Taz's Kit building workbench - Ex GW Comet Coaches

[Clearwater]

Hi

 

An excellent thread and some great pictures!  
 

I’m a fair chunk of the way through a Comet 70’ brake and had a couple of questions.  I think I’ve got the same issue you had initially with the bogies fouling the solebars even though I’m yet to fit the white metal parts.  Should the bogies swing clear and not foul the sole bar?  I presume you fixed by putting extra plasticard on the bottom of the coach floor to effectively lift that up? 

Secondly, in order to fit the whitemetal bogie sides, should they go flush against the brass bogie underframe?  If so, what’s the best method for making the hole into which the bearing will sit bigger?

 

Many thanks

 

David

[Taz]

Hi, I guess how far the bogie needs to swing will depend on the curves on your layout. I have a very tight R2 curve leading into my traverser so I need a fair bit of bogie swing. Conversely some of these coaches run on a P4 layout with a change of bogie where little bogie swing is required.

 

Most of my coaches have bogies packed with a piece of 20 thou plasticard. I measure buffer height against a gauge.

This normally suffices and I don’t have to remove much if any from the top of the cosmetic side frames.

 

With the white metal side frames I remove extra material from the back using a burr tool in my dremel.

 

I just carefully nibble away until enough material has been removed to fit the brass bogie. I think the original pattern maker for these side frames didn’t account for shrinkage when positioning the holes for the bearings. So they are just ever so slightly too close together. You can also remove a bit of material above the holes to allow the side frames to sit a bit lower if required to help with clearing the solebars.

 

Hope that helps.

[Clearwater]

Thanks - much appreciated.  I'm thinking the ability to handle R2 is probably useful.  I don't have a layout as such, more a train set oval for the kids albeit I have ambitions...

 

For clarity, the cosmetic sides fit flush to the brass frames?

 

David

[Taz]

Yes, i solder mine so they are flush.

The resultant bogies are a bit wide compared to prototype but i live with that and you don’t have mush choice if using brass / white metal bogies.