A couple of days ago I finished the painting of the brake van and then glazed it and refitted the buffers.

The result is quite unusual when compared with the normal SR brown or BR Grey liveries. Spray painted with Anitas Acrylics Sunshine Yellow and Vallejo Model Color Black. The interior was done with Vallejo Game Bone White and Model Color Medium Sea Grey for the veranda floors.

It will be on it’s way to it’s new home this afternoon.

The sun shone here in Wensleydale yesterday morning and this morning so I was able to get a blast of primer on the brake van.

I had run out of Clostermanns so I used Halfords that I had to hand. I am quite pleased with the finish

Another session at the bench yesterday saw the remaining brake van ready for paint. With the addition of the final details such as buffer stocks, sandpipes and guard irons added.

After all that I forgot to add that I also turned some replacement buffer stocks. Those familiar with Jim’s kits will know that to keep costs down Jim provides whitemetal buffers which can be sprung but it involves fitting a piece of spring wire through the back of the coupling hook and then to the rear of the buffers. Although I used this method on a few of my early builds having broke one of the cast heads of a buffer rather put me off the idea so now I add sprung buffers and I usually solder the coupling hook solid.

I had some spare buffer heads (kindly supplied by our very own Mr Moss as when received from NER Days they were unusable without further machining which Mossy isn’t equipped to do) which are fitted with 10ba nuts so the shank is a bit thicker than the 12 or 14ba that most comercial wagon buffers are fitted with. I did drill out one of the white metal buffer stocks and I did make it ft but the walls were very thin. I decided to turn replacements from some 14″ nickel rod. Although the finished dimensions were the same as the whitemetal examples the nickel replacements are much more substantial.

So now The van just needs these fitting, some sand pipes and coupling chains and a good clean up before painting.

On Bank Holiday Monday I took the one to be finished along to Harrogate show and again made excellent progress despite chatting to lots of people.

What I hadn’t realised at Redcar show is that although I had assembled parts 23,24, 25 and 26 into a sub unit and dry fitted fitted them I hadn’t actually soldered them in the second van. Sadly when I piked the van up to pack it away the sub assembly must have dropped off asI couldn’t find it at home when I discovered it’s was missing.

So I ended up scratch building a new sub assembly to replace the missing one.

I fitted a floor and then fitted the subassembly before fitting the rodding. Having prepared the parts before I went to Harrogate I did all the assembly during the show so didn’t get any photos of the subassembly after I put it together or without the rods in place. I replaced the two part etched crank with a piece of 10ba threaded rod (I have a number of short lengths from where I have shortened 1″ screws) with a wrap around that better represents the real thing.

Although there is a plan view of how the brake rods fit the small fitting that fits the upper rod to the bottom of the van isn’t provided so I knocked a couple up from scrap etch. Bending and soldering those last two short upper sections of rodding in place really challenged the patience and it’s a good job I was in public or I may have expanded my Anglo Saxon dictionary…

Wow, some time since I touched these. – 2020…

For the last couple of weekends I have been demonstrating brass wagon building at a couple of shows so I took these along to see if I could make some progress on them. Surprisingly I did manage to make quite a bit of progress with both of these now up on their wheels with brake gear fitted. They still need brake rodding added and then details such as buffers etc. – I will take some photos once they are properly dry.

The plan for these was always to sell them when complete to fund something else and now that they are nearing completion I am starting to think about what livery to finish them in.

The good news is that they are now both sold, one as is to be finished by it’s new owner and the second to be finished and painted in a yellow light railway livery.

Here’s where I had got to by the end of Redcar show.

Connoisseur LSWR Brake vans – roofs

More work on the workshop has reduced modelling time somewhat but a little progress has been made on the brake vans. A lot of progress has been made on the workshop with my spray booth now fitted and vented externally and for the first time my Mini Formit (guillotine/folder/rolling bars) are permanently bolted to the bench and following Pete’s post I had another look at the alignment of the blade and anvil and had a lightbulb moment. Unseen previously, underneath the front edge of the anvil are two adjustment screws which push the anvil against the blade. Once I slackened the retaining screws and then used the adjustment screws the blade now sits tight against the anvil and it will happily cut shim so although I haven’t tested it yet it should cut the 10 thou nickel and brass sheets that it previously just bent down between anvil and blade.
To help with the location of the roofs I cut a strip of brass sheet (scrap etch) and then curved and  scored it to represent the planking above the verandas. These were soldered to the underside of the roofs.

Next the  roofs were covered in lense cleaning tissue to represent the canvas and finally the chimneys soldered on.

It has taken going on for 6 hours to get the step boards assembled. I can see why Jim says that this is not an afternoon build. Even taking in to account that I am doing two at once, I reckon that it would take a long weekend at least, to build one of these.

I made a small start on these while the interior parts for the LNER van was cutting on the Silhouette and I finally have them at a point where it was worth taking some photos

They are much more involved than I originally envisaged with a good number of overlaid parts. What you see above is the result of more than 8 hours work. Admittedly that is for two of them.

For anyone building these a tip is to take some time over the bending of the ducket fronts. Getting the basic shape was fairly simple. But taking extra time to get them to fit without having to apply any pressure paid dividends when it came to soldering them on.

These are destined for the small ads so now I need to decide on how I intend to finish them. Personally I would like to do one LSWR version (so I can add the extra details that were removed later in it’s life) and a BR version. But I suspect that in terms of being attractive to a wider range of buyers the BR version will have most appeal.

Besides using them to generate funds I am also using these to ensure that I can still solder etc and work okay in metal before returning to building things for other people. My fingers are mostly back to normal after my mishap with the mower but there are some jobs such as driling with a pin vice that I am finding difficult at the minute. Hopefully that will improve with time and use.