Occasional Artless Bodges

[Artless Bodger]

As my erstwhile employer would tell anyone, I'm fairly good at thinking up schemes, sometimes even starting them, but rarely ever seeing them through to the finish, and those that I do are inevitably compromised. But one thing I have learned from RMweb is that the hobby should be enjoyable, it shouldn't become a chore. I thought I might share some of my efforts, I might even finish some.

 

One of the projects I started recently is an ex SECR birdcage triplet out of old Graham Farish generic coaches. In the early 80s I had bought a number from a local model shop selling them off cheap, and they were mod fodder for a while, all dispersed when I changed to OO for a decade or two. Back on N gauge I've tried to build up a stock of them if I can get them cheap, and re-cut my bodging teeth.

 

The raw material to hand - two suburban brakes (very old stock, U bend couplers, plastic wheels), two suburban compartment coaches. I started by taking photos of them and then using Paint to digitally cut and shut to evaluate ways of achieving something reasonable. The birdcage brake ends would be best made from the all 3rds, but the saloon composite looked more challenging and I decided to use bits of the two brakes to make it, and to do that first - if it all went pear shaped, I'd only sacrificed the two least good coaches.

 

 

 

[Artless Bodger]

So much for the theory - time to start the butchery. First cut with my razor saw went a bit skewiff, somehow I can never cut straight with them despite the stiffening piece along the back. But I had lurking in the tool box a set of etched? lazer cut? micro saw blades to fit a Swann Morton no3 scalpel handle  - things I'd come across when AFV modelling but never used. The blade proved to be a bit flexible but I managed straighter cuts and the kerf was not a great as with the razor saw. Past the point of no return, the first body was cut up, and the completing part cut from the second. 

[Sophia NSE]

Well this definitely has my attention! Might have to give it a go myself

[Artless Bodger]

As you may have realised, this is not a real time thread so far, as work started a couple of months ago (I'm a lazy modeller) and wanted to make sure the project was going somewhere before committing to print. The next stage was to reassemble the bits and fill the gaps. For me this is tiny work, I can cope better now with the magnifier, but it makes my fingers bigger too! Applying filler and getting it to stick in the right place is a challenge, and then to clean off the excess still leaving it where I want it even more so. They say practice makes perfect - in my case it's more like practice makes bored and frustrated. The worst gap needing filler was where I'd mad a wonky cut with the razor saw.

[Artless Bodger]

1 hour ago, Sophia NSE said:

Well this definitely has my attention! Might have to give it a go myself

I'm sure it will look grand too. Would you add the panelling in OO? I shall not - that way madness lies.

[Sophia NSE]

37 minutes ago, Artless Bodger said:

I'm sure it will look grand too. Would you add the panelling in OO? I shall not - that way madness lies.

I can live without the panelling, as long as it gives a good representation I'd be happy

[Artless Bodger]

The question arises of roof profile - when I made a bash at a birdcage triplet in the 80s I did nothing more than shave the duckets off 2 brake ends, fit birdcage lookouts made from spare van roofs and paint them green, the centre coach was just a repainted all 3rd. This time I thought to make a new roof, and try and keep the overall height down. Three versions tried:

1. A single slab of 60 thou with the edges rounded off - looks so-so but maybe a bit LSWR, but possible.

2. 60 and 30 or 40 thou laminate, then filed to shape - not taken further as 3 turned out best.

3. A slab of 60 thou with a central strip of 20 thou and then another full width layer of 20 thou bent over it, file the edges to a curve profile.

No 3 looked a bit tall but had the sort of semi-elliptical shape I wanted.

 

The roof has now been cut to length and holes drilled for ventilators - being cheapskate I will use the tops of dressmakers pins surplus to head gardener's needs.

 

The original interior has been adapted.

 

By the way, my guidance for all of this has been photos on the internet, notably of the Bachmann OO and N sets. 

[Artless Bodger]

Having started one project why not start another? The body in the background is on its way to being a representation of a 4COR. 

 

Some history - the old GF coaches I had in the 80s were used to fill out my then Southern Railway / Region stock list.

Firstly a GF compound got new cab sides, new bogie wheels and lost its cylinders to become an L1.

3 suburban coaches made the birdcage set to run with it.

3 more suburban coaches and a GF class 101 chassis provided a 3H

4 corridor coaches shared the same 101 chassis to make a 4COR.

Somewhat derided at club (we had some really talented modellers, one milled a Foster Yeoman class 59 out of solid aluminium bar) these were eventually disposed of (bodies in the bin I think, sold the chassies for NG use), and I moved into OO.

 

15 years later, having returned to N and got a few more old GF coaches, thoughts of SR bodges surfaced again. The first was a pull and push set as made from Maunsell coaches (I used the Hornby model as a guide), this runs with the Minitrix 2MT tank.

 

Powered chassies seemed to be hard to get unless ordered from Japan, but I still had the Roco ET90 which as luck would have it was a reasonable fit in the short GF coaches (if the body is splayed out a bit, as I had done for the 101 chassis before). The then remaining 2 suburbans got cut about half heartedly, and much later on finally emerged as a sort of 2H. I'm not all that happy with it, so once I'd acquired more corridor coaches, decided to reprise the 4COR. If that works then perhaps I'll rework the 2H - get rid of the door ventilators etc that I really should have removed before.

 

Firstly see if I can widen a coach to accept the chassis; I chose the least good body cosmetically and started to cut the floor out, then saw up the ends to open the sides out. The GF coaches seem to be made from either a very hard, brittle plastic or something soft and cheesy with the consistency of cooking chocolate. This coach was the brittle type, after mending several cracks with solvent, ultimately the thing broke in so many places it was just fragments (on the plus side, parts can be used as templates to mark out cab windows etc on other bodies). Turn to another coach, luckily this time made of the cheesy material, which has been defloored, and vertical cuts up from the buffer beam to the top of the corridor connection (where I'd drilled a hole to relieve the stress). Spacers glued across inside the ends hold the coach base wide enough to slip over the chassis. A bit of window modification to try and look a wee bit more like the proper trailer third and new solebars glued along the bottom. 

 

The first of the driving motor brakes is also in hand. Originally I'd cut the upper side of the corridor out and used the corridor partition, opened out in the same way as the compartment windows, but; 1. This was a bit flimsy, 2. Only 1 of the coaches to hand had the loose partition, the other interiors were one piece. So now I decided to cut new upper sides from 30 thou PS sheet to match the compartment side. 

 

Currently the motorised coach is awaiting work to fit underframe and the cab windows are being opened out on the DMBTO - actually these should be trailer second and DMBSO as the unit will be painted rail blue, which is how I remember them on the Ore to Brighton services in the early 70s.

 

1. The unhappy 2H demu.

2. The chassis and opened out body for the 4COR.

3. Composite photo showing the DMBSO mods in progress.

4. New side glued in. 

5. P&P set.

 

 

[Artless Bodger]

The underframes of the brake ends were the old one piece type and slightly warped, also having filed the joins in the body to rectify the wonky cuts it was a smidge too short. Wanting to use the GF bogie pivots and the oval buffers, I sawed the truss rod bit off leaving two end parts, these will be glued in place eventually. To bridge the gap I used a couple of pieces of H girder from the bits box - unfortunately of slightly different section, but you can only see 1 side of the coach at a time unless you are Picasso, so they were glued in place on the body, and two shortened underframe trusses from the chassis made spare by the wrecked corridor coach glued behind the solebars. Perched on the bogies it was beginning to look the part.

 

 

[Artless Bodger]

Bringing things up to date:

 

Progress with the SECR saloon - holes drilled and cut off pin heads inserted for ventilators. Interior painted and a coat of crimson on one side. If I was to buy the Farish set then I'd go for the crimson, though the OO malachite ones look good too. I'm toying with the

idea of one side crimson the other malachite, even though I'd see both sides on the layout - two sets for the price of one.

 

Finished cutting cab windows in the first COR DMBSO, partitions fitted and interior part painted (while I had the red out for the saloon).

 

First brake end conversion started, the first plan was to fill several windows, modify a quarter light to look like another droplight in the guard's compartment, as shown in the Paint image. Thinking about it more, I had some spare droplight windows from the wrecked coach and started to cut out one quarterlight to replace it. However to save filing small bits of plastic (<3.5mm x 5.5mm) to fill the window apertures, it was easier in the end to cut out a section, trim the droplight of the removed piece to fit in the end of the gap for the guard's door and fill the rest of the gap with a single rectangle of 30 thou, as in the photo. I should leave this to dry and harden sufficiently before starting the other side, I've compromised too many models by rushing.

[Artless Bodger]

Having roused myself from a period of 'can't be bothered' torpor, I have pressed on a bit with the birdcage brake bash; progressed with the roof and done some filling and filing. The birdcage is a section of the original roof let into the base 60 thou slab of the new roof. The whole thing is a bit too tall really, but might look ok behind the UM 700 or Adams 0-6-0s.

 

Needs birdcage glazing, roof vents and painting. Not sure yet whether to do the other brake end yet.

 

[Artless Bodger]

Progress has been slow, getting on with the second DMB for the pseudo-cor, and a bit of paint daubing. Earlier I was toying with painting the birdcages different colours on each side, so here is the result of the first coat - not pretty. I was not that happy with the malachite, and got a second opinion from head gardener, who thought the malachite too brash. With two not in favour it was back to crimson both sides (though head gardener preferred the SR stock green on other coaches on the layout).

 

[Artless Bodger]

Finally got going on the birdcages again, another coat of crimson, black ends and completed the roofs, glazed the birdcage lookout.

So here they are as far as I'm going to go. As usual my painting tends to detract from the final appearance.

 

 I'm not sure if I shall do the other brake yet, it depends when I feel ready to chop the remaining suburban coach about. I shall run the two on the layout and see what I think. Meanwhile I shall concentrate on getting the pseudo-cor further advanced, concentrating on the driving vehicles and the third which fits over the motor chassis. Again will see how they turn out before wrecking a perfectly good GF coach to make the compo as I feel I need to make more effort to get the corridor side windows looking more like the real thing, which may be a disaster.

 

 

[Artless Bodger]

Having done the two ex SECR coaches and started the 4 cor, I got bored with the conversions so little happened for quite a while. The coach for the final birdcage conversion has been put to one side - now I know what I have to do and how long it'll take me to do it I don't feel all that motivated. The 4 cor has progressed  bit by bit, only the 3 coaches so far, the 3rd to go over the motor chassis isn't all that realistic in terms of the corridor side windows, I avoided chopping it too much as there isn't a lot of room for bracing. I would like to change the window layout on the compo to be more realistic but that will be more demanding, so it's in abeyance for the time being - I will have to see if the '3 cor' looks adequate before wrecking an otherwise sound coach (I think I've got another GF mainline coach somewhere in case it goes wrong, if it does then it'll just be a repaint and blow the accuracy!). So far some paint on the bodies after doing some (ahem) detailing on the cab ends - how anyone manages to handle the 10 thou cubes for bolt heads detailing escapes me, 2 out of any 3 bits I cut for the MU boxes on the ends went AWOL. Having got some yellow paint on the ends though I think they're beginning to look the part.

 

Another digital cut and shut in paint has refined my ideas for the compo - the odd gaps will be filled with either bits retained from the coach which shattered, or left overs from the SECR conversion - hopefully.

 

 

[Artless Bodger]

Having done the virtual cut and paste, I picked up courage to go into plastic, cut the side out of the donor coach, sawed it into bits and recovered enough to fill the gap from the shattered remains of the first coach I tried to modify (as up thread). There's a strip of about 60 thou in the corridor to strengthen the bottom joint, necessitating trimming off the corridor floor of the interior moulding. I then stuck that on top of the strengthener to provide a locating slot for the bottom of the glazing, which will need to be trimmed in height. It's a bit wobbly in alignment vertically and along the cant rail but having done the filling and sanding down I think it will do, depends on how bad it looks after priming.

 

Other odd jobs included adapting the driving end roofs and gluing a representation of the shoe beams on the outer bogies. 

 

Currently on a horticultural interlude now the finer weather is here.

[Artless Bodger]

I'd rather lost interest in this project, progressing in a stop - go fashion, mainly stop. Like work projects the big bits early on are interesting, it's the little detail bits that drag (I was never a 'completer - finisher'). Finally today I completed it as far as I'm going to go. It's a pretty crepe job (the jumper cables are overscale even for OO I think, they are what I had) but I think it's an improvement on the 2H that used the motor chassis before, so it has done what I set out to do.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by Artless Bodger
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[33C]

1 hour ago, Artless Bodger said:

I'd rather lost interest in this project, progressing in a stop - go fashion, mainly stop. Like work projects the big bits early on are interesting, it's the little detail bits that drag (I was never a 'completer - finisher'). Finally today I completed it as far as I'm going to go. It's a pretty crepe job (the jumper cables are overscale even for OO I think, there what I had) but I think it's an improvement on the 2H that used the motor chassis before, so it has done what I set out to do.

 

 

Your layout looks good and the last pic is very evocative!