Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Mercator II]

I would add my expression of interest for the roofs, ends and bogies, battery boxes, and like above, I think I can manage to do the micro strip, especially now we have instructions here in your thread on how/where to place

I think a set of 4 or five coaches would suit my layout

So when/if your ready to go ahead, I am sure money can be located

oOo

Brian

[earlswood nob]

Afternoon all
Fox bogies would certainly be a welcome addition. I have just counted that I have nine clerestory conversions running on Hornby bogies, that need replacing by Fox bogies, and I have about a dozen clerestory bodies stockpiled for conversion.
Earlswood nob

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks Gents, it would seem that a concensus is evolving. Whilst further consideration of mould needs is underway, and I get back to some "official" work for the rest of the afternoon, here are some pics of the modifications in undercoat. I think the area in which the side doors were removed will be fine. That restored graining is just a few dry brush strokes of earth colour over the shiny brown plastic that is revealed upon abrading the Hornby moulding then "polishing" it with solvent.

[Atso]

Looking good Graeme a fantastic use for the old Hornby teaks! I look forward to seeing them properly teaked!

[Atlantic 3279]

Cheers Steve.

With time currently at a premium I won't bore you all with more pictures of the arrangements for fixing master parts to the bases of moulding boxes and the subsequent appearnce of the tubs of pink custard after pouring in the rubber-forming compound. Suffice it to say that "part 1" moulds for the clerestory roof, altered ends and some Fox bogies are now curing, on the way to making the two part moulds that these items will require. A single piece mould for a basic double battery box and one for a Howlden timber ducket are both curing too.

My casting marathon producing seven sets of A2/3 parts is now complete but for final rectification of minor defects and basic cleaning up of rough castings to "semi-finished" standard. Looking ahead I think it now unlikely that I'll have time to cast up anything but oddments before Christmas should anybody require more loco parts that I don't happen to have in stock. I've remembered by the way Mick that two complete sets of loco parts in my stock are earmarked for your requirements at some stage.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Hi Graeme,

I've been catching up with railway modelling today and reading most of the threads here and elsewhere.

In particular, I've been looking at Hornby's P2. There's so much that is absolutely excellent about that model and there are a few things which aren't for various reasons. It's a definite purchase for me though.

I am looking at a friend's copy of BRM magazine, and the photographs showing the chassis are very interesting. Do you think there's scope there to convert a Railroad P2 into an A2/2, or is there enough scope for Hornby doing it themselves that we shouldn't bother?

The reason I ask is that in theory, and if Hornby were forward thinking at this point, the valve gear required for the other five P2s could in theory be used almost as is for the A2/2s, at a first glance.

The R&D on the chassis in particular has given Hornby almost everything they need to produce a Thompson Pacific of class A2/2 - and with things like the driving wheels tooled up, and (if they do the streamlined versions) valve gear too along with possibly the right tenders as well - do we think this is a possibility?

After all, we all seemed to think both the Duke and P2 unlikely for a good while before the announcement last year (though some of us - not me - were in the know!)

Just want to add a note of thanks too because your modelling over the last year has been inspirational and a tonic for sore eyes these last few weeks in particular.

[Atlantic 3279]

I haven't yet considered that the Hornby P2 chassis could be Thompsonized into A2/2 form, although you are right about the valve gear of course, if / when the Walschaerts version appears.

So where have I got to this weekend? Well the second halves of the necessary coach parts moulds are now curing, after some hasty / frantic calculation this morning suggested to me that if I did the job sensibly I had JUST enough mould making compound still in stock. This was confirmed in practice as I scraped out the last oddments from the tub into the final mould. I've also got somebody's parcel of A2/3 parts made up and ready to go, once I find my note of the delivery address!

Here's a quick belated look at the master parts, save for the ducket whose origin must remain unexplained. The battery boxes are my own scratchbuilt, hand scribed effort. The bogie has had quite a lot of thin shuttering applied to facilitate mould formation.

The battery boxes were small enough to go into a simple, permanent plastikard moulding box. The other parts are seen here stuck down onto bases for Lego boxes, ready to be taped on. The smaller raised land immediately under the roof helps to ensure that the two mould halves key accurately into one another when completed. Although the moulds of his that I saw were one sided, I noticed that Gordon Luck had put a similar raised central land on the floor of some of his moulds for fish van parts. It occurred to me that it would be a very handy feature in a shallow two piece mould, so I nicked his idea. Sorry Gordon......

The one-piece moulds have already produced first fruit:

Although I have posed the ducket to show that the spacing of the horizontal lower body beading matrches up with Hornby's old coaches, it does not of course fit "for real" with such a pronounced projection from the side. It must either be let-in, or filed down, and the van side also needs to be recessed.

When I was producing standard-length LNER coaches from the old Hornby items a few years ago I found the BCK was not a very versatile starting point for conversions. The only way I could find to turn it into a real diagram type without endless cutting and shutting was to either ditch a lot of the original side and add a scratchbuilt van portion, or scrap the sides entirely and use etched brass ones instead. However, for the non-specific Howlden style coaches I am now seeking to produce it has potential beyond simple use "as is" to represent a BCK or possibly a downgraded BCK running as a BTK. Swapping the positions of two chunks of doors/windows on each side of the coach produces almost uniform spacings, allowing the coach to masquerade plausibly as either a proper BTK or BFK. The pictures below are colour coded to help to show what I've swapped on each side, the top half of each image showing the modified layout. The blurred image shows the side that has not yet been stuck together.

Once I've inset the van sides from the double luggage doors backwards, and fitted the large timber look-outs, the deception should be fairly complete.

[earlswood nob]

CORRRRRR!

As well as the roof and bogies, the ducket looks useful as do the battery boxes.

A train of pseudo-Howden carriages, would go well with pseudo-NER and Pseudo-GCR clerestory trains, all constructed from old Hornby stock.

Earlswood nob

[MikeTrice]

I am sure the lower beading on that ducket could be improved

[Atlantic 3279]

I think you are right Mike. The original that I used as a master appeared to have heavy-ish lower beading but it looks worse still on the copy. It was simply expedient to use that particualar ducket as the master, or so it seemed. It now turns out that it really ought to be a bit wider too, to suit the location I'd like to use on that coach body .

On the positive side, I have now cast a roof, an end and a one-piece bogie successfully, all with good capture of detail, but pictures will have to wait until tomorrow. The flash was a doddle to remove from the clerestory windows and from the bogie, ALSO.....in repsonse to a private question earlier today about the possible need to fit brass top hat bearings into the bogie and the fact I haven't provided the appropriate type of hole, I CAN REPORT THAT MY COACH WHEELS ON PIN-POINT AXLES EASED INTO THE BOGIE WITHOUT CRACKING THE FRAME AND THEY CURRENTLY SPIN FREELY IN THE CONICAL MOULDED HOLES IN THE RESIN. I'll say more about an alternative approach another time.

[Atlantic 3279]

Now that I've temporarily stopped rushing and started thinking, I've consulted some drawings of Howlden six-wheelers and 45' bogie coaches in Nick Campling's very handy book. It appears that there are two widths of ducket, one approximately 2' 4" (scaling from the print) fitted "amidships" on vans, the other around 2' 10" fitted at brake ends. I've produced the narrow one and I need to produce the wide one to suit my coach. Interestingly, I note that four D & S brake vehicles in my possession all seem to have the narrow ducket regardless of position. I'm not curious enough to research the matter to discover whether the discrepancies arise from genuine but different "best interpretations" of original drawings and photos, or whether the "all narrow" duckets policy on the D & S vehicles was an expedient.

[Atlantic 3279]

Rough preview of fitted castings. Better pictures later. Must go now.

[Dave]

The ducket looks very like the one on the full brake at Shildon, if it is of any help I can send you the dims
of that as I measured it a couple of years ago.
It's 760mm wide, approx 2'-6" in old money.

[drmditch]

Your castings look good, as always. One question about the Fox Bogies, which compare well with the Coopercraft/Mailcoach ones I used for my ex-NER clerestory.
Both those and yours show the secondary(tertiary?) coil springs underneath the ends of the leaf springs. These are quite short in length on the models and in the Leeds Forge picture reproduced from 'The Locomotive Magazine' in NERA Express No 195.

However, all the pictures I've looked at of these bogies in service, and especially the article on the 49' Low Roof stock in BRJ Special NER Edition, show these coils as being considerably longer and the coils more visible. I did try to reproduce this, albeit crudely, on my model.

(Edited here - 'cos I can't tell up from down!)

As far as I can see, these springs will be under compression, so why should they appear longer?

The earliest photograph has to be about 1899/1900, so these springs were presumably as fitted new.
Was the original design to meant to use rubber, which was then replaced by coil springs?

[Dave]

drmditch.
These extracts show the springs you mention.
GNR 155HN fox bogie drawing of 1896 shows the spring length of 6 1/8" in pencil.
GNR 226HN fox bogie drawing is undated but shows the springs but with no dims.