IP Engineering Open Cattle Wagon

[ge_rik]

I've had an IP Engineering Open Cattle Wagon kit sitting in my pending box for several years and, after painting the figures, I painted some sheep which I had bought at the Llanfair Show. Of course, the sheep will need some sort of transportation!

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Whilst I was at it, I decided to give my other Llanfair purchase (a Tralee & Dingle cattle truck) a dose of PLR livery

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All I need now is some decent weather to give them a proper airing.

They both need to be weathered and, of course, have the sheep added.

When did they stop applying lime to livestock wagons, BTW? I have a feeling it was well before the late 1920s/early 1930s when my railway is set.

Rik

[tom_tom_go]

Great looking wagons.

Maybe give the wheels a lick of paint?

[Peter Butler]

According to good old 'Google', the use of lime was discontinued around 1924 when disinfectant replaced it.

[ge_rik]

Great looking wagons.

Maybe give the wheels a lick of paint?

Good idea. I'll do it when I weather them

Rik

[ge_rik]

According to good old 'Google', the use of lime was discontinued around 1924 when disinfectant replaced it.

That's handy, thanks.

Rik

[ge_rik]

Blog post of its construction
https://riksrailway.blogspot.com/2020/0 ... -open.html

Rik

[ge_rik]

I've now weathered the wagons and added a few sheep.

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Rik

[Peter Butler]

They look very good Rik, nice understated weathering, the wagons not showing much wear and tear at this stage of their lives.

[tom_tom_go]

Brilliant Rik.

Would they have been painted inside though?

[ge_rik]

Brilliant Rik.

Would they have been painted inside though?

Too late now....

Rik

[LNR]

The wagons look good Rik, do I recognize Britains sheep from their stance? I found it very hard to find sheep of the right size, and it's been too long since I was regularly in contact with them to remember how big they were . It's funny looking at the roofless wagons, I've seen sheep that could clear those sides in a single leap, and of course when one does it, the others will at least try LoL!!
Grant.

[ge_rik]

The wagons look good Rik, do I recognize Britains sheep from their stance? I found it very hard to find sheep of the right size, and it's been too long since I was regularly in contact with them to remember how big they were . It's funny looking at the roofless wagons, I've seen sheep that could clear those sides in a single leap, and of course when one does it, the others will at least try LoL!!
Grant.

Hi Grant
The smaller black faced sheep are 3D printed by http://designscanprint3d.bigcartel.com/products Now, whether he scanned Britains models as his starting point is open to speculation.

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Someone on another forum has pointed out that they used to cram sheep into wagons so there were no gaps. This was to prevent them from falling over and getting trampled but I suppose it would also deter them from leaping. I'd like to cram a load more in, but haven't got the pocket money to spare at the moment. Besides, it looks like the DesignPrintScan3D website is down at the moment.

The sheep in the Tralee wagon are resin Motley Miniature figures I bought at the Llanfair Show - https://motleyminiatures.co.uk/index.ph ... r=category

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I have been wondering if I can somehow make a plaster cast of a load of heads and backs, maybe using plasticine as a mould.... ????

Rik

[FWLR]

Very nice Rik. The rusting on the irons are brilliant, makes the wagons look well used to me.

[Peter Butler]

There is no doubt which of the two examples of sheep are the most realistic, however, real sheep just refuse to stand still long enough to be scanned for a 3D printing process, so the ones shown above must be scanned from existing models (?)

[Andrew]

I have been wondering if I can somehow make a plaster cast of a load of heads and backs, maybe using plasticine as a mould.... ????

I was wondering that - or I think I was! Model the sheep jammed in tight so that you don't have to worry about detail? I'd wondered whether suitable shapes could be carved from balsa and covered in some suitable material, although then it might just look like the PLR had won a contract for the transportation of clouds... Perhaps you could just take a kitchen knife to a cauliflower and slot that into place?!

OK, that wasn't entirely serious, but I do like the wagons very much, particularly the weathering...

All the best,

Andrew.

[Peter Butler]

When I was working at the museum I copied an 18th century plinth to display a sculpture head. The original plinth I had to match had a very ornate carved and gilded decoration on either side. I used a flexible dental moulding material to surround this and within minutes it had set and was easily removed from the master. You might be able to use this method for a cluster (other collective nouns are available!) of animals and cast them in something suitable, I used plaster of Paris.
If you know a friendly dentist you're half way there.

[ge_rik]

Thanks for the suggestions, Andrew and Peter. I got some ersatz PlayDoh from my local cheapo shop which is a lot softer than plasticine and a kilo bag of casting plaster arrived in the post this morning, so I might try some experimenting. Philipy also has a cunning plan which mysteriously turns a 2d photo into a 3d printed image ..... so I may have to put the cauliflower and/or dentist on the back burner for now.....

Rik

[GTB]

Philipy also has a cunning plan which mysteriously turns a 2d photo into a 3d printed image ..... so I may have to put the cauliflower and/or dentist on the back burner for now.....

This may be of help to Philipy in his endeavors........

A friend of mine who models the old NSWGR in HO and does a lot of 3D printing, made some individual sheep for the paddocks on his layout, as well as blocks of sheep to use as loads for sheep trucks. As I recall he found a 3D model of a sheep on an internet site and used it as a starting point.

The file needed a lot of modification to get a successful print of a sheep in HO scale, but I imagine that would be less of an issue in a larger model. I've no idea how (3D CAD is above my pay grade), but he successfully turned the file for a single sheep into a block of sheep to fit the sheep trucks.

There's a photo of the project and some details on his blog and in the comments. The post goes back to the time before he got his own printers, so were printed by Shapeways. http://bylong.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-p ... sheep.html

Regards,
Graeme

Ps. Rik, the moulding material Peter described was probably alginate. Search for 'Alginate moulding powder', the dental version will be much the same, but a lot more expensive......

[ge_rik]

Hi Graeme
Thanks for that. I've just been watching a video which Philipy sent me showing the process. Looks fascinating. My mate has a photographic rig he created to take videos of his tank models from every conceivable angle, but he's going into hospital for a big op tomorrow so it'll be a couple of weeks before he'll be in action again.

In the meantime, I'll try taking a series of hand held photos for Philipy and in the other meantime, I've had a go at making a plaster cast. Not entirely successful, but just about passable. The cast is in the airing cupboard at the moment getting fully hardened off before being cleaned up and painted. I'll post the results of sheep-load MK1 here when / if I have something to show....

Rik

PS What a fascinating hobby this is ...... Yesterday, I was researching and making a horse harness for my coal cart model and two weeks ago I was bricklaying!!!!

[philipy]

Not directly to do with sheep , but I've just quickly experimented with a hopper wagon load of granite ballast, just to see (a) how feasible it might be and (b) how much detail could be possible.
The two pics show one of the original photos ( from a set of 20) and the 3D computer model which was generated from them.

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