D&S Models North Eastern Railway Bogie Road Van

Discussion in 'Wagon Builds' started by Rob Pulham, Feb 13, 2021.

  1. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    Like many I suffered a bit of a mojo loss recently so I decided to take a short break from loco building to tackle a couple of wagons in the hope that the enthusiasm was rekindled.
    The first of these is a D&S Kit for a North Eastern Railway Bogie Road Van. Although I have had one of these kits for about 3 years, this one is for a gent who lives in Scotland who models the North Eastern Railway so I rang Dan Pinnock to enquire as to availability last year. Dan said he could do a kit but he would have to order the etches.

    And so, onto the build.
    I started with the basic floor pan and solebars. Like many kits the floor pan has fold down strips down the long edges. what is unusual is that these are not the solebars. The solebars have a full thickness rear section and a half etched overlay. The rear has a narrow fold along the bottom edge to represent the C section of a steel solebar. When put together the solebars fit into slots behind the fold down strips on the floor pan. To this floor pan is added a pair of queen posts


    IMG_0001.JPG

    IMG_0002.JPG

    Next, I made up the bogies, these are simple in design. A pair of really nice brass castings fit onto the ends of a fold up central bolster. Each bolster has a fold up strip on the top which either allows for and aft rocking or side to side.

    IMG_0003.JPG

    The brakes are simple affairs which fit nicely between the wheels on each side.

    IMG_0004.JPG
     
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  2. paul_l

    paul_l Staff Member Administrator

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    Nice build so far Rob
     
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  3. Ruston

    Ruston Guest

    The start of another nice build Rob.
     
  4. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    Thanks Gents,:thumbup:
     
  5. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    Before going any further I took the time to detail the sides while they were flat. One of the features that I love about many North Eastern Railway vans is the doors and their variations of the locking mechanisms.

    Much of this detail is provided in the etches and I only added the locking rods and some thin half etched strip to create the staples that the locking rods and lower locking bar fit into.

    IMG_0003.JPG

    IMG_0002.JPG

    IMG_0001.JPG


    Once the various grab handles and pins for the drop doors were added they were ready for fitting.
     
  6. Ruston

    Ruston Guest

    Some nice detailing Rob.
     
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  7. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    And I wouldn’t be surprised if they worked! :thumbs:
     
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  8. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    I must admit I was tempted Andy....
     
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  9. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    Moving rapidly on with the Road van body, the instructions suggest that you fit the ends first and once I filed of an offending etching cusp, the ends fit nicely.

    My recently acquired RSU has come into its own on this build. Using it allows me to use the probe to hold pieces in place while tacking them. After tinning the edges of the ends, sides and the fold down on the floor pan, tacking it together with the RSU became a breeze. I ran the microflame gently down the joints to join up the dots and hey presto.

    IMG_0001.JPG

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    It may just be me but it seemed so much easier than my previous efforts with van bodies. In fairness, the kit is well designed and that helps too.
     
  10. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    Almost before adding much more under frame detail I couldn’t resist trying the bogies underneath it for an idea of how the finished van would look.

    IMG_0001.JPG

    The outer truss rods are quite interesting on that they have two rod one on the outside and the second on the inside of the solebar. The instructions have you add these in two pieces I did them in one with a square U bending in the middle. This proved a bit tricky to get sitting right on the front face and I suspect that doing it in two pieces wouldn’t have proved equally tricky.

    NER Bogie Road Van 1.jpg

    NER Bogie Road Van 2.jpg
     
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  11. Ruston

    Ruston Guest

    Excellent kit building work Rob.:thumbs:
     
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  12. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    Thanks Rob
     
  13. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    I forgot to add in the last post that the Couplings, vac and Westinghouse pipes are Laurie Griffin.

    The kit comes with nice cast brake cylinders which have cast on mounting brackets. The odd thing is that they come with a separate domed end but you can't fit them unless you make the mounting brackets longer. I elected to file them off and replace them with brass strip. This makes them sit a bit lower and I had to put a slight bend in the brake rods to get them to pass over the cylinder.

    NER Bogie Road Van 3.JPG

    NER Bogie Road Van 4.JPG


    With it being quite a long van, I added some supports for the middle of the roof from scrap etch.

    D&S NER Road Van Roof doors Support ribs.JPG
     
  14. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    I have had a few of Dan’s kits over time and one thing that I find odd is that some come with roofs and some come without. Sadly, the road van came without (yet an NER horsebox that I bought at the same time had one). I can only guess that it depends on whether Dan has roof material to hand when he packs the kit.

    A suitable piece of sheet was obtained and cut to size. It was just too long for either of my sets of rolling bars so I had to resort to rolling it by hand but I got there in the end.

    When built these vans were fitted with sliding roof hatches over the left hand set of doors on each side. Later these were replaced with canvas or just boarded over so lots of permutations are possible depending on the period being modelled. This van was to have roof doors so I cut an offcut of thicker brass sheet to size (my guillotine needed a bit of muscle to cut through it). This time it did go through the rolling bars…

    The photos that I have seen with roof hatches had a curved strip across them which is possibly a rainstrip? I represented this with a short length of 1mm square rod.

    D&S NER Road Van Roof doors.jpg

    The roof was still loose at this point.

    The kit does provide the runners in the form of whitemetal castings so these were duly soldered on. And finally the roof was soldered on to the body.

    D&S NER Road Van - Construction finished 2.JPG

    D&S NER Road Van - Construction finished.jpg


    I had got this far, then while studying photos noted that there was a turnbuckle in the middle truss rod. I made some up using tube and 14ba nuts and then cut the truss rod to allow them to be eased aside and slipped on.

    IMG_0004.JPG
     
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  15. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    And finally, the roof “canvas” is added along with a couple of the plates that adorn each side of the van were knocked up from scrap etch.

    Next stop the spray booth.


    D&S NER Road Van - Canvas roof.jpg

    IMG_0001.JPG
     
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  16. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    Go on, remind me... how do you do the roof canvas? I may do it on my guards van.. although someone has already put the curved retaining strips on. ;)
     
  17. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    Hi Andy that's not a problem, I added some over my birdcage brakes earlier today and they have rainstrips fitted. It moulds quite easily over the top with the aid of a blunted cocktail stick

    To make the canvas, I use second hand spectacle lens cleaning tissues. I leave them to dry and then stick them on with pva. They are made of quite thick but flexible paper and once they are moistened by the pva you can stretch them nicely into shape and any wrinkles are just like those you get on real canvas roofs. I used to use really thick pva, but being lazy one time I had some Everbuild universal pva to hand whereas the thick stuff was in the shed so I used the normal consistency stuff and have used it ever since without problem.

    Another advantage is that if you make a mess of it you can moisten it and off it comes leaving you with a slightly sticky surface that's no worse for wear.
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2021
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  18. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    Ah that’s it. I remember you saying - I will get the wife to save hers.
     
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  19. paul_l

    paul_l Staff Member Administrator

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    Wow, the extra detail is amazing - well worthy of Pick of the Week

    Paul
     
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  20. York Paul

    York Paul Staff Member Moderator

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    Big Congrats to you Rob with another superfine detailing job and making POTW which is very well deserved :tophat::tophat:

    cheers Yorkie
     
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