The Heybridge Railway, 1889 to 1913

[Wagonman]

Axle boxes are the bane of my life so if you could suggest a source of earlier pattern ones or even a scale drawing so I could make some slip-over ones this would help me a great deal. Also I could try to trim the brake shoes if you could post a picture of what they should look like.

Here's a quick-and-dirty snap from the GWR Wagons 'Bible' – it shows the brake shoe in silhouette only. Just filing off the bottom lugs should be enough even in 0 gauge. As for the grease boxes, I know the Broad Gauge Society sells some but there is also a source on the Shapeways site – Marc Dobson 4 square axle boxes by furnessrailway on Shapeways.

 

[Wagonman]

I think I used Marc's axle boxes on this Wigan C&I wagon that is still very much work-in-progress after several years! It has received a misting of Halford's rattle can acrylic primer...

 

[Richard Gawler]

I think Shapeways is only viable nowadays if you want to buy a lot of items from them - four axleboxes will be around £24.50 including the postage. Bonkers.

I want to get hold of some Plastruct square tube, probably the 4.8 x 4.8 mm size, and see if I can make some new axleboxes. The idea would be to file down the detail on the moulded oil 'boxes and slip on the new ones. If I can do this neatly enough then I can back-date my Minerva iron mink as well as the 4-plank open.

When I posted my photos of the build in June (post no.99) I mentioned I the brake gear came off the iron mink. I have just had a look at the unused Slater's brake gear and their brake shoes have lugs at the bottom as well as the top too, so I guess "unwanted bottom lugs" might be a frequent criticism of early GWR wagon models.

I suppose, the biggest limitation to me is transfers get expensive if you are modelling a handful of foreign wagons. So I made the best job I could from the ones supplied in the kit.

 

[Wagonman]

Marc might be selling the stuff direct as I think he bought himself a printer. might be worth dropping him a line.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Here's a quick-and-dirty snap from the GWR Wagons 'Bible'

I have just realised, your photo is Plate 350 in the book 'GWR Goods Wagons' by Atkins Beard and Tourret which a mate lent to me. The wagon on the left is from 1895.

The last reference I looked at before I applied the transfers on my model was Plate 341 a few pages back. This photo appealed because the 4-plank wagon was built in 1888 (so recent enough to look newish on my railway), and I had enough transfers to put something on in the same styles of script.

I took the closed-up spacing of G.W.R because the letters came this way in one piece on the transfer sheet and I had a chance of getting them on in a straight line. At the moment, I want a good-looking layout in preference to a technically correct one, so it is better for me to have something neat if potentially wrong rather than something uneven but technically correct. I had an awful lot of goes at the running numbers

 

[Richard Gawler]

. . .

A piece of something fairly hard, half an inch thick, 6 inches long, and wide enough to be a snug fit between the wheel backs, is a useful addition to the armoury.

This post continues the contruction of my MR box van left at post no.300

I still don't have my block of something to align wheels but I have devised a way to get all four wheels of a wagon pretty much flat and very much after the work of W Heath Robinson . . .


The axle on the right is sitting in two wheel bearings secured to their axleboxes.
The brass weight is holding this axle onto the mirror tile.
The axle on the left is sitting in one fixed wheel bearing (at the back) and the second wheel bearing (front) is sitting in a blob of runny Araldite in an elongated hole in its axle box.
The chrome weight is pressing the handle of the adjustable spanner onto the axle and holding these wheels onto the mirror.

I have run out of Rapid Araldite so I used the conventional version, but c. 18 hours later I have a nicely-running wagon.
I made the hand vice during my O level metalwork.

 

[michael mott]

Interesting methodology Richard, Love the O level Metalwork hand vise, when I did my Olevel back in 61-62 3rd year at Elms Secondary Modern in Acton W3. I think we did a height gauge with some Angle, flat plate and a bit of turning for the lock nut and rod.

Michael

 

[Richard Gawler]

Interesting methodology Richard, Love the O level Metalwork hand vise, when I did my Olevel back in 61-62 3rd year at Elms Secondary Modern in Acton W3. I think we did a height gauge with some Angle, flat plate and a bit of turning for the lock nut and rod.

Michael

This is becoming quite fun - a correspondence with another member of WT has revealed we both did the same syllabus for O level metalwork: a screwdriver (with a steel handle!), a tap wrench and a hand vice. He also owned up to a marking gauge and a spirit level . . . I have feeling I missed these because the teacher thought we should make something useful for the house; I remember doing a flat repair bracket to fix a broken cupboard. You could have bought a better bracket for pennies in Woolworths (1977-78) but my Dad still seemed impressed when I gave it to him. Even though we couldn't find anything around the house to repair with it.

The hand vice was the one thing I made which turned out to be useful, I managed to get the jaws pretty well lined up. It helped me to fold some of the parts for Nellie. I added the blue paint after I left school.

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

This is becoming quite fun - a correspondence with another member of WT has revealed we both did the same syllabus for O level metalwork: a screwdriver (with a steel handle!), a tap wrench and a hand vice. He also owned up to a marking gauge and a spirit level . . . I have feeling I missed these because the teacher thought we should make something useful for the house; I remember doing a flat repair bracket to fix a broken cupboard. You could have bought a better bracket for pennies in Woolworths (1977-78) but my Dad still seemed impressed when I gave it to him. Even though we couldn't find anything around the house to repair with it.

The hand vice was the one thing I made which turned out to be useful, I managed to get the jaws pretty well lined up. It helped me to fold some of the parts for Nellie. I added the blue paint after I left school.

My day job was teaching in secondary schools I taught Technology and my students made a lot of similar artefacts. We also did forging, lathe, milling & shaping machine work, casting in sand moulds as well as most common hand tools. Technical drawing was on boards with pencil and squares although we did move into cad and cnc machining. Alas the youngsters of today have to make do with cardboard engineering though they do have much better drawing packages and get to do some 3D printed prototyping. Doesn’t quite give the thrill of making something useful out of a piece of metal though!

Ian

 

[oldravendale]

I made a screwdriver which is really useful for opening tins of paint...... That was about 1962 but I was at a grammar school so we weren't meant to do metal work. I did technical drawing as well. I remember being told by the master "It's technical drawing, Dale, not technical pushing".

Brian

 

[Richard Gawler]

I wanted to continue to do A level metalwork but it clashed with physics. Those of us who wanted to continue with metalwork in the sixth form were allowed to do the practical part of the A level on one afternoon a week instead of "sport". I made just about everything here including sand casting the wheels. The safety valve and the drive belt were Mamod parts. The model was supposed to have a canopy but I ran out of time. The firebox is tinplate, a mate got a sheet of stainless steel and made a better job of it.

 

[Tim Watson]

Interesting observations re: metal working at school. Our grammar school metalworking workshop was pretty hopeless, so I made stuff with my father in the farm’s blacksmith’s shop. However, I did make a cast aluminium-handled screwdriver at school, but it didn’t even survive opening tins of paint. More recently, my sons used my workshop for finishing their GCSE projects…

Tim

 

[Richard Gawler]

The way I remember my screwdriver, the handle was octagonal steel bar so this had to go in a four-jaw chuck. The blade was silver steel, we filed a flat on one side to let the gases escape whilst brazing this into a hole bored into the handle. The tip was simply filed down each side, not flared outwards, then hardened and tempered. The construction covered a fair number of techniques but the result was extremely uncomfortable to use.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Thanks everyone for sharing the memories of school metalwork. My traction engine is now 42 years old . . . what I ought to do is to try running it on compressed air. I know I pressure tested the boiler with water to c.150psi (three times working pressure) but that was in the spring of 1980.

Returning to the Three Aitch van . . .


The kit was designed for broader wheels so the brake gear is now a little inboard of its intended location, and I put a scrap of wire as a linkage to replace the rather chunky moulding.


I have decided to arrange one door to move and one door to be fixed shut because this makes doing an interior a lot easier - you can't see one interior wall and two of the internal corners.

The bottom door guide is the shallow U shape from the kit reinforced with styrene underneath. I know this is a going to be a little toylike, but the top runner is well overscale too but doesn't look so bad. At the end of th day, I am making the Three Aitch model - I can improve some details but if I change too much I might wonder why I didn't built the Slaters kit instead.

The fit of the parts is very varied. The line of pale green above the door is Milliput filling a huge gap, while the corners of the four sides are fitting together perfectly.

I have finally realised, Slaters "short MR buffers" are the ones they supply with their Chas Roberts PO wagons. I have taken the ones from their wagon underframe kit. This kit has now donated its wheels, couplings and buffers to other models, I fear its scratchbuilt body will never happen. All of the period photos show the buffer stocks to have round bases. I have kept the rectangular bases moulded onto the headstocks, again this is trying to keep this as the Three Aitch model of the van.

I have now used up all of the moulded parts in the kit, and the model is a patchwork quilt of filler and extra styrene. Conspicuous by its absence is the roof, I will have a go with styrene or maybe some thin card. I want to make it detachable.

 

[Phil O]

The official testing of boilers is double the working pressure to 90 psi and from there to 180 psi add 90 psi and above 180 psi one and half times working pressure and hold the pressure for 20 minutes, although that time period may be a MOD requirement. There are variations for testing superheaters and economisers as separate entities.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I have lined the one side and the two ends of the body with some laser-cut plywood from Poppys Woodtech. The planks are broader than the ones on the outside but the overall effect seems ok to me.

The plywood parts were intended for an open wagon so I made quite a lot of joins. The only one I can see in the photo is at the top of the end and this is invisible viewed through the open doorway.

The colouring on the ply is some Tamiya acrylic thinned into a wash. I had expected to get a darker colour but somehow what I have ended up with seems about right. The main thing is, it looks like unpainted wood.


The roof turned out better and easier than I had feared, but it isn't detachable. I don't think it needs to be.

The former for the curve was a 100g tin for Kenco coffee. I used masking tape and Sellotape to hold the piece onto the tin - the masking tape was a good idea, the Sellotape left a residue of glue which took some effort to clean up. This assembly went into near-boiling water for 4 minutes then cold water for about 10 minutes.

I have had a few goes at forming styrene into a curve in the past and I usually ended up with wavy edges. This time they came out almost straight and the solvent holding them onto the body has left them completely straight. I think the trick is to tape down the entire surface of the styrene. The periods of 4 and 10 minutes are completely unscientific but seemed to work.

 

[Richard Gawler]

This is simply a photo for the record before I get out the Halfords primer. The blotchiness on the body is where I have brushed on solvent hoping this will condition the surface to be better for painting.

 

[simond]

View attachment 169846
I have lined the one side and the two ends of the body with some laser-cut plywood from Poppys Woodtech. The planks are broader than the ones on the outside but the overall effect seems ok to me.

The plywood parts were intended for an open wagon so I made quite a lot of joins. The only one I can see in the photo is at the top of the end and this is invisible viewed through the open doorway.

The colouring on the ply is some Tamiya acrylic thinned into a wash. I had expected to get a darker colour but somehow what I have ended up with seems about right. The main thing is, it looks like unpainted wood.


View attachment 169847 The roof turned out better and easier than I had feared, but it isn't detachable. I don't think it needs to be.

The former for the curve was a 100g tin for Kenco coffee. I used masking tape and Sellotape to hold the piece onto the tin - the masking tape was a good idea, the Sellotape left a residue of glue which took some effort to clean up. This assembly went into near-boiling water for 4 minutes then cold water for about 10 minutes.

I have had a few goes at forming styrene into a curve in the past and I usually ended up with wavy edges. This time they came out almost straight and the solvent holding them onto the body has left them completely straight. I think the trick is to tape down the entire surface of the styrene. The periods of 4 and 10 minutes are completely unscientific but seemed to work.

I use a tin that used to contain a bottle of French Brandy. I secure the plasticard to it with an old pair of MrsD’s tights, which stretch over the ensemble and are doubled or trebled in layers as required, boiling water over the outside and fill the tin, wait a couple of minutes, empty & refill with cold, et voila. And when dry, the tights go in the tin til next time.

The tin is long enough to do a small coach, but of course is only a single curve. The tin has a convenient seam along which to align the edge of the roof, thus avoiding an annoying spiral.

Worth keeping an eye out for something suitable in the Christmas supermarket drinks aisles

 

[Richard Gawler]

I use a tin that used to contain a bottle of French Brandy. I secure the plasticard to it with an old pair of MrsD’s tights, which stretch over the ensemble and are doubled or trebled in layers as required, boiling water over the outside and fill the tin, wait a couple of minutes, empty & refill with cold, et voila. And when dry, the tights go in the tin til next time.

The tin is long enough to do a small coach, but of course is only a single curve. The tin has a convenient seam along which to align the edge of the roof, thus avoiding an annoying spiral.

Worth keeping an eye out for something suitable in the Christmas supermarket drinks aisles

I work in a charity shop. We don't sell spirits (pity) but we do get the empty tins from bottles of single malt. Sometimes there are jigsaw puzzles which come in cylindrical tins too. I will keep a look out.

I do like the idea of the tights with multiple layers as needed, I can see myself re-doing the roof on my break van.

 

[simond]

I suppose the ideal scenario would be to convince the makers of something suitable to create their next tin so a proper three-arc roof can be made by the same technique!