4mm Jan's 4mm WB: Crane-ium

[Lyndhurstman]

Born Sloppy
Lately, every step is fraught with peril (no - I’m no talking about Beryl..)

Loathe to do ‘the usual’ and cut off the buffer housing to fit cast replacements (nice they they are) we planned to fit some nice MJT 13” heads (courtesy of MJT 2375). Unfortunately, things are not that simple....

Shanks for nothing...
The spindles of the MJT product are 3” dia. The accommodating hole is 4.2”. More slop than Beryl’s custard..

We’ve done some research* - even visiting the virtual premises of Oleo - and come up - we hope - with a solution. We’re hoping to be sent packing (brass tube), courtesy of Albion Alloys - by way of Chronos Ltd, of Dunstable.

*our research has - as you would expect - taken in a great deal of photographic representation from Mr Bartlett’s Picturesque Emporium of Wanton Wagonry. In so doing, we found this:

BR Vanwides - vacuum brake VWV VMV ZDV ZRV VEV | B783323 VEV

Where the buffer spindle appears thinner than the chromed neighbours in the rest of the sub-catalogue. Indeed, it looks almost identical to our rendition in its offsettedness. Is this a trick of the light, or a less than mint hydraulic unit?

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

In A Tube (or Two)
Don’t worry; we haven’t gone Underground. Not yet, anyway..

The fudge is on, thanks to some wonderful engineering from Albion Alloys, and a rapid delivery from Chronos. This might just work..

Two bits of terrific - if tiny - tubular telescopy (I think we’ve just made that word up...) that will act as spacers between the shaft of the buffer, and its plastic housing. The buffer is a push fit in the inner of the two tubes - so who knows; it may even allow springing!

Of course, the inner tube should be silvered, but we’ll see if the theory can be put into practice before contemplating any potential plating...

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

The Light Vantastic

A collection of coupés block the Blackwall viaduct at Limehouse this evening, awaiting the drop down into the Works. Six of 1/217 Ventilated Vans (VANFIT in the Diagram Book, But VANWIDE in common parlance). Sourced from The Usual Place, they come to us with rather more ventilation than designed, being light of rooves. And springs. And buffer heads. And brakes. But they did come with MJT rocking units, and all wheels to P4 profile. All for £20. So something of a BIN bargain.

Stores will be scoured, and a foray (weather permitting) across to Wells this Saturday will hopefully result in some of this ancillary - but oh so necessary - items being sourced. We hope.

Being basically sound, we don’t intend for these to be with us long; 5 will be Lot 3391/2 (axlebox differences, we think) and one will be to Lot 3421 (where are you, Ted Rodgers?) - fitted with a translucent polyester roof.

Our best to you all.

Jan

obo Watkins Wharf Wagon Works

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Supporting Cast

A smashing few hours at Wells yesterday; smashing to spend a few hours with @TimC, smashing to see Black Lion Crossing, and smashing my previous record for show spending - if you can’t get hold of Dart Castings for the foreseeable, it’s because they’re in warmer climes, reaping the benefit of my visit!

Anyhoo.. Here’s a VANWIDE. The previous builder had used rocking W Irons from a source I don’t recognise, and that were loathe to rock with springs fitted. This necessitated some tense and tight butchery with diamond files to get right. The T&TB was repeated on the non-compensated RCH box and spring (which may well be 4 leaf, rather than 5, but we’re talking thous of thickness in whitemetal here) to sit tight against the solebar. Already, things are getting away from us, time wise... But - having done it for this one - the next 5 will get something easier... and without fearful fettling of fragility...

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Clasped Closely

Low-level intimacy twixt surfaces. The VANWIDE gets a quartet of MJT 2952. A simple enough job, spread over a couple of evenings to let the Loctite cure. The simplicity is down to the canny MJT design, with its chamfered rear surface of the shoes, and the cut outs to straddle the compensating units. The holes have been drilled to accept some N/S rod - coming soon from Eileen’s (brain fade - or was it the Doom Bar? - at Wells made us forget to pick some up there). A small tweak with some snipe-nosed pliers gives the wheels their momentary freedom.

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Back Here Again
Sing Hosannah Upon The Highest! It’s Groundhog Day (or maybe Whippet Wednesday... who knows anymore?).

More lever guide liberties being taken here. The Bill Bedford unit (broken in bending, but luckily able to be resoldered) lurks behind the representation of the door trough. It supposed to sit in the channel of the solebar, but the moulding of the van floor sits about 0.5 mm up inside the edge of the van side - rather than flush with it - and thus the side will not allow retrospective placement of the guide. So we’ve fudged it, by scalpeling a guide-wide slot in the bottom of the solebar. You wouldn’t know it to look at it. We’re trying to finalise firm fixity in the region , as the bottom of the lever guide is not connected to the W-iron, and thus allowing the compensation unit to move as and when required.

Tiny steps, regularly taken. Along with our medication...

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

There’s Morton This Than I First Thought
Wide oh wide does this keep happening?

I bought these at Wells. Bill Bedford brake levers. A boon in rendering a similar shapely sinuosity. Mostly. But not as straightforward as I was hoping.

The cam is on the wrong side (the top). These levers are top actors, with the cam of the cross-shaft being beneath, viz;
BR Vanwides - vacuum brake VWV VMV ZDV ZRV VEV | B784641 VMV
So I’ll have to be a-fretting a sextuplet of new ones (I can file the cam off for the other - plainer - side). Unless anyone has any other suggestions?

Yours, in a crushed calumny

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Sleeve It!
Further fettling fun.

The bores are being reduced. The sleeves of 1.4mm brass tube are cut using a sharp Stanley blade. The depth of the initial cut (or groove) is determined by placing the tube into the hole in the MDF, and scoring around the edge. The tube is then laid on the MDF, and the blade run over it. Downward pressure on the blade causes the tube to rotate along the scored mark (this is probably akin to sucking eggs to you lot, but my joy upon finding this technique online was very, very real ). A few seconds of back and forth is all that’s needed. Any burrs (there will be some) are dealt with using a Swiss file, and the bore cleaned up with a suitable broach. Now it’s just a matter of finding a nice thin glue to hold them in the plastic housing.

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Buffed Up

Shining like a beacon in the all-enveloping (definitely Second Class) darkness that is the illogical surround, the TITW (Toe In The Water - it’s like Suck It And See, but you’re less likely to end up being poisoned) methodology mooted by @AJC earlier bears a single (indeed singular) fruit.

The shank of the buffer has been tinned with Fry solder paint, and buffed slightly (apt, for a buffer, what?). This seems to have worked quite well - it’s at least fooling both the camera and our eyesight from this distance, anyway.

Having watched The Repair Shop last night (staple viewing here, purely for the techniques employed; definitely not the emotions and tears the producers try to wring from the supplicants) we have identified something called Silvering Powder that also might work.

The only down side is that springing the buffers doesn't seem to be possible with these even finer clearances. But we need to confirm that.

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Outstanding
(No... not the fettling; we’re not that easily deceived). More a description of an hour and a half of hook-based action (Be afraid, Peter Pan).


A reasonable representation of the packed protrusion these vans were saddled with (see the Flickr links above). As Adam notes, the hook (in this instance an Exactoscale 4CPD01A) is cuddled by a short tube of brass. This has been inserted into a 20 thou spacer of Plasticard (6ins x 9ins at full size). Enlarged, it doesn’t look the best. You’ll have to trust that it passes muster for us!


Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Lever out of it
We’ve not forgotten you. We’ve been busy fettling Reverse Bedford’s - inside-out brake lever guards from his useful Wagon Bits fret assembled contra-indications, as the Vanwides are LHS affairs, not the RHS of standard. This took a while, and a blue hue to the air was realised on occasion.

Next up - and again featuring a fettled former of Mr Bedford’s - are the brake levers themselves. Fans of this outpouring of miserable mediocrity will perhaps recall the previous trials and tribulations encountered with the Medfit.

Well, that was as nothing. We’ve thrown ourselves in at the deep end, and out with the bath water.

A modified Bedford (they’re supplied with the cam on the wrong side). We’ve filed that lump off, and added one of our own. Intrinsically intimate in collocation, they’re sweated on a bit of 0.007” NS sheet, to be used as a former. Later - and divorced - the results are not too shabby (if you squint, and put your hands over your eyes):


The cam is too large. This is deliberate.
We’re unsure whether to use this one as a former, or just make another five this way.
Still. Progress. Of the halting kind.

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Vacuum All Ye Faithful
Twas the night after the night after Christmas, and - after becoming becalmed in the doldrums of disinterest for most of the month - Old Nick (Father Christmas, not the boss-eyed barber in Commercial Road) has gifted us a duet of delight: a few hours of peace and quiet, and the will to pick up our tools and fettle.
We’ve made the most of the opportunity, and - with the help of the the ex-Mainly Trains (Now Wizard Models) Vacuum Cylinders and mounting bracket from the LNER Vacuum Fitted fret and some wire from Stores - we’ve made a quintet of these:


There was a mismatch between the length over the cast pins of the cylinders and the length between the holes of the supporting bracket which necessitated the cutting off of the pins and drilling the casting with a 0.7mm drill to accommodate their replacements, which were soldered to the bracket using solder paint. A 0.4mm hole was also drilled in the piston rod to take a cross member of 0.3mm brass.

Trying to get the sub assembly sat upright in the underframe, and aligned with the operating levers (again, from the WM fret) was a trial by tweezers, but we overcame the tribulations eventually. No two are the same of course, but we’re hoping that the darkness beneath will hide the worst of our mistakes.

So, all in all, not much to write home about (certainly not worth a Christmas card), but it’s good to get something done.

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Hello @AJC Adam

Thanks I too have a soft spot for these rugged beasts; the 17x20in cylinders made them powerful bits of kit, and their short wheelbase was well suited to wobbling around the plethora of stubs peppered around East End.

I do have a fallback..


...but this has no motion, either. So I was going to make the Walschearts (the bugbear with these things is the lifting link sits in a hole in the sidetank... ) anyway - but this purchase is reasonably recent (maybe this year; maybe last..) and I was hoping to see how tricksy CAD was before I put on my armbands and dived in to metalwork..

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Boxed Off

Almost two years after starting them, the VANWIDE sextet are finished. Sighs of relief aplenty around the Works, and a few bitters quaffed in The Volunteer Arms. A lot has gone on in the outside world in that time, and thanks must be given to a whole host of deities (we’re a veeery broad church here) for our continued survival.
The final act - barring the hiding of the timesheets of those involved in this sorry tale - was the application of numbers and letters from Modelmaster. This late act served to underline how ill-suited we are to batch builds. Shameful for a commercial concern such as ours attempts to be, of course, but we’re much better suited to the more singular cast-offs and discards that pop up from time to time. Of which, more anon. No Queues, though.

Our best to you all

Jan

obo Watkins Wharf Wagon Works

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Post-Cambrian

In reworking one of several diversions that enabled the VANWIDEs to be completed, Watkins Wharf found itself south of the River, renovating a Cambrian SR Unfitted 8 Plank, 9ft WB.

A cheap purchase from a Works outing in the West Country, her original chassis was so far out of true, it wouldn’t sit right, so it went into Works for dismantling (we get through a fair amount of Swann Morton 11 usage in these instances), and in the meantime a new chassis was sourced from the very helpful Cambrian.

A new sub-base from 20thou plasticard was added to represent the floor planking (the original was a mess of rounded misshapen afters, so it was rendered flat).



… which gave us something to mate with the new solebars…



… we made an interpretative error, here. Our sources - less than clear - suggested a cross shaft between the opposing side ‘Freighter’ brakes, but we’ve subsequently identified they were independent. We decided to leave the crosshaft in, as it is a useful interim handling aid. It will be removed once The Paint Shop Boys have done added their finesse. In our defence, we have hunted high and low for a copy of Volume Four of Messrs. Bixley, Blackburn, Chorley and King, but Accounts won’t honour payments that they consider Beyond Reason. Maybe we can have a whip round…

As a result of the large accommodation hole required for the coupling hooks, the buffer beams were found to be excessively fragile, and thus the decision was made for them to held straight with a couple of pieces of 0.60” plasticard.

Brake safety loops were the usual staples, and sunk into holes drilled into the chassis.



Buffers and hooks from LMS, door bangers from 51L. Brake levers from Wizard (or 51L… lines of demarcation blur at this remove…), in Bill Bedford guides.

We tried to push ourselves on this one, despite her plainness, and attempted to add the strapping around the top edge of the body, using some thinly-sliced Plasticard, and made a porcine auris of the tiny restraining clips that hold it down.

Once the minor additions have been made, she will be rendered as Well Used But Serviceable by TPSB.

Our Best To You All

Jan

obo Watkins Wharf Wagon Works

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Resurrection Shuffle
A delve back into the Jobs To Be Done. Reworking a Ks Palvan. The assembly transitioned from epoxy to solder, and the roof was revamped, via Araldite and arm wrestling. I tried curving the roof (30 thou) by heating it in boiling water, to little effect. So it was back to old school persuasion. I’ve put in a stretcher between the ends to stop the roof sagging. At times like these, the lack of a floor is a bonus… 1mm angle for the stretcher bars..



… I’m a heavy user of cocktail sticks…

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

A Sense Of Attachment
The reworked Keyser Palvan (should it be all caps?) gets a dose of after-market refinement. The 30 thou roof is down, and 13” buffers from LMS have been added. Next will be coupling hook and pipes from the same source, and vac cylinder from Wizard.

I’m going to try (maybe I should put that in CAPS ) and make the representation of the horizontal bar that sits above the middle crossbeam of the left hand door, the grab handles that sit diagonally in the corners of the door at the same level, and the door stops that extend out from the corner pillars. Nice to have a modicum of mojo back, though.

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

End (Fun &) Games
The Dia. 1/211 PALVAN now awaits transfer to the Watkins Wharf Finishing Shop, where it will be given its identity before being subjected to the inscrutable gaze of the LMR Traffic Manager (East London). We’ll try not to point out the vagaries of the corner joints - purely a matter of manufacture, rather than any ineptitude from the Fabrication Shop Boys.

But before the end, a last hill to climb.. vis, the rectification of a non-parallel axle…Having built the van body to sit flat on the bottom of its cast W irons, we were horrified to find that the holes for the bearings on one axle didn’t line up, and made one wheel sit up clear of the railhead. So we made a false floor of 40 thou plasticard, and modified the space (including scraping the back of the axleboxes) for an MJT internal compensating unit, that we made fixed by slipping some 20 thou plasticard either side of the pivot point.


The pinpoint ends of the axle were filed off, and the wheels spaced out from the compensating unit with a variety of Gibson 2mm washers.



The whole assembly was then offered up to the buffer height gauge to determine the thickness of packers required (2 mm). It sits well. A job, jobbed.



With that hurdle overcome, the last knockings involved a representation of one of the bits that the Keyser PALVAN was light on; the crossbar for the latching of the open door. A bit of 0.3 mm NS round rod flattened with toffee hammer and anvil, and bent to shape. We made one in brass, initially, but it was too soft.



The last last job (we think) was to add the door catch/bang on the relevant corners, and remove the tiebar between the axleboxes. We did this because we weren’t happy with the look of them, and we’ve identified via Larkin’s V2 (A Pictorial Study of the 1955-1961 Period - British Railways Goods Wagons) and Paul Bartlett’s excellent site that Lot 2784 (Summer 1955) were vacuum fitted, but not Clasp, and didn’t have the tiebar. So we took ‘em off. Sue us!

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Please convey my congrats to the Fab Shop Boys for their ingenuity, forbearance and perseverance

We (this) lesser mortals would have given up long ago!

A fine looking vehicle, Jan, and somewhat unusual I suspect.

Well done!

Jonte

Hi @jonte
Thanks. Will do..
Yes. The 1/211s were the forerunners of the BR Pallet Van designs, but were relatively short-lived, due to their instability and bad riding (meaning they were top of the leaderboard for derailing) and their cupboard doors weren’t popular in some places, so the VANWIDEs were more than welcome as replacements. Report on the Derailment which occurred on 11th February 1961 between Rugby (Central) and Lutterworth Stations in the London Midland Region British Railways :: The Railways Archive after which, they seem to have been quietly scrapped (although some were given improved suspension and lasted a bit longer).

Cheers

Jan

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Your Number’s Up

The PALVAN gets its identity, a sealing waft of Testors Dullcote and some Birchwood Casey on the couplings, and the journey is over. The Paint Shop Boys - back from Glastonbury - used Railmatch acrylics - brush applied - were use to lighten the body colour (Early Freight Bauxite - 2323) and darken the roof (Roof Dirt - 2403). Instanters were from Ambis.

By rights, it should be a PALLET VAN, but our research couldn’t find anyone who did that, so it was over to went with the Modelmaster sheet 4645, which as well as supplying the correct number for the Lot and the XP marking, had PALVAN on it.

The Tare is too much; it should be 8-15 or thereabouts, but 9-7 was as close as we could get. It’ll just have to have to be loaded more lightly!



Cheers

Jan