4mm 00 Gauge LD Conflat Wagon

Loaded Conflat LD wagon in a siding at Dib's yard

21 Ton LD Conflat Wagon

I had never come across an LD Conflat wagon unto I discovered this model on Thingiverse by a chap called IronMink. (See here)

After a bit of "Googling" I saw there was a photo on this thread here, on a layout by Greg Brookes. You have to scroll over halfway down the page.

In Real Life

There is very little information about these Conflat LD wagons on the inter-webs, but apparently used for carrying Dolomite (a form of limestone) when used with LD-type containers. Some worked at Peak Forest

There is an RMWeb thread here about such a "mystery wagon".

They can also be seen briefly in this Youtube video.

The photo on the right (and linked here) was taken by Charlie Hulme, at Peak Forest.

Disclaimer: This is not my image. I have linked from the original site and credited it with the link above, but if you are the owner or the rights to this image and want it removed, please contact me via my contact form to request this.

Photo taken by Charlie Hulme, at Peak Forest

Printing The Wagon

There is a page on making these wagons here, courtesy of Tim Shackleton.

First I tried to print the model by "IronMink" on my Elegoo Mars Pro SLA 3d printer. I printed a few off, but I found it very difficult to stop the wagon chassis from warping. In addition, I could not work out a way to drill the axle boxes to insert brass pinpoint bearing in from the inside.

I also had issues with the LD containers "bursting" in hot weather as although the outside was cured there must have been incurred resin inside still. This was a bit embarrassing as I had given some of these to friends with layouts. I since started to print the containers in two halves and glue the top to the bottom, instead.

Empty LD Conflat wagon waiting in a siding at Dib's Yard

Tinkercad design of Conflat LD wagon, based upon Iron Mink's model STL

Tinkercad design of Conflat LD wagon, based upon Iron Mink's STL

Next, I decided to redraw the whole wagon in Tinkercard, so I could try and print it in pieces with a combination of my Ender 3 FDM 3d printer for the large structural parts and the Elegoo Mars for the small details.

To redraw someone else's model is not an easy task, let me tell you! You can see the blue body in the background is Iron Mink's original STL file. I had already done some wagon underframes for my 3d printed trestle wagon project, so it was not hard to adapt it for this wagon. I'd have to say mine is not a very exact copy of Iron Mink's wagon. It is more of a "strongly based upon" version, so is probably not at all like the prototype!

Making the wagon in more individual parts, allowed me to drill out the backs of the axel boxes in the wagon frames to accept 4mm brass pinpoint bearings from HA Models. The bearings in conjunction with Dapol's disc wheels run very well indeed.

I also made voids which would allow for 5g car alloy wheel balance weights to be added for ballast. I won't be running very big rakes as my layout is very small, so I'd rather add more weight and have better running over points than worry about my wagons being too heavy.

Finer details like buffers you see here, are printed by my Elegoo Mars SLA printer and added afterwards. My Ender 3 FDM printer cannot match the detail of an SLA printer.

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