2019 - Part 4

We rounded off the year with a first showing of Bron Hebog in Scotland at our own club's show in Greenock and with the debut of our new set of WWHR carriages.

Unfortunately only Russell is able to pull the whole lot up the hill. Gelert and the Baldwin have to have the load reduced....

130 is really starting to come together, although once again Himself is waiting for the real one to be finished so we can be completely sure about all those little details.

I'd finally got round to making a start on the second WHR Pullman observation car which is being given the name Gwyrfai.

November

Progress on the carriage has not been rapid but did get most of a day to myself to start adding the beading to the side pieces.

Himself decided that after many years broken on a shelf it was time to get our original Blanche back into running order, a major operation which required the strip down of the chassis and replacement of a gear wheel.

He was also getting on with the very intricate task of lining out the FR Observation car 152, the completion of which has taken most of 2019.

December

To bring the review up to date, as you've been reading in recent weeks I've been making an effort to complete the first model of van 51, which has sat for many months looking like this.

And Himself celebrated the completion of 152 with a line up of our three Pullman obs, hopefull to be joined by a fourth next year.

Thanks for reading our updates during 2019 and we look forward to sharing more of our modelling with you in 2020.

2019 - Part 2

The next instalment of our review begins in April when I was making the interior for another 'bowsider' which was destined to become number 20 in Col. Stephens green.

Himself was being challenged with building up a prototype chassis for Gelert which we had been asked to test, seen here beneath the Robex 3D printed body.

Some finishing details were being added to observation carriage 152.

May

Dduallt was back on show just down the road from us in Troon.

I was puzzling out how to fit an interior into the Gladstone carriage while still allowing for the floor to be removed for painting and maintenance.

Carriage 20 was swiftly painted and made its debut on the layout at the show.

June

I was embarking on a project to create a kit of parts to build the P Way van 51 in its current condition - shown here are the first of the castings for the body.

The chassis on Gelert was progressing with the motion now in place.

And carriage 152 was taken for a first test run on Dduallt.

Fortunately, this time I'd drilled the holes for the bogie pivot bolts in the correct position and it didn't foul the rockface in the cutting beneath Rhoslyn Bridge!

2019 - Part 1

Every December I like to take a look back at all that we've achieved between us in the last year. (Mostly Himself, if we're being honest...)

In January of this year our 4th NGG16, 143, was on the test track still in brass.

There were more carriages on the workbench, with brass roofs being made for the second of the superbarn Observation Cars and another of the saloons.

Himself had also started assembling a Worsley Works bowsider 17, to give us a model in the current colours.

February

A few weeks later and the superbarn saloon was almost ready for varnishing.

We'd also begun putting together a Worsley Works NWNGR Gladstone Carriage as the first stage in a WHHR rake.

By this stage the Garratt was well through the painting process.

March

By the begining of the next month it was finished and taking a test run with sister 138

17 had also been varnished and is pictured on Ddaullt.

And we ended the first quarter of the year with Himself starting on the 5th Garratt, destined to be 130.

Triplets

We can’t manage a line up of four Pullman observation cars like the FR did recently at Harbour Station, but watch this space....

Himself decided a little photo call was in order after the final assembly of 152, posed in the fiddle yard with 150 (not named Gwynedd in Bron Hebog-land, and Glaslyn.

The design change to 152 with the two pillars at the front was on account of customer feedback from 150 with its single post in the middle.

It’s a convenient way of quickly telling which is which but I still can’t decide which I prefer.

The Worst Bit

The one bit of any build of a Welsh Highland carriage, or an FR ‘super saloon’ , that Himself really dislikes is making the handrails for either side of the entrance doors.

These are soldered up from brass wire any usually entail burnt fingertip and some mild bad language.

They are the very last pieces to go on the model before the glazing is fitted.

Fortunately, on an observation car there are only four of them to be made.

First Class

It was great to be sent a picture of 152 almost at the finish line!

The model has been given a coat of varnish and Himself is waiting for that to harden before final assembly with the glazing and the handrails.

The passengers seem ready to go for a ride!

Twins

The painstaking job of applying the intricate Pullman livery to 152 has begun.

We use the 4mm Fox waterslide range - it’s probably ever so slightly over-scale but the quality and ease of use compensates for that.

Himself is complaining that it’s a little harder to fit the upright arrows on the window pillars this time.

As the casting is the same one we used for 150 I think the chances are this batch of transfers has been printed slightly larger.

He also tells me policemen are getting younger, too 😂

152 On Test

It's amazing to think a week has gone by already since the Greenock show last weekend.

One of the pictures I haven't published until now is when Himself decided to give the new FR observation car a trip around the layout to see how it ran.

It was attached to the rear of one of the two full-length FR rakes we were running, taking the place of number 100 for one round trip.

It's at the stage where the gloss paint has been applied and the - very tricky - glazing cut and fitted.

Now the next job is to apply intricate Pullman lining using various kinds of waterslide transfer sheets produced by Fox.

Observable Progress

While my mind is turning to the next observation car build Himself has picked up the previous project which has been stalled for a while.

152 has been given a coat of paint and the fiendishly difficult glazing, with the curved section at the front end, has been made up.

To bring you up to speed if you're relatively new to reading this blog, this model of 152 has a body made up of resin cast sections from a styrene master, with a brass roof and metal pillars at the front end.

It's been given a coat of the dark plum colour and the very detailed first class interior has been painted.

Although the painting is relatively straightforward, applying the intricate Pullman lining is anything but....

Clearance Run

Himself tends to have a number of jobs on the go at once - or perhaps we should just call them 'concurrent projects'.

One of them is the Observation Car 152, which has recently had a pair of bogies made up for it and has been taken for a test run around Dduallt by Blanche, which has itself been undergoing a strip down and clean of its pick ups ahead of the show in Perth this weekend.

The wisdom of a test run at this stage may be recalled by long-time readers of this blog, who will know that I made a very elementary mistake building the chassis of 150 and managed to drill the holes for the bogies not precisely along the centre line of the carriage, meaning it walloped the side of the very tight Rhoslyn Cutting as it passed under the bridge.

Thankfully, I haven't repeated that mistake, and the sister carriage passes through very sweetly with an equal amount of daylight either side.

Himself is now gathering the mental energy to take on the task of making the curved glazing for the observation end...

Plugged In

So I *think* my bit of 152 is done now.

(There’s always that element of doubt.)

Last night I added the electric connection on the corridor end.

These are quite fiddly to put on, involving drilling down into a styrene rod and twisting fine brass wire, which is never my strong suit.

However I feel it’s one of those details which make all the difference, so it has to be done.

I shall now pass it over to Himself.

One Small Step At A Time

It was such a busy weekend with other stuff that even this counts as an achievement.

I suspect I may not be alone in finding that it’s the small snagging items, like these footsteps,which seem to take the longest to get done.

So all it leaves now is the electric connector on the end.

Exhausting

With Himself taking a working break on the FR I’ve been holding the fort, which explains why there’s not a lot of progress.

What I have managed to accomplish, in a snatched half hour, is to add the exhaust pipe onto the diesel heater and the filler pipe for the fuel tank onto the underside of 152.

All I need to add now is the footsteps and the electric connection on the end and then I can pass it back to him on his return from the top left hand corner.

Wiring

I've been getting on with one of my least favourite jobs - anything which involved bending wire.

Maybe I just have a mental block about it, but I've never found it easy to manipulate metal into shapes, even with something as pliable as brass wire.

In this case I'm having to knock up a representation of the rather convoluted pipes which can be seen around those tilted vacuum cylinders underneath 150 and 152.

I'm reasonably happy with what I've got there and now I'm moving onto the fuel tank and diesel heater behind.

Not long now before I'll be sending it back in Himself's direction for him to start painting it - which will be his turn to have a job he doesn't relish.

Flipped

152 has been turned upside down to begin work on detailing the chassis.

One of the distinctive features of these two obs carriages is he twin vacuum brake cylinders, which are mounted opposing each other at a jaunty angle.

All the other superbarns have single ones which are set vertically, as far as I can tell.

These are made with a length of styrene tube which has a thick cap added at one end, and then filed into a very shallow dome.

The other end has a plain cap before a piece of strip is glued around the outside to form a ring, and the tanks are then mounted on some small blocks to give them the angle.

The have some very circuitous pipework running around them, but that’s a topic for another post.

Front Passenger Seats

Time for modelling has been limited this last week (I seem to be saying that rather too often!) but I managed to grab half hour to fix more of the interior of 152 into position.

The bit which takes the time is the upright screens which separate the observation section from the main saloon.

There is a concave corner where it joins the window pillar which I form by filing an indent into a piece of styrene, then I slice off the little right angle section and fix it onto the top corner of the screen.

This is why I like working with the material because you can graft on pieces like this so much easier than with metal - or at least, I can.

Now I just need to form the cupboard in the entrance vestibule at the back before turning it over and starting on the underside.

Furniture Delivery

I was determined that this week was going to be more productive than the last and that some actual modelling would get done at my end of the operation.

An hour of free time the other night allowed me to begin sticking the seats in place for 152 on the chassis unit.

These have to be lined up precisely with the window pillars, which are only around 1.5mm wide, which is where the 60 second superglue I'm using really comes into its own for bonding resin to styrene.

There are a couple of bulkheads to shape and fit before I carry on with fixing down the seats and tables in the observation end.

As with all my carriages these are not just decorative but are placed strategically so they will hold the glazing snugly in place.

The Posh Seats

Now I've got 152 back from Himself it's time for me to fit the interior I made many months ago.

Fortunately, although there are some obvious changes to the exterior of the carriage compared to 150, the same seat design has been used so I was able to run off another batch of resin castings to the same design.

These then have fiddly details, like arm rests and legs, added in styrene.

The high back chairs are cast individually and then glued together to make pairs for the middle six units.

There are a couple of internal partitions to be added in styrene but it's mostly a case of just glueing everything into position.

The underframe will be more involved with the vacuum cylinders, which are unusually fixed at an angle, to be formed out of styrene and lots of very curly pipework to be represented in brass.

I may have to ask for the other one back to remind myself how I did it.

Like Buses

Yet another carriage has appeared.

Himself has now fixed the roof and front pillars onto 152 and it’s been handed over to me for the interior.

All the seats are already cast but I shall finish the job on bowsider 17 first before I get onto this one.

I don’t think Himself will mind because i’m Sure he’s in no hurry to do the painting and lining on this one knowing how tricky 150 was.

Picture Window

After many months in abeyance there has been progress on 152.

I'd reached the stage with the body that I couldn't do much more without Himself making up the roof and the front window pillars.

Usually when I build a superbarn I still put in a false ceiling to support the top rail of the body and strengthen the structure, but that's not possible on the observation cars because of the huge window in the end which goes all the way up to the roof, which would give the game away.

The pillars are soldered in position at the top and will be glued to the bodyside at the bottom once we've decided that we're 100% satisfied with their positions.

At the moment I've still not seen it for real - I've only got these two snaps to go on - but Himself is planning to bring it over later this week where I shall run my beady eyes over it before we commit to fixing it all in place.