:tongue :tongue :tongue

Well, thanks to a fellow BRMA member, who very kindly sent me some spare PC/HMRS pressfix transfers he had, I now have Great Western transfers of the correct size and style to not only do the "G W" lettering but also the numbers and weights. I have made a start on the Mink wagon, removing the prevous smaller "G W" letters, and replacing with the scale 25" letters. I have also added the weight and tare inscriptions on both sides, but not the actual wagon number, yet. The close-up photo also highlights a couple of very minor paint touch-ups required.






Incidentally, I was wrong about my SR concrete hut being movable: I have, at some time, glued it down to stop me accidentally knocking it all the time, so it has to stay for all photos!

Very nice Jeff. I reckon it looks better with the bigger letters too.
Marty

Thanks Marty. I think so too. :)

I think the open wagon will also look better when I get around to doing it. I'm fairly sure the smaller letters are correct for the Mink D, though, but if anyone knows better, please advise me.

I do like HMRS transfers, a great variety and accurate.

Modelmaster are expanding their range into pre-nationalisation so they're worth a look.

John

I agree with you wholeheartedly, John. I still have quite a lot of P.C./HMRS pressfix and methfix transfers for BR and SR stock, and also quite a few Modelmaster transfers - they have useful ranges of numbers made up for particular types of locos and units, which save quite a lot of mucking around with individual digits.

Fox also have a useful selection of transfer.

All three brands are easy to use and give good results.

Quite some time ago I started building a London, Chatham & Dover Railway (LCDR) brake van from the etched brass Roxey Mouldings kit. It was 95% complete when the build stalled due to my problem in effectively attaching the footboards. I have now done so using wire hangers bent to support the boards. The upper ends of the hangers are hooked and superglued into holes drilled into the brass solebars, while the step boards are soldered to the lower supports. 

The smaller steps under the guard's doors are also soldered, although one of them took me several attempts before it stayed solidly put.

The whole lot is painted South Eastern & Chatham Railway (SE&CR) wagon dark grey with black below the solebars. Lettering has commenced with HMRS pressfix transfers, but is not yet complete. I have glazed the various window openings but I'm not sure that all of them should have "glass" in them - it's not at all clear from the drawings I have or any of the limited number of photos I have seen.

The Parkside GWR 10T Open has now had its 'G W' transfers replaced with correct scale 25" lettering, and the load and tare markings put on. It joins the Mink in awaiting only its 5-digit number on each side.

Must be a right raffle trying to get the decal to sit straight over the diagonal strapping?

You've done a good job though. It looks great.

Marty

Yeah, can be a challenge to get transfers to sit down.  I've got three wagons to do shortly - not a job I look forward to.

John

The decals are of the pressfix type which are a little easier to get to sit over raised detail. Even so, I brushed a little decal setting solution over them to soften them and settle them over the strapping.

Notwithstanding that, I think I managed to get the 'W' on this side very slightly crooked.

Way back, almost lost in the mists of time, I started a Golden Arrow Productions ex-LSWR G16 4-8-0T, using a Hornby Stanier 8F chassis (sort of appropriate since the G16s finished their lives rated as 8F). While it has been operational for some time, I haven't finished the painting and decorating. That has taken a leap forward this evening, because I have put on all of the transfers except for the Feltham shed code and the overhead warning flashes. It is now numbered 30495, the last of the batch of four of these machines, and one of two to survive well into 1962. Up to now, the TCS M1 decoder has been left at address #3, but I can now give it a proper number (#495).

If you think the glossy smoke box door looks odd against the rest of the smoke box, it is because I needed a glossy surface for the waterslide transfers I used for the number. The rest of the transfers are from P.C./HMRS, of the pressfix type. The tiny 8F power classification above the numbers on the bunker side really taxed my eyesight!






Still to do on the G16 are varnishing the whole thing to protect the transfers, add lamp irons, glaze the cab spectacles, put some coal in the bunker, and weather the lot.

The ex-SR 'Pill Box' brake van is built from a Cambrian kit and pre-dates the Bachmann model.

Hi Jeff.  Have you ever considered fitting Kadee to either your  Kits or RTR wagons? as I am still considering both projects ie Kits and Kadee, and it might be easier to do a Kit with Kadee first. all the best. Kevin

Hi Kevin. I do use Kadees for a few different purposes. 
I use them within my kit-built multiple units, with the droppers cut off (EMUs and DMUs are not normally split withhin their units for everyday running purposes). Some of the Underground kit-built types also have them within the sets.
I also use them at the outer ends of all my BR EMUs, both kit-built and ready to run. 

They are used within fixed rakes of coaches, such as the typical sets the Southern Region used, but I leave tension lock couplings on the outer ends. I have rakes of Maunsell and BR mark 1 and 2 coaches made up this way, as well as many Pullman coaches.

There are fixed rakes of modern wagons, like Bachmann's TTA, TEA, HHA and HTA wagons which normally run in block trains. Again, they have tension locks at the outer ends.

Similarly, the Bachmann Intermodal pairs of container wagons, which all have Kadee #17s fitted within the pairs. Many of these, and many of my other container wagons, like the Dapol FEA-Bs, pocket wagons, and Megafrets, have Kadees fitted at the outer ends, with a few left with tension locks at one end only. I can mix and match these wagons a bit, with the proviso that ones with tension locks has to go at the outer ends. Of course, it is possible to marshal two with tension locks 'face to face' within the rakes as well.
The vast majority of the Kadees I use are the NEM 'fishtail' types, numbers 17 to 20. I do have some #5 types (or similar) fitted to kits like the London Transport Q stock and my DC Kits 4 EPB, usually on the bogie ends.

I can see most of my class 33/1 diesels getting Kadees fitted and being semi-permanently allocated to the forthcoming 4 TC units I have ordered from Kernow Models. Maybe one or two of the class 73s may get this treatment as well.

At some stage I may consider doing the older style wagons to allow for shunting movements, although the tension locks also allow for remote uncoupling, but not the rather nice delayed uncoupling the Kadees allow.

Hi Jeff. Thank you, at the moment, I am concentrating on the wagons, but with the buffers( a necessary evil) two #17's together clash and I cannot put #17 at one end and #18 at the other end, they have to be a longer version, whatever number that may be??
Following on from the wagons, I'll need to do the loco's , but, as I have said already the Decoder and Speaker complicate things and with my hands I don't trust myself to reassemble the loco afterwards.
I have considered running a 2BIL with a 2HAL but again I don't know how to. In another lifetime? I would like a three coach "Thumper".
all the best. Kevin

The HALs and BILs are easy, because they have NEM pockets. I use #19s generally, to give enough clearance for the buffers, although the earlier release HALs from Hornby had a fault in the driving trailer's pocket, where people had to apply various solutions to get them able to hold a coupling: my solution was to lop approximately 1.5 mm off the end, and use a #20 coupling.

Couplings withing the units are better off being left with the Hornby rigid ones, but as there are no lights in the HALs and BILs from Hornby, you could try #17s, with the dropper arms cut off (not needed as you would not usually split coaches within units during normal operations).

The Bachmann EPBs, CEPs and Thumpers do have internal lighting and also the headcode lights, so you'll have to retain the rigid couplings unless you want to lose the electrical connectivity. These generally work well with Kadee #18 or #19 couplings at the cab ends, depending on your curves. This applies to their MLVs also.

Here's a video i took of four of my units running "in multiple" (actually in a DCC consist, although they work perfectly well under DC analogue as well). Apologies for the resolution; I got the conversion wrong!

Hi Jeff.   Thank you , it still looks good all the same. The Brick Wall at the back looks very good too. I have looking for a brick wall, with wooden gates at a "Scale 10 feet tall" , Just like the perimeter of the former
Bricklayers Arms Goods Yard. all the best. Kevin

Inspired by RMweb's Simon0r's two SECR 6-wheel brake vans converted from Parkside's MR 20 ton vans using LNER 10' wheelbase chassis (see  http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/112617-buildingbodging-some-secr-brake-vans/), I have attempted my own version of the bodge.

I only wanted to do one van, but as the conversion uses axleboxes cut from a second LNER wagon chassis, I had to order two of the LNER chassis, leaving me with a spare pair of axleboxes for possible future use. Simon cut four planks out of the MR van sides from the centre, but I wanted to retain the moulded rivet and bracket details, so cut two planks from either side of the centre section. Unlike Simon, I used the original MR chassis/floor moulding, shortened by a similar amount as the sides. In fact, I got it about half a millimetre longer, so bodged that by adding a section of microstrip at the non-verandah end of each side.

I also wanted to do the earlier single verandah version (which would later be modified to two verandahs, but after the time period I wanted to represent). To this end, I cut the end door top and side but left the bottom in place at one end of each side, and shortened the roof to match.

I filed a recess inside the solebars in the middle, and also filed the solebar thickness down for the extra axleboxes, so they could sit aligned with the outer axleboxes with the full thickness of the solebars intact. Once glued to the floor unit, it all becomes quite strong. I used Romford 12mm spoked wheels, which have no clearance problems with the chassis cross-members, although I prefer the appearance of the slightly larger wheels Simon used. I may try out some Hornby or Bachmann wheels gauge the effect later.

Pictures of my progress to date follow.



















 The roof is not glued on in any of these shots. I have added some lead weight to the floor and some rectangular fillets of plastic to fill the gaps between the solebar ends and the insides of the headstocks/buffer beams.

A quick test revealed that the wheelbase is so short it will go around any of the tightest curves I can find.

Just a couple of small changes have been made since the first part of this build.

I have added the turned brass buffers (as per Simon0r's suggestion in his topic), and I have substituted some slightly larger diameter Hornby spoked wheels, which somehow look more spindly and archaic, and entirely suit the style and character of the SECR brake van, in my opinion. With these wheels it runs even more freely than with the Romfords. I suspect the Hornby axle length is a tiny fraction shorter and therefore has slightly less friction in the bearings.

I have also removed the moulded gutter lines from the roof, although I have retained the moulded stove chimney, at least for the time being.

Hi Jeff,
Looking good.  Have a good day on Saturday.I will not be far away at Caulfield running my little O gauge layout.
Mark