PLATFORM FOUR

A full day session on the ballast wagons and a lot of progress made with the details on the platforms at each end of the vehicles, which are mostly bits of the braking system.



The first task is also the simplest - the vacuum reservior tanks which are tucked underneath the Z shaped hopper supports. These are made up of styrene tube with a blanking piece glued on each end and chopped / filed to a circle.



Four shorter pieces of tube were cut to form the basis of the vacuum cylinders which are mounted vertically on the right hand corner at each end of the wagon. There's a lot of fiddly detailing involved in these to represnt the fluted ribs around the sides. Each is a seperate little triangle of styrene which has to be cut and filed to shape and glued on.

There's also a band that has to go around the cylinder about 2/3 of the way up. You have to be very brutal with the styrene for this, holding it in place and being very generous with the solvent and not letting up the pressue until the glue has set firm.

The next task was to fabricate the upside-down 'U' brackets at each corner of the wagon. These are formed from an L section. Although you can buy styrene ready formed like this it's almost impossible to get a 90 degree bend in them like this.

So these were fabricated from strip. 3 pieces are formed into a flat U shape, then another 3 are glued on around the edge, upright this time. With a little filing on the corners they're ready to be put on the wagon.

The most tricky job is the cuvred cover over the vacumm cylinders, made more awkward by the way it has to attached diagonally on one edge onto the bottom of the Z supports.

The easiest way to do it would be to cut and bend them from sheet brass. But I don't have any sheet brass in stock so I did it the hard way: with styrene.



It is possible to bend styrene and get it to hold its shape like this but there is only a 50% success rate - a lot of pieces will crack and snap as you make the bend. It takes patience and perseverance, but as you see it can be done.

Eventually.

HITTING THE BUFFERS

Another little job on the snagging list is completing the buffer beams / headstocks on the wagons.



Normally these would have been completed at the first stage of making up the frame but on this occasion they were left off to allow my client to decide on why type of coupling he wanted to use and how they would be fitted.

Just another example of how models made at Boston Largs Works are completely bespoke to you exact requirements.

DIVIDE AND RULE

Well, I did promise they would look more like the real ones inside.



This is a shot of the first of the wagons which like all prototypes involved quite a bit of trial and error, so that's why it looks a bit untidy with lots of different bits of styrene fused together. The second is a lot neater because of the lessons learned on the first one.

So that's the ballast doors just about done. The only major job remaining on them is the opening mechanisms, but I can't do them until I receive the cogs which are being etched for me.

So the next job will be the air reservoirs and vacuum cylinders located on the platforms at each end of the wagons.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT

OK, so what are these supposed to be for?



Home made pieces for a famous family board game to replace those which were accidentally swallowed by the cat?

Close. They are indeed wedges, just like the little plastic ones you get when you get a question right in Trivial Pursuit, but these are going to become the dividers inside the ballast shoots on the wagons.

Here's what they look like in place..



And here's what the real thing looks like...



The model will eventually look more like this, honest!

DOOR DETAIL

After a family holiday it's back down to work on the 7mm ballast wagon project.

The latest progress is a start on the detailing of the ballast door mechanism.