Getting A Handle On It

The latest superbarn saloon is inching closer to completion.

Himself has added the grab rails onto the ends of 120.

He hates these with a passion - and I don't blame him.

They're very fiddly to fabricate out of brass wir.

The carriage body has been given a coat of varnish so all that's needed now is to install the glazing, and the door handles, and it's ready to join the fleet.

Just Varnishing To Go

Himself has had another busy week.

As well as lining out 143 (more on that to come soon..) he's putting the finishing touches to superbarn 120 with the application of the crests and the word Third on the doors.

I never cease to be impressed with how good the crests produced by Precision Decals are.

All it needs to be finished is a coat of varnish, but that will have to wait until the weather warms up a bit because spray painting inside the main part of the house is frowned upon.

Ready To Paint

The last of the superbarns is ready to get a coat of primer.

This is our model of 120, made the same as the rest of the fleet from a resin cast body with a styrene chassis and a brass roof, plus various other details in wire such as the handrails (not fitted in this view) and the gutter downpipes.

When I say 'the last' what I mean is that we've finally caught up with the prodigious output from Boston Lodge and our FR carriage fleet will be up to date when we've got this out outshopped.

Brass Roofs

Himself is doing that thing he often does where he's progressing multiple projects at the same time.

As well as preparing 143 for painting and assembling the body of bowsider 20, he's also got around to cutting and bending the brass roofs for a couple of superbarns I built last year.

Nearest the camera is the latest observation car, 152, which is quite a complex job.

As well as making the sure the front edge of the roof followings the curvy profile of the carriage body he's also going to solder in the two window pillars made from brass, create a lip along the underside which will keep the top rail of the sides nice and straight and also add some depth to the underside to represent the ornate ceiling on these latest luxury carriages.

Phew!

The one behind is rather more straightforward.

It's 120, the latest of the second series of third class saloons.

Most of the other details have been completed on this carriage, such as the interior and under floor detail.

Once the roof is fixed in place he'll be adding the finishing touches like the vac pipes and the handrails either side of the entrance doors before moving on to paint it.

152 will be heading back in my direction for the fitting of its exceptionally posh interior, the parts of which are already cast in resin.

Review Of The Year - Part 4

October

So to the final post of the year.

Dduallt was making yet another comeback, appearing at our home club's exhibition over two days in Greenock, and there will be more outings in 2019.

Himself hadn't wasted any time in getting started on the first of the new Garratt kits, which we decided would be 143.

He was making very rapid progress on the power units - here's the front one.

We were also taking apart our eldest Backwoods Fairlie, Merddin Emrys, to try and get to the bottom of its very poor performance.

It turned out that what it needed was new brushes for its Mashima motor.

Fortunately these could be fitted by twisting the motor round in the mounting, because it's impossible to remove it without deconstructing a lot of the locomotive.

November

I was making more progress on superbarn 120 which was having its underframe detail added by this stage.

Himself was adding the valve gear to the first of the Garratt bogies, which was being test run.

I had taken on the job of making up some wagon kits as repeat business for a customer.

December

Progress on 143 had got the point where both power units had their vale gear fitted and much of the detail was in place on the boiler unit as well.

As I write it has yet to be joined together or pick-ups fitted, so there's be no test running so far.

The ballast wagons and B wagons were completed and delivered to the customer ready in time for Christmas, even though there was no deadline on the contract.

Thanks to you for reading the blog in 2018 and all our best wishes for 2019.

Review Of The Year - Part 3

July

And so to the second half of 2018 where there was much excitement at the arrival of our first ready-to-run model, the Bachmann 590 Baldwin.

I've never made any secret of my enthusiasm for the mainstream manufacturers discovering 009.

The intensity of the debate online around this has been second only to Brexit, but unlike the latter subject I can see only positives in this development for our scale.

I'm hugely excited about the next project in the pipeline, the small quarry Hunslets (especially the cab-less versions) and for what this innovative firm might decide to do next.

In this month I began work on a project which had been on the back burner for a while, to make models of the hybrid BZ wagons made at Boston Lodge for infrastructure trains on the FR.

I decided to make masters and cast them in resin, even though only two have been produced so far and they are far from identical.

July was also the month where, quite by chance, I discovered that the last two Backwoods NGG16 kits produced were available to buy.

We had to dig deep to avert the possibility of them being offered for sale in an online auction, but we'd been looking for a number of years for the opportunity to complete our Garratt fleet and it was too good an opportunity to miss.

August

The first of the BZ wagons had been cast and was being put together.

The fold-flat end doors are a right pain because I had to scratch build the triangular support brackets in styrene, which was a very fiddly job.

Himself had been putting together a Chivers kit of a tiny Hunslet diesel to replace our model of Harold, the Boston Lodge shunter, which had been stolen when we were exhibiting Dduallt in Leeds a number of years ago.

And to have a bit of fun for when we took Bron Hebog to show at the Welsh Highland 'Super Power' weekend I decided to add a very contemporary scenic feature - a reminder of the day when a driver tried his luck racing a Garratt to Bron Hebog crossing - and the Garratt won!

September

Himself had taken an executive decision to invest in panoramic photographic backscenes for the show at Dinas.

The result was very effective indeed!

We had a fabulous time - as we always do - showing Bron Hebog in the goods shed, this time in its finished state.

The Lynton and Barnstaple Baldwin Lyn was the star attraction on the railway and Himself pulled out the stops to get the Backwoods kit we had been given running.

Once again we couldn't resist being cheeky and double-heading it with Lyd knowing that the real locomotives were not being allowed anywhere near each other that weekend.

Back home the production line of superbarns continued with a start being made on assembling number 120.

Review Of The Year - Part 2

April

By this point my Bro Madog kit-bash had got to the point where the body had been assembled and was ready to be primed.

The main change to the carriage was creating the toplight windows by cutting out solid plastic and inserting new pillars and a top rail.

I was pleased that you really couldn't see the join.

Himself was tackling the biggest outstanding scenery job which was lining the walls of Cutting Mawr.

Some of it was done with genuine pieces of Welsh rock, although most were copies I'd cast in resin.

He also set about fitting a basic backscene to hide the goings-on in the fiddle yards from view.

May

I had started work on a second WHHR vehicle for a new rake, and again it involved a kit bash.

The ex-VoR brake van has changed a lot from the version with matchboard sides which is made by Dundas.

What I decided on was using the chassis and the very bottom section of the body (showing the frames) and making the rest out of styrene.

It was coming along well.

Himself had done a quite remarkable job with the gold leaf lining on a second vintage carriage - this time number 15.

And I was busy starting work on yet along superbarn, this time casting the parts for what would become 120.

June

This was a very big month for us as we took Bron Hebog out on the road for the first time in a couple of years - and what a road trip it was, all the way to Norfolk for a one day show!

The Dad's Army section of the museum building is certainly up there as one of the more unusual venues we've exhibited at, but they looked after us very well indeed all weekend.

It'd got the WHHR brake van ready to the point where it had been painted in BR blue, just like the real one, to wind everyone up.

Unfortunately I had yet to get my hands on some of the famous double arrow transfers to complete the look.

We'd had a few issues with track alignments during the show. It was nothing major but it's still and irritation when you're exhibiting, so Himself decided to invest in some additional  measures after we'd returned home.

These precision engineering dowels don't come cheap, but hopefully it will be money well spent.

Fixtures And Fittings

It can be a bit of a bore casting lots of repeat parts like tables and chairs, but it doesn't half make it quicker when you come to fit them.

In the space of half an hour the latest superbarn, 120, had its full interior in place.

The only bits left to make are the tip up single seat at one end and the half glazed partitions at the vestibules.

Then I'll be handing it over to Himself where it will join the queue of carriages waiting for brass roofs.

Filling In The Boxes

I've had another productive session on 120.

All the various bits which I include on the underframes of the superbarns have been added.

The big box on the right hand side is the diesel-fuel heater and the smaller box opposite it is the fuel tank.

Himself will add the vacuum brake pipe which runs all along the side of the underframe when I hand it over to him to fit the brass roof.

The next thing I'll be doing is turning it over and gluing in all the seat and table sets which I've already cast in resin.

The Tricky Bit

I bit the bullet and got on with my least favourite part of a carriage build yesterday - adding the truss rods.

I've never been as comfortable working with brass as I am with styrene and having to bend angles doesn't help matters.

I find I have to mark the shape out on paper first as a template to measure it against, and even then it takes many attempts to get it right with the angle either too much or too little until eventually I get it right.

This time is was relatively painless and now I can get on with adding all the boxes and things which also hang underneath the carriage.

Skirting The Issue

Spending a hour at the workbench feels like a bit of an achievement after rather too long away.

I've fitted the skirt around the bottom of the chassis of 120.

Of course it's not really a skirt in real life, it's the big, solid underframe that the body sits on, but that's all part of the illusion of making a model.

This is a lot easier if you get exactly the right size of styrene strip to begin with, which is what I've done in this case.

On previous carriages in the series I've run out of this stuff and had to cut long pieces from a big sheet.

Not only do you have to ensure that they are completely straight and the same width all along, but I've also found that when you make the cut it leaves a slight angle on the edges so that when you glue it in place it sometimes develops a lean inwards or outwards.

Using the proper stuff generally avoids this issue and saves a lot of hassle, although with the price of a packet of strips now hitting £6 it's getting quite pricey.

I found a very old, empty packet at the bottom of my stash last night - probably dating back around 25 years - and it still had a price label on it showing less than £1.50.

A 300% percent increase!

I wonder how this compares to overall cost of living over that period?

Copy Cat

I'm afraid to say I've had one of those periods where not a lot has moved on the project on my workbench - Superbarn 120.

My intention is to start work on the underside of the chassis first and to remind myself what needs to go under there and where I've borrowed one of the fleet of other Superbarn carriages as a guide.

Hopefully its presence might spur me into action.

Eking Out

I blogged a couple of days ago about how I was down to the dregs of my current stock of resin - well, at least one of the two liquid components - so I needed to be very sparing in how I used it.

The good news is that I've managed to cast enough sets of seat and table bases for the interior of superbarn 120.

I've also been able to cast a few more side pieces for our own design of the standard modern FR carriage bogie, which Himself has been pestering me for.

The few drops I have left I'll be using up over the next couple of days casting a few more seats for a friend who's asked very nicely.

I've no idea why he wants them, because to the best of my knowledge he doesn't have a superbarn or an observation car to put them in, but I shall endeavour to do as I am requested.

Because I'm nice like that.

Rationing

My supplies of resin are dwindling after casting another run of a dozen SAR wagon kits for sale through Narrow Planet and I'm going to have to prioritise what I use the last few millilitres for.

I think the best thing to use it for just now is to make up a set of seats and tables for superbarn 120 which is midway through construction.

These could be scratch built, of course, but that's very boring.

Before that I think it would be wise to make up a fresh mould as the old one was beginning to stretch ever so slightly.

The units were designed to fit exactly between the window pillars but on the last carriage I built they needed a little bit of filing so that each one lined up exactly.

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for a good supplier of reasonably small amounts of suitable fast cure resin please so let me know.

Super Duper Barn

I did get some modelling done in the days before we left for Wales, in fact there was quite a burst of activity on my latest superbarn 120.

In the last post about the carriage I had just begun the process of cleaning the flash from the windows, and I managed to get that completed, made up the corridor connections out of styrene (a fiddly job I'm not fond of) and glued them together into a basic bodyshell.

Once that's done, and in order to protect the rather fragile superglue-on-resin joints, I try to make up the floor and false roof so that they can help to keep the carriage square and stop it flexing about too much.

Incidentally, while I was in Wales for Superpower I learnt a new nickname for these carriages which amused me.

The first three were designed with regular droplight windows in the middle of each bay of seats, in line with the tables.

They became known as 'Super Barns' in a nod to the original series of Centenary carriages build in the 1960s.

The most recent four carriages have been revised with much larger windows with hopper windows set into the toplights, which a friend referred to as 'Super-Duper Barns'

I rather like that.

The official name for them, I should point out, is Super Saloons - but I've never heard anyone call them that in conversation and I'm not about to start here.

Falling Behind

I've let Boston Lodge get ahead of me in the carriage-building stakes again and this autumn I shall have to play catch-up.

I've had these castings for super barn (sorry, super saloon) 120, set aside for quite a few months but the motivation to put it together was lacking whilst all the while the real carriage was commissioned and put into service.

It's a terrible thing to say but sometimes you can get a little bored (just a tiny wee bit) of making similar models - even if the carriage works crew are always keeping me on my toes with their sneaky alterations to the design.

By my reckoning this will be the seventh super barn saloon I've built, and the fourth of the revised design with the big windows, so you can maybe understand why the novelty has worn off.

However, there's nothing else for it, I need to man up and get on with it, so I retrieved the castings from the photo album where they've been safely squashed all this time, and begun the process of cleaning up the flash from the casting process.

I got the first one done and then, as they used to say on kids summer holiday telly when I was young, I went off and did something less boring instead.....

Killing Time

I had a odd situation this week where I had an evening with an opportunity to spend a couple of hours doing modelling, but no obvious project to be getting on with.

This is most unusual.

If my Vale of Rheidol van kit had arrived I would have made a start on the BR blue WHHR van, but it hadn't, so I couldn't.

So instead I decided the best way to make use of the time was to get ahead of the game and get out the resin and cast the pieces for Superbarn 120.

This is an enormous gamble because I haven't yet seen any decent pictures of the latest FR carriage being built at Boston Lodge, let alone looked at it in person.

Perhaps it shows I'm getting complacent in my old age?

The Pips

After the trauma of fitting the truss rods (every time!) making up the boxes which represent the various things hung under a modern FR carriage - such as the diesel-burning heating unit and the associated fuel - is child's play.

Of course, no model of the FR Superbarn carriages would look quite right if it didn't have something to represent the distinctive blocks along the side of the underframe.

In fact these are brackets which support the sightly wider wooden body which you can see on this shot taken earlier this week of the under frame of what will be 120 in the welding bay at Boston Lodge.

In my case I don't bother to try to make scaled-drown brackets, instead I just glue small cuts of styrene strip in the right places.

It looks effective as far as I'm concerned and that matters as much as rivet-counting accuracy in my book.