Atlantic's works: Portable layout update

[Atlantic 3279]

Very little more done to the GN brake this weekend, owing to being busy with other things including trying to determine layout of roof details.
I have however made a drop-in floor for the cabin, mainly to provide something on which to build up basic brake gear. I kept it a loose fit at this tsage so that I could build the brake gear out in the open, rather than work around the stepboards and wheelsets. The downside of this, albeit slight, is that in order to clear the stub-ends of handrails that are soldered inside the body, the floor has to be able to tilt on its way in, and this has meant that I had to keep the V hangers closer together than they ought to be in reality (on the backs of the solebars I presume). But at least there are now some generally representative features to be seen behind the stepboards.
Sufficiently impressed by the apparent strength of the first whitemetal stepboard, and its survival so far, I also added the second stepboard - after carefully checking that the first one cleared all of my platform edges and lineside items.

[Atlantic 3279]

Whilst I have yet to obtain definitive evidence from official drawings or acknowledged experts, I have developed one or two ideas about chimney and ventilator positions. A couple of 1920s F.R. Hebron photos show horizontally planked GN four-wheel brakes coincidentally marshalled behind the tender in mixed goods trains, the real subject of both photos no doubt being the Gresley 2-8-0 at the front. Both images strongly suggest to me a fairly central and high/round torpedo ventilator on the roof. One image also shows a chimney offset to one side of the van, but doesn't really show whether it is mid-way along the van or towards one end.

If my (evidently cropped and/or retouched) photo of two of these brakes converted to a GN "twin break" is reliable, then the chimney would be offset slightly to the left end of the van when the van is viewed from the side on which the chimney sits. That would correspond with the small square that I have now noticed to be marked in on the roof on the McGowan header-card drawing of this van, photographed below:

By the way, the round mark on the apex of the roof is NOT for the ventilator position - it's a staple hole!

I feel sure that D & S offered kits for GN brakes of this general kind. I wonder if anybody has one of these, or at least the instructions? If so, can I ask what did Dan Pinnock say about chimney, ventilator and rainstrip types and positions?

[jwealleans]

I think you have all the sources I'd check Graeme, so I can't be much help on that one.

Going back to a previous post, I had a look at the buffers on my Lima van and they were both too high and set too close together. Did you change yours at a previous visit? I've sawed them off and will replace with some cast ones.

Incidentally, has anyone mentioned these before? Now ABS are no longer available on the net these make a very good alternative. I've been impressed with the quality of the ones I've had from them.

[Atlantic 3279]

I haven't altered my Lima van's buffers yet, but I have been pondering the matter of height, plus spacing as you say, plus the short buffers themselves. I've also been wondering whether the overall ride height is a shade too much, and what, if anything, to do about that and the wheels. One possibility would be to address the wheels and the ride height in one move via some folded brass channel shaped pieces carrying 2mm inside bearings to suit scale size wheels.
That link looks useful. We'll have to overlook the allusion to LMS!
Is the ABS range still available by wholesome traditional means, even if not by electronic witchcraft?

[jwealleans]

Is the ABS range still available by wholesome traditional means

Subject to Adrian Swain's health, I believe so. The last order I sent him never arrived.

[rob]

Ok heres some info from the D&S instructions for my GN vans.....I have DS338,the vertical planked 20T,in stock...the instructions cover a no. of others including the 6 wheelers,kits DS335 to 338
At any rate,if I compare the D&S diagram to that on the the header card above the Chimney is a little further forward but still behind the lamp on the van side.
On the front plan it is very close to the van side-directly above the mid point of the outermost window/centreline of buffer in fact.
The ventilator is dead centre from head on,just behind the chimney in side view,above the end of the middle handrail essentially.
The 8 wheel van instructions show the ventilator in the exact middle of the roof but this time in side as well as end elevation and state chimney offset by 2' 9''..it is however exactly on the midpoint too...
This may tie in with what you have sent me seperately,hope its some little help ...its obvious to me now I used the details from the 8 wheeler built at the same time to complete the McGowan kit...the 20T was one of my later purchases...

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks to Rob for the above, and thanks to the kindness of another member who has privately sent me some very useful information, I feel that I now have sufficient evidence for the roof layout and can proceed. Chimney position does seem to be more or less as per the small square marked on the header card, ventilator on top centre line but offset to one end as per chimney*(and not always a torpedo), and apparently sometimes no rainstrips at all, at least in the GN period.

*Phrase altered for clarity of meaning 9.40am 26th Jan after re-reading Rob's words and studying those privately sent details again

[Atlantic 3279]

Had I wanted a thin brass roof for this van things would have been simpler. For good or bad reasons, I decided on plastic, which I thought, for instance, easier to bond fully to the tops of the ends, easier to drill for fittings, and less likely to suffer dents if the van gets knocked/squeezed/dropped.
I didn't trust the method, having tried similar before with poor results, but based on claims/advice elsewhere I decided to form the roof from a single thickness of 20thou on the side of a mug, held in boiling water and then quenched in cold water. Nothing wrong with that so far, but the means of supporting the sheet in the required curve was the problem. It was suggested that it would be adequate to hold the roof down on the outside of the mug using strips of wood along its length, particularly at the edges, lashing these down with rubber bands. Strongly suspecting from past experience that the middles of the roof ends in particular would not shape properly if I did this, owing to stretching/sagging when hot, I put a strip of wood down the centre line of the roof too. The result was nothing short of rubbish! The roof formed round the mug in three flats rather than one continuous curve / .
Cursing myself for trying this method again when I expected trouble with the result, I applied what I have learned from forming boiler barrels etc in plastic - continuous support both sides of the sheet. A handy section of cheap beer can would have done the job, but I had none so I formed a piece of thin brass to the required curve (which would then have done as the roof anyway.....) and clamped this over the plastic on the outsde of the mug, again using stripwood and rubber bands. This time the heat formed the curve just as I wanted.
I made the curve a shade tighter than it needs to be when stuck down, so as to fight any tendency towards sagging in the middle.
I have also added the ventilator and a brass tube chimney, plus a base-plate that I believe to be partly visible in one photo of such a van. In the image below I have merely spot bonded the middles of the roof ends in place to check the final fit and appearance. Painting will be easier with the roof off.

[Atlantic 3279]

I have also added a basic representation of the pieces of strapping that were lost in filing parts to size/shape, or which had to be moved (one one the solebar), or which were not there at all because parts were missing (the top end lintels). a little filling will be needed down the joints on the van ends, and once there's a coat of red-oxide primer on the body I may add PVA dots to show bolt heads on the new pieces of strapping. Thankfully, apart from finally adding riding lamps (after painting), vacuum pipes, and couplings, and any arguments about rainstrips, the job may now be done.

I think I've made the chimney and vent positions agree as closely as possible with the pieces of evidence that I've had available to me

[Atlantic 3279]

One further little niggle regarding the fittings on this model: As built these vans had sanding gear. I understand that the LNER had removed sanding gear, at least from all of its standard Toads by the mid 30s. I am therefore tempted to assume, conveniently, that all brake vans were stripped of their sanding gear, unless anybody tells me otherwise. I can of course also imagine that those older vans such as my GN brake, that were by then obviously nearing the ends of their lives might not have been altered.

[notascoobie]

Hi,

My copy of GNRS Wagons Pictorial shows one with large NE on it, complete with sanding gear.

I hope that helps.

Regards,

Vernon

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks, that's interesting, although without a date for the photo the livery really only tells us that it is post-1923, rather than showing that the sanding gear lasted until the end on these vans which I believe became extinct about 1940 (or maybe that was the extinction date for the much larger number of UN-fitted 10 tonners).
I've seen a picture of the slightly later vertically planked van, of fundamentally the same design, wearing post-1937 small NE inignia, without its sanding gear, yet that still doesn't confirm what happend to the horizontally planked vans.

[Atlantic 3279]

I've decided not to fit sand pipes unless evidence appears indicating that I really should. I have however chnged my mind about he roof and fitted some rainstrips, having convinced myself that the ends of rainstrips are definitely visible in a couple of 1920s in-service LNER period photos of vans such as mine. The low angle of view in both photos makes it impossible to ascertain the shape and length of the rainstrips, so I've made a guess and will have to justify it as a latter day repair to the roof if it turns out to be an unusual arrangement!
In this picture the model has been de-fluxed and sprayed with red-oxide primer, which will not be the final shade of body colour, but I have applied black by brush to "iron" or "steel" parts below the solebars, grey to buffer heads and vacuum hoses, plus dirty grey-brown to the floorboards which cannot be seen here. The final body colour can wait until I have all of my recently modified and newly built brake vans ready to paint. the roof is not sitting down as flat as it should across its width here simply as it is not stuck down at all.

[Atso]

Looking very good Graeme!

Looking in Peter Tatlow's book, I think I can see rainstrips on the roof of the GNR lightweight breakvan. Rainstrips are very visible on the eight wheel break van. Unfortunately there isn't a picture of your break van in the book but I would think that it is very likely that they would have been fitted...

I take it that the van is in Halfords Red Primer at the moment. Just out of interest what are you planning to use for the final colour? I've been just using Halfords red for my N gauge stock and think it looks fine - then again modelling in N I tend to put up with more compromises than you would ever dream of with your models!

When will we see a model of 3279!???

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks Steve

If I stick to the Halfords paint, which you have correctly identified as the current colour, it will need a lot of toning/weathering to fit in with the rest of my LNER fitted freight stock painted some time ago in a concoction of Humbrol colours. I have a not of the mixture somewhere, so I might mix up another batch of that to do all of the latest vehicles. I suspect it was based largely on a mix of 153 and 133.

3279 is definitely on the list of aspirations, but with lots of other modelling options available at present, offering routes of lower cost and lower resistance, 3279 is working its way up the list only slowly.