Another of my last week’s endeavours was to make up and underframe for the tar tank.

My spares box yielded axle boxes/ springs and brakes while the “cameo” spares box yielded W Irons and Crown plates. I will need to cut more of the other washer plates for the solebars but since I already have an assortment drawn for other wagons that should be a simple matter.

Scratch Built Rectangular Tar Tank

Scratch Built Rectangular Tar Tank

One thing that I did notice when checking my drawing for making up the underframe is that this wagon has a 10′ wheel base whereas the Slaters version has either 9′ or 9′ 6″. Which will account for the the differing overall length and the reason that the transfers fit without adjustment.

It makes you wonder whether Slaters (like other manufacturers) developed the kit around reusing some existing underframe parts in their range and then adjusted the tank length to fit. But subsequently someone else developed the transfers around the longer wheel based drawing.

I can see lot’s of sound business reasons for doing this.

Inspired at the time when a gent called Adam built a 4mm scale scratchbuilt Lowmac on a couple of forums that I frequent, I recalled that when buying NER Implement wagons and Lowmac kit’s from Jim in the past he packed a couple of extra axlebox/spring castings. With that in mind and wanting to expand the wagon fleet in this direction I ordered and collected another of each kit from Jim at the Keighley show. This gave me a spare set of axlebox/spring castings for each type of wagon.

So when I was ill a couple of weeks or so ago I drew up the parts for an implement wagon to see how it looked.

Then last weekend in between working on the GER OCT and the A Type container (I was a busy boy because I also finished fitting the handrails to the Parkside unfitted van) I assembled it.

Silhouette Cut NER Implement Wagon

Silhouette Cut NER Implement Wagon

I didn’t get any further with it because I had left the relevant volume of Tatlow at home in Wakefield….. Which seems to be the story of my life just now – I hadn’t been able to assemble the container the weekend before due to leaving the information at home.

And then there were five…

Although last week was a bust from a modelling perspective due to being ill. When I started to feel better I did get a bit of drawing and cutting done which allowed me to make a start on what I think are the last two open carriage trucks for now.

First I made up the body and basic underframe for the GER OCT that I was enquiring about the origins of on various forums

Modified by CombineZP

Modified by CombineZP

The plan is to finish this with an A Type container (which I have made start on drawing up in Inkscape).

Last but by no means least (because it’s a bit of a beast at 34′ 8″) is a former NER 6 wheeled OCT. Apparently in 1917 these had their sides removed and bolsters added for the conveyance of Aeroplane parts.

NER 6 wheeled OCT

NER 6 wheeled OCT

NER 6 wheeled OCT

I made more progress on the OCTs now having two 21′ and one 18′ examples in similar states of build.

GNR 18 and 21ft Open Carriage Trucks

GNR 18 and 21ft Open Carriage Trucks

GNR 18 and 21ft Open Carriage Trucks

and finally a photos of the star and some modified spring hangers. The cast W Irons and springs were kindly cast for me by Kerry Viney in Australia but nice as they are they didn’t quite match the spring hangers on my drawing but some time ago when I was experimenting with drawing up springs and hangers in Inkscape I had drawn up and cut some hangers which I hadn’t used. I found that If I glued 3 layers together by inserting them on a length of brass wire to index them I could them cut the loop end off and insert them on the bottom of the solebar like you see in the close up below. Not perfect in that they could have been a little wider but now I have the proof of concept adjusting with will take moments before recutting. I will do this for use with the next half dozen that I have, which I plan to use on an NER 6 wheeled OCT

GNR 18 and 21ft Open Carriage Trucks