7mm NER B1 open - the next project

I wanted a couple of these for my projected layout and the only supplier is NER Days ex Medley Models. The owner Steve Hoyle is retired but he will supply etches and bits with a 4-6 week lead time. You have to buy a full etch, which in this case is for 4 wagons, cost £100 plus any extra bits he happens to have. The etches arrived yesterday well packed so I have spent a couple of hours going through the bits and deciding how to proceed.

What you get:

8 etches, 2 per wagon, nice and clean nickel silver etches.

Extras:
16 white metal type 2 oil box/spring castings – poor but I don’t know where to get replacements, any ideas.
16 white metal end post castings just abound useable.
16 white metal buffer housing castings, these are NER Mineral and should be NER Short. Frankly they are awful and will be replaced by Haywoods examples.
16 Buffer rams with a collar of unremoved metal halfway down the shaft. Steve suggests these can be ground off with a file in a mini drill, springs but no nuts, he has run out of these. For the spares box.

What's not included:
Floors, Steve suggests these can be either plasticard or sheet metal dimensions 53 x 144 mm.
Couplings, I have a couple of spares sets so not a problem.

The plan:

The design is for fold over sections to replicate the thickness of the sides and ends, but I plan on removing them and using coffee stirrers. I am also planning to make the floor from coffee stirrers.

One of the daft bits of the design is that the w irons butt up against the back of the sole bar, which would leave the spring shackles stick out – bonkers, so again I am going to use stirrers to pad out the back of the sole bars which will allow the spring shackles to sit more naturally (all assuming there is room).

One example will have single side brakes, single righthand brake lever, the other brakes both sides with left and right hand brakes levers.

What to do with the 2 spare etches?:

I may just stick them on ethief although a separate plan would be to try convert at least 1 to a B2, a single plank billet wagon, dimensionally a bit out and that would depend on finding to nice photos of the billet wagons.

Mossy

 

First Update

Well the instructions are typical NER Days, an A4 sheet, 1/2 instructions, 1/2 an etch map and 2 small diagrams, but honestly there isn't much to say except build a box and stick things on it.

I almost made the master builder Pulham's mistake of folding the solebar the wrong way (see his C1 build on here) but thankfully remembered just in time.
The inner sides and ends were easily removed and the "box" done, I have spent a couple of hours laying laminate flooring in miniature, setting out the floor made with coffee stirrers with a couple of glaring errors as the photo shows and laminating and fitting the inner sides and ends made of 2 ply stirrers.

Tomorrow is a walking day, so I will get back to the wagon on Wednesday.

Mossy

 

The floor is a bit of a mess a lack of care on my part, but the ends and sides worked really well instead of being 20-30 thou, they are now about 1.5-1.75 mm.
The sheets removed will be cut down and soldered underneath to give something to mount the wheels and brake on.

 

Update 2
Up at silly o clock again, so after tea, toast and a smoke I cranked up the lights and started fiddling about on side one. All in all, it came out better than I thought, hopefully side 2 will be even neater but that will be after my second covid jab at 9:20 today.

Lessons Forgotten
Fit everything you can in the flat especially strapping. Its much easier than building a box and then trying to fit things!

Lessons Learned
Making hinge detail is easier than I thought especially with annealed half etched strapping but soldering in the hinge only works if the parts are scrupulously clean. I had to glue these in.

Making a door banger, far more difficult when it’s in full depth etch, next time get the metal even hotter and see if makes it easier. The kit comes with 2 spares so I can experiment.

Sweat soldering strapping is quite easy using a gas torch, just don’t turn up the flame so high it blows the strap out of position.

Things left to do.
Sort out the gap where the buffer beam doesn’t meet the sole bar. For once it’s a design mistake not me.

Horse loops, I should have drilled the holes when everything was flat – back to lessons forgotten.

Sheet securing loops. Fortunately, Rob Pulham advised how to make them so that’s a battle to come.

 

Rob,

I wish I had read that 1/2 hour ago, I have been trying to solder in a small fillet of etch and frankly the air has been beyond blue.
Got 2 done easily, but the third one &^%$£&, just one to do but it will have to wait till I get back from the clinic.

Mossy

 

The brains trust needed

The attached photo is of a brake guard and a pin rack for the B1, I have been trying to figure out the fold sequence but would like someone else's view of what is required. There are no instructions or a diagram, so Steve Hoyle must have assumed its straight forward.

The slightly greyer sections, second left on the guard, left on the pin rack are half etched and there are no half etched fold lines on the reverse.
My guess is these need to be reverse folded while the normal half etch fold lines fold in (not always the case with an NER Days kit).
That kind of makes sense with the guard, the short section at the right being soldered to the floor of the wagon. Each kit come 6 of these so I have 2 to experiment with.

The pin racks still confuse me and there aren't any spares to experiment with. The section with the pin holes is 24mm long, while the blank section is 18mm. I assume the section between these is folded into a conventional box U shape, which will result in an asysemetrical u shape, but where to go from there. There is an obvious soldering land on the solebar (see separate picture), which I assume is where the half etch section solders, but again half etch to solebar or reverse to solebar.

Can anyone through any thoughts on the problem?

 

Rob,

The top one is a brake safety guard and yes is smaller.
The lower one is a brake pin rack, thats the one I am struggling with now.

Mossy

 

That was exactly my thoughts, but doing assuming the red at the top left is soldered to the chassis it results in the long arm with the pin holes facing into the chassis, not out.
If you reverse it and solder the green to the chassis, then the entire pin rack would be sitting under the solebar - that cant be right either.

Which is exactly why I posted the question.

 

Having spent an hour of mental origami and a complete failure to count (over the 2 etches there are 8 pin racks, so plenty to experiment with) the only conclusion is Robs diagram, which is how I expected the rack to fold up is correct. Therefore Steve Hoyle simply omitted to etch pin holes in the front arm of the pin rack which means it can either be built as etched or I need to drill pin holes in the front arm. Drilling pin holes shouldn't be to difficult so that's what I will do.

 

Rob

If it helps your welcome to one of the spares from these kits.

 

Rob,

Thanks for the advice about how to make tied down rings. Four of these added to the wagon, the only thing I did different from your notes was to file a chamfer onto the short leg, which helped when pushing it into the hole.



Axle boxes, I decided to fit the wagon with brakes both sides with Ellis axleboxes, I had a spare set so that was a no brainer. The single side, single levered version will be fitted with axleboxes supplied by Dave at Gladiator models from his S1 Hopper kit. I emailed him last night and got a paypal invoice this morning - cracking service from a real gent. I'm not sure but I think they will be No1 Grease Boxes, but might be No 2's, either way it doesn't matter.

Next on to everything below the waste line, included the brake pin racks.

 

Rob,

Thats a type 1 grease box.

Mossy

 

Those perky pin racks - see posts 11 to 15.

After another silly o' clock get up I had a go at drilling the missing pin holes in the front leg of a pin rack, after 2 complete disasters and a long think I came up with the following:

Fold up and solder the rack as per design before cutting away the front leg, then cut down a rear leg from a spare pin rack.



Solder the donor leg into the pin rack, clean up with a file and insert a .7mm pin. A much easier and better solution to the problem! Now on to the second pin rack.