LSWR corridor third - underframe
Entry posted by Barry Ten
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In the last entry I dealt with the assembly of the Roxey Mouldings bogies. Having built and finished the pair, it's time to move onto the underframe. There's no set order here - you could just as easily build the body next - but I always feel I'm getting somewhere when I've got something that can be trundled down the track.
The first job is to separate the main underframe etch from the sheet and remove the droplight window frames which are included as part of the same unit, which went into the two rectangular gaps you see here. Next, two folds have to be formed in either side. I've had a Hold and Fold tool for about 10 years and find that it makes this kind of job so much easier.
This is the underside of the etch, with the half-etched lines in the inside of the intended fold. As you can see the coach is just about at the limit for the size of my Hold and Fold if the job is to be done in one step. For a longer fold, I start the bend, work along a bit, start it a bit more, hopefully ending up with something reasonably crisp.
Note the very clever design of the bogie bolsters, which are ingeniously simple to set up.
Moving om (below) I've completed most of the main work on the underframe. There's nothing worth dwelling over here, as it all just fits quite nicely. Footboards have been soldered along both sides using slot and tabs for location, and battery boxes, brake gear and trusses have been added. There's another battery box on the etch which I may need to add. Being just 3-sided boxes, it will probably be an idea to add a forth side using scrap etch or plastikard, althoigh I imagine it will all look all right once painted black and lost in the gloom. I make no claims for the neatness of my soldering; it is what it is but it gets the job done and evething looks fine under a coat of primer.
Now onto the bogie mountings. As mentioned, the folded-up design is excellent. The only remaining job is to solder a nut onto the top of the bolster:
This is achieved by first tinning the area where the nut is going to sit, then positioning the nut over the hole using a cocktail stick jammed through it. Reapply flux and solder with a hot iron and you should see the solder form a nice cusp around the base of the nut.
Depending on the position of the nut relative to the hole in the floor, and any solder that may have wicked into the thread, you may find it difficult to put a bolt back through. Rather than force it (which usually only gets you into worse trouble) it's best to re-tap the nut. Taps and dies were a mystery to me until a few years ago, but I bought a small set from Maplins and then had a mate give me a tutorial. Here the tap is being gently eased into the blocked thread, using back and forth turns to allow it to bite into the brass and solder than clear the waste, before proceeding. My set was metric but I found an online chart with gave metric to imperial equivalents for various threads. As it happens, I've only ever used the one tap, but you never know when the others will come in handy.
Tapping is very satisfying because the bolt will now go into the nut with no resistance.
There are four more nuts to be tackled like this when we get to the coach body, but that's for next time.
cheers!
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