CR 65ft first and matching brake 3rds.

[Caley Jim]

A short time ago @Argos of this parish arranged for Jim Smellie of Caley Coaches to have some of his Glasgow and Edinburgh Direct 65ft non-corridor 'Grampian' style coach etches reduced to 2mm scale and I purchased 2 brake thirds and a first to make up a set.  The etches only comprise sides and ends so when I was asked to produce an etch for another project I set about designing an underframe and six wheel bogies for them.  I happened to mention this to @Nig H and he kindly provided me with the artwork he had produced for the bogies for his ex-G&SWR diner, which had been fitted with these same bogies by the LMS.  I made some modifications to the artwork, primarily to add brake blocks.

 

 

Unfortunately this turned out to be one of those times when the etch was very slightly 'overdone' resulting in some of the finer parts being rather delicate, especially the spring hangers and one of the layers of the axleboxes, however the artwork has been altered to beef these up a wee bit.  I also discovered that I had been afflicted by the C-nile virus when making up the etch and forgot to include the parts for the secondary suspension, so a set of them will need to go on the next trial etch.  The 7mm wheels fitted here are some old plastic ones I had and they will be replaced with metal tyred ones once the proprietor of shop 4 completes his house move and opens up again.

 

The floor has bend up sides to support the lower part of the body side and I made the trial one with bend up ends to which the coach ends were to be attached.  The solebars fit into slots in the floor and the stepboards into slots in the solebars.

 

 

The other slots are to locate the compartment partitions, bogie mounts and battery boxes.

 

The ends comprise two layers with the steps and lamp brackets bending out from the inner layer and passing through slots in the outer one.  The outlines of the steps had not etched through in some places, but I have seen this happen before where artwork has been 'shot down' from a larger scale.  Assembling them was therefore a wee bit of a challenge.   When it came to fitting the ends, I realised that the arrangement I had made had no provision for accurately locating the ends and so I fabricated a couple of inner headstocks and used the buffer holes to accurately locate the ends.  I have now modified the artwork to provide these inner headstocks rather than the bend up ends.

 

Having attached the ends to the floor I then created the turn under on one bodyside, attached it to the ends and then fitted the compartment partitions.

 

 

And that is where things stand at the moment.  Having only built 4-wheel, 6-wheel and 45ft bogie coaches so far, these look HUGE!

 

Jim

[CF MRC]

That’s an awful lot of carriage!

 

Tim

[Dave John]

A  good start Jim. 

 

I had the same reaction building a set of grampian corridor stock in 4mm, they were large for their time. 

[Caley Jim]

With the second side fitted the next job was to fit the bogie mounts.  These are simple 'ridge' shapes which fit into the slots on either side of the pivot holes, one with the ridge running across the vehicle and the other at right angles.  This gives a degree of compensation between the bogies with the first mentioned one giving lateral stability.  The pivots themselves are short lengths of 12BA studding soldered into the holes in the floor.

 

The bogies are retained by a nut which is soldered to a piece of scrap etch.  These can be seen lying upside down inboard of the mounts.  The length of the pivot is such that when the nut is screwed up tight to the pivot, the bogie is loose enough to pivot and rock freely.

 

 

The slight problem with this system on 6-wheel bogies is the the centre axle gets in the way, so it has to be removed to mount the bogie.  It also meant that I had to ensure the the plate on the nut would not interfere with the axle.

 

With it mounted on its bogies the next job will be to ad the truss rods and battery boxes.

 

 

Jim

Edited September 24, 2022 by Caley Jim
Typo

[queensquare]

Lovely job Jim, they are very impressive coaches

 

Jerry 

[Caley Jim]

The truss rods and battery boxes are now fitted.  The latter are just three sided etches locating in slots in the floor.  by the time the underframe is painted I doubt that will be apparent, but styrene can be used to build the rest up if need be.  I'm not building a museum model, after all!

 

 

Work has also started on detailing the non-step end.  The alarm indicator is a length of 10thou p/b wire.  One end was flattened to represent the paddle and then two rings of fine wire were threaded on.  Then the other end was flattened, making sure it was in the same plane as the first.  The two wire rings were slid to just short of the paddles and soldered to the wire.  The rings were then soldered to the end just below cantrail level.  A piece of fine wire representing the pipe from the control box to the the Westinghouse pipe was soldered on next.  The control box will be formed from small blocks of styrene.  One handrail has also been attached on the far side of the end, again from fine wire.  There is still one to fit at this side, but this is as far as I got last night.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

The ends have now been detailed.

 

I had a dilemma with the step end.  The top of the handrails attaches to the roof, but the roof can't be fitted until the glazing is in place and that can't be put in place until the painting is done, but the lower ends need to be soldered on before the painting is done! 🤔

 

What I have done is solder the lower ends in place, roughly shape the handrails, leave them long, loop them over the ends and temporarily secure them to some Blu-tack on the inside.  You can just see that in the left hand shot of the plain end.

 

As far as the roofs are concerned my plan is to draw them up in 3D CAD, complete with ventilators, and have them 3D printed.  They will sit over the ends and between the sides, which is why the partitions are slightly short. That is going to test my rudimentary 3D CAD skills!  I'm off on a steep earning curve - I may be some time!

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

Well, it didn't take me as long as I feared, despite a false start in AutoCAD 3D.  I was getting nowhere fast with that, so copied the end profile into Fusion360 and, with a bit of bodging and going down dead ends, I got there! 😀

 

 

You can just about see the rainstrips and HAVOK vents.

 

Now I need to find some kind soul to do a trial print for me!

 

Jim

[LMSfan72]

53 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Well, it didn't take me as long as I feared, despite a false start in AutoCAD 3D.  I was getting nowhere fast with that, so copied the end profile into Fusion360 and, with a bit of bodging and going down dead ends, I got there! 😀

 

 

You can just about see the rainstrips and HAVOK vents.

 

Now I need to find some kind soul to do a trial print for me!

 

Jim

Hi Jim. Do you have it as an stl file? What’s the overall length? PM me, and I’ll check if I can!

[Caley Jim]

PM sent.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

@LMSfan72 has successfully printed a roof from my drawing. 😀  Thanks Andy!  👍

 

While it wings its way to me I have done a wee bit of experimenting for the interiors of the compartments.  Previously with my 45ft coaches the partitions were made from thin card with the area of the seat backs painted the appropriate colour and glued in place from below after painting (the roofs on these were soldered to the body and the floor open).  With the different construction of this coach I decided to try printing inserts for  the compartments which would fold up to form the seats, seat backs and floor.

This : -

When printed, cut out and folded, produced this : -

These were printed in 'fast print' mode so have come out rather pale and are just sitting in place.   I also need to do away with the lines and only print reference marks at the edge for the folds.  Some more experimentation to be done.

However, with a scrap of ply on top to simulate the roof and a low light close to the coach, the effect is satisfactory, to my eye at least.

(I know, that end handrail is a bit wonky and needs to be straightened!)

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

The upholstery  in the 1st class compartments is described as 'brown tapestry moquette' and, with a bit of playing about with colours for the hatch in AutoCAD and printing it in high quality, I have achieved what I think that would look like.  At least near enough for the limited glimpse the viewer will get of them.  (LH compartment in this photo.)

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

The roof print from @LMSfan72 arrived this morning, but I didn't get time to properly try it on the coach until this evening.  The lower part which fits between the sides was a wee bit wide, around 0.1mm or so, but a bit of light scraping with a craft knife corrected that - I'll probably find it more work to correct the CAD! The end profile was also not quite a 100% fit to the coach ends, but considering I only had a .png of the original artwork to work from, it was pretty close and only needed a few strokes of a file on the ends of the body to improve the fit.  All in all I'm surprised at how well it fits, considering it's my first attempt at something like this in 3D CAD.

 

 

The handrails at the step end had to be detached from inside the body to fit the roof.  Once it's had a spray of rattle-can grey the rainstrip and vent detail will show up better.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

The buffers on these coaches had a round tapered body with an oval head.  None of those supplied by the shop are really suitable, the BR Mk1 ones having too heavy and parallel a body.  Looking on the N-brass website the nearest ones appeared to be the MR Bain pattern, so three sets of them were obtained.

 

What you get are four turned buffers with round heads and an etch of oval heads with a half-etched recess in them and some square bases.   The bases have a slightly bulbous appearance (did these buffers have volute springs?) and the recesses are not big enough to accommodate the round heads.

 

The spigot in the end is just big enough to grip in a minidrill, so I smoothed of the bulbous area and reduced the heads to around 1.4mm diameter and thinned them so that they sat more snugly into the recesses.  At the top in the above photo is what comes in the packet, while the lower ones have been modified.

 

The buffers have been fitted and the roof given a light coat of grey primer and sat in place.

 

 

The roof and bogies will be removed before it goes into the paint shop.

 

Jim

Edited October 29, 2022 by Caley Jim
Spelling correction

[VRBroadgauge]

On 22/10/2022 at 07:25, Caley Jim said:

The roof print from @LMSfan72 arrived this morning, but I didn't get time to properly try it on the coach until this evening.  The lower part which fits between the sides was a wee bit wide, around 0.1mm or so, but a bit of light scraping with a craft knife corrected that - I'll probably find it more work to correct the CAD! The end profile was also not quite a 100% fit to the coach ends, but considering I only had a .png of the original artwork to work from, it was pretty close and only needed a few strokes of a file on the ends of the body to improve the fit.  All in all I'm surprised at how well it fits, considering it's my first attempt at something like this in 3D CAD.

 

 

The handrails at the step end had to be detached from inside the body to fit the roof.  Once it's had a spray of rattle-can grey the rainstrip and vent detail will show up better.

 

Jim

A question Jim. Are you happy with the junction between the 3DP and the etch? I'm about to do something similar with some heavyweight cars. I was told that the it was very difficult to get a satisfactory join between the two that stayed satisfactory. My first thought was to etch the roof but there's a problem with getting the curves right. I also have an end car which has a compound curve.

In your experience is there something I should do to make this easier?

Edited October 31, 2022 by VRBroadgauge

[Caley Jim]

As I said a few posts back, I couldn't get a proper drawing of the original artwork of the end profile and so had to 'trace' over a scaled .png of it. I was pleasantly surprised how well the fit was. There was some adjustment needed and the fit is not quite perfect, but with a bit of scraping of the print and a few strokes of a file to the ends it's good enough. I'm going to get some help in modifying the CAD at our next group meeting. I'm pretty sure that if I'd been able to get the original artwork for the etches I could have achieved a better fit. Of course much will depend on how accurately the printer reproduces the CAD. 

 

Jim 

[Chris Higgs]

On 31/10/2022 at 01:35, VRBroadgauge said:

A question Jim. Are you happy with the junction between the 3DP and the etch? I'm about to do something similar with some heavyweight cars. I was told that the it was very difficult to get a satisfactory join between the two that stayed satisfactory. My first thought was to etch the roof but there's a problem with getting the curves right. I also have an end car which has a compound curve.

In your experience is there something I should do to make this easier?

 

Having designed a whole lot of resin and later 3D-printed roofs, I can vouch that curving an etched roof to a elliptical or 3-arc profile is a whole order of magnitude more difficult. Not sure what you would see as difficult about the joint between 3D-printed roof and etched end would be - there is the question of differential expansion in varying temperatures I suppose. 

 

Chris 

[Chris Higgs]

On 31/10/2022 at 09:47, Caley Jim said:

As I said a few posts back, I couldn't get a proper drawing of the original artwork of the end profile and so had to 'trace' over a scaled .png of it. I was pleasantly surprised how well the fit was. There was some adjustment needed and the fit is not quite perfect, but with a bit of scraping of the print and a few strokes of a file to the ends it's good enough. I'm going to get some help in modifying the CAD at our next group meeting. I'm pretty sure that if I'd been able to get the original artwork for the etches I could have achieved a better fit. Of course much will depend on how accurately the printer reproduces the CAD. 

 

Jim 

 

Etching a set of new ends to your own profile could be a solution.

 

Chris

[VRBroadgauge]

8 hours ago, Chris Higgs said:

 

Having designed a whole lot of resin and later 3D-printed roofs, I can vouch that curving an etched roof to a elliptical or 3-arc profile is a whole order of magnitude more difficult. Not sure what you would see as difficult about the joint between 3D-printed roof and etched end would be - there is the question of differential expansion in varying temperatures I suppose. 

 

Chris 

There was some talk about the join not staying where it should. I guess it's a matter of coming up with a system of anchoring the 3DP or casting to the etch. Kev and I have been talking about such things on a set of riveted passenger cars that we're building. The end car has a compound curved roof  and could be quite tricky. Kev has 3DP'd a full train set and we're not really happy with the result. As etching is a better result we're going down that track. I think a bit of testing will determine the best course of action.

 

Bruce

[Caley Jim]

16 hours ago, Chris Higgs said:

 

Etching a set of new ends to your own profile could be a solution.

 

Chris

I think that might be more work than making slight amendments to the CAD file.  We're talking about around 0.1mm adjustments.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

Just to show that progress is still being made.  I put the bogies back on to take it to our area group meeting on Saturday last.

 

 

Painting CR coaches takes me some time as as I give each thin coat 24hrs to dry before doing the other colour.  The white parts of the crests were put on in the same session as the final touching up of the upper panels.  The handrails at the step end will be adjusted to shape once the roof has been fixed on.  I'm plucking up the courage to start the lettering - 'GLASGOW/AND/EDINBURGH/DIRECT' on the four centre eaves panels and '-/FIRST/-/C . R/-/67/-/FIRST/-' on the waist panels! 🙄

 

Jim

[Argos]

That looks superb Jim. The finished rake will be very impressive indeed! 

[queensquare]

21 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Just to show that progress is still being made.  I put the bogies back on to take it to our area group meeting on Saturday last.

 

 

Painting CR coaches takes me some time as as I give each thin coat 24hrs to dry before doing the other colour.  The white parts of the crests were put on in the same session as the final touching up of the upper panels.  The handrails at the step end will be adjusted to shape once the roof has been fixed on.  I'm plucking up the courage to start the lettering - 'GLASGOW/AND/EDINBURGH/DIRECT' on the four centre eaves panels and '-/FIRST/-/C . R/-/67/-/FIRST/-' on the waist panels! 🙄

 

Jim

Superb Jim, look forward to seeing all three. Are they a stand alone set are do they form part of a longer take.

 

Jerry

[Caley Jim]

2 hours ago, queensquare said:

Superb Jim, look forward to seeing all three. Are they a stand alone set are do they form part of a longer take.

Standard set on the Glasgow - Edinburgh service was 2 x 8 compt. brake thirds and a first, strengthened on Saturdays with a third.  the thirds were 68ft long with 11 compartments seating 132 passengers.  Initially 2 sets ran the service with a third set starting from Gourock, running to Glasgow Central, then doing a return trip to Edinburgh before returning to Gourock.   Further sets were built for the Gourock service which included composites and both 7 and 9 compartment brake thirds.

 

Jim 

[queensquare]

2 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Standard set on the Glasgow - Edinburgh service was 2 x 8 compt. brake thirds and a first, strengthened on Saturdays with a third.  the thirds were 68ft long with 11 compartments seating 132 passengers.  Initially 2 sets ran the service with a third set starting from Gourock, running to Glasgow Central, then doing a return trip to Edinburgh before returning to Gourock.   Further sets were built for the Gourock service which included composites and both 7 and 9 compartment brake thirds.

 

Jim 

A very modelable rake, not too long. I don’t know about you but I find building coaches hard work, one or two are fine but longer rakes …….

 

Jerry