Photo © P. Hetherington 26/08/07
Photo © P. Hetherington 27/08/07
Photo © P. Hetherington 27/08/07
Photo © P. Hetherington 27/08/07
|
Photo © P. Hetherington 26/08/07 |
Three sunny days, just right for painting. On Saturday I wire-brushed the next two sections of underframe, and for good measure did the best I could with the fiddly bit which acts as the fixed point in the brake rigging. These were all painted in primer, although as I ended up painting in the dark I had to touch up in a few places on Sunday. |
|
Photo © P. Hetherington 27/08/07 |
I can't do the last underframe section until I've dismantled the south end brake rigging, so instead I made a start on the bodywork on Sunday, wire-brushing and priming the two 'middle' triangular end supports at the non-tensioning end. The 'outer' supports will have to wait until I've traced the remnants of the original lettering, for which I have the tracing paper but keep forgetting to take a pencil... |
|
Photo © P. Hetherington 27/08/07 |
On Monday I wire-brushed and primed the centre stanchion slot on the east side of the wagon, and also another section of solebar, having first removed the label clip by breaking its wooden mounting block into three pieces - oops! |
|
Photo © P. Hetherington 27/08/07 |
The main task on Monday, however, was painting the two underframe sections and two triangular end supports into undercoat. For the latter, I'm using a different undercoat since these will ultimately be in bauxite livery. I'm really not sure what colour to describe this undercoat as but it has a certain pinkness to it... |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 02/09/07 |
On Saturday I started to wire-brush and prime the centre triangular end
supports at the north end of the wagon. This end is, of course, rather more
complicated than the other due to the load tensioning apparatus, so I only
managed to complete three of the four faces [left]. On Sunday I finished wire brushing and priming thr fourth triangular face... [right] |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 02/09/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 03/09/07 |
...while new volunteer Mike cleaned up some smaller parts including
the north end brake rigging pins and the two coupling chain hooks
[left]. Finally, Monday was painting day, and fortunately the rain held off. Firstly, the tensioning screws were cleaned and primed, and the coupling chain hooks were also primed. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 29/09/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 03/09/07 |
Next, the centre supports at the south end became the first parts to
be painted in bauxite top-coat. It's a very red-ish bauxite and very
striking, though it might need another coat before it's finished; we'll
see. And finally, the centre supports at the north end were painted in undercoat. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 09/09/07 |
| A few weeks ago I collected a pair of 'swan neck' fittings for the vacuum pipe. These had been removed from another wagon and came with the remains of an old pipe seized into them. A couple of weeks ago I drilled a pair of crowbar-sized holes through these old bits of pipe but that wasn't enough, so today I got the heating gear out, heated the swan-necks up and was then able to unscrew the old pipe remnants. The new vacuum pipe itself is on order. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 09/09/07 |
| Next the centre section of bodywork at the north end was painted in bauxite top-coat. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 09/09/07 |
| And finally, the bits of underframe in undercoat were painted in black gloss. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 09/09/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 15/09/07 |
I can't finish painting the underframe until I dismantle the
brake rigging at the south end, but I want to put the north end
brake rigging back together first, but before I can do that I want
to get the north end wheelset painted, so... On Saturday I wire-brushed and primed the axle and the 'inside' faces of the wheels, while on Sunday I did the 'outside' face of one wheel. I decided not to push on and do the other wheel as rain was predicted for later; this was also why I didn't apply any undercoat. The primer dries really quickly but the undercoat takes several hours. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 16/09/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 15/09/07  Photo © P. Hetherington 15/09/07  Photo © P. Hetherington 15/09/07 |
Removal of the old paint reveals several interesting stampings on
the north end wheelset. These use a 'script' style of lettering which
I'm afraid I have difficulty in reading, so feel free to correct my
interpretation. You can click on the photographs for a proper look. The axle is stamped 'JBC F1818' and '7 59 BR' (above left) while the northeast wheel is stamped 'J1881' (left) and '1881 66' (below left) towards the outer edges on the inside face of the wheel. The northwest wheel is similarly stamped but only has the 'J1881'; my suspicion is that the '1881 66' or equivalent was lost when the holes were cut. Around the rim are several stampings including 'A174844A' (above right) and '?? C JBC 10 1959 BR' (right and below right), and there is also '194' twice, one above the other, interspersed with 'W 12' the opposite way up (right). 'A174844A' seems to be the wheelset number although the northwest wheel omits the trailing 'A'. The '??' are two characters which I really can't make sense of - 'TL' perhaps? The dates are obvious but whatever the other characters mean, I'm afraid I have no idea. The dates are interesting as they show that the axle is three months older than the wheels. As we know the wagon dates from November 1959, I think it is highly likely that this is an original wheelset. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 15/09/07  Photo © P. Hetherington 15/09/07  Photo © P. Hetherington 15/09/07 |
 Photo © S. Taylor 23/09/07 |
Once again rain was forecast for later in the day, so any paint
had to be of the quick-drying variety, i.e. primer. So I cleaned up,
wire brushed and primed the remaining outer wheel face of the north
end wheelset. The photo below shows what happens if you let a professional photographer with an artistic bent borrow your Dad's camera... |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 23/09/07 |
 Photo © S. Taylor 23/09/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 23/09/07 |
The most awkward bit of the wheelsets to clean up and paint was the bit behind the bearing, which of course nobody will ever see, but it still needs doing anyway, so here it is. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 23/09/07 |
With the wheelset now all in primer I looked around for something else to do and settled on this piece of brake rigging. I didn't leave it there, by the way. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 29/09/07 |
Saturday's weather looked a bit suspect early on. Undercoating didn't
seem like a good idea. So I got the wire brushes out and prepared and
primed another section of underframe on the east side of the wagon. Things brightened up later so I got the undercoat out and painted a few areas which had been in primer for a while. I only did the 'insides' of the wheels though. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 30/09/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 30/09/07 |
On Sunday I wire brushed and primed another section of solebar on the
west side of the wagon. The areas I've left are where original lettering
needs to be traced before being painted over. That done, I got the black gloss out and painted the 'insides' of the wheels up to top coat. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 30/09/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 30/09/07 |
While I had the black gloss out I did another section of underframe
on the east side of the wagon, although I left a few patches where the
undercoat needed touching up. I then undercoated the section of solebar on the east side which had been primed the previous day. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 30/09/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 07/10/07 |
I had a few other things to do this weekend so not a lot got done. I wire brushed one more section of solebar and painted it in primer, then undercoated the outer surface of the two north end wheels. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 07/10/07 |
Then I undercoated another section of solebar which had been primed the previous weekend. The undercoat was applied quite late in the day, which can be a bit dodgy at this time of year so I hope it's ok... |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 13/10/07  Photo © P. Hetherington 13/10/07 |
Saturday was overcast with occasional bouts of dampness, so painting
was out of the question. I decided. therefore, to take the brake handles
off; this will facilitate painting of the cross-shaft and part of the
solebar as well as the handles themselves. This was not as easy as it sounds as there are a couple of very large split pins which really didn't want to be un-split, but we got there eventually. Thanks to a couple of the S&T lads for helping out. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 13/10/07  Photo © P. Hetherington 13/10/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 14/10/07 |
Sunday was much nicer, so I spent most of the day wire-brushing the
cross-shaft before eventually painting it in primer. Unfortunately it
was dark by the time I finished, so I'll have to have another look at
it in daylight to see how much I missed. I also painted in grey undercoat an area of solebar which had been primed the previous week. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 14/10/07 |
The weather was too inclement for doing much this weekend, but on Saturday I managed to patch up the primer on the cross-shaft, which had been painted in the dark a couple of weeks ago.
I also undercoated a couple of bits which could be left indoors, i.e. the two hooks for the coupling chains when not in use and the long shaft from the brake rigging.
 Photo © P. Hetherington 04/11/07 |
A nice day for painting, other than the slightly foggy start. I spent most of the day cleaning up this underframe section for priming. The bit behind the brake handle guide was particularly awkward, but I decided that unbolting it would be even more awkward (mainly due to split pins 'round the back' which would need sawing off). |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 10/11/07 |
I also painted two more sections of solebar into top coat on the west side of the wagon... |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 04/11/07 |
...and then got carried away and did a third section, although it was getting a bit cold for painting by the end so I hope it dries properly - we'll see. The bits on the edge which I've deliberately missed need a little more preparation which I'll do as and when. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 10/11/07 |
I only had a spare hour or so on Saturday, and the weather really wasn't very good, but I managed to touch up some of last week's black gloss which, inevitably, wasn't looking too clever in a couple of places. I then got carried away and painted some more solebar on the east side of the wagon into black. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 11/11/07 |
Sunday was nicer, so I wire brushed and primed the brake handle from the west side of the wagon, and touched up a few other bits here and there... |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 25/11/07 |
...then I got the grey undercoat out and painted most of the
cross-shaft. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 25/11/07 |
Firstly, and most importantly, I have been back and corrected my
recent pseudo-Roman numerals into actual-Roman numerals. With
installment #50 rapidly approaching, I thought it was as well to
look them up... This wasn't a full day's wagon work, but I patched up the primer on the brake handle (painted a couple of weeks ago) and long brake rigging shaft (painted ages and ages ago, and actually in undercoat) and stuck them back under cover and out of the way. That done, I got the gloss out and finally finished painting the north end wheels. The northwest one looks good; the northeast one is mostly ok but might need some fettling on one small area in due course. |
| I then started painting the cross-shaft, and got about halfway
before deciding that it was getting too cold to paint. Finally, I undercoated the southwestern end of the solebar. |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 25/11/07  Photo © P. Hetherington 25/11/07 |
 Photo © P. Hetherington 01/12/07 |
Again, not much time available, but I painted the other half of the
cross-shaft and the southwestern corner of the solebar in black gloss,
and touched up a couple of other bits. And yes, this is a dreadful photo, sorry! |
Back to Part 7: March to July 2007
Go to Part 9: December 2007 to August 2008