The Brassgoggles Model Making Club (the second non-SP model making thread).

[James Harrison]

GCR restaurant car finished; photos this weekend perhaps.  Next up- I'm in the mood for a Barnum brake, if my sheet of matchboard plastic matches up with the matchboarding from the silhouette cutter. 

[The Bullet]

Roofs for the two wagons arrived today.

Both need more work.
On one the radius does not match that of the body (Why did I give them the body as a pattern?)
The other has a brakeman´s cabin so the roof needs to be cut out to fit around it.

Will have some time over the weekend I hope.

[James Harrison]

Now, does anybody remember that 1/350 scale Chinese 19th Century cruiser I tried to build years ago, lost interest in and discarded last year? 

Yeah... I've gone and bought another.  I've still got the itch to build an 1890s Elswick cruiser.

[The Bullet]

Another wagon arrived.

A friend wanted to sell it and I could not resist.
It is a bogie flat wagon.
cones with a body to convert it in seconds to a five plank open wagon.
The body just clips onto the flat wagon.
there is also a container that can be clipped on it with full-length footboards.

As i already have one of the same type (built by the same person) that has a high-sided open body I have lots of possible combinations.
This is usefull when running it with one of the prototype bodies and someone would like a ride.
Lift off the open body, clip the footrests and container body on and off you go.

Did some work n the wagons and took a few laps with railcar and Taigatrommel today.

[James Harrison]

Work on not one, but two, Barnum brakes has commenced.  Basically, the brake carriage is half of a normal saloon (which itself is composed of two identical but handed sections) plus a parcels area.  So by cutting parts for the sides of a saloon carriage, and then halving them, I have the passenger saloons for two brakes.  I've had to order some more matchboarded material but in the meantime I can at least be working on floors and underframes.  And half of each side, of course. 

[James Harrison]

Stage one.  The carriage floors and passenger saloons are cut via silhouette cutter and built.  Matchboard plastic sheet has arrived which means that work on the brake ends can also commence.  Lots of measuring, drawing and very careful cutting to come. 

[The Bullet]

In the groove....

Spent hours cutting the grooves into the wagon bodies to simulate them being made of separate boards.
being 16mm chipboard the depth of the cut did not really matter but the electric cat got a bit hot in the process.
When using high revs, chipboard starts to emit smoke. I wanted to do this outside but Murphy had ordered heavy rain.
So I opened the workshop window and the door on the other side of the cellar.
Strong winds created a good draught to carry the smoke and dust away.

[James Harrison]

I have memories of chipboard from childhood; my Father bought a couple of roughly 1-metre-square boards of the stuff to run my trains on.  It weighed a ton! 

[The Bullet]

That´s the point.
Heavy, stable, no grain to pay attention to, no twigs.
These two wagons are a halfway mix between a model and a driving truck.
So someone will sit on its roof. (Even folks much bigger than me)
[*Loadign gauge exceedance*]
This is why I usw 16mm chipboard. This stuff is almost indestructible.

[The Bullet]

First wagon finished.

Before moving on to the second one there is another "small job".

A friend gave me his bogie wagon.
The body is a container with footrests and a long seat. This can be detached and replaced by an open wagon body.
Both bogies have brakes but these were not connected.
So I need a about two metres of bowden wire, make some fixings and then I have a braked driving truck.
The big idea is to make a detachable brake pedal that does not get in the way when the open wagon body is used.
During disassembly I found that this wagon must have derailed several times. The metal brackets acting as stops for the brake blocks in released position were completely bent.
Easy to fix. The I wanted to take the bogies off the pivots.
One was fastened using a split pin, the other just had a bit of wire in it.
Oops.
After cleaning about a handful of leaves (full size, not 1:11) out of the brake hangers and bogie frames everything moves as it should.

"small job".  let's see what goes wrong first.....

[James Harrison]

Barnum brakes: both vestibules built.  Both guard ends built.  Both roofs cut (about 2mm too short, damn).  Now painted up in bright yellow undercoat....

I ventured on Ebay this morning.  A third Director happened.... there were only ten in the 1913 batch and I now have three of them....

[The Bullet]

Some pics:

Several hundred nails were used.
I wonder what makes the shops print on the package "60 grams".
How many nails?

Everything nailed in place:




After the final coat of paint. Green looks much lighter due to the flash.
It is the same dark green as the wooden body in the first two pictures.


It is always fascinating how the paint turns a number of parts nailed to the wagon body into parts of the wagon body.
After the paint it looks like it had been built that way.

[James Harrison]

The promised photos of the renewed restaurant car...





... and work to date on one of the Barnum brakes. 



Well, it's errr.... getting there.  Not convinced I can build carriage sides completely from scratch to be honest but once the teak is finished and the bodywork cleaned up a bt it should be adequate for my purposes. 

[The Bullet]

Hi James,

is it the perspective or are the doors really set back that far on the barnum brake?

[James Harrison]

Nope, they really are set back into the body.  Perhaps not quite as far as on my models, but they are set back.

[James Harrison]

Teak happened....

[The Bullet]

5" gauge bogie wagon:
Bowden wires can put up quite a fight when trying to install them.....
Both bogies are braked now.
All that is left to do is fit the equaliser beam and the bowden wire running to the brake lever/pedal/haven´t decided yet.
I would like to fit a foot pedal but there is almost no room under the front buffer beam because of frame members and the front bogie.
I hope to squeeze this in somehow.

[James Harrison]

A W1 happened. 



I've wanted a model of this engine for years. 

She was basically built as an experiment- an attempt to fit a battleship boiler to a railway locomotive- in 1930.  Several years of fettling followed to solve various faults that have now, after archival research, been traced to secondary steampipes being of far too small a diameter.  Essentially this meant that when being worked hard she strangled herself and lost power.  There's an account of railway management waiting at Darlington station for an express hauled by her, and the running board telling the sad story of the train being an hour and a half late even before it reached York.  By the time she was halfway reliable the Great Depression was biting hard and it was cheaper to rebuild her as a conventional engine than to finish the job. 

So, falling as she does in the 'looks good but doesn't work' category, she's my nomination for the award of 'most steampunk locomotive ever built'. 

[The Bullet]

The hush-hush.....
Please show more pics.

G10:
one side finished other side in progress.
Next up are steps and handrails.

[James Harrison]

See also the nearly-completed Barnum brake behind her....

[Madasasteamfish]

Well things have been quiet here at Longmoor Works recently for, well, reasons. But, things have been happening. I've continued to amass a collection of armoured vehicles, with the latest efforts being a Char B1 bis, a Renault FT17 and British Mk1 Male.



I've also started on a 1:1200 model of the Tirpitz which I've had lying around for a while.

Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned reasons, this is a far as they are going to progress for the time being.

But, watch this space.....

[James Harrison]

That Mk.1 Male looks familiar! 

[The Bullet]

G10:
Both sides finished.
Ladders made and installed
Steps made and installed

To Do:
Doors and windiws for brakeman´s cabin
handrails
Install speedo
Final coat of paint.
finish roof

[James Harrison]

They're finished!  That's another 'must have' for me ticked off; a complete rake of Barnum excursion carriages.  Though I've not actually seen a photograph of a train composed exclusively of them; they only ever seem to appear singly, or in groups of two or three, mixed in with other stock. 

Right, next project- an Elswick cruiser.

[Madasasteamfish]

That Mk.1 Male looks familiar! 

Entirely possible, it's an old (new) airfix kit (one of their 'vintage classic' range).