For quite some time I have been steadily working my way through a selection of 3D printed NER wagons for a friend painting and lettering them. The painting was done over time but last week I got stuck into the lettering
NER R3 Coke hopperNER S4 Hopper WagonsNER D1 and D2 Bolster WagonsNER P3 and P4 Hopper WagonsNER P1 and P2 Hopper wagonsNER C2 Open WagonsNER S1 Hopper Wagons
Much of the lettering was done with some custom transfers printed by Precision Labels. They are nice and once you get used to them quite easy to apply but the font is a bit small in my view and could have done with being a couple of points bigger. They are also quite vulnerable to the lettering rubbing off when handling until they are over varnished. Still an interesting exercise as a I wasn’t too familiar with the various NER diagrams.
Before I put the finishing touches to the V1/3 brake vans I finished off the V4
This included adding LNER lettering and then glazing and detail painting. When I built it I had drilled out the buffer stocks to accept proprietary sprung buffer heads, which I put away safe. Sadly in the intervening years safe morphed into lost although I am sure they will appear again at some point. So I did a first for me I turned some replacements from one of the many pieces of steel rod recovered from scrapping a printer. There was one length of just the diameter I needed so off I went.
Shop Turned Buffer heads
Thankfully, I did find the couplings that I had made up at the same time so they were fitted too.
LNER V4 Brake Van
Just a reminder of it’s full interior before I stick the roof on.
Back in 2017 I started a pair of Connoisseur NER V1/3 and an NER V4 Brake vans, which for reasons that I forget, were put aside. Then in 2021 I painted and lettered the the V1/3’s but only painted the V4 which was left unlettered and again they were put aside.
Since setting up my home office I have deliberately left a number of my shelf queens on display in the hope that eventually their unfinished state would irritate me into doing something about them. This last week in preparation for lettering some wagons for a friend I decided that I would get the V4 lettered, more on that later.
I also took the opportunity to glaze and finish the V1/3’s. Having glazed them I noted that the step boards were a bit on the thin side being etched from the same material as the body. Had they still been unpainted I might have soldered a second layer of thin etch strip to the bottoms to beef them up a bit but with them being painted I looked for other options.
I did consider adding coffee stirrers but they would have been too thick and then I remembered that Brian Dale ([USER=1062]@oldravendale[/USER] ) had kindly let me have a bag of offcuts of veneer. Strips of veneer were enough to thicken the step boards without making them appear grossly over scale.
I cut the strips and glued them to the existing steps with pva, holding them in place until they dried with mini wooden clothes pegs. These were bought on a whim from a craft shop thinking that they might be useful at some point.
Ex NER V3 Brake Van with Side CotesEx NER V3 Brake Van with Side CotesEx NER V3 Brake Van with Side Cotes
The body of the tender is built around a fold up cage, I confess that I wasn’t too keen on it initially but it’s growing on me.
All the parts are just rested in place at the moment – The front and rear panels are made up of two half etched faces with a capping strip added after soldering them together. So far I have only fitted the front one together because the front of the rear panel is folded to create the coal space and I haven’t got that far yet.
JLRT Stanier Tender Cage
It was a bit fiddly but I did manage to get the filler cap to open and close.
Stanier Tender Water FillerStanier Tender Water Filler
One of the things that I have noted while looking at photos of the rear of Stanier tenders is just how many of them had the lid up while in service. This is something that I fancied replicating if I could so made a basic drawing from the GA and I started with a couple of different thicknesses of nickel bar to make the filler and it’s cap.
I had in my selection of castings and my spares box, a choice of two whitemetal dome castings. While I had a third options of turin a up completely new dome from brass or nickel I decided to see if I could clean up the fairly mediocre castings. I was able to grip the locating pin of the first one in a collet and it didn’t actually take much material removal to clean up the first casting (I measured it at 0.3mm overall)
Water Scoop domeWater Scoop dome
Buoyed up with the results of the first one, I had a go at the second casting which was much better and only required a clean up of the top to remove minor pitting.
There are lots of small etched parts that have a couple of rivets each which are very close together. Aside from those already pressed out, all the parts marked ’55’ also need two rivets each.
To make a better job of these, I took fifteen minutes out and made another rivet setting tool with a finer end to get in between these rivets.
Rivet Setting tool
Like the ones that I made previously, it’s made from 6mm steel rod recovered from empty toner cartridges with the turned ends heat blued to help prevent them rusting.
