A Rakes Progress

[Granitechops]

While it is nice to see a train of different vehicles, eg break down or engineers train, or mixed goods
I think its nice to see a rake of similar, if not identical vehicles in a train
Now while Stoneycombe has a few V skips, a few LGB bulk side discharge hoppers, a few removable economy skips, it struck me that there was no train of larger bogie wagons for onwards shipment of minerals.

I had initially got one high sided bogie wagon that had moved timber & was then converted to a covered wagon to hide a battery control system

This was basically a Hartland wagon rewheeled & repainted

 

[Granitechops]

This idea was reinforced when I built a second battery control wagon & disguised it as a ballast hopper wagon, rebuilt out of an ex WD well wagon

Scratch built this time

for details of both these see

http://www.gscalecentral.net/tm?&m=6262&mpage=1

 

[Granitechops]

So first step build a basic box,

mdf floor for rigidity, ply sides for lightness, scored deeply outside & less so inside to represent planks

 

[Granitechops]

Paint grey primer to get a feel of proportions & size & figure helps

 

[Granitechops]

Add solebars & buffers

 

[Granitechops]

Now its all strong & square

take a mitre table saw and carefully cut opening doors out of sides, without going through floor,

dont worry about width of cut ,we may have to trim some off door sides to make them fit later

 

[Granitechops]

This is what we are aiming for

 

[Granitechops]

Line inside of door OPENING verticals with "Z" profile styrene, I fixed it with styrene cement as I was gluing to wood

 

[Granitechops]

Cut small angle to trim DOOR sides,

do a dry run so as to get a fit

allowing for thickness of paint you may need 1.5mm trimmed off door here

 

[Granitechops]

Trim top edges of body sides & doors to match

with a larger angle profile

so that the angle is flush inside the body & sticks out over the top outside

 

[Granitechops]

When dry, mark out & drill .7mm pilot holes in styrene, two to a plank, not too close to the joints, as strength is lost that way in the real world
drive or push dress making pins through ( ones I use are .75mm diam)

 

[Granitechops]

Trim off with side cutters,

then finish flush with a mini drill grinding wheel

 

[Granitechops]

Fabricate working hinges from brass strip & tube,

drill holes for mounting & fix hinge parts together with thick copper wire through tubes as hinge pin

cut to size & drill brass strips ( thicker) for closing catches

 

[Granitechops]

Drill two small holes through a short bit of thin brass strip,

cut some copper wire,

bend in loop as so, and bend over on back & solder will need 4 of these

 

[Granitechops]

Mark through slot in closing plate, & cut slot for wire loop to push through from back

Not shown here is the hole drilled through body side to bolt plate securely in place

 

[Granitechops]

Make up 4 securing pins from copper wire,

thickest poss, cooker earth wire,

& solder into loop pins, as loop will be used to fix to wagon side with small chain later

 

[Granitechops]

you could now have an opening functional door

Thanks Sam

 

[Granitechops]

The next time the the grinding disk is in the mini drill those screw heads want grinding down

would have used countersunk if I had any, but as I had bought a job lot at a car boot, I tend to use up what I have first

 

[Granitechops]

[[[[[[[[[<font]

Now why did that happen all my text dissapeared & was replaced with the above a load of brackets?

try again
using thin copper wire make loops to fix both ends of small chain, (10 links/ inch), one end to door peg, the other end to a smaller loop that is put through the wagon side, if you get it right, the wire inside when bent over will be hidden under the edge of the top angle
fix with drop of glue inside

 

[Granitechops]

take some 20thou plasticard cut to size & bend in boiling water

& fix to corners with styrene glue,

being thicker than solvent this fills in between the sheet & the wood grain better than the thin solvent

drill pilot holes as before & fix with dress making pins

usually wagon builders used bent plate on corners rather than angle iron

as this enabled the fixing bolts to be moved away from the end of the planks

thus reducing likelyhood of wood splitting through to ends

Also cut small corner plates to go on top of top angle & solvent into place ( add rivet detail first)


Looks like I should have reduced the exposure there!!