Another G3 brake van

[jamiepage]

Inspired by Steve Cook's G3 brake van project, a start has been made on a scratchbuilt G3 SM&AR brake van in plasticard.
Working sketch has been made from a copy of the original Metropolitan RC&WCo. drawings and the first components started.
Use was made of the milling machine and indexing to get the floor and partition/end blanks nice and square.
These blanks were built up from two layers each of .100 thou. card (external framing will provide a third layer) so quite chunky, and squareness from the milling process will be useful to keep it all straight.
The door opening was recessed as the prototype.
Some internal corners need squaring off .
Headstock and solebar blanks built up to size from various sections.

 

[Steve Cook]

I like that a lot Jamie
Its a great choice of prototype with lots of lovely details like tapered corner posts at the veranda end and four wooden brake blocks with straight sided W irons. Whilst I've been looking at brake vans as a result of the weekend, these have got to be the funkiest set of brake blocks I've ever seen.

You've made a nice clean start (unsurprisingly ) and I look forward to watching your progress.
Steve

 

[jamiepage]

Thanks Steve.
Another nice little detail is the way the floor planks have been laid. - lengthways and set up on 2 inch square laterals screwed across the solebar tops, which results in visible daylight between the planks and solebars at the veranda end. Basswood planks might do well there.
Pantographed W irons and retainer straps; while these bits are still in the flat, a strap will be bolted to the bottom of each W iron and a bridging piece of rod soldered between each pair to form a one piece retainer per side.

 

[Steve Cook]

Thanks Steve.
Another nice little detail is the way the floor planks have been laid. - lengthways and set up on 2 inch square laterals screwed across the solebar tops, which results in visible daylight between the planks and solebars at the veranda end.

Just clicked on the photo to make it bigger and have a better look, that will be nice and different
Seeing as its G3 and you're good at all this stuff, will the sliding door work?
Steve

 

[jamiepage]

Crikey, no.
The brakes will though, but I guess there's not much in the way of bragging rights there because the system is very simple with the handle sticking out onto the open veranda.
Conversely, the doors are quite complex by comparison. They sit recessed into the outside framing when closed so the handle mechanism has to displace the left hand door edge (both sides) outwards by 3 inches or so before the whole door can then slide, initially at an angle, to sit proud of the body framing.
To open, I think, the central horizontal handle is pulled outwards to rotate a vertical rod at either end of which a crank pulls the left hand door edge toward the skates which can then slide along the runners. The right hand door edge simply follows along the angled runners.

 

[Steve Cook]

Fully understand that decision Jamie (thanks for posting the pic to show how it all works), replicating that mechanism (or even trying to) would be a little excessive, even in G3
Pleased to read you are going to do working brakes though, I still think there will be a fair challenge in converting the handle movement through to the blocks. It'll look good when done mind..
Steve

 

[Mike W]

A lovely little van Jamie. Either you've been planning this for some time, or you work ten times faster than me to have done all that in just a few days!
Mike

 

[jamiepage]

Thanks Mike.
In some ways I guess it has been many years in the planning, in that the prototype info has been collected over that period. But it was reading Steve's thread that got it going.
Trouble is - starting things, I can do; seeing it through to a finish is much more difficult.

 

[jamiepage]

Main body panels scribed using a scraperboard gadget, which when held at an angle makes a good representation of the plank top- edge chamfering. It nicely takes a sliver of plastic away at each stroke without putting too much stress on the sheet.
A pleasing interlude now, building up the outside framing. I'll leave it there tonight, let it harden, and clean up the joints tomorrow.
But couldn't resist a quick assemblage.

 

[Steve Cook]

That's lovely Jamie, I do like seeing stuff in the raw
Its a nice tidy build so far, whose nuts/bolts/washers/rivets are you using please?
Steve

 

[jamiepage]

Steve, the plastic ones on the inner bulkhead above were from an anonymous (although I think ref. 48225) Precision Scale Co pack.
Most of the cosmetic plastic mouldings seem to come with washer in the larger sizes, which is OK in places but doesn't do for strapping etc.
I'll use 16ba nuts drilled out for 14ba bolts on the underframe but need something a bit smaller for the bodywork.
Some cosmetic hex. nut/ bolts have been ordered from Scale Hardware, at 0.7mm and 0.85mm A/F, to see how they look. But they are expensive so could do with tracking down a right sized plastic version.
I should know what what a reasonable A/F figure would be for body strapping- do you know? I'm guessing somewhere iro 9/16 in.?
Jamie

 

[jamiepage]

Got that wrong. The Scale Hardware cosmetic hex nuts/ bolts are 0.7 and 1.0 mm A/F.

 

[AndyB]

Jamie,
Can I see top left of the door on your drawing a note saying 1/2" Coach bolts? - these would have nuts 0.92" A/F (1.03mm in G3).
And by the RH axleguard, does that say 3/4"? they would be 1.3" A/F (1.46mm in G3).
It was the lack of reasonably priced, crisply moulded and right sized fasteners that led me to produce the etched versions - of which you have a few sheets. I considered 1/2"W to be a bit too small to be practical to work with at the time - but if you think they'd be useful, I'm just about to do some square etched nuts (5/8" W to 1" W) so could add some 1/2" W hex nuts to the fret.

By the way - I see the SM&AR didn't think that their guards should have any home comforts, as no stove is fitted.
Or did they only run summer services?
Andy

 

[Steve Cook]

Thanks Jamie, something else for me to try I haven't found a source of plastic hardware I'm happy with yet, the Grandt Line stuff was OK for Gauge 1, but I need to go back through their catalogue and convert the sizes back into G3. Cambrian do some nuts / bolts etc for 16mm which won't be to far off either, the scale hardware stuff looks fantastic - in quality and in price! I'm not sure if anyone else has found something similar in plastic yet - I'm pretty sure we would have heard about in on here if there was.
The only thing I've built with external framing was rather lacking in fixings (in reality and model), I ended up using rivets to represent coachbolt heads as that was best guess.

I should know what what a reasonable A/F figure would be for body strapping- do you know? I'm guessing somewhere iro 9/16 in.?
Jamie

Sounds about right to me, but I don't actually know either I'm afraid. I've just gone through some of my reference books but if there was something definitive I've missed it - perhaps Mike knows something? I usually compare the size against other fixings on the solebars / bodywork and use Chris Crofts scratchbuilding article in MRJ 12 to work out sizes from there.

Steve

 

[Mike W]

If the SM&AR drawings don't give sizes, then I guess RCH drawings might be the nearest available. Sets of detail drawings are around and I'll look up a few a.s.a.p.
May be worth checking that all the body fixings are actually nuts and bolts. Some LNWR wagon cornerplates were riveted on. Yes, countersunk rivets put in from the back and peined over on the outside.
Mike

 

[jamiepage]

Thanks all. And special thanks to Andy- I had seen the underframe bolt reference but not the door bolt. Excellent, thanks.
16ba nuts are good for the underframes (see cruel close- up photo); but 1.0mm A/F needed for the bodywork.
Yes please, Andy, if you have room on your etch.
And you're right- no stove appears to have been fitted on these, nor on a couple of previous vans, nor indeed on some later vans from the Gloucester RC&W Co.

 

[jamiepage]

Nice chamfering of the outside framing, Steve. It makes all the difference if done properly.

 

[jamiepage]

Today's mock up. All the bits now need cleaning up, chamfering, detailing and cleaning up again in the flat before they finally get assembled.

 

[JimG]

Today's mock up. All the bits now need cleaning up, chamfering, detailing and cleaning up again in the flat before they finally get assembled.

Jamie,

How are you going to do the chamfering? I've just been experimenting with doing it by using a ball nosed cutter at a 45 degree angle of contact and it looks OK - even in S scale although it's getting into the realmsw of not actually seeing it, but knowing if it wasn't there. However I'm interested in any other methods.

Jim

 

[jamiepage]

Hello Jim,
I'm afraid I was just going to scrape away. It will probably all end up wavy and wobbly but now I've assembled the components, couldn't really think of an alternative.
I did use a router on a large scale wagon once, which did a good consistent job as one would expect, but each piece was done before assembling onto the body side.
Are you experimenting with the body sides already built up? I would be very interested to hear more of your experiences.
Jamie