Oz7mm's occasional meanderings - 5" Gauge Met Bo-Bo

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
John

Talk about de ja vu, there was a thread fairly recently about this very thing and it may well have been on this forum. I have now found it so go here
Life in a Northern Town - Tarting Up page 2


Regards
Martin
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
Thanks Martin - I'd missed that. Neil has kindly sent me his research material since I started this thread.

John
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
I have three drawings. I don't know which comes from that book. They are copies sent to me by helpful folk.

John
 

Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
Not that you'd need them anymore because you must have finished it in favour of building something Australian.. ;)

JB.
 

fenman

Active Member
I have three drawings. I don't know which comes from that book. They are copies sent to me by helpful folk.

John
John,
Apologies, you must have built all three by now. I didn't find the book till yesterday when looking for something else, the joys of advancing age, at least I have only bought one copy.
Regards Pete.
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
Episode 2: The ends

The ferry van roof profile is flatter than the BY so there was no hope of using the roof, and the ends would need to have the height reduced and the top curve flattened. Unfortunately there is a steel brace that follows the roof contour along the top edge which is bolted to the wooden end. The drawings show that while the top of the BY is 11'11" above the rail (as far as I could tell) the lower part of the Ferry Van roof is at 11'7". So nothing to do but hack off some of the top edge and recreate the steel brace. Putting the steel brace on in plastikard wasn't too difficult (though I note a couple of gaps need filling) but the bolts / rivets were more of a challenge. After messing about with Archers river transfers (too small) and drilling holes and putting plastic rod in them and trimming (couldn't get them domed enough), I settled for putting Scale Hardware rivets in. I cut a drilling template in masking tape on the laser cutter and almost got it symmetrical (Scale7JB would do it by eye, but he's young).

Unfortunately when I went to pick the van up to take this picture, I forgot that I had set up the V hangers ready for gluing before taking a coffee break. One of the V hangers fell off, and 30 minutes searching failed to locate it so a chunk of this afternoon was wasted cutting and filing a replacement. Not a piece of scratchbuilding I had bargained for.

Next episode - the roof

John

End.jpg
 

Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
I would have marked the middle and then scribed with a set of callipers. Looks good though. At first glance I thought it was the original end.

You'll find that v hangar as soon as you've glued the new ones on.

Out of interest which size were too small? I need to get some and wondering which size.

JB.
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
Episode 3: The roof

Carriage roofs are a curse to me. Since getting the laser cutter my most successful method has been to use boat building techniques. I have a jig which holds a series of formers which I then plank over. It was the method used on the roofs for the quint-art that runs on Love Lane (my only contribution to that set by the way).

Here's the jig with the formers. The jig is cut in 2mm MDF and the formers are 1/32" ply.

Ply roof jig s.jpg

When planked it looks like this from underneath

Roof underside.jpg

and after a lot of filling, priming, sanding, filling, priming, sanding.......you get the idea, it looks like this. Nearly there

Roofs.jpg

It's coming together now. It might get a coat of green paint in the next few days. A bit more soon.

John
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
Very nice indeed! Do you have s colour reference for the green ends? Apparently livery colour ends were a feature (on the Southern, anyway) of the introduction of spray painting at Eastleigh c.1965 - this came up from Colin Boocock on SEMG years ago who was working in that bit of the works at the time. Prior to that point - and certainly at the point these Night Ferry brakes were released into normal traffic - I’d have expected them to be black.

Adam
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
Adam

This all started when I was lent about 1000 photos taken in the 1960s in my local area. I was fascinated by this particular vehicle which was unknown to me. The notes on the back of the print state that it had green ends. If that was done in 65 then I may repaint the ends black. I'll recheck the date of the photo which was probably after that date.

Thank you

John
 
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