7mm Rob's Rolling Stock Workbench

[Rob Pulham]

I had another wagon fest for Christmas this year, one of which is a Gladiator NER/LNER Ironstone Hopper kit.

I was pleasantly surprised when having a peek at the kit contents to find that it's one designed by our very own John Dale (or at least the etches say copyright John M Dale so I am guessing that it is.

 

[Rob Pulham]

A session yesterday morning saw the last of the transfers on the Avery Tool van and some glazing installed - I used microscope slides for this - one slide cut in half did one side.









Lastly a not very successful attempt to show the glazing in place.

 

[Rob Pulham]

While I had the paint on the go I decided to see what I could with these:





They are Skytrex resin that I picked up from their bits and pieces bin for £1 per strip, I do wish that I had bought more now because they don't seem to have them on their site.

I am quite pleased with how they have turned out - they were photographed in this morning's bright sunshine but they are quite subtle in reality.

 

[Rob Pulham]

I have been inspired by some of the conversions of Parkside kits to other diagrams being carried out by Jim Snowdon on RMweb and the Guild forum. At Telford this year I swapped some Parkside GWR kits for some Slaters MR kits. Two of them being for the 8 ton van.

While up north over the New Year I had a look through the Essery book on Midland Wagons and although there isn't a photo to go on I decided to have a go at a conversion to a sliding roof door version.

By good fortune the spares box yielded a couple of spare roof struts for LNER cattle wagons which saved me having to mess about curving the guides for the door although I did have to curve a piece of sheet for the door itself - this I did by rubbing the curved end of a Swan Morton knife handle across it.

The kit itself is one of the quite old (in small grey box) versions that had buffer shanks moulded into the ends. This actually means that the mouldings themselves are very crisp when compared to the second kit which is in a new red box. The 'castings' for the door furniture are moulded plastic too but to be honest they are equal to the brass castings that I have for the second kit.

I managed to get a coat of primer on it this morning so here it is.







I have left the roof loose until I finish painting the inside.

 

[Rob Pulham]

The Midland van has now been through the paint shop, I have weathered it using the many photos in Essery's Midland wagons book (vol 1).

Looking at them, almost all the photos in pre 1937 livery show that they got pretty grubby in service. I just need to make up and blacken the couplings and it's finished.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Amongst my Telford swaps was a Slaters Kit for a Midland 4 wheeled brake van. I made up the basic model a few weeks ago but I didn't have any rod to hand for the many handrails that these vans were festooned with. So a bit of forward planning at the weekend saw me take some up north with me just in case the mood took me to fit them.

I managed to not only fit the hand rails I added further details from plasticard



The very prominent brake column and crank plus the tablet racks - these were in the spares box from an earlier build of the 6 wheeled van but I had to chop them up and add some micro strip to make them match the photo a bit better.





I added some missing parts to the end brackets which were also missing.





And heaven forbid I have become a rivet counter.......



Next I added a representation of the brake gear - it will be dark down there once it's covered in gunge.



And finally I added the blanked off panel that is visible on the open end of some vans.

My recent successes with plasticard have given me a bit more confidence to have a go at scratch building a whole wagon in plastic at some point.

 

[Rob Pulham]

A pleasant surprise when checking my remaining leave - 10 days left when I thought that I had only 2 meant that I took three days leave this week. We took a chance and went up to Bishop Auckland for a few days and having had a nice trip out on Wednesday morning we got back at lunchtime and within 10 minutes of getting in the house a blizzard started that left us with upwards of 4" of snow by Thursday morning. It was very pleasant to sit at the bech and do some modelling while the weather did it's worst outside.

First up I put the transfers on the Midland 10 ton Brake van using one of the two photo's in Essery's Midland wagons tomes.





Next up is glazing and then weathering - this will be another that is well towards the end of it's life.....

 

[Rob Pulham]

This kit (Slaters LMS 7 Plank Loco coal wagon) was another of my swaps with a gent at Telford. It was one of the older kits in the grey narrow boxes and when I got it home and had a look the brass etches were missing (compensated W Irons/brake levers etc.) By pure chance a meet up with Graham Beare (of this parish) on the Saturday evening saw me presented with an Exactoscale underframe to try under his cattle wagons that I am building (very slowly). It wasn't suitable for the cattle wagons it being either too deep or not deep enough, I can't remember now. Graham being the kind soul that he is told me to keep it anyway in case it came in for something else and it did immediately.

Having rather enjoyed the bit's of details that I added to the brake van I decided to attempt to add the interior details that Slaters don't include in the the kits. There is only one photo of these wagons in the Essery's LMS Wagons volume 1 which is photographed at the end of it's life when condemned. That said the text does refer the reader to wagons of similar diagrams which looked the same externally. One of these is a photo of a wagon involved in an accident which by good fortune gives a view of the strapping inside.

I started by using an Olfa compass cutter to measure and mark out where the planking lines were on the inside. Once marked these were deepened using an Olfa cutter to cut the grooves proper.

Then a few happy hours were spent cutting and drilling various strips of plastikard and gluing them to the wagon sides and ends before assembly. Once they were glued to the insides I drilled through into the wagon side and then inserted short lengths of plastic rod and allowed them to dry thoroughly before sanding them back to stubs.







Flushed with the success of this I then decided to add the steel strip around the top of the wagon using a similar technique but on the top I cut the plastic rod of flush to give the impression of a countersunk screw. To this I then added the capping retaining clips seen on wagons - I again once glued in place I drilled the wagon sides and inserted short lengths of plastic rod before finally assembling the sides and ends.

 

[john lewsey]

Fantastic Rob lovely work

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks John

I forgot to add that I hadn't taken any filler along with me so I mixed some talc with super glue to fill in the casting marks which show as white circles on the inside - a tip that I picked up here (it might have been one of Steve Cook's?)

 

[john lewsey]

The whole page is great Rob lovely models

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks again John.

The final installment of the build of this wagon. The underframe details are a bit Heinz 57

The W Irons and V hangers are Exactoscale

The Axle boxes and Brake levers are Parkside

The brakes, guards and lever guard are from the kit.

The door banger is scrap etch from Parkside couplings

The extension timbers and bottom door levers are MMP detailing kit.









I also added some representations of the bottom doors to the underside to cover the exposed Exactoscale underframe - not that you can see it in the photos or when it's on it wheels.....

 

[Steve Cook]

I forgot to add that I hadn't taken any filler along with me so I mixed some talc with super glue to fill in the casting marks which show as white circles on the inside - a tip that I picked up here (it might have been one of Steve Cook's?)

Thats a Rushby trick that one Rob
Nice job on the seven planker
Steve

 

[farnetti]

Lovely to see the side and end capping with brackets and the chains for the bottom doors, not usually modelled.

Ken

 

[iak63]

Seriously tasty ROB!
The strapping is top drawer stuff.

 

[Ressaldar]

You're really beginning to enjoy this modelling lark Rob, please keep the postings coming.

cheers

Mike

 

[Rob Pulham]

The next kit across the bench was one of my Christmas pressies (well you have to don't you)
Along the way I picked up a new technique along the way that helped tremendously on this one with the overlays and I thought it worth sharing.

First I would like to offer my thanks to Geoff Stratford of Gladiator for sending me some more end stanchions after I melted one. Such customer service will be missed in your well earned retirement Geoff!

I planned from the outset to glue the etched overlays onto the cast frames on the sides but as I was tinning the various body sections to allow me to add the cast parts with 70 degree solder and subsequently melting one of the end stanchions I started to think ahead to the bits that I might struggle with later - in terms of either melting them or bit's dropping off.

I decided to try tinning the overlays with 145 degree and then tinning them again with 70 degree over the top of the 145. I then placed the overlay on the cast frame applied some flux and ran my lower temp iron down the side of the overlay and hey presto it was stuck fast.

I even used the same process on the corner brackets on the bras to brass bit's where they covered the cast frames.











In terms of the kit itself I made it up as per the instructions with the only deviations in the form of adding a brass floor and a couple of 14ba nuts on the outsides of the brake levers where they attach to the V hangers.

I also made the roof removable to aid painting.

 

[john lewsey]

I like that

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks John,
What I completely forgot to add is that it's an LNWR Beer Van it's a super kit and and another that originated with George Dawson of Majestic models.

 

[Rob Pulham]

I couldn't resist a couple of shots of the latest three vans together.