LSWR corridor third - assembly of body
Having tackled the sides, now comes the time to assemble them into a body. First we need a couple of ends. These are an excellent design and very easy to make, being just a single etch which then folds up into a self-locating component for both the chassis and the sides.
Here's one such end (they're handed, so need to be at the right end of the coach!) with two nuts soldered in place as was also done with the bogie mounts. One very nice bit of design is two small
tabs which fold down either side of the base plate, which in turn locate into slots in the turn-under at the base of the coach side.
These tabs help align the ends and sides very nicely:
Ignore the fact that I've tinned the underside of the base plate: a mistake on my part and not needed.
Now to begin soldering the whole lot together. There's no getting around the fact that this is slightly fiddly but there's no limit on the number of tries you can have - the worst that happens is that you clean off the solder and have another go. I find that these locating tabs are a good place to start, so with the side and end held in alignment (I go by eye, rather than using a jig) I tack solder the tab, If this is looking good, I then apply another tack at the cant-rail level, before finishing off with a strengthening fillet of solder all the way down the join.
With these coaches, the ends have to tuck between the sides - other kits may vary.
Here's a soldered side and end:
Now repeat for the rest of the coach. There are several possibilities here: you could solder up a pair of side-ends and then solder them together, or an end-side-end to which a side is then fixed. I've no idea which is best, but for these kits I've had no problem making a side-end-side, and then soldering the other end in last. Check for squareness and parallel-ness as you go, but you should be fine - I found that they were a breeze, probably due to those clever alignment tabs.
It's very satisfying to complete the body - suddenly what were a bunch of flat, flimsy bits of brass have structural integrity and are beginning to look vaguely like a coach! Happy days!
In the above pic, the method of mounting the body to the chasis should be apparent. Bolts go up through the slots in the chassis, into the retained nuts in the base plates at either end of the body. Comet use an identical system and it works well since the mounting points are usually in the toilets or vestibules, well out of the way of any interior stuff you might want to add. The ionly snag I found with the Roxey arrangement, and it's a minor one, is that the slots in the chassis all needed elongating out toward the buffers.
Now the body can be test-mounted to the chassis. During the chassis assembly, a few tabs and castings will have protruded up above the solebar level and may interfere with a good, snug fit of the body, so these need to be filed back to a level surface.
I haven't yet bolted the body on in this shot, but I couldn't resist seeing how the corridor third will look within the formation.
Again, I hope this has been useful and I look forward to cracking on with the remaining tasks.
Cheers!
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