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.