A Variation on a Theme

Peter Insole

Western Thunderer
Sorry Jon, I'm afraid that the images were lifted from an auction site!

I can have a go at estimating the principal dimensions and do a rough sketch, based on that illustration of the L&M carriage.

Pete.
 

Mike W

Western Thunderer
Is it a meeting of the Brunel Impersonation Society?

They do all look a bit similar! I guess its called fashion, much like today when one artificial blonde in a bikini looks much the same as all the others.

I must be getting old.

Mike
 

Peter Insole

Western Thunderer
I had a go, using my favourite trick of putting up and carefully aligning two comparable pics up on the screen.

The gentleman in the right hand image has provided a reasonable confirmation of scale, although it is still a bit of guesswork!

lamp gSAM_4711.JPG lamp gzpoint 788.jpg


I hope this helps?

Pete.
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Peter
That's very kind of you. I'll print it off and give it some thought. By the way, is that coach a LBSCR 1st Class?

Jon
 

Peter Insole

Western Thunderer
Jon, the Getty image is of a Stockton and Darlington composite carriage, No.31.

I have tried to discover a bit more about the why and wherefore of the photograph, but have had only limited success. It seems likely that it was taken following it's restoration in 1875 for the S&DR 50th anniversary exhibition. There are three splendid gentlemen in the picture, and one of them could possibly be Mr. J.B. Harper, Assistant General Superintendent of the North Eastern Railway. He was passionately interested in the history of the S&D, personally collecting many related artefacts and relics, and was ultimately responsible for establishing the very first railway museum.

I understand that carriage 31 and also a similar no. 59 both survive intact, and are therefore potentially available for measuring up!

Pete.
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
I was looking through a recently published book titled 'Early Railways, a guide for the modeller, and spotted the attached photo. It shows a carriage made by David Viewing, in G1, and it shows that above side lamps. I have since sent an email to David and the long and the short of it is that he has enlarged these for me to G3. I tried to download a picture of the proposed print but was unable to. I have ordered some and I will let you know how I get on 'lensing' them.

Jon

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Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
The Shapeways coach lamps are due to be delivered tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some other lamps that I have been working on. From right to left they are, LBSCR tail lamp, a pair of LBSCR side lamps all three from Shapeways and drawn up by Trevor Young. The final pair are LNER from Modelu complete with lenses. I have a red glass bead that I will use in the tail lamp after I've given it another coat of black, actually, not sure if it should be white but black seems to suit. For the pair of LBSCR side lamps, I've ordered some perspex rod in clear and red 5mm diameter. The idea being that I form/dome the ends of the rods, polish them and then slice off a section. That's the theory and fingers crossed for when I actually have a go.

Jon

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Mike W

Western Thunderer
Very nice Jon, and lovely picture too! You did well to get Modelu to up-scale them so quickly as I've been waiting two years for some LNWR lamps from them and given up.

Mike
 

mswjr

Western Thunderer
Making the lens as you described above sounds good, On the 5 inch gauge lamp lens they have a little bit of silver tin foil stuck on the back of it,
They look good when in the lamp.
 

Spitfire2865

Western Thunderer
The nylon plastic fills very easily with some full strength paint. Fill with thick paint, quick sand once cured, then another coat usually is good enough for most things IME.
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Because the lamps looked bigger than I imagined they should be(hope that makes sense), I asked David Viewing if he could reduce the size. He replied that the G1 lamps were more or less the size that I had just asked for and therefore, I've ordered some of those. Interestingly enough, they are coming in at the size that Peter has drawn above. A little shorter in height but the square of the body is more or less the same, 5 1/2" as opposed to Peter's 5".

Trevor
Not sure if rubbing down is feasible but, I will give it a try with the new batch.

Jon
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
With regards to the lamps sitting on the underframe above. I ordered some 5mm dia. perspex rod in order to make the lenses and it arrived today. One problem is that the red perspex rod is 4.8mm which is too small and falls through the opening, which is a bit annoying. The clear rod fits the openings perfectly. I have ordered some red square section rod, another job, and will try turning it down to 5mm and see how it goes, it may be too brittle of course. Anyone else made lenses?

Jon
 

mswjr

Western Thunderer
Jon, Same as Mike said above for perspex, I have turned it, it seams to take for ever taking out the turning marks as it does scratch easily.
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Here are the LBSCR lamps with lenses. The one on the right is a tail lamp and the lens is a red glass bead. I set the hole through the middle of the bead vertically in the hope that it will look like the burner. The 'brass' rim is gold leaf which I happened to have a scrap of. The next two are the side lamps. The marks on the clear lens are showing through from the ali foil that I used as a backing. The perspex rod was mounted in the lathe, a curve was formed with a fine file, cleaned up with 1200 wet and dry used dry and, a piece of silver polish wadding held against the lens until it shone. The lenses were parted off and the backs cleaned up by rubbing firstly on a piece of 1200 paper and then on a piece of mount board that I had first rubbed over with the same silver polish wad. They were then glued to the kitchen foil and glued into the lamp bodies with super glue. The first lens was removed from the lathe still on the perspex rod and an attempt was made at polishing on the polishing mop. All that happened with that one was that it melted, I didn't try that method again.

Jon

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