Northmoor Works - Rolling stock for Stockrington: Southern Pride TCVs

[jukebox]

With the bogies built, it was time to start tackling the car bodies.

 

I bought myself 1m of aluminium angle and made a quick-and-dirty set of bending bars:

 

 

These, or a hold & fold, or something similar are all but mandatory to build this kit.

 

The carriage frames need to have solebars bent down. the car sides have to be bent, and pesky solebar bottoms folded up from fiddly etches.  The bigger pieces were just fine, but the small etches that needed longitudinal folds, to form the angle on the bottom of the well section, were painful using the bending bars.  A hold and fold might have helped.  Also, the kit provides small angles for the *ends* of the well section too, but makes no mention of them in the instructions.  My first one ended up a bit 'agricultural', but I eventually got a technique that worked for me, and they look okay.

 

I cut 2.75mm off the well - the same thickness as the angle section that has to be soldered under it.  It seemed about right, and my logic was that perhaps that dimension was mis-read when the kit was being scaled.  It seems okay, but perhaps @flood's recommended 4mm is a safer choice.

 

So at this point, I set up a chassis, to check the ride height and dimensions next to a Bachmann SLP I plan to run with these.  It's not a pretty picture:

 

 

Yes, I could shave 1mm or so off the Deralin hub the bogies sit on, but the dimensional issues with this kit appear to be all over the shop.

 

The bogie height - even the axle centre - look to be okay - but that main solebar?  It appears grossly over fed - it should be similar thickness to the angle under the well.

 

 

If I shave the  Deralin hub, the bottom of the solebar will be fine - but nothing short of major surgery can help the over height body.

 

That's beyond my capabilities, so after a couple of days frustration, I came to the conclusion I will just have to live with the error, and I pushed on.

 

Chassis ready for sides:

 

 

..and sides CA'd then Araldited in place:

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited January 7, 2023 by jukebox

[jukebox]

And onward.

 

Whilst I had planned to 'batch build' these four kits, the flaw in that it that one error becomes four errors when I get it wrong, so I've changed tack slightly, and am advancing one body a little further before stepping back and bringing the other three up to speed.

 

***  

 

I struggled a bit with the roof-body join.  It seemed to take a *lot* of iterations of filling, sanding, and priming, to get a relatively seamless connection, but I did get there.

 

Once I did, I used masking tape to mask of the area where the rain strip goes, and Zap CA gap filling cyno to stick the rainstrip down:

 

 

This worked well, although when I went back and did the other carriages, some rainstrips ended up straigter than others.  In hindsight, epozy may have been a better choice, as it would have given more more working time - the CA was about 10 seconds.

 

 

 

The end details were also cyno'd on - fiddly little suckers, but I got there. Cruel close up:

 

 

There was no coupling hook on the etch in the kit - luckily I had a loco kit with 8 spares on it - perfect!

 

The tape for the weld seams came next - straightforward.  The same adhesive decals are used for the skylights. These proved rather fiddley, and in the end I found that I could get a fresh flat knife blade under the surround and centre on one end, and lift if off as one (took me wasting 2 of three spares to get the knack of this...).

 

Not trusting the sticker adhesive's longevety, it was straight to the paint booth for some primer:

 

 

 

Those decals really work well to create subtlely simulated weld seams, but I can see one has lifted slightly, and I'll need to tend to it.  

 

But otherwise, I'm happy with what the body looks like. I'll sand any minor blemishes with fine wet and dry, and spray another light coat of primer before bringing the other three up to this stage.

 

Cheers.

 

Scott

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by jukebox

[jukebox]

Steady, steady:

 

With one carriage primed, I went back and started bringing the others up to prepaint stage;

 

 

Attaching the vinyl overlays for the fibreglass roof hatches was a bit tricky, so I thought someone my benefit from seeing the method I ended up using.

 

This is the sheet with the pre cut overlays:

 

 

Initially, I thought the three sections on each would be firmly attached to one another, and my cunning plan was to use the shoulder film to get the spacing distance from the rain strip constant. 

 

But after mauling two stickers on the first sheet, I could see that was not going to work (luckily there are spares).  So I came up with Plan B:

 

Remove the outside shoulder (easy - it is not attached to the inner pieces):

 

 

Then, using a sharp flat blade, carefully slide in under the short end, around 2mm - enough to shovel both the middle and centre sticker whilst still intact:

 

 

Don't go too far - or it is too hard to remove as a whole on the model.  And pick it up square, as this will aide placement.  Carefully lift off the backing sheet:

 

 

Once it is off the backing sheet, you can transfer it to the model, pushing half down firmly and then using that to anchor the sticker, and peel the knife out from under the sticker.

 

 

It takes a few goes to get the knack, but there's spares.  I ended up using the Mk.1 eyeball alignment system, and am happy with the result.

 

***

 

While the primer was drying, I was going to go back and add the lifting eyes and brake backing plate to the chassis.  To do this, I needed the bogies fitted.

 

When I fitted the bogies, I discovered an unintended consequence of my cutting the 2.75mm off the well section; I had cut the locating lugs away, and my wells were not perfectly central as a result.

 

That impacts the ability of the bogies to swing.  This show each chassis with the bogie at full lock:

 

 

Chassis #2 and #4 are close to correct - the bogies have equal clearance.  But you can see #1 and #3 have generous swing in the top bogie, but interference in the bottom bogie, caused by the well being 0.5-1.0mm too far off-centre toward the bottom.

 

 

My initial though was to Dremel cut the insides of the well away and fit a new dummy wall, rebated rebated 2mm in behind the well side, but my current thinking is I will simply solder up the bogie bolt hole, and redrill ~1mm inboard, to shift the bogie swing axis outboard - which will also make the gap between the well end and bogie sides equal - which cutting the inside well wall would not.

 

Those of you who read my layout thread know I am happy to own up to my mistakes on here - I'd much rather see that not everyone gets it right, and that there are usually work-arounds when things go wrong.

 

***

 

Lastly,  as I had the primer out, I have gotten many of the other kits set up ready for final trimming and then colour.  Here's the NER snowplow, with the primer bringing out all the lovely detail on the 3D print:

 

 

 

Yes, I did replace the handrails...

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by jukebox
typos