Rush Job

It wasn't part of the plan, but a very productive couple of hours at the weekend saw me put the finishing touches to my prototype FR intrastructure well wagon.

These bits included links cut out of a chain to represent the lashing rings on the deck and some brass wire bent to look something like the pipework around the brake cylinder on the Caernarfon end bogie.

At which point I had a very bad thought - I wonder if there's still to give it a lick of paint in time for Model Rail Scotland?  

Himself indicated he was up for the challenge, and so here it is with a rapidly applied interim livery in the infrastructure department's rather drab olive green livery.

At this point the wagon has been test run around the track at my house but has yet to be tried out on Bron Hebog itself.

So whether or not it will play a part in any of the train formations, or just be a static feature in the siding at Beddgelert station, will depend on how it runs when we get the layout set up tonight....

Double Jointed

Not only is the world-famous Ffestiniog the home of the articulated steam locomotive it also has a rather special double-articulated infrastructure wagon, which I am busy scratch building for a second time for a customer.

Yesterday's task was the tricky business of making it bend - in two places - which is why I waited until I was in the mood to tackle it.

The challenging bit of the process is to hold a 10BA nut captive in styrene.

This is quite simple when you're working in brass because you just solder it in place, but soft styrene is a different matter.

What I did - and I'm trusting this will be a long-term solution here - was make T-shaped sections to fit in the bottom of the boxes which make up the main body of the wagon and ream a hole that was tight enough that the nut could be pressed into it, but not so tight as to distort or crack the plastic.

The hole was also lined with a smear of super glue and then another piece of styrene - with a smaller hole - was fixed on one side to prevent the nut being pushed out and disappearing inside the body of the wagon.

With these fitted in the place in the boxes what I did next was make up the bar which connects the two vans and forms the spine which the central platform is fixed onto.

When you turn it the right way up the result is what you see in the picture at the top of the article.

The next stage will be to fix the Hudson skip wagon chassis underneath the two boxes so it can sit on rails for the first time.

Cubed

Modelling time I've had this week is being taken up with working on a commission for a copy of the model we made of the FR's S&T tool van.

This is a double articulated wagon (if that's such a thing) with large box structures at each end which are redundant bodies from former BT road vans.

I've been working steadily on these since the weekend and the sides and ends have been fixed together into their boxes now, with a roof fixed on top.

This will each sit on a former Hudson skip wagon chassis and be connected by a flat platform which pivots at each end.

Buffet Service

The model of Carnforth buffet car 114 I've been building for a customer is ready to be sent off to its new home.

The blue panel behind the windows is just a protective film on the glazing sheets to prevent them getting scratched.

The challenge on this carriage was to make it match its brass-built twins as much as possible, which is no easy task working in styrene.

We'll find out for sure once my customer has painted it.

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.

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.

Wagonry

There's not been much to report on the blog in the last week.

I was busy with more commercial casting, while Himself's been kept fully occupied on a top secret project to be revealed later this month.

Once my outside work was out of the way I have made a little more progress on the prototype of the well wagon.

Having previously cast the two side pieces I now needed to make some masters for the spacers which will give the wagon more strength.

These were made in styrene and then the first ones cast and fixed to the prototype.

The intention is for brass sections, etched with a durbar plate pattern, to be fixed on top.

My next task will be to sort out the bogies which - in true FR fashion - are not identical.

He Chutes

The last few days of modelling have been filled with more steady casting as I work to restock Narrow Planet with the full range of SAR wagon kits.

After a batch of DZs I've moved on to the most complex of my kits, the NG-Y ballast wagon.

The trickiest part to cast are the pieces which make up the ballast chutes at the bottom of the wagon.

Unusually this time I've been able to make a full batch without any mis-castings.

I must be getting the knack of this resin casting lark.

B Is For Best Seller

 The reason that not much new modelling is appearing on this blog is that for the last week - and for a few weeks to come - my time's being used to cast parts for my range of wagon kits to restock our friends at Narrow Planet, who kindly sell them through their webshop.

I've not kept a detailed log my if I had to guess I'd say the versatile ex-SAR B wagon is the kit I've sold the most of, and I began by casting a batch of them before moving on to the smaller DZ wagons this week.

One consequence of the pandemic - which has caused offices up and down the land to remain empty -is that I've run out of supply of the very stiff fibre card which I used in the packaging in the kits to help keep the parts flat.

I obtained this for free by recycling the bottom part of the boxes which come into our office containing packs of binding cases for sales presentations.

Now the sales team are all working at home none of these boxes are being used any more and I'm having to hunt around for suitably stiff cardboard to repurpose instead.

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.

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...

Wishing Well

In week when I've not managed to get any modelling done at all I find the In Tray for future projects is piling up.

Himself is now expressing a desire for a model of the FR's well wagon which was deployed this week to transport the painted cab of 130 to Dinas to be united with the rest of the locomotive.

Being part of the modern infrastructure fleet, with vacuum brakes, it's a really useful wagon which can be found all over the 40-mile railway, so its appearance on Bron Hebog could be well justified.

No sooner had he popped up with his wish list comment than other people were suggesting it should be the next Boston Largs Works kit - notwithstanding the fact I'm making very slow progress with the MOD flat wagons project.

On the plus side I would be able to make use of the Polish bogie castings which I developed for the Livingston Thompson project, but I'll have to do some clever thinking about how I could produce a wagon body in that shape using an open-back casting method.

Tank Waggon Test Run

A coat of varnish has completed the Maenofferen tank waggon and now its been taken for a test run with the rest of the vintage freight stock and Palmertston.

I'm really pleased with how it's turned out.

It's a very distinctive shape and if I say so myself I seem to have captured it, when comparing this to a similar picture in the 2020 FR calendar.

The first batch of my kits for this waggon have sold out and there's a reservation list for the next batch.

Email Boston Largs Works to secure yours.