West End Workbench

[Blink Bonny]

I salute you! Looking very good.

Imagine this: the poorplastic quality you describe. On a cement tanker. Oh, and warped solebars. Which snapped when straightened despite being in hot water at the time. Oh dear, as I said at the time.

Mrs BB says: that's not what I heard!

Those Presflos run despite the kits, methinks...

[jwealleans]

Well, thank you both. All the comments about inferior plastics are noted. I don't know how many more of these kits I will look at in the future, although Graeme and I have chewed over the practicality of backdating the Lowmac to the GE design. I have another brake van to do but that's an Airfix production.

I've said before that I do like the look of these North Eastern clerestories. If you're feeling flush after the inevitable rush of commissions for the A2/27 or whatever it is, Graeme, I think Danny is reissuing these later in the year.

The ferry vans still interest me and I do have ideas about at least 2 or 3 more although I've long since filled the fiddle yard road on Thurston. I'll see how busy the bench is after these are complete before launching into any more.

[jwealleans]

Bit of a change from rolling stock tonight. I started to build a test track out of odd bits of wood I had in the garage about last July and then it went on hold as we decided to do the roof. Now that's all finished I've moved it on a bit further and tonight it went up through the loft hatch while it still fitted.



The idea is to have reverse curves through pointwork on the right hand board and then a 3' curve (probably slightly sharper, to be on the safe side) on the left hand board. That was the set up I had in my shed before we moved. I've found the bundle of track I packed away in 2006; now I just need to remember where I put the points. They won't be motorised - at least not straight away - and I'll use Insulfrogs on here to really test running and pickup.

This board is quite a bit wider than what I had before so the rest will be storage sidings for works in progress and probably end up as something for the kids to play with as well if they want to. You can never learn to shunt too young.

[Blink Bonny]

In fairness to Dapol, I've only had about three kits composed of "bad" plastic out of the 40 or so that I've built. When I started building the minerals for Engine Shed Road the Dapol kits were the only accurate 16 Tonners on the market. Because consistency is all, I've continued with them and also a few more from the range. Meat vans, anyone? The Lomac can be a beggar for warping so keep the hot water handy. Oh, and I love the brake vans. The doors can be modelled open, adding life to the goods trains. Must add some Guards...

[jwealleans]

I've run out of brass strip to make the longest brake levers known to man for these French vans (look at the one in the NRM if you don't believe me) so I was on to other things last night. First of all, a parcel from Oz which landed on the doormat on Saturday morning. I built two Sentinels around one BullAnt, then ordered a second one to match. There was a mixup over the size of the mounting and when the second one arrived it was noticeably noisier than the first. When I contacted Geoff Baxter there was no messing about: "send it back" and this week it returned with the right mount and a different flywheel to replace the first which was apparently out of balance. Top service from a top man.



I spent Monday night shunting the yard on Corfe with them and running them round on a 20 wagon coal train. The one on the left is NuCast, that on the right Crownline. It will be interesting to see how the Dapol one (which is a Y1, for variety) compares.

The rest of the evening was spent working on something I've had in mind for a while, extending the fish train on Thurston. I've had a request for a longer fish train for the next layout (fish traffic from Lowestoft) and so a few more vans are in the pipeline, but I thought some containers would be a sensible move and add a bit of variety. Firstly, however, the motive power needed beefing up.



The K3 handles the existing train well enough, but up to six more may be too much. I never did add any weight when it went through the shops in whenever-it-was, so it has had some now. I found that thinnish lead flashing would fit in the curve of the boiler either side of the motor and although the weight in the smokebox had to stay (the body fixing screw fits into it), the top half could also be filled with lead sheet. It makes a surprising difference.

While I had the lead out, I attended to another candidate.



This is a Coopercraft B12 when it has its clothes on. In this case the boiler is resin and although I did drill it out and pack it with lead when it was built, it's never really been enough. So some blocks were hammered out and packed into the chassis (with Araldite). Some was also added to the cab roof.



For the containers themselves, I have spent some time rereading Geoff Kent's book and was able to have a chat with him at Glasgow show. The Bachmann AF is a pretty good representation so that was my starting point, along with a couple of their conflats (below), which I was also advised are a pretty good representation. The A container is Cambrian. Roxey mouldings do some useful etches to make up the securing chains. The ring eyes have been added to the Cambrian container already. That was a swine to make up, but I may have to have another (I fancy two roped into a medium open).





For variety I acquired some Parkside conflats, as above. BR one to the left, LNER Conflat S to the right



Finally I've started a bit speculatively on a Conflat V, working from a couple of photos and scaling from the solebar length of the cattle van from which these were converted. Here the floor has been lengthened and one solebar added along with new buffer beams. The BD container is a Parkside. I will end up with some normal containers, which can go in other trains. I intend to try to get hold of a GW conflat (David Geen) and possibly the LMS flat which Cambrian do, which I'm told were also used for container traffic. John Isherwood does suitable transfers, so I have some material to acquire.

[Blink Bonny]

Marvellous. Absoloutely marvellous.

Started some more Dapol Presflos last night. Guess what? The first one had warped solebars in their brittle plastic. Grrrrrrrr.

So instead I had a look at a Wrenn R1 I acquired for spares. The front footplate had split and was bent upwards. A drop of solvent or two, some masking tape: job done! Badger Breweries No 1, methinks. Where's me LMS red? Or Apple Green? Aaagh, a choice!

[jwealleans]

Blue lined red looks rather smart, you know...

Not much activity tonight as I had to call at the parents; however, chance to pick up some more oddments of track for the test board and also take delivery of the new yard shunter:



He's already started meeting the other engines and fussing about with the trucks.

[jwealleans]

Well, in these times of drought my garden's started to flood (source undetermined) so this weekend I have been mainly digging holes. Luckily it rained heavily yesterday afternoon so I was able to spend some time at the bench.



No. 2 son's coal wagon is all but done. I tidied up the paint and the white stripes once applied but most of it is his own work.



The Bachmann containers have had the moulded lashing rings removed and replaced with etched bits and/or wire. The one on the far left still has the moulded roof lifting eyes, really to see whether the replacement wire ones were an improvement (they are). That one also still has the moulded protrusion next to the door which, according to the set of diagrams Geoff Kent kindly provided, was only present on one of the 5 diagrams of these containers. I've removed it on the others and as you can see only the one on the right really measures up in terms of tidying up.



The Cambrian container has the side rings in place (but not the roof ones, I notice) while the Conflat V has had what end detail I could determine from the photo in Tatlow added. It will need trimming back a bit to allow a B container to sit inside it.



Lastly, in one of those 'everything's setting/drying/waiting for parts' moments, I started putting this together. I don't know whether anyone else took Graeme up on his offer of moulded Toad E bits, but I did and here's what I've made of it so far. I've got a bit of fettling to do round the ends but not much and it feels well on the way already for not much more than an hour's effort.

[Atlantic 3279]

Nice to see a set put together Jonathon. After the test build, my mate who took charge of the assembly of the rest of our vans has been, in turn, busy, on holiday, ill, and is now away again, so I'm yet to see a fully finished "real" one

[jwealleans]

Well, it was on the front of the 'in progress' road and as you'd gone to the trouble of sending me it, I cracked on again tonight.

I decided to make the inner ends rather than sacrifice part of my only remaining Airfix brake van kit. Here the bottom halves and doors are stuck in and the glazed part will be added after painting. I've also added the stepboards - they are slightly bent but not as bad as the foreshortened photograph makes it look - and most of the handrails. I can only do so many handrails at a time, though.

[Atlantic 3279]

Yes, the fitting of handrails to brake vans certainly tests the attention-span.....

[Blink Bonny]

Blue lined red looks rather smart, you know...

Not much activity tonight as I had to call at the parents; however, chance to pick up some more oddments of track for the test board and also take delivery of the new yard shunter:



He's already started meeting the other engines and fussing about with the trucks.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

[52D]

Perhaps we should give Atlantic 3279 a little shove towards Thomas armed with measuring tools to see what could be made of him instead of Emily.

[Atlantic 3279]

Well I believe it would turn into an out-of-scale model of a Southern E1(?) tank for a start , says he, trying to get away with simply suggesting that it be "rebuilt" back to its origins - little more than a face-off job I suppose.

Forgive my ignorance on SR loco classifications and details of appearance. I'm sure there are those waiting to tell me that a whole host of details like dome, chimney and so on are also wrong. Anyway, I think we're a bit off-topic on Jonathon's thread now.

[jwealleans]

http://www.pegnsean.net/~railwayseries/thomas.htm