Scratchbuilt SECR/SR/BR(S) stock

[pete_mcfarlane]

To keep the brake van company, I finished off the Branchlines 27' SER luggage van I've been building for a while. These were built as guards vans, with side duckets and a birdcage, but during WW1 they were converted to luggage vans and lost the duckets. Branchlines include parts to build this version.

You have to remove a section of the etched sides, and then solder another piece in. I was a bit nervous about doing this, but by taking my time with a ppiercing saw it seemed to work out OK.

Other than that, the only change I made was to replace the basic etched brake shoes with some cast ones from MJT.

It's a nice little vehicle when it's finished. The roof was provided as a brass etching, which I've not seen done before. It was easy enough to roll to shape, and made assembling the birdcage straightforward.

 

[N15class]

Very nice build. I like the alteration you have done very neat.

These Branchline kits are nice to build, I have done one or two the last was a six wheeled PBV I do believe.

[lucanduke]

This is very exciting for me - as this is our house! We always wanted to find out what its model is - as we are to our knowledge only 1 of two guards vans on the beach. Model looks amazing. and thanks for the link to the bluebell

[pete_mcfarlane]

I've finally finished both vehicles. They were painted using a mix of Humbrol railway acrylics and Valejo paints. The lining was done using diluted Valejo yellow, and a black drawing pen. My lining isn't the greatest, but will do.

 

The scratchbuilt SECR passenger brake. Finished as per the picture in the Oakwood press book on SECR coaching stock - I doubt if the white roof would last long in service.

And the Branchlines brass SER luggage van.

I'm currently working on finishing off a few stalled projects, but I plan to have another go at scratchbuilding a coach in the next few months, as this one seems to have been pretty successful. 

[pete_mcfarlane]

The SER van was done without having a photo of one of these vehicles in SR days. Having finished the model and posted the photos last night, the latest issue of Invicta (the SECR society magazine) arrived this morning, complete with photo of one of these vans at Folkstone in the 1920s. I don't seem to have made any glaring errors.

[Colin parks]

Thanks for posting the pictures of the completed vans Pete.

 

The scratch-built one looks very good indeed. The panelling has come out nice and thin, which is something of a triumph in 4mm scale. The other van looks good too, but that is just a kit!

 

I look forward to seeing posts on your next project - whatever that is going to be.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[bigbadbadge]

_{Wow Pete they look amazing. Fantastic work.}

 

_{All the best
Chris}
 

[N15class]

I struggle lining 7mm let alone 4mm. They do  look good.

[pete_mcfarlane]

The next coaches I planned to do were the two coach pull-push set 656. There are drawings of this in the Mike King book on Souther Pulll-Push units. It consisted of an ex-SECR 10 compartment third (the kind with two layers of steel sheeting on the sides) and an ex-LSWR driving trailer.

 

Having recently bought a Silhouette Portrait cutter on the back of this thread I decided to have a go at drawing out the SECR coach and then doing a test cut in thin card. This is the result.

It was designed using the software that comes with the cutter, and then split in to two files so I could do two passes. One to scribe the door lines and window frames, and another to do the cutting. 

 

There are a few dimensional issues that I've now fixed. The windows were spaced too close to the doors, and the corners had too large a radius. The roof profile has also been tweaked a little.

I've yet to try cutting plasticard with the cutter. I've discovered that (as other have already commented on in the Silhouette thread) the 

blade isn't really suitable for scoring things like door outlines as it's too narrow, so I'll need a suitable tool for this. If it was just the doors then I could rescore them with the scraper board tool, but I want the cutter to do the distinctive window frames on this coach. Some more experimentation is needed.

[Colin parks]

Hi Pete,

 

An interesting project. I missed the final post on the two previous coaches which look very nice. This latest coach should be a cracker once you have the parts cut.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[pete_mcfarlane]

Some more experimentation. I wanted to see if it was possible to make a roof by laminating multiple profile sections together. 

The answer is yes, but it takes a lot of plasticard. The red section is an entire sheet of 20 thou plasticard.

 

I drew the profile sections with a recess in the bottom, which takes a strip of plasticard to align the cross sections together. There's still a small amount of misalignment between the pieces, but nothing a rub down with some wet and dry couldn't cure.

 

I'm still undecided about this method, as it uses a lot of plasticard (although 3 sheets of 2 thou isn't that expensive) and a couple of hours work to assemble them together to get a roof. But it is a way of getting obscure roof profiles for your coaches - it's time consuming but needs no skill and avoids the hassle of carving roofs from solid blocks. 

 

I've also bought some of the Silhouette sketching pens. I gave them a try on the latest revision of my SECR 10 compartment third.

This seems to be a cheaper method of checking designs before cutting them. The coach side itself is a lot better than version one, with the windows looking a lot better. 

 

 

[N15class]

The roof looks like a good idea, as does the use of a pen on paper before any cutting is done.

 

I like the idea of these cutters but am unsure if there would be any benefit for my self as I only need a couple of odd bits scratch built from card. It would also probably take me longer to do the drawing than for me to cut by hand.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Up to now I've avoided anything involving CAD and computers for mu modelling (and DCC for that matter!), because I spend all day sitting in front of a computer trying to make other computers work. But I can see the value in this cutter for making things like coach sides. It didn't take that long to do the drawing for the SECR third, probably a couple of hours, which is what it would take to mark out a sheet of plasticard with a pair of sides. Except that it will cut the sides out a lot more accurately than I can ever manage and I'll be able to reuse the drawing in future. 

[N15class]

Up to now I've avoided anything involving CAD and computers for mu modelling (and DCC for that matter!), because I spend all day sitting in front of a computer trying to make other computers work. But I can see the value in this cutter for making things like coach sides. It didn't take that long to do the drawing for the SECR third, probably a couple of hours, which is what it would take to mark out a sheet of plasticard with a pair of sides. Except that it will cut the sides out a lot more accurately than I can ever manage and I'll be able to reuse the drawing in future. 

My knowledge of computers and CAD is limited to typing. I have tried CAD programs without much success. Must try again.

[Colin parks]

Some more experimentation. I wanted to see if it was possible to make a roof by laminating multiple profile sections together. 

100_7093.JPG100_7095.JPG

The answer is yes, but it takes a lot of plasticard. The red section is an entire sheet of 20 thou plasticard.

 

I drew the profile sections with a recess in the bottom, which takes a strip of plasticard to align the cross sections together. There's still a small amount of misalignment between the pieces, but nothing a rub down with some wet and dry couldn't cure.

 

I'm still undecided about this method, as it uses a lot of plasticard (although 3 sheets of 2 thou isn't that expensive) and a couple of hours work to assemble them together to get a roof. But it is a way of getting obscure roof profiles for your coaches - it's time consuming but needs no skill and avoids the hassle of carving roofs from solid blocks. 

 

I've also bought some of the Silhouette sketching pens. I gave them a try on the latest revision of my SECR 10 compartment third.

100_7096.JPG100_7097.JPG

This seems to be a cheaper method of checking designs before cutting them. The coach side itself is a lot better than version one, with the windows looking a lot better.

Hi Pete,

 

The new technology is good for some things but not for others it would seem. The ability to turn out countless panelled coach sides could lead to a resurgence of pre-1923 coach building by modellers.

 

Re. the roof, it doesn't look like a 2-D machine will solve that issue: A coach could well turn out top-heavy if the roof is made of solid plastic sheet. I did once embark on a scratch-build of a 2 BIL years ago which got as far as making two solid roofs. They were heavy!

 

Looking forward to seeing the 10-compartment third progress.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[pete_mcfarlane]

This is the the laminated roof after a week or two of hardening. 

I've no doubt that another go with a more robust base to the roof would work and not go banana shaped, but having read the latest MRJ I think I'll have a go at Geoff Kent's method of wrapping a couple of layers of 10 thou round plasticard formers. This should be quicker and lest costly. 

 

I'm still experimenting with the Silhouette and various drawing tools. I've parked the SECR coach for now whilst I try out these techniques on something simpler. I had a go scanning in a drawing of a suitably simple vehicle and then tracing it in Inkscape. There was a steep learning curve whilst I got to grips with this - it took a couple of evenings of fighting the software but the result is a set of sides for a 57' Hastings/Tadpole trailer third.These were cut in 10 thou, and the inner sides in 15 thou.

 

I'm struggling a little with some odd problems with Inkscape and/or the printer driver.

As you can see, the lower side (cut from a separate sheet) is slightly shorter. it's probably only 1% different, which is still a bit odd and I'm yet to work out why. So it took a few attempts to get an accurate set of sides. These were then assembled in to a basic coach body.

This started out as an experiment, but tonight I started drawing up the end and roof components with a view to finishing the coach and then doing the motor coach and providing a suitable EPB driving trailer. I've been after one of these units since 1987 when I got a copy of the Brian Haresnape BR Fleet survey book on DEMUs and 2nd generation DMUs.

 

The only real challenge was the drawings - I tried using one from the Cheona book of DMU drawings, but it needed a lot of tweaking before it looked right. Luckily it's easy to do this in the drawing software, but I get the impression these drawings have been done from a few known dimensions and photos (for example the windows looked too small, the bogies are wrong on the motor coach, and the plan view has the vehicles too wide as I suspect the draftsman confused width over body with overall width over the door furniture). Remind me not to try using the EMU drawings from the same source.

 

 

 

[uax6]

For roofs I tape a bit of 20thou to a suitable former (plastic gutter downpipe or steel steam pipe) of about the right diameter for the curve. Then heat up to soften and cooll the harden the curve. I use the rayburn oven, but be careful do it on a low heat as the downpipe will soften too!

 

Works very well, and using your formers you can then get the shape just right. You can see some results on my coach bodging pages.

 

Andy G

[pete_mcfarlane]

A quick update to show that the ends have been assembled, and a roof former made along the lines suggested by Geoff  Kent in the latest MRJ. These are now hardening overnight.

The ends were cut from 20 thou plasticard. As everyone else has found out already, the Silhouette won't cut through this completely, so I ended up having to go over the cuts again with a scalpel. There are two sets of ends here, including a driving end that's in the process of having it's windows added (and hasn't been separated from the surrounding plasticard yet).

Edited February 5, 2014 by pete_mcfarlane

[pete_mcfarlane]

A rummage through the boxes of bits has turned up most of the parts I need to finish this coach. First of all were a couple of sets of MJT compensated bogies, one of which has been soldered together tonight. The wheels are from the same people as Black Beetle motor bogies, and also were found in one of my boxes.

I also found some DC Kits BR2 single bolster bogie sideframes - I'm still undecided about whether to use these as they're a bit crude. I did use them on my DC Kits 2-EPB, but comparing them with photos of the real things shows how much work is needed to bring them up to spec. They're also 1mm too long in the wheelbase, and I don't have enough to do the driving trailer as well. Some more thought is needed - it's a shame Bachmannn don't sell their ones as spares. 

I've also made a start on the motor coach drawings. This is the current state of progress.

I've got two drawings to base this on - the BR weight diagram showing the 'corridor' side, and the one in the Cheona book of DMU drawings. I started by tracing the latter in Inkscape, as I did with the trailer, but ended up moving almost every element of the motor end around until it looked right. I'm increasingly thinking that the drawing was based on photos and a few known dimensions. And not very good photos either - for example the short frame motor coach had two part handrails to the driver and guard doors, the drawing shows one part handrails as per the long frame units. The group of four grills on the motor coach has rounded bottoms to the lower grills when the real thing doesn't and so on.

 

I got this far last night, and the next step is to draw it our (using a pen in the Silhouette) to check that it looks OK.

 

Talking of photos, I've only got a few of my own photos of the preserved Hastings, so I've been making use of lots of photos off www.preservedthumpers.co.uk. Well worth a visit. 

This is one of my handful of photos of a real Hastings, taken when it visited Nottingham in 2009. I've also got a few of the motor coach roof that should come in handy later on.

 

[Colin parks]

Hi Pete,

 

I am glad to see you are progressing with the unit. It is great to see someone having a go at this prototype in plasticard. I have read about the method of making roofs in the manner you describe. Mike Peascod did it much the same way years ago.

All the best,

 

Colin

[pete_mcfarlane]

I'm rather enjoying this coach building. Here's the latest update.

The trailer second is now on it's bogies. The ends have been fitted with steps and pre-drilled for handrails/filler pipes and glued on. The roof has the first 10thou wrapper on, and is wrapped in masking tape whilst the solvent dries.

 

One thing I did spot was that the sides have bowed inwards slightly.

I've designed the thing with an inner false roof, which pushes them back out again to the correct shape. So far this is the only distortion I've had.

[MikeTrice]

You have suffered the same problem I did e.g. when gluing partitions in place using solvent, the solvent having melted the styrene then shrinks pulling the sides inwards. As you say fitting a false roof will help, or failing that use cyano to fix the partitions rather than solvent.

 

Did you precurve the roof lamination?

Edited February 10, 2014 by MikeTrice

[pete_mcfarlane]

I'd not thought of using cyano on plasticard joints (although I've been happily using it to fix brass/whitemetal bits to scratchbuilt plasticard models for years). I'll have an experiment with it.

 

I also suspect the distortion woul dbe less of a problem with a compartment coach compared to these open saloons - the toilet area shows no sign of distortion because it's better braced.

 

I did pre-curve the roof, using the Geoff Kent method of rubbing it on the back with a curver scalpel handle. I'm wondering if cyano might be a better solution for the roof as well, it would avoid nay distortions (and be a lot quicker). Something else to experiment with,

[MikeTrice]

Just to show you how the solvent has "shrunk" during evaporation causing the floor to curve. Good candidate for using cyano.

 

[Colin parks]

Hi Pete,

 

I have been looking through your latest posts.

 

Re. distortion of plastic, I would just say that on the sixteen plasticard coach bodies I have made so far, none have had partitions fixed to the sides and all roofs (made of 40 thou. sheet)have been formed by heating the plastic to permanently change its shape. When I am building a plastic coach body, my main goal is avoid unequal stresses: Attaching a partition on the inside of a side causes an unequal stress as the solvent will have changed the molecular structure of the plastic sheet on one side only. The same applies with Mike's seating unit.

 

Anyway, the coach is coming on nicely, so forgive my pontifications. The advent of silhouette cutter has opened up a whole world of possibilities for anyone who wants to scratch-build coaches, but we still need to be careful with that solvent!

 

All the best,

 

Colin