The fourth 'New Year' of working on Worton Court.
Worklist:
The Worton Court Wagon
Main building review
Laurence on the mend from his cough, but taking another week off, for good measure. Geoff still coughing but able to talk.
What happened last time ...
We had decided that at least two rakes of mineral wagons (8 in each) were required to represent full and empty train movements to the quarry. Rather than break the bank on complete kits, we decided it would be cheaper and more fun to develop our own, based on one of the 4 ton wagons used on various lines.
Geoff & Stephen had thrown ideas back-and-forth over the break and now brought things together. Geoff had been experimenting with some Cambrian 4mm wagon underframe kits. He'd designed a wagon to suit a 16' chassis and laser cut it from 1mm 'craft' cardboard. The chassis kit comprised alternative solebars with separate W irons, on their own sprue. The wagon was assembled with a plasticard floor to facilitate gluing of the chassis.
Below - an assembled wagon on scrap card and parts for a second wagon with internal planking added (light laser marking). Spare plastic wheels from old Peco O-16.5 kits were used.
The Cambrian underframe kit with alternative solebars and separate W irons.
Stephen assembled the chassis and fitted it to the body. The new wagon between a Peco L&B wagon - left, and a Peco GVT wagon - right.
We were a little concerned about the height of the new wagon - it looked a bit tall. We appreciated that the GVT had plain grease-box axleboxes and sat quite low, but only after a lot of ruminating, did we realise that the L&B leaf springs were attached to the side of the solebar, close to the floor, and not under the solebars.
The assembled solebars and W irons ready to have the short (lower) solebars removed.
However, on test assembling the whole chassis, it was immediately apparent that the wheels would be fouled by the solebars, but the addition of spare Peco plastic bearings rectified the problem.
And from the side.
The new arrangement looked very favourable, but a lot of work is still required to make sure everything works OK. There are a couple of wooden underframe kits available, in different lengths. The longer version would create a wagon closer to the 10' of the L&B wagon, so some investigating is required. Then there's the Kadee couplings to fit, and some sort of buffer block or strap.
Over Christmas, Stephen had worked on the main building, adding dressed stone quoins. Overwhelmed at the prospect of cutting and fitting hundreds of slates, he'd investigated corrugated iron sheeting, like the workshop. However, slates were back in the running when Geoff suggested 'carefully' designed strips of thin card could be laser cut. Another great idea to work on.
The small upper windows were raised to align the heads with the roof structure obviating lintels. A metal handrail was added to the stairs. Gutters are ribs from an ex-umbrella!
G & S discussed uses for the three bays and agreed that two would be for storage (vehicles, railway parts etc) and one could be a general office/ticket office/'staff' room. The suggestion that one embryonic preserved line used a caravan for a ticket office also sounded quite inviting...
