More Wagons.......

Wagons, Wagons, Wagons. Thats is where my modeling focus is at the moment.
While im waiting for the call from Hare and forbes to tell me my brand new lathe has arrived, ive been working on various jobs around the shed to get it set up and running.

With the number of wagons I own steadily increasing in numbers, storage of wagons had become a problem.
Until now.
A friend of mine has been moving workshops and on one of the days I was helping him move I was offered some shelving. At first I said no to the offer, But while driving between workshops I came up with a use for this shelving that was on offer to me.

My newly finished wagon storage solution.

The shelves have worked out perfect. With a small amount of additions and modifications to the shelves I now no longer have wagons rolling around on the workshop floor, and the toolbox, box of supplies and the box for the steam engine are all packed away and stored neatly. WIN WIN!

So now to the wagons......
The PV is allmost finished. It now has its first coat of paint and now only needs small jobs to complete it.

 First coat of paint on PV 675.

Also this weekend my brother welded up my LCH for me. I was going to weld it with my newly aquired aluminium welding skills but he wanted to do it.... Who was I going to argue with someone who does it all day????

                                                                        

Welded up LCH.

Tonight I fitted the axlebox's to the LCH. Now Im waiting on the lathe to show up so I can turn the wheels and axles for this.

Im also in the middle of modifing my new bumtruck. But that will be subject of another post.

Thats all for now. Tomorrow im off to Cootamundra for work. There is a 47 class that needs some work done to it.

Another running weekend.

Just last weekend I took 1248 for a run at a mates house in Western Sydney.
I allways look forward to my visits to this track because in my own personal opinion it is one of the best tracks around.
We arrived mid morning and once the engines were unloaded we spent the afternoon running around the track.
This run was the first run for my second S truck that I have been posting about over the last few months. The wagon ran well with no troubles at all. Not even a single derailment.
We all ran from mid morning saturday until the very early hours of Sunday morning.

I didnt take many photos as I was out driving most of the time but I will share a few that i did take.

3805 and 3819 wait for a train in the yard. Unfortunatly they didnt double head.

1248 enjoys a rest in the yard.

A line up of a couple of engines in the yard.

A mate of mine takes 1248 for a run up the hill.

My freight train as it stands at the moment.

5701 undergoing heavy load trials.

Now that this run has been and gone I can now take 1248 off the operational roster. At 35 years of age the poor old thing is starting to become a bit tired. I will also now be decomisioning 1248's driving truck. This has been the engines original driving truck and after reaching 35 years of age, it has reached the end of its useful life and will not be run again.

Today I made the trip over to Hare and Forbes to purchase my lathe. Unfortunatly there was none in stock, once it arrives in a few weeks I will be able to begin working through my full page of repairs and modifications for 1248.

While im here I might as well give a quick update on the PV. Body work has been completed and it is ready to enter the paint shops. However I might just build a new roof for it...... Im not 100% happy with it. We will see what happens.

I have alot of other side projects on the go as well at the moment. There is plenty going on. But they will be subjects of another post some other time.
Thats all for now.

Body Works and the Liverpool train show.

Over the last couple of nights ive managed to complete the body work for the Explosive van.
First I scribed in the lines to represent the doors and the timber work into the plywood sides of the van.

This afternoon after returning to mum and dads place from my trip out to the Liverpool model train show, I managed to glue on the railcraft door hinges and louver van door handles onto the body and now it really is starting to look like an explosive van!

 Body works complete.

PV 675.

Now Ill have to turn my attention to building the roof for it and setting up the running gear.

As I mentioned further up I visited the Liverpool Model Railway show today and as with previous years I attended it was worth the look. Plently of great layouts to see and lots of great things to buy. I had to keep myself from buying the new Austrains pack of a LHO guards van, KP Mail Van and FS pass car. I dont need a smaller scale to model in (however they would look great behind my trainorama 3245!). I was a bit disapointed that Austrains is only selling in 3 packs. Some of us out there only want to buy 1 FS or a guards van etc. 

Thats all for now.

Jason.

PV 675 taking shape.

The PV van is starting to come along nicely now. Since the last post on the van I have managed to get alot done, Here's what Ive done.

A couple of weeks back now I welded the underframe with my MIG welder (after changing the wire and gas). This came about from a discussion with my brother about welding alluminium with my MIG welder and we came to the conclusion that there would only be one way to find out if it would work...... HAVE A GO.
So I did. This was my first time welding aluminium and it wasnt as bad as I thought it would be. Ill have to buy some more S trucks so I can improve my alli welding skills.

Welded up underframe.



After I welded the underframe I then began to work on the body. I cut out the body sheets to size about 2 weeks ago and started to glue it together. Tonight I glued the last of the supports inside the body and that has finished building the body. Now I will have to turn my attention to detailing the body.

Completed Body ready for detailing.

Tonight I have also decided on the number for the PV. A while back I stumbled onto some information on the internet about the PV vans including a list of numbers that a few (maybe it was a complete number list???) PV vans were numbered. Using this list of PV van's I have decided to number mine PV 675.

Thats all for now.

Until next time.......

Name Change.

Just thought I might let everyone know Ive decided to change the name of my blog. Ive been thinking about it over the last week or so that the original name of the blog was a bit long and a mouthfull as well. So now we have The Waratah Railway Workshops.

Over the last 2 weeks or so Ive managed to get a large amount of work done to the PV Explosive Van. Once I return back Home after this weekend and get a little bit more work done on it I will give you all an update on my progress.

First Job in the new shed.

Its been a few weeks since Ive made a post so here goes.
Ive been very busy with moving here to the new house and working some very long hours with the new job.
Ive managed to partially set up the new workshop but its no where near organised yet!

Tonight I completed the first job in the new workshop. I made up a very simple tool to remove some stuck injector cones in an Injector.

To cut a long story short ive been having a fair bit of Injector trouble with my loco 1248.
At the easter AALS convention at Edgeworth I purchased two Injectors from a supplier that was selling various parts at a trade stand there.

The first injector was a Warrick Sandberg injector. I baught this one because Warricks injectors have an excelent reputation for reliability etc, So I figured I would buy this to hopefully solve all my injector trouble...... When I baught this injector from Oldmate with the trade stand he told me "That injector is untested and brand new but doesnt come with a test certificate like my ones do".
Anyways I tried the injector on my engine straight away......No go it didnt work.
So i fitted the other "cheep" injector and continued to keep running.

Now a few months have past and I happend to be speaking to Warrick and mentiond that I had purchased one of his injectors from Oldmate, and he replied "ive never sold him any of my injectors, let me see it" so he had a look and within seconds said "well I can tell you this is not brand new".
Im not impressed that Oldmate who had the trade stand has sold me second hand parts knowing they are second hand and tell me they are new.........

The Sandberg Injector.

Today I was speaking to Warrick about this injector and what could be wrong with it. He told me an idea of a way to get the stuck cones out to work toward getting to the bottom of the problem. So after work tonight i made up the little gadget to get the cones out.

Ive used a piece of scrap steel to clamp onto the cones to remove them without damage.

The injector cone remover gadget shown clamping a cone.



So now its apart tomorrow its back to the drawing board to work it all out.

During the week Ive also had various other parts turn up in the post for different projects that I have on the go. I had the rest of the Warm white LED globes for Lower (and maybe Upper) Quadrant signals, And the remaining parts that I was waiting for from railcraft for the PV.

Allthough only a couple of parts turned up I thought I might show you some of the parts ill be using on the Van.

PV parts from Railcraft.

Thats about all for now. I hope to keep moving with the PV soon. Id like to see it finished.

4 Wheelers

Well theres plenty going on at the moment.
On Thursday I had a phone call from the Real estate to say that my application has been approved. Tomorrow I go down there to sign all the papers and get the keys. The Waratah Wagon and loco shops (Western Division) can start setting up shop tomorrow.

This morning instead of packing box's of stuff for the move I decided I would attack the two Warrick Sandberg S trucks I have and do those last couple of jobs needed to finish them. One of the S trucks Ive had running for a while, but the second one has never hit the tracks yet.
This afternoon I fitted handbrake wheels and release's on both wagons as well as the shunters hand rails.

Handbrake fitted to the second wagon.

I attacked the second S truck first. The parts used for the handbrakes have come from Railcraft, and are excelent products. The handbrake wheel is lazercut from steel and the ratchet and handle are made from polyurathane.

The finished products on both wagons. Both are now fitted with handbrakes and shunters handles in the body.

The photo above best shows what I achieved today. As they say in the classics "a picture says a thousand words".

All that remains on both S Trucks now is a final coat of NSWGR wagon grey and lettering and numbers.

During some spare time last week I managed to get a few bits and pieces done on the PV underframe.

All 4 axlebox's have been filed to suit the w irons and all now fit. Just a few small bits need attention before the underframe can be sent to Oldmate Welding PTY LTD for welding (welding aluminuim is a bit beyond my welding skills).

         Allmost ready to go PV underframe.

The above photo shows the PV underframe. I have used railcraft axlebox's and bearings with Warricks S truck wheels and underframe and the combination of these is 100% PERFECT. The underframe needs no modifactions to recieve these axlebox's. All that you need to do to make them fit is file the axlebox's down a little and out where the box's slip into the W iron. Perfection.......

Well thats all for now..... The big move starts tomorrow........