4mm An EM Workbench: Mini-Signwriting (rough)

[AJC]

Sometimes, you start a kit and reach a certain point where you wonder why. This is one of those. Fundamentally, it takes one set of mouldings for the type of Midland van that became an LMS type which became the standard (it had a 9' wheelbase) and for that it's a fair representation, and added it to another chassis moulding. That's also fin, but the body of the van in question isn't really that close.

If you take a look at the prototype image from Paul Bartlett's collections - LMS & pre-group covered goods vans VVV ZRV ZQV YVV | 13719_MR__2m_ - then you'll note that the corner brackets I've added are a bit representational, but then, so is the moulded planking and strapping. I'll need to add a lower door runner too and that's possibly a bit more than one should have to, but never mind. It will be OK, but not quite.



Adam

 

[Overseer]

I'll need to add a lower door runner too

Er, why? The addition of a lower runner was a post LMS/BR change after sale to the military. As built and operated by MR/LMS/BR they had an angle iron along the bottom of the door and four small bent steel clips along the body base which stopped the door swinging out. The door was carried on the top runner. The planking and the door stops you have carved off match the in service photos in Essery Midland Wagons Vol 1, even for the Port of Bristol grain hopper conversions.

 

[AJC]

Er, why? The addition of a lower runner was a post LMS/BR change after sale to the military. As built and operated by MR/LMS/BR they had an angle iron along the bottom of the door and four small bent steel clips along the body base which stopped the door swinging out. The door was carried on the top runner. The planking and the door stops you have carved off match the in service photos in Essery Midland Wagons Vol 1, even for the Port of Bristol grain hopper conversions.

All fair enough - not that I’m building the van in Midland condition and I doubt it was a BR modification - they wouldn’t have had enough life in them at that point. I don’t have the Essery book (there are limits to what I have shelf space for!), but I do have this HMRS image of the fitted version along with the post-mainline images: https://hmrs.org.uk/-abh227--10t-bo...a1937-r3l-steel-solebars--vacuum-braked-.html

This shows the absence of stops (the Cambrian representation would have needed replacing anyway) and the bottom runner. The latter is slightly surprising as the steel clips seem to have been more or less what the LMS standard types used throughout their careers so I’m inclined to think they were a fairly early modification later repented of. I don’t know if the corner brackets were there from new, but the over wide strapping makes it tricky to do them convincingly without making them overscale. The poor mouldings - I had to straighten them and rework the corners to get the body close to square - are the main cause of irritation, but something can emerge from this which is about right, I think.

Thank you (as ever) for pulling me up on the details though, it helps.

Adam

 

[Overseer]

Having looked at the photos in the book more closely I need to alter what I wrote previously. It looks like the D633 vans built with large wheels and vacuum brakes did have the bottom runners and the wheels in the bottom of the doors while the D664 vans with wagon size wheels had top hung doors with no bottom runner. If you add the bottom runner you need to carve the representation of the wheels off the top of the doors and add angle brackets matching the bottom corner brackets. D633 numbers 112423 (original condition) and 89451(August 1946) are illustrated. The original condition photo shows no corner reinforcing plates. There were 200 D633 vans built in 1911. I had forgotten that the Midland built vans to both D633 and D664 had the diagonal bracing as on your van while the similar LMS built D1664 vans had the diagonal straps running the opposite way, from the corner top to the door bottom, so the kit can only represent a Midland van with 10' wheelbase. Presumably some of the D633 vans were converted to 3' wheels later in their lives.

Now I am wondering if I should backdate a Parkside D1664 kit to one of the Midland diagrams. Maybe, but not a priority especially as I can no longer purchase a kit with S7 wheels or no wheels.

 

[Kylestrome]

It will be OK, but not quite.

Sometimes one just has to be pragmatic and take heart from the fact that 99 people out of a 100 won't notice any 'faults'. The important thing is, whether you can live with them.

David

 

[Jack P]

It will be OK, but not quite.

Close enough is sort of good enough, right?

In all honesty though, the quality of the wagons in general paints an excellent picture of realism and attention to detail.

 

[AJC]

The first of the crocks rescued and ready for paint, once the solvent has cured. Just a Ratio MOGO, nothing awfully sophisticated or complex.



Adam

 

[iak63]

The first of the crocks rescued and ready for paint, once the solvent has cured. Just a Ratio MOGO, nothing awfully sophisticated or complex.

View attachment 175347

Adam

 

[AJC]

View attachment 175389

Ha! Had the Ratio plastic not been so brittle, I could just have replaced the buffers and tie bars and been done with it. It’s in primer now…

Adam

 

[AJC]

Talking of vans, do you reckon this one might be a bit far gone? There are suitable spare doors from Parkside, but we'll have to wait and see...



Adam

 

[iak63]

It's a van Adam but not as we know it...

 

[AJC]

Perhaps not? Given the existence of the Airfix kit and that BR only ever had 150 ventilated meat vans, it's was not a vehicle I've ever had a hankering to build, (though I have eliminated a grounded body of one from a club layout with rather a lot of gusto) but here it is, among the batch of broken wagons, so nothing ventured, and possibly nothing gained. Being Airfix, it’s quite solid and that’s allowed salvage to begin.




Adam

 

[AJC]

I think this might just work. Let the solvent go off for a day or so and I can put the wheels in.



Something a bit more straightforward: a Parkside Vanwide. The absence of springs is because I want to change the axleboxes and the set I have in hand *turns out to have too many leaves* has better efforts than the Parkside ones (which aren't bad at all).



You probably won't see much more of this one, as I've built a couple before and it's an excellent kit needing not much work: I'll even use the brakeshoes.

Adam

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I think this might just work. Let the solvent go off for a day or so and I can put the wheels in.

Once complete I'd be inclined to patch paint the new additions and preserve the remainder of the original worn paint and decals. Then give it a light weather to bring it together.

 

[AJC]

Once complete I'd be inclined to patch paint the new additions and preserve the remainder of the original worn paint and decals. Then give it a light weather to bring it together.

This was my plan, Dave - the decals (original Airfix!) have been applied nicely and the grubby finish is very much to my taste. I'm still not certain that anyone has a firm conclusion on whether they were crimson (as they should have been) or not but I'm happy enough to keep it so.

Adam

 

[Simon]

When you say crimson, I think you mean maroon, and I think they were.

Different subject wagon I know, but I think this is a wagon that has just repainted into maroon, photographed at Swindon. From the David Hyde collection and possibly going in to a new book, so I'd appreciate it not being shared too widely.



Looks like black ends to me too, isn't it nice?

I like your meat wagon rescue too, definitely worth doing.

Simon

 

[Nick Rogers]

When you say crimson, I think you mean maroon, and I think they were.

Different subject wagon I know, but I think this is a wagon that has just repainted into maroon, photographed at Swindon. From the David Hyde collection and possibly going in to a new book, so I'd appreciate it not being shared too widely.

View attachment 175942

Looks like black ends to me too, isn't it nice?

I like your meat wagon rescue too, definitely worth doing.

Simon

That’s a lovely photo, Simon. Presumably that was taken in the late 1940s / early 1950s?

 

[AJC]

That's a lovely picture showing a typical Swindon finish, isn't it? Would I be right in thinking that the 'Return to' branding is on a separate plate/panel in a different colour? The black ends appear to have been entirely normal, for that works anyway, (and a very pretty Dean-era vehicle, too). Interesting to see that the lettering style is pure GWR, but the wrong way about? I.e., lettering on the right hand end rather than left?

The BR meat vans, being a Wolverton product, probably followed that works and that railway's pattern so was all over crimson lake/maroon (not the same thing, I understand) which is how my wreck of a vehicle has been painted - it probably should be BR Crimson, but then, so should the SR type and those seem to have always been bauxite). The scope for wagon works going freestyle with liveries seems to have been *quite* broad in the early years of BR.

Adam

EDIT - the other interesting thing about the GW fruit van is the steel wheels, replacement for Mansells, presumably?

 

[AJC]

From 'what on earth is he doing?', to 'nearly on the home straight'. A few Rumney Models bits (high brow), some staples (low brow) and tiebars from angle.





And vac' pipes (copper wire offcuts).

Adam

 

[AJC]

From the wreckage a complete wagon. Not that it's warm enough to paint it.



I've pinched the roof from the Vanwide as that's a longer term job and I'm all out of 20 thou' sheet for the minute. Nice not to have to add vent holes in the floor as the vents are open on the moulding (which I'd not noticed before).

Adam