Resin Carriage Sides

Body sections for the 'replica of the replica' of carriage 24 have been cast with moderate success.

This is the first time I've attempted to cast a large piece with quite so much detail as a traditional compartment carriage with matchboarding.

The side your see here are the third and fourth attempts.

One the first the mix was not quite right and it never quite hardened properly.

The second was too brittle  - which is an issue I've had with the brand of resin I've got in stock at the moment - and it snapped while being de-molded.

On these there were a couple of small blemishes where air bubbles had become trapped and the detail was missing, but I've been able to patch it up by inserting some pieces of styrene strip.

The flash filling the windows has been roughly cut out although some detailed work with a needle file will be needed still.

Some small breaks occurred as I was removing the flash, but they were very clean and were easily bonded back together and the sides remain as strong as if they'd never happened.

They won't look as clean and neat as a fully scratch built body, but with Bron Hebog in storage and the Dinas project still on the drawing board nobody is about to scrutinise it closely any time soon.

In The Carriage Works Again

I didn't see this one coming but I've spent the last couple of weeks working on scratch building a carriage again.

What you are seeing in the picture is one side and one end of carriage 24, a replica of a North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways 'Summer Carriage' which was built at Boston Lodge almost 25 years ago.

If you've been following this blog or have come to see Bron Hebog in the years when it was going to exhibitions you might be thinking at this point, hang on, I'm sure you've got one of those already?

You're right, we do.

But now we need to make another one.

I can't say why, or at least for the moment I can't.

Our brand has always been 'doing things the hard way', and my way of tackling a carriage like 24 is no exception!

Every stick of those matchboard sides is stuck on individually. 

At a rough guess there must be around 150 of them, and that's without all the bits of door framing, the droplights and other bits of raised detailing.

It took around a fortnight to get one side done!

I'm not saying I'm getting impatient as I get older, but I'm not up for doing that twice if I don't have to.

So this time for my replica-of-a-replica I'm going to see what happens if I use this first side as a master to make a silicone mold from, and try making resin cast sides.

With so much detail it's likely that the mold will soon lose its fidelity and after a couple of castings some of the matchboard detail will become blocked.

But if I can get two good casts from it out of the initial resin pours then I hope it'll be an easier way of making the basic carriage body.

And if not I've lost two weeks - and a lot of increasingly expensive styrene strip - which I won't get back....

Minffordd Update: Hell's Teeth

The Minffordd Weigh House has no shortage of challenges for the scratch builder who wants to make their effort look halfway like the real thing.

There's the very neat dressed stone blocks and quions, which are a distinctive feature, as well as the diamond-shape slates on the roof.

And once you've found a way to replicate those you look at the finishing details, such as the barge boards, and run your fingers through (what remains of) your hair wondering how on earth you're going to produce that distinctive toothy look.

Fortunately, this is where resin casting makes things much easier.

All I had to do - all, he says.... - was chop two sets of tiny triangles, large and small, and glue them alternately to a broader strip of plastic to make one complete barge board.

I used this as a master to resin cast four copies which could be reversed and used on the opposite side.

It was also to my advantage that by the late 1960s this original feature was looking a little worse for wear, and so it wouldn't matter if a few of the points on the castings were less than perfect, because by this stage they most certainly weren't on the real thing!

Bits Of Bob

One of the best things about resin casting is that once you've made the masters (and the moulds) it's delightfully quick to turn out most of the key parts you need to make up a carriage or wagon.

The body shell for 808 was poured and cured in the time it took for me to cook and serve up the kids tea a few evenings ago.

This is the point, however, where progress stalls to the speed of any other scratch build project.

The castings will need their windows cleared of flash and tidied up very neatly before I can think about gluing it together into a box, and then it will need a floor / chassis cut from thick styrene sheet to help keep it all together.

I shan't be rushing ahead too much on this project in case I come up against some detailed differences with the real carriage, with an update expected from the carriage works any day soon.

Review Of The Year - Part 1

And so we come to the end of another year of lockdown and exhibition-less modelling - for us at least.

It's ironic that the reason I began this blog nearly a million page views ago, was to have a way of showing off what we were doing while we were in the long process of building Bron Hebog, and while Dduallt was retired from shows.

Never could I have imagined we'd face such a sustained period where modelling, once again, became an almost exclusively private activity in your home, with no communal outlet.

It's one reason to be thankful for the opportunities the online world gives us.

Now, as I always do at the end of December, I'm going to take a look back - three months at a time - at some of the highlights of our modelling .

January

I'm afraid to say that there's been little progress since the start of the year on my prototype for the FR infrastructure well wagon,

Since this picture was taken I have found a way to cast the deck pieces in styrene, but it still doesn't have any couplings so has yet to be given any sort of test run.

Himself was busy adding the final pipe runs onto to the boiler unit of the Backwoods NG G16 kit for our model of the freshly restored 130.

And he was also well on the way to lining out a set of three 3mm Hawksworth carriage kits he'd been making as a favour to the Engineering Consultant - a man who was destined for higher things before the year was out!

February

This was the year my son reached an age where he was ready for his first OO layout, and I found my moulding and resin casting skills came in handy fixing a second hand Mainline wagon which had lost one of its sliding doors on one side.

Once the pipe runs were finished on the real locomotive, Himself wasted no time in getting our 130 painted, lined, and sent on a test run on Bron Hebog.

It really looked quite the part!

Another locomotive which was finished off - after many years - was our Mercian Welsh Pony, which looks absolutely stunning matched with the Victorian set.

March

Our James Spooner II project was in danger of running perilously far ahead of the real build as Himself had a play around with the etches to see how the half cab arrangement would work,

This is a model I hope we can expect more updates on in 2022.

Many years after our first model was stolen at an exhibition, Himself finished off his long-term project to make a replacement of the works shunter Harold. (aka, Shitty the Shunter)

At this time I was busy working on a commission for a scratch built model of Carnforth buffet car 114 in styrene.

To be continued...

Open For Business

I've got more action to report from the paint shop.

Himself has been busy with the multi-coloured Hudson semi-open carriages - one the replica for the FR and the other for the WHHR fleet, which have different origins.

The red (WHHR) one is from the very neat 009 Society injection moulded kit, and has had a few enhancements such as brake pipes and the safety chains across the passenger access openings.

The green (FR) version is one I cast in resin from a scratch built master I made in styrene, and has a number of differences, including the positions of the right angle uprights and the number of slats on the end panels.

The mesh doors - a mid-life upgrade which offer significantly more protection than the chains on number 42 - are 3D prints which were kindly donated to the project.

For a few minutes Himself thought he had caught me out by noticing that number 39 currently has fewer, and thicker, planks on the ends, but he forgot the golden rule of FR modelling, which is that things change so frequently you have to choose the day you are modelling your locomotive, carriage or waggon and stick to it.

Thus, this 39 shows the carriage before its most recently, and thorough, overhaul.

On The Deck

I've cast, cut and fitted the sheets of Durbar plating for the FR infrastructure department's well wagon and I'm quite pleased with how it's looking.

There are still a few more details I need to try and recreate, such as the rings which are there to tie down the loads on the deck, and I need to fill the holes in the axle boxes of my home made bogies,

Before long I'll pass it over to Himself to fit some couplings, vac pipes and things like that, and he can give some test running to see whether it will be a practicable item of rolling stock on the layout or not?

 

Non-Slip Casting

I'm in a mood to finish off some projects which have been held in abeyance for too long.

One of them is the well wagon project which has been sitting waiting for something to represent the Durbar plate decking.

My original plan was to get something bespoke in etched brass which would help give strength and weight to the structure, and would be user-friendly if the wagon ever got added to my range of kits.

I'd sent off some design sketches but nothing as come of them - and I'm reluctant to nag or chase-up - so I've decided to try one of the alternative approaches I had in mind originally.

Years ago I bought a packet of very thin, etched brass plates, which I can't seem to find being sold anymore.

They weren't big enough to cover the whole lower deck of the wagon, and I don't have enough of them in any case.

What I can do, however, is use one of them as a master to make a mould and cast a number of copies in resin, which I can then join together to make a master for a large piece which does fit.

This is what I have done, and you can see the result in the picture at the top of the post.

You can still make out where the join is but I'm hoping it won't show up too much when the wagon is painted and perhaps given a bit of weathering too.

Next, I shall be making some smaller pieces for cover the slopes and the upper platforms above the bogie pivits.

This will mean that the wagon still probably be a little on the light side, still, but the solution will probably be just to run it loaded.

Rob's Bonnet

A day isolating in the 'Covid Cave' on Sunday gave me the opportunity to get the master and the castings for the new side doors on the bonnet of WHR diesel shunter 9 completed.

I think I'm pretty satisfied with how they've turned out.

I cast three copies (and one for luck) of the first master of just one set of the double doors, then joined them together - with an extra blank door on one end - to form a second master.

Once that had been used to make a mould I cast a few copies of this longer set and selected the best pair to use on the model.

When they had cured the spare door was cut from different ends - because they need to be a mirror image - and I've added some hinge details using fine styrene rod.

They're not that much thicker than the nickel silver etches which came with the kit prototype from RT Models and I'm confident they'll look quite effective on the finished model.

I think this can now be passed back to Himself to work out how to replicate the 'bull bars' style grill protection on the front.

Toast Rack Update

Tinkering has been completed on the scratch built Hudson toast rack replica 39 and it is about to move to the painting stage.

Himself has taken my resin cast body and added a a brass roof as well as finishing details such as the vacuum pipes, electrical connections and emergency stop apparatus.

It's had a trial run on (most) of Bron Hebog along with the 009 Society kit version which we are going to finish as the version of this type of carriage running on the WHHR. which is more correct to the kit.

The front one will be finished mostly in green and the rear one mostly in maroon.

Given that I was only working from photographs with measurements of the key dimensions of the Society kit when I started I'm pretty pleased with how it has turned out.

Killing Time

In the previous post I said I had run out of excuses for not getting on with the doors on diesel 9, well, how prophetic those words turned out to be!

That very same day I somehow found myself - finally - among the millions testing postive for Covid.

As I am the only one in the household who needs to isolate, and because I have shut myself away for the duration in the room where I do all my modelling, there's no reason not to crack on.

Forget any idea that I shall be spending the whole ten days beavering away on models, though, because at the start of lockdown my employer issued us all with the kit to broadcast from home, so for most of these ten days everything is cleared away to turn the desk into a temporary news studio.

For this weekend, however, I have packed all that away and filled the empty hours with some casting work for customers and made a first attempt as a master for the door castings on the diesel's bonnet.

These are to replace some thin etched panels so I've made them out of 10" styrene and put a blank door on either side so I can use the castings that are produced with the door with the vent either to the left of the right.

This has been formed into a casting box and is curing under the RTV as I type.

For those who are curious about my health, I'm pleased to report that four days after testing positive my experience of Covid after being double-vaxxed seems no different to a winter cold, so far.

Toast Rack Update

I apologise for things being a little quiet on the blog in recent weeks, which is on account of a number of factors including holidays, effort on constructing the dual gauge home 'test track', and a secret project that I can't tell you about.

All of which means that there hasn't been much progress with my scratch built model of FR Hudson 'toast rack' replica 39 until the other day when I cut out and test fitted a styrene floor / chassis for the body which has been glued together.

At the moment I only have the one pair of bogies - which I've stolen off the 009 Society kit - so I can't glue the floor into place and finalise its position and the running height until they are both on the rails and I can accurately compare them.

I have a pair on order but it's likely to be more than a week until I receive them.

Pots Of Joy?

As I mentioned in my previous blog post I have had a go at replicating the lamp pots from the replica Pickering brake, and with one master made from sections of styrene tube I have cast a set of four.

They look for all the world like very miniature chess pieces - narrow gauge pawns, perhaps?

I know that they don't completely match the real things in every detail, but they are a very complicated design, and there's a limit to what you can achieve with something that's only a few millimetres high - at least that's my excuse.

I'd like to think they're a passable representation, but the test will be when I can take them over to Himself, perch them on the carriage roof and compare to the photographs we have.

The Repair Shop

Looking back, I think the moment you realise you've become a parent - or more specifically, a Dad - is when you become aware of that unshakeable belief in your ability to fix stuff.

I'm still very much an apprentice in this compared to Himself.

But I have say I'm rather pleased with my efforts to restore a distinctly second hand ventilated van.

My youngest picked this old Mainline van up from a bric-a-brac stall at the local exhibition a couple of years ago, but it wasn't until very recently that I noticed one of the sliding doors was missing.

I pondered what to do about it until I dawned on me that I could use my casting know-how to make a copy of the door and its runners.

Once it's painted I think it'll end up looking rather convincing.

Ducks For Cover

It seems some of my blog readers have long memories...

Just when I thought I could put the resin away for a couple of weeks, at the end of another couple of weeks of casting kits for sale, a correspondent enquired whether I still had the moulds for brake compartment duckets?

They recalled when I was scratch building our latest models of FR carriages 11 and 12 I came up with an easy way of reproducing the tricky, curvy bits which stick out of the side of the van ends.

Fortunately for them I am a notorious hoarder and never knowingly throw away anything that 'might come in handy one day', and the moulds were stored in the miscellaneous box.

This time the intended target, I believe, are models of the WHR Pickering carriages.

* Correction - they are in fact models of 11 and 12

B Prepared

The last few weeks have seen me concentrating on another production run of kits to send to Light Railway Stores, after the last lot flew off the cyber shelves in record time.

I sent a selection down south this week, but they didn't include any B wagons or ballast wagons because I am waiting on a resupply of the brass bogie frets.

However, I am trying to get ahead of the game and getting the casting done so that as soon as the bogie parts arrive they can be packed and despatched.

The Dregs

Casting operations are paused while I wait on a new supply of resin arriving.

Such was the brisk demand for wagon kits and other castings in 2020 that I got through the previous 1kg consignment in record time, and now I only have the dregs left in the last of the decanted miniature bottles, which are much handier to use and an insurance against spillage disasters.

I did wonder whether I was going to hit trouble when it came to re-ordering, given all the issues with Brexit and that the particular brand of resin I use is imported into the UK from Germany.

Fortunately, the only delay this time is due to the relocation of the UK warehouse. Fingers crossed the importer keeps stocking it.

Hopefully there won't be any issues, either, when I come to get in more of the RTV silicone rubber I use which comes from a company in Northern Ireland.

It seems crazy to me, as a bloke in my mid-40s, that such things should ever be a consideration but these are the daft times we've found ourselves in.....

5 Of 1

The start of the new year is much like the end of the old one, with me producing a fresh batch of kits.

Most of the supplies I sent just before Christmas sold out almost immediately so it's time for another run, starting with the parts for the body of Van 51 which fits onto a Dundas Models quarrymans carriage chassis.

Runs are small - I cast just five of each kit in a batch to combat boredom.

Once they're finished and sent off these will be available to buy through the rebranded Light Railway Stores website.

Well Pleased

I got a little modelling done over the Christmas and New Year holidays with a few more steps on the FR well wagon prototype.

First I had to make a second bogie frame design for the Caernarfon end of he wagon which has a square-cornered extension unlike the semi-circle at the Blaenau end, which is how these Polish bogies were originally made.

This end also has the vacuum cylinder mounted on the longitudinal bar.

It took a little bit of head-scratching to work out how to cast it and get it angled.

My solution was to cast the bracket and the top end as one piece and the main lower bit of the cylinder which can be glued onto it to make up the unit which can be fixed onto the bogie.

There's not much more I can do on this until I get the brass deck designed and test etched, but I think it is showing promise.

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!