Chas's workbench

[Yorkshire Dave]

Thanks Michael: do you know when that metric payload marking started to be used and if it was used during the Länderbahnen era, might the KWStE have used?

I've just had a look at some K.P.E.V. drawings of Güterwagen and it appears the semicircular payload designation came into use during the 1890s.

Versuch einer Zeittabelle über d

Archiv ZANDER-HEBA Güterwagen Preußen Güterwagen

This 1891 photo although not a K.W.St.E wagen does show a triangular payload designation in the top right.



Therefore if your vehicles are post 1890s then I would include it.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Thanks again for this link Dave - there's a huge amount of material there, really fascinating and freely available to download in decent resolution too.
It's not just photos of complete vehicles (and not just railway vehicles either) but also photos of bogies, chassis, partly constructed wooden bodies, carraige interiors, vehicle plans and diagrams, wagon works, offices, personnel (including some superb moustaches!) and factories - an amazing resource!

It's the proverbial rabbit hole to get lost in for hours......

 

[michael080]

Thanks Michael: do you know when that metric payload marking started to be used and if it was used during the Länderbahnen era, might the KWStE have used?

Interesting detail about the Herberlein braking system, just reading about it: I hadn't guessed that's what the rig was - I assumed it was to do with loading into the van. Also very interesting to learn that this system's still in operation on some narrow guage German railways today!

The whole picture's on the site, though I've applied some contrast and other correction via an old copy of Photoshop, as many of the photos are quite low contrast and/or faded...

The marking was introduces in 1891. The shape of the symbol changes for different payloads to allow recognition from greater distance.



This is a small excerpt for the great book from Wolfgang Diener "Anstrich und Bezeichnung von Güter- und Dienstwagen" that contains an incredible amount of information. He also published comparable books for locos and also for coaches. All of them are available as PDF-e-books.

Michael

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

This is a small excerpt for the great book from Wolfgang Diener "Anstrich und Bezeichnung von Güter- und Dienstwagen" that contains an incredible amount of information. He also published comparable books for locos and also for coaches. All of them are available as PDF-e-books.

Thanks for the information regarding the books. Looks like some more €€€s to spend

 

[Chas Levin]

I've just had a look at some K.P.E.V. drawings of Güterwagen and it appears the semicircular payload designation came into use during the 1890s.

Versuch einer Zeittabelle über d

Archiv ZANDER-HEBA Güterwagen Preußen Güterwagen

This 1891 photo although not a K.W.St.E wagen does show a triangular payload designation in the top right.

View attachment 194424

Therefore if your vehicles are post 1890s then I would include it.

Thanks Dave; I think I can probably allow for late 1890s on these wagons. The kit was I think intended to represent post 1910 anyway, so I can't really get away with back-dating too much further... Now to find something to represent the markings!

It's the proverbial rabbit hole to get lost in for hours......

Absolutely; and it's not just the railwayana: the photos of people, buildings and offices are fascinating aren't they, real glimpses back into previous times...

 

[Chas Levin]

The marking was introduces in 1891. The shape of the symbol changes for different payloads to allow recognition from greater distance.

View attachment 194435

This is a small excerpt for the great book from Wolfgang Diener "Anstrich und Bezeichnung von Güter- und Dienstwagen" that contains an incredible amount of information. He also published comparable books for locos and also for coaches. All of them are available as PDF-e-books.

Michael

Thanks Michael, very kind of you to look this up. I do have the Diener book now, I bought it following your recommendation a few pages back in this thread, but reading it is slow going for me as I don't speak German, so I'm photographing it paragraph by paragraph and using the translation function on my phone to read what I've photographed, then adding pencilled notes of the key points to each page (it's not a book I'll ever sell so I'm not worried about writing lots of pencilled notes in it!).
I hadn't found the note about these markings yet, but leafing through now I found it on page 61, in the 'Länderbahnen up to 1910' section - so that shows how slowly I'm working my way through the book, doesn't it?!

 

[Chas Levin]

Thanks for the information regarding the books. Looks like some more €€€s to spend

Highly recommended book, Dave: when Michael first recommended it a little while ago he posted a link to where the printed hardcover was available on a sale for 20 Euros and the pdf is 16 Euros, so I thought it was worth getting the printed one. I just checked and they're still offering it - here's the link again: Vgbahn Shop - Diener. I had to place the order but then wait for them to contact me and arrange shipping and I think the total cost including shipping was about £25.
Since computers have taken over our lives I've found myself drawn more and more to reading real books and magazines, as a wonderful relief from staring at a screen: anyone else feel the same way?

 

[Chas Levin]

The marking was introduces in 1891. The shape of the symbol changes for different payloads to allow recognition from greater distance.

View attachment 194435

This is a small excerpt for the great book from Wolfgang Diener "Anstrich und Bezeichnung von Güter- und Dienstwagen" that contains an incredible amount of information. He also published comparable books for locos and also for coaches. All of them are available as PDF-e-books.

Michael

I've been looking further at these payload markings, including looking at a lot of vans and wagons on the Verkehrsmuseum Dresden site.

The Tragkraft / payload rating on the wagons I've built is 10,000K - the equivalent of 200 hundredweight (actually 196) or 10 metric tonnes - but there's no geometric payload sign for '10' so I wondered what they did... and from what I can see, it was usual to use the nearest geometric marking to the actual payload figure. For instance, there are quite a few wagon photos showing a payload marking of 17,500K that carry the '15' geometric signage.

Therefore, I think it would have been reasonably authentic to use the inverted triangle '11' sign... except that I read in Mr Diener's book that the geometric signs were introduced gradually, with the one for 18 tonnes being introduced in 1908 and those for 11 and 35 tonnes not appearing until 1911.

That's a little later than I'd like, so I think that a 10 tonne wagon in the early 1890s would in fact have had the right-way-up-triangle '12.5' tonne sign, because that was the closest one before '11' was introduced... As usual, if anyone has any information or opinion on that please let me know!

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I would leave the payload (Ladegew.) symbol off until evidence appears to the contrary. It would be unlikely they would have loaded a wagon beyond it's designated Tragf. if they were using the symbol rather than the actual figures as the loading weight guide. If anything they would have used the Ladegew. which is normally less than the Tragf.

Tragf. Tragfähigkeit = carrying capacity
Ladegew. Ladegewicht = loading weight
Radst. Radstand = wheelbase

It looks like where the Tragf. was 17,500kg they rounded down the nearest symbol - 15 tonnes (probably for safety). For your wagons you would require a payload symbol for 10 tonnes or less.

My thinking is if 10,000kg was a common Tragf. in 1891 then an appropriate Ladegew. symbol would have been introduced.

It appears from the 1890s onwards 15,000kg Ladegew. 15,750kg Tragf. on a 4m Radst. was becoming standardized for general open wagons and it could well be 10,000kg Tragf. was being phased out for general use other than Spezialwagen. As such any remaining wagons becoming classed as 'internal user only' (i.e. only operated within the company's boundaries) or slowly scrapped.

I see your wagons have a 3.6m Radst. with a 10,000kg Tragf. which would mean the Ladegew. would be slightly less at say 9,500kg.

All interesting stuff and although I model 1997-2002 DB I'll continue to add it as a mental note should any K.W.St.E crop up whilst researching my own stuff as I'm always interested when Länderbahnen or early DRG photos pop up.

 

[Chas Levin]

Thanks Dave. Regrettably I think you're right ('regrettably' because I was looking forward to adding the extra transfers).

I agree with all points of your thinking there and I had just been reading about the difference between carrying capacity and loading weight, an interesting thing I hadn't known about. I too had thought that rounding down made sense from a safety point of view, whereas rounding up was a little more suspect: I knew as I wrote that it I probably was on thin ice! And as you suggest, smaller capacity wagons were probably disappearing right around the time of these geometric markings coming in.
I've certainly learned a lot about Länderbahnen vehicles and markings while building these wagons which, like you, I shall file away for later projects: thank you again for your help and advice.

Well, no more transfers on these is a pity, but on the other hand that means I can get on with final varnish coats and then araldite the bodies to the chassis and they'll be finished!

 

[Chas Levin]

Final aralditing of bodies to chassis, which I did upside-down, with the assembly resting on small wooden blocks going up into the wagon bodies, so I could weight the chassis (with a pair of old clock weights, from my small but very useful collection of such things) this way up too. Weighing them right way up would have risked splaying the plastic w-irons:



You can also see my crude attempt at a poorly cleaned backboard panel, though - dare I claim it - the other three actually look more convincing!

For wagon loads, I thought a pair of large machine crates - with suitable wooden packing pieces - might look quite good:



I can't now remember where these came from but I think they'll do: large machine parts must have been transported by rail in the late 19th century, almost anywhere in Europe.

Airholes below and a few lead shot in each (every little helps!) and I had been going to prime and paint, but it occurred to me that a few coats of stained varnish followed by matt laquer might actually look better, given their starting colour and finish.

For the timber packing pieces to stop the crates shifting in transit, I'll be cutting up some chunky firelighter matches...

 

[Chas Levin]

These two KWStE wagons are now pretty much finished - here are some pretty-looking outdoor photos:



There's been plenty of discussion upthread about the shade of green and these photos demonstrate the considerable variation produced by differing light levels and angles of incidence, ranging from the first view of the pair which looks quite a dark green and quite close to how we believe they should look, to the last close-up of a single wagon, which looks considerably lighter. They'll be running indoors of course, where they look darker because of lower interior light levels and I'm very pleased with them, which is the main point of building them of course!

Each one is going to have a pair of large machine crates and I'm now building some timber bracing frames to go inside the wagons, on the floors, to stop the crates moving about in transit:

 

[Chas Levin]

The crates in the last photo in my previous post are a couple of spares that I'm using as templates to build the timber bracing; the crates that'll actually be going into these wagons are going threough various stages of cosmetic work, starting with several coats of Ronseal Teak Varnish, followed by a wash of very thinned Humbrol matt black:

 

[michael080]

looking great!
I love the safety chains.

Michael

 

[Chas Levin]

looking great!
I love the safety chains.

Michael

Thanks Michael - not sure I'd have noticed the chains on that photo you posted if you hadn't pointed them out, so thank you for that! They add a certain small something, don't they?

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

These two KWStE wagons are now pretty much finished

Looking really good.

 

[Chas Levin]

Looking really good.

Thanks Dave!

 

[Chas Levin]

I completed the crate loads for the KWStE, which took a few stages of glueing and weighting, because I didn't want to have bulky and uneven knots under the crates. It's a useful and satisfying way of dealing with days when you only have 20-30 minutes of modelling time, enough time to glue something which would actually benefit from being left alone for 24 hours, so each of the stages in the photos below (plus several more) were at 24 hour intervals:















And here are some final photos of the wagons with their loads:

 

[Chas Levin]

What's the next project? Well, I've enjoyed my stay on the Continent building the IBG Lancia truck and the KWStE wagons very much indeed, but it's time to come back to England, where I'll be building this - the classic Airfix Class B tank wagon, with the Masokits sprung and detailed subframe:



I've built quite a few coaches and one loco with three-point rocking or Flexi-Chas compensation, but this will be my first sprung suspension build of any kind and I'm fascinated and quite excited to see how it works!

 

[Chas Levin]

The Masokits etches are beautiful looking:



First out of the traps is the main floor:



As you can see in the instructions in the picture above, there are two sets of folds, the first being the solebars, the second the buffer beams. The first solebar fold is easily done in bars or a Hold-and-fold, but the second is more awkward because the solebar that's already up at a right-angle is in the way of anything wider than the floor.
So, something more homemade is called for; I try to be quite ruthless with my hereditary hoarding tendency, but I do retain things that I find genuinely useful, though they may not look it. By using these things...



You can make this:



Which leads to this:



The buffer beam folds can then be done on the Hold-and-fold, which has an extremely well-designed variety of sections - I've not yet been defeated in trying to find a way to use it on a very wide variety of shapes:





Next are the hornguides (also referred to in the instructions as inner foundation units), the first things to come out of the other, equally lovely looking, 10 thou, etch:





These are folded up but before slotting them into place, I eased the slots that their tabs sit in ever so slightly using a 0.45mm drill, because an initial trial fit was even more snug than the isntructions had warned:



Providing you're careful, the fit is still nice and tight, easily sufficient to retain them in preparation for soldering:



The instructions - very detailed, carefully drawn and thoroughly annotated throughout - caution against applying the iron anywhere other than at the intersections of tabs and slots, so it was an opportunity to practise using minimal solder, something I have to watch, as I have a tendency to overdo the solder in the interests of strength:



Not to harp on about them, but the instructions really are wonderfully detailed. They're in two parts, a general overview and assembly sequence (a simple printed sheet) and quite a long booklet full of superbly detailed hand-drawn sketches with very comprehensive annotations - that booklet's the one you can see in the second photo in this post.

Hornblock and bearing carriers next...