Titivating Bachmann's Original Thompson LNER Coaches

[leopardml2341]

On the 28th March I decided to take the bull by the horns and have a second go, this time on a Bachmann 4 Compartment Brake Third. Previously I only intended to go so far, but this time upped the level of detailing and painting.

Murphy's Law occurred a few times on this model hence the long time since the last post, so here is the story, warts and all.

As before here is the vehicle I am describing:

IMG_1436.JPG

I will try not to just repeat what I have already posted but will take the opportunity to explain areas previously glossed over and changes made for this model.

So without further ado I will get on with it.

 

I'm waiting.....

[MikeTrice]

The coach is separated into its component parts:

The body is put in a bath of Isopropal Alcohol to remove the factory finish using a cheap (Poundland) container:

After a few hours it is removed (whilst wearing rubber gloves) and scrubbed clean under water. This process might need repeating until all paint has been removed:

A problem identified with the previous model is the side can open up a gap with the end. To resolve for this model I took the opportunity to glue it with superglue inside and out:

Careful examination of the stripped shell might reveal some traces of paint still clinging on. This was scraped off with a knife blade:

One change I made to my method from last time is to delay painting as long as possible and do all preparatory work on all components at the same time. Here the underframe battery boxes are being removed. This time I drilled through and removed the bulk with a rotary cutting disk:

Previously when correcting the roof profile I filed off the rainstrips. This time, taking care, I was able to retain them saving work later. A large file is drawn along the erroneous curve:

Progressing down the length of the coach, the destination board brackets are lost:

Smooth down the revised curve. Hopefully the difference can be seen here:

As before I produced a template (attached) to aid with drilling the torpedo vent positions:

The template was glued to the roof with a glue stick and the destination brackets formed from styrene and glued in position:

The torpedo vent positions are drilled before the template is removed. I managed to drill the torpedo vent holes too large but thought I might get away with it. With the template removed the cinder strip is added to the destination board brackets using Plastruct 0.4mm rod scraped on one side to form a half section. All styrene was glued to the body with Humbrol Liquid Poly. My usual d-Limonene is not happy with the plastic Bachmann have used:

An end template was cut out and glued using a glue stick to the saloon end and the positions for the various pipe clips and alarm gear drilled through around 0.6mm:

At this point most of the heavy filing has been done:

D346 4 Comp Brake Third.pdf

[MikeTrice]

To form the alarm gear tell tails a couple of small strips of brass were cut using a piercing saw and trimmed to length:

They are then soldered to a length of 0.45 brass wire:

And carefully filed to something more prototypical:

To form the various tank fillers suitable templates were glued to an offcut of MDF and thin nails knocked in. For the alarm gear release pipe on the right dressmaking pins have been used. A length of 0.45mm brass wire is bent to initially form the filler nozzle:

Holding the wire in place the remainder is bent around the first nail to form the vertical:

The top is bent around the top pin then the waste bent through 90 degrees:

For the vacuum release pipe is started with a 90 degree bend at the top:

Then bent into a vertical position:

Exactly the same jig/nails were used to form the right hand filler pipes but bending the final 90 degree bend in the opposite direction.

A length of 0.45mm brass wire was softened by holding in a gas flame until it went red. On cooling down the end could be gripped in a set of smooth jawed pliers and squeezed flat:

 

The flat section was then trimmed off and bent into an angle:

The partly formed bracket is held in place against the pipe and the smooth jawed pliers used to squeeze it together and to close it around the pipe:

Here is the result:

All brackets fitted. At this point they are loose so be careful not to lose any:

Here the various pipes have been fixed to the end by inserting the brackets through the previously drilled holes then held in place by a spot of superglue. Jumper cables have been formed from styrene strip and Plastruct 0.3mm styrene rod. Flanges were added around the coach corners using thin strips of 5thou Evergreen styrene:

At this point I will own up to initially fixing the filler pipes too high on the end so the whole lot had to be taken off, the holes filled with superglue, redrilled and remade.

The Guard's end by comparison is quite plain:

The finished end:

After spraying with Halford's Filler Primer a gap appeared alongside the left hand flange of the side:

The simplest option was to slice it off, fill and reapply:

Edited April 19, 2017 by MikeTrice

[MikeTrice]

As before the coach was sprayed with Halford's White Primer. Not obvious at the time, but apparent in this enlargement, is the poor finish of the white spray which I will come back to shortly. Meanwhile masking of the roof was started. I noticed that the way Bachmann had moulded the body resulted in the cornice plates above the door physically stood away from the roof leaving a recess behind for masking:

The rest of the masking was applied avoiding the destination board brackets:

Humbrol Maskol was painted on the exposed brackets and allowed to dry:

Masking of the lower panels completed the upper panels were grained then the upper waist panel masking removed and a thin was of the Orange Brown hand brushed along it:

And with the final masking removed ready for horizontal graining:

The upper panels were masked, but for some reason I did not leave the oil paint its usual length of time to dry - 8 hours instead of 24. As a result the tape reacted with the upper panels disfiguring them. Note also just how much the dry speckled primer finish has spoiled the teak effect:

Oh well back in the Isopropal Alcohol bath to strip it all off again!

[MikeTrice]

The underframe has its detailing added:

Attention can now turn to the interior moulding. As supplied the Guard's area has a partition not present in the prototype:

This cut away and subsequently tidied up:

Another difference from the previous coach is in the seat mouldings which have these strange projections on top of them. The interior partitions were "teaked" then the seats painted a dark red:

My partition detailing labels were applied and those strange projections overlapped. I really should have produced some 3rd class ones specifically by turning around the mirror 90 degrees and deleting the reading lights. Oh well too late now:

With the body back in its bare state the opportunity was taken to drill out the oversize torpedo vent holes to 2.5mm then lengths of Plastruct 2.5mm rod glued in:

They could now be filed down and redrilled:

[MikeTrice]

The whole teak painting process was redone. This time I used Humbrol Grey then White Acrylic Primer applied carefully to give a much finer finish. The Vallejo base colour was thinned with Klear resulting in a much smoother base for the graining. Details including the window frames were picked out in Humbrol Matt 62. Jumper cables picked out in black.

All these enlargements just emphasise how bad my hand painting is:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally my vestibule bellows are really too thick so need remaking in thinner paper and 15thou styrene.

[brossard]

Mike this is super work, just the sort of thing I like to do but not as well as you.  Thanks for the partition PDF, I've been mulling over how to do the interior of my Gresleys, I reckon I can blow it up to 7mm scale.

 

John

[micklner]

Nice work !!

[Sylvian Tennant]

Superb work.

[MikeTrice]

At the end of my last post I mentioned that the vestibule bellows were too thick. This is as a result of me trying to couple up the two coaches for photography. Construction was using 150gsm paper so I tried making bellows of 80gsm paper. These are a little too thin, however I have ordered some 120gsm paper to see what difference it makes.

Whilst playing with the new bellows I made an interesting discovery, Bachmann Gresley bogies (as fitted to the Thompsons) are not all the same, they have different coupling spacings depending on the vehicle they are from:

I had not noticed this when my coaches were originally reassembled and I ended up trying to couple up a correct bogie with one that had the coupling too short. As a result they would not couple and the bellows seemed too thick. Since discovering this I have rectified the issue and can now couple up the coaches even with the original 150gsm bellows:

(I only noticed on uploading this picture that only one of the hooks had engaged).

In the Silhouette thread Silvian asked me how the vestibules tolerate curves with my method of limiting their extension? I try and limit their extension to just beyond the drawbar so that when coaches are coupled the bellows are under slight compression. The original weights are reinstalled in the Thompsons and they seem pretty steady being propelled in both direction through curves and crossovers - within limits.

When run through a scale crossover there is minimum displacement and the vehicles run correctly:

 

Over a crossover formed using Peco short radius turnouts the displacement is greater but they still run OK:

 

Under severe radii however (Hornby Curved Turnouts) the connectors pass each other and would cause a derailment:

 

So a lot depends on the severity of your curves.

[brossard]

You're a man after my own heart Mike.  Coaches really should be fitted with bellows if only to eliminate the daylight.  This is a very useful demonstration.  I would always discard or modify the moulded bellows that comes with the model and replace with a folded paper one.  Modellers should take note of the distance between coaches, so often I see a massive gap.

 

John

[MikeTrice]

Matters arising.

 

There are a few areas that I glossed over that in hindsight I should have mentioned in the build, so I will take the opportunity to cover them here.

 

The Bachmann bodies are held on to the underframes by moulded tabs on the inside of the bodies. Having experienced how much the body side needs to be distorted to clip it on the underframe for the last coach I filed these tabs thinner.

 

I mentioned that for the Brake Third that the body had been moulded with a prototypical recess behind the cornice plates over the doors. Strangely no attempt to replicate this feature appears on either the First or Composite carriages. The interior seating for the Composite is different in style once again from both the other two coaches, it is as if different designers worked on them. I would have expected all 3rd class seating to match and all 1st class, but no:

 

 

For the Brake Third I replaced the main passenger doors with etched handles and grab rails but chose not to do so for the various guard's handles. Livery changes post war resulted in various forms of white, brown or black guard's commode handles and mine should probably be white rather than Humbrol M62. At some point even stepboards were painted white.

 

The coaches really should be given "Smoking" and "Smoking Prohibited" signs. I have subsequently purchased some sets of transfers from Precision Labels: http://www.precisionlabels.com/payment.html?3.99&4mm-LNER-Window-Signs and really should retro-fit them.

 

Whilst playing with the bogies I replaced the plastic moulded wheelsets with some plain Romford 14mm disc that I had spare after filing the tip off of the pinpoints. They could now do with a drop of oil, which is on order.

 

I cannot see myself going much further with these especially if the retooled ones start appearing secondhand as they would require far less work.

 

Finally some comparison images against the latest Bachmann Brake Third:

 

 

 

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by MikeTrice

[chrisf]

I would like to thank Mike for starting this thread, which IMHO is one of the most useful on the forum in many a moon.  Many of the techniques described can and should be applied to other rtr models.  Of particular interest to me are the items concerning compartment interiors and corridor connections, the latter an area where far too many of us fight shy of doing anything suitably remedial.

 

Chris 

[leopardml2341]

Wot 'e said ^^^^^

 

Thanks Mike

[JaymzHatstand]

Absolute magic! Those gangway bellows are just superb!

 

I certainly think I'll be making use of some of the methods here on my own old Thompsons, but fortunately a maroon paint job will be a little easier (though not as striking!)

 

Cheers

 

J

[MikeTrice]

Too late for my previous builds, but I have redone the artwork for the partition labels to include the 3rd class variation:

 

With the seat mouldings differing between coaches my advice is to paint each type higher than any moulded back:

 

The different labels can then be aligned at the top of the partitions and if necessary overlap the seat backs. On the Composite moulding there is no real termination of the 3rd class seats, but this is how the finished compartments look, 3rd on left, 1st on right:

 

These supersede previous versions. Hope they prove useful.

 

When printing select "Actual Size".

 

Partitions mixed v2.pdf

Edited April 26, 2017 by MikeTrice

[davidw]

My biggest issue with the supplied underframe is the lack of depth between the rigid trussing and the battery boxes. A lot of Thompsons only seem to have a single battery box rather than the two provided on the standard Bachmann chassis. Using a piercing saw the center section was crudely cut out:

IMG_0997.JPG

 

This resulted in a nice space in the centre:

IMG_0998.JPG

 

And after trimming back the cut out section:

IMG_1001.JPG

 

To remove the rest of the battery boxes holes were drilled through them and the piercing saw used to cut the sides out:

IMG_1003.JPG

 

The various rigid trusses can be filed back ready to receive new battery boxes which I scribed and cut on the Silhouette then bulked out to around 4mm width then applied a shaped length of Evergreen 1.5mm angle:

IMG_1004.JPG

 

The original metal weight was glued back into the underframe:

IMG_1009.JPG

 

The replacement batterybox was then glued in place set back from the trussing. Note that normally on single batterybox arrangements, the batterybox is the opposite side from the dynamo, presumably to keep weight distribution even:

IMG_1016.JPG

 

At this point I noticed that one of the trusses was bent. It would have to replaced:

IMG_1020.JPG

 

A new truss has been added using Evergreen 1.5mm square bar:

IMG_1022.JPG

 

The sides of the solebars are filed down and new stepboards fixed in place:

IMG_1046.JPG

 

Finally the solebars have been painted in two thin coats of Humbrol Acrylic Leather (62):

IMG_1057.JPG

 

Edit: Studio file for battery boxes added.

What exactly is the Studio app?

[MikeTrice]

What exactly is the Studio app?

It is the software supplied with the Silhouette Cutter to produce artwork for cutting.

[davidw]

It is the software supplied with the Silhouette Cutter to produce artwork for cutting.

Thanks

[davidw]

do you have a PDF template of the rain strip?

[MikeTrice]

Sorry no. I did have a very faint trace of the original which I was able to use as a location.

[davidw]

Sorry no. I did have a very faint trace of the original which I was able to use as a location.

 

Ah of course thank you!

[MikeTrice]

do you have a PDF template of the rain strip?

I have now.

 

Print actual size on thin card and cut out along the inner line of the rainstrip. Separate then curve the card. Place on the roof and trace with a pencil the positions. You may need to cut out sections to clear any handrails/fillers. Ideally do the tracing before any torpedo vents are fitted.

 

Thompson coaches varied in length. This template will work for 63'0" length over body coaches.

Bachmann Rainstrip template.pdf

Edited May 9, 2017 by MikeTrice

[davidw]

I have now.

 

Print actual size on thin card and cut out along the inner line of the rainstrip. Separate then curve the card. Place on the roof and trace with a pencil the positions. You may need to cut out sections to clear any handrails/fillers. Ideally do the tracing before any torpedo vents are fitted.

 

Thompson coaches varied in length. This template will work for 63'0" length over body coaches.

 

Thank you!

[Bucoops]

Too late for my previous builds, but I have redone the artwork for the partition labels to include the 3rd class variation:

IMG_1474.JPG

 

With the seat mouldings differing between coaches my advice is to paint each type higher than any moulded back:

IMG_1468.JPG

 

The different labels can then be aligned at the top of the partitions and if necessary overlap the seat backs. On the Composite moulding there is no real termination of the 3rd class seats, but this is how the finished compartments look, 3rd on left, 1st on right:

IMG_1479.JPG

 

These supersede previous versions. Hope they prove useful.

 

When printing select "Actual Size".

 

Partitions mixed v2.pdf

 

 

Hi Mike,

 

It's very kind of you to share your labels - do you happen to know how much different the Thompsons were to the Gresleys? Would these be suitable for Gresley designed ones?

 

Thank you