Adam

Given that the coal gas production process created coke as a by-product, it's more likely any coke wagons would be taking it away (assuming that it wasn't sold locally for fuel which, in a farming area, is probable). I'm afraid that the only Lavenham building I know the first thing about is the church - an especially fine fifteenth century building - so can't be more helpful with the details of the station. Adam

My suspicion is that part of the reason for the lack of Crownline style ranges (and Crownline was probably unique) is the relative increase in productivity of the RTR manufacturers when it comes to prutting new models into the marketplace. Though many people complain about lead times, there are still several locomotive models coming onto the market each year and more in the pipeline. Hornby in the '70s and '80s may have added only a single loco per annum and possibly not even that. I also note that in the tea-leaf debates which mark the lead up to the new catalogue season there is mention of 'the tender from this', 'the chassis from that', etc., rather than a manufacturer of kits and components (Bill Bedford's new boiler for the O4 apart) having the thought and acting upon it - probably for precisely the reason that you never know what's going to turn up. Nice work on the 2-6-0 Tim. Adam

Moving on from the post above we're now more or less back where Bachmann started - albeit hopefully to a higher standard! The brake levers and linkages (a satisfyingly complex thing to look at but relatively easy to do) are easily to most obvious bits and I've knocked up the basic discharge pipe and its associated brackets from bits of brass tube and scrap etch. Check the pictures of the real thing by way of a comparison [thanks, as ever, to Paul Bartlett]: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/stsclaylinertta/h8114c50#h8114c50 At this stage it might be worth a quick run down of where the bits come from: AB Cylinder: No Nonsense kits (it was meant to go under a 4TC until I realised that the AB gear is on the bogies of these units). Brake levers: adapted etch from Dave Bradwell (I don't thnk the etch is on his list but he usually has some at Scaleforum. It also has some rather nice lever guides, not used here because I've run out). Lever guides: CraigWelsh/Scalefour Society - if truth be told these are not quite the right pattern (they should be longer) and I'm not altogether impressed with them. Being dead scale - I'm not convinced that they're slightly underscale even in their intended use - they're a bit of a fiddle and that's fine but Nickel Silver is too brittle for the number of half etched folds used here. The one visible in the picture below has been re-assembled from the bits that resulted. Yes you get a spare on the etch but... Not quite visible are the AB distributer and resevoir cylinder. These come off a new generation Hornby MGR hopper. I had acquired this with a view to making one hi-fi vehicle but what with the strange compromises and errors present in that model one of the earlier versions might be a better bet, The seperately applied details are nice though. If anyone is interested I can show how I did the linkages from little bits of 40 thou plastic? In 7mm you might do it properly - i.e., to replicate the prototype - but that's rather fiddly in this scale as anyone who's had a go at early Masokits clasp brakes can tell you. Waving a hot iron around all your carefully assembled existing detail and nicely moulded plastic underframe is not always the best idea either. Still more to do... Adam

Very nice - is this the 2mm finescale version that appeared in MRJ way back? [MRJ Index says no. 32 which must have been mid-late '80s!]. If so, it's worn very well. Adam

I finally got to see a copy of this at RailWells over the weekend and, while some of the pictures are interesting - and seemingly of a good quality - they are all reproduced far too small a size to either do them justice or to be of much use as an aid to modelling. This is a pity because the photographs were taken in a sufficiently large format - with 'proper' size neg's - and the in service pictures - not all of the usual suspects (Bowaters, Mountain Ash, etc.) are sufficiently interesting in their own right not to be 'diluted' with preservation images. In other words they are perfect for reproduction in the usual Irwell/Janes/Ian Allan style hardback colour album format and in that format the book would have been worth the asking price. Relative to the Capital Transport volumes which have c. 100 pages, with full colour reproduced at a decent size at only a couple of quid more, my view is that this book is a missed opportunity; the pictures deserved better. Adam

Thanks Brian. Here's the second Coil J; cradle to make and painting to do. I've had to resist the temptation to replace the axleboxes - these plate front types were by far and away the most common. The 10 wheelbase tipplers seem to have had greater variation and that's not a straightforward bash from the Parkside kit (new brakegear and levers would be required - AMBIS do a suitable underframe kit; see the Coil H earlier in the thread). Adam

More work on the Clayliner tank, this time, the Bachmann-based bit of the project. The spring hangers started above have now been completed and installed as has the internal vee; you can see the latter more clearly than I thought might be possible but eventually it will be hidden by the discharge pipe and all the various linkages for the brakes. There's a sense now of how the completed chassis will look but there's lots still to do. Next up, brake levers. Oh, and a second Coil J... Adam

Some nice wagons there - I especially like the LNE open and the attempts to make the lettering conform to the underlying planks; many otherwise excellent pre-nationalisation models are spoilt by their builders not doing this.I'm less keen on the white van roofs, however; white lead oxidised to grey quite quickly and got rather darker. the vac' bags should be a nice matt charcoal grey too - definitely somethign to do as a batch. A point about assembling Masokits screw couplings too - I metal black the centre section prior to soldering the links together, a dodge which has reduced the solering solid rate to just about nil. That said, I tend to batch produce the things which helps; once your eye's in, it stays in. Keep up the good work, nice to see someone else taking wagons seriously. Adam

A couple of update shots on the Coil J. One more step on the way to something which will hopefully look a bit like this example, captured by Paul Bartlett at Barry Docks in 1970: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcoilj/h312468c5#h312468c5 Coming on, I think. Adam

Thanks Colin - sometimes, things go right first go. I'm pleased with the plasticard drilling jig idea and will use it again. As for the tampo printing, I did much the same as you must have done with your BIL, just to see what kind of job it would be. Much to my surprise the printing shifted easier than the stickers with the numbering and logo. The glue in these seemed to react with the thinners and ate into the surface of the plastic! Nothing a bit of wet and dry hasn't cured, but still... The reference to aircraft mags was really about the filling of the joins: just like fuselage joins. Adam

Thanks Brian - I'd forgotten about the vanwide - probably because its scale model potential is non-existant. I wonder whether they just went through Modern Railways and picked new wagons as they were announced? Mine will be in Bowater's condition, eventually, but there's a way to go yet. Adam

And now for something completely different. A Bowaters clayliner tank (latterly one of the dozens of different things TOPS called a TTA). My thanks to Boscarne and Ullypug for providing some prototype gen'. Paul Bartlett, as is so often the case, has a gallery (and my heartfelt thanks - this resource makes modelling wagons much, much easier): http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/stsclaylinertta The raw materials are a Bachmann 'TTA' chassis - in fact from one of a pair of heavily reduced Modelzone special edition spoil carriers - and an ancient Tri-ang model of the Clayliner tank. Why on earth Tri-ang chose this prototype I cannot begin to imagine since there were fewer than 20 of the things and they operated of a reasonably restricted flow between Burngullow and Sittingbourne, or from Burngullow to the Potteries. Still, they make for a nice blue tank wagon and it isn't impossible that they made their way in ones and twos on occasion. Besides, they were air-brake only and this makes an interesting change as a project. So far as the tank is concerned, all I have done so far is to remove the stickers and the tampo printed lettering before glue the tank together and filling all the various sink holes and making good the joins: since every aircraft modelling magazine has pictures of identical processes every month I won't bore you with pictures of this process here. I have also removed the pedestal and made a new one. It's the chassis that needs the work, however. Monobloc tanks are subject to phenomenal amounts of variation in terms of things like spring hangers, vee-hangers, brake levers and the positioning of various components although the solebars, W iorns and axleboxes are reasonably uniform. I've only really got as far as the vee-hangers so far but I'm quite pleased with them so here we are. These are mounted on the outside of the solebars (Tri-ang got these about right) so had to be changed. I fretted them up from scrap etch - three layers, soldered together. The holes were marked out on a 20 thou' plastic template since this is easier to mark out than brass and the template superglued on top. The horrid photo above shows the tail end of the process - the brass sandwich in the foreground and the discared template behind - I made the holes with the trusty dremel bfore fretting the thing out with a piercing saw and finishing with a selection of files. The identical vees were seperated and tidied up before being used as guidance for drilling matching holes in the solebars and into a piece of wood to act as a jig for soldering pins of 0.45mm brass into the holes. Finally, the pins were inserted into the holes in the solebars and superglued in place. The rest of the brakegear will follow later. First I need to do something about those spring hangers... Adam

Thanks - the body is a mix of the Humbrol chocolate, matt black and a spot of orange - it's simply what I had to hand. I can't help with the choice of paint I'm afraid since I've never really used Tamiya paint. I would think there are some benefits to acrylics in the case of the underframe since it drys more quickly and if you want to crack on that's a bonus. The way I've learnt to weather is based on enamels, but it's up to you to find a way that works for you and the only way to manage this is to try it yourself; I admit that isn't an entirely helpful answer! Adam

All the information I have basically comes from SR Wagons vol. 4 (see previous page of this thread) but if the colour shot here is anything to go by it subsequently recieved a coat of bauxite: http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/5846073097/in/faves-91875255@N05/lightbox/ Sourced from this earlier thread on the van. I will grant you that this isn't the clearest picture, so the livery is an informed guess: if you have any sound information regarding livery in the mid-60s I'd be interested to see it - it is not too late to perform a repaint. Failing that, it will remain bauxite. Adam

Quick update on the Coil J - the van chassis was painted at the same time - so here we are at the mid-stage of the painting and weathering. Lots still to do: Adam

Thanks Martin - the screw couplings are Masokits (not nearly as fiddly as you might expect and very durable*), the instanters are AMBIS, as are the hooks while the links are homemade from tinned copper wire. They are slightly overscale to give a bit of wriggle room while shunting. Adam * I deviate from the instructions by blackening the centre links prior to soldering the rest of the couplings together; I then blacken the whole assembly.

They're springs for the rear drivers - quite a common GW feature (57xx have them too I believe). Very crew friendly... Adam

A mundane van, again, courtesy of the Modelzone meltdown. This time, it's a Bachmann NE 12t unventilated van. As it comes, it's quite a nice model even with an attempt at the brakegear. As you should be able to see, I've made a few changes, adding more brake detail which necessitated replacing the brakeshoes and vacuum pipes and adding safety loops and linkages. The low-slung vac' pipes seem to have occasionally been fitted as replacements for the normal upright type fitted to LNER vehicles. I think those supplied, although nicely moulded, are a smidge underscale. The buffers have been replaced with ABS castings because I managed to break one... Finally, rainstrips were added though not all LNE vans had such things. The biggest difference, I think, is made by adding the triangular brackets to the solebars; the body now seems to 'belong' to the chassis. Adam

I doubt they will if I'm honest - they were rather specialist vehicles and really, no two were alike. The conversion took rather less than an hour altogether and most of that was modifying the underframe for EM; the difficult bit was removing the blocks which support the tension locks (they also hold the body on - mine is now held together with epoxy). I'm gradually building up a fleet of Coil wagons - they seem to have run in reasonably mixed rakes in my period. Here's one I made earlier: A cut down Parkside vehicle - the brakegear represents a batch which were turned out as vac' braked tipplers but without the cylinders. The Coil H, described earlier in the thread will run with them. Should another Hornby tippler or two cross my path at the right price then I'll do some more. No rush. Adam

Not much modelling to report, but here's a quick little project and, as I suggested above, something less exotic. This is a Coil J, one of a selection of modified vehicles dating from the mid-60s for carrying strip coil, mostly used in South Wales. The base vehicle was a Hornby iron ore tippler, converted to EM by a change of wheels and moving the brakegear out a smidge (it comes off quite easily - you simply need to trim a bit of the locating pins which position and and glue it back in place). As you can see, this wasn't an especially involved conversion: mark a line 6mm off the bottom of the bodyside, cut along it with a razor saw, tidy up the mess and add a capping strip (I used Evergreen 60 x 10 thou strip). While I had the solvent out, I also added the 'lip' along the bottom from the same strip. Once the solvent had gone off I thinned the lip a bit and that, a couple of boltheads on each end which held some of the internal baulks in place, is that. Paul Bartlett's collection provided some nice clear shots of the other part of the conversion - a crude wooden cradle. Later versions appear to have had removeable transverse baulks hled in place with long pins which could be moved about according to the size of coil. This is based on this example where all baulks appear to have been fixed. The wagon. The cradle - 80 thou' plastic sheet cut into 3.5mm strips and roughly shaped. The complete wagon. I daresay it'll get painted sometime... Adam

A belated formal thank you to Roger for that; roll on the Brassmasters upgrade kit. I think my post indicates that I have the book Neil. For copyright reasons I can't (and wouldn't) post it here... If you model the period/area, it is a volume worth having I think, the odd duff caption aside. Adam

That make perfect sense, thank you. I usually put a bit of brass wire through that centre hole to represent the fixing bolt since they were usually proud of the brakeblock rather than recessed. Adam

Agreed on the lamp irons, pity. I've found the same thing with the MT etches - the brakeshoes are generally excellent, however, and I have a couple of GW (well, one GW and one constituent) loco's which have felt the benefit. Unfortunately, the LMS version for Midland designs (I have a Jinty in a state of flux because of this) appears to be a bit on the large side... Now that the deflectors are on, the shortcomings of that S15 front end are a lot more difficult to spot. The brakes should complet the job nicely. Adam

That's the book (it's referred to in the post I linked to in the earlier topic) and I'm reasonably certain that it has a simple diagram showing the spacing. There may be a drawing of a pot too but I possibly saw that somewhere else. A single page only. Adam

All the details I have are contained in this post: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/39452-block-and-beam-track/?p=422057 For what it's worth, I made mine from 60 thou' plastic sheet - 6mm x 4mm (this was in EM) which, if I remember rightly, is near enough. Quite what I will do with my 135' siding's worth of the stuff is a question for another time... Adam