Garden Railway Forum

Here's the latest on my NWNGR 4 wheelers...

I've started painting, and the first one is now up on its wheels, the first time I've used IP running gear and couplings, so I wanted to make sure they worked well before buying any more. The lower part of the line was cleared of fallen leaves and other debris and trundled a quick test train up and down - all seems well, so I'll be placing an order for the rest of the rake...



Painting has now progressed a little further, with both carriages now demonstrating why the "red oxide and custard" colour scheme is not considered a classic in British railway history...



The cream colour looks darker in a better light, approximating the "tan" of Lancashire and Yorkshire livery, to which one version of NWNGR livery was supposedly similar. I could've gone for the other option of all over maroon, probably more likely for such lowly stock, but couldn't resist a two-tone colour scheme, particularly when most of my carriages are in plain green. I might paint some in maroon when I build more, but if I do it will be fully lined, Midland style...

Cheers,

Andrew.

A little more progress...

Both carriages have now received a coat of a deep browny-red - it should probably be a deep reddy-brown instead (!!!) but it looks nice. It's astonishing how both colours change according to the light - in this picture the livery looks almost like BR Carmine and Cream:



Still lots to do, and there probably won't be much more progress this side of Christmas, but I'm getting there...

Andrew

They look nicely detailed and well assembled. A good looking train will emerge from your workbench and will be worth the wait.

Hi Andrew,

They look superb. I can see the makings of a really quality and characterful train there. I love the livery, it looks like what the Midland Railway used to call Venetian Red. The shade of cream you've used compliments it extremely well.

Keep us posted!

Andrew

They are going to be a lovely pair of coaches Andrew

Glad you like 'em folks, thanks. Once Christmas is out of the way I hope to spend some time getting these into a more finished state and then go back to the laser cutter for parts for more. The NWNGR had three, all long gone by the time the WHR - and so too the (WH)WHR - came along, but I plan to re-write history just a little so I can run a train of five...

Andrew.

Hello again,

A quieter spell after Christmas has seen some more progress on the 4-wheelers. The second one now has running and coupling gear - it doesn't quite sit squarely on its wheels, I think the axleguard castings were a little wonky, but I'm hoping it'll be OK. If not I'll have to replace them, but that won't be easy because I stuck 'em on with Araldite...

Most of the beading's on too, but I'll have to replace a few broken bits before touching up the paintwork. This morning I made enough grab rails and vacuum pipe details to complete all the proposed carriages, a pleasantly therapeutic way to spend an hour or too before heading back to work...



Cheers,

Andrew

Hi Andrew, I, (possibly we!), would be interested to know how you make your brakepipes. Any chance of a tutorial please?

Peter Butler:115378 wrote:Hi Andrew, I, (possibly we!), would be interested to know how you make your brakepipes.  Any chance of a tutorial please?

They're dead easy - I'll try to take some photos tomorrow!

Andrew.

OK, as promised, here's "Brake Pipes the Easy Way"...

Before I start I should acknowledge that as well as many advantages, the method does have its drawbacks - here are the pros and cons that I can think of:

Advantages:

* They're quick and easy to make, and incredibly cheap - you can equip a whole carriage fleet for the cost of a single pair of white-metal pipes.

*It's easy to recreate prototypical pipe runs.

*They're pretty strong - useful considering how vulnerable they are.

Disadvantages:

*It's an impression, rather than being 100% accurate - I wouldn't like a guard or shunter to look too closely!

* The pipes are probably a little thinner than they ought to be.

* It's hard to create dead straight pipes - but I rather like the slightly bodged and battered effect.

* The galvanised wire doesn't take paint brilliantly, which is a particular problem because they stick out and so are a bit prone to being chipped. I'm going to try etch primer on the next lot to see if that helps.

OK, on with the show:

1) Cut and straighten an appropriate length of galvanised garden wire - I get mine from Wilkinsons. About 15cm will do for a simple pipe which sits next to the buffer and disappears straight under the bufferbeam, but I've made runs that are over half a metre long too, for Welsh Highland carriages where the pipes were tacked on to the bottom of the carriage sides on conversion from air to vacuum braking.

I mostly use pliers to straighten the wire, and do it largely by eye, but I have also tried rolling wire between boards, hammering it, stretching it, and possibly other methods too...



2) Cut a length of springy net curtain wire to represent the hose - about 4.5cm seems about right. I think my net curtain wire came from Wilko too, but I could be wrong - not all varieties are wide enough to slide over the garden wire.

Strip the outer coating off the curtain wire and slide it onto the garden wire, leaving about 1cm sticking out the end:



3) Make a nice bend - using a paint tinlet seems to work well. Some pipes are offset and need bending by eye, but putting the curtain wire on first helps keep the curves nice and smooth.




4) Bend the long bit of the wire downwards, and the shorter part so that it crosses the other at about 90 degrees - this bit will secure the whole thing in place by passing through a hole drilled in the carriage end and being araldited in place inside, usually under a carriage seat.

I usually add a sort of collar to the top of the pipe (made from an old biro tube) to bulk it up a bit and give an impression of additional detail!



And that's about it. More complex shapes (which often result in more spring in the wire to overcome) can be held in place with split pins, as modelled below by my dual-braked van - again, probably not quite right, but they give the right sort of impression I think:



And that's it. It suits me, but it's not perfect - any suggestions for improvement gratefully received!

All the best,

Andrew.

Thank you Andrew, very well presented and described.
I think they look just fine and are almost certainly stronger than any whitemetal ones, as well as considerably cheaper.
I have galvanised wire and springy curtain wire in stock so I will give it a try.

Hi Andrew

Speaking as someone with experience of wrestling vacuum bags, they look pretty realistic to me. I hesitate to make any comment at all on something so good but it occurs to be that s second and smaller piece of biro tube on the outer end might give an acceptable representation of the hose coupling.

As Peter says, it's a great idea and very well presented. Thanks for sharing it with us. Another one to commit to the memory files for 'when the time comes'!

All the best,

Andrew

I never realized how simple they were to make Andrew! We have a few FR carriages that need Vac pipes and now I know how to do them easily! Thank you for sharing your techniques!

Andrew:114718 wrote:Here's the latest on my NWNGR 4 wheelers...

I've started painting, and the first one is now up on its wheels, the first time I've used IP running gear and couplings, so I wanted to make sure they worked well before buying any more. The lower part of the line was cleared of fallen leaves and other debris and trundled a quick test train up and down - all seems well, so I'll be placing an order for the rest of the rake...



Painting has now progressed a little further, with both carriages now demonstrating why the "red oxide and custard" colour scheme is not considered a classic in British railway history...



The cream colour looks darker in a better light, approximating the "tan" of Lancashire and Yorkshire livery, to which one version of NWNGR livery was supposedly similar. I could've gone for the other option of all over maroon, probably more likely for such lowly stock, but couldn't resist a two-tone colour scheme, particularly when most of my carriages are in plain green. I might paint some in maroon when I build more, but if I do it will be fully lined, Midland style...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Very impressive. I have made some of the brandbright ones and have taken the same approach of painting first and gluing overlays on afterwards. What glue have you used for this as i have always struggled. Last efforts was araldite applied v carefully with a cocktail stick to the overlay?

Hello again...

Glad that my thoughts on vac pipes are proving useful chaps, and that you like the carriages so far Ian. I used a small paintbrush to apply woodworking PVA to the back of the overlays, which worked reasonably well, although I think there must be a better way. As long as I positioned them accurately there was usually just a small overspill which I was able to remove with a knife blade. Where I positioned them incorrectly was messier, and more difficult to clean up. This morning however I rendered the question of a little bit of stray glue here and there somewhat irrelevant...

I'd been troubled by both the finish and the colours of my paint job (it was a bit patchy, and rather too bright), and the carriages needed a little "patina" to suit my fictional back-story that they'd been sitting about at Dinas for years before being dragged from the back of the shed for duty on the WHR's Clarach Branch. So, intending to kill two bird with one stone, this morning (having spent the rest of the weekend finishing the bodywork) I attacked them with a tin of dark brown Humbrol and some thinners:



Perhaps I overdid it, but they certainly look older?! I think the result suggests grime as much it does patina, but they do feel more "me" somehow, the previous finish did trouble me somewhat...

Finishing details to the outsides and roofs to do next I think, but then I'll have to wait for the weather to warm up before spray varnishing...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Well done so far, I don't think it looks overdone, Andrew. Look like what they were - work horses that were well used and not cared about to much.

A little more progress - and a good illustration of the possibilities afforded by laser cutting:



These are the two carriage roofs under construction. I generally put off doing roofs as long as possible, they're such a nuisance to get right, but this has been dead easy - I lack the skill to cut parts this accurately myself, but was able to knock up the necessary drawings to get the laser to do it for me. They'll be able to lift off too, which will be nice...

Cheers,

Andrew.

If you don't mind me asking Andrew, how much does it come to for each carriage?

JMORG:116149 wrote:If you don't mind me asking Andrew, how much does it come to for each carriage?

I'm not entirely sure yet... I used a local company, Bristol Design Forge, and found that the cheapest way to do it was to hire the machine (under supervision, after a free induction) and to pay for 6 hours - that brings the cost down to £22 per hour. It took two and a half hours to cut the parts for the two carriages I'm working on now, but the cutting was slowed by some flaws in my drawing which meant that some lines cut two or three times. I'll edit those (and some other unnecessary lines) out before my next session, so I'm hoping that will bring the cutting time down. The company I used sell ply at a very good rate too...

Sorry, just realised I'm recreating my GCSE maths exam here (extra marks for showing my workings!), so I'll cut to the chase and say I reckon the woodwork for each carriage is costing me about £30. So I guess by the time I've added IP wheels, axleguards and couplings and Swift Sixteen door handles it must be about £50 per carriage. Not especially cheap, but I think the quality is closer to Brandbright than IP - interior detail, nice thin ply etc.

Work's slowed down on the carriages lately - Apart from painting the roof and droplights the next thing is to spray varnish, and I'm waiting for warmer weather for that...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Hello again,

With the weather looking up a little today I risked some spray priming and the two current projects both edged a little close to completion...

Like most of my carriages the NWNGR 4 wheelers have separate droplights, but I decided to paint them rather than varnish as I usually do - here they are awaiting the spray can:



...which reminded me of Cornelia Parker's exploding shed at the Tate - http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/par ... iew-t06949

Progress was also made on the Summer Car. I've been slowly bodging together a complement of passengers for it from the usual assortment of charity shop and Poundland figures. Having chopped, glued and filled 'em I primed them for painting:



The priming's showed up a need for a little more sanding on some, but I think they'll look fine. My wife says the above photo reminds her of those ones of skyscraper construction workers eating lunch on girders high above Manhatten or wherever...

More photos once I've made some more progress...

Cheers,

Andrew.