Simon's workbench

Simon

Flying Squad
The Gloucester bogies for the second short bolster are down at the club and should be finished on Monday night, but in the meantime I have been getting the body ready, it is lettered and is part way to being finished in the paintwork department.

The bogies placed underneath the second bolster are being dirtied up for service under the Borail which is also down at the club.

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simond

Western Thunderer
Simon,

Might I suggest a little lily-guilding on the bolsters? Closing up, or soldering, the coupling links?

(My own efforts also suffer from this!)

Best
Simon
 

Simon

Flying Squad
You are right Simon, and I do this on all my own models, I fill with solder because the steel links are astonishingly strong and resistant to bending.

This wagon and its brethren (being critical) also have incorrect buffers, no rivets, no securing loops etc, and the couplings on the Es should be screw type, all a bit of a sketch. But there are seven of the things out on the line, all scratch built by my friend Dave Easto.

I said I'd show him how to build a "proper" bolster wagon one day (see above) and I still haven't finished it......

All that said, I might have got rid of the gaps, but they didn't enter my consciousness when I was "at it", and the moment has now passed!

As the incomparable Bill Smarme used to sing - there is nothing like a Dave....


Simon
 

Simon

Flying Squad
The Borail now sports working buffers, the original SR pattern and the result of a lot of work on some extensively execrable products from "Just The Ticket" - frankly I don't know how the bloke had the nerve to take any money for them:rolleyes:

Also, hard to see, the cast bolsters are all in place, still left to do are fitting the couplings, quite a lot of rivets and some funny brackety things that go down the bodysides. I couldn't get these to cast properly. The stanchion pockets were by contrast moderately impressive bits of casting if I say so myself...

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So when finished, this will be the eighth bogie bolster on the line.

Simon
 

Simon

Flying Squad
Apart from stanchions, the Borail is now completed. Here is a cruel enlargement of the dodgy makers plate and label clip, the wagon also sports the missing rivets from the ends and even dubious looking brake rigging, which will happily be mostly hidden in the shadows. Might attempt some paint tomorrow...

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Simon

Flying Squad
Well it would have been much better to have sprayed it in red primer, but I had run out. So after two passes with paintbrushes, here it is this morning. A bit irritatingly gloss in places but getting there, it is a huge thing to paint..... Maybe a candidate for weathering powders given the large areas of chequer plate, what it could really do with is a load...

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Simon

Flying Squad
Now lettered, a right mix of sources, very few of which are "right" but I think it will do, the number is definitely better done on one side than the other....

And sprayed with matt(ish) varnish, which has pulled it all together. Stanchions and more weathering toning in/down/up still to do, but it is pretty much there now. I need to make it a box, it is huge and the securing ring mountings are very vulnerable to damage, being only plastikard. If I were doing it again I'd have used brass tube with a rod soldered to its blind side, inserted through the solebar side. It would have been a much better job and if I get many problems I may well replace any failures in that way rather than re-gluing the plastic ones.

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Simon
 

Simon

Flying Squad
Two plus years later and lots of wagons put into shoe boxes..

Since last seen here, the Hudswell railcar has acquired representations of the opening windows, in answer to Tony's enquiry on Adrian's thread, and it remains on the "I really ought to get on with it" list.

As I am now embarking on a new garden line, things will hopefully get moving, the new scheme is every bit as daft as the last one, but in several completely different directions, including a potential light railwayesque section, maybe.

I have done a few things in the meantime, first off I started back on the Slaters milk tank of Cynric's that I bought from Liz all those years ago. This included making a pattern for and casting in resin some roller bearings, I am aiming for a vibrant "St Ivel" tank in due course, using the lovely brass tank that Cynric so skilfully rolled.

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I have also started another brake van(!), this being the Toad E, several of which were in the West Country in the early diesel era, including on the Wenford Bridge line. This is scratchbuilt, working out from two brake van buckets from the Northern Finescale BR brake van kit, kindly supplied by Chris Arundel to my friend Andrew Vines when he bought one of a further batch of the kit fairly recently.

This is now on its wheels and requiring handrails, footboards and brake gear to finish before painting. It will be perfect for the likely new line and of course all of those brake van specials that the Plymouth Railway Circle would have been running...

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Pieces cut out and scribed.

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Built up, van chassis from Slaters milk tank spare sprue, underchassis from Triang, Christmas 1969.

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Roof formed, the usual old shirt (a different one, old one used up) stretched over metal sheet secured with SBR, the lovely ventilators were 3D printed for me by the sadly late Dave Finney, as an "off shoot" of doing 4mm scale versions for the stock his brother Martin's "Semley" layout.

The chassis uses home fretted W irons soldered to two pieces of brass section as below, which is quite a sturdy arrangement.

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In the meantime I have mostly been building a new shed which will contain the lathe and a fiddle siding for the new line at a high level. The idea is that it should also resemble a small signal box. This has been quite a project one way and another, but all of the hardest bits are now done.

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As you can see, the new garden is quite a different proposition to the last one(!)

Well that's about it, I'm off out to the garden now to do more "enabling works"...

Simon
 

Osgood

Western Thunderer
Shed - or signalbox? The slate-style roof lifts a simple garden shed into a different architectural category!
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Yes, it is good to see you back here on WT and you still have time to finish the 121 before either the Dapol or Heljan versions appear:)):)):)):thumbs:

kind regards

Mike
 
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