Let's Get Ready To Rubber

I'm just about ready to make the first mould for the ballast wagon kit.

Here you see the wagon side in its moulding box about to be covered in silicone rubber.

This isn't the same side I showed you the other day. I decided to make a second one because I wasn't completely happy with the angle on the ends of the hopper.

You can see it's got some additional details on now such as the two gearboxes which are part of the mechanism for opening the doors on the chutes, the triangular brackets at the very ends and on the left one of the supports for the two brake cylinders which sit diagonally opposite each at the ends of the NG-Y's.

If the mould turns out OK and I get some satisfactory casts from it then I shall move onto making masters for the hopper ends and the main frame of the wagon.

Funnel Find

It's amazing what you find when you rummage about enough, isn't it?

After writing a post a few days ago saying that the one bit our new Britomart was lacking was a tall, thin chimney Himself discovered that he had one all along, languishing in a box of bits in the garage.

It just so happened that around 20 years ago a fellow modeller passed on a lot of redundant 009 bits which just happened to include most of the parts of a Chivers Quarry Hunslet kit which we have been searching in vain to purchase for the last two months.

So Britomart now has her chimney, and very good it looks on her too.

MOTW - 110

It's back to the '70s again on Model Of The Week with my version of the pioneer 'Tin Carr' 110.

This carriage is perhaps the most appropriate of all the rolling stock we run on our other layout Dduallt.

When it was built it first saw use on a special shuttle service on the first section of the Deviation, around the spiral as far as Gelliwiog.

The carriage worked in a push-pull operation with the diesel Moel Hebog out of the bay platform at the top end of the station, which is also a feature of our model of Dduallt which is nominally set in 1988, the last year of the 'classic' Deviation trackplan there.

In fact 110 ran its first season incomplete, in a rather skeletal, semi-open condition until it could go back into Boston Lodge at the end of the summer to be completed.

It set the style for a the FR's second generation of modern era carriages which were markedly different to the wooden-bodied 'Barns' of the 1960's.

The 'Tin Carrs' had inward opening doors and entrance vestibules at each end, with a distinctive dome shape to the roof above and with windows either side of the corridor connections, allowing a view through into the neighbouring carriage in much the same fashion as many subway trains around the world.

They had very distinctive ribs on the bodyside beneath each window pillar which were arranged in a rather traditional pattern with alternate narrow droplights in between larger fixed windows.

Compare it to a side-on view of one of the NWGNR Ashbury 'Summer' carriages and you will see a very similar design theme.

110 remains unique because it was much longer than the 'production' carriages which followed and were built on ex-Isle of Man Railway underframes. This prototype was built with a central spine and is also quite distinctive on the FR in that it has no visible frame beneath the body.

110 had its push pull controls removed in 1990 and ours mostly runs, as the real one does, towards the top of end of a carriage set, as the last corridor vehicle before the so-called 'lock ups' which are coupled in front to add capacity as required. With this role in mind I built the model with its corridor connections closed at the Blaenau end.

As part of a noble tradition of FR singletons (along with the likes of 116 and 122) 110 has always been one of my favourites.

Ballast Wagon Kit

So I've started work on my second resin kit project.

The follow up to the DZ wagons is going to be the NG Y ballast wagons, of which there are two on the WHR.

I've begun by tackling the master for the main side section of the kit. Here is progress after a couple of hours at the workbench.

Designing a kit, especially one that you intend to produce in an open-backed mould is a very interesting challenge.

It's quite a different approach to scratch building and you might say more akin to reverse engineering.

You have to be able to imagine the complete model and break it down into the least number of constituent parts.

So whereas when I scratchbuilt these wagons for Bron Hebog I began by making up the hopper and the frame separately before joining them together and adding the second level of details like the U channel straps, the sensible way to tackle making a casting master is to make up the largest flat piece you can.

In this case it means attaching the side of the hopper to the frame at the outset and adding on all the surface details an an early stage.

I will post further updates as the work progresses.

Making A Spectacle

Himself has begun working on detailing Britomart's brass cab.

The most obvious new bits in the picture below are the frames for the spectacle plates which he dug out of one of his bits of odds 'n' sods that most modellers have.

You can also see how he was narrowed the back sheet and added the handrails which run the full height on both sides and added a lip to the curved profile on the upper side sheet.

Its really starting to look the part now, I think.

MOTW - Parry People Mover

We have an example of one of my little modelling indulgences on Model of the Week this time.

(And if you can't indulge yourself on your birthday then when can you?)

I have a very soft spot for the Parry People Mover.

This is another of the models on Bron Hebog that, as far as I know, is the only one of its kind.

My PPM was scratch built in styrene and runs on a Kato tram chassis. There are lots of previous posts documenting the build if you have a look back through the archive.

The model's appearances at Beddgelert on Bron Hebog are, of course, complete fantasy.

The real machine left the WHR in a state of mechanical disgrace around 15 years ago when the line only ran to Dinas, and even when the vehicle ran it did not excatly cover itself in glory.

So feeble was its performance that it is highly unlikely that it would ever have managed to surmount the summit at Rhyd Ddu to roll down the hill to Beddgelert, although its flywheel would no doubt have reached V max by the time it did.

I think the PPM's appeal to me lies in that sense of the 'white elephant' and also its stark modernity and the utilitarian bus-style interior which remind me of the FR of my childhood - the angular Earl of Merioneth and the 'tin carrs'.

Britomart - Plan B

Our search for a Chivers 'Quarry Hunslet' kit having drawn a blank Himself and I have decided on an alternative course of action to complete our new Britomart.

Brian Madge - who makes the cab-less 'Alice class' kit we are using for the business end of the model - kindly offered us some basic brass front, back and side sheets of the correct profile which he had lying about, and Himself has been busy forming them into a cab.

As you can see here it looks very effective.

The plan is to use resin transfer rivets to complete the detailing and bring the naked brass to life a bit more.

Here you can see some of the detail Himself has already added to the back, such as the sliding doors to give a bit more elbow room when stoking the fire.

He has also done something about the big hole beneath the saddle tank which should really be filled by the boiler barrel.

He cut two pieces from a brass tube and soldered them under the tank, although they can't be put too far in as the motor has to pass up between them.

The other issue with using a brass cab rather than a whitemetal one as we had originally planned is that it will reduce the weight of the loco and slash  it's feeble tractive effort still further.

We may be able to recover some of this by filling in the area in between the frames where the firebox sits. It needs something there in any case because right now the our model also has daylight where there should not be daylight.

Oh, and there's the small - or should that be tall? - matter of the chimney. But I'm hoping a friendly man with a lathe might help us out with that one....