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1951 Pullman Scratchbuild in 1/32


hendie
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All advice taken on board and acted upon.  I waited over a week before I sanded back the last coat.  This afternoon I gave the side frames another coat and will leave that for another week before sanding back.   There's no point in showing a photo of that - it looks exactly the same as it did last time.

 

While the airbrush was seeing action I also sprayed the two vestibule ends.  The paint went on very weirdly indeed - which is strange considering I used exactly the same method/mix that I used for the side-frames. Eventually it evened out but it did not look good during the process.

 

P4080015.jpg

 

What I didn't like though was the fact that the styrene showed up lots of faults, mainly sinks where glue has been applied on the rear face.  I'm not going to throw these away just yet, but I am thinking of alternate methods of manufacture.  Particularly in brass.

 

P4080016.jpg

 

I always avoided making these end frames in brass as I didn't think I would be able to make a decent enough job of cutting out the windows and gangway.  However, with my recent success in photo-etching, I am going to seriously consider etching the frames - if I can manage a good way to create the folds.  More to come on this later.... once I have figured it out.

 

I had some success in other areas though.  I am determined not to let this build fall by the wayside so looked at other areas to see what I could be doing.  Door closers seemed like a good idea -why not? 

We had to fit automatic door closers due to fire regulations.  I'm not sure if the original coach had them but we had to fit them regardless.  Thankfully there are still vintage looking items being manufactured so we chose to go with a YALE door closer. 

Starting with some brass rod, I drilled some holes through a section of rod - trying to get them as central as I could.  Once the holes were drilled,  I chucked the rod up in the lathe and turned the ends.

 

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Sections of tube were inserted through the rod and soldered into place. Still some clean up required here!

 

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Of course I didn't have the correct diameter rod to fit through the tube so that had to be drilled out.  The tube was also cut down in width.  Looking at this I almost wonder why I bothered adding the tube

 

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But once the hole was drilled through the tube, I could insert another length of rod, and fit a small nut on each side.

 

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This is the three stages of fitting the nuts. Once the assembly is together, the excess rod is snipped off, leaving a small section for me to file down.

Since I didn't have any brass nuts - these are steel so I couldn't solder them - I used superglue to hold them in place. Then filing the rod down created a burr which acted to hold the nuts in place (I don't trust super glue!)

A larger diameter tube was then placed on top of the assembly,  which was in turn, soldered into place, then all the bits that didn't look like  Yale door closer were filed off.

 

P4080014.jpg

 

And here we have the finished item - well, without the stays of course.

P4070013.jpg

 

All three have now been completed though I have a feeling they may be just a tad on the large side.  I won't really know until I have doors in place to fit them to.

A touch more filing may be required to knock the size down a bit - we'll see when the time comes.

These will now go in to a safe place until the time comes to paint and fit them

Edited by hendie
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just a quick update to let folks know that work is still continuing.  I'm almost done with the cream color on the side frames - maybe one more coat should do it.

 

My photo hosting site is undergoing some issues so I'm waiting until that is sorted out before I post any photo's - that's why some of the previous photo's have disappeared

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just a quick update to let folks know that work is still continuing.  I'm almost done with the cream color on the side frames - maybe one more coat should do it.

 

My photo hosting site is undergoing some issues so I'm waiting until that is sorted out before I post any photo's - that's why some of the previous photo's have disappeared

Why do you use a hosting site, always more trouble than they are worth. You can post direct from your here from your phone, pad, laptop or desktop.

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Whenever people use outside hosting sites, I cant view the photos while at work as their network blocks ALL photo hosting sites for security reasons. Kinda makes it hard to appreciate peoples efforts when all I see is walls of text with awkward gaps.

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Why do you use a hosting site, always more trouble than they are worth. You can post direct from your here from your phone, pad, laptop or desktop.

 

Forgive my ignorance - does this site host images then?  If so, I wasn't aware of that.

I did spot the 'my media' button on the toolbar but don't see anyway to upload images - perhaps someone can enlighten me

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At the bottom right hand side of the reply box there is a reply with attachments label click on that the next reply box has a choose files   click box you then can browse  you pictures. |from this page you can also add links etc to videos on youtube etc.

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It also appears on my home network, I cant view your previous externally hosted photos.

 

That's frustrating.   Even more frustrating would be to have to go back through and relink each individual photo.  That same issue was just encountered on another forum I participate in.  Thankfully the owner developed a script that was essentially a 'search and replace' in the forums inner workings and it updated the links to the new domain (there were multiple users of that hosting site on that forum though)

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  • 4 months later...

Greetings all.  Surprised to see me here are you ?  Me too!  It's been a long time and this build has been sitting taunting me every time I sit at the workbench.

I figured that since it is a holiday weekend here in the US that I had no excuse for not getting back to this.  So without further wossisstuff...

 

Anyone remember this?

 

P9030005.jpg&key=b25a3ffd9c5a5d43b80a2ea

 

Yup.  A side frame.  That side frame took me many weeks to get to that stage.  About 3 repaints if I remember correctly, and lots and LOTS of sanding and micromeshing to get it to a point that I was happy with it.

All that messing about had one further issue - it further exasperated my fear of painting.  I don't know what it is, but painting really puts me off and fills me with dread.  Small bits and pieces aren't so bad but any large surface area just makes the old starfish pucker somewhat.  Anyway, I had decided that today was the day.

First off was to get back to the drawings and dig out the livery specs.  It had been so long since I had visited this I had to do everything from scratch again to be sure I had the correct dimensions.  If painting filled me with fear... the masking on this was even worse.   Have you ever tried masking a straight line over nearly 600 mm ?

Aizu tape came to the rescue here.

I used tamiya 6 mm tape to mark off some 'heights' along the length, then used those marks to align the Aizu tape.  As I got near to the tamiya, I peeled back the Aizu slightly, removed the tamiya and carried on to the next marker.

 

P9030006.jpg&key=fdae3c28760e304099f19ea

 

This is about as good as it gets (for me).  Sorry, the camera isn't good at depth of field and I couldn't be bothered to mess around with it today - I was on a roll (no pun intended) at this point!

As luck would have it, the Aizu tape at 1.5 mm worked out very nicely with the scheme as the ivory/cream panel extended something like 1.45 mm past the top and the bottom of the large windows.  I wasn't going to squabble over 0.05 mm!

 

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The best part of an hour later sees the cream area masked off.

 

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I had decanted some of the brown enamel paint some time back and it sat waiting patiently in a sealed container until today.  Although the brown enamel was a great color match, I've always had issues when spraying it.  No doubt issues of my own making, but issues nonetheless.

After staring at the container for a few minutes I had one of those life defining moments.  Stuff it!  I'm not going to use it! Nope!  I'm not.

As part of some testing I did way back when this was an almost regular feature, I had purchased some Model Master Italian Dark Brown.  While it wasn't an exact match, I found that it laid down well, and despite being a tad lighter than the color I was after, a quick spray with gloss afterwards darkened the tone down nicely and was pretty darned close. Also, some research on t'interwebby showed that Pullman Umber shades varied widely since they were always hand mixed.  So who am I to argue!

 

About an hour later we had this...

 

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Success!!!!!!!!!!!

 

At least for the moment.  That's just the first coat. (and I've now ran out of paint!)

I'm going to leave that for at least a few days then a light micromesh to flatten it back before laying down another coat.  It is going to be awkward as I'll need to be very careful not to disturb the masking tape.

If that is disturbed I'm never going to get the tape to line up again

 

A large wave of relief is washing over me as I type - this was the single biggest issue I faced in progressing with this build.  The fear of painting had made me avoid this build for many months.

Now I just need to figure out the transfers... and order some more paint.

 

 

 

 

 

...some time later....

 

 

The new pot of paint arrived yesterday.  I decided today was the day come rain, hail, or shine.  As it turned out, we got the rain and it felt like we should be getting hail.  I can't believe how it can go from 95° to less than 60° in 48 hours.

Anyways... I got the side frames out and gave them a quick once over.  They weren't too bad at all.  There was the obligatory hair cheekily poking out from under the masking tape on one piece - that was dealt with and I also found about 3 spots/blemishes on the finish.  The first couple were pretty easy to take care of - micro-meshed into oblivion, but the last one was a bit scary.  It was right next to the masking tape, so an inordinate amount of care (for me!) was needed to eliminate that and not cause any collateral damage.

 

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The painting session went without any horrors (that I'm aware of yet) and a couple of hours later.... scary time!

 

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Actually the masking tape came off very easily and behaved itself, even right up to the edges.   There is a small ridge where the masked edges were (obviously no surprise there) but a light micro meshing will take care of those without too much trouble.

 

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As straight a line as I am ever going to get.

 

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The side frames still need to get a coat of clear on top and that will darken the brown down nicely and give a bit more of a protective covering but I am going to leave those for at least a week before that happens.

 

Overall, I can now breathe a sigh of relief.  Painting those side frames has been my nemesis for the best part of the last year I think.  I am so, so glad it's over.

 

Now I need to get back to thinking about the transfers.  It's been so long since I looked at those files I am going to have to double check everything before I can order anything.  I also need to find someone to actually make the transfers.  The two main recommended suppliers both have a 6 month+ lead time so I may resort to finding another supplier

 

 

I promise not to take so long before the next update!

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The sides look great, but to me at first glance when i look at the fantastic work on this thread they always strike me as looking wrong, (i know they are not). then i remember they are not because i visulise the side with the indented doors on either end which are missing from this stage of the work.

Richard

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work is still continuing but not a lot to show. 

In my files I managed to find a bitmap of the original design for the carpet. Unfortunately after I did some comparisons between file and photo's, it became apparent that the actual carpet design changed slightly before it got to manufacture.

I managed to get one print out done this week, but color is still off and the scale is too large, so back to the photo editing software for another try

I also did some solid modeling to see what I could do with the luggage racks with the intention of 3D printing the main carriers. However, at about 5 mm tall I think it may be at the limits of what can be done.  Alternatives exploration in process

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hi folks... back again with a small update just to prove things are still moving along.

 

 

As I mentioned above, while searching through my documents and references I came across the original design for the carpet which I have shown here.

 

Pegasus_Carpet_small.png

 

However it seems as though there were some changes before it got to production.  From what I can see in this photo here (and others), it is mainly a change in the background color.

(Please 'scuse the old biddy photobombing  the picture here)

 

Queen04_3434687b.jpg

 

The background color appears to be a bit lighter with more of a green tone to it.

 

After some photo editing (not my strong suite by any means) I think I arrived at a workable solution.  It's not perfect but it's close.

 

P9190004.jpg

 

I added some seating just to help with the overall impression.  The color in the photo is a bit off.  It shows here as being closer to blue, but is more green in the flesh so to speak.

 

P9190003.jpg

 

I think I may scale down the pattern just a tad.  Size wise I think it's almost there.  I think I also need to lighten the tone just a touch so it's not quite so stark.

It should be fun trying to glue down that amount of paper without getting wrinkles.  It will also need a covering of some fixative and maybe a matt spray to make it look a bit more carpet like

 

 

now, back to decal work...

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