LNWR D26 Special Cattle Van

Prior to Christmas, I was given the opportunity to buy-in on some 2mmFS limited-run wagon etches.  They were of LNWR origin, but as I’m always on the lookout for rolling stock variety, I grabbed the chance to get some less common cattle vans.  In particular, the D26 Special Cattle van, not quite a horsebox, but something in which you could put your prized bull!

- Initial build, sides done.

While not an expert, my soldering skills have come a long way in the past 8 years.  Back then I wouldn’t even contemplate building a brass etch kit, but now I’m all in.  In this case it wasn’t brass, but nickel, but same concept.  To add to the difficulty, there were no instructions. After discussions with Sithlord, the build was quite simple, just imagine an IKEA flatpack, but instead of the Allen key, it a dab of solder and a hot iron.

- Van 1

The side walls themselves consist of 3 layers, to get the detail.  The outer fret actually has locating holes in which to insert some brass top hat bearings to line up the layers.  I didn’t do this the first wagon I built, but did on the second, and it shows.  A surf of the interwebby found some other 2mm bloggers who were all building this van, and there were some handy hints.

If I had my own way in designing such a kit, I’d rather see the main body be one etch, with walls, ends and floor able to be folded-up.  And then the panel details added. But this is only minor.

- 1st build on left, 2nd built on right

Now for the finishing, firstly finding some wheels, appropriate decals and a coat of paint.

House Move

Excuses are plentiful and everyone uses them.  Mine, for the lack of posts over the past four months is house ownership.  The Noswal’s finally started along the good old Australian dream, owning your own home.  So we’ve got it all now, two kids, a dog and a mortgage!

 - the new shed, room for 2 cars, but really its for the layout, workshop and potential mancave.

Sturminster now has a new home, in a 6m x6m garage.  This is a nice fit, as you can now walk around the layout on three sides, and still have room to swing a cat.  There is a distinct lack voltage to the shed, but it’s only a matter of running a 30m power lead from the house to add some spark.

- the inside, still requires some work, especially more dropsheets to prevent the gecko dropping.

Our local N gauge/2mm group celebrated our 50^th meeting yesterday, Sat 12 Mar 16.  I haven’t been to all the meetings, distance and work have prevented that, but I’ve found them to be very informative and much useful knowledge has been shared and gained.  It’s also been very helpful for making collective purchases from the likes of 2mm society and shapeways etc, as it reduces the postage fees.

As mentioned last year, we were set a diorama challenge, to be completed by Dec.  Life got in the way for some of us, and deadline was pushed back the 50^th meeting.  The results were very impressive.

 - Don's Poyle for Stanwell Moor Halt

- Poyle

 - Kevin's Nuclear flask loading

- Nuclear, with home made 3d printed bits!

- Barb's Cirencester

 - My somewhere in England dio.

- Most happy with this piece of kit.

Now that this challenge is over, I'm now been tasked with coming up with the next challenge and its associated rules.  This time I erring towards a scratch-built wagon, but I still need to investigate further.

- Maybe something like this?