Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Atlantic 3279]

The instructions for the Rowland Miniatures Robey steam-wagon kit do very sensibly mention the cleaning of flash from parts before assembly, and a dry-run assembly before the final one. The first step is to fit the cab rear to the chassis, butting up against the cab floor which is integral to the chassis, "ensuring squareness". Well the fit against the floor did not set the cab rear square. I offered up the cab front, and the motion cover (bonnet) to get some idea of whether the cab rear was in about the right place, or too far forward, or too far back. The cab front didn't quite fit around the over-size floor either, so if I wanted the rear edges of the doors to touch the cab rear casting, as they should, I could only try it in place slightly above the floor at that stage. Anyway, the cab rear position looked potentially correct, so with some trepidation I trimmed one side of the rear of the floor so that the cab rear was square across the chassis, and tack soldered that in place. Reading ahead in the instructions, and checking the parts, it was evident that the cab roof would sit on the cab rear, located by a cast rebate, and that three additional upright wires/rods would support the front of the roof. Two of these would fit in holes drilled into two pre-formed dimples in the motion covers, plus one in the top of the safety valve, cast as part of the motion cover. Three dimples were also cast in the under-side of the roof, ready for cautious drilling to create sockets for the tops of the support rods. I trimmed the cab floor further so that the cab front would fit properly, with only the minimum of flash so far removed from the door rear edges, put the motion cover in place again and offered up the roof too in the hope of being able to see whether the various upper and lower dimples for the support rods lined up. There was no chance of drawing any reliable conclusions with all but the cab rear still a loose fit! I concluded that I had exhausted the value of a "dry run" for those parts of the assembly, so the real test of alignment had to wait until the cab front was soldered in place, the front "turntable" axle had been fitted, and the motion cover added. The motion cover wasn't quite tall enough to form a correctly shaped neat top joint against the cab front, so I had to put 0.5mm strips under its lower edges. For those lower joints I used plasticard, fixed with super-glue, the only large joint in the model that I glued.
When I was then able to try the cab roof and support rods in position properly, the fixing holes for the two rods at the sides lined up nicely top and bottom, but the fixing point in the roof for the front rod certainly wasn't above the safety valve, being too far forwards, so that one had to be re-drilled. By the time I had trimmed the smokebox enough to fit the front of the chassis without awkward and unsightly gaps, it wasn't possible to put the chimney in place upright, the front of the cab roof pushing it forwards. I therefore had to trim the roof carefully to maintain its neatly curved front and profiled edges.
The tipper body was another awkward area. The instructions are to use a method that fits it permanently to its rear pivots as it is put together. I didn't want to limit my access for cleaning and painting. It was also evident on test assembly of the floor, sides, front and tailgate that they were not a good fit. I eventually decided that the first thing was to fit the front nice and centrally, squarely and neatly to the front of the floor. I then had to trim each side of the front quite a bit to allow the sides of the tipper to meet the floor and stand upright. I soldered only one side in place against the floor, tack soldering the other side only to one edge of the tipper's front. That allowed me to spring the rear of that side away from the floor just enough to temporarily fit the tipper onto its pivot points at the rear of the chassis, while simultaneously trying to put the opening tailgate in place. Of course, significantly more trimming was required to get things to fit properly.
The rear axle is meant to be fitted in such a way that it is free to rotate, passing through holes in the drive chain and sprocket, as well as in the spring/brake/axlebox units. The wheels can therefore be fixed to its outer ends, something I thought it best to leave un-done until painting is almost finished. The front wheels are meant to rotate on stubs ate each side of the front axle / steering beam. Filing the relevant parts of the two axles to get them as near to a true cylindrical shape as possible, without taking off too much, and to fit closely but freely in the carefully opened-out holes in the other components certainly soaked up some time and patience.
The instructions are to retain the rotating front wheels on the axle stubs by gently peening the ends of those. I feel that there's too much scope for making a mess of that. I have instead drilled a 0.5mm dia hole right through each stub axle, as near as possible to its outer end, so that I can slot a piece of wire through the hole and bend its ends over to form a little Z-shaped retainer for the wheel.

[Atlantic 3279]

Now wearing a coat of primer, with wheels, tipper and cab roof still loose, but not looking too bad I hope. I haven't any fixed ideas regarding a colour scheme yet. I've found a few on-line colour images, one example being in a blue and red livery for Crawford, of Frithville/Boston, another in green for the defunct Soulby's Ales of New Bolingbroke. I suspect the former is the livery of a present day owner and I do not know if it is also authentic for the 1930s. Both liveries are on Robey wagons with drop side bodies rather than tippers in any case, and both liveries feature rather more lining than I wish to find myself applying. More thought needed...

[manna]

G'Day Gents

That's looking really good.

manna

[Atlantic 3279]

I'm glad it is liked.

[Atlantic 3279]

There's an interesting re-published 1923 description of the "New" Robey steam wagon on-line:
https://archive.commercialmotor.com/art ... team-wagon
I suspect the text has been corrupted by the use of imperfect text recognition software on a scan of the original article. The latter might have been nicer to see.
My interpretation of the article makes me suspect that the pre-1923 wagons supposedly had the turntable steering, just two speed gearing, and perhaps no cover over the upper rear part of the motion, the new ones after that having Ackerman steering, three speed gearing and fully enclosed motion. That earlier configuration would tally with the appearance of the preserved wagon in the blue and red Crawford livery, which has the turntable axle and an exposed flywheel - but there's also another indication on-line that this particular wagon dates from 1925. Perhaps some customers after 1923 still wanted (and go) turntable steering and/or other original features rather than new-fangled complications at extra cost? The later style seems to apply to the preserved wagon in the green Soulby livery.
I'm pleased to see that there's a Robey trust, with a collection of preserved items including the Soulby wagon, but it seems to be a long way from Robey's home city of Lincoln, and even further from me, in Tavistock in fact. I'm not anticipating an early fact-finding visit!
It may be that my model is wrong in combining the full motion cover with the turntable steering, but the kit did not provide for partiallly exposed motion. Other scraps of information now found also make me wonder if the tipper versions were largely or wholly built for an export contract to Ceylon! I won't make an alteration though, nor lose sleep over the matter, as I suspect the chances of finding a Robey expert scrutinising a purely scenic accessory on my model railway are reasonably low.
Critics please form an orderly queue...

[Atlantic 3279]

Not sure if I'll get further chances to say this before the "big day", so I wish all a peaceful Christmas now.

[Chas Levin]

And to you

[Atlantic 3279]

And a belated happy new year too...

Completion of the steam wagon model seems to be taking ages, and not simply because I had a week away starting 23rd December. Multiple searches of the internet failed to produce any colour images of Robeys that I had not seen prior to my last comments, and I found no images of Robeys with steel tipper bodies, so I took an "executive decision" to apply a "simple", un-lined, two-colour livery with the outside of the tipper painted the same colour as the cab. Even so, there was still the tricky matter of applying five different colours to bits and pieces in close proximity inside the cab, and notwithstanding the fact that I had kept various parts physically separate there were still many places in which red and blue, red and black, or blue and black had to be applied so as to meet at a nice clean line. The blue I've used, Humbrol enamel 15, is rather transparent too, and in places will need a third coat over the current two coats in order to uniformly hide the grey primer. It is possibly a bit darker than I ideally wanted, but I don't think changing it now would be a good use of time. At least the remaining joints in the otherwise almost fully tipper body went together nicely with quick-setting epoxy today, as did the cab roof, and the smokebox which (although previously soldered in place as firmly as I could manage) fell off when I was handling the partly painted main assembly. The wheels are still not permanently attached, and there are painting tasks still to do beyond the partial third coat of blue - but the front axle still steers, the rear axle still rotates, the tipper still tips and the tailgate still opens.
I'm glad I still have four months before showtime for the new layout, as something else (or several somethings) will no doubt rob me of some of that time and I'm still finding jobs to add to the list.
Here's the wagon SO FAR anyway...

[Chas Levin]

Lovely job - and the blue doesn't look too dark to me. Happy New Year to you to...

[Atlantic 3279]

Ta daaaaa! All neat and tidy. Norbot's latest creation is declared finished, for now anyway.

Not a lot of visible change from the previous pictures, but the blue has had a partial third coat (so any light patches in the photo are reflections), the cab roof is now matt black rather than satin, I've picked out a couple of valves on top of the motion cover in "brass" paint, and applied some steely coloured metallic paint to the makers ring and central washer on the smokebox door. Okay, I've been too lazy to fit a smokebox door handle or to highlight the cab door handles and rear number plate, so shame on me for neglecting details on this background scenic item...
The wheels are now on properly though, the rear ones glued to the ends of the axle, which still rotates, the front ones retained by 2.5mm lengths of 0.45mm brass wire pushed through cross-drillings in the axle ends, retained by a tiny spot of cyano acrylate very carefully applied. They still rotate too, as if that is really necessary. One is a bit wobbly to tell the truth, but nobody will ever see that. I'm happy to leave the lamp bodies grey, as I doubt that a working wagon would have been graced by polished brass lamp bodies.
I might give the glossy sides a waft of dirty satin varnish eventually, and add some sort of load, possibly sand to represent gravel.
For the moment I can instead focus my efforts on the higher priority of improving the greenery on the layout.

[Danby Wiske]

They still rotate too, as if that is really necessary. One is a bit wobbly to tell the truth, but nobody will ever see that.

You mean you're not going to motorise it?

Only kidding...

Looking really good - definitely worth all the effort. Will look even better with a judicious coat of muck, I'm sure.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I do like steam lorries. Are you going to add long lap valves and a double chimney ????

manna

[Atlantic 3279]

I think I've accidentally found a a way of creating rougher grass that I probably need, and it doesn't involve messing around with hundreds of individual blobs of glue, and doesn't require fiddly use of a "holy" mask I used on some previous trial pieces, either when spraying on adhesive or when sieving on fibres. It may, to my relief, be a big time saver...

As a trial, I was just doing the area in the field, right of the cutting in the attached picture. I'd covered other areas, sprayed on hairspray, and sieved on one coat of extra fibres, which looked "lush" but even. I then thought I'd try to immediately "set" those in place and add more. That revealed that I hadn't allowed enough time for the first lot of fibres to stick thoroughly, the second spray churning them up. Those that didn't disappear over the edges settled back in clumps, which looked odd but improved when more fibre was scattered over them.

Although the view in the picture reveals the tufts nicely because the light from the window is from the rear, they are still evident with light directly above. A patchy under-layer of other colours and textures might help further, or some added effects when the basic green mix has stuck firmly. Those in the picture have at least survived a "just off the surface" first pass of a vacuum cleaner nozzle, but I don't want to put other fibre colours on while these may still be loose, as I'm trying to recover the loose fibres in un-mixed colours for re-use on other areas. Economy rules!

[Atlantic 3279]

Another experiment would also seem to indicate that simply using the wire loop on the sieve handle to randomly roughen-up the first layer of added fibres while the hair spray is still wet gives a satisfactory result too, if enough hair spray has been applied with plenty of fibre over the top. Some preliminary application of other colour patches to the basic grass matt certainly helps too.

[Atlantic 3279]

As the scenic section of the portable project all had to go together in order to ensure creation of good continuity of added grass treatment, it seemed a pity not to add the structures, sky background, front drapes and one or two other details to check overall appearance before going any further. I hope I don't have to do to much more to the scenery. Baptism of fire at Immingham 10th and 11th May creeps ever closer...