Accucraft L&B Wagon Upgrades
Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2026 8:35 am
A few shots of an Accucraft Lynton and Barnstable 4 ton open that I have detailed and repainted. This wagon is destined to run on my father’s L&B themed SM32 garden line.
I have designed and 3D printed the brakegear, vacuum pipes, vacuum cylinder, lamp irons (the original L&B type and subsequent SR addition to a different style) and tarpaulin bar. The tarpaulin bar is somewhat of a best guess effort as I couldn’t find any drawings or clear photos showing the detail of the internal mechanism. I have also added tie bars from 1.25mm Caron fibre rod. The brake shaft and horizontal part of the tarpaulin bar are 2.5mm carbon fibre rod.
The 3D printed parts are in resin using Sunlu Toughness resin. This is the first time I have tried this resin and I am impressed. It is very flexible and tough but still retains good detail definition. Parts are virtually unbreakable with normal handling and therefore much more suitable for details on garden railway applications than the more brittle standard resin I have been using.
The wagon has been resprayed in brown and letting added using paint masks drawn up using the original SR lettering dimensions and cut out on the Cricut machine. Lettering on the Accucraft models as supplied is one of the most disappointing aspects of them to my eyes. The lettering style used is not very faithful to standard SR lettering style that these wagons ran in. Some photos of the full size show intermediate liveries with non-standard lettering, and some ironwork still in black, but this was soon replaced with SR standard all brown livery. Having said that, I did have to comprise on the size of the 4 TONS lettering as I couldn’t get the mask to stick between the strapping if cut out at the correct size.
Happy to make the files available for the 3D printed parts if anyone wants them.
I have designed and 3D printed the brakegear, vacuum pipes, vacuum cylinder, lamp irons (the original L&B type and subsequent SR addition to a different style) and tarpaulin bar. The tarpaulin bar is somewhat of a best guess effort as I couldn’t find any drawings or clear photos showing the detail of the internal mechanism. I have also added tie bars from 1.25mm Caron fibre rod. The brake shaft and horizontal part of the tarpaulin bar are 2.5mm carbon fibre rod.
The 3D printed parts are in resin using Sunlu Toughness resin. This is the first time I have tried this resin and I am impressed. It is very flexible and tough but still retains good detail definition. Parts are virtually unbreakable with normal handling and therefore much more suitable for details on garden railway applications than the more brittle standard resin I have been using.
The wagon has been resprayed in brown and letting added using paint masks drawn up using the original SR lettering dimensions and cut out on the Cricut machine. Lettering on the Accucraft models as supplied is one of the most disappointing aspects of them to my eyes. The lettering style used is not very faithful to standard SR lettering style that these wagons ran in. Some photos of the full size show intermediate liveries with non-standard lettering, and some ironwork still in black, but this was soon replaced with SR standard all brown livery. Having said that, I did have to comprise on the size of the 4 TONS lettering as I couldn’t get the mask to stick between the strapping if cut out at the correct size.
Happy to make the files available for the 3D printed parts if anyone wants them.