Prototype Approved

I've reached the stage with the development of the V-16 Brake Van kit where it's time to glue together the first set of castings and see if they all fit as they should.

The bodyshell went together just as I'd intended...

Now for the new innovation (for me) on this kit.

All my resin kits so far have been for open wagons, but this van, of course, requires a roof.

Long experience shows that unsupported styrene is not a good solution because sooner or later it will sag in the middle.

The ideal solution is a roof made from metal sheet, but my conscience tells me it's too cheeky to sell a kit that includes only 5 sides of the box, so I've come up with a compromise.

On my scratch built carriages I install a false ceiling with longitudinal ribs to support the roof skin. For the kit I've come up with something similar but easier to cast.

It is s cast block with the top profile that matches the roof. It is sized to fit inside the bodyshell.

All you have to do to get a perfectly formed, non-sagging, styrene roof is to glue this to a piece of thin styrene sheet, starting along one edge and then when that's set bending it over and gluing down the other side - super glue works best for obvious reasons.

And there we have it - a van with a roof!

Now, there is a downside to this solution, and that is the weight of the roof casting which sits very high in the vehicle.

To avoid it being top-heavy and wobbling excessively it will probably be necessary to add some weight to the floor to compensate.

I've quite satisfied with it, though, and see no reason not to press ahead with a production run for the FR shop.

Relative Humudity

When The Boss sets up the ironing board once a week I usually take it as a sign that it's safe to sneak off to the modelling room for an hour or so of uninterrupted work.

So it was this week when I thought I would grab the chance to get stuck into the mountain of resin casting work I've got building up. (The FR shop has ordered another run of all my SAR wagon kits.)

However, things didn't turn out quite as planned.

Now, anyone who's ever cast in resin without the aid of a vacuum chamber knows that air bubbles are an occupational hazard. Mostly they're either so tiny they can hardly be seen with the naked eye or can be easily attended to with a spot of filler.

On this occasion, though, I had my first experience of the phenomenon of what is known as 'champagne bubbles'.

In fact it was so extreme you could be forgiven for thinking I had used expanding foam instead of polyurethane resin...

What was going on I gather, after a little bit of googling, was the resin was reacting to excess moisture in the air as it cured.

In hindsight I realise I was casting in something of a perfect storm.

The weather had been muggy for days. There were pans of veg boiling away on the stove in the kitchen. And to put the tin lid on it, The Boss was using the steam iron enthusiastically less than a metre away from where I was casting.

(When I say ironing enthusiastically, imagine for a moment a Garratt starting off with all its cylinder cocks wide open - you get the picture)

To test out the theory I rummaged in the loft and brought down the dehumidifier I bought years ago for coping with a condensation crisis in an old house.

I shut the door to the study, left it to run for a while and then mixed up another pot of resin.

I'm pleased to say the resulting casting was flawless and another lesson was learnt.

Namely, don't attempt any casting when the weekly ironing session is in progress.....

All Set For Silicone

The masters for the new V-16 brake van kit are finished - I hope.

After adding all the rivets to the other side piece - they're on a double-sided styrene base so you can't see it here, but it is - I've made the two ends and a chassis.

The chassis is adapted from the master I designed for the B wagon kit.

It is the same length but it is considerably wider so I made a cast and then beefed it up with styrene strip.

The biggest difference, though, is that the vacuum reservoir tank in a different position on the brake van so I had to carefully hack away the one on the casting and make a replacement by pouring just enough resin into the hole in the mould to make a spare and glue that on in the correct spot.

Now I shall have to make a set of moulds and cast a prototype and we can see if it really does fit together as I planned.

Backscene Boosting

Himself has decided he made an error a while ago and the 'hill' on the Cemetery Crossing board is not going to be high enough, so before he goes too much further on this last board he's taking action to increase the height of the scenic former at the back.

In this series of pictures you can see how he has marked out the shape of the existing plywood and marked it out on a fresh sheet.

You can see in these two shots below that he has done such a neat job it's hard to tell where the join is.

The last bit of progress to report just now is the cork track bed has been cut out and glued in place around the curve into the lower fiddle yard. Once again you'll notice the scenic break is placed at an angle.

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.

Making Moulds Again

It looks like resin season is in full swing here with a flood of orders for my range of SAR wagon kits.

The FR shop has requested another run of all three kits - plus the guards van which is coming soon - so I am digging out the masters and making a new set of silicone moulds.

In the picture above are the main parts for the DZ & B wagon kits ready in their styrene 'boxes' for the RTV mixture to the poured on top.

A Few Centimetres To Go

We have almost completed the track laying on the layout.

Himself has turned his attention to the other end - the Porthmadog end - and the last base board to be tackled.

This is the one that was used as a temporary fiddle yard but is destined to be the section leading from the southern end of Goat Tunnel and across Cemetery Crossing as the railway heads for the Pass of Aberglaslyn.

He has cut and mounted the plywood track bed and started work on the crossings.

In the picture above you can see Cemetery crossing in the foreground with road and footpath leading off p the hill.

The entrance to the fiddle yard, with the scenic break on a diagonal, can be seen in the background after the unnamed foot crossing.

And this is the view from the over direction.

As you can see there is but a few centimetres of virgin track bed left on Bron Hebog now. What a tantalizing sight!

It also serves as a reminder how huge this layout is going to be by 009 standards.

Many of them seen on the circuit are no longer than the run from this point to the start of the tunnel around the corner out of shot.

That's not meant as a criticism or a put down because you can see some amazing modelling in small spaces, it's just an observation to put the size of this project into context.