EMU workbench

 

by pete_mcfarlane

 

original page on Old RMweb

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Comment posted by number6 on Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:13 pm

 

Enjoying your rapid progress as usual Pete! As Dave says the bowing of the BIL is the biggest pain - make sure you make the floor rigid or it will go banana shaped before you can say "roof conduit".

 

Is the unpowered pick-up bogie basically the same design as the powered but just without motors? I used a spare pair of white metal power bogie sides and forgot about it. Now I'm beginning to wonder again!

 

R

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Comment posted by dasatcopthorne on Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:24 pm

 

Re the leading trailer bogie.

 

No, it's different. It's of a lighter construction but heavier than a normal trailer but still 8' 9" wheelbase.

 

Dave

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??? posted on Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:34 am

 

I'd not looked at the roof yet, but I see what you mean about the dome. I'll have a go at reprofiling

 

As for the bowing, the sides are really thin to give a continuous rebate for the glazing which doesn't help to make them rigid. The edges of the moulded floor aren't at 90 degrees, which doesn't help either.

 

I'm still pondering whether to build down from the roof (with a separate floor) or up from the solebar (with a detachable roof). The latter will give the top of the sides more strength.

 

This is one of the reasons I stalled on building the kit for so long - finding a suitable replacement trailer collector bogie to match the other replacement bogies. I couldn't face having 3 nice whitemetal/brass bogies and a horrible plastic one. Many years ago somebody explained to me about about the different methods of injection moulding plastic - I seem to remember there's a cheap lower pressure process that gives less detail with softer plastic. Presumably this is what is used on these kits as they are very soft and lacking in sharp detail, especially compared to the DC kits ones.

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??? posted on Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:36 pm

 

I've finished detailing the ends - mainly using the Branchlines castings, with some bits of fuse wire and plastic.

 

 

I reckon some of the castings are a little of the big side - the jumper cable on the left hand side is too long for starters so there's no room for the lamp iron on that side. The overall effect is OK though.

 

The buffers are ABS. I bought some Branchlines ones, but the heads didn't seem quite the right shape - more like those on the earlier spindle buffers which were oval rather than an elipse. Using these buffers means I'm doing one of the last batch (2017-52) which were the only 2-Bils to have them.

 

Windscreen wipers deliberately left off until after painting and glazing.

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Comment posted by dasatcopthorne on Wed Jul 22, 2009 8:49 am

 

Looking good.

 

Dave

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Comment posted by dasatcopthorne on Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:46 pm

 

Pete.

 

Here's a few pics of my effort at an ex-Tyneside Epb.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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??? posted on Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:51 pm

 

Not much progress today on the Bil.

 

 

These are the short sections of sides around the cab door, which are moulded separately. For some reason (strength probably) the driver's door goes down the bottom of the side, rather than stopping short so that the door cab be opened inwards. A few minutes with a sharp scalpel and needle files fixed this.

 

Dave: Thanks for uploading the Tyneside photos - it looks fantastic.

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Comment posted by dasatcopthorne on Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:07 pm

 

Fantastic? Mmmmm

 

But thanks for that.

 

This is one of my older units, probably build in the mid 80's

 

It has the rubbing plate from the bottom of the Hornby gangway connector, and oval buffers just pushed into the original Hornby buffer shanks. The reason being is that the end has been re-shaped from the Hornby Mk1 coach that the unit is based on. You probably recognise the Hornby roof as well.

 

Some pics of converted coach ends appeared in the following post viewtopic.php?f=5&t=39513

 

Dave.

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??? posted on Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:44 pm

 

Tonight I got a boring job out of the way - drilling the holes for the door handles.

 

 

This I did by making a jig out of scrap tinplate to drill the holes.

 

 

I've also attached the ends to the floor, having first cut out the space for the motor bogie from one of them. The floors needed a bit of work with a file to straighten out their edges so the sides will be at the correct angle. I've decided to build from the floor up with a separate roof.

 

 

Starting to look like an EMU.

 

 

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Comment posted by number6 on Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:25 pm

 

Pete - how do you do those cable clips either side of the headcode box? I think the jumble of stuff on the front is looking really good.

R

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??? posted on Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:33 pm

 

Sticky tape! Tamyia paper based masking tape cut in to thin strips - it seems fairly secure for now (a wash of solvent helped) and a few coats of paint will secure it for good.

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??? posted on Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:31 pm

 

The body is now assembled. Firstly I added some reinforcing strips inside the door sections, so that the sides would line up properly.

 

 

Then I attached the sides.

 

 

24 hours later when everything was set hard, I added the ends.

 

 

I'd have like to have a removeable interior, but this doesn't seem to be possible due to the need to fit loads of bracing to the body to stop it going wonky. The Interior mouldings that come with the kit are generic ones that bear no relation to the real Bil interior and so were modified.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

The composite interior had one third class compartment removed and another cut down to form the coupe. The spare compartment was then added to the third class moulding to give the extra compartment needed for the driving trailer. Bits of plasticard have been added to the ends for the toilet section, and then they were both reduced in hight to give roof for the cross bracing. The plastic used for these mouldings was horrible and brittle and the odd bit shattered on me, so they are now a bit rough in places but hopefully this wont be obvious when they are in place.

 

Speaking of horrible, I've started on the roof. 5 thou plastic has been added to reprofile the flattened bit of the dome to try and get it symetrical.

 

 

I think the most difficult bit is going to be battering the roof in to shape, so that it fits properly on the body,

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Comment posted by 5Bel on Sat Aug 01, 2009 9:17 am

 

Hi Pete,

The Bil looks great. It's good to see someone else doing one. Mine took me about five years to finish!! I have built two now and they both had the bow mentioned. I used cross bracing at the top of the bodysides to cure mine on the second one. One tip I could give is to sand down the rainstrip on the roof. This gives a much more prototypical profile. DC Kits are going to re-release this kit this year so I can see myself going through the process all over again. Keep up the good work.

 

Cheers Ian

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??? posted on Sat Aug 01, 2009 12:04 pm

 

I'm trying to avoid spending years on mine! Given how many of these kits get sold it's odd how few you see made up - perhaps people give up on them because of the various problems.

 

I've tackled the bowing with lots of cross braces.

 

 

It's now setting. Next step is to fit the remaining partitions. I'm making my own partitions out of plasticard, as the ones supplied with the kit are about 1mm narrower than the seats

 

I think I'm going to remove all of the roof detailing and replace with Evergreen strip.

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Comment posted by ferries2008 on Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:07 am

 

Morning, Thanks for the shared info and photo's Pete, Tracking your posts.....dt...

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??? posted on Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:59 pm

 

Progress has been a bit slow, due to the roof needing lots of work.

 

I've added the remaining compartment partitions.

 

 

Now for the roof. I removed the moulded on detail including the very thick rainstrips. These make the roof about 3mm too wide Untouched roof above, modified one below.

 

 

I then filed the ends and underside of the roof to make them fit properly. This took a while, but eventually I got there. As you can see, the roof is a couple of milimetres longer than the side. Some trimming is needed. The thickness at the ends also needs reducing a bit more.

 

 

This is the current state of play with the front. The strip around the front is being increased in thickness with plastic strip. As supplied it is too narrow on one side, and the front end is asymmetrical. Still working on this. The roof has had a coat of white primer to show up any imperfections.

 

 

Lastly, I've assembled the brass inners for the NNK trailing bogies. After the problems with the slop on the collector bogie wheels, I packed the bearings out with brass washers (from an MJT inside bearing etch). This cured the problem.

 

 

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??? posted on Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:29 pm

 

As per my last post, the roof took ages. It needed a lot of sanding and filing to get it to fit and to make it symetrical. Both are now done, and the driving trailer is mounted on it's bogies.

 

 

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??? posted on Sun Sep 20, 2009 9:34 pm

 

The motor coach is now on it's bogies as well. The mounting cradle for the black beetle is just a piece of plastic sheet, packed out from the floor by a couple of strips. I discovered the hard way that the fuse boxes cast on to the Branchlines side frames are over scale and project above the top of the side frames. I had to cut them off to get the coach to sit at the correct height - I'll replace them with NNK ones later on.

 

 

To make marking out the roof easier I've scanned in the Branchlines drawings, played around with the size to make them fit roof (including widening them to take the curve in to account) and printed them out of self adhesive paper. Next step is to drill out the holes and fit the various cable runs and fittings.

 

 

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