Jim Read
Light railway modelling
Making a van body from card and paper
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Cardboard Rolling Stock and how to make it is the title of a book by E. Rankine Gray it was published in 1949, I bought a copy from a second hand bookshop in the 1980's. At the time ERG models were still going and I was able to purchase the drawings from which models could be made. Most of my wagons and vans have been made using this method.

I use picture frame mount board and paper, ordinary printing paper for the drawing and a thicker paper, cartridge paper is OK, to represent any steelwork.

Whilst looking through the Westerham Valley Railway book I came across the pic below and thought I'd make the van body for my micro layout.



I made a drawing with the dimensions taken from an existing van and by guessing from the photograph. The drawing consists of one end and one side.

This was scanned, copied, pasted and printed to produce what you see below, the printed paper was stuck to some mount board with PVA glue and when dry painted with one coat of shellac, to harden the paper. I make the shellac from flakes dissolved in Methylated spirit, this is an excellent hardener/varnish, the next coat dissolving into the first.

I once met a person who worked for Metropolitan Cammell, at an exhibition and they made some coaches for Malaysian railways. The spec called for a timber floor with 30 coats of shellac, apparently it's the only stuff that their local insects dislike.



I make two cuts along the planking lines very close together and then peel off the tiny cut strip. You can see these as white lines in about 1/4 of the planking.

It's a really cheap way of making a van or wagon and very absorbing it is too, mine is going to be flat on the floor no W irons by the way, I ain't that good.

This shows the parts cut out, the sliding doors glued to the sides and the various other bits of wood, metal strapping and odds and ends in place. When these are finished another coat of shellac will be applied before gluing together to form the body.





At last I finished it, I used very thin card for the roof to make it really floppy. It's been painted with Humbrol matt to start with and then a few layers of Acrylic to weather it and finally just to try it, someones attempt to re-paint it, I used Acrylic for this as well, it seems to work OK with the brush marks drying out as does enamel paint.



I found an old tube of Seccotine, still in good condition after twenty years and used blobs of that for the bolt and rivet heads. I'd forgotten how careful you need to be and so made a bit of a mess off it, ah well.
 
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