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Toplight 57ft Full Brake


devondynosoar118

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Continuing with rolling stock, I won 3 Cavendish coach kits on the usual auction site, £25 for a 70ft compo, 57 FB and a Siphon H. There were one or two bits misplaced, but nothing serious. These kits are still available in improved format, from Ultima.

I thought I would start with the full brake. Here it is still in the box, carefully glued back together by the seller.

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I laid out all the components, these use printed sides, which saved me doing the lining out and the lack of relief is less of a problem as you only notice in extreme close up. Ultima produce a range of bogie options if you want more detail.

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I started by looking at the instructions, which were not too bad, a pleasant surprise. I stuck the main bits together, omitting the corridor partition as again this is invisible (to me anyway!) I will put one in the 70ft as it has more windows. I may even put an interior in that, we'll see. The roof has a white overlay with some surface detail printed on. This is best held by masking tape whilst glueing.

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There were a few gaps around the white metal ends, but not too bad for the age of it.

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Supplied under frame detail included the battery boxes and truss rods, fitted to the cleaned aluminium with super glue.

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I then assembled the bogies, which was tricky as the axlebox covers were missing. At about 2mm square it was no surprise that they had fallen out the box at some point. Fortunately there were some in the siphon H, which I pirated as this needs a new end making so will be done later with Ultima replacements. A hold and fold would have been handy as the top fold is a little bit rounded. This were the first etched bogies I have attempted, so the learning curve was a bit steep at times. I painted them and did a basic highlight and weathering job on them, then varnished them prior to fitting up.

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I was then ready to paint the body, including the roof as all mine are grey for wartime. I did the under frame dirtying again and weathered the ends. There is a bit of detail to add to the buffers and maybe some transfers later. The corridor moulding is basic, I will not be adding vacuum pipes as they get in the way of the DG couplings. All this got varnished yesterday.

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This morning I cut out and fitted the printed sides. The colour of the top is a little yellow in pictures and I couldn't get the bottom to bend down much as the plastic had curled in a bit with age. I suspect this will be more of an issue on the 70ft. Any suggestions for contouring the plastic a bit would help. I also fitted the wheels, which was interesting as it was hard not to catch the truss rods with ends of the pinpoint axles. I did break 1 bit, how do you fit these, especially metal ones. Supplied were plastic thankfully. Do you do it when assembling the bogies?

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A shot end on, not quite enough depth of field but you get the general idea.

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Any comments or improvements that can be made would be welcome. I haven't worked out how to get any weathering onto the sides and make it stick yet, and the roof could do with a little soot streaking, but not sure what else needs sorting as coaching stock is not something I am very knowledgeable about.

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Without the right reference material convenient for me, I think that might be a K19 rather than a proper K22. (The differences concern the provision of the number of toplights.)

 

That livery is conjectural. All K22s (and K19s for that matter) were shipped in lined crimson lake. The last batches were delivered into service a month before the new brown and cream edict was officially 'signed off'.

 

It's an interesting historical supposition that a couple of them might have been whisked back in the paintshop to have their livery changed so that they would not look out of place topping and tailing the Cornish Riviera Express (the showpiece of the new brown and cream livery).

 

But that is supposition. The more likely scenario for the average K19/K22 was a life in crimson-lake followed by either the post-1927 'plain' livery or an all-brown introduced mid-1930s for full brakes.

 

The bogies bear no relation to anything GWR. 9' Americans were de rigeur for these very handsome vehicles.

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According to my research some were supplied with plate bogies. Most survivors have 9ft Americans, I did look up the bogies before assembling them as when I realised that I would have to use parts from the Siphon.

Interesting point on livery, so the lining is wrong? Do you think any lake survived to the 40,s. Repainting the printed sides will be a pain as there is no surface detail. The finished rake will include some brass ones I will paint in the later unlined livery.

At least the bogies are only screwed in, easy to sort. From 4ft away most people would struggle to spot the difference IMHO, especially on a moving train. Wonder if the Ultima ones feature corrected livery?

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Ideas for improvements depend on how much detail you want to add? I would change the bogies for definite. (P.S. if you want some axle boxes drop me a PM with your details and I can send you some: I have a couple of Ultimate kits that I won't be needing the bogies from.) If you scribed the lower half of the side on the reverse you would probably convince some turn under into them but they don't look too bad flat. Usually you look at a vehicle side on in a moving train so the curve is less obvious. The Ultimate sides I had for the same vehicle had this same livery.

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I remember these kits, I think I may have one or two kicking about somewhere myself. I was going to suggest scribing the back of the lower sides lengthways to impart a turn under (but Richard beat me to it!)

 

For a kit that must be almost 30 years old the result is pretty good.

 

Ian

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If you are building those old bogies it's a good idea once they are the right shape to solder the insides of the folds between the top/sides, otherwise it seems they sometimes crack along the join over time.

 

Looks like the kit was perhaps missing the bag of white metal bits - vents, axle box castings, underframe gubbins or it may be sold old it didn't have them

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Nice work Tom - Did you try any weathering powders on it yet? Perhaps some gentle scratching with a fibreglass stick might help give it a key first?

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I thought there was some other stuff to go on it. The box was certainly old.

Haven't tried mucking the sides yet, good idea about the scratch pen.

 

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You could try and use some artists pastels for weathering, as these tend to have a slight oily base to them and would probably stick to smooth surface where chalk powders wouldn't. For the curved tumblehome have you tried using a round former of suitable size and apply heat to the plastic in the form of hot water or steam to persuade it to curve. Or is the printed surface to delecate for this method?

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I wasn't sure about trying heat on a 20 year old bit of thin plastic! Rolling it might work, I will try tap hot water on the next build. How would I seal the pastels, bearing in mind the windows are part of the plastic side?

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Thanks to all those who added their 2cents. Bogies have now arrived from Richbrummitt (thanks again) they are the correct 9ft American type, these will be fitted up 2nd week of August.

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