7mm The Old Man's Workbench - tales of a rivet side

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
So several months back I wrote about starting an adventure with a Silhouette Cameo, here , thank you Robin (@Rob Pulham). Progressing the idea of cutting Mk1 vestibule partitions and interior doors we have had success and there are (small) piles of cut parts awaiting use in our Easybuild coaches. Here are some photos and words about the progress.

One characteristic of cutting the internal partitions is that we are aiming for the internal profile of an EZ side rather than a 7mm equivalent of the prototype... and that has meant repeated trials of shape. Given the cost of styrene sheet the trials were made using cardstock and that material is easier on the cutting blade. At Version 11 we got to the point of diminishing returns and accepted that version as The Master. Beside the pink card part are the first cuts of vestibule partitions for the EZ SO and TSO coaches... needing some gentle fettling around the edges. The bar across the bottom of the gangway opening was put in to keep the shape of the part whilst cleaning - the bar was removed after laminating the vestibule end from three layers of 15thou sheet.
Mk1 partitions - master and parts.jpg

Here we have parts to be used in the EZ models, one set for a TSO (two plus spare) and one set for a SO. These parts are made of three 15 thou layers, the outer layer is grey ABS and the inner layer is white styrene - chosen so as to assist in cleaning up the edges (tip courtesy of Adrian (@adrian)).
Mk1 partitions - EZ parts.jpg

And why no spare for the SO? Well there was a spare, for a couple of days there was a spare. Three days after laminating the parts one of the SO vestibule partitions started to delaminate and curl like a Mk1 RMB sandwich. Why just one of the six laminated partitions? No idea although I suspect that the affected partition may not have been bonded sufficiently.
Mk1 partitions - whoops.jpg

So we now have the means to produce vestibule and saloon partitions for the EZ Mk1 range of "open" carriages... time to move on to the doors of the vestibule partitions. As with the actual partitions we have had a fair number of trial runs and in this case the reasons for the trials are to (a) cut curved corners for the glazing and (b) get the glazing in a position relative to the gangway which "looks / feels" right when placed in the opening of a vestibule partition. Here is the result... first the samples and then the parts.
Mk1 doors - samples.jpg

Mk1 doors - EZ outers.jpg

What we have in the previous photo are "outers" of the door - now to cut the "inners" of those doors, as here.
Mk1 doors - EZ inners.jpg

And finally, the parts to for the carcass of one door.
Mk1 door - EZ part make-up.jpg

The previous photo shows two outer layers and one inner layer, when laminated to form one door then there is a space within the door for the glazing to be added after painting. Just visible on the outers are scribed lines to provide the location of the door lock plates - one to the left, one to the right.

Next step is to add beading to the edge of the vestibule opening... and a door shut to the partition... fix the door (open / closed / somewhere in-between)... the door cover on the vestibule side... and finally the door furniture.

OK so a long time to get here and a rather up-and-down road with cul-de-sacs, part of the learning exercise. Dare I say "no solder here"?
 
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Bob Reid

Western Thunderer
Clearly you've put a lot of effort into getting these right Graham and you've got there in the end. Did you consider any other ways of producing them either by laminating each from two laser cut 0.5mm Cast Acrylic halves or by using (again two) etched brass partitions? Clearly there's a greater cost involved in that but the repeatability is almost guaranteed and would perhaps be a little more "substantial" once made up. Just a thought!
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Bob, the idea of being able to produce parts to a consistent standard with minimal variation in dimensions was, when we started along this path, a holy grail so I was prepared to put in the effort to establish what could be done and how to achieve that target. At the time, circa February this year, Mike Trice (@MikeTrice) was showing, over there, how to use a Silhouette Cameo cutter to make panelled coach bodies and the results were encouraging. I have been lucky in that Robin (@Rob Pulham) was able to kick start the work and has advised as and when required - indeed, for some GWR coaches Rob and I sat in a hotel bar, to discuss some of my samples, as a perfect wind-down after a heavy day at Telford this year. What this is saying is that the need for parts caused Peter and I to grasp the helping hand and embrace the technology.

I can see that either brass or acrylic would work for the vestibule partitions... and the brass for the door - using acrylic for the door presents a new problem in respect of painting the door without obscuring the glazing.

These parts are for use with Easybuild coaches and that means affixing the home-grown parts to the EZ sides / floor parts. Given that EZ uses ABS then having ABS partitions ought to simplify the task of bonding the partitions to the sides / ends and I view that as very important given that we are building SO and TSO stock - there are two vestibule and three saloon partitions to be fitted into each "open" carriage body and thereby provide some much needed rigidity of the structure.

Not to be forgotten, the work of preparing the drawings (Inkscape) and cutting the parts (Silhouette) is run from our home computers and that means we can do a trial and error for either the drawing or the cutting (or both) in a short period. In the case of locating the glazing in the door, I was able to do a trial iteration of about five minutes between cuts and that does keep the Mojo working.
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Variety is the flavour of the folding table... and this post is no different to normal.

I have been making some brake safety loops for a batch of BR-built wagons and after the initial burst of enthusiasm I decided that there had to be a better way than making each one with a length of wire and some flat-face pliers. A couple of hours work to produce a template, prepare some materials and drill some holes gave me this:-

IMG_5775.jpg

and then another hour to produce this pile of parts, a total of twenty safety loops for four wagons with some spares:-

IMG_5776.jpg

The shape is dictated by the prototype (clasp brakes so bows both sides of each axle) and the model (sprung axleboxes so clearance required to allow the axle to drop without touching the safety loop). There is more clearance on my model than would be present on the prototype... I have made allowance for the fact that models get stored in boxes, often on their sides, and hence the axlebox springs are relaxed fully and the axle is much lower than in the real world.

Graham
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
That's very simple and very effective solution to a tedious task.

Can you give us the dimensions please - and what wagons were they for?

Richard
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Can you give us the dimensions please - and what wagons were they for?
As requested by Richard (@Dikitriki) here is a sketch of the safety loops for some BR diagram 1/800 vans - the models were built by John Lewsey from Parkside Dundas kits. The models are good out of the box and when looking at the van from broadside and rail level there is too much air around the running gear - the kit makes no provision for either the safety loop on the longitudinal pull rod or for any of the brake yokes. I have no drawings of the brake gear from these vans - and there seems to be just one preserved example (in Weardale) - so I have had to resort to:-

a) study of the photos available on Paul Bartlett's website to establish the shape of the loops;
b) assessment of the "shape" against the underframe members (primarily the diagonals) for attachment;
c) selecting a thickness of brass wire which, in scale terms, seems to be good for form/fit/function on the prototype;
d) using the width / length / height dimensions of the assembled brake yokes of the model.

Brake safety loop.jpg

I suspect that the prototype fittings are attached to the diagonals... as the diagonals of the prototype are likely to be channel section then the loops may be bolted to the lower flange of that channel. For the model I decided to fit the loops into 0.4mm dia. holes in the floor adjacent to the vertical section of the diagonal and secured with Hafix on the topside of the floor moulding.

The difference between the shape of the loop in the sketch when compared with the parts in my previous post is because I have omitted the axle clearance from the sketch - the parts in the photograph are have a offset curve to allow for the rise / fall of the axle as the model was fitted with sprung axleboxes by John.
 
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Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Graham,

Thank you very much for taking the time to do this. I have always laboriously formed each one, and some sort of jig is an obvious (in hindsight) answer.:thumbs:

Richard
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Today has been a trawl through past projects to find some material for Bob's next project (@Bob-65B) - I shall not spoil his delight, suffice to say that the result shall be interesting to at least two others on WT - when I came across a paper that was written by Newcombe and thought that there might be something about fitted wagons. There was and here it is:-

IMG_3262-2.jpg

Not quite the same shape as those that I have made for our models... different prototypes... otherwise generally as per my sketch.

Sometimes, though, I wish occasionally that information does not come to light. I was rather pleased with adding the safety loops for the brake yokes when I noticed that the drawing above has two small plates / brackets between the longitudinals - could those items be safety loops? Only last week I was discussing, with Rob (@Rob Pulham) the possibility that there ought to be safety loops for the pull rods between the cross shaft and the fulcrum levers... just that neither of us could see those bits on either Rob's photos or any of the pictures on Paul Bartlett's website. Now I know where the loops are on this drawing a re-visit to Paul's website and... yes, there they are, hiding in the dark and visible in silhouette.

So two more loops to add to each model. Well, now you all know that they ought to be there what else can I do?
 
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DougT

Western Thunderer
Today has been a trawl through past projects to find some material for Bob's next project (@Bob-65B) - I shall not spoil his delight, suffice to say that the result shall be interesting to at least two others on WT - when I came across a paper that was written by Newcombe and thought that there might be something about fitted wagons. There was and here it is:-

View attachment 60026

Not quite the same shape as those that I have made for our models... different prototypes... otherwise generally as per my sketch.

Sometimes, though, I wish occasionally that information does not come to light. I was rather pleased with adding the safety loops for the brake yokes when I noticed that the drawing above has two small plates / brackets between the longitudinals - could those items be safety loops? Only last week I was discussing, with Rob (@Rob Pulham) the possibility that there ought to be safety loops for the pull rods between the cross shaft and the fulcrum levers... just that neither of us could see those bits on either Rob's photos or any of the pictures on Paul Bartlett's website. Now I know where the loops are on this drawing a re-visit to Paul's website and... yes, there they are, hiding in the dark and visible in silhouette.

So two more loops to add to each model. Well, now you all know that they ought to be there what else can I do?

So is this a generic 10ft 8 shoe underframe or from a specific wagon?
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
A few weeks back a WTer gave a link to the products of RP Toolz... and in particular the leaf punches; at the time I noted, nodded and moved on. At the recent Warley Show Peter and I watched Gordon Gravett give a demonstration of static grass and Gordon made mention of how the autumn leaf fall got into the hedgerows and ground cover. Later that day we were purchasing static grass materials from GreenScenes when I noticed that there is a (small) range of leaf scatter which looks like 7mm leaves punched from appropriate coloured sheet. Light bulb moment!

Back home and an "oak leaf punch" was ordered from an UK importer of the RP Tools products. After lunch a short walk through our local wood produced a plastic carrier bag of oak leafs for upcycling.

Now the reason for the post... the RP Toolz web site refers to treating the surfaces of the (real) leaves to minimise colour loss and does not offer suggestions for the treatment.

Anyone made "scale" leaves from leaf litter and treated the surface of the real leaves?

thank you, Graham
 

daifly

Western Thunderer
Hi Graham. Whilst your upcycling is to be commended I suspect that it will ultimately be doomed. A quick read of 'leaf preservation' sites (they exist in large numbers!) suggests that most leaves will turn brown irrespective of what treatment is used. Wax-dipping, glycerin-soaking, PVA-painting and others have all been tested and found to delay but not stop the colour change. The range of subtle variations of autumn colours that you start with will end up as an amorphous brown mass before very long. At least most craft papers will keep their colours if they are protected from strong lighting.
Good luck though if you do persevere!
Dave
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Dave, thank you for your informative post and I have since searched for "preserving leaves" with the results that you have mentioned. Given that I want to represent the wind blown leaf fall from previous years, maybe without a single tree in sight, then I am not too worried about the potential results of "dark brown" scatter. I think that I shall spray the leaves with matt acrylic spray before cutting out the 'scale' parts.
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
News that pleases the users of the Oakley Folding Table!

A telephone call from Tower Models - the Dapol autocoaches have arrived and are much earlier than the last prediction, just in time for Christmas. Given that I have a RTR S7 loco due early in the New Year - no questions, you are going to have to wait - then this ex-Lionheart carriage seemed to be just the ticket to go with that engine. I might not have bought an example at the original Lionheart price, however the Tower offer is effectively Buy-on-get-one-free and so that is what I have done.

Barry Norman has written a piece of the MRJ on enhancing the interior... very nice result and thankfully I shall not need to attempt to remove the vertical beading along the waistline... I shall have to convert to S7 though and I am rather pleased that Dave (@daifly) has written about his method of doing just that.

Sounds? not likely. Lights? possibly if I can find a means of replicating the incandescent burners of the Edwardian period.

Given that there are not many of these "prototypes" built I shall have to be careful about details and running numbers, Dave (@daifly) anything on that there laptop of yours?

regards, Graham
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Two RTR coaches arrived today... ex-Lionheart and now under the Dapol banner. I am surprised that there has been no mention of the availability of the models here or there... so maybe there is some truth in the oft expressed view that the only thing which matters in 7mm scale modelling is the kettle.

What do we have then? Two coaches and two liveries. Neither lievery is suitable for our GWR Edwardian period so some degree of re-painting is to be expected. One coach is advertised as BR crimson, I feel that the "colour" is not quite there for such an appellation - never mind, this one is going to be done in GWR pre-WW1 livery of Crimson Lake. The second coach is advertised as "GWR, Chocolate and Cream, Crest" and that has puzzled me as I could not match that description to "Great Western Way" (HMRS). In truth the advertising is in error... the model is chocolate and cream with garter and supporters so correct for 1922-1927, this one is to be finished in the pre-1906 lined Chocolate and Brown.

First step with either coach is to convert from FS to S7 wheels... and Dave (@daifly) has given a lead here. I was surprised to find that, whilst our models have wiring as per Dave's model, our models appear to have wheelsets with a different method of construction. Time to think this through and see how to uses Dave's approach with Slater's Mansell wheels.

Thereafter, start the interior painting as per Barry Norman's article - MRJ No.221 refers.
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Two RTR coaches arrived today...
Never rains but it pours and we are into the rainy season.

After the excitement of the autocoach trundling across the folding table in the direction of the wheel shop a large box arrived with a flourish - a flurry of Minks. Over there peeps have been questioning the purchase of "wagons at £40" and I am not sure why.

The Minerva model is complete and £42.00 each, there is an etched kit for the prototype and I recollect that the price is £50 without wheels. Whilst there are some inaccuracies in the Minerva model the most glaring is the shape of the buffer stock and that can be rectified by replacement buffers. From my point of view, these models are worthy of purchase and are going to be just the ticket for our Edwardian railway.

Recommended :thumbs: .
 

tomstaf

Western Thunderer
As an aside Graham, you asked about the spacing of the main roof ventilators - they were in general 2'-1 1/2" apart (1'-0 3/4" either side of the longitudinal centreline). Interestingly the drawing in Parkin shows this as being 3'-2" (1'-7" either side of centre) putting the vents on top of the longitudinal roof framing.

Hi Bob,

Really helpful dimensions :thumbs: - quick qu re spacing on a MK1 TSO. Would the vents also be 1ft 3/4" either side of the roof centre line and is the spacing between vents standard along the length of a TSO coach?

Cheers

Tom
 
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