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.

 

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.

The Other No.5

 An invitation for Sunday lunch at Himself's gave me the opportunity to inspect progress and I was really pleased to see how great Maenofferen tank waggon looks now it's been painted  - a coat of red oxide primer will be sufficient for this model - and with its transfers in place.

It's always hard to judge when the model is still in resin or styrene form whether you've captured the look of the real thing, but if I say so myself I think I have.

Just as well, really, given how the first ten kits for sale have been cast this weekend...

Tank Talk

I'll soon be in a position to start production of the Maenofferen tank waggon now I've successfully produced a master and test casting of the chassis.

As I explained in a post a couple of days ago, this uses the Dundas 3-ton waggon floor which has been extended at each end.

To make it easier to fit the wheels, however, I opted to design it to use the solebar and axle box part from the kit which slots neatly into place.

The waggon kit will be a relatively simple one, with two big blocks of tank to fit together - and fill / file any obvious join mark - and the floor part.

The other vital bit is the domed cap of the tank filler which is done as a separate casting.

For simplicity for customers I am thinking that for this kit I will look at supplying the kit with the wheels and Dundas parts included.

However, I don't intend to carry a large stock at any time so expressions of interest now would be helpful so I can gauge how many bits I need to buy in.

Emails to the Boston Largs Works address, please.

Sole Man

After a visit to see Himself - and his vast collection of leftover kit parts - have in my possession the bits I need to complete the chassis master for the tank wagon kit.

As with the version I made for our layouts it's going to be based around an extended Dundas FR 3-ton slate waggon chassis.

I intend to fit the extension bits to the floor plate in styrene and cast that piece in resin, but to complete the rolling chassis I'll be using the solebar and axlebox mouldings from the kit, plus the wheels of course.

Hopefully later this week I'll have the first example completed.

Sliced And Diced

I've given into public demand to attempt to make a kit for the Maeofferen Tank Waggon.

OK, well more like a couple of Facebook comments, but I'm a soft touch.

It's a challenging thing to try and reproduce.

My approach with my own model, you'll remember, was to cast a series of hollowed out rings, but I ended up wrapping them in very thin styrene to avoid any hint of the joints.

That would be too complicated for a kit because you would have to align the rings very precisely.

So I wondered instead about whether I could split the tank in half at its widest point?

I chose to go across the middle - rather than top to bottom, because this way I could cast the tank filler and the support brackets more easily.

Again it was a two-stage process,  stating with one relatively thin ring and joining four copies of that together, then using that as a master to create three sections which put together are the correct length.

Because I use open back castings the tank is a solid block of resin this time, instead of being hollow.

There was another stage where I filled and smoothed any obvious ring indents before adding the extra details.

As you can see from the picture at the top the result is quite effective.

It will require the builder to do a little filing and smoothing to fully disguise the join between the two castings but I think most modellers should be able to make a reasonable fist of it.

Onto the chassis, next.

Brass Bands

I've been adding the fiddly brass details to complete the Maenofferen tank waggon.

Himself kindly provided a sheet of brass boiler bands which are just the job for the metal strapping which is a very distinctive feature of this waggon.

They're about 1mm wide but, inconveniently, don't wrap all around the tank but instead have a joint at the top which means they have to be made out of four pieces rather than two stretching right around it.

This required a lot of bending and shaping before they were super-glued in place, and the same went for the struts at each end.

Incidentally, have you noticed that isn't positioned centrally but overhangs the chassis more at the filler end?  

I wonder why that might be?

The last pieces I added was a handle on the top of the filler and locking screw, both of which I formed out of brass wire.

Now I shall hand it over to Himself to attach the couplings and paint it.

Ovaltime

I've reached a landmark moment in the Maenofferen Tank Waggon.

There are many details still to be added to it but it's looking the part now.

After adapting the chassis the next key job was to make the four cradles for the tank, for which I chose to make a master in styrene and cast copies in resin.

The next stage will be to add the distinctive metal bands which hold the tank in place.

3 Ton Plus

The plan for the Maenofferen tank waggon was always to try and use a 3 ton slate waggon chassis, the question was always whether the wheelbase would be right or if it would need a lot of hacking about to make it fit.

Himself provided the chassis after purchasing a pack of Dundas waggon kits to renew our fleet and when I compared it with the drawing I was delighted to find the axle boxes in precisely the same place as on the regular waggons.

The tank waggon, is longer, however, but all the extra length is at the ends rather than in the middle, so it wasn't difficult to add some styrene extensions.

The other thing I did was to thin down the main base of the chassis as it was a little too thick, just by rubbing it over fine grade sand paper.

Fortunately the wagon doesn't have anything as sophisticated as brakes, so there's very little that required to be done underneath except extend the frames.

Up top, on the tank, I've made up the tank filler using my ever-handy selection pack of styrene tubes and formed the domed top of the cap with a drop of resin.

 

Stacking Rings

Having got 2048 off the workbench I've decided to crack on with a 'nice to have' project which I've been itching to try for some time - the Maenofferen tank waggon.

Being me I've elected to go about it in a really labour-intensive way!.

The tank on this wagon has a very unusual squashed profile and replicating that is going to be crucial to getting it looking right.

My first step was a scale a drawing to 4mm and cut out a template which I glued onto 15 thou styrene sheet.

I cut that out with scissors them added a strip of styrene around the perimeter before making a rubber mould and casting a copy which was now 60 thou thick.

Then, I ran off a few more castings and half of them here hollowed out.

Four of these hollow ones were them glued together, with filler used to blend out any obvious ridges where they joined.

Now I had a barrel which was around 1.5cm long.

This was used as a master for yet another mould which was also cast from four times.

These were then bonded together and two of the solid pieces put on each end.

Rather than try to smooth these over I elected to wrap it in very thin (10 thou) styrene sheet before blending the edges at each end.

So now I have the basic tank shape.

The next stage will be to obtain and adapt a Dundas 3 ton slate waggon chassis.

Maen Over Matter

I’ve been turning my mind to another challenge to tackle over the summer - and challenge is definitely the word.

Since I first saw it I’ve been captivated by the Maenofferen tank waggon, but the shape is like no other tank you’ve ever seen before.

Until this week how to tackle it was an academic question, but a passing comment to the FR GM that one day it would be useful to get some key dimensions for it resulted in him conducting an immediate security check on Minfffordd Yard, tape measure in hand.

So now I don’t have any excuses left.

I’m thinking that I may try to shape a slice of styrene to match the end profile, then cast it a few times and stack them to make a one third segment of tank, and repeat the casting process with that.

These larger sections could also be drilled hollow to save weight.

It all sounds like a lot of work but I don’t have any CAD skills for 3D printing, and anyway, that’s cheating, isn’t it??