2mm Modbury

[Ian Smith]

Lovely models but I am perplexed as to why a almost 'brand new' van body has been grounded in the goods yard...

Thank you for the kind comment.
The wagon body is a 3D print that I had done by Shapeways from my own artwork. One end was badly printed so rather than throw it away I decided to use it as a grounded body in the goods yard. Carefully removed one door and replaced it with an open plasticard version.

The "back story" to justify its existence there is that it was one of the first lot of covered vans built in February 1878 (so over 25 years old) on a wooden underframe. It was involved in a shunting accident at the station which unfortunately badly damaged the underframe and some bodywork and completely destroyed one of John Clarke's privately owned wagons. By way of some form of compensation John acquired the van body to replace a tumble down shed that he was using as an office at the station. It is somewhat unfortunate that all records of the accident have been lost through time, so I am unable to relate what else if anything was damaged in the accident or who was driving and firing the engine on the day in question

Ian

 

[Wagonman]

Nice try! But pretty grim office with no windows... A hardy breed, those coal men.

 

[Ian Smith]

Nice try! But pretty grim office with no windows... A hardy breed, those coal men.

Possibly, but in my defence I am simply putting my own slant on an image in GWR Goods Services :

 

[Wagonman]

...and in my defence that photo is 1926...

 

[Ian Smith]

Just rolling off my workbench and onto the track at Modbury are 3 more wagons in readiness for this weekends Chiltern Model Railway Exhibition at Stevenage.





The 3 new additions are an outside framed brake van and two 3 plank wagons. The brake van has been built up from one of David Eveleigh's etches by John Russell, and kindly provided to bolster my own meagre selection of rolling stock. John assembled the main elements of the van but left me to add handrails, brake standard, and generally finish the model.

One thing that struck me immediately was that the roof was slightly too short and slightly too narrow. Additionally, the stove pipe is in completely the wrong position being centrally positioned on the roof rather than central to just the enclosed part of the van. To rectify these issues (rather than make a new roof), I elected to remove the stove pipe that John had soldered in place, and file off the raised surround. The resulting hole was backed with a scrap of etch and the hole filled with solder, and sanded to make good. A new stove pipe hole was drilled in the correct place, and the stove pipe reinstated (a washer of 5 thou plasticard was added around the stove pipe prior to priming). To resolve the issue of the roof being too narrow, I soldered some straight 0.010" nickel silver wire along each edge of the roof, and decided that I would live with the roof having next to no overhang at the ends - because John had rolled the roof I thought it would be too difficult to extend the roof by the same ruse.

The handrails are more 0.010" nickel silver wire, bent into very wide staple shape that sits in holes in the framing at each end - I fitted a continuous handrail the length of the body as it isn't that noticeable that there are no breaks at the door (although now that I've told you I can imagine you all looking again at the photos above)

A brake standard was turned up on the lathe, and the top sawn across with a (very) fine piercing saw blade to accept a handle bent up from more 0.010" wire (which was soldered in place). A bench was added across the end of the verandah in plasticard, with a hole drilled for the standard.

The model has been finished in 1904 livery and branded "Laira".

The two 3 plank wagons started life as Association GWR diagram O3 5 plank wagons. The diagonal strapping on the sides being scraped away, as indeed was the raised part of the L angle on each side of the door (what was left of the L angle was also narrowed). The top 2 planks were cut off / filed away and the strip of floor on the inside of the sides was also removed so that the resulting wagon would be the same width as the O5 4 plank wagon (the O3 being a wider wagon).

One of the 3 plank wagons has been modelled with rounded ends for variety. Because the donor is a wider wagon, it was necessary to narrow the ends slightly (by the amount of the floor strip removed from the sides). The amount removed being the chamfer on each side where the corner strapping is. The chamfer then needs to be reinstated so that the sides and ends can be joined properly around the floor. What this means of course is that the corner plate on the ends is slightly too narrow (compared with that seen on the sides), I ignored this - you've gone back to those photos again to check again haven't you?

Both wagons have been finished in the pre 1904 red livery, lettering on all three wagons has been done with Fox transfers (with the exception of the "Laira" branding which are old Woodhead transfers).

So there we are, as ready as I'm going to be for this weekends Stevenage exhibition.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Modbury was at the Chiltern Model Railway Exhibition in Stevenage at the weekend, I only took 3 photos and they were first thing Saturday morning (one of which was somewhat blurred), however for what they are worth I'll post the other 2 here...


Looking towards Plymouth


Looking towards Newton Abbot

An enjoyable weekend, a couple of minor issues - (i) Up Starter under-board gubbins broke on Saturday which a temporary fix failed to resolve for the whole weekend rendering that signal inoperative, (ii) a bad solder joint rendered the goods shed and cattle dock sidings out of action for much of Saturday (that was fixed Saturday evening so all was good on Sunday) and finally a fairly major issue is that some of the exits onto/off the train tables caused derailments - So I know what I'll be doing over the next few weeks before Modbury takes to the road again (a local show at Lutterworth in Leicestershire on 4th/5th May).

On the whole the layout and stock (particularly coaches) received some very nice comments, it was particularly nice that "the other halves" seemed to enjoy the layout too. Not to belittle anyone else's kind comments but to receive positive comments about the grass and scenery from Gordon Gravett was particularly pleasant.

The one disappointment of the weekend happened while I was away at lunch on Saturday - Tim Watson's lovely "Mons Meg" visited Modbury. Hopefully Tim will post photos / video of the event at some point.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Over the last few days I have started work on my Buffalo Saddle Tank again. This time tackling the bunker.

Before I could start forming the bunker, I first constructed a base for it consisting of the cab floor and a base for the bunker. These were fretted/filed from 1mm thick brass, the bunker base being sized so that it would fit within the bunker itself which is made from 0.008" nickel silver. The cab floor shaped to fit between the splashers/springs which extend inside the cab. The bunker base was drilled and tapped 12BA for the chassis securing bolt, and to securely locate the bunker a pair of 0.5mm pegs were added which locate in corresponding holes in the footplate either side of the securing bolt.

The bunker sides and rear were formed from 0.008", the roll-over at the top being formed first before the sides were bent round. Localised heat at the corners to anneal the material allowed the roll-over to be re-instated after the sides were bent round from the rear (not overly successfully I have to admit - in retrospect I probably should have used 0.006" as I did for the Metro and 1854 classes).

Once I had managed to attach the bunker to its base, a bunker front was fretted/filed from more 0.008" and it too soldered in place (all this was a good game as the two parts of bunker base/cab floor assembly kept coming apart as the parts of the bunker were being attached!!) However, perseverance and patience won through in the end.

The next part to be formed was the coal rails. These are simply 2 lengths of 0.3mm brass wire attached to supports of 0.5mm wide strips of nickel silver. The supports were attached with 188 degree solder, and the coal rails bent as necessary to fit the bunker afterwards.

The coal rail supports were attached to the inside of the bunker with low melt solder so that nothing would come adrift the coal rails were fitted.

The pair of photos below show the bunker assembly secured in place on the engine.

The tops of the coal rail supports still need sanding back flush with the coal rails and the whole lot generally cleaning up before the cab hand rails can be fitted along with the lamp irons and tool hooks on the bunker rear, but at least it's starting to look a bit more like an engine.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

A little more progress on the Buffalo Saddle Tank...

The Safety Valve, Dome and Tank Filler have been turned (and in the case of the filler had extra bits soldered in place before being soldered in place). The Dome and Safety Valve covers are secured with 12BA bolts. The lamp sockets and fire iron hooks have been fabricated and added to the back of the bunker.

The face plate for the saddle front has been fretted/filed from 0.004" nickel silver, had some rivets added around its circumference and sweated in place on the saddle former at the saddle front. The rivets on this small piece were formed with a home-made drop-riveter acting on the material on a piece of aluminium - a fine line being scribed using a vernier calliper around the circumference, the central rivet popped, then dividers being used to mark where the next rivets should be formed from the indentation. Doing this ensured that the rivets were all equally spaced.

The upper hand rails on the tank have also been added from the finest guitar string I have with knobs of twisted copper wire (wire made into a loop, secured in a pin vice, piece of guitar string passed through loop and the pin vice twirled until the copper twists snap off just above the pin vice).





The photos show the embryonic smokebox door and the front sand boxes, the former turned with gravers from a piece of 0.028" nickel silver sheet sweated onto an arbour, the latter small cubes of brass (about 2.6mm) sweated onto more 0.004" sheet to give a lid that was filed and sanded back to be just proud of the sides of the cube.

It's now getting to the stage where I need to make a list of all the small details that need to be formed and added.

Ian

 

[adrian]

It's now getting to the stage where I need to make a list of all the small details that need to be formed and added.

Sorry but you're having a laugh - if it really is 2mmFS as you claim (although I note the de-rigueur penny is absent to judge the scale) then the details already fitted must be pretty damn small, the thought of making a list of small details takes some believing.

Joking aside - that is looking stunning.

 

[Ian Smith]

An hour or so out in the workshop/shed this evening has produced the smoke box door dart for the Buffalo...





A length of 2mm nickel silver rod was cross drilled 0.3mm near the end (twice - once for each handle - with a very tiny gap between the two holes and a few degrees rotation too).

The rod was then transferred to the lathe where the outer mm or so where the holes had been drilled was reduced to 0.65mm. A short section beyond that was reduced to 1.5mm and a locating peg turned down behind that to leave a few thou of the 1.5mm diameter.

After the holes were cleaned out two short lengths of guitar string were cut (well actually broken off) to fit in the holes for the handles. A healthy blob of liquid flux was dribbled around the handles and a hot iron with next to no solder on secured the handles in place. Finally, the completed dart handles were sawn off the end of the rod, and the hole in the smokebox door opened out to accept the locating peg on the back of the dart, as indeed was the hole in the saddle front.

The pictures above show the smokebox door and it's handles plonked on the front of the saddle (held only by the locating peg). For the benefit of the camera, the smokebox door was blacked with a sharpie so that the door handles would show up a bit better.

Since the previous entry, a new dome has been fabricated as it was pointed out to me that the original had tapered rather than parallel sides. I've also added the filler caps to the tops of the sandboxes (more small turnings) and these have been soldered in place on the footplate too.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Spent a few minutes today adding odd details around the station. The main focus being the cattle dock.

When I installed the cattle dock I had previously put a pile of used straw at the buffer stop end of the dock - this was formed from some beige static grass fibres mixed with a little PVA formed into a pile shape and left to dry on a bit of polythene bag. Once dry the resulting heap was glued in place on the dock. Today I added a fork to the heap - this started off life as a Severn Models spade with bits of the blade cut away to leave tines instead of the blade. Additionally a Severn Models wheel barrow was also assembled, painted and given a thickish layer of white paint in the bottom to represent the lime wash that was liberally daubed all over the dock to sterilise it. A broom was also made and leant against the barrow too.

Further along the dock, between the two pens, I had previously positioned a stand pipe with a hose pipe looped over the fence.



I think it is small details like this that helps to breathe life into the scene, even though a casual observer may not even notice them.

Ian

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I think it is small details like this that helps to breathe life into the scene, even though a casual observer may not even notice them.

Wholeheartedly agree. It's the attention to detail and modelling the items which we see everyday but pay no attention to.

 

[jonte]

Ian, your saddle tank loco, like the rest of the layout, is a magnificent piece of work. Thanks for sharing.

Jonte

 

[Ian Smith]

At the 2mm Midland Area Group meeting last night, while John and Andy were trying to address an intermittent issue with the cottage lighting on St Ruth (occasionally we seem to have some arc welding going on in one of the cottage bedrooms!), I set about trying to do a little more to my Buffalo Saddle Tank. The object of interest this time was the smokebox door.

I had previously turned the smokebox door on the lathe, and had made the dart handles too. So now it was time to tackle the door hinges. These were made from a couple of little strips of 0.004" nickel silver about 1mm wide, most of this length was thinned to about 0.5mm wide leaving a short length of 1mm wide material at one end. The 1mm wide bit was wrapped around a 0.3mm drill to provide a representation of the hinge (somewhat harder to achieve than typing it here!) Once the pair had been made they were soldered in place on the smokebox door (with the 0.3mm drill still in place for stability - a little blu-tak helped too). Once secure the drill was removed and replaced with a short length of guitar string, which was then soldered to the hinges.

Finally, the door dart assembly was soldered in place in the hole reserved for it on the smokebox door.

With the door effectively complete, and John and Andy still "enjoying" their fiddling around with one of the Arduino's that controls the St Ruth lighting effects I decided to make a start on the combined handrail knob/lamp socket for the tank front above the smokebox door.

To start with a short length of 1mm square brass was cross-drilled 0.3mm close to the end, this was transferred to the mini-drill and files used to try to form the round handrail knob part around the cross-drilled hole, leaving a cubic block on the end to represent the lamp socket. This still needs a bit of work to finish but is included in the photo below of the complete smokebox door :


The cruel close up shows how much cleaning up still needs to be done to the smokebox door, and the work still required to the lamp socket/handrail knob. To give a sense of size, the drill shank through the handrail knob is a 0.3mm drill.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

In readiness for taking Modbury to the Lutterworth exhibition this weekend (Lutterworth Railway Society - Exhibitions), I spent some time this afternoon disassembling the layout and packing it up ready for the weekend.

However before doing that I popped my Buffalo Saddle Tank onto the layout for a photo opportunity to record and show progress to date. Since the last update, the smokebox door has been epoxied to the front of the tank, the lamp socket/handrail knob for the tank front finished and the handrails added around the tank itself.

The photos were taken in the evening light coming into the workshop window as I had already removed the layout lighting rig, so were taken with a tripod and long exposures (over 15 seconds!)

Firstly the bunker end :


Finally the smokebox end (I remembered to switch on the signal box light for this shot - it is a small LED (painted yellow to better reflect type of lighting that would have been in a c1906 signal box), and powered by a little box of 3 AA batteries glued below the baseboard :


The signalman is recording something in his ledger at his desk.

The buffalo will be plying back and forth this weekend resplendent in its "North Somerset Light" livery.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

One of the things that has been bugging me for a really long time is the Goods Shed. It is the first building I started (and is the last to be completed). Although to all intents and purposes it looked finished, there were a few things missing - hence my being bugged about it!

The offending missing items being the large sliding doors on the ends and rear of the shed, and the runners from which they hang (although in actuality the runners themselves are hidden by "weather proofing covers"). So to rectify this situation, at the last Midland Area Group meeting I spent an hour or so scribing the doors on 0.040" plastic sheet, the edges of which were then thinned so that when glued to the stone work they appeared to stand off the surface a little. A pair of thin strips of 0.005" were added to the tops of the doors to represent the brackets that the little wheels that run on the runners were attached to. When painted the doors were super glued in place on the ends of the shed (I had made and fitted the rear doors for the road access ages ago but from normal viewing angles they can't be seen).

To make the covers for the runners I had originally tried to fabricate one in plastic but found it ridiculously flimsy, so while at Railex at the weekend I obtained a couple of pieces of brass angle with a view to soldering some up. Hopefully the diagram below will illustrate how ...



Once the two angles had been sweated together a rebate was formed to allow the 0.010" end piece to fit snuggly behind the upright of the 2mm angle. The end pieces themselves were made from 8 pieces of scrap etch sweated together then filed to shape (to give me a couple of spares in case I lost any). Once the main pieces were together I added three 0.5mm pegs behind the 2mm angle to allow the covers to be fixed to the walls in corresponding holes. To finish the covers a sloping roof of 0.010" plastic card was super-glued in place (I was reluctant to add this in metal as I felt the odds of something else coming adrift was too high!) Finally they were held in pin chucks (by one of the pegs) and given a spray of self etch primer. To save ruining my pin chucks I wrapped each in cling film before applying the paint!!

Another of the missing items on the shed were the downpipes. These were bent up from 0.5mm phosphor bronze wire with little brackets soldered on from twists of fine wire, the tails of the twists being secured in holes in the walls. The resultant downpipes were then carefully painted in my usual mix of GWR Dark Stone (PP Dark Stone with a little White added).

The final item that always bugged me was the crane inside the building - I had made it (like myself) far too overweight (the woodwork being made from 3mm (18") square section). So another evenings work provided a replacement in 2mm square section.

A few photos of the finished Goods Shed ...


West end of the Goods Shed (the office door has also acquired a brass door handle - a stub of 0.33mm wire)


A view of the West end of the Goods shed and cattle dock. Excuse the detritus in the background - I should have dropped the dust cover down!


A mobile phone view of the East end of the shed.


A mobile phone view of the rear of the shed - this view is only achievable with a small camera (or phone camera)


A view of the platform elevation of the Goods Shed (again taken with a mobile phone camera)


A final shot down the length of the layout (taken under layout lighting with the dust cover is in place to block out ambient light from the window and hide the detritus of the workshop)

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Mainly to see whether I could, I have made the first of one of these ...



It is a representation of a platform Oil Lamp on a 6'0" post. The prototype I made had a 1mm diameter nickel silver wire post that I had tapered slightly, I had turned a little foot and a single ring of fine wire made the collar - both soldered in place. Unfortunately when trying to add the support for the lamp itself the ring forever slipped so that it ended up lop-sided so the prototype was consigned to the bin and after a rethink I decided to hand turn the whole post as a single entity using gravers on the lathe ...



The lamp support was made from a cross of window framing from some 4mm scale signal box windows, soldered to the top of the post then all four arms carefully bent to meet at the top. Once made flat the four arms were given a quick wipe with the soldering iron to secure them together.

The lamp itself is some 3mm thick perspex or acrylic that I've had for years. A piece was sawn off and filed to provide a 3mm x 3mm bar. This was popped into a chuck secured on the vertical slide on the lathe, which in turn was set at 10degrees. A small milling cutter was mounted in a jacobs chuck attached to the headstock and each facet of the lamp milled to give me the tapered glass shape required. The embryonic lamp case was then polished before being cut from the bar and the roof facets filed. A small flat was filed at the apex of the roof to allow a 0.5mm hole to be drilled vertically into the roof portion of the lamp. The chimney/finial is very much a representation of the real thing - a small turning of 1.5mm diameter brass (with a 0.5mm hole down the middle) representing the chimney part mounted on a piece of 0.5mm phosphor bronze wire filed to a point to represent the finial.

The whole thing from the foot of the post to the top of the finial is 2cm tall ! Only need another 8 to 10 of them ! Should keep me quiet for a few days

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

A bit of a paint job, a 1mm hole drilled in the platform and voila!!





I decided that the safest place for my new lamp is actually on the layout (I've so far managed to lose two lamp glasses - One is somewhere in the workshop and the other is somewhere in the garden between the workshop and the back door - I was bringing a completed lamp (secure in a pin chuck) in home to paint it but managed to drop it as I shut the workshop door, the post was fine, the lamp supports were somewhat crushed but the lamp glass and finial could be anywhere!!)

Ian

 

[john lewsey]

Lovely work Ian

 

[D6356]

Lovely lamps, I bet your use of other European languages improved as gravity took hold of the lamp! I suspect we all have been there. 8 - 10 lamps quite a work load.
As a thought would the have had a ladder bar at top of post for "Fred" to climb when lighting/ installing oil lamps.- I guess gas power away in the future for Modbury. Only say this as lamps at Minffordd on the FR have the bar- a bit bent with age. It might save a bit of work to have oil lamps fixed to the fence post uprights. The expected and supplied levels of lighting much lower then than now.
Robert