West End Workbench

[jwealleans]

Forgot to do a picture last night, but I have two wheels on a casting at the front of the 'crab' and a single large wheel at the back, both of which sit on the rim of the central pillar. It doesn't seem to wobble back and forth.

David's layout is end to end so it may not have to deal with curves, but we'll do some running trials before I start painting it. I managed to chop one of those stops in half anyway.

[mick b]

Different design to mine !!

[scottiedog]

Forgot to do a picture last night, but I have two wheels on a casting at the front of the 'crab' and a single large wheel at the back, both of which sit on the rim of the central pillar. It doesn't seem to wobble back and forth.

David's layout is end to end so it may not have to deal with curves, but we'll do some running trials before I start painting it. I managed to chop one of those stops in half anyway.

True it is end to end, but don't you want me to convert into a "roundy,roundy"!!!!!

[jwealleans]

If (when) you do, I guarantee this crane will go round it at no extra charge!

[scottiedog]

If (when) you do, I guarantee this crane will go round it at no extra charge!

I will hold you to that! However, don't hold your breath for a "roundy,roundy"!

[jwealleans]

Something a little different this evening; at Nottingham Show I was talking to the new owner of the Coopercraft and Blacksmith ranges about his plans for future development. I knew he was looking at reintroducing the loco kits and was very interested specifically in the F3. We will need one of these for Wickham Market as the last of the class was withdrawn from there in 1951 having been the branch engine for some time.

I came away from that conversation with a chassis etch in my hand, which was unexpected and very kind. Last night, with the crane on the back burner for a while, I thought it was time it went together. I haven't been able to put my hands on the Isinglass drawing I have, but in terms of the construction the etches were very clean and nicely robust in fairly heavy gauge nickel silver.



Spacers are marked so you know which goes where and have a shallow groove etched into the frames to locate them. They're also different sizes so you can't get them in the wrong places. Thoughtful design. All the gubbins for CSBs are present although I imagine you'd need to provide hornblocks if you go that way, which I didn't.

It took me about an hour and a quarter to put this together.



It needs a bit of fettling to get it rolling freely and the question of corners needs to be addressed. This thing has a long wheelbase if it's completely rigid, so I'm mulling over either tapering or joggling the frames at each end, or biting a larger bullet and making one end (probably the rear) a pony truck. That will probably have to wait until I see the body and how it's fixed. A very encouraging start up to now, though.

In other news, I've been getting on with some plastic wagons I started while travelling for work or on holiday. I like to have something to be fiddling with of an evening. Some of these are destined for Thurston.



Cambrian RCH 7 plankers. The intention is to finish these similarly to the distressed post war ones I produced last year.



Cambrian Midland van, Parkside LNER fitted open. I thought this Parkside kit had been discontinued, but looking at their website they still list this but not the steel one. It's had additional brake rigging, safety loops, vac pipes and new buffers from the Lanarkshire Models range. The Midland van, using Cambrian's one piece underframe, is a very easy kit to assemble.



LMS 5 plank, LNER 6 plank opens, both from Cambrian again and both types we've seen on this thread before.



Quick dose of 'foreign', for those who like variety in their wagons; these are Coopercraft GW opens, kit 1004 for the 4 plank and 1005 for the 5 plank. They're straightforward to assemble as long as you don't take any additional detailing too far into the unnecessary complexity of Dean-Churchward brakes. They also have their own characteristic of providing a steel weight for the wagon, although I find this is not enough on its own and add lead flashing to it. 1005 came with transfers as well, which is becoming rare these days. Buffers have been replaced with More of the very fine LMS castings.

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all
The F3 looks quite interesting, JW. Although I'm not a GER fan, the F3 and its tender equivalent the E4, are good looking locos, so I look forward to seeing the finished article.
Of course the E4's worked over Stainmoor on old NER rails.
Earlswood Nob

[D2100]

Parkside LNER fitted open. I thought this Parkside kit had been discontinued, but looking at their website they still list this but not the steel one.

It's a very fine point and I mention it only by way of intrinsic interest and not criticism, but I dont think I've ever seen a wagon of that diagram (120?) with a curb rail as per the kit - they all have the visible floor planks with, in some cases, the retaining plate that was added by BR. The body is more suited to BR dia 1/045 in that respect, but that's another story.

[jwealleans]

the E4's worked over Stainmoor

They did - my 62788 which appears on Thurston still has the cab to prove it.



Thanks for that, Ian - on my way to get wagon and new Tatlow and have a look.

[52D]

Tweedmouth got a couple of E4s from Darlington for a few months just after the war started . This happened due to a loco reshuffle because of changing traffic patterns. Strange to think the locos transferred away were 0-6-2Ts which went to Consett and Gateshead.

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all
The E4 looks good and the van behind looks interesting. I believe the E4's worked trains in conjunction with J21's. I must look that up when I get home.
There were some interesting passenger locos over Stainmoor; D23's, D3's and E4's all worked it in LNER days.
Was your E4 built from a kit?
Earlswood Nob

[jwealleans]

Cheers, EN. The loco is an old NuCast or possibly Poole kit, bought on Ebay, detailed and refurbished. I ditched the tender and replaced it with a Gibson one. There's a thread somewhere a few pages back covering all the locos we run on Thurston. It runs really well and pulls a surprising amount so I've left the original mechanism in place.

The van is a Great Eastern Special Cattle Van, a D & S kit bought again on Ebay a few years ago. It had been very badly built and painted light blue. I stripped, rebuilt and painted it and had lettering made up specially by John Peck. It's on page 3-ish of my Workbench thread.

[jwealleans]

I've been getting on with this over the weekend. For some reason after the war the Framlingham Branch brake van was an ex-GC 6 wheeler. Another required item for the Wickham Market layout, I managed to get hold of one from the new owners of the Falcon Brass, ex-Jidenco range. This is not one of the kits they have yet redesigned, but they are supplying the 'quaint' MJT rocking units instead of the vertically challenged original Jidenco arrangement. Graeme did one of these way back in his thread here and was kind enough to send me pictures before he pruned them.

This is what came in my packet:



No buffers, although they had a very sketchy resemblance to the prototype anyway I gather and a sheet of brass and another of plastic which I'm not sure how to deploy just yet.

I found all the issues Graeme mentioned and some; if you choose to follow the instructions they tell you to solder all the handrails on before adding some overlays through which the handrails must pass. There are also some overlays with a partial half-etched fold line on the back - running a knife along this to make it a complete line, some of them had half etched too far and the blade went through the paper-thin remnant of the metal. There's also an apparently random hole in one solebar.

I have to say I haven't enjoyed building this as much as I generally do - even the Jidenco Toad E I did last year was a challenge. This feels much more like a chore. On the upside, the new suspension arrangement works and puts the van at the right height, unlike the old idea.

[jwealleans]

Getting there: rivet strip overlays, brakes on the new MJT W iron units (from the Mainly Trains etch - what would I do without those?) and the third axle, which is suspended on thin wire between the other two and so far seems to negotiate pointwork with no problem. Handrails on one side only. The wire in the kit was chunkier than the usual .45/.5 people supply and had to make all the holes slightly larger than usual.

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all
I think the GCR brake looks good, and I even thought about building one, thinking it would be an easy start to etched kit building. However, reading your remarks and GK's adventure in building one, I have decided to postpone the purchase.
It really does look an interesting prototype.
Earlswood Nob