Model Rail Scotland Debuts

Excitement is building ahead of us taking Bron Hebog to Model Rail Scotland in Glasgow in a month's time, which will be our first show in more than two years.

While I was thinking about that the other day it occurred to me that there must be a number of models we built in that time which have not been seen in public yet (aside from on this blog and our social media).

I stopped counting when I got to 15.

So I thought you might like a reminder of what's among the new stuff.

The steam engines include NGG/16 130, which is all new, and in the last two years Himself has got round to painting Lyn and Welsh Pony.

The diesel fleet has been bolstered by the recent arrival of our green Vale of Ffestiniog, and the duplicate of Conway Castle in the livery in which it served with distinction on WHR construction trains and as the Dinas shunter for many years.

Now, we also have the locomotive which replaced it, the big yellow Baguley number 9, and at the other end of the spectrum the former Boston Lodge gofer Harold.

New carriages include 2048 and the fourth of the opulent observation cars Gwyrfai, as well the much less salubrious Ashbury replica 21 and the Pickering brake for the WHHR excursions / incursions. 

If Rule One is enacted at any point over the three days at the SEC you might also be lucky to see some of our new tow-along amusements including a derelict Livingston Thompson on ambulance bogies, and a freshly un-plinthed Princess.

Both are completely out of era - being 1980s representations - and completely out of place on the Welsh Highland section, but you never know...

More prototypical is a deconstructed NGG/16 loaded onto DZ flat wagons for transfer between Boston Lodge and Dinas.

This little tableau is a consequence of us being offered the chance to buy the remains of a Backwoods kit which someone made such a Horlicks of building that the best thing to be done with it was recover any parts which could be used as spares and turn what was left into a conversion piece.

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.

 

Twenty Forty Eight

 There's another new carriage in the fleet.

Himself has completed the varnishing of WHR saloon 2048 and added the handrails beside the doors at each end, which is perhaps his least favourite job of all.

Each of these monster WHR carriages are scratch built in styrene.

There's now four of them to this design and had I known they would end up mostly (note the careful use of the word) identical, then I might have made a master to cast resin copies like I do with the FR Superbarns.

Saloon Primed

Himself has made quick progress on 2048.

It's been given a coat of primer and the holes have been drilled in the top of the seats for the handrail knobs which go on the inside edges.

It's a very minor detail, which is probably a little over the top, but since we've included them on all the carriages so far so I suppose we'll just have to carry on,

The vacuum pipes and holes for the grab rails either side of the doors are also done.

Ready For Handover

The last of the styrene construction work on 2048 has been completed and it's ready to be passed over to Himself for the final brass parts to be added and then painting.

The roof was skinned using the rolling pin and kettle technique I posted about a couple of days ago, and I do believe it looks a little smoother than when I have previously stretched a flat piece of styrene across.

One of the last jobs was to complete the underframe detail which is quite prominent on these latest WHR carriages which don't hide it all behind a skirt like the first generation did.

For this I make use of some spare parts from my SAR wagon kits for the vacuum cylinder and the brake gear rigging.

There's nothing more satisfying that a spot of recycling, is there?

Inside Job

I recently completed an order for 9 (!) sets of resin seats and tables for the WHR saloon carriages, which made for an epic week-long casting session, but it was also the perfect opportunity to run off a 10th set to make the interior for 2048, which is my current work bench project.

These didn't go in without a fight.

The joy and curse of scratch building is that each model can turn out fractionally different from the last one.

So it has proved with 2048.

For whatever reason the tables sat ever-so-slightly proud of the waistline on the bodyside.

This could be because the castings were ever so slightly thicker at the base, the body panel of the carriage is ever-so-slightly less tall than on 2047, or that the chassis / floor sits a fraction of a mm higher.

Whatever, the effect was that each seat had to be attacked with a file and sandpaper at its base and also on the top surface of the tables to get them to the correct height.

This modelling lark would be so much easier if I didn't care about such things!

Steaming

Curved plastic roofs on carriages are a thing many modellers struggle with - especially their tendency to sag in the middle.

We've always got round this by making our carriages roofs as a composite structure with a flat ceiling at the bottom with ribs running along the length to help it keep its shape.

Then I fix a skin of styrene sheet over the top, gluing it along one edge first before rolling it over on it's back, forcing the styrene to bend to shape, and holding it down while the solvent cures on the opposite side.

As you can image, styrene sheet puts up quite a fight and doesn't give in to being forced into a curve like this, and I've recently been experimenting with ways to pre-curve it by heat treating it.

The ingredients for my most recent technique are a wooden rolling pin, lots of elastic bands and wooden stirrers.

The stirrers are the breakthrough here.

Without them the styrene bulges up in between the elastic bands, giving you a very lumpy profile.

The stirrers keeps it flat along both sides.

All you have to do is truss it up like I have in the picture and pass it through the steam from a boiling kettle for a few seconds, before letting it cool and removing the bands and sticks.

Although the styrene still does not match the radius of the carriage roof I'm confident there will be a lot less resistance when I come to fit it onto the ceiling frame.

Hannibal Moment

I love it when a carriage comes together!

That moment when all the pieces are ready to be joined together into one bodyshell, which is the stage 2048 is at now.

On the latest FR and WHR carriages that moment takes a lot longer to reach because of the recessed doors which mean you have to complete 8 sub-assemblies before they can be glued together.

Scratch building in styrene takes a lot longer but when you get to this moment it is a lot easier to bond plastic parts together and get them in just the right position compared to the resin pieces I use for the FR Superbarns.

Its also worth showing you one of the key steps I take before forming into a shell, gluing little blocks on the back which will set the height of the floor / chassis.

These are exactly 3mm above the bottom of the bodyside and I use a small piece of styrene to as a guide to make sure they're all set in exactly the right position.

It's so much harder to do this when its glued together.

Once that happens it's important to cut the floor as soon as I can to help keep the bodysides straight and prevent them bending inwards like inverted bananas, which is what the styrene naturally wants to do.

Vestibules

The component parts of WHR carriage 2048 are coming together now.

I've detailed the door units with the second layer of beading added now, and the spacers to set them back from the main bodyside.

(That's after they'd all be deconstructed and cut down in height by 1mm - see a previous post for details of this foul-up)

The bases for the end pieces have also been made.

These are quite complex to made because the top piece with the overhang has to be cut and fitted on top of the pillars and its vital to make sure it's placed centrally.

Next up is one of my least-favourite jobs - making up the corridor connections.

This involves cutting, fixing and filing 24 pieces of styrene strip to create the folding flaps either side of the end doors, and takes about an hour to make up all six.

Double Doors

I was reminded of the perils of building a model when you're tired, or in a rush, or both, when I went to do a little more work on 2048 the other day and found myself having to spend the session deconstructing and rebuilding what I'd done before I could make any forward progress.

The issue appeared when I began to add the beading details to the doors, which are sub-assemblies on these WHR saloons,.

I discovered that I had set the height incorrectly, and from the window opening upwards they were around 1.5mm taller than the bodyside.

The simplest thing would have been to make a new set of base layers to the right dimension, but being the stubborn type that I am I elected to try and alter them.

This involved very carefully slicing between the pillars and the lower body panel and then trimming a very precise - and identical - amount off the bottom of each post and grafting it back together.

Being mindful not to fall into the trap of cutting too much off I found that it took at least three attempts to lower it to the correct size, and then some even finer trimming to ensure it was all square again.

Fortunately the pieces won't lose any strength from this butchery because there are full length strips to add on top which will secure the joint again.

It was all very irritating for being so unnecessary, though.

Slow Burner

There wasn't a lot of modelling done last week - I think the motivation tank had rather been drained by an orgy of casting to order the previous weekend. 

 I decided it was time to try and progress the new WHR saloon 2048 a little.

 

As you can see the beading has been added to one of the sides. 

 The other one is still to be done, and I've also made the base layers of the doors to go either end of these. 

Unlike the FR Superbarns I've never resin cast these carriages - probably because construction of the fleet has been spread out over so many years - so each one is made entirely from styrene from scratch.

When motivation's lacking it feels good just to get back to the workbench and do something, even if it's not a massive amount of progress.

In this case I'm trying to force myself to finish this project rather than giving in to the temptation to begin something new.

We'll see how this week goes...

Modern Image

For perhaps the first time since we began modelling the FR back in the late 1980s we’re within touching distance of being up to date with the output of the carriage works.

I’ve begun building Welsh Highland saloon 2048.

The real carriage is far more advanced than this, being in the final stages when the Covid shutdown happened.

I’m making it using my long established “ladder technique” with styrene strip.

The basic idea is not to attempt to cut out windows but to fabricate the body side through a series of upright sticks topped by a long horizontal bar.

Neither do you need to bother about pre-cutting the pillars to length - get them all in place then mark the height, lay a ruler along the top and chop them to length.

You’ll also notice I build it on a sheet of glass with a scale drawing beneath to get the positions right.

I’m the case of 2048 it also has toplight windows which are added in after the cant rail has been fixed on.

This does require some hyper-accurate cutting to get the pieces to be a snug fit inside the gap but you can slice incredibly fine slivers with a sharp scalpel blade.

This is only stage one. Next I’ll be adding the beading detail on top as we built the laminate structure.

Carriage Cloning

While I continue plugging away with Gwyrfai my mind is turning to the other projects I could be taking on in 2020.

If I attempt to keep pace with Boston Lodge then I’ll need to knock out another WHR saloon.

The last one I made was 2047 and 2048 is already well under construction in Wales.

Unlike the Super Barns, for which I have resin casting moulds at the ready, I’m still making these from scratch in styrene.

The other major gap in our carriage roster is the replica of Ashbury tourist / bogie quarrymans carriage 22.

That’s an easy hit with a scratch aid kit from Worsley Works.

Plenty to be getting on with.