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.

More Bling

On Monday I showed you the finished 'blinged up' bowsider number 19 - but work continues on our other Victorian extravagance, number 15.

Himself has finished applying the gold lining - and my goodness isn't there a lot of it! - to one side, and he's also added the FR crest and monograms.

(These may be slightly overscale, but who's measuring?)

He's also intending to try and fit a tiny number 15 inside the middle of the crest!

One end of the ends he's started to apply the white lines around the panelling.

Again, this is not strictly prototypical because there should be two incredibly thin lines either side of the beading, whereas the solution we've got for here is one single line on top of the beading,

But quite frankly, this is so damned small and fiddly to do that I think it's remarkable enough that there's anything there at all, don't you agree?

Gold Blend

After many long sessions of painstaking work, one side - just one side - of our carriage 15 has its ornate gold lining applied.

Looks amazing, doesn't it!

Himself tells me that it took the best part of a whole day's work to complete the last half of this side, and he felt quite cross-eyed at the end of it.

He's got to do exactly the same on the other side and then there's a lot of white lining to put on each end of the carriage plus more gold leaf around the panelling on along the frame, which you cannot see in this picture.

So it's going to be quite a while before this carriage joins the fleet.

Gold Leaf

Himself has begun applying the transfer lining to our new, old carriage 15 (if you can follow that logic).

This is an even more thankless task that on carriage 19 which completed not so long ago because there is even more of the fine gold lines and tiny weenie curves to be slid into position around the intricate beading on what are reputed to be the UK's first bogie carriages.

At the moment he's just done the very start of one end, but it's a painstaking business but I'm sure the end result will look fabulous.

Once again he's using the Fox Transfers waterslide lining sets.

I suppose it may be some consolation that it's no easier doing it on the real carriage where all of this detail is applied in an equally intricate fashion using genuine gold leaf.

If you've never been to one of the FR's Victorian Weekends you really should make the effort to go because the restoration, rebuilding and recreation of the vintage carriage fleet is something to behold when you see them all brought out and being played with.

Purple Patch

Hot on the heels of bowsider 19 Himself has already begun painting 15.

This is going to be another exceptionally intricate transfer challenge for him, attempting to replicate the gold leaf lining around all the mouldings on the bodyside.

At the moment it's had some coats of the Royal Purple and cream base colours.

If we were sticking with the nominal year of 1988, with which we started the Dduallt project all those years ago,  then this would be all we would have to do on 15,  but the abilities and ambitions of the Boston Lodge carriage works have expanded since then, and so unfortunately the challenge for us is to try to match them.

Pots And Carriages

Carriage 15 has been given a coat of primer after I returned it to Himself with its interior made.

As well as chatting about how he should tackle the horrendously intricate Victorian livery Himself and I had a useful discussion about lamp pots.

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I was casting a set for our model of bowsider 19.

After he trial fitted them to the roof (they have had little brass pins inserted in the bottom of them so they can be located accurately into holes drilled in the roof) he sent me couple of snaps and both of us concluded that they were a little on the tall side.

So I set about altering the master, formed another mould, and have been casting some shorter ones.

It occurred to me that we might find a use for some of the original ones on 15, which has taller pots.

I wonder why this is?

Is it because there are half the number of lamps (3 on carriage 15 versus 6 on carriage 19) and therefore they had a bigger lamp which generated more heat and so needed a bigger holder?

Or is it just an historic case of the FR never making anything the same, ever?

Vintage Interior

Productivity has been much improved at my end of the operation in recent weeks.

Over the course of a few evening sessions I have been able to complete the interior for the Worsley body for 15.

Unlike the styrene carriages where I attach the seating to the floor and it becomes a part for the chassis, on this one I have left it removable, which will certainly make it easier for Himself when he comes to paint it.

In its current condition this carriage is a tri-composite and so the two compartments with comfy looking seats towards the centre are, in fact, a first class and a second class.

(The upholstery in the First comes up slightly higher than the other if you look closely.)

The biggest challenge with compartment stock is with the dividers between them.

They have to be placed very accurately because the window pillars are very thin on this model, and you also want to ensure, as much as you can, that they remain vertical.

This is why I've chosen to use relatively thick 30" sheet and anchored them at the bottom with some chunky square section before I attached the seat bases on either side.

As always, the only true test will be time.

Fill It Up

Himself is loading me up with jobs - which is a reversal of the usual situation, it has to be said.

Not only has he tasked me with finding a way of making the lamp pots for the roof of 19,  I have been presented with a bare body shell of number 15.

Long term readers will recall that this is the result of a rather silly error when we were making a second model of 16 in Col. Stephens livery to use on Bron Hebog.

Not considering the difference between the carriages we accidently ordered a Worsley scratch-aid kit for 15 which features the windows in the balcony end of the first and last compartments.

You may recall that he had soldered the frets together before we twigged.

Not wishing to waste them we put it to one side with the intention of making another model of 15, in its present high-Victorian condition, and so the time has come for me to make up an interior in styrene.

Deep Purple

Himself has been seized by a mania for vintage carriages.

This is not a problem - indeed it is something I am doing all I can to encourage.

19 is making rapid progress having been primed and given a couple of coats of glorious deep purple livery since I last posted about it.

The tricky bit with this carriage will be attempting to replicate all the ornate gold leaf lining around the panelling.

Given the size of a 4mm scale model and the limits of how fine the transfers available are it will probably have to be some kind of lining-lite compromise.

The mania I mention is that he has also dug out a Worsley body for 15 in its current high-Victorian state in order to finish it off.

(It was purchased and soldered together a couple of years ago when we were making a new model of 16 and to our shame didn't initially notice that the one we had had windows in the ends and the one we needed, didn't. Opps!)

He's also talking about repainting, or replicating, our models of 17 and 18 which currently are Langley ones painted in the basic, two tone Mountain Prince livery as per their condition in 1988.

This is not entirely satisfactory because the etch for the bodies shows the full panelling but back in the 1980's this pair were running around with most of it stripped off. (Such different times!)

So option A is to dunk them in a bath of paint stripper and repaint them in their current livery BUT only if it is possible to replace the existing Grandt Line bogies with Dundas FR ones.

That will depend on whether there is enough room beneath for them to swing.

If not then he is talking about purchasing another pair of frets from Worsley Works and making complete new carriages.

As I said previously, I'm not about to stop him.

Change Of Plan

So, it turns out we're not making a 16 after all.

I didn't look closely enough at the picture Himself sent me of the Worsley Works etches and was left red-faced by a correspondent on our Facebook page who pointed out that what we had could only be used to make a model of 15 in its current ornate Victorian condition.

I looked again and the penny dropped with a clang! How could I not have noticed the big windows in the ends or the fancy covers on the frames.

Unfortunately, as you can see, Himself had already started to put it together so now he's got no choice but to try and replicate all the intricate gold leaf lining on the carriage.

I feat the air is about to turn blue...