I had forgotten how much I like Bristol board as a material. It is not everyone's choice, but I got used to it as a skint teenager, and given that even now I have to do my modelling on a shoe-string, it come in very useful from time to time. I have also decided I do not like messing around with 13.5mm to the foot, and have reverted to 16mm, or rather 5/8th" because metric and I don't get along. Very much a case of -
"Rule Britannia!
Two tanners make a bob,
Three make one and six,
and four two bob!"
I'm afraid. Also I can slide between eights, sixteenths, thirty seconds, and sixty fourths for a lot of the measurements. That way I can do most of the maths in my head, and use my favourite very unmetric 18" ruler to do the measuring
Anyway, here are the preliminary results. The first wagon is by Darj out of Kalka-Simla, and is an iron bodied van. Everything except the door bolt, buffers, and running gear is Bristol board.
- Iron Covered
- Trains monday4.JPG (39.9 KiB) Viewed 7009 times
It might get a wiggly tin roof if I can make a decent job of it, but I would want to experiment on something else, and master skills like not cutting myself before there was a major adventure with chopping up bean tins. I also need to give dummy brake gear some thought, or at least a brake handle to give every one the impression, etc., etc.. I have also just realised looking at the photo that I forgot the bally door hinges.
My conclusion on finishing that wagon was 'that didn't work out too bad' so I decided to have a go at an open wagon, which is a slightly bigger version - 12' against 10' - of a Darj prototype. Apart from not getting one of the angle supports quite vertical, it looks OK. I guess they were unloaded the hard way, as I could not find a door on any of them. I might do a variant with a centre "cupboard" doors before long, as that would make rolling things like scale 50 gallon drums of diesel out of the wagons easier.
- Iron Flat
- Trains monday3.JPG (41.95 KiB) Viewed 7009 times
And the two of them together look like this.
- Iron wagons
- Trains monday2.JPG (40.08 KiB) Viewed 7009 times
So how does my little train of 5/8th scale stock look? Well, like this -
- Mtn Rly Train
- Trains monday.JPG (40.08 KiB) Viewed 7009 times
It is all basic draw it out accurately, then use a steel straight edge, and a sharp knife type modelling. The running gear and couplings are from Binnie Engineering, the ever useful local hardware store provided paint and brass rod, and the lead weights to help give them a little heft came from a gas, beer, bait, and ammo store (one stop shopping for geezers) in the middle of nothing much where we - herself and me - stopped at for a tank of gas and a coke one day. One nice thing about card angle iron is that it tended to adopt the slightly wiggly appearance of hard use naturally, thus saving me a lot of bother.
I think I need to do a few more of each type now, so that the Far End Tramway has a decent amount of goods stock at the start. I am rather enjoying my little break from larger vehicles.
Cheers,
Peter in Va
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.