purchased as such are the :-
Wheels (Romford I think)
Buffer stocks and buffers (Wheeltappers - in stock for ages)
Coupling hooks (Lanarkshire - white metal)
Torpedo ventilators (source forgotten - white metal

Everything else is manufactured by me, including the Gas Lamp tops which are just different diameters of plastic.

This project is actually in three parts. The second part uses this:

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I had hoped that it would provide a wi-fi link, and it may yet. Parts of the instructions, presumably translated from the Chinese, are a little obscure.
However, it does fit, and there is now a locating box at the veranda end of the saloon.

[drmditch]

In one sense it is a shame that the big black box makes furnishing the interior more difficult.

As you can see above the drawing I am working from does provide considerable detail of chairs and tables.
I also have a number of photographs supplied the the nice people at Alnwick restoring the Diagram B (see above and links.)

However, the camera has to be removable, and I think I can manufacture a false floor and provide removable saloon furniture for when appearance is more important than a photographic facility!

Here are some (clumsy) 'phone photographs of the saloon so far.

The camera can be switched on and off using a small (and I hope unobtrusive) hole on the roof. The roof is itself removable (utilising the big brass bolt fabricated ages ago), so the camera with it's storage disk can be removed and plugged into a USB port on a larger computer!

[drmditch]

The image quality is not brilliant. It seems to focus on the centre middle distance.
But - it does produce driver's/inspecting officer's eye view as a video.
I have only been able to do this since yesterday morning, and I'm sure there is lot's to learn.
I have just used standard MS facilities to gat some 'still' frames.

One aspect of this whole project is that it really shows up the flaws on/in my railway. There are some horrible kinks in the running lines through the junction station!

There is more work to do on the saloon. I have started the glazing (and made a mess of the 'corridor' window which may need re-working. I am bit concerned that the handbrake handle (not yet fitted) may interfere with the automatic focussing.

I am arranging a visit to the 'Search Engine' at York. The original drawings survive there, and I hope I may discover more about the details that were altered in the sixty years of this saloon's working life.

The first two parts of this project are progressing well.
It is now that a requirement for a third part pushes itself forward!

(That is, of course, in addition to much more work on the layout so that there is something worthy of inspection!)

[drmditch]

Post in error

[Dave]

The saloon is looking very good, like the idea of the camera.

[73082gibbers]

Lovely work on that Saloon! Love the idea of having the camera in the veranda too! Looks astounding! Can't wait to see what the finished article comes out like!

Nathan..

[drmditch]

More work done.
Details added:-
Doorhandles - soldered up
Grab Rails - bent up - and quite complex
Buffers - fitted nicely!
Handbrake standard. - Made up from brass tube and rod and solder. Complex - 4 attempts!
(this has to be removable as the handle will show up on the on-board camera as a 'black blob'

This has used up stocks of brass rod and tube - and Carr's blackening products.

The glazing has also been done, but several windows will need to be re-done.
The disadvantage of using plastic mouldings for coach sides is that the windows need to be cut and fitted individually.
The advantage of Delux Materials 'glue n' glaze' is that it is water soluble.

I am still slightly unsure about the roof colour. I'm never happy with white and unsullied roofs, but I'm unsure about this attempt at a smoky roof.
What do people think?

[Woodcock29]

Roof looks fine to me.
I paint most of my roofs with Humbrol 67

Andrew

[drmditch]

A brief break from the Inspection projects. (Need to tidy up and work on the windows on a clean workbench!)

However, I did need to finish my Coaling Stage, so it can be properly installed and then the top-level of my railway can have more scenic work done.
This building is based on drawings in 'North Eastern Record' Volume 1, which are in turn based on the coaling stage at Heaton.
Mine is adapted so that it has only one 'shoot' (that is what the NER called them).
Actually, in my research there was only one single-shoot stage, and that was at Haverton Hill.

The basic structure of this building was made before the 'great move', and it was originally positioned in a more confined space. Had I started from scratch it might have had two shoots! It is also highly compromised in regard to track height/shoot height/and wagon and tender heights. It does not really work with LNER standard tenders, and large engines with eight-wheel tenders will just have to have plenty of coal when they arrive!

Like most of my recent projects, there seems to be quite an amount of complexity with this building.
It would have been easier if I had provided more protection to the coal men, and 'boxed it in' with corrugated sheeting. However, I think it looks more interesting with the interior detail on view, and my excuse is that there will not be much wind on this particular point on my railway.

The shoot mechanism with counter weights demanded pulley sheeves. I could not find any to buy, so the pulley wheels are made up from plastic, and the sheeves are soldered up from brass.

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Two sizes of chain are indicated on several pictures, and the weights had to be soldered up from brass tube with an infill of solder.

The handrails are soldered up from brass, except for the access steps which are plastic.
(Yes there is a length of handrail missing. This will need to be added when locating screws are fastened down.)

The 'gallows' structure and the properly robust end-buffer stocks are made from my stock of rocket sticks and coffee stirrers.
The roof beams are plastic, but the roof itself is re-cycled cardboard, with laser-cut paper slates from Stoneybridge Structures
....here..... . (I have no connection with this company, other then being a satisfied user.) These are not expensive, and give a better result than my own printed and scalpel-cut slates that I have used previously.

Having coped with the shoot mechanism, I then had the complex gutter and downpipe shapes to manufacture. The gutter is filed down plastic rod, and the downpipes are copper wire from mains electrical wiring offcuts. These form quite a distinctive shape, so I feel it was worth the effort.

If the latest NERA publication on this subject ('North Eastern Railway Engine Sheds') been available when I made the basic structure, I would have allowed an end-shoot specifically for tank engines, but I was using the earlier NERA publication of LNER NE Area Locomotive Shed diagrams which are not quite as detailed.

In addition to the books mentioned above, NERA's 'Servicing the North Eastern Railway's Locomotives', Paul Bolger's volume of BR Steam Motive Power Depots - NER, and Ken Hoole's book on the same subject have useful pictures.

So - yet to make are some of the coaling barrows. Does anyone know how to obtain some 6 spoke wheels 2'10" in diameter?

[drmditch]

I know I should work a bit faster, but I quite like buildings I can see inside!

Or at least a properly positioned camera can see inside!
(Apologies for the basic mobile 'phone pictures.)

[drmditch]

Post in error

[drmditch]

There has been a significant lack of progress on my railway over the summer. It is not that I have just been lazy, but that I have been, and continue to be, quite ill. At least I now know what the matter is with me, and uncomfortable though that is, at least I can stop blaming myself.

However, I always know that when I can work on the railway, then I must be getting a bit better!

Sometime last year, I picked up from a traders 'cheap box' a couple of LNER vans which have been lurking on a back siding ever since.
The grey painted unfitted but nicely lettered vehicle that is the subject of this post seemed, at first glance, to be quite useful! Closer examination however revealed some rather odd construction. I suspect that it was built from a Parkside kit (or possible another brand) for a ventilated van, and had been rather hacked about to produce what was meant to be a Dia14 covered van from the early series. Consequently, it took rather more work to rectify than I was expecting. The ends, in particular, were very 'bodged', and I have not managed to completely correct them. Crude holes had been cut to represent the internal end shutters. The 9' wheelbase was/is accurate, but the Morton clutch representation was not! The doors had a central horizontal plank. It did run nicely though.

After investigation and research (mostly in Tatlow Vol 4a), here is my nearly finished vehicle.

The cranked corner plates indicate a Darlington build, and in 1926 the end shutters were external. (This allowed me to cover up the ugly holes.)
The doors were modified to remove the central plank, and the handles were built from my favourite copper wire attacked with hammers, pliers, and small drill bits. (I'm still not well sometimes, so shaky hands broke two bits!) The nice lettering of course had to go!
I left the plastic buffer stocks but drilled them to take steel buffer heads. The roof was not removeable, so I added small blocks of lead in between the moulded ribs of the underframe.

I'm not sure of the provenance of the spoked wheel sets, but the axle length seems longer than any of my stock of three-hole wheels. I carefully chose a vehicle number that used second hand wheel sets. The completed van runs nicely down my gradients and through pointwork.

I have done a couple of these 'recoveries' now, and they take a lot longer than building a fresh kit. On the other hand, the first cost is less, and it has given me some motivation to move on to more significant projects.

Apologies for the photograph. I will try to take a better one on the next sunny day. I have a new mobile 'phone that seems to have a mind of its own.

[Hatfield Shed]

Looks properly 'well used' in traffic. So I am not the only one picking up old kit wagons when available, especially the extremely useful 3H LMS general merchandise open.

Hopefully you will be back to full health soon, and have the energy to do as much as pleases you.

...I suspect that it was built from a Parkside kit (or possible another brand) ...

Not that any of this matters, but the roof looks very much like that from the Kirk kit of this subject, though the rest of it doesn't... The longer axles may be a clue to origin, unless of course the builder has replaced all the original running gear, like what we once did back in the day: cast axleboxes from ABS, Jackson wheelsets with the bullnose axle ends machined to pinpoints for brass bearings, anyone?