London Road Models LNWR D17 20T six wheel brake van

[Jol Wilkinson]

John Redrup at London Road Models has just introduced a kit for a LNWR D127 20T six wheel brake van.

The LNWR D17 20T six wheel brake vans effectively superseded the four wheel 10T brake van. Introduced in 1894, the majority were produced after 1900 with some 229 being in use by 1902.

The kit includes a superb cast resin body, a nickel silver etch for the underframe, brake gear, steps, etc. and the interior partition. Cast white metal springs, axle boxes, buffers and stove chimney are supplied together with lost wax brass castings for the lamps and bracket. The lamps could be swung out into position in the end veranda and this is possible which can be replicated with the brass castings. A vacuum formed roof and appropriate wires are provided together with brass pinpoint bearings.
The underframe can be assembled for rigid or compensated operation in OO, EM or P4 gauges. The comprehensive instructions include LNWR and LMS livery details. The kit is priced at £35:00.

London Road Models also produce the LNWR D16 10T four wheel brake van. This uses white metal castings for the van body and running gear details from the original D&S kit patterns, with a nickel silver etched underframe, etc. as in the D17.

London Road Models products can be found at http://www.londonroadmodels.co.uk
and can be contacted by email at londonroadmodels@btinternet.com or by post at P.O. Box 643, Watford. WD2 5ZJ

LNWR D17 kit contents.jpg

D17 Body interior.jpg

LNWR D17 brake van lamps.jpg

[philip-griffiths]

Looks great.

[triumph3]

I had the privilege of building up the test etch for this model and an excellent kit it is.The resin moulded body is fabulous.
Attached is a picture of my nearly finished kit, just the footboards and springs to fit.

David

FF106E67-AC6B-49D7-A199-681C3C5FDAAC.jpeg

[Guy Rixon]

Looks great, and I shall get one in due course.

How is the suspension arranged?

[garethashenden]

Looks great, and I shall get one in due course.

How is the suspension arranged?

From the picture of the etch it looks like all the W-irons are rocking.

Also I assume that these were introduced in 1884, not 1984?

[triumph3]

Yes the suspension is by rocking W irons. The body needs some weight to make the suspension work though.

David

[Jol Wilkinson]

One end w-iron is free to rock, as are the other two, although they are linked by wire beams on either side.

This is a derivative of Paul Tasker's Prickly Pear system, which John Redrup has used on several LRM LNWR wagon kits.

[Jol Wilkinson]

Looks great, and I shall get one in due course.

How is the suspension arranged?

From the picture of the etch it looks like all the W-irons are rocking.

Also I assume that these were introduced in 1884, not 1984?

Gareth,

I should have written 1894, so have amended my original post.

Jol

[Guy Rixon]

One end w-iron is free to rock, as are the other two, although they are linked by wire beams on either side.

This is a derivative of Paul Tasker's Prickly Pear system, which John Redrup has used on several LRM LNWR wagon kits.

OK, that'll be fun. I haven't had much luck with the torsion-spring systems. Perhaps this version is better.

I ordered my van yesterday. John says that he's out of lamp castings, so they will be sent on when they come into stock, possibly in January.

[Jol Wilkinson]

New instructions for the LNWR 6 wheel 20T brake van have been produced to correct some errors in those provided with the initial batch of kits.

A copy is attached. Note that the livery diagrams and the GA supplied with the original instructions are unchanged and so aren't included.

LNWR 20T six wheel brake van instructions 2021.pdf

[Weskie]

Thanks for that Jol. I did find that the clearances were a bit tight.
Here is where I've got to with my build.

IMG_7124.JPG

[Jol Wilkinson]

Hi Andy,

that's looking good.

Jol

[Guy Rixon]

I'm working through the chassis metalwork on on my kit. I found that the axleguards wouldn't fold up square because the side pieces of the axleguard "bridge" foul the brake-location "ears". Notching the tops of the bridge sides by ~0.5mm fixed it.

I found it really difficult to fold up the brake blocks and hangers. The etch wants to bend at its weakest point, which is the hole in the half-etched side, not the centreline. I quickly gave up the folding and made a jig with two wire pins in a block of wood. That let me cut apart the two parts of the hanger etch and stack them for soldering. I made one wire in the jig long enough to be the peg that secures the hanger to the axleguard and soldered this into the hanger assembly, adding a new wire for each hanger. With the top end of each hanger soldered, I pulled it our of the jig (pliers on the soldered-in wire; the thing sticks like crazy to the charred wood) and gripped the back of the block in tweezers and soldered the rubbing face of the block.

I realise that the hangers are meant to mount on wires running between each pair of axleguards, but I was finding it too hard to solder the hangers without soldering in at least one of the two jig-wires. I think my stub-axle approach will work OK when the hangers go onto the axleguards.

[Guy Rixon]

Having bullied the chassis together, and made up the supports for the brake shaft, I found that the chassis would not go into the body. Investigation with callipers showed that the solebars had bowed in at their bottom centres. Since the tops of the solebars are contiguous with the body floor I presume that they're not bowed there. The bow is about 0.4 mm on my copy, which means that the floor of the chassis won't clear the brake-shaft brackets. If I sprung it in, the brake-shaft brackets would foul the axleguard units. However, if the chassis can be de-bowed then there will be clearance for everything.

I cut a piece of scrap plywood and eased it in between the solebars, then soaked the bottom of the cast for two minutes in bowl of ~60 Celsius water. That was done this morning and hours later the solebars are staying roughly straight. I'm going to leave it a couple of days to see if they relapse back their bowed shape.

[Jol Wilkinson]

Guy,

I have advised John Redrup that their is an issue with your resin casting. John welcomes direct feedback on his products but doesn't frequent forums. I suggest you contact him at londonroadmodels@btinternet.com

Jol

[Guy Rixon]

Thanks, Jol. I'll send John some consolidated feedback when I've finished building the van. The notes here are mainly for anybody else who might be building one.

Currently, the solebars seem to be staying straight.

[Jol Wilkinson]

Thanks Guy,

I have already amended the instructions wot I wrote for John, reflecting on some of the feedback. Ironically the inner and outer brake blocks/hanger parts on the first test etch were separate but John asked me to join them with a small tag so that they could be folded over and soldered together. I'll have to stop listening to him.

Jol

[Weskie]

I didn't notice any bowing on mine and not easy to check now it's altogether. I think if i did another one I might try springing the axles as there is not much room for the axles to rock. Here is a shot of the underneath:

IMG_7163.jpg

We are having a running day on Clarendon in February so it'll be good to test it and see how well it goes round the curve into the station

[Menelaus]

I've just started to build this kit and am really enjoying it. It will be finished in LNWR post 1915 condition with the hatch in the ends to give the guard access to the lamp iron. The instructions tell you to "scribe the hatch outline on the ends..." but I can't find any indication of what form the hatch took. Was it framed, what shape / size did it take? Whist there are diagrams \ GA drawings included, they don't help (at least not me) and none of the photos available to me give a clear view. Can anyone here enlighten me?

[Jol Wilkinson]

I've had a good look through my LNWR "library" and the best information I can find is that the hatch cut out was 3 planks high. I can't find a dimension for the width but from the photos of the D17 and D17A and the Diagram Book drawing for the D93A it appears to be slightly narrower the "water deflector" at the top, which is part of the resin casting.

[Menelaus]

Thank you Jol, that is very helpful. It makes sense it would be narrower than the rain strip so I'll follow your advice. As I said earlier, really enjoying the build.