2020 Review - Part 4

October

The output of new models slowed towards the end of the year, especially at my end of the operation as I spent more time concentrating on meeting requests for resin wagon kits and parts.

By now I had completed the prototype for the MOD flat wagon kit.

Himself spent a week volunteering on the FR and getting a look up closed at the new lining design on Welsh Pony.

We had always intended to finish ours in the green livery that was predicted all through the restoration, but now it looks like the running-in livery will be staying for a few years so we decided to take the plunge and apply that to our model, seen here with the black lining transfers around the edge being applied.

Himself also got round to a job he'd been meaning to tackle for a number of years, and overhaul the Steve Coulson working dioramas in our custody.

November

Progress can be an illusion sometimes.

Himself began applying the orange lining around the edge of the panels on Welsh Pony.

It looked fine on the tender, but once it added to the tighter areas like the cab sides it became painfully apparent that even the thinnest products from the Fox range would be unsuitable.

It was time for Plan B....

The delivery of the painted and lined cylinder covers for 130 to Dinas meant we could follow suit with confidence on ours.

There was more pipework added to the boiler unit which is the last part of the locomotive still under construction.

We can't complete it until we see pictures confirming the positions of all the pipes at the front of the cab.

December

Plan B for Welsh Pony meant stripping it right back to brass and starting again with a coat of primer and purple/plum from the airbrush.

We commissioned a set of bespoke transfers from Custom Model Decals and you can already see the results in some of the latest blog posts. 

I was kept busy with casting.

One customer asked if it was possible to produce some copies of the fake bogie frames we used on our Funkey diesels to disguise the N Gauge chassis.

An enquiry from one modeller turned into orders for 10 sets from all across the country, so that kept me busy for a few weeks.

Currently I am in the process of producing a prototype for a kit of the FR/WHR well wagon.

There's been good progress on the main body of the wagon.  

I'm hoping to finish it off with an etched brass deck covering but that may take a while to come to fruition.

That's the story of our 2020.

It was a year when it seems that railway modelling was given a shot in the arm by lockdown - within our homes at least - let's hope that in 2021 it might be possible to attend an exhibition again.

Wouldn't that be marvellous!

2020 Review - Part 3

July 

 

As we moved into the second half of the year Livingston Thompson had been painted, lined and weathered and taken for its first test runs on Bron Hebog with the formation recreating the train when it was first towed from Minffordd to Blaenau Ffestiniog to try and kick start the restoration.

 

After a false start that ended up with the locomotive on display at the NRM in York where it remains.

 

The Double Fairlie story continued with Himself trying to keep pace with Boston Lodge on progress with James Spooner.

 

 

 

We're doing out best to adapt a Backwoods brass kit - although there will have to be the inevitable compromise on scale. 

On my workbench I was getting to grips with a new project in resin....

 

August 

Those Hula Hoop shapes were turned into the body of Maenofferen water tank wagon which sits on an extended 3 ton slate waggon chassis.

 

 

Almost immediate I was inundated with requests to produce a kit version....

 

And Himself used the first lockdown to reach the finishing line on another long term project, finally completing the painting and lining of our Backwoods Lyn.

 

 

 

The latest of our WHR saloons rolled off the production line, too.

 

 

September

 

Trying our best, once again, to stay synchronised with real world developments, Himself began painting our 130, starting with the bunkers and tanks which received their lovely crimson/plum colour and straw lining. 

 

 

After completing work on the tank waggon I was engaged on a request to produce a kit for the FR's small ex-MOD bogie wagons.

 

The first task was to find a way to produce the bogies.

 

The solution I hit on was to cast a piece which could slip over the very free-running Hudson bogie sold by Dundas.    

 

 

 

In fact, Dundas was doing very good business out of us with Himself deciding it was time to replace a lot of our slate waggon fleet as the 30 year old bodies became brittle.

 

This time instead of a uniform grey he decided to make them a little more colourful.

 

New Kits

After a couple of months in development it's great to be able to send the first batch of MOD flat wagon kits off to their new home.

This first run was produced for the modeller who requested the design, and now they've been sorted out I'm able to take orders for anyone else who'd like to have some.

They come supplied with the Dundas Hudson bogie frames and are £30 per wagon.

Send us an email to reserve yours.

Just Casting

Nothing very exciting to report this time except that I've been busy casting the first batch of MOD flat wagons.

This is an initial run for the person who commissioned the kit.

Once that's out of the way I will open up an order book for anyone who fancies having some.

 

Leverage

At first glance this doesn't appear like a significant update, but look closely and you'll see there is a brake lever appeared on the bogie of the MOD flat.

This is quite a nifty bit of casting, if I say so myself.

It started out as a master piece which was taken from an offcut of an old brass fret in my rubbish pile (I'm dreadful for never throwing anything out) and then carefully shaped with a file to include the 90 degree bend at the end.

This was then used to cast a prototype piece and recast twice to make a production master, with the addition of a small piece of styrene at each end to represent the pivot bolt and to beef up the small handle and make it more reliable to cast.

In an ideal world this would be best done as an etched brass fret, but 2020 is very far from an ideal world and I think there would a very long lead time on procuring a part like that, so hopefully a resin casting will satisfy most modellers.

If not there's nothing to stop you scratch building your own levers.

Modernity

The MOD wagon is really starting to take shape now.

I've tried out a first casting of the braked bogie - without its brake lever - and they're being tried out under the flat bed body.

Since the last post I have redesigned the casting for the wooden decking after feedback that it looked a little too thick.

The last major job remaining is to design something to replicate the brake lever and prepare some masters to made production moulds.

A Bit On The Side

I've been puzzling for a while - and putting off - how to tackle the very prominent brake levers which are on the sides of the bogies on one end of the MOD flat wagons.

Much as I would like to it's clear that it's not going to work to cast them as a one-piece fitting to be glued on, so what I've decided to try is making a second set of bogie frames which include all the anchor points and then making a separate casting for the levers themselves.

To do this I cast another set of the basic side frames and added the extra pieces in styrene.

There will be a lot of fine details which I won't be able to feature - such as the saw-toothed ratchets that the levers pass through - but sometimes in this scale you've got to accept some compromises.

Flat Bed

It's always satisfying to do a first cast with a new mould and find it works well.

This is the prototype for the MoD flat wagon kit with two pieces for the chassis and the deck which hide the heads of the nuts for the bogies.

I've assembled them to see if it works as designed.

Based on the first cast I think this is good to go, so it's just the bogies left to complete.

Modest Progess

I'm glad I decided to switch the focus on the MoD flat wagon project onto the main body section because its given me the feeling I'm getting somewhere with it.

It only took a couple of sessions to get the parts ready for a trial casting.

I'm attempting to make it in two pieces - a lower part which is the main steel body and the wooden deck.

The reason for doing it this way is to so that the bolt for the bogies can be counter-sunk into to the top of the lower casting and will be hidden by the deck above.

My only concern is that all the detail of the girders at each side cast reliably.

It's not very thick, and also quite wide, so it should be possible to get access in there with a cocktail stick when the resin is poured.

I still have all the handbrake detail to design for the bogies, which will be quite challenging, but the project is definitely moving forward.

Second Prototype

My revised idea for how to cast the bogie extension for the MoD Flat Wagons seems to work.

I've had to beef up the frames at the sides but that's probably no bad thing.

And in putting together this first one I followed my hunch that you'd get a better result if you glued on the side pieces before cleaning the flash from the main frame part.

The very thin film is effective in disguising the joint and, I hope, makes it easier to assemble what are quite small parts.

The last part of the bogie to design is the very chunky brake levers, but I might leave those to one side for the moment and concentrate on the body of the wagon instead.

Second Attempt

It seems my design for the beefed-up Hudson bogie was a little two ambitious.

Two failed casting attempts from the new mould have convinced me that it's not going to be reliable enough for a production run.

If I just needed to get a couple for myself I could persevere until some came out properly but that's not viable. 

The idea of having a one piece casting was a nice one but the axle box parts are too thin for the undercut details to cast properly.

I poked a cocktail stick around when the resin was poured but was never possible to chase out all the air bubbles.

So I've reverted to Plan B which is to cast the side frames and axles boxes as separate, flat pieces to be glued onto rather basic skeleton.

I'll be a little more fiddly to put together but I'm hoping it'll be just as effective.

Back To The Bogie

I finally managed to find half an hour to sneak into the study and get a little bit of modelling done after weeks fighting with Covid paperwork.

Last time I blogged about the MOD flat wagon project I had built a basic bogie frame to be cast to fit around the Dundas Hudson bogie.

The next step was to add on the axle boxes which I got done yesterday.

I think it's got the short but chunky look of the real ones.

Now to cover it in RTV and see how well it casts...

Early Progress

So I summoned the motivation to try having a go at the bogies for the MoD flat wagons.

These are much more chunky than your standard Hudson bogie and the idea is to make a master for a piece which can slip on top of the Dundas plastic bogie frames.

I've made up the basic frame with styrene channel and strip although I've yet to do anything about the axle boxes and suspension.

Even so, I'm feeling pretty encouraged.

Flat Share

The tank wagon kit has been a diversion from the project I'd intended to be getting on with this summer, which is a request I received to make (and reproduce) some models of the modern ex-MoD flat wagons in the FR fleet.

The body should be relatively straightforward but the challenge is going to be the bogies.

These wagons were produced by Hudsons and share the same wheelbase as many of their older designs, but these ones are very beefed up and have a very chunky horizonal handbrake lever stuck on one side.

The plan I have in my head is to try and produce a casting which will somehow glue onto, or slip over, the plastic bogie frames produced by Dundas.

Resin is a poor material for casting the entire bogie as it doesn't flex as much as injection moulded plastic, and that makes them liable to break at the weakest point when fitting in the wheelsets.

I have a spare set of Hudson bogie parts to begin experimenting on, I just need to summon up the motivation....