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Wagons – Craig Warton

Especially the boring ordinary ones. All Great Western so far.

Like a good many of us, I spent far to long as an armchair modeller until reality kicked in. At that point I decided to get a move on, and whilst I am hardly prolific, I am making some headway. My modelling interests centre around early 1920s GWR and my intention is to model one of the smaller stations on the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line. I am interested in the early 1920s means that the RTR world is not really my oyster. I can use some things, but I have made a point of not buying RTR unless it genuinely fits my era. This means kit building and (eventually) scratch building for me. After my first couple of wagons, I realised that I needed to standardise my approach and simplify the build wherever possible. At the same time, I still need to be happy with the outcome. No point doing something if you are not happy with it is there?

Standardising your approach – Wagon kits.

With my efforts to standardise my approach, I usually only use the body of the kit and discard the other parts. Not all kits are bad, the Parkside ones in particular have pretty decent brake gear but I can build the brass brake gear in not too different a timespan to what it takes to modify the plastic items.

Underframes

I decided quite a while back that assembling individual brass brake gear parts take a lot of time and is not an approach I have the focus for. I like multiples of common wagons (though I do not like batch building) so being able to build them up sort of quickly is important. To this end, whenever possible, I will use a complete underframe kit. Typically, they are newer than the brake gear etches, and they have everything you need. My favoured ones for GWR wagons are the Morgan Design range (available from Scalefour stores) and the Brassmasters sprung underframes for the PO wagons. The Brassmasters range has an underframe that is suitable for the 1907 RCH spec which is important for my era. The 1923 RCH underframe is available from Brassmasters and Scalefour stores.

Detail parts.

Recently I have started using 3D printed buffer housings and springs and axle boxes. I must admit that while I am not sold on 3D printed wagon kits (yet), I do find these detail parts rather good. Only some types are available – Mousa Models and Guy Rixon. A more comprehensive range of buffers is available from Lanarkshire Model and Supplies, with Dart Castings being an alternative supplier. I have been using Exactoscale draw hooks and 3 link couplings however the links do not seem to be available, so I have started using the 3 link couplings from Brassmasters. They are a little larger than the Exactoscale ones but seem to be pretty good from my limited use. They will become my new standard.

Building a wagon.

To refresh myself on building wagons, I decided to build a batch of 4 plank wagons. These used the following parts:

  • Coopercraft sides and ends
  • Morgan Design WN4440 underframe and WN4640 Solebar.
  • Mousa Models GWR OK Axleboxes , springs and buffer housings
  • Drawhook and couplings of choice.
  • Evergreen 4080 styrene sheet for floor.
  • Buffer heads – 12” from Wizard Models
  • Wheels and bearings to choice – I prefer waisted bearings.

The Morgan underframe.

The Morgan Design range is quite extensive and using them it is possible to cover the majority of GWR wagons. The instructions are massive and a little verbose in parts. I have laminated them and keep them in a folder. To avoid distraction, I remove the relevant pages and keep them close to hand.

The 4-plank wagon underwent a few changes over the years, so it is worthwhile deciding on what you are building from the start. For my period of interest, I only require single sided brakes. Remove the main underframe etch and remove the extra V hanger if so required then drill out the holes as needed. Folding up is fairly simple, I tend to use a steel rule and a hold and fold. It does not hurt to run a little solder down the seams. I also enlarge the openings on the headstocks to allow more room for the buffers.

After folding up the W-irons, check the fit of the bearings. What is important here is to reduce the slop so when you assemble the fixed end check the side play on the axle. Washers are etched on the sheet to assist. Don’t forget that there can be variation between different brands. One other very important thing to check is the bearings themselves. A while back I purchased a few packs of Markits bearings that had a flat at the end of the cone. The wheelset wobbles badly. I thought I had disposed of them all but found a stray one in this build.

The underside of a mostly assembled Morgan underframe. As can be seen, the w-irons are fixed on one side and adjustable on the other. The tabs visible in the background are folded up to mount the brake gear on. Obviously not required with single sided brakes. The fixed end is to the left, with the sprung axle to the right. The 0.7mm brass wire is shown in position to be soldered and trimmed to approximate length. The length of wire through the adjustable iron is to ensure it stays level as there is a bit of a tendency to lift if you are not careful when tightening the nut and bolt.

Building up the sprung end is not hard. Simply slot the wire in and secure with Araldite. Or solder if you are impatient like me. When assembling, check the fit as you go and a few checks on a length of track are useful. The sprung end will usually sit higher and this is where the screw adjustment and weighting come into play. I usually leave the screw adjustment in place however I am beginning to think that soldering the whole thing up is more practical. If you are not careful with the screw adjustment it is possible to angle the w-iron slightly.

The solebars are worth adding at this point. Remove the parts from the etch and fold up the channel. Make sure the channel is folded correctly, if it is not you will have some fun and games fitting the door bang springs. A hold and fold is very useful for this. Clean up the overlay and slide it in position, ensuring it is correctly aligned. Tin the overlay and apply a good amount of flux. A good hot iron will give a satisfying sizzle and make no mess to clean up.

The start of the solebar assembly. One of the solebars has been folded. Take care that they are consistent as you need to fit the overlay and the door bang springs. The numberplates are fitted later in the assembly. I position them with a little blob of super glue gel. Don’t forget to fold up and fit the bumpers to the bottom of the solebar. It is far easier while the solebars are like this than on the wagon.

One of the features of the 4 plank wagons is the door bang springs. Very few of the 3 plank wagons had bangs and springs while the 4 plank wagons use a far shorter one than later wagons. I make these from the door bangs provided. Fold the section that goes through the solebar and then cut it to provide a flat strip on the solebar. File to ensure an accurate fit and then push through the solebar and solder from the back – trim to be flush with the back of the solebar. To do the curved section, trap the strip under a toothpick and bend around leaving a straight section at the end. Lay the solebar on the flat and put the curved section in position on the spring section of the solebar. Hold it is position and make a quick application of solder. Hopefully(!) it will be in the correct position and you can cut to length. A bit of faffing around but I could not get a consistent bend in one piece.

A lever brake underframe assembled and with the solebars fitted. The door bang springs can be seen fitted in position, they are very different from the later ones and a characteristic of the 4 plank wagons. I usually fit the body of the wagon at this time and follow this with the springs, axleboxes and the brake lever and guard.

To fit the solebars the instructions advise sliding two pieces of wire through BUT the screws for the adjustable irons will restrict the wire. I loosen the screws and push wire through. My approach now is to use the wire as a guide and solder the solebar to the underframe.

The results of a bit of time and effort with 4 underframes all up and running. After looking at this photo I realised that I had inserted one of the sets of brakegear the wrong way around.

At this point, I assemble the body. The mouldings are getting on a bit now and usually need a bit of tidying up. Remove the central door bang and clean up and remove the buffer bases and clean up. Enlarge the holes to take the Mousa models bases. Check they assemble square and tidy the corners up. Now is a very good time to check the fit of the body against the underframe. Some adjustment will be needed but when happy with the fit measure the inside dimensions for the floor. I glue the floor to the underframe and once cured I fit the body by gluing to the floor. Ensure all is level and square.

The body assembled and on the underframe. The circular door bang has been removed as have the the buffer bases on the headstocks. Pay particular attention to the fit and sit of the body on the underframe. A few minutes here will save a lot of heart ache later. Ask me how I know…

At this point, we have a complete body, minus the detail parts and brake gear. Fold the brake gear up, solder and clean the edges up. Fit in position and run a length of length of 0.7mm wire through the hole in the V hanger and solder from the inside. Only a touch is needed. Cut the wire to length, leaving enough for the brake lever. The 3d prints will need a clean before use. Check the clearance of the bearings at the moving end. The back of the axlebox will need opening out. I use a dental burr in a Dremel – carefully. Double check the fit and when there is no rubbing or interference with the bearing movement secure the castings with superglue. The buffers are printed with the holes in them, but they may need a little opening out. Check the movement of the ram, and when all is ok secure the tail and check the springing action. Then, fit the buffers. For the 3 link couplings I use the Exactoscale drawhook. While I do like to spring buffers if possible, I fix the hook in place and solder at the rear with a piece of brass wire. Fit the coupling links – I have now run out of Exactoscale ones and switched to Brassmasters. Finally, I cut squares – about 2mm x 2mm of 5 thou material to use as the door bangs. After this, the lever and guide. There is a very useful forming guide on the etch. The final item that you can fit is a tarpaulin bar and things get a little tricky here. I have now used up my stock of Parkside spares and only have some Southwark Bridge etches to assemble and these are no longer available. So, this is an area that needs further investigation by me.

At this point, it is a good time to look over your work and be critical. Better to fix things that annoy you before going any further because the next stage makes correcting errors far more of a problem.

Two 4 plank wagons ready for weighting and a tidy up before being painted in primer. I use my mobile phone to take photos like this, partly as a record but also to check things over. In this case, the corner plates needed tidying up and I had forgotten about the door bang plates.

Painting, transfers and weathering.

I use both enamel and acrylic paints but for the last few years I have mainly used acrylic. I do not really pay a great deal of attention to what grey I use for GWR wagons, as long as it is dark grey. I like Panzer Grey let down with a little white and cream and lately I have used Valejo Basalt Grey (70.869) again let down with a little white and cream. I like adding a bit of cream to the mix because it balances out the blue cast that a lot of grey paint exhibits. The wagons are first primed and then left to dry. This is important because it gives the paint a chance to harden. After sitting a while, I will mix a little of my grey mix and paint a few wagons. Typically, I try to do two or 3 wagons in one go and then mix a new lot of paint from scratch. This way I get small variations in the grey which I think sits better when you have a number of them together. After the grey has dried, spray gloss in the areas where the transfers will be applied.

There is a good selection of transfers available however not many do the 25” GW letters which are needed for the early 1920s. I use Fox and Railtec transfers, though I am sure there are others I have not seen or tried yet.

For the other lettering I use Fox transfers and find them to be good, although it has to be said that cutting and applying individual numbers (and the tare weights) is a very special kind of painful. It is worth taking your time and adjusting the numbers to get the spacing and positions all matching.

After the transfers are all set, a coat of matt varnish finishes things off.

The final thing to do is weathering and the best thing to do is look at photographs from the era you model. For the 1920s this means trying to decipher B&W images, but my overall impression is of work soiled wagons rather than decrepit. While you can see some evidence of wagons being repaired, I have not seen any photos of unpainted timber being used. When I weather wagons, my approach is to try to achieve a muted finish and have a relatively uniform appearance. To do this I mainly use an airbrush with some washes and dry brushing.

The airbrush is great for dirt and road grime, but I like washes for things like rain streaks. Rather than cover the whole wagon with a wash, use what is referred to as a “pin wash” where you make certain to only apply the wash to a recess or a specific area. Another useful technique is a filter wash where you apply a slightly different colour was to a particular area – one plank as an example. Be careful to keep it confined to a structured area and only use a small brush to apply. Weathering powders are also good but be very careful when trying to fix them. I tend to use them for smaller applications where they will not be impacted by handling. Powders can also be mixed with isopropanol for some effects and thinly brushed on. The key with anything though – especially in 4mm scale, is restraint.

One final thing that can be done is shunters scribbles and marks. This is seen on many wagons and vans and is a simple thing to do and makes a big difference. I sometimes use white paint and a fine brush but lately have been using a chinagraph pencil sharpened to a very fine point.

The final result. A 4-plank open wagon ready for weathering. It is certainly not shaking the box modelling, but I feel that the result captures the light and vaguely fragile look of the earlier era open wagons nicely.

That really is more than enough writing from me, now for some completed wagons…

A POW sides PO wagon and a David Geen GWR Loco coal wagon. These were two of my early wagons and both use Bill Bedford W Irons and bits and pieces of brake gear from Bill Bedford and Masokits. There is not a great deal of information on Private Owner wagons on the DNS and I do not imagine there were that many apart from wagons owned by local agents. I know that G. Bryer Ash purchased coal from the Forest of Dean Collieries so I have drawn a very long bow and used some. I have always liked the Parkend wagons and had a number of them when I modelled in N gauge as a teenager. So, that is the reason for having four Parkend wagons. The loco coal wagon has 16” lettering but I could not find any LOCO lettering to suit, so I left it off.
Another two PO wagons from POW sides. Both are built using Bill Bedford W Irons and Bill Bedford, Masokits and MRD brakegear. The latter brand did not impress me, it appears dimensionally wrong to me and was a one off. The G Bryer Ash wagon is one I know that appeared on the DNS, the Speech house Colliery wagon came from the justification I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, after ordering them, I found out that the Speech House Colliery ceased workings in about 1906. So, extremely unlikely to see them anywhere in 1921. We live and learn, don’t we?
These two GWR vans are built using Parkside Bodies. They are built from the rather nice V12-V14 -V16 kit. When combined with the excellent series on GWR vans in the late (and much missed) GWR Journal by John Lewis you have a lot of modelling potential. These two are vacuum fitted with offset V hanger underframes and vacuum fitted. The underframes are Morgan Design DC3. I used the two types of ends but substituted the earlier buffers on the later end to build an early V14. I finished one in with 25” letters and the other in 16”. Both have “Ventilated” markings when they should have “Ventilated Van” but there are no transfers available. So, I have since commissioned my own. The same applies for the Non common user markings. These wagons have scribbles! Both have moderate weathering.
Another Parkside van, to the same basic specification. This uses a central V and represents an unfitted V16 built with the later type of ventilators. Again with 25” insignia. The outside framed van is the David Geen white metal kit. This has modified white metal brake gear with a Morgan Design lever and guard. The roof is styrene but built up underneath to avoid any sagging or bowing. The roof has not been painted yet, nor has the wagon been weathered.
The same V16 van with a V5 van. The V5 is built from the Coopercraft kit and was built with Bill Bedford Irons and Masokits brake gear. The brakegear in the Coopercraft kits is lacking and the kits really do benefit from better brake gear. I have fitted ventilated ends using a set from some spare ends that CC supplied at one point. I have not seen a photo of a V5 so fitted and I have some concerns about whether it actually existed. The next V5 will be built as a non-ventilated wagon.
A 3 plank wagon built from a David Geen kit and a four-plank wagon. Cooper Craft sides and ends with a Morgan underframe and other parts as mentioned in the main part of the text. Both are modelled as wagons in the 25” livery period. Neither wagon can fit 25” lettering and the 3 plank used something around 18” and the 4 plank used 20” (approx.) The closest available is 16” lettering so that has to do and I used this in both cases. Neither wagon has been weathered yet, that is the next project.
A 3, 4 and 5 plank wagon. The 5 plank wagon is from the Parkside kit with a Morgan Design unfitted DC3 underframe with offset V – as the majority of the O11 wagons seem to have been. One of the things missing from the Parkside kit is the underframe gussets which are added from Styrene. The photo also shows that I did not cover all the areas of primer on this model and that I have a damaged spot on the side sill of the 4 plank wagon to repair. The other thing the photo makes obvious is my use of Morgan number plates with totally different numbers. My logic is that having the plate there is more important than the actual number. The other thing I find interesting is that how the carrying capacity of wagons increased over time. It is part of the reason that I like the early 1920s as my modelling era.
3 of the 6 x 4 plank wagons that I currently have built and in progress of painting. The 4 plank wagons were built in very large numbers and even in the late 1920s they were a large part of the GWR open wagon fleet. I have parts to build another 15 of them, through whether I get there is another matter! The door bang springs tended to wander around a little bit on the solebars with some being mounted further inwards towards the V. I like mixing things like this up, it is one of the things that make wagons so interesting (to me).
I don’t have much in the way of RTR stock as there is not much that is really suitable for the period of my interest. Two models that I can use are the Oxford Rail 12T tank wagon and the Hornby TOAD. The Oxford oil tank is a nice model and with the lack of kits it is a very nice fill in. The livery is really a 1930s one and I do not know if Carless had tanks like this or not. Even though there are some good books on tank wagon traffic, it is still hard to be sure about individual wagons. The wagon is a class A tank and should be a stone colour and the Oxford model is rather too yellow. I have one more to convert and will put a wash of white on to try and mute the colour a little. The TOAD is a very nice model of an AA19. The model is based on one of the later builds that has the flat section footboard brackets. I replaced these with the rod version, and this takes it back to a van that entered service around 1918-1919. It has been allocated to Didcot not that I have any idea if this is correct or not. The Didcot transfers were from Railtec, who will do custom brandings. Also has 25” lettering as it would only be a few years old for my era. The stove chimney has a taper on it that annoyed me, so it was replaced with a piece of brass tube. The handrail brackets were also painted with body colour which makes them look much less… vivid. The roof will be getting dirty soon and both wagons will be getting a bit of grime applied.

A PDF (2MB)of all the photos of the completed wagons can be found here.

Craig has his own workbench threads on the Scalefour Society forum here.

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