Chuffnell Regis

[Tortuga]

2 hours ago, Graham T said:

 

Thanks for the info, I'll try to get it right next time!  No guarantees mind 🙂

 

Do you have a photo of the retaining strap that you mentioned please?

 

I’ve tried to highlight in red:

Not the best photo, I’m afraid, and of a Grammys rather than a Mink - on this wagon the lever guard is positioned just to the left of the right hand spring mount, just add the lie to what I said about the position of the lever guard!

[Graham T]

Thanks for that.  It looks as if the Mink may not have had one though - from this photo anyway?

 

 

It also seems that they've got their lever guard in the wrong place - it's not the same as my model 😉

 

[Tortuga]

That’s the problem with the classic three quarter view - at that angle you’re looking straight along the length of the retaining strap which is hidden behind the lever guard!

[Graham T]

This pic (from Wikimedia) shows it better, but it does seem that not all vans had them, from a spot of quick googling.

 

[Compound2632]

I thought that was just a 3D printing support?

[Graham T]

Life imitating art?

 

[Tortuga]

Hmm. From a quick look at the GWR Vans in Part 4 of The Acquired Wagons of British Railways by David Larkin it does seem that the retaining strap is absent on two out of the five lever guards that are visible on the four V6 Iron Minks that are pictured (one van clearly has a strap on the other side to that photographed). In both cases where the strap is absent, the guard itself is of a very rounded, toothed type and is on the same side as the brake shoes. All the vans pictured with  a “pin down” or a more square, toothed (as in your photo) guard have the retaining strap.

 

Maybe the very rounded, toothed guard was an early GW pattern and the requirement for the retaining strap came in with the 1923 RCH specification, with the earlier guards being replaced during overhaul?

Edited April 3, 2023 by Tortuga
Clarity

[Graham T]

I guess I need to be more careful in checking photographic references.  But then again, I'm not aiming for complete accuracy anyway...

 

[Tortuga]

A quick look through the whole book seems to suggest that all vans built by the big four had retaining stays on the lever guard, but not vans from their constituent companies.

Exceptions seem to be Grain Vans, Bulk Powder Hoppers, SR Cattle Wagons and BR Cattle Wagons based on SR designs.

 

I hope this helps and that it doesn’t make me seem like some kind of rivet-counting obsessive!

 

If it does make me sound a bit rivet-county, fitting the retaining stays, though fiddly, does make the brake levers and guards much less susceptible to getting damaged/knocked off: even a 1mm wide strip of 10 thou plasticard works - I tried it out on a couple of my mineral wagons with the levers and guards from the kit and they resisted coming free quite well once I needed to remove them in order to fit the etched parts!

[Tortuga]

8 minutes ago, Graham T said:

I guess I need to be more careful in checking photographic references.  But then again, I'm not aiming for complete accuracy anyway...

 

Eh, we’ve all been there!

 

(and anyone who says otherwise, is a liar!)

[Tortuga]

14 minutes ago, Graham T said:

But then again, I'm not aiming for complete accuracy anyway...

 

Also, you say that, then produce something as realistic as that ruined barn on your first attempt!

[Graham T]

7 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

Also, you say that, then produce something as realistic as that ruined barn on your first attempt!

Ah, but there aren’t any rivets to count on the barn!

 

[Graham T]

Paint your wagon, you say?  Don't mind if I do.  Here's the Mink fresh from the paint shop.  Sprayed with Tamiya German grey, apart from the roof which is brush painted with Vallejo black grey.  Hard to tell in the photo but the roof does look a few shades darker than the bodywork.  Hopefully get the transfers on tomorrow, and then it can be sealed with a spray of matt varnish before the bit I enjoy the most - weathering.

 

[BWsTrains]

11 hours ago, Graham T said:

I'll have to apply lashings of Rule 1 to actually run this Siphon O1 at Chuffnell R, as it seems they had all been withdrawn by 1914.  C'est la vie!

 

Anyway, it's now had buffers and vac pipes added.  I can see from this pic that I have made a howler with the brakes, they arent aligned with the wheels.  B*gger.  The 3D printed parts came as one piece for each side of the wagon, to be glued to the inner face of the solebar.  So that's what I did, obviously with the wheels out.  I should have popped the wheels back in to check everything before gluing on the brakes.  Too late now.

 

 

I've also painted the insides of the side panels, and filled in the lower slats at each for taking the GW transfers.  A waft of primer is the next job.

 

 

Your progress is pressuring me to start one of mine now, looking good. I'm sure it'll come out very well based on this preview.

 

Colin

[MrWolf]

8 hours ago, Tortuga said:

A quick look through the whole book seems to suggest that all vans built by the big four had retaining stays on the lever guard, but not vans from their constituent companies.

Exceptions seem to be Grain Vans, Bulk Powder Hoppers, SR Cattle Wagons and BR Cattle Wagons based on SR designs.

 

I hope this helps and that it doesn’t make me seem like some kind of rivet-counting obsessive!

 

If it does make me sound a bit rivet-county, fitting the retaining stays, though fiddly, does make the brake levers and guards much less susceptible to getting damaged/knocked off: even a 1mm wide strip of 10 thou plasticard works - I tried it out on a couple of my mineral wagons with the levers and guards from the kit and they resisted coming free quite well once I needed to remove them in order to fit the etched parts!

 

I found the reinforcing strip a very useful detail, especially having snapped the brake lever when cutting the glass hard sprues of old yellow box era Ratio wagons, or the processed cheese recycled plastic some of the other makers use now. 

 

It's a very useful "splint" for the ham pawed among us!

[MrWolf]

8 hours ago, Tortuga said:

Eh, we’ve all been there!

 

(and anyone who says otherwise, is a liar!)

 

Yes, as evidenced by my current autocoach upgrade project.

 

And never copy a model!

[BWsTrains]

8 hours ago, Tortuga said:

A quick look through the whole book seems to suggest that all vans built by the big four had retaining stays on the lever guard, but not vans from their constituent companies.

Exceptions seem to be Grain Vans, Bulk Powder Hoppers, SR Cattle Wagons and BR Cattle Wagons based on SR designs.

 

I hope this helps and that it doesn’t make me seem like some kind of rivet-counting obsessive!

 

If it does make me sound a bit rivet-county, fitting the retaining stays, though fiddly, does make the brake levers and guards much less susceptible to getting damaged/knocked off: even a 1mm wide strip of 10 thou plasticard works - I tried it out on a couple of my mineral wagons with the levers and guards from the kit and they resisted coming free quite well once I needed to remove them in order to fit the etched parts!

 

Sound like an idea, if I understand correctly this is the item in question, detail from the Wikimedia photo above.

 

I've a couple of items where this would be most handy, even if not prototypical. Who's looking?

 

Colin

 

[Graham T]

9 hours ago, BWsTrains said:

 

Your progress is pressuring me to start one of mine now, looking good. I'm sure it'll come out very well based on this preview.

 

Colin

 

Thanks Colin.  A few things I'd bear in mind when you start the build (you've probably thought of these already).  Add some weight.  Paint the interior before completion!  Separate the brake shoes and levers from the solebar-length 3D print so that you can line them up with the wheels.  Definitely consider using etched W-irons.

 

[Barclay]

I've been having a browse through 'All About GWR Iron Minks' by the HMRS and none of the drawings shows a stay on the brake lever guard. Neither do any of the photo's except one, no. 11346, which has no stay on its original guard, the one with the circular hole shape at the bottom, but does have a stay on the more modern parallel-sided guard on the other side, which, the caption says, was fitted in 1932 as part of the Board of Trade's requirement for wagons to have a handbrake on both sides. So, perhaps it depends on the type of brake/guard fitted?

[Graham T]

I think perhaps the only sure way is to model a specific example of the prototype from a photo.  And even then it could of course have been modified later.

 

So I think, all things considered, I won’t get too hung up about it!

 

[Compound2632]

49 minutes ago, Graham T said:

I think perhaps the only sure way is to model a specific example of the prototype from a photo.

 

Even better to model an example of which no photo exists.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Compound2632

[Graham T]

24 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Even better to model an example of which no photo exists.

 

Now that sir, is genius!

 

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Now that sir, is genius!

 

Just statistics. There are far more wagons unphotographed than photographed. 

[Graham T]

Lies, damned lies, and statistics...

 

As ever, I'll stick to Rule 1 and "a prototype for everything".

 

[Graham T]

A little more progress with the antique Siphon O1 today.  All the running gear has been painted with a grimy looking mix of black and leather brown; the insets of the wheels with bauxite; and the vac pipes grey black.  The sides and ends have also had a first coat of Railmatch GW Stock Brown.  I'll probably pick out the footboards in a slightly lighter colour as well, as I'm assuming they would have been wood?