Neil's workbench thread - wagon building

[NeilMac]

Finally got the photos taken for the final steps to get a rolling model.

The job this time was to get the bolsters attached - which is where my carefully planned sequence of events did quite work out. When I tried the bolters with bogies attached for fit I realised that the Peco bogies with couplers that I am using needed the pivot points to be much further in than the ones the chassis had been designed for. This meant that instead of the extra wide bogies covering the hole I had made, they would only be half way across.
I also noted that the centre sills I had left were too high, and caught the wheels when the bogie turned.

So I needed to cut back more of the chassis, and then attach the bolsters on plasticard strip to be able to straddle the hole.




And after all that I just needed to wait for the glue to dry then it was a quick job to attach the bogies.

Note to self: Get a photo plank built - far better than photographing the completed (although undetailed/painted/lettered/weathered) wagons on the cutting mat.

[NeilMac]

Continuing to work through the selection of parts and bodies I bought from Narrow Gauge North.
When I first grabbed this off the table I hastily assumed that it was Hoe. Only later when looking closer did I notice the wheels were set to 12 mm gauge. With the overall width of the wagon, plus the fact it had had buffers it was clearly TT.



The first thing was to quickly remove the original chassis. I then removed the raised end planks simply by rubbing the upturned body on a piece of wet and dry paper until everything was level.

[NeilMac]

A little more progress on this wagon - which may be the last that I get to do for a while as I will be losing access to my work room again.

I had been planning on building the chassis completely from styrene strip. However I noticed that the existing chassis I removed had a good level of detail of steel solebars so I tried carefully removing the axleboxes and then cutting away the sides with a razor saw, which did work out well.
Fortunately I had some strip that exactly matched the height (0.125") so used this for the headstocks and then trimmed and fitted the solebars.
Finally, due to the design of the wagon body I was working with, I needed to add some packing to support the centre of the solebars which were unattached for most of their length.




Now just needs the bolsters fitting to create a rolling wagon, but not sure when I will be able to get back to do that.

[NeilMac]

I finished this wagon over Christmas, except for painting, but am only now getting round to uploading it

Fitting the bolsters was extra effort on this wagon due to the shape of the floor which required a lot of trial and error packing to create somewhere level to attach them.
On this wagon I used some of the bolster that I had 3d printed, these being designed specifically for the Peco bogies.
Those were my second to last pair so will need to get some more printed, but I have created an improved design so hopefully the new ones will be easier to use.




And the last task is the quickest but most satisfying one. After waiting for the glue to dry the bolster can be clipped on and the wagon can be run on the layout, although it still needs some weight adding to ensure reliable running over pointwork in a train.

[NeilMac]

Another wagon on the workbench, and another from parts bought at last years Narrow Gauge North. I wonder if I can get all the parts/bodies etc I bought built up before I doubtless end up buying a load more this year?

So, what I am starting with this time. These are Triang TT-3 bodies which had been glued on to N gauge chassis. I will reveal later what I plan to do with these if it works out, because I really am not sure how well it will!




The first job, after removing the chassis, was to remove the diagonal stripe which I did not want. The way Triang chose to make these bodies, presumably to simplify painting, was to mould a raised strip as part of the body.

My first attempt was to try and slice this away using an x-acto chisel blade. As can be seen this did not turn out the best because the corners kept digging in to the side leaving some very obvious deep gouges.
Fortunately the way I have planned things I should be able to hide this if the other wagon goes better.





So, before attempting the same trick on the other body I took a large coarse file to the chisel blade and round of the corners. This was not easy on the harded steel of the blade, but I acheived enough to make a difference.
After taking and looking at the photo I noticed that the lower part of this diagonal needed a bit more work to remove, and have now done this.

[NeilMac]

My updates are getting behind my activity again. Here is the current progress on this wagon.

The first image may give a clue as to what I had planned for this. Here I have cut both the bodies using a razor saw and following the panel lines to keep the cuts straight. Also here is how I was able to discard by previous poor effort to remove the diagonal stripe.



And finally the plan made clear. The parts are joined here, but still need a little filling to tidy thing up, however I do seem to have got the body straight and level.



After this the next job will be to add headstocks and solbars and then bolsters for my standard Peco bogies.

I suspect that even after filling some of the join will still show, especially on the base so will probably go straight for a coal load after paint and details. Watch this space to see if the decals I am planning to use will work.