Ratio SR van finished

 

It's not special. Not a stand-out supermodel. This is exactly what I wanted - a very run-of-the-mill "layout wagon".

I used to turn these out all the time. Meldridge Dock was full of them. My thinking is that you see a mass of vehicles, rather than a load of individuals. As long as the weathering, and overall effect, is harmonious, the layout looks good.  

Well, that, and I'm hopeless at applying transfers when they are in the kit, and too stingy to buy them when they aren't. Mind you, on the kit box, the transfers show plenty of silvering, so I'm not the only one. 

My solution is blobby numbers. Just get something in the right place, and no one bothers to read them. Anyway, if you are wagon spotting on my layout, I'll think there is something wrong with you. For this model, some Humbrol 147 was applied with the smallest brush (note to self, buy some more) to hand. You can read "XP" and not the rest. 

 I had planned to use a mapping pen, but my white ink had the consistency of semolina pudding when I dug it out, so I need to buy more of that too. 

Chalk marks are pencil crayon. Again, my pale grey has hidden itself, so they are white. 

Weathering is a little dry-brushing and lots of weathering powders wiped with a wet cotton bud. 

So much of this is easier if you practise. As I say, this used to be bread-and-butter work, but I can't remember the last time I built a wagon kit. I enjoyed this one though, and there are more in the stash... 

 

Painted van

 

Now the cat has wandered off, I get a precious morsel of modelling time to whack some paint on the van. As this is a traditional build, I'm painting it by hand. All my other rolling stock is hand-painted, and with a bit of weathering, it looks fine. Saves sorting out the airbrush too. 

Colour should be bauxite, but the shade on the Ratiop box looks like a pale earth tone. I don't think it has faded either. I tried that, and decided I didn't like it, so whacked some Humbol brick colour over the top. It needed a second coat anyway. 

I probably should have bought a bottle containing an "approved" shade of paint, but bauxite is one of those colours that seems to change shade depending on the photo you look at. My feeling is that it wasn't as stable a shade in real life, so always using the "correct" version isn't any more accurate than my bodge. 

The result isn't bad in real life, it looks a bit streaky in the photo. Once I've added lettering, and dirt, this should look fine. And at least I'll have managed to wrangle some modelling time for myself!

Oh, and the roof is a mix of Humbrol 66 and 67, with loads of talcum powder dabbed into it. The resulting texture is very pleasing.  

Painting delay

 

Just paint for the SR van then. Slight snag, for the last few days, Stampy has decided that my modelling board is the perfect place for a kip. He might be comfortable, but it does really slow me down...

Chassis upgrades

 

It's no good. Those wobbly stretcher bars are annoying me. As has been said in the comments, you can't really repair them. 

At the same time, I remembered that I'd not replaced the moulded safety loops on the brakes. I used to do this as a matter of course, but as I say, I'm out of practice. 

Some small clippers removed the bars, and moulded loops. The latter are replaced with bent-up staples. Maybe a bit chunky, but you can see through the loop, which is what matters to me. On a layout, looking along a train, I like to think is is noticable, even in the gloom under a wagon. 

The stretcher bars are replaced with the smallest brass angle I had to hand. This still looks a bit big to me, they scale out just under 3 inches deep, but the job is quick, and hopefully not too obvious when painted and weathered. I've not actually done this before, but I'll look to add some thinner angle to my metal stocks at some point. 

Incidentally, why weren't buffer shanks and heads included in the kit? I had to dig around in my spares boxes before I found a set of Parkside leftovers. Yes I have metal ones, but they are complete with the housings in a kit of bits, and I'm not breaking one of those up for this job. This is very much a layout wagon, and the sort of layout I build, not some super finescale jobbie. 

Sprat & Winkle couplings

 

I'm going full Old Skool on this wagon. That means Mk1 Sprat & Winkle couplings, the ones I use on all my exhibition layouts. In my mind, they combine reliable operation with discretion. OK, Alex Jackson's are a bit less visible, but they seem to need a lot of tweaking before a show opens, time better IMHO spent acquiring tea, and perusing the second-hand stall. 

Best all all, they are easy to fit, even if you haven't done it for a while. 

Step one, fit the coupling bar. 

I built a height gauge well over 30 years ago. Wheel the wagon up to it. Pop superglue on the buffers, and sit a de-headed dressmaking pin on the gauge. Yes, I know "proper" modellers would make a U-shaped bit of wire to emerge from the buffer beam. I think this restricts the swing of the hook, and anyway, my method is really easy to do, and repair if required, so it wins out for me. 

Step two. Fire up the soldering iron and fit the hook and paddle. 

The original instructions showed a weirdly bent piece of wire holding the etched hook in place. It relied on glueing wires along the floor, without sticking the paddle itself down. Que lots of bad language, and a lack of success. 

This method, which I later learned from his book that Rice used as well, involved bending up a staple, putting it through the holes in the paddle, and shoving the steel through the floor of the wagon with a soldering iron. It takes a few seconds to get moving, but once it does, the paddle is quickly fixed, and by heating the staple, you can adjust the fit. 

I've fitted EM gauge society coupling chain, which I bought in quantity decades ago (do they still sell it?) as it's perfect for the job, and easier than making my own. 

The chain is a bit further out from the bufferbeam than is ideal, but as I say, it's a while since I've done this, and it will still work. 

No surprise, I've written this up before, with different photos.  

Very liquid glue

 

Bodybuilding time. A job that it turns out would have been a lot easier if I'd remembered to bring some Revell Contacta plastic cement. 

As it was, I had to rely on the Barrie Stevenson's MEK, applied with a slightly larger than ideal, paintbrush. 

Normally, I'd tack the parts together with the cement, then run some MEK into the joints. This time, I had to apply the solvent while holding the parts together. It did not go well. 

I don't know if this MEK is a lower viscosity than Slater's version, but it shot all over the kit. Result, a fingerprint in the end.  That's not a one-off either, this stuff shoots around the model incredibly fast. OK, I'm out of practice doing this sort of thing, but I don't remember having this problem before. 

On the plus side, it grabs the parts really fast, so if you can make it work, speedy building will be very possible! 

Wheels in

 

An odd feature of the Ratio kit is that the solebars don't fit under the floor, as they do in every other wagon kit I can recall; the floor fits into recesses along the inside top of the solebars. This confused me for a while, and I had to resort to the instructions, ruining the images I was trying to project as someone fully in control of what they are building. Sorry I didn't photograph this for illustration, you'll have to take my word for it. 

This does make the build a bit tricky as it's easy to glue the upside-down chassis to the modelling board. While the glue is soft, the wheels are fitted, and the whole lto left upside down on flat surface to harden. As I was at a show, I didn't have a mirror to test flatness, but the modelling board isn't too bad, and there is a little slop in the bearings to take up a fraction of a mm. 

I think this pretty much concluded my first day's build. A good sign, as little progress meant maximum chatting to the paying public, which is what I was there for. 

And the carrot cake was delicious.

 

Bearing up

 

It's a long while since I built a plastic wagon kit, and I need to remember how to do jobs that used to come naturally. 

First up, fit the brass bearings. These are top-hat ones, named after the shape, This sparked a conversation about different types of bearings with someone newish to wagon building. He'd acquired some waisted bearings, and I think I managed to convince him that these would be fine. Even if they weren't, this wasn't (I think) the sort of show where you'd easily purchase replacements - a sign of how exhibitions have changed over the years. 

Anway, I remember that there's no need to drill the chassis out. Just pop a drop of solvent into the hole, leave it a few seconds to soften the plastic, then shove the bearing in the hole. Give the axlebox and bearing a good squeeze (I used tweezers, but small pliers are OK), and the bearing isn't coming back out. 

Toughest job - removing the moulding from the sprue. I had to repair the stretcher bar on one side, and it's a fiddle. 

SR 12 Ton Box Van kit

 

While I might own many hundreds of projects, finding something suitable to build as a demonstration isn't easy. Whatever I pick has to be simple, require a modest tool kit, and if I'm honest, not really matter that much as I can't guarantee to be paying proper attention as I'm supposed to be chatting. 

A plastic wagon kit works OK, even though I have no need to add to the wagon fleet. As a bonus, I picked this kit up cheaply at the RMweb members' day. For three quid, if it all goes wrong, I've not lost much. 

Tools required are a knife, abrasive and some glue. Tweezers are useful, but the extras are found in my exhibition toolbox, which is never unpacked. 

I have a feeling that the Ratio kit is well over 30 years old. Mine had been upgraded with a set of metal wheels. Two sets in fact, because I didn't spot this, and added a set from the stash. I might not need this wagon, but it's not rolling on some moulded plastic wheels - I have standards!

I'm sure a RTR version is available, but at a demo, people like to believe you are doing something other than just waiting for a chat. It's also a conversation starter, as many haven't seen this archaic activity before...