Keira's 4mm workbench - Building Comet coaches

[Keira]

Well it certainly feels strange to complete a coach build in no more than a few days, although it is only a little one!

 

 

I’ve gone ahead and added the door handles etc, it would have been sensible to have waited until the painting stage, but I wanted to solder them in. The body is soldered to the chassis and access to the interior is done via a removable roof, I’ve never taken this approach before, bit of an experiment! Those two rails on the body sides don’t interfere with adding a full width interior as much a you might expect although I don’t see a reason to retain them and would remove them in future if doing a similar installation, I did away with the bottom ones when I decided to solder the body to the chassis. The roof locates to the body using some rails made from brass strip off cuts, the roof is fixed using magnets, they are strong enough so that the roof is held firmly, but can still be removed easily, the hold I think is just about right.

 

The shelves in the body that hold the magnets can be seen here, along with the roof magnets and guide rails.

 

 

The problem with a removable roof though is the issue of handrails, there are suppose to be handrails extending from one of the body ends up to the roof. I was thinking about fitting them without being fixed, so that they could be removed when required, I’m not sure if that would work or not practically, at the moment though I’m pretty content with just omitting them.

 

Here’s a cruel closeup of the other end, with the train alarm gear which I quite like.

 

Into the paint shop next after degreasing. I feel I might tackle that autocoach kit I’ve had for a while next, but perhaps I should get back to the list of painting and weathering jobs first.

 

Edited February 13, 2022 by Keira
Edited typo

[Keira]

Some goodies arrived in the post the other day, a couple of Comet coach kits, and I couldn’t resist starting on this one! One of these beautiful LMS period 1 non corridor carriages. I haven’t dabbled outside of the GWR much, so this is going to be fun! 
 

 

So began the marathon of door detailing, it is in these moments I envy the building of a Mk1. That said these kits have the drop lights pre etched in, hurrah! I do over exaggerate of course, and before you know it all the doors have hinges, handles and handrails. The body carcass was then assembled, and as I write this, I’m waiting on the araldite to set gluing the roof in place. When the roof ends are flushed off, I will add the rest of the matchboard end detail. I set the type of roofs supplied with comet coaches flush to the coach ends, although in most cases it is supposed to leave some overhang, I find the aluminium roof ends look a tad to chunky for the look I’m after. 

 

The roof in place, with the glue mostly set now, once fully cured the roof ends will be cleaned up.
 

 

 

[Keira]

More progress on the LMS period 1 brake. I remember these things taking me much longer, but the underframe is now basically done, I like to add little bits like the brake pull linkages extending from the v hangers to the bogies, the dynamo belt and the steam heat pipe running from one end of the under frame to the other (this is suspended and such visible on GWR carriages, was it like this on LMS ones to? Rather difficult to tell from photos of the real thing), I haven’t got round to adding these details yet, but they are the next job on the list.

 

 

I’ve also completed the bogies, soldering the whitemetal castings really speeds things up, no waiting around for glue to dry! I forgot add the spacer things that the bogies use to rotate on, another thing to add to the list of little jobs.

 

 

This build is quickly coming to its conclusion, the main bits left to do are the roof and interior, with little jobs on the underframe, bogies and body shell still to do of course.

 

 

[Keira]

Not much done today but I’ve just spent a few minutes fettling the running and the bogie clearances to the underframe, there’s always some chaotic enjoyment of hurtling a carriage across the layout at warp speeds. This is the first Comet carriage I’ve built without compensated wheel sets, so far performance seems really good on the layout which is fab news.
 

And with most of the bits together, this was also an opportunity to snap a photo of how things are looking currently.

 

[Keira]

It’s painting time!

 

The V5 has had its GWR lake colour applied, I want to paint everything this colour now! You can just about see that the roof handrails have made an appearance after all. Armed with some recommendations from members of my local model railway club on how best to fit the handrails, they have been soldered to the body, and they simply slot into the roof, works very well indeed.

 

 

Speaking of the roof, it also had a going over with the airbrush, a mix of white, cream and grey to get this colour.

 

 

And lastly an Oxford Rail AA3 Toad, when these first came out they were met with many… interesting reviews shall we say! Unusually for me I haven’t done anything to this one, just going for a simple repaint into a darker grey than what it came with. A mix of Phoenix GWR wagon grey and a bit of cream to get a slightly lighter and warmer tone of grey, just to spice things up! Of course a good coat of gloss varnish will be next before adding the transfers. The wagon rake project is going well behind the scenes, I’ll post some photos of the progress of them soon hopefully!