A couple more Parkside V skips.

The Parkside kit seems to represent Hudson's standard 27 cubic foot 'Rugga' skip (a design introduced in the mid 1930s) judging by the body shape, the larger 36 and 54 cu.ft. skips had more angular bodies. However, most of the 27cu.ft. Rugga skips that I've seen have frames that differ slightly from the Parkside kit, mainly in respect to the crossbrace, so when I built a couple more I made a few modifications.

The kits came with 5.1mm dia. disc wheels, I wanted 4 hole disc wheels so  the first job was to set the Unimat up as a drill press and using my dividing head I drilled 4 equally spaced .6mm holes in each wheel;

On the wagon below I've cut away the central cross brace leaving only the longitudal stiffening girder. A new cross bar sitting under the frame is made from flattened .7mm brass rod.

And painted;

I used Humbrol 5027 acrylic grey apart from the inside of the body which was a mix of Humbrol Leather and Citadel 'Rhinox Hide'.

The longitudal stiffener is fitted to skips designed for loco haulage. Skips built for hand or animal haulage lacked this feature, and thats the type of wagon that I've modelled next. So on the wagon below both the longitudal and cross stiffeners have been completely cut away, again a new cross brace has been added from flattened brass rod;

To attempt to give the wagon a more 'lightweight' look I've cut away the coupling hooks and replaced them with .45mm brass rod (something that I may do to all future wagons) and I'm not fitting coupling loops, it can sit at the rear or in the middle of a rake.
Eagle-eyed viewers might spot some white plasticard triangles sitting under the body support standards, when I was building this wagon I forgot that I wasn't intending on fitting coupling loops and modified the ends to suit by carving away material to clear the loop 'ears', then of course I had to replace the missing material with .020" plasticard... Making mistakes isn't so bad most of the time, it keeps us humble, and putting them right can make us better modellers.
This one is finished in Tamiya 'Nato Black' with the body interior finished as above;

On both wagons I've again fitted the almost invisible locking catches and bars, from flattened .45mm brass wire, and I've also blackened the axles with Birchwood Casey Super Blue.

Three in a row;

Measuring the Parkside kit and comparing it to a drawing published in the Moseley ''Rugga' book reveals that the chassis is 1 scale foot too long (4mm) and 11 scale inches too wide (approx 3.7mm). Obviously the frame needs to be overwidth to account for our overscale track gauge and wheelsets, and I'm sure that it was made overlong to keep the frame in proportion. Of course this means that the body is also overscale. OO9 really is a bastard compromise!

Paul.