GER 10 Ton Brake Van

[richardw]

It seems to have been very quiet on the Forum lately so I have been prompted by Richard Phillip's post to put my current project on show in the hope it will encourage others to share their progress with us all. Sorry about the Picture quality but it isn't really the weather for getting outside into decent light.

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I still have quite a few of the smaller details to make/fit but it is coming along slowly as time permits.

The wheels, axleboxes, buffers and brake gear are all pretty much complete as well but cannot be refitted until I have made the springs which is one of those jobs I keep putting off.

I look forward to seeing what others are working on.

Richard

[TonyG]

Hi Richard,
How many hours do you think you have put into your brake van and also what type wood you using?

Tony

[richardw]

Hi Tony

Sorry but I haven't got a clue how many hours it has taken so far! Due to a variety of reasons the build has been spread over the last 3 years including 12 months where I did nothing due to an intensive training course after changing careers so I lost track of the time spent in the workshop. I would guess that I could build it in less than a years free time if I hadn't had all the other distractions.

As to the wood, it is made predominantly out of oak which has been nice to work with and was what I could get hold of when I started the build but I would be inclined to find something finer grained if possible for future projects. Hopefully others on here with more experience can tell us what they have used successfully.

Richard

[Richard Phillips]

It's good to see more build "diaries", I find the construction process interesting.

I used oak for the underframe and body of my LMS sand wagon. I'm not much of a woodworker as I found out. Oak is a bit course grained for this scale and can crack, but I did like the finish and I'm sure any competent woodworker, unlike me, can get the best out of it. It was mentioned to me that although full-size wagon underframes were commonly made of oak, the bodies were usually made of a cheaper timber.

I think it's lime that is used by other builders, but some people tend to use whatever they can find to size, orange boxes or dismantled venetian blinds! I had a load of oak planed up when I ordered some fencing, I have a fair bit left over as I planned to make some other wagons with it. Now time is against me I wonder if I'll ever get around to it!

Great to see your build, looks very good.

[richardw]

Work is progressing on my brake van, got it painted in primer this afternoon and hope to get the top coats on next week then on to final assembly. It doesn't look much different to the last photo but a lot of little jobs have been completed now. The springs are more or less finished as well so it should be on the wheels quite quickly after painting. Fingers crossed it'll be running at the May Gilling Rally.

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[richardw]

The van had it's first run round the track on Saturday, still plenty to do to finish it but I was pleased with the way it ran.

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Hopefully most of the exterior jobs will be completed before the May rally.

[Keith1500]

Richard

Just been looking at your flickr pictures and photo 0057 is most intersting, the one of the bare frame up-side-down. Let me persuade you to post it here and explain a bit about it. Couple of bits I noticed are the V hangers, the buffing springs and the metal brakets on the ends for the springs etc.

Keith

[richardw]

Keith,

As persuaded here is the picture you refer to:



I built this underframe based on a General Arrangement drawing of the brake van that I obtained from the NRM that was slightly grainy and in places hard to read the smaller dimensions on.I also used other information such as GL5 standards and some of Dougs drawings of other vehicles to help me along. Based on that not all the details you see are necessarily correct but are best guesses based on available information along with a touch of modellers licence which I'll own up to as I discuss each of the points you mention with a close up of each detail.

Also I'll add the caveat that these were work in progress photos and some bits may well have been tidied up or improved by the time I finished it. That's it for this installment but I'll add the details over the next day or two as time permits.

[richardw]

I'll start with the buffing and drawbar springs:



I have no idea why the springs are located so far from the buffers and drawhook but according to the GA this is the correct location and configuration. The springs and buckles were standard Dave Noble ones and were just what I needed so why reinvent the wheel.

As you can hopefully see from the photo the buffing forces are transferred to the springs by a pad fitted to the end of the buffer shanks. This is one of the areas that is definitely not a scale fitting, If I had a milling machine I would probably have machined something more elegant and closely resembling the sort of casting that would have been used on the prototype but I took the easy option and used a piece of brass bar faced off, drilled and tapped to take the buffer shank and then using the vertical vice on the lathe machined a slot in the other end for the spring to sit in.

The drawhook/bar started life as a Dave Noble casting which comes with a pad cast in that is just the right size for his spring buckle but of course far too short for this vehicle so I cut the pad off the drawhook and silver soldered a length of steel bar to the hook and refitted the pad at the other end. The other thing I am glad I remembered to do was put a hole in the sub-floor to allow pin removal after lifting a couple of floorboards in case I ever need to get the springs out again. You can't see it clearly on any of the photos but there are two sheets of 3mm steel under the cabin floor that act as ballast weights which I expect was an iron casting on the original.

Hopefully, Keith, this is the sort of thing you were asking for, I'll do more later.

[richardw]

Moving on to the spring hanger/brake hanger thingies:



These were also a best guess from the GA Drawing as that was all I had to go on, it appeared to be a single piece on the drawing but I doubt I'll ever know for sure as no detail drawings came to light when I was researching it. I started off by drawing them up in CAD as I had already drawn up the timber, this allowed me to print it out on card to make sure it all lined up okay and gave me a template to work from. They were then just hacksawed and filed to shape.

The spring hanger dimensions were taken from one of Dougs drawings which was a mistake on my part as I didn't allow for the fact that his drawings were for a different type of spring mounting (Not a criticism of his drawing just my mis-use of it). Mine should have had the legs closer together so that the links between the hanger and springs ended up the same distance apart as the width of the spring but I didn't notice until it was time to put the wheelsets in and fit the springs, a bit of cursing and persuading later and all turned out well enough, another lesson learnt! If I remember correctly these were drilled to take a 1/16" rivet as a pin, I'll check when I get a chance and edit this if necessary.

The lug for the brake hanger was simply drilled, filed to shape and silver soldered on to bracket so that the brake blocks were in line with the tread. The whole was then fitted to the underframe with panel pins that had the heads turned down in the lathe to fit neatly in the countersunk holes.

[richardw]

Whilst this is not one of the points requested by Keith I'll pass on a little idea to help newcomers to wagon building that I got from Doug .

A lot of timber underframed wagons have a joggle in the W-irons roughly in line with the bottom of the solebar as shown in this picture of my mineral wagon.



This led me to a lot of headscratching on how to get all the bends the same until I mentioned it to Doug who said just cut a slot in a piece of sheet steel, slot the piece through to the right place and squeeze it all up in the vice, job done. Below is my version of the joggler which may or may not be what Doug meant but it works just fine, I think it would be better in a sligthly thicker gauge sheet but this was all I had to hand at the time.

[Eddyg]

Richard,

Thanks for showing us your, or should I say Doug's jig for joggling. I suppose the plate should be as thick as the joggle offset and the slot width the centres of the bends. I shall try it in due course. My previous attempts, whilst ultimately successful, used two plates and various clamps and was not very repeatable. This will make the job much easier. I guess that putting a radius on the edges of the slot will reduce the tendency to bruise the workpiece in the inside of the bends.

I'm much impressed with your van. I'm not a fan of wood as a material and am envious of those who can achieve the sort of quality you have shown us. Well done.

Eddie