Soldering On

I found a soldering iron in my stocking left by Santa on Christmas morning, Today I've had my first chance to try it out. (And I haven't needed to visit the local burns unit, either!)

Soldering is a new modelling frontier for me. Until now whenever I've needed to use brass I've managed to get away with bonding it to styrene. But I've had to cross the Rubicon with the Romanian ballast wagon.

The culprits are the control levers for the ballast dropping mechanism.



Brass wire was the obvious material to use but because there are two levers attached to each shaft there was no alternative to some brass on brass joints. It was time to learn how to solder.

Himself gave me some lessons on his last visit a few weeks ago and I practised joining up some random bits of brass wire, ending up with something that looked like Terry Gilliam's plumbing from the Monty Python title sequence. So far so good.

The tricky bit with the levers, I reckoned, was that the two joints are so close together that I wouldn't be able to put them on one at a time without the first one coming un-soldered when I tried to add the second. So I decided the best tactic would be to try to solder both with one application of the iron.

But how to hold them in place? The levers are only 9mm long so they were going to get very hot if I tried holding them in place with my fingers.

Next I thought of trying to hold them in place with blu-tac or plasticine but I couldn't find any in the house. The best I could do was my daughter's play-doh but that turned out to be a little too soft to hold the levers in place.

So I came up with the idea of inserting them into a rubber. And it worked rather well.



Here are the completed shafts / levers in place on the wagon.



And now with the frame in place around them.



Altogether an encouraging first adventure with the iron, I'd say.

Merry Christmas

I would like to wish a very Merry Christmas to everyone who logs onto this blog.



When you start a blog like this you're never too sure whether anyone's going to find it in cyberspace, and if they do whether they'll bother to read it or ever come back?

I'm thrilled that we've had over six thousand hits since I started back in May so thanks to everyone who's dropped in and to those of you who've taken time to leave comments.

I often affectionately refer to by cohorts in the Bron Hebog team as 'Himself' (my Dad, David) and Francis who readers will know as our 'Artistic Director', which as you'll see from this festive sketch of Rhiw Goch on the FR below is a very accurate description as he is a very talented artist indeed.

See you again, I hope, in 2011.

Best wishes

Rob

Clearing The Backlog

Heathrow Airport isn't the only place just now struggling to clear the backlog. The southern operation at Bron Hebog has a fair collection of unpainted carriages waiting for the attention from the airbrush.

Himself is taking a break from the Backwoods Manning Wardle 'Lyd' project and has decided to start working through the collection of unpainted WHR saloons which have been languishing in a drawer in the modelling room for close on two years.

Please Be Seated

As a little diversion from the ballast wagon I've been adding yet more of those missing details from the tamper - the snagging list doesn't seem to be getting any shorter.

This time it's the driver / operator seats in the cabs.

Glues Chutes And Leaves

The last major pieces of styrene construction on the Romanian ballast wagons are the twin sets of ballast chutes which hang from the underframe.



It didn't take too long to knock them up once I'd worked out the angles of the shoots.



If the picture looks a little odd to you it's because the wagon was upside down! As I mentioned in a previous post the model is a bit of a puzzle at the moment and I have to be very careful about what order I cement things on. If I fix on the chute assemblies now it'll make it more difficult to fiddle with the control shafts - I'll need access from underneath as well as the side for that job.

There's not a lot more can be done now until I get my hands on a soldering iron. Once the control levers are soldered onto the ends of the inner set of shafts they can be put in place, followed by the larger diameter one on each side of the wagon (for which I am waiting on the right size styrene rod to arrive).

After that there will be lots of fun to be hand bending and soldering the handrails at each end.

Rods For My Back

As more details go on this wagon is becoming more of a Chinese puzzle - or perhaps that should be a Romanian puzzle.

I've had to very carefully work out what to put on in what order to avoid snookering myself further down the line and so it's not always the most obvious, or most essential details, which have to completed first.

Which is why my efforts today were focused on the inboard pair of control shafts, which are hidden behind the support struts and probably wouldn't be missed if they weren't there. But it would be tricky to add them later if I had a late change of heart so best to put them on now while access to this area is (comparatively) easier.

First job was to make up some bearing plates to hold the shafts in position.



There are three of them in all - here they are in position on the hoppers.



And now with the brass wire threaded through to check the positioning.



The wires will now be left to one side and probably won't go on again until the wagon is almost complete. They also will need to have the control levers soldered at one end.

I've also done some work at the other end, adding the vacuum cylinders and the frame which supports them and eventually the cover over the reservoir which I will make out of thin sheet brass.

News From The Frozen North

My model ballast wagon's starting to take on more of the look of the real thing as some of the distinctive features are added. This thing is like some rail-mounted Christmas tree there are so many bits hanging off it, especially compared to the simpler lines of the SAR ballast wagons.

Most of the details added today have been of the vertical variety. I started with the struts along each side of the hopper - these will later have the outermost control shaft for the ballast doors running along near the top. There are also longer struts at each end.



I've also started on the jumble of brake equipment at one end of the wagon. The first thing to go on is the vacuum reservoir which is up on stilts and will be joined next by cylinders either side.

Here's the real thing...



Here's my version so far...