Building a Mike Trice designed Gauge 3 GNR open wagon

[Mike W]

Before fixing the chassis I add the whitemetal springs. These are fairly generic castings in that I only have five types of 3ft 6in wagon springs, but these seem close enough. Note the pegs on the back of the springs and the corresponding holes in the W irons. These do two things: fix the springs and thereby the W irons at the right height - bear in mind that you can't assume that all model floors are the correct height underneath, so the crossbar may not be in contact with the floor. And the pegs also take any out of scale loads away from the more delicate ends of the springs, which will be fixed with Araldite.

 

[Mike W]

Mild steel can be soldered easily with ordinary soft solder and using Bakers Fluid for flux it runs just like soldering brass. Only downside of Bakers is that the steel starts to rust within seconds, so I scrub it in the sink, dry it, fix the springs and get some paint on it asap. I don't paint the tops of the crossmembers because I prefer glue to act direct onto the steel and not onto the paint which can flake off .. he says from experience!

The little pegs on the bottom of the springs locate the real coil springs.