Wednesday 16 April 2014

The spice of life...

Nobody can say that the modelmaker's life is boring.
After sending off the two models in the post below for resin moulding, I cleared the decks and got the books out to research a model railway wagon.
The Cordite paste wagons as used on the Royal Armaments Factory's 18" line at Waltham Abbey.
At the last minute I realised from my imperfect photos (best of them shown here) that they were bogie wagons, but which bogie?  Hudson, Fowler, who knows?
The frame could only be guessed at and as I have spent a working life interpolating photos of rare subjects, my guess is as good as anybody else's.
The loco, a Ruston ZLH petrol/parrafin, I have already done in 7mm scale to run on an N-Drive 9mm chassis, thereby representing 18" (ish!)  It was done in resin and photo-etch.  Here's the resin parts master.  The axleboxes were incomplete when this photo was taken.

So, with the drawings done last night, it's full steam ahead for a brass master of the Cordite wagon, to give N-Drive a very nice little train.

Alongside this job, runs a build of a rather nasty Spanish slot rally kit for a good customer (I wouldn't touch it if he wasn't!), a Skoda 130 RL rally car kit master, an H-16 BRM F1 car master and a 4mm kit master of the paddle steamer Kingswear Castle, to be followed by a 7mm scale version.

In between that lot, I am re-veneering my son's Triumph Renown dashboard and helping my wife with her new passion, a Memorial Garden to her Dad, a fenced off, NO DOGS corner of our main plot.  No dogs because they eat everything.  Only today, out little black bugger, Archie, stole a tomato plant seconds after she put it in its grow bag and he ate it!


10 comments:

  1. A fascinating workload, what a master modelmaker you are! Looking forward to any snippets you post as these projects progress, I had a dear black Scottie a few years ago who had a mania for Indian food...he once ate a whole tray of pakora at a party when someone left it at terrier height for about four seconds :-) Poor fellow suffered from Ghandi's revenge for days afterwards!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice of you to say, Iain, Of course, I could be regarded merely as a Jack of all trades really! But I do like a bit of variety.

    A Scotty full of Pakoras? Oh dear!! Brings a very different meaning to "clear the decks".

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like a Ruston Proctor!
    According to the Jenkins Waltham Abbey book there were several types of wagon. The only information on the bogie ones is that they were 12' long and two tons fully loaded
    There's also a drawing of a Hudson 4w truck, possibly one designed to be hand propelled, as some were. There's also drawings of a battery loco and a Ruston Proctor.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Paul, I don't have that book. I didn't even know about the length. I have only that photo and two others rather like it. The other wagons, The pitched roof ones were hand propelled. We're still not sure which bogie design to use...sprung or not,etc.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unfortunetely the book doesn't have any clearer photos of the bogie wagons, and I cannot find any others in my library. Unsuprisingly there seems to be only a few photos of the system taken.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Paul, turns out my book IS the Jenkins one, but blowed if I can find any mention of these wagons' dimensions. We also have no idea how to make arrangements fr couplings, not knowing what are used in O9 modelling.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Right, I've found a small drawing of a bogie wagon in Brian Clarke's Waltham Abbey booklet (took me most of the afternoon to find it). Its not great, and I don't know how accurate it is, but it does show the bogies and is probably better than nothing! If you're interested I'll sort out a photocopy.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is very good of you Brian. I scaled the drawing at 12 feet and it would make the wagon a fair bit longer than the loco, which was done to a drawing that looked pretty good. A friend in Canada sent me a photo I hadn't seen before, but a photocopy of a drawing would be great! Many thanks for taking the trouble. I haven't started the master yet.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Martin, I have e-mailed you using the address on your artwork page concerning the drawing but had no answer. Let me have your address and I'll pop a copy in the post. My e-mail is pointfivebsw@yahoo.co.uk
    Please don't publish this comment as I don't want my e-mail address made public.
    Paul, (not Brian...)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Paul, why the Devil did I call you Brian? Apologies.
    I have just received the drawings, which are of the correct wagon, so many thanks indeed for those. I shall blog the progress.

    ReplyDelete