Non-Identical Twins

I suppose in a way my naivety is quite touching, but I really shouldn't have been surprised when my plan to make one master for the sides of the FR and WHHR Hudson toast rack carriages hit a snag.

A correspondent informed me that there is a clear difference in the pair in the orientation of the upright L girders on the sides.

While the WHHR rebuild has them as per the original carriages the FR replica - built by Winson Engineering in the 1990s - has most of them facing in the opposite direction.

I am also informed that this is not what was designed, however, that is what was delivered!

Armed with this unfortunate information my options were:

a) build separate masters for the two carriages

or

b) try to slice off the uprights to make a generic master to which I could use to cast incomplete sides and add the uprights separately for each carriage.

I've decided to go for the second option.

This now looks a lot more basic, although I have been able to add on the footboard and some resin rivet head transfers along the frame.

Hopefully cutting and sticking on the girders will be much less hassle than having to make a whole second side from scratch.

Black Spot

I'm ready to make the first casts of the Mk2 BZ wagon.

The side piece has been finished off with its rivets.

These are tiny resin dots fixed onto waterslide transfer film, produced by the American firm Archers, and they very simple and effective to use.

I brush a coat of clear varnish over them before I cover the whole thing in RTV to try and stop them being pulled off when I removed the cured mould, which mostly works.

As with the first wagon the ends are going to be a two-stage process because of the differences in the hinges / supports where they fold down flat on the real wagons.

I will cast two copies of this piece - which has all the details common to both - and use them to make another pair of masters.

Inlets & Outlets

I've spent the last few details beginning to add the essential details to the water tank wagon, such as the filler and the platform on the top and the two outlets on either end where Fireman Sam connects his hoses should it ever be required at a lineside incident.

The platform is a tricky little piece fabricated from styrene strip with etched brass mesh on top.

It was very flimsy and delicate while it was being made and didn't stand up to handling well, but now it's glued in place on the top with the mesh attached it is seems to be more solid. Lets hope it stands up to the rigours of service at model railway exhibitions.

I have also dug out my trusty resin rivet transfer sheets to add the detailing along the frame.

There are also half a dozen grab handrails to be fitted along the frame before the chassis and tank are painted - still as separate units.

Only when they are painted and finally glued together will I be adding the ladders on either side.

Dotaman

Scottish TV viewers of a certain age will get the pun - for the rest I'll explain later on.

I've been working on applying the resin transfer rivets to the SAR brake van masters. I use the excellent product from the US firm Archers for these. They're available from traders in the UK but I usually order them direct from Archers in the States and they arrive very swiftly.

I'm not doing all the rivets and bolt heads on the van - life's too short for that - but I've tried to include all the main ones along the frame and those holding the angle sections in place at the bottom, plus the run of bolt heads on the upright at either end.

I'm having to make a master of each side of the van because they are not a mirror image, so that's another reason not to challenge my sanity by rivet counting.

* Dotaman was a very long running Gaelic kids TV programme in Scotland. A sort of Playschool with subtitles.

Improving The Breed

My DZ masters have gone all spotty.

Following successful experiments with the resin rivet transfers in the silicone moulds for the NGY and B wagon kits I am retro-fitting the masters for my first kit release, for the DZ wagons.

The 3rd generation of these kits will come with cast rivet heads and also the option of the more common, larger SAR ends. (The examples on the WHR were cut down level with the top of the side doors.)

The picture shows them with a box built around them ready for the RTV moulding rubber to be poured on.

Letter From America

Running out of supplies when you're halfway through a project is always annoying.

It is even more irritating if the trader you use has an erratic turnaround time on your order. It's nice when you order something online to be confident about knowing when you're going to get your bits.

That's why I always order my resin rivet transfers direct from the makers, Archer, in the USA even though I have seen some traders selling them at exhibitions in the UK.

Their delivery performance is really very impressive considering where there are based and how little it costs - $3 air mail -  and they generally arrive here in less than 5 working days.

In fact, I recently ordered some components from a UK based firm and transfers from Archers, on the same day, and their package reached me from the States many days before the item from our own wee island.

What I need them for is to complete my own fleet of DZ wagons for Bron Hebog.

I've got 3 wagons to rivet up. I'd completed 4 out of the 6 sides when I ran out of the right size of rivets.

Now this package has arrived I can get on with finishing them off.

Himself is due to come to see us in Scotland in a couple of weeks so I hope to be able to hand them over to him them to take back and paint.

Dot To Dot

Applying rivet transfers is one of those tasks that requires total concentration and which really clears the mind and relaxes the body - or at least I find it so.

While the family were otherwise amusing themselves for an hour or so (a rare event as most of my modelling is confined to the hours when I've got the house to myself) I dug out my pack of Archer's rivets and stuck them onto one side of one of my DZ wagons destined to join the Bron Hebog fleet.

As you can see there are quite a lot of them.

The long runs along the top of the doors are the simplest. It's the messing about with the door hinges and all the little groups and odd ones and twos along the bottom frame that takes the time.

Here's a shot of it with all of them in place.

By this time I was started to get a little cross-eyed and so it's probably just as well that I've decided to let these dry for a day or two, and then I will give them a coat of clear varnish, before I tackle the other side.

The last thing I want is to turn it over without them fixed firmly in place because there's a real risk I will end up knocking some of them off as I work on the other side.

Were that to happen riveting would most certainly no longer be a relaxing and soothing job...

Spot On

This time the rivets are going on for real.

I've applied rows of resin transfers onto the masters for the NGY ballast wagon.

Fortunately there are not too many of them and they're in a relatively simple pattern along the bottom of the frame.

You can see that I've also had a play about with one of my spare DZ castings to see if it's realistic proposition to add them onto these wagons.

By contrast to the ballast wagon there are quite a lot of them in awkward places.

Fortunately I can report that they went on very easily (they really are very good, these rivet transfers) and so I shall press ahead with putting them onto my own fleet of DZ's for Bron Hebog

I think I will probably also stick some onto the masters for the DZ kit before I come to cast the third batch.

Going Dotty

A little experiment while I am between bigger modelling projects.

There's not much more can be done on the ballast wagons until the bogie etches and other bits arrive and the second batch of DZ wagons has been cast and posted off to customers.

So I'm having a play about to see if there is a way of using resin transfers on a master for a casting.

Using the resin transfers isn't difficult. In fact they are a complete joy. No, the issue about whether they are any good or not is because I fear they will be ripped off when I come to peel the silicone mould away from the master.

It's perfectly possible that I could dig the rivets out of the mould, one by one, but I couldn't then use the master again until I had re-riveted it. That would be rather tiresome, to say the least, because on a popular kit I may have to manufacture three or four moulds.

So I'm going to pour a little RTV over these and see what happens.

I have applied the transfers in the usual way, brushed fixing solution over them twice and also now given them a coat of clear varnish.

So, blog-readers of the world, what are your predictions for what's going to happen?

Kits In Colour

Here's one of the DZs given a quick blast of red oxide. What do you all think of it?

This is one of the wagons I've built up for customers which is made using the kit as it comes.

For our own trio of wagons for Bron Hebog I'll be adding additional details such as the vacuum pipes and I'm thinking about tarting them up with some resin transfer rivets too.

It would have been lovely to have had some rivet detail on the castings but I'm not too sure how well it would work.

The problem is that I make my masters out of styrene. In brass it's simple enough to press out the rivets - well,  perhaps not simple because it's quite a time-consuming and tricky business - but at least once a rivet is punched, it's punched.

With styrene the obvious solution is to use the terrific resin transfers produced by Archers, but I have my doubts about whether they would work on a casting master.

My fear is that they would stick to the silicone rubber used to make the mould and be pulled off the master when you removed it from the mould and you'd then have to try and dig them out of the rubber, rivet by rivet, before you could cast from the mould.

And of course you'd have to re-rivet the master again before you could use it a second time.

I'll maybe try a test piece next time I'm making some moulds, but as I say, I have my doubts.....