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Guest stuartp

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  • 1 month later...
  • RMweb Gold

Active modelling time has been a bit of a luxury recently but the end is in sight for these three:

 

post-270-12600540830898_thumb.jpg

 

I also managed to get the photos taken in daylight this time so you can actually see them ! Vents and chalk boards on the ends have been added from styrene and the Lot 2181 van now has RCH axleboxes (MJT). The diagonal strapping on the doors is from microstrip, but instead of adding the rivets from 10 thou cubes I just made dents with a scriber in the hope that dents rather than bumps won't be too noticeable (ok, I was getting bored).

 

post-270-12600547010627_thumb.jpg

 

Because the sides were extended along the bottom edge the stancions are now 1mm short. It's not much but it was noticeable as it left them well short of the bottom edge of the solebar so they've been extended with more microstrip and the brackets joining them to the solebar added. The central rib of the stancion has been added from square microstrip, it's overscale and needs trimming filing back to the correct size but I find this easier for very fine detail than spending hours squinting at the ends of the tweezers whilst chasing microscopic bits of styrene around the bench.

 

The only major job still to do is to add the corner plates on the van sides. I'll probably go back to brass shim for those. Oh, and a word of warning for those of you copying the 8 pence weighting system further up this thread - fasten them down well as two of these are rattling like a bag of spanners already angry.gif

Hi Stuart,

 

Good to see wagon butchery to a high standard still goes on.....

 

Currently you are following in the same steps as myself - just some 20 years later!

 

However, your results certainly appear far better than mine ever did...

 

Anyway - the 'Make and Match' build with the Parkside ends and Ratio GW sides.

 

I found the this is down to the height that Ratio used for the planks.

 

The Parkside end is spot on for measurements but the planks are each underscale and this produced the mismatch.

 

OK - So when I first did this conversion it was with Ian Kirk ends and Ratio sides.

 

Time and Kit Makers change, but the Parkside and Kirk endswere/are the same height, just the Parkside detail and crispness is a lot better.

 

However - you still get the same problem!

 

These days - I'm not sure how I would tackle this - however your solution still appears to be the easiest one!

 

Thanks - and keep up the butchery!

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Guest stuartp

Thanks gents. If I'd done these 20 years ago I'd have missed most of the subtle differences - the 'RMWeb effect' of seeing how other people have raised the bar is largely responsible for me looking a bit harder this time round. David Larkin and Paul Bartlett (and others) have a lot to answer for too !

 

Reading back through the thread it is a bit hard to follow in places, sorry about that. I've added a caption to the latest photo of all three vans to clarify things a bit.

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I like your laminated roofs. I've also suffered from single layers drooping before I went in for laminating. Although a central rib can be superfluous to the stability of a laminate, if a roof does decide to warp, the rib needs to be at least 4mm or 5mm deep to counteract it.

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  • 4 months later...
Guest stuartp

Thanks Scott.

 

Because I'm spoiled for choice (or far too lazy to make a decision), I shall leave the choice of what appears next on the workbench to the RMweb Port Road Massive (that's anyone reading this !). What do you want to see next chaps ?

 

1. Various Comet/Airfix cut 'n' shut Staniers

2. Caledonian Grampian Corridor BCK (Tri-ang rebuild - the sides are surprisingly accurate !)

3. Hurlford Tool Vans (all of them but the crane can wait until later).

4. Bill Bedford ex-GER Cafeteria Car as running in the 1960 RCTS Scottish Tour.

 

Over to you smile.gif

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Guest stuartp
Any idea what pattern bogies these had? None of the pics I;ve seen of this vehicle show the undergubbins very well.

 

The two Cafeteria Cars I have reasonably clear photos of (Sc670E and Sc672E) appear to have either GER pattern bogies (they look like the ones on the GER coaches in Nick Campling's 'Historic Carriage Drawings to me anyway) or possibly Fox bogies. The underframe detail is a little dark but they're not Gresleys. At least one of the Restaurant Cars (E667E) finished up with Gresley bogies though. The Scottish Tour one was Sc670E.

 

Anybody know if the GER used Fox bogies ? They seem to have been quite popular amongst pre-grouping companies. In the absence of positive information I was going to use Ratio LNWR ones with look similar to the GER pattern ones until/unless more information turned up in the meantime.

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Tidying up loose ends a bit tonight. The vans have fnally been through the paintshop:

Nothing short of vantastic Mr P.

 

Any of your projects sound interesting, don't think I've ever clapped eyes on the 67B vans, but that's not here nor there - happy to watch any of them from the sidelines.

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Guest stuartp

GER Cafeteria Car it is then smile.gif .

 

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, I posted this topic on RMweb 2. In a nutshell I had made an impulse buy of a Bachmann Mk1 TSO in crimson and cream. Not having an immediate use for it, I was wondering what to do with it when I noticed that a similar vehicle popped up regularly in photos of one of the tour train sets used by ScR in the 60s. This turned out to be the 1960 RCTS/SLS Scottish Tour, an account of which appeared in 'Steam Days' for August 2008. One of the few bits of Scotland the tour didn't cover was the south west, so this really has no place on Portwilliam or Newton Stewart but it's my trainset ...

 

Four of the five vehicles in the tour train posed no problems - the two preserved Caley coaches I already had (etched kits from Caley Coaches, who else ?), the Bachy Mk1 of course, and a Gresley BTO of some sort. The only problem was the catering vehicle, described by one of the photo captions as a GER vehicle but not clearly shown in any of the pics. I posted the topic in the hope that somebody could point me in the direction of any photos from which I could bash a reasonably GER-ish looking approximation.

 

I was delighted with the response. Between them Buckjumper, Pint of Adnams and 65179 pinned down the exact vehicle (Sc670E), a couple of good clear photos, and also confirmed that the Gresley BTO was covered by the Comet range. Sc670E turned out to be a D31E restaurant car, later converted to a cafeteria car for GNoS section services. Of course, none of the drawings in the NRM matched the converted vehicles, that would have been too easy. Pyewipe Jct also turned yup a cracking photo of an unconverted vehicle at Sheffield Victoria which clearly showed a lot of the typical GER features on these vehicles, especially on the vehicle end.

 

During this process Jonathan Wealleans mentioned that Bill Bedford had a couple of GER kits in his range, so I sent the photos off to him with a request that he suggest which of his GER kits I would be best taking a razor saw to in order to finish up with something like. The response was not what I was expecting:

 

"I can identify the changes made from those photos, leave it with me and I'll etch you some sides."

 

The sides arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I can't fault them. They're superb and it was quite daunting to start cutting the etches, I felt I should really be Brasso-ing them and finding a frame for them.

 

So this entire project owes its existance to RMwebbers Adrian, Mike, Simon, Kevin and Jonathan, and to Bill Bedford. Thanks chaps !

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Stuart - have a look at my LNER WB here : towards the top of the page there's a shot of the bits I couldn't identify from the etch, which Bill then identifies a few posts further down. On mine he'd included some bogie components, but I wasn't using his bogies. Most of it is fairly self-explanatory if you're methodical and you've built a few coaches before.

 

I never managed to get his sliding gangway to work - ended up soldering it in solid.

 

Have you got a roof? I build my coaches so the body lifts off and the roof is soldered on, but you need to chop the internal partitions about a bit to do that. Bill does supply small tabs and holes to allow you to do that and it's the strongest way to do it IMHO.

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Guest stuartp

Thanks Jonathan, I think I've worked most of them out but I'd never have guessed Westinghouse brake supports ! I've not sorted a roof out yet, I might try rolling one if I'm feeling brave, if not it will be a laminated plasticard job.

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Stuart,

 

I am looking for some GER catering vehicles myself, is the Cafeteria Coach you are currently building a later rebuild of a GER coach that is really only suitable for the BR period. If so do you know if Bill Bedford does the etches for the coach in the GER period, and if so do you know the code Bill uses in his catalogue ( the code for the coach you are building would be useful if you could let me know this anyway). I will be at S4 North this weekend so I guess I could always ask Bill myself.

I have also recently purchased the two Skinley drawings for the GER 1st Class Dining car and the GER 1st Class Restaurant Car with Kitchen, which I intend to check with Bill if he has these etches in his range and if not whether he would be prepared to draw them up and etch me a set.

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Guest stuartp

Blue Max - The Cafeteria Car kit is BCK 0712, Ex-GER Cafeteria Car D31E; from the information gleaned by Buckjumper (below you !) it's a BR conversion of an earlier vehicle. The NRM holds drawings of it in original condition and as altered by the LNER, drawing numbers 1669, 1675, 2032 and 2033 in the OPC list. I purchased one of the drawings but I can't find it at the moment, I think the alterations were fairly extensive but I'll confirm that when (if ?!) I find it.

 

Bill's other kits are BCK0708 D39 RB and BCK0709 D120 RFK. Whether either of these resemble the unconverted D31A I couldn't say but I'm sure Bill will. One thing I did learn from Adrian and Mike was that no two GER vehicles appear to be the same !

 

Adrian - Hello, and thanks again ! I couldn't really leave it in the loft after it was done at my request. The two votes above were just what I needed to take a Stanley knife to the fret.

 

Progress pics in the morning. I've also lightened one of the prototype pics in Photoshop - I'm now 99% certain it's got Fox bogies.

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I'm now 99% certain it's got Fox bogies.

 

Very likely. The GE had used Fox's patent pressed steel underframes from 1894 until Stratford Works was equipped to build them, and 1896 saw the first recorded use of Fox's bogies on a GE carriage - a dining car, no less. After a brief flirtation with Dean's bogies in 1897 on some main line composites, Stratford reverted back to Fox's bogies for four more dining cars and four royal train carriages. Although Stratford then experimented with different bogies, in time the Fox bogies appear to have been transferred to newer designs.

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nice looking frets

 

like you say, almost too nice to spoil by cutting bits out :P

 

well........i'd still have a coach than a nice shiny fret.

 

me....i like hacking plastic about look in my suburban thread below.

 

keep up the good work,

 

Scott

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  • 4 weeks later...

The construction looks great I'm sure that you will have fun painting it.

 

If you apply flux to the out side and heat to the back of the coach side you will suck most of the excess solder from around the hinge.

 

Pete

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Trimmed to length and finished up with a file. I've left the bottom hinge longer, i.e. in line with the other two until I get chance to check some photos. The pic I was working from isn't clear whether it was longer or not.post-270-127264017032_thumb.jpg

 

Stuart, these are wonderfully clear photos you're taking, thanks for going through the hassle of taking them (how do you juggle soldering iron and camera?). I think these are the first piccies I've seen of the 'half-done' steps of soldering on strip hinges, normally there's just a finished piccy of perfectly formed and cleaned hinges and the line "I made the hinges from strip brass". Mine will say "I soldered the top hinge strip on, unsoldered it, resoldered it straight, soldered the middle strip, unsoldered the top one, soldered it back on but in line with the middle one, pierced my wrist with the sticking-out middle strip while soldering the bottom one...."

 

I don't think you need to check the photos to see whether the bottom hinges should be longer or not - the hinge ends need to be in a straight line to form the rotary axis of the door - I know it's not immediately obvious, but if the hinges were to stick out at identical lengths from a curved coach side (ie. if they followed the tumblehome), then the door could never open! I suspect after a moment's pondering, you'll probably think "dohhh"!! In fact many modellers leave off the top and middle hinges (eg. on fully panelled coaches where the coach side is vertical above the waist, and the panelling thickness above the waist means the lower hinges really need to stick out) - I think Coachmann refers to this in his Blog - or replace just with short lengths of wire (eg. on flush-sided stock), because the bottom hinges are so pronounced in photos whereas the others are often scarcely visible.

 

Looking forward to seeing more.

 

Neil

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Guest stuartp

Thanks Neil, I'm glad they're of use.

 

Mine will say "I soldered the top hinge strip on, unsoldered it, resoldered it straight, soldered the middle strip, unsoldered the top one, soldered it back on but in line with the middle one, pierced my wrist with the sticking-out middle strip while soldering the bottom one...."

 

Yes, all of those plus "picked the soldering iron up by the hot end, spilt flux all over the carpet, burnt the carpet..." !

 

the hinge ends need to be in a straight line to form the rotary axis of the door ... the bottom hinges are so pronounced in photos whereas the others are often scarcely visible.

 

That's sort of the problem - I know they should be in line, but they're not prominent on the photo at all ! However, as my best photo is a scan of a print of a transparency, I suspect they're just lost in the murk somewhere along with the underframe details. I've left them long anyway.

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Thanks Pete, I'll try that.

 

Another mini-update (the back steps are coming along nicely though !):

 

Having reduced a couple of quids worth of 10th brass sheet to scrap trying to roll it to a semi-elliptical shape, (all the right curves, not necessarily in the right order) I've decided to laminate it from styrene. Four layers of 60 thou and a bit of 20 thou on top, left to set overnight with a couple of weights on top. A couple of bits of scrap sheet underneath cut to fit between the gutters help locate it, I haven't decided how to fasten it down yet. A lug at one end and a long bolt through the kitchen area probably. A couple of hours with a big file and a sanding block await:

 

Stuart,

 

the profile of the end looks as though one of the extruded aluminium roof sections (Comet, Wheeltappers Coaches, MJT) might have fitted. Have you tried one?

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