By Brian Dominic
When I modelled the MDLR in 4mm scale, I operated a few sheep wagons, because the fictional MDLR operates in the White Peak area of Derbyshire.
Anyway, I fancied building a pair in 16mm scale, so got the bits together. Wheels and axles, axleboxes and couplings came from Imp Models (because I was going to enter them for the Imp Models Trophy at Stoneleigh) and the corner “steelwork”, hinges and document clips came from P&J Models via PPS Models – I bought W7 Large outside end corner ‘L’ channel, W24 Wagon document clip and W17 Long strap hinges. The wood came from my local model shop in Nottingham, because they cater for aircraft and boat modellers and carry good stocks.
The first stage was to build a pair of underframes (less solebars) :
They were slightly different as I’d got a couple of lengths of angle which got used on the front wagon of the pair.
The next stage was to add the floor:
Then I epoxied the corner steelwork in place, built up the ends and added the tops of the sides and the bars either side of the doors.
Adding the bars to the sides (not as far up as on the ends) finished off the basic body.
The doors / ramps were made up from a mix of square (for the slats) and flat (for the rest) glued together and held in place with masking tape, strengthened by a pair of square timbers running along their length. These were used to fasten the hinges to.
After adding solebars and fitting the wheels, axles and couplings the finished job (with Roundhouse lamp irons – an MDLR standard) looked so nice that I didn’t paint them for some months………
…….. and they ran in traffic like this for some time………..
……….. until they had to be painted for Stoneleigh.
The greatest compliment I get paid is: “Who makes the kit, then?” I did!
Brian Dominic