I had a small break from the CCT yesterday/this morning and did a bit more weathering on the Timber and Ore wagons. I then assembled them and took a few photos.
Monthly Archives: August 2014
More underframe details
A good session last night saw the brakes sorted after a proper DOH! moment – the etched slots that you can see in the underframe are for the individual brakes – You even get FS/S7 spacing (although having re-read the instructions this is a throwback to the kit being scaled up from 4mm and designed as 00/P4).
I now have it up on it’s wheels but looking at the photos has confirmed last nights suspicion that one end is higher than the other…..It was 11pm and I wondered if it was my eyes playing tricks.
Detailing the underframe.
More progress on the underframe details – the holes etched for the bearings are way too big so they took a bit of getting central.
The step hangers had a half etch line that I couldn’t work out the purpose of which made the steps a little flimsy, so I added a strip of scrap etch behind to strengthen them. Next I need to work out which brakes fit where – I made the mistake of cutting them from the etch and I cannot find where they went to work out which numbers are which. Some are in pairs and the others are individual hangers/shoes.
And lastly a shot of the roof formers in place
A bit more “roofishness”
Following a tip from an observant fellow modeller on the GOG forum I got to the bottom of why I was struggling to make the roof fit. It looks like the original 4mm kit was designed for a scale thickness roof which when blown up to 7mm meant that my 0.3mm sheet that I used to roll my roof was a bit on the slim side.
More by good luck than planning it turns out my roof was around 1mm too wide which worked in my favour in so much as I could cut some more strips (1mm shorter) and solder them inside the roof to make up the required thickness and bring the roof out to the edge where it should sit.
It all fits much better now.
D&S CCT – fitting the roof (almost!)
In between weathering the gas tank wagon further progress has been made on the CCT. I have now got the removable roof formers complete and with a little tweaking of the roof shape it should be ready to solder to the formers.
Dragon Models Twin Gas Tank Wagon ready for service.
Here is the gas tank wagon after weathering – I have really struggled to get some decent photos that show the colours on this. Daylight seems to have washed it out to a grey colour when in reality it very much has an uneven brown cast to it.
All the photos I have in my LNER books show that gas tank wagons got very dirty but without exception (in the photos I have) the lettering is clearly visible.
My weathering mix was made up of the following Vallejo Model colour range, all diluted for spraying with Tamiya acrylic thinners.
Flat Earth
Leather Brown
Blue Grey
Black Grey
I started with a base of a more brownish colour and spraying from 8-10″ away so their was a bit of splatter giving texture as well as colour. Then I added more of the greys to the mix and went over it again. I used a small brush and meths to uncover the lettering before adding another light coat with the greyish mix to blend it in. I used some antique brass to paint the handwheels before the weathering, again easing back the gunge with a small brush and meths.
More Transfers on….
Still catching up on the week’s progress on various things another thing that I managed on Thursday evening before going out to start on the building was putting the transfers on the Gas Tank Wagon.
That’s another one ready for weathering – indeed it’s now weathered (last night’s endeavours!) but I need to have a look at it in daylight to see if am happy with it and to take some photos.
Back to the CCT….
Getting back to the CCT. On Thursday night I had a go at the roof and the fittings to make it removable.
I am still not 100% happy with the roof so I will probably revisit it once I have the formers sorted.
I initially ran it through my rollers to get the basic shape and then annealed each edge before making the tighter bed with my Metal Smith Drilling table – this is a substantial metal plate that is drilled and tapped at intervals and comes with clamps and a selection of different sized rods for assisting with making tight bends in sheet metal.
I then did a bit more work on getting the formers that I made earlier fit at either end and in the middle.
CR-LMS Timber and Ore Wagons update
Stepping back to the Timber and Ore Wagons, I managed to get the transfers on them a bit at a time this week.
Next stop some weathering.
D&S Models GCR-LNER CCT Wagon – the body is assembled!
A session last night saw the other side finished and the body put together.
I also managed to get the roof cut so tonight’s session should see it rolled to shape – fingers firmly crossed!
D&S Models GCR-LNER CCT – one side complete.
A little more was done to the CCT last night. I managed to get one side finished and the other well on it’s way – I would have finished it but I mislaid the bottom door runner…. after turning the workbench upside down without success I found it just as I was turning the light off.
This is what the completed side looks like.
D&S GCR CCT Door Details
Some time Last night saw the doors detailed and a start made on the representation of the runner mechanism.
And lastly a shot of the sides with the ends to give an idea for those that haven’t seen one before an indication of what it will look like once assembled.
The strips along the bottom edge will be angled support brackets once I get the sole bars in place.
There is still more work to do on the doors and runner mechanism before I finally attach them to the sides – hopefully tonight’s effort.
7mm Scale D&S GCR-LNER CCT
The gas tank wagon has joined the queue for transfers and frustratingly so still not having confirmation of my house completion date, I looked through the wagon kit stash for something else that wouldn’t require too much in the way of thinking.
I plumped for a D&S GCR CCT. This is one of only 3 D&S kits that I have managed to get my hands on to date (if you don’t count sunday night’s eBay bargain of a D&S ECJS 45′ BG for £81.55! – promptly stash away as a Christmas/Birthday pressie by Chris).
For a kit that has been around some time it is nicely detailed although the instructions leave a little to be desired.
The first thing that I noticed was the absence of a roof (the kit refers to a sheet of plastic that is absent from my 2nd hand kit). So having picked up a tip from Chaz Harrison on how to make clip in roofs’ I decided to have a go at his method. – How it works will be detailed as I go along, but first off while everything was in the flat I made up some roof formers/supports from pieces of scrap etch.
Then I detailed the ends lot’s of etched strapping to add – there are still some cast whitemetal blocks to go in the half etch rectangles but I will leave these until later so they don’t drop off as I solder the body together.
Now with a lick of paint.
The thunder storms haven’t deterred me from getting the tank wagon primed, painted and varnished ready for it’s transfers. Thank heavens for an indoor vented spray booth.
I apologise for the quality of the photo, I carried it to my office in a cloth and it seems to have left some specks of lint on the tank sides that have caught the light in the photos but are not in visible to the naked eye in reality.
In hindsight perhaps I should have taken the photos while it had a flat matt finish……but you get the idea.
Dragon Models NBR-LNER Twin Gas Tank Wagon – final details added and ready for the paint shop
Yesterday saw the build of the gas tank wagon complete.
My clumsiness when fitting the finely cast horse hooks saw one of them break in half in my hand so I fabricated some more from scrap etch they don’t look as good as the cast ones but once under the paint and grime they will be almost unnoticeable.
I also made up some more vacuum pipes from 1mm brass rod bound with 28 gauge brass beading wire and some rings of scrap etch. this gives the advantage of being able to secure them firmly to the bottom of the wagon floor as well as making them a bit more robust when being handled.
The following are both sides and ends as they stand.
A Journey Through One Kind Of Weathering Process
I mentioned in one of my threads that I would do a posting showing some of the stages of my weathering processes
Starting from this:
I started by giving the body work with a coat of Ronseal satin hardglaze the water based variety.
A couple of days later I coated the entire body work in a ‘grot’ coat made up from Vallejo Flat earth, Dark Sea Grey and a hint of black.
Once again I left it for a few days- I had done this much while up at the cottage but the rest from this point was done at home.
Next I started to remove the ‘grot’ coat using a flat ended brush dipped in Meths a bit at a time.
At this stage I left it for a few more days while I decided if I had finished.
I decided that I wasn’t, so I did a bit more using the same technique of flat brush and meths.
Dragon Models NBR-LNER Twin Gas Tank Wagon, nearly there.
A complete lack of any energy this week (as opposed to lack of mojo) has meant that I didn’t do anything further on the tank wagon until last night. This is where I had to do the first major deviation from the instructions. In the photo below the slots that you see in the bottom of the solebars hold the W Irons. The problem being that the flanges at the top of them are not deep enough to touch the underside of the floor and as they are, they don’t sit flush with the back of the sole bars either. This means that if you were to solder them to the underside of the solebars then the thin strip on the inside would make them very prone to being bent out of position with very little to anchor them to.
How I got around this was to solder four strips of scrap etch to the back of the sole bar and then solder the W Iron flange to that giving a nice solid fixing. I also found that I needed to file to points of the axle ends in order to make the W Irons sit upright without bowing outwards. 
Once I had this sorted getting the other wheels on was straightforward. Lastly I added the brakes. Which unless I have missed something, just leaves the brake levers/guards, the ends of the cradles and the vacuum pipes before a good clean up. 
Dragon Models NBR/LNER Twin Gas Tank Wagon
Good progress has been made on the tank wagon over the weekend.
Everything went together nicely with the tanks held on in prototypical fashion via the strapping. The only bit I changed was the pipe fittings that come out of the ends of the tanks. There are nice castings supplied but I doubted that I could solder in a piece of rod for the pipes without melting the fine whitemetal tube so I modified a pair of Connoisseur clack valves – Once lost under paint and weathering they should suffice adn stand a bit more handling.
With a bit of luck I should have it on it’s wheels tonight.
Here are a couple of shots of where we are to date – it still needs some cleaning up though.
The Chassis starts to come together….
The last couple of evenings have seen a bit more progress on the gas tank wagon (so has this afternoon but I haven’t taken pictures yet).
CR Timber and Ore Wagons ready for the transfers.
The timber and ore wagons have been through the paint shop and are now at the transfer stage.
I had a little hiccup with the painting in so much as a large section of the pain on one side of one wagon came back of when I removed the masking. This is the first time that this has happened and I can only assume that I didn’t do something right….
Instead of being dismayed I got stuck in and repaired it. This was achieved very quickly with the use of a hairdryer to dry off the paint in between coats – it took longer to clean the air brush between coats than it took to redo the painting….
