Twenty four seven

Work has been completely crazy recently, with very little time available for modelling, but I have found a little time to start on carriage 24.  This is the replica full height summer carriage (i.e. NWNGR).  It runs as a ‘lock up’ carr at the end of most WHR rakes and so is a vital model.  I had a kitbash version – a plastic Parkside Dundas Vale of Rheidol carriage – but it just didn’t cut the mustard next to the cut down summer carr (23).  I was able to persuade Allen of worsley works to do me the etchings (he couldn’t believe there was another version of the summer carrs that he hadn’t done already). 

Progress so far has seen the footboards folded up and soldered in place, extra vent pieces (very small indeed) superglued above the doors (using my favoured powerbond), and the construction of a set of seats for the carriage from parkside ‘narrow gauge coach seats’.

In a slight departure from normal methods, I have this time soldered bolts to the floor as the bogie pivot and will add the nut underneath (I normally do this the other way around, but on balance this may turn out to be a better way of doing it as the seats can sit over the bolt without the bolt protruding into the carriage necessitating a hole in the floor to be created.  The nuts can be loctited onto the bolt and the excess snipped off.

Now I just need to find time to solder the sides to the ends and the floor to the ends before I need to think about the roof (I already have some curved brass ready), truss rods etc.

24, along with the replacement 2043 and 100, 102 and 14 will be the last batch of carriages through the semi industrial process and I thus hope to have them all running for Sparsholt.

Semi industrial processes restart

Today I took a day off work to kickstart a few areas of the project.

8 carriages (vans 4/5, 104, 106, 112, 116, 122, 124) were cleaned, primed and once dry (with the help
of the hairdryer that melts Baldwins) ivory was added for the windows and black for the underframes.

That means they are now ready for seats to be painted, people added and Han painting of roofs, ends etc.

Harlech and criccieth castles had a few tidying up jobs completed and then too were primed.

Brass was rolled for the roofs of 2043, 100 and 102 (plus 24 to come soon). This used the patented newspapers, mousemat and tube method.

The situation with Locos was appraised and a priority list created. 87 is next for attention.

The new green 143 was studied (especially the new bunker!). As was my part built kit for 109. Perhaps that should be built as a green 143 and my black 143 altered to 109 in time? In considering the one nearly complete power bogie for 109 (built by another, bought from eBay) 4 wheels were seen to be loose (caused by heat when soldering flycranks on I suspect). So the first job is to remove rods and the cranks to assess the wheels for either reuse with the new plastic bearings we have or to source new wheels.

Finally we proved that the new motor bought for k1 is a far better match than the one previously installed in the front tank. The two motors are now much closer matched which should go a long way to explain the running problems.

Carriage painting

Some more painting of carriages today – the bugs are looking good with the green/red done and the interiors in wood colour… 117 has progressed from primer, right through to red/ivory with black ends and the Pickering I built is nopw grey with black details.  The other two carriages are refurbs from the late Ben Fisher’s collection – the NWNGR workmens carr, now with interior fitted and another Pickering brake in green.

Mega update

Spent another day painting at Dad's.  Progress was made on many fronts.  Here's where things are up to:

Castell Caernarfon has had its plates added and a few other titbits...





But most of the work since the last update has been on 138... with much piping added, mudhole door covers replicated by using the lenses from small red LEDs(!), washout plugs installed etc etc

  

The tanks are done and were primed just after this shot was taken:



The Romanian carriage 2060 has come on massively with lots of extra details added by Dad's steady hand - silver around the windows, red around the doors etc.

 

Other things sprayed in this session included:
Vale of Ffestiniog - two coats of the darker green (BR sherwood)
Upnor Castle - primer plus a base of green
carriages 24 and 25 in maroon
Col Stephens' green for 3 bugs and carriage 23 (red ends masked off)
Merddin's roof in primer
4 cycle stands for the bike wagons in grey primer
Gelert in primer and then rover midnight blue courtesy of halfords(!)
FR carriage 117 in primer (I noticed this car on the WHR during superpower - how had I missed this one being transferred?)



Finally Dad and I spent ages (Dad for considerably longer whilst I played tennis with my brother) sorting out the red lines on all the WHR carrs so that they can be finally glazed.  Carr 22 was glazed as a test for the glue - GS hypo cement works perfectly!

Railings

I left two carriages (bowsider 20 and iron framed bogie 16) with Dad for attention to their end railings.  Dad found time to sort these out and here are the details of how:

1. Solder a length of straight wire (approx 4mm gauge) through the holes in the etched (worsley) balcony rail.  There were 8 of these wires on the 2 coaches.
2. Make a 90 deg bend in both wires at the same time (I used an aluminium hair clip to get the bend in exactly the same place on both
wires!). 
3. Drill 2 holes for the wires in the coach end piece (at solebar level)
- they needed to be 3mm from the top edge and at 7.5mm centres.
4. Solder the wires into the holes and also to the end plates.
5. Whilst holding the balcony rail with pliers next to where it joins the support wires, carefully bend the rail to the required curve and solder it's end to the outer edges of the end plates.
6. It is possible to adjust the assembly by using a soldering iron on the top join of the support wires and carefully moving the rail up or down the wire as necessary.

PS there is meant to be a height difference between these two types of carriage – see this photo:

What happened when we spent a day painting

Monday was the first of a couple of mega spray painting days…

Prior to my visit Dad had moved things on by spraying black onto the chassis of 2040-5, 2090, 2010, 2020/1, 2115, 2100 and the combination car.  Dad had also found that the rain strips on the roof of the Romanian carriage (2060) had come loose and had replaced them with soldered phosphor bronze wire. This is obviously much stronger than the previous attempt at melting plastic strip onto the brass with mek pak.

The result of the day was:

Truss rods were finished on a number of vehicles and removed from the summer cars as there is conflicting evidence as to whether they had truss rods, certainly the drawing in Boyd shows them without.  Also they are pretty much impossible to see when running anyway.

Primer/black where appropriate: 26, 2060, 1000, 119, 120, buffet, ash corridor 25, 2 x NWNGR summer cars, 2 x Pickering brakes, No.1 NWNGR brake, 2 FR bugs plus zoo car

WHR summer car No. 24 had its seats painted natural wood and lamp tops added on.  This is a kit bash of a Vale of Rheidol coach and so does not require priming.

Ivory for the window frames was then sprayed onto: 101, 113, 119, 120, 26, 2060, combination car, 2040-5, 2090, 2010.  We only masked the roofs off for this, as the red livery will then be over painted.

On two carriages we left the ivory to be hand painted as there was very little to paint: 2020/1.

As a bit of fun the flying bench was primed and then sprayed in railmatch red.

2100 had its body sprayed with precision paints blackberry black although this will require another coat at least.

Afterwards all the chassis were taken back home and will be hand painted inside with acrylics and seated people will be added.  Also they will have their bogies and couplings added/reattached.

The new colour of 2115 may cause some trouble as the lighter brown shade chosen is very different to the normal pullman umber.  I will have to consider options here.  We also need a good paint for the the Colonel Stephens era brick red (used on ends and footboards).  At the moment it looks like humbrol brick red with some extra red added might be an option. The humbrol spray brunswick green I have looks too dark.

Roofs will be hand painted in various shades of off white, grey and black.

Prior to painting we have revised our methods and the previous method of vim cleaning is now replaced with a brush on product called Model clean from JLTRT which is well good.  Brush it on, let it dry and then wash off with water and it cleans, neutralises and degreases.

Funny moment of the day came when I was spraying with the obligatory mask on.  I was trying to talk at the same time and Dad said I was harder to understand that Emmanuel Adebayor on world cup match of the day!

All insides are now back home for red painting and for the addition of seated people.

Below are some images of the scale of the operation:

Carry on…

Little chance to do much modelling over the weekend as the new kitchen took up most of my time.  The end is in sight for that project though!

Mostly I’m been preparing stuff for Monday’s super painting session.  Vale of Ffestiniog had unfortunately had its roof put on the wrong way around meaning the exhaust holes were in the wrong place.  After careful consideration I decided that to unsolder the roof would likely mean that the roof would not look as tidy when reaffixed and it could be potentially damaging to other bits too.  Thus I have filled the holes and will drill and square up some apertures in the correct place.

I own two Pickering brakes – the first (below in brass) was bought second hand but had to be stripped and rebuilt so frankly I may as well have bought the kit new(!).  It has now had its lamp tops added.  The small amount of superglue that is shown up by the flash on my camera will be cleaned up once dry.

The other Pickering was ‘inherited’ from the late Dr Ben Fisher and has been prepped for a repaint.  The glazing was removed and roof (in one piece) separated.  This is a great model apart from the unusual livery.

 

The two full height NWNGR Summer cars had low lamp tops added…

and long bowsider No. 20 had vents added above the doors – a very tedious job as they are so small! 6 per side.

The zoo car, bug No. 1 had its mesh soldered on.  I think this looks great.

 

and NWNGR brake No.1 had lamp tops added and truss rods (not visible in this shot) added too.

Finally car 1000 (ex FR 100) had its roof soldered on and end domed section created in filler.

 

There remain 5 sets of truss rods to add on some carriages and also some work to consider what details need adding before painting on K1, the two funkeys and 87.

Still lots to do!

Primed!

More carriages have had the treatment, this time in grey. The SAR red oxide stuff is visible behind.

From the Cheltenham Works

Stage one from the paint works in Cheltenham - two trays worth of carriages cleaned up ready for primer.

From top left, across then down: ex FR obs 101, Pullman 2115 Bodysgallen, SAR Brake Van, 1001 Combination car, 23 cut down Ashbury Summer car, No. 24 not cut down summer car, kitbash of Vale of Rheidol parkside kit, FR 113 (used for a while on WHR), 2 B wagons, saloon (previously test painted), Pullman obs 2100, 2 bike wagons.

Second tray: new saloon, older saloon, saloon 2042 with different beading, semi-open, 2060 Romanian car, new saloon, 2010 service car, 2090 also with older beading and brake, semi-open and older saloon.

Colin

Update

Much to report:

2 NWNGR 4 wheel carriages have been soldered together, I have the sides for the third but await the ends and chassis - Allen of worlsey works has temporarily lost them apparently. They look good and will complement my NWNGR train.

The two water tanks were scrubbed with ajax, dried and then sprayed with grey primer. Now they are dry the primer has covered 99% so they are ready for the red to be brushed on - railmatch acrylic 2311.

I managed to pick up an N gauge fleischmann 0-6-0 loco on ebay for £30. This was described as DCC ready, which I suspect partly explained the low price. It arrived today and to my great surprise was not just DCC ready, but had a decoder on board. A quick test and she works nicely - another great ebay deal! This chassis will be used under the WHR Kerr Stuart diesel. A quick bit on butchery on the white metal body underframe and she'll be ready to go - easy livery too - grey with white lettering.

I delivered a case full of the main WHR (C) carriage stock to the Cheltenham works for painting at the weekend. Dad has helpfully and very kindly agreed to get these going and there is also talk of a spray booth...cool.

Meanwhile I have continued painting a few random wagons - 7 skips, 3 FR 2t slates and 2 RAFs were painted mid grey last night and will be dry brushed and weathered with pastels later.

Further thought has gone into the design of board joins. Firstly, I have taken the advice of John DeFrayissnet (of County Gate) and ordered some super catches from wixroyd - http://www.wixroyd.com/purchase.php?p_no=4926&id=558&method=w The bolts drilled between boards will now be used as if they were dowels for alignment only.

Secondly, I am gradually removing the plaster bandage where it overlaps the board edges as these are causing greater gaps than necessary. This has shown that the end pieces of the two Fridd boards are not perfectly square and this explains why such a gap appears in the scenery. These will need to be taken off and reattached square. I may also in doing this be able to reduce some of the weight of the main Ffridd board - it is very heavy indeed.

Also at the entry to each hidden sidings I will be copying John's idea about half way down the page here: http://www.009.cd2.com/track_page.htm - i.e. solder tubing to the rails and insert a pin to ensure perfect line up.

This leaves a couple of joints which may need relaying as they may still be too wide, but we'll see where we get to with the above first, and anyway much of this will probably wait until Spring as I need to get on with stock.

I have also ordered a load of pipes from Knightwing - click here - to form the water tower piping.

Progress on all fronts really.

Colin

A safe haven for stock

Tonight (as well as finishing the two bike wagons off) I have been experimenting with a new purchase - a KR multicase. http://www.krmulticase.co.uk/railwayuk.html

After much rearranging of the foam inserts, I was able to line them up to take 10 WHR saloons per tray (there are 2 trays):

Then on goes a protective top layer of foam... there is another between the two trays.

and the case closes up with a convenient handle...stock is safe. The two trays lift out with attached fabric handles. A very neat piece of kit and at £27 (free P+P) a decent deal too.

Recommended.

JdF of 'County Gate' put me on to this company, he uses the more expensive aluminium flight cases and info can be found here:

http://www.009.cd2.com/storing.htm

Colin