009 modeller at sea

[tedp]

Many years ago I used to be a professional sailor. Although this period in my life extended for only 5 or 6 years, it had a decisive impact on my life and on my narrow gauge modelling. Some of the ideas from that period have landed in the Dunalistair scene on my C&DR. In addition, after a few sea voyages I decided I could do better than draw layout plans, so I started taking modelling materials and tools with me. I made a box that fitted in the bottom of one of my suitcases, and started building rolling stock models, including my tiny steam crane and a tar tank with a heater:





During one memorable trip on a bulk carrier in 1976, which lasted six months, I built a Garratt loco and a 12-vehicle goods train, which for years formed the mainstay of the C&DR goods workings. Two of the card-constructed cattle wagons built in 1976 are shown below, and the B/W photo shows the Garratt in its original guise, hauling a string of card coal wagons made at sea in 1974:





After retiring earlier this year, I started spending more time aboard our sailboat (photo). And I found my old ply modelling box again, the one that fitted in the bottom of my suitcase, so I decided to take it along with some materials. I am writing this in the cabin of the boat, tucked away in harbour with another shower splashing the deck, with half the table taken up by a pile of Colin Ashby coal wagon kits... Whilst not exactly at sea in the earlier sense, it feels very similar. Although the main thing lacking is the roll and pitch of the ship under me, and having to wait cutting another part until the ship is on even keel...   ;D

[tedp]

As promised, here are the photos of the floating workshop and the results of one weekend being locked up in harbour with heavy winds shaking the boat. I started work late Saturday evening, very cosy photo but little progress:



On Sunday the weather was too rough to venture outside, so I built 16 Colin Ashby kits, still less brake gear and couplings, but it is a start:



Four built, one scratchbuilt wagon on a Lima chassis serving as an example and one half-completed wagon that passed down to me from the late Reinier Hendriksen, which I completed with an end wall and couplings:



Nine done, seven to go halfway into the afternoon:



All completed by dinner time   ;D  :



PS today (Monday) I had a wonderful sailing day, with the modelling box secured in a bunk.  ;)

[Isle of Stoner]

We had a holiday on the Norfolk broads a couple of years ago and I took a modelling box with me which was a boon during the evenings when I wasn't swatting midges.

I built an excavator on wheels and set of match trucks as I recall.

Happy sailing, Ted.


John W

[tedp]

Aha! A kindred spirit. Do you sail as well? I think many people take modelling boxes on holiday. I know I used to do so when we spent a week or so in a cottage when our kids were small. When they were packed off to bed in the evenings, out came the modelling box.

[tedp]

Today I put the part completed wagons on the layout at Inverlochan to see what they would look like. Here are two photos:

[Isle of Stoner]

They look just the thing.

Very occasional holiday trips to the Norfolk broads and some very drunken canal holidays when I was a younger, less married man. So I've sailed dingys   a couple of times and I can get a 70ft narrow boat to go where I want it to but nothing more nautical.

John W

[MickT]

My son and I once had the honour of taking the tiller of Cap'n Ted's previous sailing vessel for a cruise around a meer near Leiden which was quite an experience for us. I am due to complete the 10 year intensive post-traumatic counselling next year............. However, speaking as someone who once got seasick on the pusser's ferry from HM Dockyard to Gosport INSIDE Portsmouth Harbour, plus my own sporadic attempts to get any 009 model of any description actually finished, I can only empathise with the title of this thread as myself being more of an "009 Modeller ALL at sea"  ::)

Have a good holiday Ted!

Mick

[tedp]

Not at sea this time, I'm afraid...  ::)

Off to more remote regions on Friday.

[Sven]

Very romantic story, Ted. Now if you didn't have Internet on board, you might even have done more.

The one time I went sailing on a little boat, the know-it-all-better-girl in charge didn't allow me to give it a try, but she trusted my friend to do so. So I never sailed again, one of the worst time I ever had. If you don't get on with each other, there is no where to go. Hope you get on with your wife, ha ha!  ;)

[tedp]

Oh we do get on... most of the time!   ;D

[Isle of Stoner]

I can vouch for the possible misery of falling out with your girlfriend on a narrow boat... ah Stratford on Avon... cursed place! Not that I'm bitter.

John W

[tedp]

Over the past days I looked at the box of part completed Colin Ashby wagons and I decided to start completing them and revive this thread, although my boat is now in winter storage without any furnishing, so it cannot be lived in. So the work is continued at home.

Some of you will remember I use N gauge couplings. This is very easy if you use N gauge chassis or bogies for your rolling stock, but if you want to build a proper 009 kit and fit couplings, the trouble starts because you have to fit sprung pockets, or at least use a method so the couplings drop horizontal by gravity and stay that way!

As I didn't have enough N gauge couplings complete with pockets for all the wagons, I first thought of making up rakes with chain couplings and dumb buffers, or possibly centre buffers. However, sanity prevailed and I decided to fit half of them with fixed N gauge couplings glued under the buffer beam, and the other half with sprung or gravity operated couplings. The latter are leftover Kato and Peco couplings complete with fixtures given to me by Bert van Rhijn, who uses Greenwich couplings so he cuts them all off anyway.

Using fixed N gauge couplings will work as long as you don't want automatic coupling. The ends can be cut down a little to improve behaviour on curves and provided you take care with rev**se c****s they will run quite well. The ones fitted with movable Kato and Peco couplings can be used at the end of rakes or if necessary for individual use like loco coal and shipments to various industries.

Left to right: weighted couplings in unidentified pockets, sprung Kato couplings, Peco couplings and couplings glued straight to the wagon.



A weighted coupling in an unidentified pocket. There is s a strip of lead glued to the coupling to keep it down:



A sprung Kato coupling glued to the bottom of a Colin Ashby wagon, using a few bits of Evergreen styrene strip as a packing piece:



A Peco coupling and pocket glued to the bottom of the wagon. No weight has yet been added but it may be necessary.



A coupling glued to a wagon, with a plastic backing plate.



Peco coupling fitted wagon coupled to a Kato coupling fitted wagon:



The wagon to the right has a weighted coupling. Note couplings can appear to hang downward a little but they will function correctly.



A close-up showing a fixed coupling (right) matched to an (unsprung) Peco coupling (left).



Note that the brake gear and further detail still has to be added. Next a close-up of a cut down N gauge coupling. This gives more freedom on curves. A pair of wagons with fixed couplings cut down this way will negotiate an 8" curve, as the angle between couplings can increase without them locking up.



Finally, here is the link to a short video showing a trial run of a 17-wagon train over the layout. The second half of the video may surprise you. Scale modellers please look away!  ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZP3hkYIt6k

[Tigger]

These all look excellent Ted, well done and they do look just the part.

When the Model Railway Club was building Happisburgh, Ian Hopkins brought along his modelling box on one canal trip and worked on sections of the station building.  On other canal trips he was scratch-building O gauge 1880s London & South Western coach sides!

The N Gauge coupling looks to be the best for 009 use so why oh why did the manufacturing pioneers choose to go the way they did, I wonder?

As for holidays afloat, the sea's never appealed to me I'm afraid but the canals were a different matter!  Like some of you I have many happy (and rather hazy!) memories of water-borne pub-crawls around the waterways of the Black Country, Cheshire, Worcestershire and Leicestershire.  Those were the days of real are when I could put away 3 pints of a lunchtime, 5 in the evening, with excellent eating and still lose weight over the course of the fortnight because of all the lock-wheeling!!  (HIC!!...)  ;D

Thread drift?  What?  Who, me?

[tedp]

Thanks, David. Recently I fitted brake gear to all the wagons - photos will follow in due course of this fiddly exercise which was done in the living room whilst watching 'Silent Witness' with one eye, and the other on the modelling work. Very relaxed although it tends to make you cross-eyed.

As I wrote before, I had to continue the project at home as my boat is unfit to live in due to the winter lay-up. I'd love a canal cruise by the way, it's one of my long-term wishes. But a water-borne pub crawl?  :o

[Tigger]

**WARNING**THREAD DRIFT ALERT**WARNING**THREAD DRIFT ALERT**

Well, sort of water-borne pub crawls!  We used Nicholson's Waterways Guides, Nicholson's Real Ale Guide To The Waterways and the Campaign For Real Ale yearbook to plan the lunchtime stops and evening lay-overs!  Perhaps a couple of pubs at lunchtime and sometimes three in the evenings, unless we were found a good one and got comfortable!  We had a rule that absolutely no alcohol was allowed on board boat - unless it was brandy for cooking!

I compiled all my logs into one fifty-thousand-plus word volume entitled 'A Bridge too Far', alluding to the occasions when we got over-enthusiastic, overshot the stopping point and had to reverse to the previous bridge!  Most narrow boats swim very nicely forwards but they're hell to control in reverse!  The sub-title was 'Tales Of The Cut - And The Half-Cut'.  I think that establishes the level!

It's a wonderful way to see the English countryside, sometimes miles from anywhere, at just over walking pace without the effort and with morning coffee, afternoon tea and chocolate biscuits on demand!

OK, that's enough of that - back to the subject.  I still have a part-finished rail crane on my workbench (the Minitrains one) which I left alone last year after I took the top off my finger with a kitchen knife one evening (don't ask...) and never returned to.  I need to represent all the chains, slings and lifting tackle for it but unfortunately as it's part of my line of work, I know how it all should look so I'm having trouble getting it right!