All the cutting and marking was done using a "Skrawker" and a metal ruler, which makes life so much easier than trying to use a scalpel. This cuts a V shaped groove in the plastic using very little pressure. Three or four passes are required, and then the plastic is snapped, giving a nice clean edge, which just needs a few strokes of a file to square up the edge. The plank grooving is produced in the same way but without snapping the plastic. Be careful here as the grooves are on both sides and it is easy to cut right through. To ensure that the planking all lines up, all the sides and ends are grooved in one operation - Fig 1. The sides can then be seperated from the ends and the sides reduced in height, before separating from each other. Each pair of sides and ends can then be clamped together, and the edges filed square. This ensures that both sides and both ends are identical even if your marking out was not quite accurate (mine never is), and helps to ensure the wagon has nice square corners. Assemble with the ends inside the sides. I find the easiest way to get a nice square corner is to lay one of the ends on a nice flat surface (not the best dining table without some covering please), line up one of the sides against it, and then push together with a small engineering square whilst applying liquid poly to the inside of the joint - Fig 2. A floor can be made similarly from 40 thou plasticard with planking scribed across. To clear the wheels you will need to cut clearance slots through the floor and cover with rectangles of 10 thou plasticard - a prototypical solution.
The corner plates can then be added from 10 thou plasticard, using plenty of polystyrene cement to soften the corner and prevent the plasticard from snapping. When set the corner can be rounded off a little with a few strokes of the file. The end stanchions are then added from 40 thou square microstrip, and the side door ironwork from 10 X 40 thou microstrip. Side door hinges can be added from 20thou plastic rod. The rivets were individually formed from tiny offcuts of plastic rod placed with the point of a scalpel, and then flooded with polystyrene cement. As can be imagined, this is a very time consuming process, but the results are effective.
The horse hooks are added from small staples of 0.45mm brass wire. Etched coupling hooks are from Ambis, W irons were cut from D&S models GCR W iron etches and superglued to the inside of the sides. The grease axleboxes and RCH 5 leaf springs are whitemetal castings from D&S models. I could find no suitable buffers so took a set of ABS Models No. 723 LMS & LNE standard self contained buffers and cut off the buffer heads and shanks. The bodies were then filed into a truncated cone, and drilled to take Alan Gibson wagon buffer heads (4950), springs and bushes (4952).
Wheels are Alan Gibson 12mm open spoke variety (P4 profile) with new longer axles cut from 2mm silver steel rod. To support the wheels I cut down more D&S models GCR W irons to make inside bearing units. I had to reduce the height of these by 1mm to get the correct ride height for the wagon.
Livery is a pure guess, but I happen to like it and rule 1 applies. Later Sully wagons used an all over black livery, but to me the ironwork does not look the same colour as the wooden body in the dump photo. Transfers are Broad Gauge Society sheet F094. It's a shame there aren't more alternate numbers on the sheet.
