Wednesday 28th March

Worklist:
Wagon lettering
Main building update
Cassette end stops

A full house and an interesting session that ultimately focused on the wagon lettering.

Stephen and Geoff had been bouncing lettering ideas back-and-forth during the week. Stephen had searched for dry rub-on and waterslide sheets, but white lettering had proven elusive. He'd then created the artwork to have a bespoke set made. John's principle wagon lettering used the notation Worton Court Minerals, but this didn't suit the new wagons, so W C M Ltd had been proposed. An A5 sheet would be £35-40 (enough for 17 wagons and some spares), so approximately £2/wagon.

Geoff had been pursuing the idea of laser cutting a stencil for the each letter using self-adhesive paper and spraying the lettering. However, this had turned out to be more difficult than expected and the the results were not very precise, but these issues might be correctable, if pursued.

As it happened, Geoff had already moved onto Option 2 - laser cutting white DIY waterslide transfer sheets. Instead of the Helvetica/Arial font, he'd opted for a prototypical 'railway' font, with chunky serif's. The first letters were duly cut out and soaked. The surrounding waste material came off easily, but the letters were found to be fused around the edges and took a lot of patience to release. This was exacerbated by the shallow cut selected, so another batch were made in the simpler font and a deeper cut setting. The letters were still incredibly flimsy¹, and difficult to release and place, but a coat of Microset ensured the transfers were properly bedded on the wooden bodies. Although a decent finish was produced, the time they took was considered impractical, let alone the nervous exhaustion suffered.

Option 3 followed immediately. Geoff took a sheet of clear waterslide paper and over-sprayed a thin coat of gloss white paint. Once dry, this was used for another batch. These were stiffer and easier to work with and despite the additional paint, the Microset worked well again. Numbers and the tare labels were also made and applied. However, the lowercase letters proved too awkward to manipulate and so '4 Tons' was abbreviated to the often-used '4T'.

The lettering was noticeably thicker than the first batch but still very acceptable. Maybe a thinner coat of paint next time?

So, we now had three branded wagons (on one side at least) and a viable method of repeating the process. Numbers and tare will go on all wagons, but we probably won't brand them all. Or maybe we'll do them all on one side and mix them up - very prototypical.

Laurence had kept his head down while the madness ensued and had completed the set of end stops for the cassettes.

Stephen then set-up the main building in place so he could tailor-make timber threshold strips across the garage openings. Both garages now had their floors glued in place and the 'workshop' had a bench, tool wall rack, shelving and a barrel.

The exterior walls had been painted white and the individual roof slates had been painted a mixture of colours. It looks a bit unnatural at this stage, but a grimy overcoat might make it more realistic.

The emulsion paint was mixed with plaster filler powder, for added texture, which also appears to reduce the gaps between the stones.

Footnote:

1 - We subsequently realised that the flimsiness of the first batch of transfers was due to us not applying a coat of varnish to the sheet. The spray paint coat certainly proved that an extra layer was beneficial, so we're going to try a coat of varnish over the white waterslide paper and then laser cut the lettering out, just to see if it makes any difference!