4mm An EM Workbench: Tank tribulations - miniature plumbing

[AJC]

Another wagon completed, the second BR steel Medfit I’ve done, this one a bit better detailed than the original which lives in a rake of SR spoil carriers down in Somerset. This one will be a traffic vehicle, and is ready to paint.



The brake gear is probably the most ‘interesting’ bit, but the new lamp irons and associated twiddly bits are what makes the model.



Adam

 

[AJC]

Can't disagree with that - any chance of a picture of the brake gubbins, Adam?

Sure, here you go - it’s simplified, but what’s there is what’s visible. I have the vac’ cylinder arms as a spare, but I’d otherwise have made them from a bit of 40 thou’.



Adam

PS - And thanks for the Kit, Andrew, much appreciated.

 

[AJC]

Excellent. I always like the detailing work you do to the underframes and brakegear. Puts my plastic rod efforts to shame!

I don’t know about that, Matt, almost no one notices these things after a coat of paint - and you do that very nicely. Here’s one more, the first of the pair of dia. 1666.



This one has replacement W irons (Ambis) headstocks and brakes (a multitude) which sounds like more work than it was. It’s now in the queue for painting (bare metal and wood).

Adam

 

[AJC]

I’ve found time for a spot of weathering. The result is the first three finished unfitted opens.



Wickwar Quarries can lay scant claim to this wagon, modelled a decade or so after nationalisation but unusually for an ex-PO vehicle this one survived in general merchandise use.



The other side of the same wagon - replicating what Don Rowland saw and pictured just prior to withdrawal - the word on the door is ‘asphaltic’: the vehicle was built for coated road stone.

Next, the LMS pair, a dia. 1666 (somewhat woebegone), and a dia. 1895 (really very tidy) which make a nice study in contrasts, I think.







All in all quite satisfying in a monochrome sort of a way.

Adam

 

[AJC]

Thank you everyone, you’re all very kind. Here’s a couple of works in progress, paint still wet on the first one.



This is an ex-GWR O24 from an ABS kit. I’ve replaced the axleboxes, and added capping strips but that’s it. I gave it a coat of a weathered wood mix earlier and now some freight grey on the ironwork and some of the planks and some black number patches. I’ll let it harden off for a few days before I sort out lettering and weathering.

The second is the first wagon I’ve built where the kit has been supplanted by an RTR version! A SECR seven-plank from a Cambrian kit, this one is based on a published photo of a vehicle toward the end of its days but in decent order. I need to add some rust to the strapping and weather the under frame.



Adam

EDIT - as a PS, for those of you not following the production of 00 RTR wagons, here you go: Rapido Trains UK SECR 5 and 7 plank wagons in 00 arrive. - the RTR examples come in at about three times the cost of the kit and wheels. I reckon that, for the quality, that's good value in this instance.

 

[AJC]

And another one finished. It took a little longer than simply weathering the new Rapido model (and now the casual observer will conclude that's what I've done), but never mind, I'm reasonably happy with this one with a thin coat of grey over worn wood or SR brown, towards the very end of its service life (before being flogged off to the Port of Bristol, perhaps!).



The reason why the Rapido model might score is the interior detail - Cambrian use raised lines for planks which I sanded off and then reinstated the bolt heads (as this rather red-shifted image shows):



Adam

 

[AJC]

And now - because I’m out of a couple of key weathering colours - time for another wagon. This time a SR plywood van from a Ratio kit with one of the Southern’s idiosyncratic forms of vacuum brake. More of the latter anon, but tonight I’ve fitted the roof. The problem all the Ratio SR vans have is the roof moulding: it’s the right shape but too wide by just shy of 1mm. Being an awkward three arc profile, I decided the easiest way forward was to cut it in half and trim a bit off the cut edge before sticking a filch piece underneath and offering each half up in turn.



There’s a good solid support down the centre line to resist bowing and strip along the top edge of the side - you can’t see it but it’ll pay dividends at the painting stage - and vent holes drilled in the floor.



Side on, some extra details (Rumney Models) and a non-Ratio chassis because my prototype had BR W irons. Best leave that to set for a bit…

Adam

EDIT - I've just found a picture of a bit of another one - note that the chalk board is in a slightly different position:

https://flic.kr/p/bip7ak

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Does it require a rework of Aaron Copland's - Fanfare for the Common......?

How will you disguise the roof join - fill, smooth and cover it with a single ply of plain toilet tissue and trim afterwards?

 

[AJC]

How will you disguise the roof join - fill, smooth and cover it with a single ply of plain toilet tissue and trim afterwards?

I’ll see how the filler takes. Texture in 4mm is painfully easy to overdo, so I’ll have to see how it looks. As for a fanfare, it depends how it turns out…

Adam

 

[AJC]

A GER van, most of the way weathered. I say most of the way because while the effect is broadly what I’m after, it’s a bit stagey in execution for my tastes (the contrast is a bit high and needs to be knocked back). It’s getting there though.



Adam

 

[AJC]

That’s a bit better:



And now, after a bit more work, and in daylight, I’m calling that done:



Adam

 

[AJC]

Since I’m stuck at home ill (yes, with that) and the two-year-old human (likewise), a work in progress. This is the second of the two dia. 1666 which is being finished in replanked and ratty LMS brown, suitably relettered.

The treatment thus far is Halfords camouflage brown (which isn’t so very far away from the Precision version of LMS wagon brown), with weathered wood colours applied on random planks and on the solebars. Why solebars shed paint so readily I have no idea, but it’s a very noticeable feature of wooden wagons so I’ve replicated it here.



Hand painted black patches and HMRS LMS lettering gets us to this stage.



I’ve picked out the ironwork with a mix of matt leather and Humbrol metalcote gunmetal so the impression is about right, but I’ll work back into it later.

Adam

 

[adrian]

Very nice

Why solebars shed paint so readily I have no idea, but it’s a very noticeable feature of wooden wagons so I’ve replicated it here.

I suspect that despite all the bracing the solebars will flex to a certain extent especially with heavy shunting - whether this is sufficient to explain the paint loss I'm not sure.

 

[Overseer]

Since I’m stuck at home ill (yes, with that) and the two-year-old human (likewise), a work in progress. This is the second of the two dia. 1666 which is being finished in replanked and ratty LMS brown, suitably relettered.

The treatment thus far is Halfords camouflage brown (which isn’t so very far away from the Precision version of LMS wagon brown), with weathered wood colours applied on random planks and on the solebars. Why solebars shed paint so readily I have no idea, but it’s a very noticeable feature of wooden wagons so I’ve replicated it here.

View attachment 161354

Hand painted black patches and HMRS LMS lettering gets us to this stage.

View attachment 161355

I’ve picked out the ironwork with a mix of matt leather and Humbrol metalcote gunmetal so the impression is about right, but I’ll work back into it later.

Adam

Adam,
Hope you are feeling ok.
I am surprised by the brown paint. I would expect bauxite very similar to BR bauxite for the late LMS wagon livery. I think the LMS only used the dark brown on service stock such as downgraded ex-passenger stock.

Oak is a pain to paint. There are special primers, mostly to block the tannin from discolouring the finish colour but also to give some chance of adhesion. I think that the completely unpainted solebars would mostly be wartime or later replacements.

 

[AJC]

Hi Fraser,

Not too bad - well, better than first time around back in September/October - just struggling to concentrate on screens for too long.

The brown is a tricky one, I admit: Precision P39 is called 'bauxite' but is quite brown (I've had a couple of tins over the years - I think Don Rowland used something a bit like that on his LMS wagons from the very occasional colour picture I've seen). Railmatch 612 is much closer to BR Freight Stock Red as generally rendered and is really quite orange in tone. Hornby tinplate and Dublo seem to have pitched somewhere in the middle for what that's worth:



The above borrowed from an eBay listing (for information only). More pertinent, since it shows the real thing is this image which I remembered after I'd applied the paint:

https://flic.kr/p/7hLJ9r

NB - Flickr posted the preview of the image not me: click on the link for a larger version.

That certainly looks very much more like the Precision colour (with all the caveats about scans of 1930s colour film/monitors, etc., taken as read in case @oldravendale is watching!). I wouldn't like to say which is right or wrong and if I decide I really can't live with it, I can overpaint it. I would value your opinion though.

Adam

 

[Overseer]

Hi Fraser,

Not too bad - well, better than first time around back in September/October - just struggling to concentrate on screens for too long.

The brown is a tricky one, I admit: Precision P39 is called 'bauxite' but is quite brown (I've had a couple of tins over the years - I think Don Rowland used something a bit like that on his LMS wagons from the very occasional colour picture I've seen). Railmatch 612 is much closer to BR Freight Stock Red as generally rendered and is really quite orange in tone. Hornby tinplate and Dublo seem to have pitched somewhere in the middle for what that's worth:

View attachment 161461

The above borrowed from an eBay listing (for information only). More pertinent, since it shows the real thing is this image which I remembered after I'd applied the paint:

https://flic.kr/p/7hLJ9r

NB - Flickr posted the preview of the image not me: click on the link for a larger version.

That certainly looks very much more like the Precision colour (with all the caveats about scans of 1930s colour film/monitors, etc., taken as read in case @oldravendale is watching!). I wouldn't like to say which is right or wrong and if I decide I really can't live with it, I can overpaint it. I would value your opinion though.

Adam

I am familiar with the 1938 Dufay slide and think the colours are reasonably accurate, I have previously commented on the orangeness of the Sentinel's buffer beam compared with the lining, but I think the wagon is severely blackened from being parked in a steelworks or similar. See the amount of black soot over the LMS and loss of visibility of the load rating. The running number has been reapplied. Edit: The wagon in the photo is a Diagram 1892 which were built between 1934 and 1939, and based on the relatively high number would only have been a couple of years old in September 1938. The 'weathering' on this wagon is definitely extreme and atypical.

Basically I think it is a much paler bauxite under the soot rather than brown. You would think contemporary Hornby models would be close in colour but maybe not, maybe a closer match to bauxite looked too orange when printed.

The Phoenix brown reminded me of this sample taken from a Jones Highland Railway carriage body at Inverness showing the LMS service stock brown over the Highland greens (partially heat stripped hence the cauliflower jumble of paint layers and varnish).

 

[AJC]

Ok, thank you. I agree that the Dufay slide is (like all colour renditions) problematic: the bufferbeam is washed out but the lining is very strong (though the position of the sun must surely be a factor in that, and probably the appearance of the brown wagon.

Having looked at some further Dublo examples this morning, I find them hard to square with either the Precision (which lacks the reddish tint that I think should be there - there's some manufacturing variation in the Tinplate versions but it's interesting that the LNER and SR browns used are different) or the Railmatch version - the rendering here looks like the colour I've seen used on 4mm and 7mm wagons - I really don't think it's dark enough: RailMatch 612 LMS Freight Bauxite (15ml enamel) | Howes Models - I think it's far too pale.

So I scouted around for some more examples (I might be ill, though getting better, but what's a researcher to do?). I wonder whether this single bolster survived in LMS livery re-lettered? It's not implausible - wooden underframe single bolster replaced by more modern vehicles in the '50s and transferred to the engineers - and doesn't look like Gulf Red (applied to departmental stock c.1960).

LMS wagons - a selection pre-nat and on BR | DM722702__m_

Paul Bartlett's Photographs

PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com

A genuinely LMS-era image (stills from this film, again all rights reserved and used for research purposes only: 1940's LMS railway in the U.K. | Huntley Film Archives). Note the patch repainting under the wagon number:





Now this film stock washes out reds and yellows very noticeably (that container should be Crimson Lake!), and darkens things a bit, too, but there's hints at a reddish tone my treatment lacks. I will change it following the Dublo examples, I think! If anyone else has some grist for this particular mill, I'd be vey pleased to see any historic images that they can share (or references to published images).

Thank you for the input, Fraser; the point is to make better models and this makes a difference.

Adam

EDIT: This film doesn't include good shots of LMS wagons, but does have a brand new MWT slope-sided mineral and a range of iron ore hoppers, in PO liveries, right at the end: The railways and the iron and steel industry. | Huntley Film Archives

 

[AJC]

Having put Thomas to one side for the minute, it occurred to me that I really should get my B4 completed since I’ve done the hard work in finding clearance for the crossheads betwixt wheels and front steps. That means pick ups, though all is well with the 9V battery test rig. It also means brake gear, which should be simple enough. Here’s the component parts:



Adam

 

[AJC]

And now the brakes in situ. No obvious shorts…



Now, exactly where am I going to put those pick ups? Too many ideas, all of which will need a hole cut out of the footplate. Watch this space.

Adam

 

[AJC]

Having found the B4 works properly, I’ve felt inspired to make moving metal parts in between working in a conference paper. Really I should knock up some vac’ pipes for the said B4, but I wanted a mechanical challenge. That means slide bar and cylinder assemblies, made from lots of tiny bits.



Yes the wrapper is slightly on the huh, but it works as it should. This project can no be popped back in its box for another few months until the mood takes me again.

Adam