Atlantic's works: Portable layout update

[Atlantic 3279]

Whilst I do intend to move on to the (dreaded?) Jidenco GC six wheeled brake shortly, I went back to those two Toad D versions yesterday to "pick-up" one or two loose ends that I had left. I have applied a suitable colour of primer to modifications, spraying the whole of the roof of the Airfix vehicle as I was fairly confident that I had removed all enamel paint and would be safe from problems of reaction with whatever goes into car paint aerosols these days. Even if this modern "super acrylic" is far less reactive with well dried enamels than real cellulose ever was, I am still wary, so the modifications to the painted bodies were spot primed cautiously by brush.
I have also been stirred into action by Jonathon's remarks on wheels and buffers. I can't do much about the Lima buffers just yet, as although I agree that apart from their stubbiness they are at least 2mm too close together, I have checked my stock of suitable substitutes and found only two acceptable van buffers, so there's an item for my shopping list (Doncaster show?)
Owing to the likelihod of exaggerating ride height problem with simple substitution of scale (larger) wheels, and the difficulty involved in removing the "live" wheel as well as the easy insulated one from a Lima axle, I considered the alternatives. Custom-shortening of the axles of scale wheelsets would not have been impossible but use of the Lima bearing holes would again have led to unwanted increase in ride height. Even if I had turned down the flanges on the Lima wheels they were too small in diameter, with no coning of the tread. So, for my sins, I decided I would have to drill the axleboxes, fit bearing cups and insert better wheels.

[Atlantic 3279]

Despite what I thought was ample and careful measurement and arithmetic, the hole centres that I initially plotted on the outside faces of the axleboxes still weren't quite right when I drilled through and inserted the shoulderless bearings and 12mm (May?)Gib(son?) spoked wheels. In order to get the ride low enough I had to enlarge my original holes and then struggle to position very loose bearings correctly for long enough to get some glue in! Eventually all worked well, and I patched the originally plain axlebox faces with a fresh rectagular black plasikard cover.
Should anybody wish to save themselves some trouble, I now know that for a buffer height just a shade under 14mm, if fitting 12mm wheels to the Lima Toad D, then the centre of the bearing hole in the axlebox must be level with (or at most just the slightest touch below) the line of the top rear edge of the moulded lower stepboard
Well at least Lima's wheel slots in the floor still accommodated my new wheels....

Lima underframe with ?Gib? wheels in place

Ride heights now. Lima (left) with 12mm wheels versus Airfix (right) on Dapol 12++mm wheels.

I have also straightened the Airfix buffers after realising that they drooped slightly, helping further to equalise the two vans. The roofs are also dead level if you put a straight edge across the two, end to end.

Lima as modified, in patch primer

Airfix ditto

You may see here that I have also had to file and sand the end platforms a bit on this van, as the solvent used to stick them down had wrinkled the topsides .....

[rob]

I'm back!..re the GN brake the arrangement you've opted for seems spot on from my sources this end....my van is clearly incorrect but I'm not going to backtrack for now...
Jidenco GC 6 wheeler?...this one..?...though this is the Falcon version...

Not their worst effort by any means,I reckon the fun will be largely concentrated on the underpinnings...built a good while back so likely even less accurate than the GN brake...will be following with interest again!

[Atlantic 3279]

Aha! Yes Rob, that is the beast in question. It looks like you didn't fit your kerb rail overlays - were they a particular problem? Whilst I did eventually get my GC 6w van kit out in the evening, studying and identifying the parts with the aid of Mr Tatlow's pictures and drawing, also reading Steve Banks' comments on the kit from March 1997 RM, it was a bit too late to make a start on construction as I had been sidetracked on other tasks during the day. I'm not yet sure that I understand why Mr Banks replaced so much of the undergear with parts from mixed sources (presumably for "accuracy") but then failed to fit tie bars between the bottoms of the W-irons. I can see possible justification for his full compensation of course, and he is right in saying that the middle springs/hangers should be different, although I didn't think that the supplied spring/axlebox castings were too bad at first glance - certainly easier and cheaper to use them than to hunt around for deluxe and pricey replacements. Maybe his castings were poor?

One of the things that had distracted me during the day was the coverage of North Eastern diagram F10 ventilated refrigerator vans in a borrowed copy of "super-Tatlow". These vans are strikingly recognisable as the prototype for the Hornby NE vent-refrig van, and on placing one of these models on the drawing I realised that save for some minor clumsy bits on the body that could be altered or ignored, and details that could be added to the underframe, the main faults are the typically Margate excessive underframe height, battering-ram couplings, and solebars/headstocks in black when they should be white. The lettering sits too high on the sides and shows the wrong van capacity and a doubtful number too. Having worked out how to unclip the various parts of the model, it appears to me perfectly possible to reduce the ride height by drilling for new bearings holes and then trim the bottoms of the W-irons back to a better height too. Has anybody else had a go at reducing the height of one of these and sorting out the details? I see that with ice-hatch access removed they also ran in the late thirties in oxide livery as fish vans. I can now foresee a new lease of life for for some vans that I had taken out of service owing to the clash of appearances compared to true height kit built stock.

[mick b]

It will be intersting to see what you make of the vans. I have never checked but I thought they were based on a H&BR design or is that another van i am thinlking off ??
Re Brake vans. I have never seen any before with bodycolour steps , they look rather strange. !!

[Atlantic 3279]

Hi Mick

I fully accept that the colour of the steps might be wrong, and I've been hoping for an authoritative or evidence-based view on the subject of correct LNER period original wooden step colour. All I've really had in the way of comment has been in relation to the obvious likelihood of paint wearing off from the heavily trodden areas so that the apparent colour in those places would be dirty grey old timber. For the time being, this is one good reason not to finish the repaints.

Looks like the F10 Insul-vans were a genuine North Eastern vehicle, built long before the H & B belatedly entered into the marriage of convenience.

[jwealleans]

The ex-H&B van is the one Hornby did as 'Prime Pork' among others. Craig has done some for us at Ormesby; I'll take a picture next time I get down there unless he posts one first.

[Robpulham]

The ex-H&B van is the one Hornby did as 'Prime Pork' among others. Craig has done some for us at Ormesby; I'll take a picture next time I get down there unless he posts one first.

I have one that was in "weetabix" livery until I read Tatlow and painted it grey. I found it and took a couple of pictures but then the camera battery died so it will be tomorrow before I can post them.

[rob]

re the Hornby van-collectors actually refer to it as "The H&BR van"!
...er,missing Kerb rail overlays? ...are these the four iron strips vertical between the timber "base" and the bottom of the solebars? ...Could you clarify for me Graeme? If it is these,probably omitted at the time due to time/skill limitations,I would make an effort nowdays.....
I've got the original Tatlow open here though to see what else is inaccurate on my van and the first obvious error is ALL the roof fittings! In the photos and plans the chimney is more elaborate and there are two vent-like fittings which are flat or hatch-like,possibly round,no torp vent.......my lettering positions are off as well compared to the plans
Mick B I'd be interested to see if we get a definitive answer to the step colour question......

[Atlantic 3279]

The kerb rail, I understand, is the strip of timber visible along the bottom edge of the bodysides, just above the solebar. In reality it would be an important part of the body frame. In some later van designs it is hidden behind the lower ends of the vertical planks which then provide for better rain run-off and rot resistance. On the GC 6 wheel van it is visible, and has several bolt-heads visible along its length, in groups of three. The Jidenco etch includes three such rail overlays, so maybe one is a spare or is meant to be cut up and used for something that I am yet to discover! I can see that these might be awkward to fit, as they are narrow and they must go on flat and straight, with lower half of the strip over the half-etched fold line at the base of the body.

[Atlantic 3279]

I did start the cutting out and bending operations on the Jidenco GC brake kit last night. Those familiar with the Jidenco reputation may not be surprised by some of the awkward points I discovered: Firstly the parts are tabbed into the main fret by full thickness tabs in many places rather than easily-cut half thickness ones. You cannot split them with a knife without blunting the blade and/or distorting the edges of the attached parts, in fact in some cases delicate half etched parts lie immediately adjacent to the trouble spots so great care is required. The main "floor and four sides" piece was tabbed in in a sufficient number of places to also make it impossible to cut just a couple of tabs and then bend/twist/fatigue the others to break them. So out came the piercing saw and I had to disconnect the blade from the frame several times in order to get the blade into the required places in the fret.
I had also already noticed that the half-etched fold lines around the floor were slightly closer to one side of the van than they were to the other. I could tell that the sides/ends would therefore fold up giving an "interference fit" on one side of the van and slightly gaping joints on the other. I filed the edges on the tight side to produce mitre joints and was thankful that there are corner plate overlays to hide the gaps on the loose side.
The solebars, the stepboards, and the triple W-iron units are all "fun" to fold up, requiring folds along the length of the piece but close to an edge. Neat results would be impossible without use of a vice and a certain amount of messing around re-orientating the work piece plus using straight edges, the "blocky" half of a small engineer's square, and pliers to contrive ways of pushing the necessary bends over. The whole of the back of each solebar is half-etched whereas the top and bottom ledges, both of which must fold over, are full thickness. It took a fair amount of thought and care to produce two neat bends in close proximity while keeping the flimsy material in the space between the two flat.

As a final "bonus", the inner ends are not wide enough to fill the gap between the folded up sides of the body. Steve Banks' notes mentioned thickening the sides for cosmetic improvement, presumably referring to the visible edges around the verandah openings. I will have to solder an extra layer on the inside face just to make the inner ends fit

[mick b]

Good Luck . I built one LNER Cattle van , total rubbish vowed never to touch another one again

[2512silverfox]

After the various postings concerning brake vans on several threads recently, I checked with Peter Talow to make sure about the livery in LNER days. We have discussed the photos posted on this forum and suggest the following is correct.

Body including solebars and buffers on wooden underframe vehicles: Red Oxide. Steel Solebars and buffers: black. All below including step boards either black or plain timber. New stock black but older repaints possibly left natural.
Handrails can be either red oxide or white. There are photos with both, but with the introduction of ARP precautions in 1938, most would by then have become white.

Roof: white at least up until 1939, and fixed riding or side light bodies: black.

Hope this helps.

Nick

[rob]

Really helps Nick,thanks for taking the trouble.I had already considered toning down the white handrails and going to oxide,now I will add the steps to the job next time I have some wagons going through paintshop,its an easy upgrade.
Graeme,thanks for defining Kerbrail,in this case I think I simply omitted them through lack of knowledge,I had no Tatlow then and the Falcon instructions are basic,printed on a tiny slip of paper, and try to cater for both the GC Brake and the MR 6 wheeler at the same time!

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks Nick, very helpful indeed. If anything, I've formed the impression from photos that Dukinfield was fond of painting handrails white a long time before the wartime emergency (on a new Toad B for instance) and before the adoption of the habit more generally.

Regarding the Hornby "H & B" van, I realise now that I have one, or rather the remains of one - as "improved" by a previous owner. The body has been painted white and fitted onto a whitemetal underframe which may be a 1908 RCH pattern wagon frame, which is definitely not like an H & B underframe! Unless I haven't yet found the right H & B wagon diagram or photo, then it appears to me that the Hornby model wrongly portrays the top and bottom rails of the sides, the corner posts and the door posts all raised proud of the main planked surfaces. There also appears to be a plank missing from the side, each side of the doors, making the doors look too wide or the van too short relative to them. Through the thin white body repaint the original livery is discernible, so gentlemen, I'll see your "Prime Porks" and Weetabixes, and raise you a "Smiths Crisps, Snacks & Nuts"