Ragstone Models GER Wool Wagon

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Rob Pulham

Before the mojo deserted me and in between building the G5 (pretty much in the thinking time when I needed to work out the next step) this just about fell together – It’s a GER Wool Wagon from Andy Beaton’s Ragstone range that I picked up at Telford last year during what seemed like a GER frenzy (I ended up with 3 GER wagons, one D&S, this one and a Powsides GER 5 plank open).

I have a couple more of Andy’s kit’s in the stash and if they go together like this one I will be very pleased.

Ragstone Models GER Wool Wagon

All the strapping and brake gear are lovely brass castings and a dream to fit.
It will be finished in very faded and worn GER livery as part of my engineers fleet.

Scratch Built NBR 4 Plank Dropside Wagon

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Rob Pulham

While I was off for the last week I also did more work on the NBR 4 plank Dropside wagon. It’s a good job that I did because since returning to Wakefield with big plans to crack on with the G5 my mojo seems to have taken a holiday too and no modelling has been done for the last couple of days

Sorry about the poor quality of the photos the white styrene is quite difficult to photograph and I am not yet at the stage where I can give it a coat of primer.

Scratch Built NBR 4 Plank Dropside Wagon

The door bangers had me scratching my head – the Evergreen strip kept snapping as I bent it to shape (despite using a coat of solvent to soften it). My solution was to use the broken ends of styrene as the outer strap and cutting about 2/3rds of the circle from a small length of styrene tube to use for the main protruding part of the door banger.

Scratch built NER Shunters Truck

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Rob Pulham

While reading up on the WD wagon in Essery I also noted a few pictures of a Midland Railway shunters truck similar to the ones that the GWR had. I wondered if the LNER or it’s constituents had anything similar.

An enquiry on the LNER forum revealed that the GCR has a couple and the NER had built one. No photos or drawings have emerged for the GCR examples but by fortunate coincidence I had (unbeknown to me at the time) I had a copy of the drawing for the NER example which is included in the Railway Snowploughs in the North East book by David and Claire Williamson.

I had to use a bit of modellers license in this one because although the NER built it in 1902, in 1907 it was rebuilt into a double ended snowplough (hence it’s inclusion in the book).

This is a true multimedia build:

The floor and step boards are coffee stirrers

The rest of the timber work is styrene strip

The handrail stanchions are brass split pins with piano wire rails

Brass handrail knobs and nickel wire make up the lower handrails.

The hand brake column is a Slaters casting

The W Irons and V hangers are Slaters from the spares box as are the axle boxes but I did modify them with styrene.

The springs and hangers are scratch built from styrene strip and angle

Buffers are Haywood Railway and the couplings are Parkside.

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Scratch Built NER Shunters Truck

Scratch Built 7mm Scale NER Shunters Truck

A load of barrels….

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Rob Pulham

Despite using the NBR 4 plank to “show off” the packing case that I built from coffee stirrers it was never it’s intended load.

While browsing the NBR section of LNER wagons volume 3 (as I was detailing the 4 plank and making up the body for the drop side version) I noted that when carrying barrels the NBR had made use of what I can only liken to the plaited rope fenders that ships and barges etc. use to protect the sides of the vessel whilst docking.

NBR 4 Plank Open with Barrel Load

Using an idea given to me by Bob Alderman, I used short strands of sisal string for the straw and Chris kindly plaited some longer lengths of string that had been separated into individual strands and I then coiled them up and glued them into a flat cushion. After colouring them with dilute paint and trying them in the wagon with the barrels I found that two together created a better effect.

Tar Tank Tribulations Overcome

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Rob Pulham

After a heavy week last week supporting the election in Wakefield I had a steady weekend on the modelling front.

A plea on the guild want adds had supplied me with some spare transfers for the Tar Tank and by golly I needed them :oops:

Upgraded Slaters 7mm Scale Tar Tank

Now I need to decide how to weather it – the sides of the tank are still glossy from the transfer coat.

A bit more painting and Weathering

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Rob Pulham

In between a visit to the NE Steam Gala at Locomotion and other bit’s and pieces I had the paints out and got the NBR4 Plank weathered.

7mm scale Packing case made from Coffee stirrers

And lastly a couple of shots of the latest examples together.

Locker wagon and NBR 4 Plank

More Wagon loads from Coffee Stirrers!

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Rob Pulham

I collected one of these at Leigh show from Paul at EDM Models
[img]http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Glues/Images/82439_small.jpg[/img]
Having got it I was keen to give it a try so having picked up an idea for another wagon load while watching the many youtube videos of Pete Waterman’s layout – (just got an infinity upgrade from my puny 1.2mb that I have suffered with for years which makes watching youtube an absolute pleasure!).
So this is what I came up with.

7mm scale Packing case made from Coffee stirrers

The nails are .3mm holes drilled and then touched with a pin point dipped in a dilute solution of Vallejo Charred Brown acrylic.
Regards Rob

Midland-WD Locker Wagon

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Rob Pulham

Well, my thoughts on MR or LMS transfers were sidetracked by not really getting to the bottom of what these wagons might have been used for post war. That and a friend coming up with the suggestion of finishing it in W^D livery with secret contents – along the lines of “if I tell you what it’s carrying I would have to kill you”. Anyone who knows me well will understand how much this appealed to my sense of humour so here we are.

Midland-WD Locker Wagon

Once again the transfers are home made and printed on white decal paper.

Railway Models and Art Blog

This is a blog where I will show the trials and tribulations of model builds as they happen

Monthly Archives: May 2015

Ragstone Models GER Wool Wagon

Scratch Built NBR 4 Plank Dropside Wagon

Scratch built NER Shunters Truck

A load of barrels….

Tar Tank Tribulations Overcome

A bit more painting and Weathering

More Wagon loads from Coffee Stirrers!

Midland-WD Locker Wagon