Review Of The Year - Part 1

I've established a tradition on this blog in the last days of December of taking stock of everything that Himself and I have achieved over the year.

I usually find there are things that I've forgotten about, and I'm always surprised by how much we've got done.

So here's a look back at what we were up to in the first quarter of 2018.

January

Looking back now I see that there was a lot of carriage building going on at this time.

FR 'superbarn' 118, which I'd built up from resin castings, had been painted, assembled, had its transfers applied and, finally, varnished.

Himself was also starting work on a very long-term project indeed - the completion of a Worsley Works bowsider 19 which had been sitting in a drawer in its naked state for years.

I was also busy trying to keep up with the expanding WHR carriage fleet and had started work on saloon 2047 which was being scratch built in styrene - as opposed to the resin parts I use for the latest FR stock.

February

This was the big reveal of our finished Robex 3D printed Lilla.

I thought at the time - and still do - that it looks absolutely stunning!

We'd decided to finish it in its current, highly ornate, plum livery with oodles of gold leaf lining.

It was taking up all Himself's reserves of patience and concentration but it was already clear the results were going to be worth it.

He'd also restarted work to plug the last remining scenic gap on the layout, landscaping around the last two houses I'd built.

March

There was yet more carriage work going on with me kit-bashing a Dundas 'Bro Madog' carriage to make it look like it's current condition on the WHHR.

As to why I was doing it, that was about to be revealed...

I'd also been putting together the castings for the second of the latest FR observation carrs 152 ready for Himself to add a brass roof and the window pillars at the front.

The reason I was making a WHHR carriage became clear when I handed over Himself's birthday present - a Robex print for the Bagnall Gelert.

I had confidence that he'd make a fine job of the body, after what he'd done with Lilla

The challenge for him was going to be doing the outside frame adaptation on a Fleischman chassis to go under it.

I had a feeling he wasn't going to thank me for that...

Nineteen

Our new model of bowsider 19 is ready to join the fleet.

The carriage has been given a coat of varnish - which has come out a little on the matt side, but never mind - and put together with its glazing and the final details added like the door handles, which Himself made from scratch from very fine brass wire.

I think the lining looks absolutely stunning, especially the stuff along the frame at the bottom.

It's going to look great running in a small Victorian set along with the curly roof van, 15 (which is coming along nicely - more on that soon) and the first class Ashbury 4-wheeler.

Pot Black

The temptation to declare "That'll do!" is something that has to be resisted in modelling - I had that drummed into me by Himself years ago.

Other times though, you have to accept that something's probably as good as it's ever going to be and stop fiddling with it.

So it is with the lamp pots on the roof of bowsider 19.

These are the second lot I cast which are quite a bit lower than the first ones we tried.

They're still not perfect, I know. They're probably too thin around the middle, not quite tall enough now and the tops are probably curved too much.

Ironically this time it's Himself who's said "That'll do" because when I popped over a few days ago - after they'd dug themselves out of the snow - he showed me this and told me that they've already been painted and glued on.

Top Hat Tale

My contribution to the carriage 19 project is to try and come up with something to represent the reproduction lamp pots installed on the roof when the carriage was restored a few years back.

My plan was to try and make something out of styrene as a master which could be copied and cast.

I've made a guess about the dimensions based on what I can see from pictures and the sizes of styrene tube available and come up with this.

The close up, enlarged photograph is a little misleading, I hope, although it maybe that when I cast some copies we conclude that the top cover is a little to thick and should be a little smaller in diameter, but you'll have to take my word for it that it doesn't look like that with the naked eye.

Anyway, the RTV rubber is setting around it as I type so I shall update you when I have some cast.

One Sided

One side of 19 has been fully lined out now.

Posed on the layout it does look most impressive, don't you think?

We've had to make a compromise which we're not fully decided on yet.

The panels in the doors beneath the windows are not wide enough to accommodate a regular 4mm transfer for THIRD or FIRST.

Instead what Himself has tried out is using 2mm scale ones to see what they look like.

They're undoubtedly smaller than they should be - but are they too small or could we get away with it?

Better to have them than nothing at all?

One of the ends has also had its white lining added.

It'll look very nice running with the Curly Roof Van, I think.

Gold Lining

Himself has been busy starting work on lining out bowsider 19 with its gold leaf lining around the panelling and the first results are looking spectacular, don't you agree?

It's very intricate and tiring work, as you can imagine, and this is the result of one day's labouring at the workbench.

The product he's using for this is the thinnest waterslide lining sheets from Fox Transfers which come in packs with straight lines and corners of various radii.

Squabbling

Himself has been getting on with painting carriage 19, moving onto the interior which is fixed onto the brass frame / chassis of the carriage.

If you read my earlier posts you'll know that the making of this carriage has been somewhat protracted (that's understatement for you) to the extent that we've had to update some of the details of the styrene interior bits which I made more than a decade ago.

The first class compartments now have headrest squabs fitted above the old Mersey Rail seat units and there is also now an upholstered back to the benches in the recreated second class compartment.

The irony is that compared to the modern carriages with their very large windows you can see very little inside a 4mm scale Bowsider and you could probably get away with fitting nothing more than the compartment dividers, but that's never been our style.

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.

Very Vintage Carriage

Sometimes models imitate reality in more ways that just appearance.

Our carriage 19 is a case in point.

The real one was the last of the FR's 'bowsiders' to be restored after the preservationists' took over, taking many years to get back into traffic.

Even then it didn't take them close on the near three decades it's taken us to complete our vintage carriage fleet.

Once upon a time, when we started modelling the FR in 009 there was only a kit available for one flavour of bowsider - the first pair 17 and 18, from Langley - and it wasn't until many years later that Worsley Works came up with a set of basic body etched for the second pair.

(The four are not identical, you see. This irritating FR habit goes right back to Victorian times.)

When we were first building Dduallt the intention was to have all the locomotives and rolling stock finished in the condition they were in in 1988.

That has withered away over the years and now our stock boxes are a right mish mash.

In 1988 19 was the last bowsider left in all over red livery and for a long time intended it to be at the top end of a full set of red carriages along with 11, 105, 106, 12, and 16.

I can't remember when we bought the etches for it but what I do know is that Himself made a start on it, then obviously got distracted by something else, and it has sat for years with the basic body and frame put together but that's all.

I made an interior for it, which you can see in the picture below, and that was when I was living in my previous house which we moved out of nearly 9 years ago!

Finally, though, its time has come and he's resumed work on it, fitting Dundas FR bogies and Greenwich couplers, making up the truss rods and soldering the roof on.

There's still the question, though, of what colour to paint it.

When the Victorian bogie carriages all went through extensive restorations at the start of this century they either emerged in incredibly ornate Victorian splendour or dowdy inter-war colours.

Unfortunately for Himself, 19 emerged in a rich dark plum livery, complete with gold leaf around the panelling, just like the curly roof van.

Very sportingly he's declared that is willing to give this a go.

The fun and games of painting it are a little further down the line.

The most immediate question is how we're going to reproduce the lamp pots along the roof?

Swing Time

One of the many reasons that our model of Bowsider 19 has been sitting in the 'Drawer of Doom' for so many years in an unfinished state is a lack of bogies.

All our other vintage FR carriages are running on some decidedly un-heritage American outline Grandt Line bogies, mainly on account of them being the first things we came across when making our model of 17 from a Langley kit 20+ years ago and Himself didn't much like the look of the bogies which came with the kit.

These are starting to show their age, though, and are beginning to fall apart on a couple of the carriages so Himself is looking for suitable replacement.

The problem is there isn't a lot of space under these carriages to allow the bogies to swing, so Himself has be experimenting with some surgery on a pair of Parkside Dundas FR bogies - the correct type for this carriage, in fact - to see if we can get them to fit.

It seems we can, just...

Now the most pressing issue is in what condition will we finish the carriage?

My original intention when we started making it many years ago was to do it as it was running in 1988 - the nominal year we set for Dduallt - when it was the last Bowsider in all-over red livery.

Now that Dduallt is semi-retired and Bron Hebog is out on the exhibition circuit, however, it would make more sense to paint it in its current Victorian plum livery.

What to do?