Fixing up WD wagons

 I've been acquiring WD wagons for my Ashover based layout. I picked up a job lot of them from a good friend but also picked up some from the 009 Society Sales Stand at Narrow Gauge South. Some are Bachmann and some are Dundas. They all need their couplings changing and several of them are missing their brake stanchions.

My choice of coupling is the Greenwich coupling but I have to confess a desire to switch to DG for a shunting layout so that I have the remote uncoupling capability. For now I am going to ignore that itch and focus on converting stock to Greenwich. The locomotives and the wagons all have the standard Bachmann coupling in an NEM socket. Now I know you can get a variant of the Greenwich coupling that is suitable for NEM sockets but I decided it should not be that hard to print an adpator.

Here it is. My version of an NEM socket to Greenwish adpator. All you have to do is take a regular Greenwich coupling, cut of the tang as far as you decide and smooth off the edges. It simply pushes in and then, when you push the adaptor into the socket that helps hold the coupling tighter. They are quick and easy to print and you can get a large number on a build plate.

The brake stanchion is not so simple. I did think about asking Dundas Models for some of their sprues but I do have a thing for trying to do things myself. I considered what would be the best material to use. The answer was brass, to provide the strength. However, cutting out parts and folding them and soldering them didn't appeal so I experimented with 3D printing. 

The real life stanchion is a vertical piece of angle iron with fixings to support the rod of the brake wheel. There is also a traingular plate used to bolt the assembly to the bogie. 

 I'm still refining this. I had some concerns about strength but it seems to be okay. On the right is the stanchion in the support asembly needed for printing. I could try and add more detail but it's not going to show, except on the screen.

I'll post a picture of an updated wagon when I have this finalised.