Now for something Caledonian

Discussion in 'Kits, Kit bashes & Scratch builds' started by Wolseley, Aug 16, 2019.

  1. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

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    As a change from my main activity of renovating and running Hornby Dublo three rail, I decided to make a start on one of my whitemetal locomotive kits that have been sitting in a drawer, waiting for something to happen. I decided that the first one I would tackle would be a DJH Caledonian Railway 34 class 2-6-0. However, I will also need something to run behind it and, as it is a goods locomotive, the obvious place to start is with a goods brake van - after all, you can run a goods train without any wagons, but you can't run one without a brake van.

    So the other day I ordered a kit for a Caledonian 15 ton brake van from Jim Smellie of Caley Coaches http://www.caleycoaches.co.uk/goods.php I opted for the four wheeled version, as I'm pretty sure it would be near impossible to make a six wheeled one go around the curves on my layout.

    Anyway, it won't arrive for a while, so I am not in a position to post anything further at this point. It will be interesting to tackle an etched brass kit........
     
  2. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

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    The kit arrived in today's mail - less than a week to get here from the UK. I think that's the quickest delivery I've ever had....
     
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  3. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

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    Given that I have had the kit now for almost three weeks, I thought that posting a photo of it here might make me start on it.....

    P1010539.jpg
     
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  4. Toto

    Toto I'm best ignored Staff Member Founder Administrator

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    The pressures on. :avatar: great to see good service with the delivery time. The etches all look good. Looking forward to seeing build progress.

    Cheers for now

    Toto
     
  5. ianvolvo46

    ianvolvo46 Staff Member Moderator

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    following this :scratchchin: looks too fiddley for me … good luck

    Ian vt
     
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  6. York Paul

    York Paul Staff Member Moderator

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    Hats off to you Wolseley :tophat: I think that kit is a tad too small for me to build these days... the etches look very sharp from what I can tell.:thumbup:
     
  7. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

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    I should know better than to announce that I am building a kit before I have started, given my propensity for deciding to do something and then taking on something else instead before I make a start on the original project. Anyway, I got the kit out of its box and made a start on folding up the floor assembly. On looking at it though, I think I might end up building it with a rigid rather than a compensated chassis. For one thing, parts of the compensation unit might interfere with the couplings (which will be Hornby Dublo, so that I can run it with my other stock). It's getting a bit late now so I don't think I'll do any more tonight - and we're going to spend the next few days in Canberra (for the impending birth of our third grandchild - a girl this time - we already have two grandsons) so I might not restart the kit until next week.

    And what distracted me? Quite a few things, including further progress with the layout. On the Caledonian front, I decided that it would be better to start with a locomotive rather than a brake van, as a locomotive could run around by itself, whereas a brake van could just sit in a siding. To this end I started on an old DJH kit for a class 34 2-6-0. I ended up fighting a losing battle trying to get the very old style chassis to work - not all the pre-drilled holes lined up and the coupling rods would bend at the slightest provocation (and of course the sideframes are two ugly rectangles of brass). I eventually gave up and purchased a chassis fret plus coupling rods for a Caley Coaches 812/652 class kit (Jim Smellie is one of those helpful individuals who sells parts from his kits where it is practicable to do so), as the wheel spacing and driving wheel diameter on the 34 class is the same as the 812. I only ordered them yesterday, so in the interim the brake van will keep me busy although, if the parts arrive as quickly as the kit did, they might be waiting for me when I get back from Canberra....
     
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  8. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

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    Well, I haven't got around to restarting the 34 class 2-6-0, but I did get a bit further with the brake van. I still have to apply the lettering and numbering (I was going to use the HMRS ones, as I have two sheets of Scottish pre-Grouping transfers. The van is not quite so well finished as I had hoped, mainly due to shortcomings in my skill (or lack of ot) in soldering etched brass kits. If I were to tackle another etched brass kit, I'm pretty certain it would turn out better than this one, but life is too short to take on another one. I did take a few shortcuts with the details, leaving out things like lamp irons and gluing on lengths of thin styrene rod for Handrails instead of forming and soldering wire ones. I had originally intended to have a go at constructing a compensated chassis (my thought was that if it didn't work, I could always solder it solid) but it turned out that I couldn't do that and also fit Dublo couplings, as the couplings had to occupy some of the space that was needed for the compensation gear. Anyway, here it is, warts and all. I'll post another photo after it has been lettered and lined.

    P1010132.jpg
     
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  9. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

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    Another Caledonian wagon I am contemplating in a Caledonian gunpowder van, which will just be a repaint of a Dublo one. An example, if you like, of the "near enough is good enough" school of modelling from the 1950s and 60s. My reasoning is that the Dublo gunpowder van looks rather like a GWR gunpowder van and the last Caledonian Railway gunpowder van was virtually a carbon copy of the GWR gunpowder van, even down to having GWR pattern brakes instead of Caledonian ones. I initially thought it was not high enough to depict the Caledonian van but, when I checked the measurements of the Caledonian van against the Dublo one, the Dublo van was only 2mm shorter than it should have been when measured from rail to roof. Once again, HMRS transfers will provide the lettering and numbering. I haven't touched it yet, but here it is. My first job will be to replace the couplings - they're both broken.....

    P1010126.jpg
     
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  10. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

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    And last but not least, some coaches. I have had six Tri-ang Caledonian coaches stored away for ages awaiting conversion into something a bit more Caledonian. The coach sides are remarkably accurate, and are within a few mm of being scale models. The only problem is that the red is too red. Caledonian coaches were not quite as brown as LNWR ones, but not as red as depicted by Tri-ang - as an aside, they were probably the same colour as LNWR stock, but with a different varnish application over the colours, which made the LNWR coaches appear purple brown and a milky almost bluish white, whereas the Caledonian ones were red brown with very slightly creamy white panelling. So I took some LMS Crimson, added a bit of black to it and painted over the Tri-ang red.

    If the sides are near perfect scale models, the rest, I'm afraid, is anything but, being pure BR Mk I stock. The ends should be flat and panelled, rather than bow ended, but as the whole thing fits together so well, I decided to leave the ends as they were, but paint them red-brown. The roofs are not quite the right profile, but stand out as being all wrong, so I'm going to file off the rain strips and fit ones that go from end to end in a gentle arc. The torpedo ventilators will be filed off, to be replaced by Havock ventilators from Caley Coaches (the Caledonian did use torpedo ventilators for the last two or three years of their existence, but they only appeared on a handful of Pickersgill coaches and the Tri-ang ones are a pre-War macintosh design)

    I also decided to change the bogies to Dublo ones rather than to fit Dublo couplings to the Tri-ang bogies to ensure trouble free running and uncoupling. This entailed filing away a bit of the headstock, to clear the coupling, and removing about 2-3mm from the bogie mount to get the ride height right. The extra weight from the metal Dublo bogies is an a dded bonus. I also found they actually run more freely that the Tri-ang bogies, in spite of not having pin point axles. I have a supply of Dublo bogies as I bought about a dozen Dublo LMS coaches very cheaply for spares some time ago - they weren't any use for anything else, as the sides are rather rusty and a couple look like they've been stepped on.

    I tried fitting the bogies using rivets of the same size as was originally used, but after mangling several rivets and not attaching the bogies correctly, I gave up and used short nuts and bolts instead, with the nuts superglued to the insides of the underframes.

    Here is the work in progress:

    P1010130.jpg

    P1010131.jpg
     
  11. paul_l

    paul_l Staff Member Administrator

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    Keep up the good work, I'm sure we all have items that with a slight squint of the eye become nearies :whatever: ;) :thumbup:

    Paul
     
  12. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

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    Watch out for posts yet to be made in my Highland Railway thread then. I've just started converting a Dublo N2 into a Highland Railway 0-6-4T.
     
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