Bill Bedford 3' 6" W-irons in NCPS

[Craig Warton]

I have acquired a fair collection of GWR horse boxes and am making a start on the first one (D&S N4). I was planning on using the BB sprung W-irons, but the simply do not fit within the confines of the older horse boxes. I have decided to build this one as intended but am interested in using sprung W-irons on some of them. Has anybody tried cutting them down in length? Alternately, are there any other approaches to spring short body stock such as Horse boxes?

Regards,

Craig Warton

[doktorstamp]

If I remember correctly BB also does internal Irons, aimed primarily at RTR models, and for use with parallel ended axles. They are apparently relatively discreet.

regards

Nigel

[Russ Elliott]

Craig - is there not enough room for Bill's 'short-span' 1907 RCH type?

[Craig Warton]

Russ,

I just did some measurements and I think the 1907 type would *just* fit, but the would be hard against the head stock. This raises the challenge of how to fit buffer housings! The other thing is the height of the irons - I assume they would need to be packed down 1mm to compensate for the larger wheel sets?

I have pretty well completed the under frame today. The w irons were an absolute devil to fold up, the fold material was very thick and caused me to utter a few words at times. I also had my obligatory problem with compensated irons of trying to get the dratted thing to sit level. One end or the other always seems to be out for me - just one of the reasons I prefer springing.

Regards,

Craig.

PS Nigel, I might have a look at the internal units. My only concern with that is my interest is the D.N & S and I could easily put 4 or 5 boxes on a passenger train. Not sure if the drag will be an issue or not.

[Russ Elliott]

Yes, I thought even the shorties would be tight lengthways, and just about impossible to combine them with conventional sprung buffers. It's probably one of those instances where it might be pragmatic and stick to the as-supplied compensation, and don't forget there are the clasp brakes and their safety loops to hang on to whatever units are used. I don't think there will be an issue heightwise on a BB unit with 14mm wheels, but it's a close call for a 13.8mm buffer height.

The drag arising from internal units will be very noticeable compared to pinpoints, but a positive boon when using AJs!

[Craig Warton]

Russ,

I side tracked myself from building a while yesterday to look further at fitting BB irons. Even the 1907 ones are flush with the inside of the headstock, even the spring wire would not fit. Any sort of buffer even being fitted would be a bit of an issue. Under the circumstances I agree that this sort of stock is one that should be build compensated!

I have fitted the outside clasp brakes and am just trying to get my head around the rest of the brake gear. The D & S instructions are terse to the point that in parts I find them challenging to follow. Whilst wading through things I noticed that the Colin Waite N5 has a pretty good isometric drawing and that makes the brake ear easire to understand.

AJ's.... I have all the jigs, have even managed to make some up. I just need to get over my "road block" about the appearance of automatic couplings. I think I should spend an hour or two uncoupling three link and screw couplings to perhaps get a bit ore interested in them.

Despite all this, I must admit that it is a pretty good kit, even at nearly 30 years of age. Thankfully I am enjoying the build which is good because I did a count and realised i have a further 8 etched horse boxes to build.

regards,

Craig

[DavidM]

Craig,

It's a pity we didn't meet as planned this weekend - I could have shown you a potential solution using the BB RCH 1907 units that I have fitted to a Colin Waite P7 Carriage Truck underframe. They are packed out to increase depth and, as with the horsebox, just fit within the headstocks. I had already decided sprung buffers were not going to be possible so fixed units will be flush fitted, perhaps with a reduced rear projection just engaging with the hole in the headstock. The buffer rear will constrain the outer end of the spring wire, the inner end will be constrained by a small block of Foamcore superglued (minimally) to the inside of the solebar once the vehicle is completed. A trial run of this arrangement has proved succesful and I have used a similar solution with Gordon Ashton loco sprung units when space is limited. A close-up photo will explain this more clearly, when I get a chance!

David

[Russ Elliott]

Craig - is it in fact an N8 diagram? Assuming it is, here are some notes I made you may find useful or infuriating: the footboards in particular are a bit of a minefield.

Bonnet vents benefit from doubling in thickness - the kit as supplied leaves them flush with the door panelling. The later lots have a more modern variety of tack box door, plus longer footboards under the groom door: these longer steps were wooden (as opposed to the original form, which are metal, for both the upper and lower steps).

The prominent 'knocker beams' attached to the top of the drop doors are not provided in the kit: these can be made from 0.8mm or 0.9mm wire filed to a 3/4 round shape, with a slight flat put on to the front after fixing in place.

The roof profile on the ends as supplied is too much of a single-arc shape: you might want to consider adding a layer of 20 thou to the top edge and then filing down to the correct contour, which is more of a pronounced 3-arc shape. AFAIK no N8s had a single-arc roof.

Communication gear is unfortunately not provided in the kit.

The brake gear is a problem: whilst the kit builds to the original form of the prototype, I wonder how long the single brake block arrangement for the manual brake was kept - I couldn't find any prototype pictures taken between the official as-built condition and the very modified final form (as a Tool Van) of the last survivor, No 35. The central shaft of the chassis brake gear benefits from being 0.9mm wire instead of the intended 0.7mm, which looks a bit skimpy. 0.9mm wire does however come very close to breaking through the V-hangers.

D & S rocking W-irons are notoriously weak usually requiring generous fillets of solder on the inside bends to ensure they keep their shape. The W-irons should have bridle plates.

I found on my part-built kit that the rocking end was riding slightly high, so the W-iron rocking bracket holes had to be slotted down accordingly.

Footboards varied in style and length, depending on era. The solebar footboards supplied in the kit are the usual single thickness etch attaching through a tab in the solebar. Unfortunately, when mounted, they are, at 31.5mm, about 3mm under what the overfootboard dimension should be. Solebar to body support brackets were unlikely to have been fitted on later batches, since figure 105 of Jim Russell's Great Western Coaches Part One, which is very likely an N8 (confirmed by John Lewis' numbering notes given in the D & S instructions) clearly does not have the original form of body support brackets: strangely, it does not seem to have any form of bracket, even the later type. The pictures of No 35 in its last tool van days are very murky in the solebar area, but also seem to show an absence of any form of bracket. If you are fitting double thickness material for the footboards (which looks far better than a single thickness) with a angled rear 'kicking section', these will foul the support brackets as supplied in the kit, so some or all of the latter are probably best left off *. Footboards are probably best attached with wire brackets brackets attached to the underside of the step and the gap between the solebar and the W-iron. It's better to sort the footboards and their mountings before proceeding with the rest of the chassis.

* Andrew Field's N5, from a Colin Waite kit, (see MRJ Compendium No 1) does not show any body support brackets, but then nor does the kit. The PC N6 kit does show the body support brackets, but I haven't found a photo of one yet. The picture in BRJ No 13 (John Lewis' article on GWR coach lighting) shows 572, an N4, which shows no sign of the strip-like body support brackets and has acquired a full length upper footboard at the groom's end.

[Craig Warton]

Russ,

The one that I am working on at the moment is an N4, but in my wall of death I also have 3 x N8 that I purchased recently from Brassmasters. I also have another N4, an N5, N6 and 2 x N11. You may begin to realise I have a bit of a thing about horseboxes.

Thankyou for the notes on the N8, they have been printed out and stuck in one of the boxes but it has also made me go back and look a bit closer at the N4 kit now. I really do not like the ventilator bonnets at all - flat brass just does not capture the appearance of the real thing to me so I will have to try and rework them somehow.

I had forgotten about that photo in BRJ which is superb. If that is C1923 as stated then i assume the N4 - which still has a white roof - should be in brown?

A good friend of mine has produced a HO scale kit of a New South wales railways LFX Second class Express Lavatory coach. have a look at the ventilator bonnets on this! I have tried to persuade him numerous times to do something GWR but deaf ears so far!

[Russ Elliott]

Craig - I haven't got my BRJs to hand, but IIRC that N4 has 25" lettering, so will have had a body paint date pre-1920, which almost certainly means it's in crimson lake, although it's just possible it's still carrying brown from a pre-1912 repaint. (An Edwardian paint job would be expected to last for at least 10 years.) The white roof indicates a recent clean, not a contemporary full body and roof repaint. Crimson was still commonly seen on coaches until 1926, and probably lasted on horse boxes for some considerable time after that.

On footboards, my N8 notes probably apply to N4s as well.

P.S. Love those sloping bonnet vents on that NSW coach. Could definitely use a whole pile of those!

[Craig Warton]

Russ,

I have been having a look at the photo in BRJ #13, which is very interesting indeed. I think the box is 572 which makes it from Lot 458. The box still clearly has the outside brakes but the step board is (I think) a later modification. GWRJ #78 has a photo of N3 #669 fitted with a step board running the full length of the grooms compartment which logic suggests it would not have had originally either. So, your notes about the N8 would appear to apply to the N4 as well.Certainly I think that by my chosen early - mid 1920s era they would have had a full step board. So, modifications to be made.

On that photo in BRJ 13, the roof of the box is still white, but the body is very tatty indeed with the lettering starting to fade. I tend to go with Crimson too, but would suggest that the roof has been repaired and this accounts for the new appearance.

The more I look at these things the more fascinating it becomes but the more it sinks in that building kits is (for me) never simple.

Regards,

Craig

[Russ Elliott]

Bill has asked me to post the following:

Springing can be arranged for vehicles with short overhangs as follows:

- Remove the outer spring support arms from the W-irons and mount them in
the usual way.

- Recover two of the ends of the detached spring support arms, shorten
them and fix on the vehicle's longitudinal centre line.

- Use a single spring wire each side arranged to pass through the inner
supports on the W-irons and the new centre support.

The wire may have to be thicker than normal to compensate for the fact
that it is a cantilever.

Diagrammatically:

bb-w-irons-centre-support.png

This can be represented as two 'constrained cantilevers' arranged back-to-back, the deflection characteristics being given in the section on Overhanging load on beam constrained by two simple supports:

constrained-cantilever.png

Back-to-back constrained cantilevers are very stable when used in bogie vehicles, but I'm not convinced of their pitch stability in a SWB wagon, cantilevers being inherently lively. For a 9' wb wagon using shortie BB W-irons, the deflection of the above cantilever is approx 4.5 times that of the same W-iron used in conventional mode with the same diameter spring. Since deflection is proportional to the fourth power of diameter, i.e. in this case (d1/d2)4 = 4.5, the wire diameter in the cantilever case would need to be approx 50% thicker than in the normal case. (The finite length of the carrier complicates the matter, so this comparison is given only as a starter for experimentation.)

There's also the likelihood of brake gear and vees thwarting the cantilever arrangement of course.

[Craig Warton]

Russ,

Many thanks for the thoughts on springing. It was one of the things I had contemplated. I decided to bite the bullet this afternoon and fitted the additional step that ran the full length of the grooms compartment in latter years. After looking at this for a while I came back to mulling over w-irons and decided to have a go at cutting back the 3'6" irons so I could fit them in and do some experiments with wire size. They were very easy to cut back and I resoldered the the wire supports. it fitted very well indeed and so I then stripped the compensated stuff off the underframe and fitted the iron into position - fitted lovely....... except! On one side, it protruded below the solebar by a mm.
What on earth had I done wrong? I checked and checked... everything was right.

I then looked at the etch and there is a mistake on the etch. On one side, the solebar section "inside" the iron area is 3mm on the other side it is 4mm. Now I realise that everybody in the UK knew this already, but I certainly did not.

Now I find that I have a fret of 3'6" irons I cant use unless I want to do some really tedious filing and to cap it off I ordered more from Eileens the other day. Hopefully this little enhancement has been noted and corrected.

To say I am a little peeved at the moment is an understatement and for a few minutes there the air in the garage was quite blue.

Photos are attached so others can see the issue if they do not know already!

side 2.jpg

side 1.jpg

Underframe.jpg

BB etch.jpg

Regards,

Craig

Looks like I am using 1907 irons now because I had hopes of taking this to our area group meeting tomorrow.

[essdee]

Hmmm, useful warning, Craig -I have been considering how to retro-spring a large collection of compensated wagons built 20-30 years ago, after admiring Keith Bradbury's sprung stock for a long while. May have to put plans on hold till I see how this pans out, before I decide how to do it.

Presumably you have somehow got hold of a pre-production etch, since it is clearly asymmetric? What purpose might this asymmetry have - is it some unexplained design feature ? Very annoying indeed. I, too, certainly have no spare time to waste fettling a large batch of unsuitable W irons to fit below shallower solebars.

At least you can look forward to the latest batch from Eileens being the correct production version; presumably your faulty one could be exchanged as unfit for purpose?

Does this feature apply to the W irons for wagon, as opposed to van, wheels, do you know?

Keep us posted, won't you?

BW

Steve

[JFS]

Russ,
I then looked at the etch and there is a mistake on the etch. On one side, the solebar section "inside" the iron area is 3mm on the other side it is 4mm. Now I realise that everybody in the UK knew this already, but I certainly did not.

Have you reported this to "The Supplier"? I am quite sure he will be only too happy to supply you with a corrected etch free of charge. If not, at least you can demand your money back!

Best Wishes,

Howard

[Craig Warton]

Russ,
I then looked at the etch and there is a mistake on the etch. On one side, the solebar section "inside" the iron area is 3mm on the other side it is 4mm. Now I realise that everybody in the UK knew this already, but I certainly did not.

Have you reported this to "The Supplier"? I am quite sure he will be only too happy to supply you with a corrected etch free of charge. If not, at least you can demand your money back!

Best Wishes,

Howard

Howard,

I purchased these units before they were taken over by Eileens. I have just ordered another 2 packs of them so I will wait to see if they have this enhancement as well.

Nothing is ever easy is it?

I have not seen this on either of the RCH irons which are the other ones I have used, so rest easy on that front.

Regards,

Craig

[essdee]

Thanks Craig, for the all-clear on the other W irons -that's good to know.

S

[Russ Elliott]

Craig - what is the product code on that etch - BBWF001-4 or BBWF003-4?

In any event, you seem to have got hold of a very early version, and the newer ones have been corrected, at least it would seem so from the latest version of the artwork. The newer ones also have slightly stronger arms on the carriers. Understandably peeved you may well be at the moment, but what you've got has a distinct bonus which the new products do not have - brakes!!! (So I'm not sure you should hurry too much to return them to Mr Eileen's for a replacement. Ten minutes of graunching with a burr might be worth it for the sake of keeping those brakes.)

Bill's products are a bit like Microsoft operating systems - distinctly unknowable territory until at least Service Pack 2...

[Trevor Grout]

<< Bill's products are a bit like Microsoft operating systems - distinctly unknowable territory until at least Service Pack 2... >>

PMSL - and as such have also many rollup hotfixes afterwards too....

regards
trevor

[Russ Elliott]

Craig - having talked to Bill, it seems what you have got is one of the GWR coach W-iron etches, and not the NPCS W-iron product. The former does still contain brakes. You'll be pleased to know that the artwork has now been corrected.