Guys
With the recent weather that we have been having in the U.K. thoughts turned to a snowplough.
Some images of the Beamish recreation of Little Nuts snowplough were the catalyst, I took a lot of inspiration from this, but modified the size a little to work with one of our English flat wagons.
The Plough was mastered and sent to Matt at Meadow Castings for mould making.
http://meadowcastings.co.uk/
Matt and I have worked together for many years, he was able to achieve the result that I wanted a single piece iron filled seam free resin casting, with mounting bolts and a brass strengthener in the nose, inclusion cast.
With the mould making underway, I started work on the chassis. I began with one of our English flat wagons. I wanted to achieve a working plough so I needed a chassis with as much weight incorporated as possible, and robust enough to do the job.
I opted for Talisman bolt on Hatcham axleboxes and a slewing Bellmouth coupler for hardware, and adjusted the resin casting to suit.
Next up were the body modifications to the chassis, I wanted to create the feel of a piece of existing rolling stock that had been modified for its new purpose. Laminated scribed styrene was used to represent extra timbers added to prevent snow getting under the chassis
The rock box was made with a set of modified sides from the 2T mineral wagon, I ran the castings through the table saw to remove the extended side strakes. I narrowed a zero shrink of an end and added a beefier top rail, before sending it of for Mould making
The chassis assembled and painted.
With the first test shot of the plough fitted
With the modified rock box fitted along with a Talisman head lamp on a modified bracket.
Plough painted
Rock box
The plough assembled
With the support bar fitted, in service.
The plough casting is available now at £45.00 and we are offering the flat chassis and rock box for £39.00 if you want to build one for yourself.
Si