East Barnet Joint Stock - a workbench

[Asterix2012]

Another way to see where the high points are is to put engineers blue on a flat surface and put the part concerned on it, the high points will be stained blue

[Chas Levin]

3 hours ago, Asterix2012 said:

Another way to see where the high points are is to put engineers blue on a flat surface and put the part concerned on it, the high points will be stained blue

 

Aha, thank you Asterix2021! That stuff was on the tip of my tongue - so to speak, not literally, of course - when I asked earlier about being able to see which parts had the primer rubbed away first. I was thinking of having seen others using engineer's blue but I haven't seen anyone using it for years and it was a sort of deep memory.

I don't have any, but I might try replicating the effect with a marker pen...

[MikeTrice]

Use the marker pen on the etching, turn over then rub on some fine wet and dry and the high spots will appear as those areas with the marker pen removed. Keep rubbing until all the original surface is visible.

[Chas Levin]

1 hour ago, MikeTrice said:

Use the marker pen on the etching, turn over then rub on some fine wet and dry and the high spots will appear as those areas with the marker pen removed. Keep rubbing until all the original surface is visible.

 

Thanks Mike - I got there in the end through trial and error, ended up trying exactly what you describe and I now have a flat door with no panels! 🙂

I stripped off the first application of primer before starting of course, and applied another coat to check afterwards and I'm happy with it now:

 

 

The tiny accidental grooves on the upper and lower right-hand edges I can live with because apart from anything else, they'll be obscured by the grabrails and the inset sides, plus the fact that these doors will be mounted inside the doorway with their edges invisible behind the doorway sides.

 

Thank you to all who've offered advice on doing this. Although turning it round and using the reverse as Mike suggested would have been quicker and easier, this was very satisfying to do - it's amazing to see three different metals (nickel-silver, brass and solder) sort of 'merge' into one surface and it's very therapeutic to engage in such careful, gentle filing and sanding. I hadn't tried to fill in a flat shape like this before, I just assumed it could be done because of filing brass soldered to NS to other shapes, so it's also a proof of concept to see that it's perfectly possible, a useful technique...

 

The next question is how to replicate the two horizontal grooves at the top and bottom of the lower flat panel, which need to be put into the flat back surface of the reversed door, so that it resembles it's heavily worked twin - here are a couple of pictures of the two doors side by side, the one on the left seen reversed of course:

 

 

 

As close as I can measure, using digital calipers and under high magnification, the grooves are 0.3mm wide and straight sided - in other words, they're not V-shaped and thay have flat 'floors'. A 0.3mm drill is an easy but snug fit between the groove walls.

In their depth, they appear to be half-etched; the main etch is 0.4mm and the tabs between pieces (which appear to be on the same level as the groove floors) are 0.2mm.

 

So I need to cut two grooves, 0.3mm wide by 0.2mm deep and they need to be as uniform and neat as possible because inaccuracy will be obvious to the eye...

 

The narrowest file I have is 0.7mm and the razor saws I have are 0.4mm: does anyone have a good way to do this please - is there a tool out there I've not come across designed to do this? If they were larger grooves in wood I'd be using a router I guess - a bit overkill for this...

[MikeTrice]

You need something like this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125555319520?hash=item1d3bae22e0:g:hmEAAOSw509jQ8wL&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4OFBRK2JlwJ75qld1m5OYIabUfSSm%2BQX7wfQCMaXlMpuizi%2FETlm8RKiBAdWpVGymv39XISqj244ri6SYyO%2BqLxLnUxmGB6m2yaYTeIzPoiwG4mcouUM4avZNngYNvZQd3QA8PX5rqIpnIYKFTDMCaJdZFUuJcH47ntLdP70Z2swzt3V337Wr9sgjB0Zvc%2FWXCUPx7jWUqfZ%2FMEmiSfnaoQsrlZLtqgCQiHMisS1X6hO9TSlctSpxXPqN%2F29puTiCShSfPSbEGyRON1MIK2aixzVCcrfULRK24LSs2h1S9is|tkp%3ABk9SR7Cq0pqUYg

 

You can also make up your own from old hacksaw blades. Search for "Scrawker".

[Pebbles]

29 minutes ago, MikeTrice said:

You need something like this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125555319520?hash=item1d3bae22e0:g:hmEAAOSw509jQ8wL&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4OFBRK2JlwJ75qld1m5OYIabUfSSm%2BQX7wfQCMaXlMpuizi%2FETlm8RKiBAdWpVGymv39XISqj244ri6SYyO%2BqLxLnUxmGB6m2yaYTeIzPoiwG4mcouUM4avZNngYNvZQd3QA8PX5rqIpnIYKFTDMCaJdZFUuJcH47ntLdP70Z2swzt3V337Wr9sgjB0Zvc%2FWXCUPx7jWUqfZ%2FMEmiSfnaoQsrlZLtqgCQiHMisS1X6hO9TSlctSpxXPqN%2F29puTiCShSfPSbEGyRON1MIK2aixzVCcrfULRK24LSs2h1S9is|tkp%3ABk9SR7Cq0pqUYg

 

You can also make up your own from old hacksaw blades. Search for "Scrawker".

I would be inclined to hand  grind the faces of a fine cut razor saw on an emery stone to 0.3mm wide and use it as a file against a steel straight edge.

[Chas Levin]

1 hour ago, MikeTrice said:

You need something like this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125555319520?hash=item1d3bae22e0:g:hmEAAOSw509jQ8wL&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4OFBRK2JlwJ75qld1m5OYIabUfSSm%2BQX7wfQCMaXlMpuizi%2FETlm8RKiBAdWpVGymv39XISqj244ri6SYyO%2BqLxLnUxmGB6m2yaYTeIzPoiwG4mcouUM4avZNngYNvZQd3QA8PX5rqIpnIYKFTDMCaJdZFUuJcH47ntLdP70Z2swzt3V337Wr9sgjB0Zvc%2FWXCUPx7jWUqfZ%2FMEmiSfnaoQsrlZLtqgCQiHMisS1X6hO9TSlctSpxXPqN%2F29puTiCShSfPSbEGyRON1MIK2aixzVCcrfULRK24LSs2h1S9is|tkp%3ABk9SR7Cq0pqUYg

 

You can also make up your own from old hacksaw blades. Search for "Scrawker".

 

Thanks Mike; I initially saw this post on my phone screen so I didn't see the last line; I followed the link to the Ebay item and thought "scrawker"...

I'm not sure about keeping the depth of the groove uniform though, because it'd be quite a fine point to the blade... 🤔

[Chas Levin]

34 minutes ago, Pebbles said:

I would be inclined to hand  grind the faces of a fine cut razor saw on an emery stone to 0.3mm wide and use it as a file against a steel straight edge.

 

Evening Pebbles, thank you, that might be the winning idea. That should make it reasonably easy to keep the groove depth uniform, because it's a much longer blade than the width of the door...

[Bucoops]

2 hours ago, MikeTrice said:

You need something like this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125555319520?hash=item1d3bae22e0:g:hmEAAOSw509jQ8wL&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4OFBRK2JlwJ75qld1m5OYIabUfSSm%2BQX7wfQCMaXlMpuizi%2FETlm8RKiBAdWpVGymv39XISqj244ri6SYyO%2BqLxLnUxmGB6m2yaYTeIzPoiwG4mcouUM4avZNngYNvZQd3QA8PX5rqIpnIYKFTDMCaJdZFUuJcH47ntLdP70Z2swzt3V337Wr9sgjB0Zvc%2FWXCUPx7jWUqfZ%2FMEmiSfnaoQsrlZLtqgCQiHMisS1X6hO9TSlctSpxXPqN%2F29puTiCShSfPSbEGyRON1MIK2aixzVCcrfULRK24LSs2h1S9is|tkp%3ABk9SR7Cq0pqUYg

 

You can also make up your own from old hacksaw blades. Search for "Scrawker".

 

Wouldn't be without mine. Used it today to cut an aperture in a project box, but mostly it gets used for scoring things before folding. With practice you can get a consistent depth (and it's always nice to get a single piece of coiled swarf for each run!).

[Chas Levin]

6 hours ago, Bucoops said:

With practice you can get a consistent depth (and it's always nice to get a single piece of coiled swarf for each run!).

 

Hm; that last point does appeal Rich, I can't deny: you know me and my faith in practice... It's quite a narrow door though, not much length to 'get into the groove', so to speak.

I'll try out various tools on some scrap: I can do a homemade scrawker to test alongside the narrowed razor saw...

[Bucoops]

Looking at it, that's the large, I got the small:

 

https://olfacutters.co.uk/Olfa-PC-s-cutter?search=Olfa PC-S

 

[Pebbles]

4 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

 

Hm; that last point does appeal Rich, I can't deny: you know me and my faith in practice... It's quite a narrow door though, not much length to 'get into the groove', so to speak.

I'll try out various tools on some scrap: I can do a homemade scrawker to test alongside the narrowed razor saw...

Should you make a homemade scrawker grind the the cutting point to .3mm wide. You could use this cut as a guide for any subsequent procedures you care to adopt.

 

[Asterix2012]

21 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

 

Aha, thank you Asterix2021! That stuff was on the tip of my tongue - so to speak, not literally, of course - when I asked earlier about being able to see which parts had the primer rubbed away first. I was thinking of having seen others using engineer's blue but I haven't seen anyone using it for years and it was a sort of deep memory.

I don't have any, but I might try replicating the effect with a marker pen...

Bench fitting last done over thirty years ago 

 

Trained by a guy who had been working a fair bit longer than that

 

Dad also apprenticed as a fitter on the railway before he transferred to the footplate 

[Chas Levin]

2 hours ago, Pebbles said:

Should you make a homemade scrawker grind the the cutting point to .3mm wide. You could use this cut as a guide for any subsequent procedures you care to adopt.

 

 

Nice point: I'll go through everything I have that could be used as a scrawing sort of tool first, before modifying the razor saw, to see if by chance I do have something that's 0.3mm wide: perhaps I already have something that would do the job and I must admit I didn't check anything else after the razor saw!

[Chas Levin]

Well, nothing else in my inventory was a closer match for a 0.3mm cutter than the Expo razor saw at 0.4mm, but before trying to file it narrower I thought I'd just see whether Expo make other narrower types. They don't, but I ended up looking at other manufacturers' razor saws (including some eye-wateringly expensive but probably superbly made Japanese ones) and in reading the specifications I remembered that saw teeth are alternately angled outwards by a tiny amount, so they're ever so slightly wider than the actual saw blade...

Sure enough, the Expo blade itself is in fact 0.3mm wide, it's the minute outward turn of each tooth that gives a cutting width of 0.4mm. I used a pair of flat nosed pliers to pinch the teeth for the first inch of so of the blade, flattening - or straightening - them inwards, so that they're the same width as the main part of the blade.

It's very hard to get a mobile phone camera to focus on something that thin, but here are my best efforts so far - the first photo shows the unmodified saw blade, with each tooth angled slightly outwards to each side:

 

 

And here's the blade after the teeth along the first inch or so have been pinched with the flat nosed pliers to lie along the same plane as the rest of the blade - you can just see in the upper part of the photo where it reverts to the unpinched wiggly teeth:

 

 

Here are a couple of photos showing the two ends of the blade in calipers, the first measuring the unmodified section of the blade with teeth still angled, the second showing the pinched section, which is now 0.31mm:

 

 

 

I've decided to live with the 0.01mm error 🤫...

 

All that remains now is to test it on some scrap etch and then mark and 'en-groove' the reversed door. That's a tomorrow job I think, though I did take a minute this afternoon to label up the modified saw, just to be on the safe side:

 

[Chas Levin]

On 24/05/2023 at 21:02, 31A said:

Evening Chas!  I'm following this with interest, although I haven't actually got a Steam Railcar to make but what you're doing is fascinating stuff.

 

It's a bit late now I suppose but for coach door hinges where slots are not provided, I use these etched parts from Dart Castings:

 

https://www.dartcastings.co.uk/mjt/3918.php

 

The picture on the web site isn't very clear, but they're easier to use than they look.  They just need a 0.5mm hole drilling (much easier than making a slot) then the 'tang' of the hinge is a close fit into the hole.  You can press it into place then turn the side over and solder on the rear.  They come in sets of three, two short and one long for the lower one on curved sides.

 

Hello Steve, the hinge etch arrived, thanks again for the recommendation. I may not be using them on this project but I'll defintiely be using them in future - here's a clearer photo than the one on Dart's site, in case anyone wants a detailed view:

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Chas Levin

[31A]

Glad you approve, Chas!

 

Hopefully not "teaching you to suck eggs", but I cut them off at the end nearest the fret rather than the end nearest the hinge (if that makes sense) so that the part you're soldering in is that bit longer and slightly easier to see & hold.  Then when soldered in place, file off flush on the inside.

 

[Chas Levin]

9 hours ago, 31A said:

Glad you approve, Chas!

 

Hopefully not "teaching you to suck eggs", but I cut them off at the end nearest the fret rather than the end nearest the hinge (if that makes sense) so that the part you're soldering in is that bit longer and slightly easier to see & hold.  Then when soldered in place, file off flush on the inside.

 

 

Not at all Steve, thanks for the tip: I reckon I'd have worked that out... but only after cutting off the first half dozen at the end nearest the hinge and then realising my mistake!

Edited the following morning to add: it's a really clever piece of design - I'm surprised it isn't more widely known and that it hasn't been widely copied.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Chas Levin

[MikeTrice]

A thought. If you are going the scribe a groove on the reverse of the door there is a likelihood of breaking right through to the existing half-etch so it might be worth soldering a strip of brass across the half-etch first. Hope that makes sense.

[Pebbles]

2 hours ago, MikeTrice said:

A thought. If you are going the scribe a groove on the reverse of the door there is a likelihood of breaking right through to the existing half-etch so it might be worth soldering a strip of brass across the half-etch first. Hope that makes sense.

Such a simple shape, just cut out a replacement parts. 

[Chas Levin]

3 hours ago, MikeTrice said:

A thought. If you are going the scribe a groove on the reverse of the door there is a likelihood of breaking right through to the existing half-etch so it might be worth soldering a strip of brass across the half-etch first. Hope that makes sense.

 

Thanks very much Mike - a very good point! A bit like my reply to Steve (31A) above about cutting the hinges etch, I'd probably have figured that out... but only after cutting through the thing and swearing. A lot.

Not a job for today in that case, as it'll take a little longer to prepare and Sunday Lunch must now take precedence, but very glad you pointed that out.

It also provides an easy way to align the cutting line on the back of the door: by soldering in a 0.3mm piece that's wider than the door (and which can be trimmed back afterwards) I can use the two ends of the soldered piece, where they'll stick out either side of the door, to align the razor saw blade.

That sounds more convoluted than it actually is, but pictures will make it clear in due course...

[Chas Levin]

1 hour ago, Pebbles said:

Such a simple shape, just cut out a replacement parts. 

 

Yes, true, that would have been another way to do it, but I'm not yet a confident enough scratchbuilder that I'd be sure of fabricating something that was a really accurate match for the other doors.

I've found that I - and therefore anyone with eyesight as poor as mine now is - can distinguish incredibly small differences, misalignments and so forth and I wouldn't want one door to look wrong so I was keen to use the existing ones.

Actually, I also rather enjoyed the challenge of blanking out the panels, though one door was enough and I'm very happy to reverse the other one.

 

Next time, I'll be reversing and/or scratchbuilding from the start, having satisfied my door panel-blanking ambitions for the time being...

Edited June 11, 2023 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

I finally put saw to door!

Before doing so however, I followed @MikeTrice's excellent - indeed essential - suggestion of soldering a piece of scrap etch into the grooves on what was originally designed to be the front of the door, to guard against sawing my new grooves right through and ending up with a door in three pieces!

I'm also including channels and tabs to hold the glazing in addition to glue (belt and braces, as usual!) so I combined the piece going into the upper groove with a glazing tab, by using a piece of scrap with a half-etch tab already on it. I used pieces of etch 0.3mm thick as they were easy to find in the scrap box, much easier than cutting pieces 0.3mm wide really accurately, as it doesn't matter what sticks out on what will be the rear side of the door. sorry the photos aren't very clear, the combination of NS, brass and solder in these angles gave a lot of reflections:

 

 

 

The piece soldered into the lower groove is visible each side of the door from the other side and forms a handy alignment guide for the saw, as I'd hoped it would; the upper piece however is hidden by the tabs attaching the door to the rest of the etch (attachments I'm purposely leaving in place as long as possible, for ease of handling and protection) so I had to align the saw to the tops of those side tabs:

 

 

I found it quite difficult to keep the saw absolutely straight, true and flat - or parallel - to the surface, even aligning it alongside a small steel rule. For the first two or three seconds, I was surprised by how much more difficult it was than I'd expected, followed by the realisation that of course it would be difficult and that I should have rigged up a more elaborate jig than the one I'd used, a small vice designed to hold things like circuit boards, with a sucker pad underneath, which grips things like plate glass very well, on top of which lash-up I laid the steel rule:

 

 

The grooved wood is one of a couple of very old offcuts from my dad's scrap box - these were clearly from a home-made picture framing session - necessitated because the soldered scrap etch pieces protrude outwards, preventing the door being laid on flat wood.

 

Having started like this however, I decided to get the job done. I'm well aware that I have a tendency to spend a lot of time on small details and while that's a good thing in many ways and helps to contribute to the overall look of a finished model, things do need to be kept in perspective and slowing down the whole build for minute details that are invisible under coats of paint is something I'm trying to avoid! The grooves turned out acceptably nevertheless I think:

 

 

 

Inevitably the grooves aren't as neat and clean as the etched ones on the other door - the door I filled in the panels on and that'll be used facing outwards - but I think they're a good enough match, especially considering you'll never see them alongside each other as they'll be on opposite sides of the vehicle, and that they'll be under layers of primer and paint:

 

[Chas Levin]

Moving on to the next detailing job, we come to the coal hatch door supports. I'm rather puzzled by these and I hven't been able to ascertain exactly what shape they really were from any of the considerable number of photos I've now studied.

Here's what's supplied in the kit, but I'd like to make something from brass that's neater and a closer representation:

 

 

 

And that's where the trouble starts! Here are a selection of crops from photos showing the supports, which project upwards from the roof, a pair fore and aft of the coal hatch, so that the open hatch doors rest on them. They look to my eye in some of the photos a little like toothbrushes, but seriously, can anyone shed any light please? Were they a rod with a pad at the end? Were they tubular? Were they flat?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

None of those photos really makes the shape clear to me (do they to anyone else?) but here's one that does offer a bit more info.

If you look at this next one, I think you can see that the sunlight is hitting the long side of the support, the side that's parallel to the direction of travel, facing to the left in the picture, and that the upper section is perpendicular to that side piece, wider, and in shadow because of the way it's facing:

 

 

I think these items may have been simply a flat piece of iron or steel, a sort of fat 'L' shape, folded over where the short section of the 'L' meets the longer one. I'm not doing too well trying to describe this in words I suspect - here are some quick sketches, with apologies for the very poor draughtsmanship:

 

 

And here's a quick attempt at a 3D rendition, as might be seen if you were stnding up in the coal hatch itself - hopefully you can use a bit of imagination to fill in the gaps:

 

 

If anyone has any more illuminating photos, or can figure out more than I have form the ones above, please let me know...

 

Incidentally, that last prototype photo also has some nice detail of the riveted corner plates on the coal hatch housing...

[micklner]

Brass angle if you can find any small enough or a lot of filing!!.