Michaels 7mm LMS 13ton mineral wagon (MMP kit)

michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
good evening everybody.

Group builds! Someting very new for me, we don't have group builds in German modeller forums. I will give it a try....
I have to admit, the major reason to approach British modelling are the wonderful brass kits. I already built a MMP Catfish and I am curently working on a Class 08 MMP kit. Building these kits is great fun. It is hard to imagine returning from this quality level to German white metal modelling.

I am still a newbie in UK prototypes, but I though, a LMS 7 plank kit can't be wrong. I don't have much prototype information yet and not much pictures to build a given individual, but I am sure there are a lot of pictures around.

Here are some pictures of the kits etches.

DSC06718sml.jpg DSC06720sml.jpg DSC06722sml.jpg DSC06724sml.jpg DSC06726sml.jpg DSC06728sml.JPG


The plank walls will be laminated with three sheets to get the correct strength of the walls.
And there are a lot of pins to model the bolts.
We'll see.
I will have to finish detailling my Class 08 before I will start with this kit. Please have some patience, the first pictures won't follow immediately.

Michael
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
it's me again...

I have been trying to get some background material for the wagon and found an interesting drawing. I start thinking if it would be possible to model the planks with real wood plans rather than brass. The idea is that wear and tear would be easier to simulate with wood planks.

Problem is that I cannot read the drawing dimensions:

IMAG0877_sml.jpg

I believe that the width of the planks is 6 7/8" and 8 7/8". A drawing from another prototype proposes 8 3/4". No big difference, but if these planks need to be cut from a larger board, I want to do it right. The other dimension is thickness of the boards. I cannot read that dimension at all, but assume it might be about 2 1/2".
Another question is what kind of wood was used for the planks?

Is there any kind soul to answer my questions?

I noticed that the width of the planks seems to be converted from metric to fractional dimensions, where the thickness is converted from fractional to metric :) In continental Europe, the thickness of wood is 16, 19 etc. mm, which is 5/8 and 3/4", but the drawing dimension 6 7/8" is 175mm and 8 7/8" is 225mm. Funny!

best regards and have a nice weekend,
Michael
 
Spitfire2865

Spitfire2865

Western Thunderer
Well to help, Usually planking was anywhere between 2.5" to 3.5" on opens. On vans the planks could be down to below 2" thick, but doubled up. Id say 2.5" is an acceptable estimate as even if slightly underscale definitely wont look overscale.
Oak was typically used for wagons but in Gauge 3 I have had good experience using Maple. Its relatively light coloured and has a tight but often subtle grain. It doesnt take stain very well though.
If you do want to try with wood, Id look in the model ship hobby market for any companies specializing in milling wood to custom dimensions. Would save you quite a bit of effort.
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
Thanks Trevor,
2.5" in 7mm scale is pretty close to 1.5mm. I can get maple slats in 100mm * 1000mm * 1.5mm. That will be enough for a couple of wagons. I plan to cut the planks with a scalpel. 1.5mm maple shouldn't be too hard. I have also noticed that the planks are slightly chamfered at the outside of the wagon. Apparently, no key and slot joints were used. :)
I used maple before because it has an unobtrusive texure that can mimic oak and other kind of wood quite nicely.

Michael
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
We had a public holiday plus very bad weather on Friday, so I had a chance to start with my kit.

Just a few pictures. Nothing special, no deviation from the plan yet. A very nice kit where every parts fits perfectly. At least if you follow the plan :-(

IMAG0890sml.jpg

IMAG0902sml.jpg

That's as far as I came yesterday. I am planning to put all the bits and pieces into the frame over the weekend...

Michael
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
OK,
I spent the weekend with the little reinforcing sheets in the undercarriage. There is not much to see, so no picture here.
Furthermore, I worked on the W-irons for the wagon. Two layers are laminated, both parts have to be bent in opposite directions to model the offset of the bearings correctly.
I do not like this kind of counter bending, because the second bend tends to straighten the first one.
So I had the idea to reinforce the first bend with a tiny bit of solder in the etch groove.

This is what the piece of solder looks like, about 0.3mm of 0,5mm dia solder positioned close on top of the groove:
180402123033923181953.jpg

And this is the situation after heating:
180402123209923277812.jpg

The solder flows nicely into the groove, so that the second bend will not neutralize the first one. Done, that worked out nicely.

Next step was to laminate both sheets on top of each other.

After having soldered everything together, I noticed that I had one part left!

WHAT THE......

I actually managed to solder three layers together. No picture of that mess. I abandoned my workbench and spent the rest of the evening grumbling. Today, I separated the layers and cleaned up the mess. It was not as bad as expected and now I have two complete pairs of W-irons that will probably find their way into the undercarriage tomorrow.
IMAG0909sml.jpg

That's it for today.

Michael
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
good evening,

DSC07510_sml.jpg

not much going on here, so I think a little update would be OK. I didn't have much time in the last says, but the wagon underfame is getting closer to completion. Right now, I am making some experiments how to handle the wooden floor and walls. Too early to show, but as soon as I figure out how to transfer the holes from the brass parts to the wood parts, I will give another update...

Yep, a brake hanger is missing, it is surely in the box. :)

Michael
 
adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
michl080 said:
not much going on here, so I think a little update would be OK. I didn't have much time in the last says, but the wagon underfame is getting closer to completion. Right now, I am making some experiments how to handle the wooden floor and walls.
Click to expand...
That is looking nice, I hope I can get something similar with my Tube wagons. I'm also having to think carefully about how to marry up the under-frame with the wooden body. I'm still not sure how to do it so I'll be interested to see what solution you come up with.

One small query about the buffers body, please correct me if I'm wrong but from the photos they seem to be on upside down. I think the short rib should be on the top and not the bottom which is how it appears to be the case from the photo.
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
adrian said:
One small query about the buffers body, please correct me if I'm wrong but from the photos they seem to be on upside down.
Click to expand...

Oh my! The only picture of this wagon I know (Essery / Official Drawings of LMS wagons) is not very clear in which direction the buffers need to be. Guess what, the only parts on the whole wagen that are not soldered are the buffers. I will need to put the whole wagon into the oven and hope that the epoxy softens enough to get them off.

UK models are quite strange beasts to me and I have to admit that it is a bigger problem than expected. All this bits and pieces I know about German railroading are so different here.

Michael
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
time for a little update,

the weather is nice, so modelling is limited to some late evening work.

After Adrian's comment with the buffers, the whole underframe went into an Acetone bath. The buffers came off nicely after some ten minutes and after 30 minutes, all remaining glue could be scrathed off.

@Ian,
thanks for the link to Paul Bartlett's site. I knew the site and I could find many references for my Class 08 build, but I don't think that is has any picture of a LMS Diag 2102 wagon.

In between, I was playing around a bit with the plank modelling and after some failures, this is what I think is best suited for the job:

DSC07673_sml.jpg

I cut 4mm and 5mm strips of maple and have them fixed on the brass parts with double sided adhesive tape. This way, I can use the holes in the brass as a jig for drilling the wood planks.
Next step is to fix the planks with the provided brass bands.

DSC07674_sml.jpg
Sadly, the provided rivets would be about 2" in size. In the prototype drawing I use, the bolts are 1/2" thread size, which might be 1" heads, so the heads are too large.
I have ordered rivets at RB Model - home page . As soon as they arrive, I can continue...

so far, so good...

Michael
 
farnetti

farnetti

Western Thunderer
I thought about replacing the bolts when I built this kit (there is a thread somewhere here) but there are hundreds of them. I decided to go for a full wagon so the interior wouldn't be seen, a shame as the it is fully detailed. Will you do the floor as well?

Your photo shows how cruel close ups can be. I like maple; lime and pear also.

Looking forward to see how this progresses, I do like MMP kits.

Ken
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
Dave,

the planks are about 1.3mm thick which is equivalent to about 2 1/4". As Trevor confirmed above, this seems to be reasonably close to prototype, so one layer of planks is replacing the intended brass sandwhich. The design is pretty close to prototype, the rivets fix the planks at the metal bands, the metal bands keep the planks together and fix them at the underframe. Needless to say, this is a PLAN, it needs to prove that this actually works ;)

Michael
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
almost three weeks since the last update...

I got my mini-rivets from rbmodel some days ago, so here is the temporary result of combining real wood planks with close to scale rivets.

outside

DSC07874sml.jpg

and inside

DSC07875sml.jpg

I used the washers where the bolts sit directly on the wood. The kit instructions propose to use them although the diagram seems to indicate countersunk bolts.

I am pretty happy with the result. Right now, I think I will not weather the kit. The wood looks quite nice (not as yellow as in the second picture), so I think this will become a brand new wagon.

Michael
 
michael080

michael080

Western Thunderer
here comes the next update:

the underframe is ready and painted.DSC07893sml.jpg

The final assembly of the brake gear would have been easier if my fingers were smaller, but finally, all is where it belongs and the exciting part is that the complete brake gear is functioning. I wouldn't want to apply much force to the lever, but moving it carefully up and down, the brake pads move forward and backward.


DSC07893sml2.jpg


Nice!

Next task is the floor planks and then the preassembled side panels.

Michael
 
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