Mark's Model Works (MMW) bogies and railings for carriages

DB bought a set of 3D printed wooden carriages when he dipped back into NZ120 about 15 months ago: 

This was to be a post on 3D printing, but I've decided to break that into three parts, so more on the carriages soon, but this post is about some roundy feet for them.

Options include nice plastic bogies with superchunky wheels from some olde-timey carriages (Ibertren?) as seen under that 30-foot van; or Kadee passenger car bogies (a little small, but these 1017s don't look terrible after the removal of some superfluous brake and stabilisation detail; plus they have a bonus coupler. 1014s might be better but I've never seen any in the wild); or these scary-looking Mark's Model Works etched bogies. Eek.

I've seen a completed MMW set before and they look lovely, but there's no way I could ever make those up with my fuzzy eyes, wobbly hands and 1940s-era welding axe and matching skills. 

But why not give them a crack... so I studied the instructions with an intensity and frequency that no male has ever employed studying instructions before.

To my surprise, they came together fairly quickly. After about one and a half hours I had the six made up, including bearings, wheels and soldering. About twenty minutes of that was spent cutting the ends off some petrified clothes pegs (as recommended in the instructions) to make clamps that are perfect for holding things together while you apply the solder that locks everything together. The hardest part is arguably the first step, crimping the leaf springs.

The eagle-eyed may note that there are three subtly different models of bogie here (different numbers of leaf springs among other details. 

I bought some Dundas DP09 brass top hat bearings from Trackgang a while back and they coincidentally fitted the MMW bogies perfectly, indeed being recommended in the instructions.  

The wheels are some pricey Bachmann/Farish BR coach bogies from Ironhorse, purchased randomly a few months ago, and their axle length happens to fit perfectly too. They are a nice broad diameter, but are discs, not spoked, if that matters.  And oddly they come in a pack of ten. Just the perfect amount for... two and a half carriages. Shrugs shoulders. The sixth bogie was filled with two Peco plastic wheels, which are a tad short in axle length, but with the frame bent inwards a smidge, they roll ok.

In summary: as long as you follow the well-illustrated instructions, the bogies are not hard to fold up and solder. They are etched in phosphor bronze, which is nice and stiff and springy, but is a forgiving material if you do start folding something the wrong way, as it doesn't fatigue as fast as brass. As also noted in the instructions, I needed to separately put a splash of solder in to affix about half the bearings in place. This requires slightly more finesse than I possess, but my efforts didn't hinder their operation or looks. Even my neanderthalesque soldering skills had the main soldering job (one line across the top of each bogie side) come out quite neat.

Speaking of looks, the bogies really look stunning. With this success, I must have a crack at those MMW brass IA wagons that I've had stashed away for a dozen years. 

Keeping the story on MMW, the carriages were topped off with his etched end railings which are insanely pretty:

These are just gorgeous. I use a Sharpie black marker to tediously colour them in before cutting and folding. This gives a much 'finer' effect than painting them with goop after they have been installed (as if you could get a paintbrush in there to do the inside faces anyway). I decided to not add the steps, as they didn't quite fit the stepwells. I may put them on later. I also inadvertently omitted the curved handrails on the red carriage ends. It seems that one (obviously, in hindsight!) should do this before glueing the end cages in place that prevent future access... 

More on the carriage build in the next one.....