Yorky D's SECR dropside - Rollout - 4 groovy planks man

[Yorkshire Dave]

This is an O scale mixed media kit from the Furness Railway Wagon Co. comprising of...

Resin body, whitemetal running gear and brass strapping - not quite an Athearn 'shake the box' kit but nearly.

The items to the left of the brass wire are the kit contents and to the right the additional items - wheels, CPL couplers and a compensation unit. The moulding is reasonable and provides a starting point for me as I intend finishing it in a well used and weather beaten state.



I've already started on the body by bathing it in hot water to soften the resin in order to bow the sides outwards.

In addition to taking the odd lump out of the wood to give it some wear and tear.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The first stages of underpainting (Vallejo acrylics again) to try and recreate the light grey of weathered wood. There will be a few more layers yet before the final coat, strapping and decals are applied.

 

[AJC]

What a horrible-looking casting. Is the texture how it came because it looks very heavy and quite unlike any wagon I've ever seen actually in service though in scale it's close to the remains of some Port of Bristol vehicles I've seen in open store for 30 years. The cross grain gouging in particular looks incredibly unlikely, at least to my eye. I'd have the filler out (or start again in sheet) because it looks overdone - but that's my tuppence worth.

Adam

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The cross grain gouging in particular looks incredibly unlikely

Confirms what I thought when painting this. So...

 

[Overseer]

Very dramatic. Are the other bits good enough to make it worth while scratch building a new body in styrene or wood?

 

[Spitfire2865]

Am I the only one who thought it looked good?

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

I have only built one wagon from a Furness kit, GNOSR cattle van. I would have been quicker and more satisfying to scratch build. As it was a lot did need considerable work and scratchbuilding to be acceptable. I will not be buying any more even though they have vehicles I would like in their list.

Ian.

 

[Neil]

Am I the only one who thought it looked good?

No, I thought it showed promise too.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Are the other bits good enough to make it worth while scratch building a new body in styrene or wood?

The remaining parts W irons etc still remain.

Am I the only one who thought it looked good?

No, I thought it showed promise too.

It started off okay but I had my doubts, which Adam confirmed, whilst I was painting the original casting.

I will not be buying any more even though they have vehicles I would like in their list.

Yes, there are some nice vehicles in their range and I think I'll take a similar route after this experience. However

All is not lost, as fortunately, I have a drawing of this particular wagon and have ordered some wood to have a go at scratch building the body. The chassis will be built from styrene.

 

[Mike W]

Most resin kits I come across either have a professionally cast one-piece body which is highly detailed and makes assembly dead easy ... or a home made body in several parts which means it is cheap. This is different because it looks like a one piece except that the floor is separate and all the strapping is separate. I've never seen these kits in the flesh, so is my assumption there correct and any idea why the body details are not cast-in?

Mike

 

[Michael Osborne]

I have made 14 or 15 masters for resin wagon kits going back 20 years and like Mike W I have not seen a resin wagon kit with separate iron work for the body. Why has the solebars got detail on but not the body sides ? I will not be critical because someone does something different to the way I would approach things but it does seem a lost opportunity not to incorporate all the body details instead going to the trouble of having a separate etch.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Well, well, well..... this wagon build is going to be a bit of an experiment and somewhat unconventional.....

Some wood arrived over the weekend, ..............actually 0.5 x 50 x 2000mm of iron-on birch facing. I hear you cry.

Outer face.


Inner face with adhesive.


I started by cutting two short lengths and ironing the two together. When first ironed it is quite pliable but soon sets rigid.


After sanding the wagon planking for the sides and ends were drawn with a 5H pencil.



After drawing the planks on both sides of the sheet a dilute black ink was washed over them. Once dry the sides and ends were cut out


A cruel close up - there's some finishing yet to be done prior to masking and painting.

And picked up two sets of these at York show on Saturday for future wagon and van builds if this experiment is successful.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

These are the effects I'm after . The wagon strapping hasn't been painted yet.

End


Side

A cruel close up......

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The method was to place random drops of copydex onto the raw wood and then painted grey. Once dry I rubbed the surface with my finger to remove the copydex and reveal the paint chipped patches.

This was then given another wash of diluted black ink and again once dry I lightly drybrushed a chalky white over the side. The strapping was applied followed by the decals.

Once the decals had set I pressed these as hard as I could to try and get into the grain. The letters were gently rubbed with a fibre glass brush to reduce their intensity and chipped in places where these were over the raw wood.

Another wash of dilute black ink was applied.

Now for the remaining side and two ends.......

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Here is the side again after painting the ironwork and a little bit more work.

Inside

Outside

 

[AJC]

Oooh, I like that a lot. Nice work Dave!

Adam

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Oooh, I like that a lot. Nice work Dave!

Thanks Adam.

I've done some more work on the ends....


Started the chassis from Evergreen styrene....

And finished t'other side. Here, after removing parts of the S E C R lettering, I attempted a ghost effect with a dilute chalk white paint which is more apparent in the final photo. The bottom wide plank is where the scrawker decided to follow the grain. Rather than start again I decided to leave it to represent a split plank


And finally the pair of sides. The ghost lettering is one of the effects I'm after.

 

[Spitfire2865]

Looking good.
Thats something certainly seldom modelled. Plus, the split happens to cross 3 bolts, exactly where it would have split.
Ive got one plank that naturally split on one of my G3 builds and when I discovered it I was horrified. Then I had a think and its pretty accurate if the piece of wood wasnt well seasoned before use.
The ghosted lettering is very good as well.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Been faffing around with this again.....

Adding the ironwork to the chassis. This was made from styrene and I'll be using archer rivet decals to represent the bolt heads.


Made up and finished the floor. I also bashed this around a bit with the sharp corner of a small engineers square and some wire to give it a worn look.


Finished the ends.


This is what it should look like.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Nearly there......

The body has been mated to the chassis and the W irons and brake gear from the original kit installed in the mistaken belief I had the odd external V hangers and etched brass brake levers in my spares box (well at least on the last inspection).... Ha ha.... I was mistaken and now have to source these to finish the wagon together with the chain and links used to keep the dropside locked in traffic.

In the meantime some photos.....



Interior.

End.

Interior again.

After the Valhalla this has been quite fun to build and I'm now tempted to build a LCDR and a LBSCR half round open wagon using the same techniques as I have drawings for these.

The research has been enlightening as there was no standard wheelbase. Although this SECR wagon has a 9' wheelbase the LCDR wagons I'm looking to build vary between 9', 9' 3'' and 9' 8''.....