LSWR corridor third - final work.
It may seem that I've jumped forward a bit here! Fear not, but I didn't want to dwell on my method of attacking the roofs as I don't feel I'm quite there yet in terms of a consistent approach. It's really just a question of trimming down a piece of vac-formed plastic until it fits, and the instructions do give some guidance, but I'd be lying if I said I don't find it a bit of a tricky step. It's all too easy to end up with asymmetric bits or too much taken off one side. All i can advocate is taking ones time and using sandpaper and files for the final fitting, followed by a degree of fettling once the roof is fixed in place, for which I used normal Evo-stik type adhesive. For one of the coaches, I overdid the trimming and had to butt-joint two strips of microstrip along the edge of the roof to give me something to work with again. Fortunately, though, any battle scars and uneven-ness can to some extent be concealed by the final additional of a cantrail strip, again with microstrip (and again not supplied in the kit!). I also added the additional curved rainstrips on each coach. I carefully set out these curves using measuring verniers and a set of Napier's logarithmic tables ... er no, I just winged it.
Although I intend to build another brake, I felt that the project would be in danger of bogging down if I didn't get the immediate sugar hit of seeing the rake running on the layout in semi-finished condition! So I pushed on with painting and glazing. The coaches were primed and then airbrushed with Railmatch malachite, This was handy as while I had the airbrush loaded, I was also able to respray a Bachmann Lord Nelson that had been earmarked for backdating to Southern condition.
The kits came with thin glazing material which proved sufficient for each coach. It was a long and tedious job - it took me the whole of The Railway Children just to do the brake! All of the windows neeeded to be individually glazed. Once I got into the swing of it, though, the other two coaches were a little quicker.
Corridor connections were fashioned using a mix of the cast bits in the kits (where provided - two of them didn't have any) and MJT bellows, which I find to be a pragmatic and workable solution for relatively little investment of time. I used to try and add a representation of the scissors bits using cotton, but I don't bother now. Finally, coupling bars were fitted to enable to the coaches to run as a fixed rake. I added a screw coupling at the front.
Still a fair bit to be done but at least I can see the end in sight as they swish around behind the E1.
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