Duncan's 7mm Workbench - Connoisseur 4F Tender Cab

[Fastdax]

One question I'm now facing - do I make the floor or the roof removable?

 

I have seen opinions in favour of both ways of leaving the interior accessible.

 

Has anyone got any advice?

Edited December 9, 2017 by Fastdax

[66C]

Hi Duncan

 

I have used both methods but prefer a removable roof for coaches with interiors.  My method is as follows:

 

 

First of all the roof moulding is cut to length - just a little longer than the body to give a prototypical overhang.  The roof moulding is not cut to width at this stage.

 

I make a false roof (ceiling if you like) from plastic sheet cut to the width of the body side and its length is such that it fits between the ends.  This will sit on top of the side mouldings and form part of the cantrail.  A strip of wood is glued to what will be the upper surface of the sheet.  This composite is then drilled for M4 threaded tees at the locations where fixing screws will be used - I place them in line with the compartment partitions to minimise their appearance.  The partitions that accommodate the fixing screws are thicker and in two parts with a central space for the screw.  The threaded tees are fixed to the upper surface of the wood strip.  A test fit is done at this stage to check the locations of the fixing bolts and fit of the false roof.  The second picture shows the body - this one is a for a Gresley articulated twin but I used the same method for my ex-LMS coaches.  The screw is upside down only to show its position through the compartment partition.

 

 

The roof moulding is glued to the false roof taking care to centralise the false roof.  The roof moulding is then trimmed for width to that of the false roof.  The underside of the roof assembly is sprayed with white primer.  I finish the roof with grey primer and then Halfords grey bumper paint.

 

Note that the profile of the top of the coach ends may need adjustment and/or building up to sit neatly against the underside of the roof moulding - best done before any painting of the coach body.

 

Hope you find this useful.

 

Regards.

Edited December 9, 2017 by 66C

[Fastdax]

Hope you find this useful.

 

Really useful Bill, Thanks.

[Fastdax]

Ian Kirk Coaches

 

I had a good session on the composite non-corridor coach today, due to being snowed in and having a cold.

 

I finished adding hinges from 2mm lengths of 0.75mm plastic rod. As per someone else's thread (sorry - forgot where I saw this tip), the bottom hinge was made by fixing a bit of rod, letting it dry, cutting it back until it had a flat and vertical face, then gluing another bit of rod on top. This gives the bottom hinge more projection that the top two.

 

 

Most of the details on the coach ends I didn't need or didn't like. I kept the coupling hook reinforcement plate but removed the buffer bases (I have replacement sprung buffers waiting) and "low relief" lamp brackets (I will make brass replacements). I removed the circular jumper cable bases as I will need to make four for this motor-equipped coach and it seemed easier to make four new ones the same than to try and match what's there already. I also filed and sanded the mounding pips off the inside face.

 

 

The line between body end and buffer beam was a raised line, so I scribed it into a groove which survived the filing and sanding and preserved the location of the bottom of the body sides.

 

So now I could attach the ends to the sides and cut the floor to length and width.

 

 

I made a start on the underframe girders but had to divert into making bogies as the Wayoh bogies have a very different mounting arrangement to the Kirk bogies.

 

Here you can see the black Kirk bogie bearing block on the left and the etched brass Wayoh one on the right. A bit of fettling of the girders and the brass one had a place to fit.

 

 

The Wayoh bogies have an etched brass frame and resin-cast decorative sides. Rivets allow each side to rotate with respect to the central stretcher, giving a bit of flex and compensation.

 

Tiny clothes pegs were very useful when laminating the layers together! A taper broach keeps the centre holes aligned.

 

 

Here's where I am after a day of work.

 

The body sides and ends are fixed together but are just resting over the floor, which is just sitting on the bogies.

 

 

 

 

I think the whole body is sitting about 1mm too high, as the buffer holes are above the Jinty's buffer centre lines.

 

The way to fix this is to reduce the height of the brass mounting block by a millimeter before it gets epoxied to the underside of the floor.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Yeah - the buffer hole is at about 26mm above the rail (3' 8.5") where it should be 24.5mm (3' 6").

 

 

I'll have to lose 1.5mm in the bogie mounting.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Ian Kirk Coaches and Wayoh Bogies

 

The Wayoh mounting bracket has two folded lugs to mount the unit.

 

 

I simply sawed these off (vice, razor saw).

 

 

That's better. The centre of the buffer beam is now at 23.5mm so a bit of plasticard packing and it will be at the required 24.5mm.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[SimonME46]

What length has your coach come out at? Just observing the end of the side hav8ng the gap to the end mounding?

[Fastdax]

What length has your coach come out at? Just observing the end of the side hav8ng the gap to the end mounding?

 

I just measured it at 398mm or 56' 10.28". It should be 57' 0" body length, of course.

 

I think it's correct to have the ends inside the sides like this. I measure the overall width at 62.4mm or 8' 11". According to my Jenkinson and Essery, this should be 9' 0", so close enough.

 

I do need to fill in those gaps, obviously.

[Fastdax]

Ian Kirk Coaches

 

I'll make the roof removable. This will help when detailing the interior and adding lighting (one day!).

 

To locate the roof, I'm following Mike Cawthorne's article in Barlow Works. Mike is from my local Sheffield 0 Gauge Group.

 

I fitted cant rail gutter strips to the top of the sides, protruding upwards to form a ledge to sit the roof in.

 

 

 

Because I hadn't yet glued the floor in, I could trim the roof to width, chop off the bow ends and slide it up to the ends and scribe a line from the inside.

 

 

 

Once I had trimmed the ends, the roof sits nicely between the cant rail gutters.

 

For now a couple of 'laccy bands hold it in place.

 

 

The bogie mounting plates are also packed up by 1mm and epoxied in place. This puts the buffer beam at the correct height.

 

 

It's starting to look like a coach now!

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

As per someone else's thread (sorry - forgot where I saw this tip), the bottom hinge was made by fixing a bit of rod, letting it dry, cutting it back until it had a flat and vertical face, then gluing another bit of rod on top. This gives the bottom hinge more projection that the top two.

 

I have found the gentleman in question - Bill Campbell "66C".

 

Thanks for the tip, Bill.

[Fastdax]

Ian Kirk Coaches

 

Well it's been a while since I updated this thread, but work on the coach has progressed, albeit slowly.

 

Part of the reason for this is that I was out of the country over Xmas and New Year, although I did get a chance to ride on the most southerly preserved stream train in the world:

http://www.trendelfindelmundo.com.ar/en/index.html

 

A good deal of this line and its rolling stock seems to have been built in the UK!

 

Back to the build and I trimmed the compartment dividers to fit round the reinforcing strips above the windows, inside.

 

 

Since the sides and ends are not glued to the floor yet, I could fix the dividers in place, using a scrap of plasticard cut to the same width as the floor to hold the sides at the correct spacing. Doing it like this means that the dividers fit nicely up to the inside of the roof (which is also not glued in place)..

 

 

 

Meanwhile the underframe was progressing also, with the Kirk trussing (in black) and additional bracing (in white angle). The battery box was trimmed to the right height and fixed to the inside of the solebar.

 

 

There is no voltage regulator supplied in the Kirk kit so I copied a whilemetal Mk.I box in black plasticard. As far as I can see from photos in my reference books, this is about the right shape for the LMS regulator. This is just the rough box shape, ready to be filed to suit:

 

 

The dynamo supplied is also a bit rudimentary so I substituted a whitemetal one from CRT Kits. This is the raw casting before tidying up:

 

 

More pictures soon.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Ian Kirk Coaches

 

The underframe is about complete. I added the Kirk V-hangers and brake cylinders, but made up the cylinder supports and cranks from plasticard. The pull-rods to the bogies are just stubs of brass wire glued to the chassis.

 

 

 

The compartment dividers are now all glued in:

 

 

I thought a lot about how to attach the removable roof. I had some good advice from this forum and I surfed various blogs.

 

In the end I decided to try something I hadn't seen before. This method replaces the bolts normally used to hold the roof down with false coach ends which slide inside the real coach ends.

 

This does add about 1mm to the thickness of the coach end, but this shouldn't be noticeable.

 

Hopefully a picture will make this clearer:

 

 

The roof with its false ends slides down inside the bodyshell:

 

 

I just need to fasten to the bottom of the false ends to the coach floor using screws, by some means.

 

I'll also strengthen the joint between roof and false end with JB Plastic-Weld or similar as it will be subject to a pulling force.

 

 

Batch-building of the Slaters seats is under way:

 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[brossard]

That's looking really good Duncan.  Underframe looks convincing.

 

John

[Fastdax]

Thanks John.

 

I made good use of the Jenkinson and Essery books, plus whatever photos I could find on the Interweb.

 

Not that I found any really good pictures of these coaches' underpinnings though.

 

The bogies will be harder to finish to a good level of detail as the Wahoh kits contain no brake parts at all.

[brossard]

There's a good underframe drawing in Chapter 2 of the J&E "LMS Coaches" book.   Note that brake coaches have additional manual brake gear.

 

Also check out Mike Clarks excellent articles on Late LMS Coaches in MRJ 48 and 49.

 

It's tedious but you can make brakes out of plastic.  Unless someone knows where to get these details.  I got some from Parkside before Peco took over.

 

There are people on this forum who have taken the trouble to photograph the undersides of coaches, perhaps someone will share theirs.

 

John

[Fastdax]

There's a good underframe drawing in Chapter 2 of the J&E "LMS Coaches" book.   Note that brake coaches have additional manual brake gear.

 

Is that "Illustrated History of L.M.S.Coaches: 1923-1957"?

 

I'm using another J&E book "The Illustrated History of LMS Standard Coaching Stock, Vol III: Non Corridor, Special Purpose and Self-Propelled Vehicles" by Jenkinson and Essery, which unfortunately has no detailed underframe drawing. (Why do all these books have such similar titles?!)

 

I also use "Historic Carriage Drawings, Vol 2: LMS and Constituents" by Jenkinson, which has a fairly basic drawing.

 

Thanks for the pointer to MJRs 48/49. I will see if I can get hold of them.

[brossard]

The title of mine is:  LMS Coaches An illustrated History.  This edition is dated 1977 by OPC and is an enlarged  and revised edition of a similar book published by Ian Allan in 1969.

 

I also have Historic Carriage Drawings Vol 2, a good companion to the above.

 

I don't have the other title.

 

MRJ is a great magazine and I heartily recommend it.  I've managed to collect nearly a full set.  There's also a good index:  http://www.modelrailwayjournal.com/

 

Another great book is Historic Carriage Drawings Vol 3, Non Passenger Coaching Stock, by Peter Tatlow.

 

Happy building.

 

John

Edited January 27, 2018 by brossard

[Fastdax]

Ian Kirk Coaches

 

Having a false end inside the real coach end means that the outermost seats must be attached to the false end.

 

 

I cut off the lower portion of the seat back to give maximum space under the seat which I can use to screw into for attaching the roof. Here's the 2 cutdown seats (left) plus an unmodified one on the right.

 

It's unmodified as far as having its back cut down, but modified (like all the 3rd class seating) by having the seat depth reduced by trimming the back few millimeters of the seat cushion off, along a line conveniently cast in by Slaters. First class seating uses the full depth of the cushion. You pays your money and takes your choice.

 

 

I glued in a couple of bits of plasticard to act as a dam ...

 

 

... then filled the box with JB-Weld Plastic Bonder. When this is set solid, I can drill and tap into it from under the floor as a secure anchor for the roof. I also added a fillet of JB-Weld to the false-end-to-roof joint. This should be invisible as it's up on the ceiling.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Ian Kirk Coaches

 

This method of joining the roof to the body shell seems to work OK.

 

I filed down the false ends to make sure they didn't quite reach the coach floor. Then I worked a couple of coarse-thread self-tapping screws into pilot holes in the box of plastic filler:

 

 

Holes in the underfloor allow the ends to be pulled down with the screws. Not too tight or the false ends may be pulled off the roof!

 

 

 

I obtained a copy of MRJ numbers 48 and 49 on the recommendation of John "Brossard". No. 49 gives a better drawing of the underframe than in any of the Essery/Jenkinson books.

 

I modified some of the supporting beams a bit to match the drawing better. Some of the angles are still the wrong way round, but hopefully not noticeable in the gloom under a coach. I also pulled off the dynamo as I think I had set it t bit too far outboard.

 

The next one will be better ...

 

 

 

Next - coach end details.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Rob Pulham]

Ian Kirk Coaches

 

Having a false end inside the real coach end means that the outermost seats must be attached to the false end.

 

2018-01-27 003.JPG

 

I cut off the lower portion of the seat back to give maximum space under the seat which I can use to screw into for attaching the roof. Here's the 2 cutdown seats (left) plus an unmodified one on the right.

 

It's unmodified as far as having its back cut down, but modified (like all the 3rd class seating) by having the seat depth reduced by trimming the back few millimeters of the seat cushion off, along a line conveniently cast in by Slaters. First class seating uses the full depth of the cushion. You pays your money and takes your choice.

 

2018-01-27 001.JPG

 

I glued in a couple of bits of plasticard to act as a dam ...

 

2018-01-27 002.JPG

 

... then filled the box with JB-Weld Plastic Bonder. When this is set solid, I can drill and tap into it from under the floor as a secure anchor for the roof. I also added a fillet of JB-Weld to the false-end-to-roof joint. This should be invisible as it's up on the ceiling.

 

2018-01-27 004.JPG

 

What a great idea for fixing the roof on, one I will happily plagiarise for my Kirk Twin set build. - I will probably do the same with the centre compartment partition too to give a centre fixing point on each coach. Thanks a lot for sharing this Duncan.

[brossard]

Agree with Rob, a very imaginative method of roof fixing.  I'll be looking at that too.

 

Glad you were able to ge the MRJs I recommended.

 

My underframe efforts were fraught with error and do overs, but I think I got there.

 

John

[Fastdax]

What a great idea for fixing the roof on, one I will happily plagiarise for my Kirk Twin set build. - I will probably do the same with the centre compartment partition too to give a centre fixing point on each coach. Thanks a lot for sharing this Duncan.

 

Thanks very much Rob. I'd be pleased if you gave this method a try. I only used false ends as the roof of this first/third composite is a bit banana shaped - high at the outer ends. If it were high in the middle I'd have used a central fixing point.

 

When I move on the the driving brake end, I will have to move the false compartment end towards the centre of the coach as otherwise it will interfere with the windows in the coach end.

[Fastdax]

Agree with Rob, a very imaginative method of roof fixing.  I'll be looking at that too.

 

Glad you were able to ge the MRJs I recommended.

 

My underframe efforts were fraught with error and do overs, but I think I got there.

 

Thanks John. Getting those MRJs was very useful.

 

The underframe on your latest coach really looks the part.

[Fastdax]

Ian Kirk Coaches

 

Time to add some detail to the coach ends, which are supplied almost devoid of detail. Lots of reference to books and photos was necessary, to get the right bits in the right places.

 

I bent up the necessary handrails - one straight and one curved for the ends and a short one for the roof - from 0.6mm nickel-silver wire.

 

 

The ends now have lamp irons, steps (from brass "L" angle), brake and regulator vac pipes, emergency cord gear (one end only!) and the handrails.

 

 

I still need to add the electrical jumper cables (four at each end, since this is a push-pull fitted composite coach) and steam heat pipes.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Ixion Fowler

 

Over on my layout thread, I posted pictures of my new Ixion Fowler and the DCC sound chip I got for it:

 

 

 

I dismantled the loco and installed the Zimo MX645 pretty much following Paul Chetter's instructions from the January 2014 issue of Hornby magazine.

 

 

While off the loco, the shiny chrome coupling and connecting rods, and the jack-shaft cranks, were treated to a bath in Birchwood Casey Brass Black, both to kill the shine and to give a key for subsequent paint.

 

 

The speaker is a 20mm round one from Digitrains, which is plenty loud enough, using the existing location provided in the keeper plate. There's an SC68 stay-alive capacitor inside the block of white heatshirink under the yellow insulating tape, nestled into a recess in the chassis block.

 

 

The sounds are great! I opted for the air-start / air-horn version of the sound file, because the donkey engine and klaxon would probably have been replaced by the early '60s. So saying, there is a selection of klaxon sounds on the higher function keys, to play around with.

 

The stay-alive gives between 1 and 2 seconds of running with no power source, which should be enough to carry it over any dead spots.

 

Very pleased with the loco and the sound chip!