Late last week I managed to get the final bit of paint and the transfers fitted to the bolster wagons.

In my modelling time period these would have been relatively new so I didn’t want the wood finish to be too aged. It took about 6 layers of combinations of Vallejo: Wood Grain, Burnt Umber and Chainmail silver to get a finish I was happy with.

I also added a wash of rust and some graphite from a pencil lead onto the rubbing plates for the bolsters. At the minute I’m undecided as to what if any weathering to apply to the outside of the body and underframes. So I will delay fitting my load (a tree trunk aka a thickish twig from the garden)

While I was in the mood I got stuck in and masked up the bolster wagons ready for spraying the underframes. I had already sprayed the top coat on the upper bodies on Friday but didn’t take any photos as they looked no different from when they were in primer.

With the solebars being black on these Steel bodied wagons, it made masking up so much easier that wooden bodied vehicles where the sole-bars are body colour and you have to work around brake levers and lever guards etc. when masking.

Speaking of which that’s the next job, as I am also on with painting some NER vehicles for a friend at the same time.

This post is a bit in reverse order of what I’ve been up to in the last week with the latest first because it follows the previous post better.

The chance discovery of a part can of Halfords grey primer in the shed and yesterday’s cold, but dry and windless conditions, had me dig out my outdoor spray booth (aka a big cardboard box that sits on the dustbin) and prime the bolster wagons.

Now the replacement spring has all but disappeared into the background and I suspect if I don’t mention it casual observers will be none the wiser.

Inspired by a friends recent photos of his Connoisseur Bolster wagons I kicked myself up the backside and finished my pair of jim’s bolster wagons that I have been slowly making as a demo piece at shows last year.

As these things go I took the pretty much completed wagons along to show a friend who has recently finished a lowfit and he noted that my axle guards splayed out slightly, which I confess I hadn’t noticed. But as I said to him, I would rather find these things during the construction phase than after painting so I set to and removed one axle guard from each axle choosing to use the unbraked side as being easier to get at. One of the bearings wasn’t seated properly so I deepened the hole. However they still looked splayed out. so I filed the pin points off both ends of the axle. This fixed the problem.

As ever this didn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d hoped as on two of the four axle guards castings that I removed, I did managed to damage them. The first was just one of the spring hangers broke off after I stuck a screw drive under it to prise as I heated up the body to soften the low melt. As luck would have it, when making some different anvils for my Leakey rivet press I had done some test rivet strips and one of those had just the right spacing to make some new hanger brackets from. A short stub of 1.6mm rod in between and we have this.

Sadly on the other one I wasn’t quite so lucky in that in a moment of inattention with the microflame I also melted the spring as well as the hanger. So I set to and made a pair of hangers and the spring to go in between.

On a side note I also fitted the D plates with the microflame. I tinned the backs with 100 degree solder and placed them on the solebar. Then I wafted the flame on it’s lowest setting along the bottom of the sole bar until I noted the D plate starting to settle then I took the heat away.

A trip out to Harrogate show on BH Monday allowed me to get the T stanchions fitted and as a bonus, I also got the brake rigging finished on both wagons so just bolsters, buffer heads and couplings to sort now.

I even gave them a good scrub, although now they are dry, I obviously made a better job of one than the other.

After discovering the out of square holes and correcting them at Redcar show I was able to get both wagons up on their wheels and the single sided brakes fitted.

Further progress was made on Saturday while supporting the Stainmore Railway Railwayana event with the buffers and the main brake cross shaft fitted. I had some spare Slaters cast buffer stocks so I replaced the whitemetal castings provided in the kit. I also managed to do something that I haven’t done for some time and that is melt a couple of white metal T stanchions for the ends while tinning them with 100 degree solder. I was busy talking to a gent and wasn’t concentrating.

I am making some replacements from some coarse scale rail that I have to hand. The profile makes a great starting point for T section.

Over the last few show demos I have been slowly building a pair of Connoisseur LNER Single Bolster wagons. At Embsay Hunslet event last weekend I got to the point of soldering on the axle guards in anticipation of getting them up on their wheels when a minor disaster struck.

Prior to I had popped the bearings in the holes to ensure that the holes were deep enough but what I hadn’t noticed was that the holes themselves were not at right angles to the axle guards.

In my ignorance I soldered a pair of axle guards onto one side of each wagon but when I slipped the axles in ready to solder the other side on I found that the axles were sat at a jaunty axle. It was at this point that I realised that I didn’t have the right sized drill bit with me to attempt to straighten the hole

When I got home I had the thought that a suitable sized burr might be better than a drill bit to straighten the hole so I bought a set of burrs via Amazon and planned to use the 2.5mm to do the job. They were not expensive £8 for the set but I figure they will be good enough to work on whitemetal.

Once I fitted the burr in my Proxxon Mini Pillar drill I realised that with the axle guards fitted to the wagon body the chuck would hit the body stopping me from being able to drill in the correct place. At this point I had two choices I could either remove the axle guards to drill them out or make an arbor to hold the burr further away from the chuck. I chose the latter route as being the easiest.

I made an arbor from a piece of 6mm rod recycled from an empty toner cartridge. Drilling a 3.25 mm hole in one end and cross drilling and tapping M3 for a couple of grub screws

Then using a couple of bits of coffee stirrer to support the casting level I set up to realign the holes.

Using the depth stop on the mini pillar drill I was able to straighten and make the holes slightly deeper without drilling through the face of the axleboxes

At the last Bolton Show before its sad demise I picked up a Connoisseur kit for a pair of Single Bolster Wagons. These were the last design of 13 ton single bolster wagon built by the LNER between 1945 and 1948 with all steel body and underframe.

Having finished the LSWR Brake vans that I had previously been working on while demoing at shows I needed something else so at Harrogate show last year I made a start by folding up and soldering the body pans which are all one piece. Then they were put aside until last weekend.

I didn’t get much done on Saturday because it was so busy. Literally all I managed was to solder three layers of brakes together for each wagon.

Sunday it was quieter so I managed to get quite a bit of detailing done on both bodies.

As I was adding the details I had been looking at the rivets in each corner of the body initially thinking that I would have to fill in the unsightly dimples on the inside faces where I had pressed them out with the rivet press. This got me thinking that there must have been something on the inside. A Google search found an good image of a preserved example at Bo’ness which clearly showed that there is an inner washer plate which isn’t provided in the kit so on Monday morning I had a go at seeing if I could make some.
It took a couple of goes to sort out the spacing and sizes but I got there in the end. The most fiddly bit was getting them to fold straight.

They just need soldering in now.