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1951 Pullman Scratchbuild in 1/32


hendie
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This project has been going a few months less than the amount of time I've been with my partner (that is not a criticism!). She knows exactly what "thread" I'm referencing when I excitedly try and tell her about what you've done this time. I'm always in awe of your ingenuity and ability to craft something new out of just about anything. The methodology for the top of the bar turned out brilliantly; and others you've come up with along the way are inspired.

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8 hours ago, simonmcp said:

Technically (I'm not very technical myself you understand) each of the fixings will be perpendicular, or at right angles, to the side of the bar. Hope this information helps and doesn't cause you any more hassle.

 

Thanks Simon.  I should have been more clear - what I meant to say was that each of the fixtures will enter the bar at different angles relative to each other.  You are correct in that they will all be perpendicular to the bar itself.

That poses a unique problem in that the end points of the stays are not in the same 3 dimensional location as the holes as they will be buried inside the bar. Does that make sense?

I've spent a frustrating morning attempting different solutions with no luck so far, but each iteration has provided some useful information and I think I now have a solution - stay tuned

 

 

3 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

I'm always in awe of your ingenuity and ability to craft something new out of just about anything. The methodology for the top of the bar turned out brilliantly; and others you've come up with along the way are inspired.

 

You're not the only one!    I'm making this up as I go along and never quite sure where things are going to end up.

I surprise myself at times (other times I just want to slap myself!)

 

thanks for following the thread - I really appreciate the comments and suggestions

 

 

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good afternoon fellows

 

I bring news.  Plan B worked.

Plan A involved meticulous planning (so was therefore doomed to failure), drilling, soldering, lathe work, more drilling and then I couldn't get the darned thing assembled together... but it did point me to Plan B so it wasn't all in vain.

The constituent parts of Plan A (& Plan B ) are shown below: A section of hand/foot rail. A section of tube slid over the rail, and a length of brass rod as the stand-off.

 

P4180011.jpg

 

But first things first, I had to address the thickness of the brass tube.  It was way over scale so took a journey via the lathe to get turned down - shown here a small portion turned down, and with the "hand rail" inserted

 

P4180001.jpg

 

The original plan was to drill a hole in the tube, insert the brass rod, solder it up, then remove the rod sticking through on the inside of the tube by sticking it back on the lathe and drilling it out.

That actually worked very well - surprisingly well.  I was convinced something would break, but no. However I could not get the hand rail down the inside of the tube afterwards - a small sliver of solder had worked it's way inside and my drill bit was just a fraction too small to completely clear out the inside of the tube.  So the question was how could I solder it without getting solder on the inside?

 

Aluminum!

I had some aluminum rod that was a nice slip fit inside the brass tube, and since solder doesn't like aluminum, I figured that if I soldered the brass with the aluminum inside, then it might keep the solder from flowing inside.

 

P4180002.jpg

 

and guess what?   It worked!

A quick clean up of the solder on the outside, trim the tube down in length and it slipped nicely over the hand rail and could be slid from one end to the other end of the rail without jamming on the curves.

The first one is shown here - this was a highly motivating moment - there was now a chance I could do this!

 

P4180003.jpg

 

The tube/rod arrangement was surprisingly sturdy given that the wall thickness of the tube was probably less that .25mm, so there wasn't a whole lot of area for the solder to get hold of.  But it worked and that was all that mattered.

All 6 stand-offs were made and slid on to the rail. They were then taped in place so I could stare at this for a while and try to figure out how to assemble it.  This could be awkward.

 

P4180006.jpg

 

In preparation for the big assemble, I fitted the chromed back plates.

Even just drilling that bar front was nerve racking - one slip and I'd have to start al over again from scratch and build another bar.  I'm really glad I added the resin reinforcement yesterday as that really made a difference handling and working on the bar.

 

P4180007.jpg

 

I had a couple of false starts trying to assemble all the bits.  Initially I had the bar sitting upright as shown here and tried to insert each of the little rods into it's associated hole.

It was like trying to herd cats. Gravity had a better grip on those rods than I had.

Then I laid the bar down on its back and used gravity to assist in aligning the rods with the holes.  By gently lowering the rail from above I could guide each of the rods into its mating back plate.

The hand rail was not centered on the bar at first (no surprise there then), but there was just enough wiggle room in the rail/tube interface to allow me to gently shuffle the rail along until it was centered

 

P4180008.jpg

 

Obligatory dry fit/Mojo booster

 

P4180010.jpg

 

I'm very pleased with that and a bit overwhelmed by the fact that it worked so easily.

I do have one problem facing me though - the rails and all the fittings need to be chromed.   While the assembly of all the components isn't terribly difficult it does take a fair bit of handling, and Alclad chrome just will not stand up to that handling.  In addition, Alclad chrome needs a clear gloss coating to protect it.

If I chrome the rails and clear coat before assembly, I'll lose the ability to be able to slide the rail into position through the tubes - yes, the tolerances are that tight.  That means it is looking very much like I shall need to assemble the hand rail and the bar, then chrome the handrail is situ - trying very hard not to get it on any other parts of the bar.   I think I need another lie down.

 

P4180009.jpg

 

The foot rail will be a lot easier to  position and secure, but that's a job for another day.

 

 

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11 hours ago, hendie said:

I do have one problem facing me though - the rails and all the fittings need to be chromed.   While the assembly of all the components isn't terribly difficult it does take a fair bit of handling, and Alclad chrome just will not stand up to that handling.  In addition, Alclad chrome needs a clear gloss coating to protect it.

If I chrome the rails and clear coat before assembly, I'll lose the ability to be able to slide the rail into position through the tubes - yes, the tolerances are that tight.  That means it is looking very much like I shall need to assemble the hand rail and the bar, then chrome the handrail is situ - trying very hard not to get it on any other parts of the bar.   I think I need another lie down.

 

Try whisky!!

 

Mike.

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19 hours ago, jrg1 said:

Extraordinary-the bar is worth the Pochin Cup on its own!

 

14 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

Try whisky!!

 

I've no idea what a Pochin Cup is but filling it with Whisky sounds fine to me! 

 

 

I'll apologize before I begin and just let you know that there will be a lot of photos in this post. That's because today I reached one of those milestone thingies. Yup.  A milestone.  A great step forward and the completion (almost) of something that I had been dreading for months.  As it turned out, it didn't go too badly at all.  In fact I have to say it went quite well - way better than I had anticipated.

 

First thing this morning I spent some more time on the lathe turning these little blighters.  From the left we have a wall mounting boss, followed by a coupe of ferrules, then an assembled ferrule and boss, and on the extreme right we have one test fitted to the end of a piece of scrap rod.

 

P4190002.jpg

 

When fitted, these will be at each end of the foot and hand rails and mount to the adjacent panel.  Like so

 

P4190003.jpg

 

Things were beginning to get serious now and I was getting dangerously close to have to fit the bar.    In preparation, I made this little throwaway jig which allowed me to place the mounting hole in the floor at the correct position relative to the foot rail mounting point on the bar itself.

There is a small pin which inserts into the bar fitting and positions the drill perpendicular to the bar front.  In theory all three holes should align vertically.  In theory that is.  Theories are wonderful things aren't they?

 

P4190005.jpg

 

More heart pounding moments followed as I drilled into the floor.  My first position was slightly too far out from the bar, but thankfully I had only used a 0.5mm drill so I could reposition closer as the holes still had to be opened out.

Once drilled and opened out, the chrome mounting plates were fitted.  Nice easy job, and you can hardly see them against the carpet.

 

P4190006.jpg

 

Another rail was made using the same jig as before.  This one was a bit easier to manufacture and I seem to be getting quite good at these now.

The stanchions were all soldered up this morning and chromed - the rail itself is still brass at this point as I wanted to get the stanchions in position on the rail here and then add a drop of superglue to each one to hold it all together so things stayed in one place when I removed the rail for painting.

 

P4190008.jpg

 

A little bit of tweaking will be required to get the height correct but overall it's looking good so far.

 

P4190009.jpg

 

Thankfully the superglue held when I removed the assembly so it got a covering of alclad chrome, followed by a clear coat of Mr. Color clear - which I find stands up to handling much better than alclad's clear coats.

 

P4190010.jpg

 

ooohhh, really getting serious now.   Much measuring and double checking of the offset from the bar 'cos if I glued this in the wrong place there was no going back.  Well, there was but it was going to be a to have to redo it all.

The hand rail was fitted and I used my favorite of late - diluted PVA wicked into the hole with the stand-off rods.  I applied that a few times to make sure it was going to hold.  It dries nice and clear and doesn't affect the chrome finish.  At least, not in the same way my grubby fingers do.

 

P4190011.jpg

 

The bar was then masked up using slices of kitchen roll and a multitude of masking tape.  Scary moments ahead...

 

P4190012.jpg

 

The hand rail was then alclad chromed, followed by a clear coat.  I should probably have waited longer before clear coating, but I was getting a little bit excited at all this construction going on and wanted to see if I could finish it before the weekend ended.  Otherwise I'd be tempted to skive off work to get it done. (unfortunately my conscience gets the better of me at times)

 

P4190013.jpg

 

Wait !  what have we got here then ?  A milestone that's what!

The bar top is only laid on top at the moment which is why it's still all a bit skewy.  It'll flatten out when glued in place (says he with confidence!).

 

P4190018.jpg

 

We have hand rails and foot rails!!!    Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cheated a little bit - because the vertical rods coming from the floor really hold the foot rail in place pretty well, I used short lengths of rod in the bar itself for the horizontals and just pulled them out until they touched the foot rail.  Works for me. A drop of glue on the end will hold them nicely in position.

 

P4190020.jpg

 

Alignment isn't too bad at all.  The curve at the extreme left on the foot rail is a little bit wide but I may be able to tweak that slightly when I finally add the glue at the next session.  For hand made though, I'm pretty pleased with this.

 

P4190017.jpg

 

and more shots just because I took them (and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself at this moment) - maybe you can tell!

 

P4190014.jpg

 

It's all coming together quite nicely.  These last two weekends have been very productive.  This is a BIG step forward - and I'm hoping to make just as much progress over the next few weeks as a lot of the more difficult stuff is now done.

 

P4190016.jpg

 

and there we have it folks.  The bar is almost complete.  All that's left is to glue everything in place.  No doubt there will be a few heart stopping moments as I do that - careful selection of glues methinks.

There's so many moving parts here that I will need some level of adjustment as things go in.

 

I think I'll have a whisky now thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Looking great, I like the attention to detail. I fitted a paper real in my dynamometer car recording device, not that anyone will see it. 
I really enjoy seeing the progress, you give me ideas for how I might tackle problems I encounter.

richard 

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and on to this evenings brief update - Paneling 101.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before but I'm altering contrast etc on these photo's to make them a bit clearer, but that has the undesirable effect of making the wood grain look very coarse. In the flesh, the grain is not nearly as bad as it looks here. (Honest!)

 

Anyways.  After I had finished up on the outer paint work and started on the interior,  I realized that I had completely forgotten about the inlays on the paneling.  Had I thought of this previously I would simply have had Steve at Railtec do them at the same time as the others. However, knowing that Steve was very busy, and given current circumstances and uncertainties around international post and all that, I found a place closer to home that I knew would get through the post reasonably easy.

In the 1:1, several of the mahogany panels have a birds eye maple inlay that I needed to reproduce. At that scale you're never going to see the birds eyes so to make things nice and simple I chose a color that I thought was close to the maple, and just had the designs printed in a solid color block.

It was all a bit of a chance as I had never applied decals to wood before and had no idea how a decal would react to wood-grain.  You always hear that 'oh the surface must be smooth and gloss coated' and all that. So I gave the panels a coat of gloss, but wood grain is still wood grain.

Taking a leap of faith, I applied the decals to the panels and micro sol'd and set'd them following up with a gloss coat to seal them in, and later, a semi gloss coat for that satin look finish

Everything is looking good so far...

 

P4230001.jpg

 

Aaanddd the first panel gets glued in place, starting at the corridor

I'm very pleased with the decals - the carrier film has disappeared nicely into the wood

 

P4230002.jpg

 

Then more panels get slapped in place.

 

P4230003.jpg

 

Add in an electrical cabinet and a heater box and it's starting to look as if it all belongs together. 

 

P4230004.jpg

 

Please ignore the skewyness of the paneling at the carline level - I'll even that off later and it gets covered by some cornicing anyway.  I didn't realize those two windows on the right were so bad though - not until I knelt down to take this photo.

The line directly above the windows also gets covered by the blind covers, but I'm still kicking myself for not noticing that earlier. My bench is at waist height so I'm always working from above and this isn't the type of build where you can simply pick it up and turn it around to inspect as you go.  Lesson learned - I need to pay more attention and look from different angles in future.

 

Overall shot showing the corridor and dining area

 

P4230005.jpg

 

Window cills added.  These close up shots are gruesome aren't they?

The white line on top of the heater box is diluted PVA again.  It will dry nice and clear and you'll never know it was there.

You can see here that I offset the panel joins.  I know they look as rough as a badgers wotsit but these seams don't need to be neat as they get covered by would you believe... cover strips

 

P4230006.jpg

 

Like these ones getting added here.

Believe it or not but this is my second go round with these.  I had previously cut them all full height and glued them in position before I remembered that there's heater boxes all along the wall at floor level and the cover strips start at the top of the heater box, so in a mild panic I had to gently prise the cover strips back off, remove the partially dried glue, cut 10mm off each strip, then reapply the strips.

Luckily I had a spare heater box from the opposite corridor that I could use as a template to position the cover strips

 

P4230008.jpg

 

This job didn't take long at all and has a huge visual impact on the carriage - I like those kind of jobs!

 

P4230009.jpg

 

That squiggle inlay at picture center caused a bit of a kerfuffle. It should lie in dead center of the panel, but the squiggle is not symmetric around either the X or the Y axis so trying to position it correctly was very awkward - and I didn't get it right.

The cover strips are 4mm wide and the cover strip to the right of the squiggle overlapped the darned thing slightly, even though I had tried placing covers strips on the panel when I was fixing the decal last night.  So rather than make a new panel and still have to guess the location, I trimmed half a millimeter or so off each side of the cover strip to reduce the width and be able to see the inlay properly.

 

P4230010.jpg

 

You'll also notice that there's still a cover strip missing from the window second from the left - that's because a heater box starts at that location and I'm going to have to trim the cover strip to fit around the heater similar to the one shown at the end of the heater box in the first window from left. There's also a partition adjacent to that window, but I'll need to fit the bathroom and the dinette to make sure I get the partition position correct.

 

more heater boxes next I think

 

 

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Today was a bit of a drag all things considered.  I had a bit of a clean up which took a while and in no time at all it was back to its former state.  I just can't work in a tidy fashion. No sir.

As part of my clean up, I replaced the FEP film in the printer ready for a new set of prints.  I had come across an issue a week or two back and knew I had to deal with it at some point. I put it off until I knew I couldn't ignore it any longer.

Remember those fantastic little lamps that I got Shapeways to print way back when I was a young lad?  Can you spot the problem here ?

 

P4250005.jpg

 

Oh yeah - they're too big!   Now, while I have drawings for the structure and paneling etc. I do not have accurate drawings for the original hardware and I had eyeballed the lamps from photos.  Obviously, my Mk I eyeball was out of calibration when I did those. If only I had made it about three quarters of a millimeter narrower.  Sod's law in action.

Of course, this is one of only two panels where I am going to come across this issue, and I considered just trimming off the offending lugs so that it would nestle in there but the purist in me fought back.  They are too big after all, and I have a printer.  Ergo, the cleanup and new FEP film - ready for some clear resin (my first attempt using clear).

Fixing the lamps was no big deal, I just applied a 0.7 scale factor to the model and off we went. Since there was plenty of space on the build plate I threw in a few glasses as well.

Here we are fresh out of the bath - but don't get too excited yet.  I've heard things about this clear resin and we weren't out of the woods just yet.  It does look lovely and clear though doesn't it?

 

P4250001.jpg

 

In case you are wondering why the Shapeways lamp is all white - I had soaked them in IPA to clean up the residue that Shapeways hadn't cleaned out - and only then found out that the resin reacts with IPA.  New lamps shown here still attached to the build supports.  Can you see another potential problem?

 

P4250007.jpg

 

The clear resin has taken on a slight yellowish tinge hasn't it.  I've read lots of comments online about clear resins not staying clear once they have soaked up some UV's, however those don't look too bad.  Certainly not as clear as they were coming out of the bath but passable.

And they're the right size.  It's a shame you can't see the detail on them in this photo, but the Mars printer continues to impress me by what it's capable of.  The only problem I am going to have is painting something so small and trying to keep it neat.

 

P4250008.jpg

 

I did encounter one further issue and that was to do with the cavity in the lamp.  I had designed them hollow, but the viscosity of the resin was too high to allow the resin to drain out of the cavity so the lamps are almost solid. That cavity was about a millimeter deep by a couple of millimeters wide.  I wasn't too bothered as I had half expected that to be the case when I started the print.

But what about the glasses I hear you ask?

These glasses?

 

P4250012.jpg

 

Well, I was completely blown away by the quality of the print, really blown away.  Here's the same glass on my fingertip.

 

P4250011.jpg

 

And this is where I encountered yet another issue - those stems on the glasses are that fine - on one type of the glasses it's only about 0.3mm in diameter - trying to remove and clean up the supports is a nightmare.  Thankfully I have printed plenty extra.

Here's a glass or two on the bar top. (I just had to see what that looked like).  Passable, yes?  You can see that one glass has a slightly bent stem.  I may get around that by placing the glasses upside down on the bar top

 

P4250013.jpg

 

Or I could just stack them into the wall cabinets

 

P4250014.jpg

 

Let's get back to this yellowing phenomenon  - as a quick test I stuck one batch of lamps under my UV lamp for about half an hour - can you tell which one it was? 

Hhhmmnnn.  That could be an issue.  Whether the clear resin will react like that under normal sunlight I don't know.  I suppose I should throw a batch on the window cill and find out.

 

P4250016.jpg

 

I do have a plan B though - the glass on the 1:1 lamps is frosted white.  I'm hoping this resin reacts to IPA the same way as the Shapeways resin did so I've thrown a lamp in a small bath of IPA and will wait and see.  If it does react the same, then that solves the issue, though if it yellows over time I don't know there's anything I can do to prevent that.

 

The reaming time today was spent working on more heater boxes - and I had to order more mesh as I'm about to run out.  I also spent an inordinate amount of time making the 4 pelmets for this side of the dining area. For whatever reason they seemed to take forever.

 

P4250010.jpg

 

The pelmets have now been stained and a coat of semi matt applied. 

Looming on the horizon though are the soft furnishings, and curtains to be precise.  I would have already started those but every scrap of material in Walmart and elsewhere has been snaffled to make masks and I can't lay my hands on anything suitable - but there's a plan B, or is it C by now?  Covid stole my curtains - whodathunkit?

 

Anyways, must dash... the printer is kicking out some more lamps and some bottles and glasses, then I had a Yoda to print for my daughter

 

stay safe you lot

 

 

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My wife broke this clip, but out of disappointment came a silver lining.  What about being able to illustrate my idea for the fold down side. 
so first side down with a little spring holding it down.

EC514398-58F4-484C-8AA5-2BF7E25030B1.jpeg.d62a5d6ef0cf8fef2d34321afa0a903f.jpeg

 

then up being held at the top by little magnets. The spring acting as a hinge at the base of the side. 
7041F34F-2E75-42F6-AEB4-182775D8F995.jpeg.2969a3bc33080b6ba83428f3e55f5a64.jpeg


saves disrupting the roof or cutting holes in it. 
just my humble opinion.

richard

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here's a shot inside the kitchen - the brass guard rail finally got fitted across the window.

 

P4260002.jpg

 

Brass mesh got fitted to the heater box and the heater box was installed using the old trusty diluted PVA. I love how it dries clear and leaves no tell-tale signs behind.  Very useful stuff indeed.

 

P4260001.jpg

 

Here's my patented method for ensuring the tables all sit at the correct height - the top of the "T" fits into a slot I machined into the resin tabletops

 

P4260003.jpg

 

Like so...

 

P4260004.jpg

 

and my method for ensuring all the table legs look the same ('ish) - I'm using cocktail sticks as table legs and I found that the taper varied somewhat with some sticks being sharper than others.

By dropping the cocktail stick into a small hole, I can then razor saw the tip off the stick, knowing that the diameter at the cut will be the same on all legs.

 

P4270005.jpg

 

But then I found that my patented method wasn't up to scratch.  Putting the leg in the middle of the T-bar thing made the leg sit too far back from the table edge.  Easy fix though - instead of drilling a hole in the center, I just cut a small V groove into the front edge which placed the table leg further forward.

I know it's hard to see here from this angle, but the table on the left has the leg too far back, while the table on the right has the leg much further forward and looks much better to my eyes at least.

 

P4270006.jpg

 

Time for another dry fit.

I placed the chairs on 5mm high blocks to see how everything looked.

 

P4270008.jpg

 

... and wasn't happy!   Dammit!

The chair backs are too high.  When I compare to my reference photos the chair backs only come up as far as the center of the marquetry star thingy.  Here they are almost obscuring it.  Bother.  I'm not gong to all the bother of spending hours on fine marquetry if you can't see my handiwork now am I?   I followed Suzie's dimensions for the chair so I don't know where things went skewy. 

Time for a rethink.  I've already made these chairs twice and don't fancy gong through all that palaver again.

I did try cutting down the back of one chair and it was quite straightforward, however, getting the curves of those 'pleats' (wrong term I know) to flow nicely around the top edge just wasn't possible.

But hey!  I got a printer - what if I printed one?

So I did - with a couple of small changes.  Fast forward a day and here we are fresh out of the printer with support structure still in place.

 

P4280009.jpg

 

Remove the supports and things are looking promising

 

P4280010.jpg

 

While I was on the computer doing the chair CAD work, I thought I may as well have a go at a pair of curtains

I was going to try and make them from material, honest - had a plan and everyfink - but trying to get a hold of material these days is a bit difficult what with masked marauders everywhere buying it up for their masks.

Here we have a pair of freshly printed curtains.  Would you believe those curtains are only 0.3mm thick?

 

P4280011.jpg

 

Piece it all together - still got a lot of clean up to do on the parts yet though as you can tell by the chair backs.

That's looking a lot better.  The chair height is about right now, with the chair backs just below the middle of the star thingy.  I could maybe add another millimeter to the chair leg.  I don't think that would look out of place.

 

P4280014.jpg

 

A view from above

 

P4280013.jpg

 

and a more standard view.

 

P4280012.jpg

 

Okay, I know some folks may consider it cheating what with just printing the chairs, but after having made about forty of the over the last few years I think I've paid my dues in the chair making department so printing them isn't a complete cop-out (I hope).

 

There's still a few tweaks to be made here and there.  The curtains may be a millimeter or so too long so I'll figure out if I'm going to take the hem up a tad or not.  I may just leave them as is.

The tables are more problematic though - being resin there are loads of little pin holes everywhere.  I thought I had taken care of them but when I sprayed them today I found that I hadn't.  I'm going to try dipping them in floor polish and see if that fills up the pin holes. 

I'm starting to wonder if I need to fit the other side frame as I need that to get the position of the bathroom and the dinette - but I know once that is in place it is going to be very difficult to work inside - but it may be the only way to get things done.

 

Things will probably slow down over the next few days as work is taking priority and I have a bunch of printing to do.  Stay safe and keep away folks!

 

 

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, richard i said:

I like the proportions of the new chairs plus table etc. better. It looks more as I remember them 

richard 

 

Thanks Richard. I think you are right - the chairs look much better now and more in proportion to the rest of the car.

I'm printing another bunch now and have added 1.5mm to the length of the legs as I think they are looking a bit squat.  I think that additional length in the leg will make a big visual impact

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2 hours ago, hendie said:

 

Thanks Richard. I think you are right - the chairs look much better now and more in proportion to the rest of the car.

I'm printing another bunch now and have added 1.5mm to the length of the legs as I think they are looking a bit squat.  I think that additional length in the leg will make a big visual impact

I have always thought additional length in the leg has made a big visual impact. 
 

keep going, it is great. 
richard 

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

The mojo was waning a bit this week so I purposely stayed away from the build and concentrated on some 3D modeling for another project which is now printing as I type. Come the weekend though, I was all set for another session.  Cue the wife... "I just bought a dining table and some chairs, let's go and pick it up".  What she didn't tell me was that it was 7 ft x 3 ft with 8 chairs and an interleaf.

Several hours later I managed to get home with the table (still fully assembled) and the 8 chairs all stuffed in my old beater, the 2005 Town & Country.  Say what you like about those things but it's amazing just what you can cram into one.

 

So eventually I managed to get within arms reach of the build and I had completely forgot that what was awaiting me was painting. Well, nothing for it but to dive in and get it done.  I hate painting, especially hand painting and I had airbrushing followed by hand painting for a good number of hours today.

 

Apologies beforehand for the quality of the photos but the camera must have been on some weird setting and I didn't notice.

First up were the curtains. Primed and then sprayed matt white on the outside face. That was followed by a custom mix - and for once I think I got a great match to the actual color I was trying to achieve.  This was a mix of French Blue, Matt white, and a drop or two of yellow.  I managed to airbrush the majority of the curtains but had to hand paint the tie back and the return as it came around to meet the white. Then hand painted the hem along the bottom of the curtains which was a real pig to do.  Overall I'm pretty pleased with the outcome though the blue is pretty flat. I may give it a coat of satin to try and provide some accentuation on the colors.  I can't see me getting away with the usual methods of weathering here - the curtains would just end up looking dirty.

 

P5090009.jpg

 

Then it was eye strain time. Painting some of the interior lights.  These were incredibly difficult to paint as the parts were so clear you couldn't see any detail on the light itself until you had applied paint to it - with a 000 Brush!  There's no making mistakes painting these - being so clear, it's impossible to remove paint if it gets on the wrong area and the part is scrap.

That 'splodge' at the bottom of each light isn't a splodge - it's a fleur de lis shape (sort of) rising from the bottom of the light.  The two chromed lights are for the bar area.

I can see in this photo that need to go back and paint a couple of missed spots.  oh goody!

 

P5090007.jpg

 

The table brackets also got a coat of brass but it's way too shiny I think.  I'll give them a matt coat to dull that brightness down.

 

P5090010.jpg

 

Two brass hand rails are required for the corridor / dining area. I suppose to prevent drunken fare paying passengers from falling out the windows of an evening. 

In order to make sure I got the handrails level and all at the same height I made a small fixture to help me get a repeatable location when drilling.

 

P5030001.jpg

 

1st hand rail dry fitted (and checking the curtains would still fit)

 

P5030003.jpg

 

I need to make some mounting plates for the hand rails - I don't think it looks right with the rod just disappearing into the woodwork.

Just for kicks I stuck one of the new lights in place - it fits!  That's much better than my last attempt.  The blue tinge btw is the blu-tack I used to mount it shining through. Based on that, I'll need to paint the back of the lights before fitting them to the wall. (and remove all the dust)

 

P5030004.jpg

 

As is almost always the case - when checking thought my reference photo's again I spotted that the wall cabinets in the bar had a chromed bar along the back of the cabinet.  I believe this was for mounting those upside down bottle holders thingies - and before you ask... no!  I'm not going to make them!

I did think I should add the chromed bar though.  That was relatively simple - a small styrene strip covered with aluminum tape, then I used a short length of wood to give me the level, and stuck them on.

 

P5080005.jpg

 

Both done.

 

P5080006.jpg

 

and I couldn't resist throwing a couple of bottles in there.  Note to self: must make some labels for the bottles

 

P5090011.jpg

 

To finish up today, it was time for the obligatory dry fit of assorted bits.

 

P5090012.jpg

 

and I may as well add a table lamp, a bottle and a couple of glasses (that can hardly be seen)

 

P5090014.jpg

 

I find those dry fits are always a mojo lifter.  This is really starting to look like what my vision of Pegasus would look like when I started this all those years ago. Still quite a ways to go though.

I'm glad I redid the chairs as they look so much better then the originals.

 

P5090016.jpg

 

I think I am going to have to reprint those table lamps. As nice as they are, I think they are oversized now that I see this all together.  The top of the lamp should only come up as far as the bottom of the sliding windows.  That lamp being so large gives it a toy-like appearance imo. 

 

Stay safe and cosy folks.

 

 

 

 

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Just a small update this time around.  Things seem to be taking forever to accomplish these days.  It seems the closer you get to the finish line the longer things take, or it could just be that now I am getting to all the finicky stuff.  

It's curtain fitting time!   I tried shading them but it failed miserably so I settled with a satin clear coat, I'm not really a soft furnishings type of guy anyway.

I wanted to make sure the curtains stayed in place once fitted so thought about using the tie backs as a securing feature.  Looking though my stash I found some nice brass rivets which fitted nicely into the center of the pommel I had created in the tie-backs.  At least they would once I had drilled a hole for them. Luckily I also have some stainless rivets when it comes to doing the curtains in the bar area since it's all chrome finished

 

P5140006.jpg

 

The pommels were drilled through and I offered the curtains up to the side frame and drilled through the woodwork for the rivet, adding a touch of superglue to the rivet as it was inserted.   Curtains should be nice and secure now.  As soon as the curtains were fitted I could add the pelmets which finished off the paneling nicely. 

 

P5160009.jpg

 

Table brackets were glued in place - the brass paint was very glossy so I gave them a misting of semi matt and they look a lot better now

I just need to get moving and finish off the tables now

 

P5160007.jpg

 

Over the last few months I've had that same side frame fixed but never actually looked at that side of the carriage.  Now it was time to carefully turn it around and see what the curtains looked like from outside.

 

P5160013.jpg

 

I'll take that! 

 

With only lights and luggage racks to fit (until I remember something else I've no doubt forgotten about), it was time to fit the other side frame - and what a job that was!

I won't tell you how long I spent trying to get the second side frame bolted into position - I'll just tell you that the watchmakers kit I ordered provided teeny weeny bolts of various lengths, but what they didn't tell you was that there was more than one thread size... but only one size of nut!!!!

Of course I had picked the wrong threaded bolts.  I can't believe it took me so long to figure that out. Idiot!

But it's on now

 

P5160010.jpg

 

It's going to be tight working in there

 

P5160012.jpg

 

So, more progress achieved but still loads more to do.

I did consider trying to do all the paneling before the side frame was fitted but that presents a different set of problems so I'm going to have a go with the side frame in place and see how it goes

 

 

 

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thanks Bucoops. it's always nice to  get a response.
lots of things going on today but nothing photogenic. It's now on to all the fiddly paneling which you've all seen before so not worth repeating those same old photos. 

I got some more table lamps printed and they're looking a lot better, and also printed some luggage racks as well.  The luggage racks are a real faffle.  They are so fine that out of 7 racks, I've lost 3 to them snapping as I'm trimming the supports and lost another couple drilling some holes.  Thankfully it's easy enough to print another batch anytime.

 

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On 18/05/2020 at 14:13, richard i said:

The bolt issue is only simple solution once you know it. Like all these things it is confusing until the epiphany.

 

isn't it amazing just how long you can spend ignoring something that should be blatantly obvious?

 

 

More outbreaks of modeling have taken place.  I even took a days vacation today so I could dwell down in the basement away from the sunshine and warmth.

Luggage racks were printed up and turned out surprisingly well.  I had tried printing these before but the previous version did not have the shelves fitted, only the brackets.  I found that although they printed out fine, they were too flimsy to actually handle.  This time I added the shelves and hoped they would turn out okay.

 

P5170001.jpg

 

They were still very flimsy though even with the shelves which was no real surprise - the shelves are only about 0.3 mm thick.  They were still problematic to handle. Prior to going under the UV light they were still soft and a bit floppy and if I removed the supports before the UV, there was a chance they would warp under the heat/light. On the flip side, after they'd been under the UV, they hardened up but became very brittle. Out of 5 printed, I lost two to the parts snapping while I was trimming the supports - even the small amount of flex introduced by the act of snipping was enough to  make the shelves break.  I lost another one part to  a bit breaking off while  I was drilling - I'm drilling a 0.6 mm bit into  a 1.2 mm boss so that only leaves 0.3 mm around - if I've got the drill dead center.  I'll make sure I print plenty extra when I do the next run.

Primed and painted, they do look good though - but still very fragile

 

P5180006.jpg

 

Then some 0.5 mm rod inserted to help provide a bit  of strength and some visual  appeal. There's 4 lengths of rod per luggage rack. 

Drilling each rack is a ridiculous effort - I have to start with a 0.3 mm drill then step up to a 0.5 mm bit then a 0.6 mm bit.... 12 times on each rack..  Then just to make matters worse, the 4 holes in the center bracket are too far for a standard drill bit to reach so I have to go in at all sorts of weird angles and try not to break the darned thing.  Worth it in the end though - I just hope I have made them the right size as I had to  guess on dimensions from photos

 

P5190007.jpg

 

Another time consuming task were the doors leading into the car from the corridors.  As before, I had to  make a laminate and sandwich the 'glass' in between two layers of basswood. 

 

P5190009.jpg

 

This was one of those jobs where you do a bit - then have to  wait for  glue to dry, then do a bit  more, wait for glue to dry etc.  Then I've got to go around and stain all the fresh edges, and only once that's all done can I clear coat the doors.  Yes, I checked - the doors leading into the corridors have bigger windows than the door between the bar and dining area.

 

P5200012.jpg

 

The bathroom finally got it's mirror fitted - that was one of those easy jobs.  Now I could begin fitting the bathroom...

 

P5170002.jpg

 

Everything begins with the usual dry fit to make sure it all goes together according to plan

 

P5170003.jpg

 

Eeek!   Wait!  This wasn't in the plan...

 

P5180005.jpg

 

I found that several panels I had made previously had developed a rather obvious warp.  I guess it's not surprising since they've lain around for three or four years at least.

However, it gave me pause for thought and I couldn't help but be concerned that even straight panels could warp over time.  To that end I had to compromise with longevity as the prime aim as opposed to accuracy. 

My chosen solution was to use a wood/plastic/wood lamination on strategic panels to add strength and prevent future warping.  The panel to  the left of the dinette has been laminated while the panel between the bathroom and dinette has had the plastic (1 mm thick styrene) added but still awaiting the final wood lamination to be applied.  It means I've had to  fudge dimensions a little and the dinette is now  2 mm narrower than designed, but at least I'll be able to sleep at night now.  No doubt that 2 mm shortage will throw up some other problems when I finish off the paneling in there.

 

P5200011.jpg

 

The dinette panel from the dining area

 

P5200013.jpg

 

Then back to dry fitting - checking everything is square to the side frames and to other panels, and that all the panels meet up as they should with no gaps and with minimal work needed once fitted. (I can just about get my fingers into that corridor area so hopefully there won't be a lot of fettling to  be done in there.

 

P5200015.jpg

 

I then spent over an hour trying to get the flooring done for the bathroom.   The original design had some weird pattern on the floor and tiles were at 45° to the side frames.  Trying to get that pattern somewhere in the middle of the floor without being partially obscured by any of the fittings was fun and a half.

I ended up with bits of templates taped to each other to get the outline correct then carefully cut out one of the few pieces of (ink) printed flooring I have left and assembled everything in place.  I think that's about as good as I'm going to get it.  Now all I've got to do is glue that flooring in place and I can assemble the bathroom

 

P5200018.jpg

 

I'm sure I made a toilet roll way back in the past decade for this... didn't I ?   I'll need to ratch about all the parts boxes to see if I can find it

... or maybe just print one 

 

 

Edited by hendie
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Had you thought of not drilling the middle pillar on the luggage racks? The rod would be supported in the outer ones and even a little dimple would centre it in the middle. The feed two wires in from either end. Fewer holes to drill, no really difficult holes, less chance of breaking. 
just an idea

richard 

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On 21/05/2020 at 02:24, richard i said:

Had you thought of not drilling the middle pillar on the luggage racks? The rod would be supported in the outer ones and even a little dimple would centre it in the middle. The feed two wires in from either end. Fewer holes to drill, no really difficult holes, less chance of breaking. 
just an idea

richard 

 

RIchard, that idea came under consideration, but the anal retentive in me said, the original racks had a brass rod going from one end to the other so that's the way it had to be done.  Seems I just like making things difficult for myself don't I ?

 

On 21/05/2020 at 11:14, PaulCheffus said:

Hi

You can buy extra long drills. I have a 0.5mm drill that is 100mm long and I bought it from Squires.

http://www.squirestools.com/files/12-08.pdf

Unfortunately 0.5mm is the smallest they do

Cheers

Paul

 

 

Thanks Paul, I shall look into those as that type of tool always comes in handy at some point.

 

2 hours ago, steve22 said:

I've just come across this thread.  Absolutely amazing dedication and craftsmanship.  Thanks so much for letting us see your skills in action.

Steve.

 

 

Welcome aboard Steve.  I'm glad you're enjoying the thread.

 

 

I hope I make it through this post... the wife moved the computer to a new location and the network is lousy in this location.  I added an extender yesterday but am not convinced it's made a whole lot of difference.

 

As I'm progressing through this build. most of the 'big block' stuff has been done and I'm now moving on to the more finicky parts of the build. For finicky read extremely time-consuming. 

Today for instance: In the grand scheme of things, not a whole lot got done, but what did get done made a huge impact to the state of the build and is a great stride forward.  Unfortunately from this point forward, almost every part has to be rough cut, trimmed, multiple dry fits, then sanded, stained, then clear coated.  In the case of panels with decals, that's a gloss coat, the decal, another gloss coat, then finished off with a satin coat, and the inevitable wait in between tasks. In a lot of cases, I have to fit one panel before I can even begin to measure up for the next panel.  Did I mention this was time consuming?

 

Lets start with something simple though - the first corridor panel got a squiggly transfer stuck on, panel cut and fitted, along with the electrical cabinet.

 

P5230016.jpg

 

At the other end, I found the cistern tank I made 4 or 5 years ago.  I know I had a plan for fitting this but am damned if I can remember what I was planning. Better leave that for now, it may come back to me

Or I may need a plan B

 

P5230002.jpg

 

With the bathroom getting to a good point it was time to move on to the dinette.  I loved this feature on the actual car - a small private area where 4 travelers could sit back an relax to enjoy the ride. That's if you could actually fit in there of course.  It was a lovely feature but completely impractical.  How the person(s) in the window seats ever got in and out must have been a feat in itself.

As always, things begin with the obligatory dry fit.  This was a bit more complicated than any of the other panels or walls. Not only had the panels to be square to the walls, but also to each other, and truly vertical as well, otherwise the dinette would end up all cattywumpus, and we can't be doing with cattywumpus on a luxury train can we?

Once I had everything square I marked it out with masking tape to use as a guide when fitting the panel, with the added benefit of the masking tape preventing any glue ending up on the newly vacuumed carpet!

 

P5220001.jpg

 

Both dinette walls are now glued in place.  This shot shows how I did the wood/styrene/wood lamination to prevent warping. Inside wall to inside wall is about 64 mm so there's not a lot of room to be working in there, and the more I add, the smaller it gets.

 

P5230003.jpg

 

Remember what I said about rough cut, trim, dry fit, stain, gloss, decal, gloss, sating coat earlier?   These were two of those panels.

Trying to get both of those squiggles to look symmetrical was a fun job

 

P5230004.jpg

 

Perseverance wins the day.  Both panels got fitted which meant I could then proceed with the panels above and below the window. Once again, lots of dry fitting, swipe with a sanding stick dry fit again.

Tedious.

 

P5230006.jpg

 

The view from outside is starting to look interesting though

 

P5230005.jpg

 

Another heater box was made up, and the two covering strips fitted either side of the window.  Why I bothered with the heater box is one of life's great mysteries.  There's no way on earth it's ever going to get seen once a table and chairs are in there.

All together now.... but we know it's there don't we!

 

P5230007.jpg

 

That prompted a quick coffee break to let the glue on the cover strips dry enough to begin the next task.  Now the cover strips were on I could measure up for the pelmet.

The pelmet was made, cut, trimmed, stained, varnished etc. etc. etc. So in between each of those monotonous tasks I fitted the curtains. Then finally, I could fit the pelmet to finish off all the woodwork in the dinette area.  I'm drawing the line at fitting the skirting boards.  (I think!)

 

P5230008.jpg

 

Okay, the wood work is done, but does everything still fit in there?

Remember what I said about it being impractical cosy ?   At least the corridor wall still fits - but there's still a table to go in there!

 

P5230009.jpg

 

At some point during the last week, or maybe the week before - I'm completely losing track of time these days - I redid the table lamps in SolidWorks and reprinted a batch.  I should really have taken a comparison shot with the other larger lamps, but completely forgot.

Anyhoos, I'm very pleased with how the reworked versions turned out. Trying to paint that little ferrule on top of the lampshade was a pure delight. Not.  I had to use a 000 Brush, biggly magnifiers and lots of eye strain to get those any way half decent.

 

P5230011.jpg

 

But what a difference those lamps make to the overall effect! (table just dry fitted for the moment)

 

P5230012.jpg

 

You can see what I mean now about the person who has to sit by the window

I'm very pleased with how this has turned out - that lamp is much more in scale then my previous effort.

 

P5230013.jpg

 

Well, I think we've passed the cattywumpus test there, at least in my book we have.

Then when the corridor wall is fitted, here's what you get - just imagine I've cleaned the dust and washed the windows.    You're still not going to see a whole lot from this side.

on the plus side though - I'm over the moon about how the dinette has turned out. There's still 4 lamps to be fitted, but I might leave all the lamps until nearer the end of the build, especially as I still haven't figured out how I am going to be fitting them.

 

P5230014.jpg

 

and here endeth today's session.  Bloody monotonous and incredibly tedious - until the end that is.  That's when it all became worthwhile.

 

Now for those folks wondering how I am going to approach the roof conundrum... my plan is:

 

Here's a shot of a 3D model that I built over 20 years ago now for this project. I've always loved the way this skeletal form looks.

 

Capture2.png

 

 

I think I am going to build the roof completely separate from the car and have it on display somewhere in the case beside Pegasus, perhaps on some kind of trestle structure?. 

I've always wanted to display the full roof with all the vents and other greeblies that adorn it.  This allows me to do that.  It will end up being a large case as the roof will need to be positioned far enough away for Pegasus in order to see the full chassis.

 

On Pegasus itself though, I am going to build just the framing - i.e. all the carlines in place, along with the bulkheads that you can see in this screen grab.  That way you get to see the interior in all it's glory, and I think the carlines will add another element of visual interest.  I may include a portion of the roof over just one or maybe both vestibule ends - minor details still to be worked out.

Just how I am going to do the carlines is another issue yet to be resolved.  If I can get brass T section I may try forming them myself.  If all else fails I can always 3D print them.

 

At least that's my idea for this week, until I change my mind again.  Overall, I think that concept will work, and it answers all the dilemmas posed by removable roof, clear roof, lifting roof etc. which all had a down side as large as the plus side.

 

All in all, a good days work

 

until next time - stay safe

 

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