Coach bodging

[uax6]

Bogies!

 

The Midland diner has quite distinct bogies, so they need to be made. To give me half a chance of producing something that runs nicely I have used Comet SR 8ft 6'" etches.

 

This is the starting point:

 

Then with the frames removed from the etches and the axlebox holes opened out to fit romford bearings. The etch has been cleaned around the hole to allow the bearings to be soldered into place:

 

The bearings soldered:

 

The sides folded up:

 

And a fillet of solder applied to keep them folded:

 

Then the bolster. The double layer bits have been folded over and sweated together:

 

And then the layered bits are folded again and then inserted into the bogie:

 

Wheels added (Yes I do use Hornby or Bachmann wheels, I know I shouldn't but I have loads of them!):

 

Inner brake shoes and pull rods added:

 

Outer brake shoes and rods added:

 

At this point I had to faff around with the inner brake shoes to get them to fit. I didn't take a photo of this as I was getting quite cross! I made the mistake of following the instructions and fitting the inner shoes before the outer ones, and when I came to turn it over the inner shoes were hanging much lower than the outer ones, so they had to be taken off and shortened. I did this by filing the ends smaller so I could push them through the etch further.

 

The completed etch (note the bogies ends added. These are located on bits of 0.45mm wire, and this really helps to get them inplace and soldered):

 

That took me the best part of three hours to put together (with an hour wasted faffing with the brake issue!).

 

I've now got to assemble the dummy sides on to them.

 

Andy G

[jonny777]

Thanks for that step by step approach Andy. Lots of photos do make for more inspiration to fat fingered people such as myself.

 

I have previously only tried white metal or plastic bogie frames and fittings, but having seen how relatively easy the etched brass ones appear to be, I might give them a go.

 

Edited, to add a silly question to experienced folk but a vital question for me - what do you use to separate the pieces from the fret without bending anything?

Edited May 29, 2016 by jonny777

[uax6]

Jonny,

 

These are the first etched bogies I have made, so it was a bit of a voyage of discovery for me. I didn't use anything fancy, a 25W iron and resin cored, lead electrical solder!

 

To separate out I put a blade with the tip missing into my Swan Morton craft knife, and then used than to cut through the tabs. It seems brutal, but it works and I didn't distort anything. Then the remains of the tabs are dressed down with a needle file.

 

Andy G

[jrg1]

I have a miniature chisel ground and stoned to a very narrow angle.  The fret is placed on a piece of laminate-no give-and a tap with a small hammer goes straight through the tabs.

[uax6]

To continue the build (after a busy summer doing house building etc).

 

The etched bogie innards need dummy outers. These have been drawn on the computer and cut out with the portrait again. Two are laminated together, and then the axle holes are drilled to sit over the bearing soldered into the etches:

 

For the axleboxes I have used Wizard MR ones, which come looking like this:

 

I ran them back and forth along a large file to remove the backing plate, redrilled the bearing hole so it fits over ones in the bogie and the result was this:

 

The spring hangers come separately:

 

They were shortened to match the prototypes and then superglued in position:

 

The spring bolsters were stolen from a set of Comet LMS bogies:

They look like this:

They were superglued to the underside of the etch finishing the bogies off:

 

The bogies are attached to the underside of the coach floor by a 6BA bolt:

 

And then onto the underframe..

 

Andy G

[uax6]

The most distinctive feature of the Midland Diners are there truss rods, which are mounted on the outside of the solebars. They are round bar which is flattened out where they meet the solebars. To do this I used 0.45mm brass wire and flattened the ends with the only thing available in the box:

Just checking the size:

Ah just right for the gate sag bar nuts! Anyway the ends of the wire were hit with the spanner until they flattened out, this results in the wire curling up, which has to be carefully flattened down:

The wire was bent to shape and I made a small hole in the solebar to take the end of the wire, to help locate it:

I also made the queen posts from the same wire and secured them to the inside of the solebar, with the tie rod passing through them:

Then the whole lot was superglued to the solebar:

 

The coach also has a pair of large battery boxes, I made them simply out of strips of plasticard, and filled them with some lead to act as weight:

 

The overall underframe details so far:

 

I still need to add the dynamo and the brake gear, but thats on order at the minute....

 

Andy G

 

[uax6]

With the underframe got to as far as I can, I turned my thoughts back to the roof. To be honest this has caused me many defeatist thoughts, as there was just something about the fit that I didn't like. So with a fair amount of distance from the last time I tried I set to to see what I could do.

 

One thing I found was that there was a slight bulge in the side around the kitchen doors, so a simple edge strip was added to straighten this. This made the roof fit better, and then it was a case of just shaving and adjusting here and there until it I got the best fit. This took about 3 or 4 hours!

 

Anyway I then moved onto the clerestory. This has been cut out and laminated to make it 20thou thick. To support it bits of 20thou were glued along the edge of the lower roof thus:

 

The side then had the panels added behind, which also helped to space it out the correct distance:

 

It was then cemented in place:

 

The other side was then added:

 

Now I knew where the clerestory windows would be I opened some holes in the false roof to let light drop into the coach:

 

The top roof was then added. I had two attempts at this, the first having it built up like I normally do (ie false roof with the curved bit cemented ontop), but this didn't work, so I tried just having some formers to keep the shape across the length, and this seems to have done the trick, but I didn't take a photo!

 

I then added the beading to the ends of the roof, again 20thou microstrip and lots of patience!

 

Next time it will be continuing with the underframe.

 

Andy G

 

[uax6]

Back to the underframe. To give a bit more weight to the overall vehicle I decided to go for some cast whitemetal gas cylinders. These are from Wizard again. It was also time to add brake cylinders  and dynamo (cast ones again) and brake hangers, these being universal ones from wizard again. The gas cylinders are fixed to the floor using hoops of handrail wire.

The stash of bits:

 

One of the cylinders on the diner is longer than the other, so a spare was cut and superglued to another:

 

The floor was then drilled to take the hoops to hold the cylinders:

 

And the cylinder slid in and secured with superglue:

 

The brake gear was assembled and the dynamo mounted:

 

Thats the underframe sorted, so back to the roof. Time had come to fit some vents. The roof was marked up:

 

These are the vents, standard whitemetal torpedos:

 

The difference in the roof texture after fitting them is shown here:

 

Then I moved onto the most painful part of the whole build. The clerestory sides on the real thing has a mix of windows, plain panels and perforated metal plates. These plates needed manufacturing. So out with the 0.45mm drill and the first attempt yielded this:

 

Not brilliant by any means, so a bit of work with a ruler helped me to produce this:

 

Which is much better. The effect in the clerestory side is this:

 

So on with the mass production of these panels:

 

Which gives this:

 

Now over the kitchen end of the roof, extra torpedos were mounted on these plates:

 

Then it was just a case of making lots more to fill the holes. One side took two hours of drilling holes, after which time I could barely move my thumb to grip anymore!

 

Then it was the rain strips. These are again my usual method of 0.45mm brass wire superglued to the roof. Superglue the middle of the rod at the highest point of the curve, let it set, and then bring the ends down to the lowest level at the ends of the roof and superglue in place there. Then run superglue along the strip to hold it in place. Note on the lower side there is a hatch in the roof. The rain strip breaks each side of it:

 

Clearer picture of the hatch before the rainstrip added, just a bit of 20thou cemented to the roof:

 

The upper roof has a cowl again over the kitchen end, this was made of two bits of 10 thou, the lower one cut into an H so that when the top one was put over it, there was a recess under the sides:

 

The roof complete except from the trimming of the rainstrips:

 

Next time its the ends....

 

Andy G

Edited January 17, 2017 by uax6

[uax6]

Ends..

 

The worst thing as far as I an concerned about modelling gangwayed coaches is the gangway. I have seen various ways of doing them, and I'm not really convinced about any of them. Probably the best compromised solution is the paper concertina one. But here again many look wrong, and thats probably down to the fact that they are stuck on the ends of the coach with no real thought to how the real ones fit. Real ones have a housing that is made from sheet steel which is about 6" deep that is firmly fitted to the end of the coach. The bellows fits inside this, with the lazy tongs bolted to the ends. So my solution is to make the housing and then fit the paper bit inside (well Richard will have to make the papery bit fit inside...)

 

So I started with two bits of 10thou that are the same shape as the bits on the end of the coach, but are about a mm smaller in all directions:

 

And then cut a strip of 2mm wide 10thou to wrap around the edge. This was applied but wiping the lemonene on the strip and then pushing the strip against the base, while it sat on my steel rule. This prevented to much stickage, and gave a solid level surface to push the strip down onto:

 

I let it dry for a bit, and then slowly worked my way round. Having some heavy objects to trap the housing in as it sets helps the sticking. I just happened to have some Railway Signal Co lever collars hanging around in work that were perfect:

 

When the top bits were set (overnight) I trimmed down and added the bottom:

 

The real housing has an angle iron around its out edge, I cheated and used a bit of 20x25 thou microstrip. This was applied by having the housing face down on the steel rule and then running lemonene around the edge and to the strip, and slowly working it into position:

 

Again the bottom edge was added separately:

 

The result when stuck to the end is this:

 

As the bottom of the end turns under, there is a gap which I just filled with filler. Before adding any other end detail I rubbed this down. As its a small area I chopped up an old paintbrush to allow me to fit wet and dry to each end (with superglue), to act as a rubbing stick:

 

To finish the ends, I added my standard etched footsteps, a handrail and coment LMS round buffers (not correct for the early Midland buffers, but as this diner is being modelled near the end of its life, it had these fitted instead):

 

The last thing that needs to be fitted to the outside of the body are some door and window vents. These where made up out of 20thou. The vents had three cowls, so two lines down the front. So out with my homeground scrawker (details on how to make one here: http://www.clag.org.uk/scrawker.html ) to scribe two lines down the sheet, and a shot of the curl of waste that you get:

 

The strip was then cut up and shaped to fit in the beading on the side, this included filing the edges to round the transistion from the front to the edge. I also superglued two of my etched gas cylinder gauges to a scrap of 20thou:

 

Then the were put in place on the sides:

 

The gas gauges were then cut out and trimmed round. Now that is easier said than done, as the diameter of these is about 1.5mm, so I held the top against the mat with a blade and cut around with my knife, and then still holding with a blade I filed around them. They are so small that I could get the camera to focus on them on the bench:

 

They were then cemented to the solebars, trying to make sure that the needle on the gauge would show some gas in the tanks!

 

And with those added, I packed the diner up and sent it on its merry way to Scotland, where the rest of the build will be completed by Richard (Ben Alder), for use on his Far North Lines.. Hopefully we can twist his arm to update this thread when he does the fitting out......

 

Next up we have the building of this:

 

And how about a little exclusive? Heres a very bad shot of the first 389 to run on the Lynn Line:

 

Andy G

 

 

Edited January 18, 2017 by uax6

[Londontram]

Very impressive as always Andy and a very clever solution to the corridor connection your thread an inspiration as always I just wish I could pluck up the courage to move off wagons and have a go at a few coaches.

 

                                                                                                                Steve

[Edwardian]

Wonderful and quite inspirational work.

 

There is much to learn from your helpfully stage-by-stage posts, thank you.

[jwealleans]

Ah, the bright(ish) lights of Littleport.....

[iak]

Very tasty.

Practical solutions and bloody good modelling...

[JCL]

Morning Andy, well that was remarkable! Great modelling mate, and looking forward to the 6 wheeler.

[uax6]

Gosh. I'm quite taken aback at these comments. I suppose I'm like a lot of modellers, always very critical of my own work. I'm quite happy how it's turned out, but I my eye is still drawn to the bits that annoy me...

The sad thing is that I've got to make another one of these for myself, but at the minute I'm sick of the sight of this one, so the plan is to do some more 6wheelers....

 

I'll start the coupe build tomorrow, so stand by for more step by step guides to bodging.

 

Andy g

[Ben Alder]

Yes, this gem is currently on its way north to the fitting out workshop and is destined to hang around Helmsdale being refuelled and transferred between trains. The amount of work Andy has put into this is so impressive and I am more than appreciative of all his efforts with this. I hadn't clicked until relatively recently that it all was for my benefit - I was expecting a set of laminated sides and ends, so was more than delighted when he announced that I would be getting an almost finished model. Once it has reached an in traffic state it will pay a photographic  visit to its birthplace, I promise.

[ChrisN]

Andy,

Excellent modelling and very generous.  I am inching towards the MSLR coach.  It is next up once I have finished painting.

[Ben Alder]

It has now reached Helmsdale - here are a couple of snatched phone shots  to show off all Andy's work. Hornby's little Peckett gave me a buzz I haven't really felt since I was a kid with my Hornby Dublo and I got the same and then some more when I took this out of its box - felt like a ten year old who got a train set on his birthday all day

 

 

[coachmann]

That MR Diner takes me back. I built one in plastikard around 1964, in fact my early efforts in styrene formed an article in Model Railway Constructor. The coach sides were single thickness with an extra horizontal strip 'welded' behind the tumblehome as a strengthener. A Triang CKD roof was used (it was quite a flat elliptical shape) and the clerestory built on top of that. Panelling was the square-panelled type, which was easy. 

 

I painted & lined most of David Jenkinsons 0 gauge styrene coaches and I don't recall him having any trouble with the bodies. After David passed away, a couple of clerestories came back from the new owner of them to have the roofs resprayed, so I took the opportunity to photograph them, something I rarely did....

[uax6]

The coupe started life as the usual cut outs from the Portrait cutter, all in 10thou styrene. As has been seen on Richards Far North Lines thread, I was making one for him, but this time I decided to make myself one as well, as batch building tends to be easier....

 

Then there started a large lamination program, the 0.45mm vent holes are noticeable on some parts, added to help the lemonene to vent off. Here are the cut outs for the ends:

 

Again the method for laminating is slow, one layer every 24hrs. They are put between glass placemats as soon as I am happy that everything is lined up:

 

These are then weighted for the rest of the shift (so about 4 hours) to ensure they stay flat. Heres the sides under glass:

 

The coupe end has very prodominate bolections around the end windows. Again these are drawn out and cut on the cutter (shown here with the lamination for the top of the same end):

 

I was a bit nervous about these thin frame would turn out on the cutter, but even though they are about 1mm wide, they turned out perfectly each time. They were added to the ends with the help of a shaky hand and a paintbrush:

 

After lamination the bodies were erected around a floor of 20thou. The solebars where then made and riveted in my usual way (holes drilled and 20thou rod inserted to be the rivet heads). I a slight change from normal I made the solebars into a unit off the coach:

 

And then cemented them to the floor:

 

Its beginning to have the look now. Notice the end reinforcing showing in the light. As the bottom of the ends turns in I have left off a lamination to get the curve:

 

Andy G

 

 

[uax6]

As I was batch building this coach, the second set of sides were laminated up and I continued a bit with the underframe of the second one. Here you can see the etched bases for comet LMS Stove R axleguides superglued to packers which are then superglued to the floor. The inside of the body laminations show up well in this shot too:

 

At this point I noticed that the width was wrong. So I went back to the drawings and discovered that somehow I had changed the width on the file and not noticed. So four ends were recut and laminated, and the second body built up to show the difference, before I took the first apart:

 

After that little hiccup I was left with two (almost) identical bodies:

 

Although basically the same vehicle, I was making one as it appeared around about grouping (for me) and one as it was in the 1950's, which by that time it was in use as a staff mess vehicle. This one had a stripped out interior and some boarded up windows. You can see these here:

 

The planking was scribed with a squawker.

 

The next thing to do was to make the roof. This started out as a bit of 20 thou sheet:

 

To which was added another bit of my rayburn bent 20 thou. The edges of both were lined up, as yet again these coaches have a cove roof profile, and by adding that flat bit under the normal arc, you get the style the HR used. Also added were 10thou strips which represent gutters:

 

The coupe end needed to have a bit cut out to clear the central glazing carrier/support:

 

and here it is in place:

 

Compartment partitions were then put inside the bodies:

 

And a load of Ratio seats were cut to length:

 

Giving the finished result:

They aren't stuck in as I want to be able to paint them first.

 

With a bit of luck I'll actually get round to keeping this thread a bit more upto date this year!

 

Andy G

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by uax6

[timbowilts]

I have to say that London Tram was correct, it is a West Coast Joint Stock D26 Composite Sleeping Car. They were a development of the WCJS D28 compo. They were designed for places where there wasn't enough demand for a full sleeper. The earlier cars started life as 1899-1902 vintage WCJS corridor coaches (compos and brake compos), in about 1905-8 they were converted to compos sleepers by the crude expediant of cutting off thge first class end of the carriage and replacing it with a sleeping section that exactly matched the latest design, which meant that the new end was 9ft wide, standard Wolverton twelve-wheel panel style, while the unrebuilt end remained at 8ft 6in wide, and apart from the addition of the clerestory to match the new end. A very strange looking vehicle resulted!

The later D26 version was the other hand to the originals, as the brake compos cut about were the other hand to the earlier ones. They also differed in that they had eliptical roofs as opposed to the clerestories of the earlier cars.They lasted until about 1936.

 

The reason why I fancied building one was this. I had aquired a job lot of ratio LNWR corridors via ebay for next to nothing. Weeding through them I found I had a few brake compos, and that I really didn't need all of them. One was allocated to be chopped and as duly dismantled. The other reason was to see if I really could make Wolverton panelling, as at some point in the future I need to make quite a few of them!

 

I presumed that not only are these cars strange, but they would probably have made their way up to the Highland lines (and about a month ago I found a book showing one of these cars, in LMS days, behind a Castle on the lower section of the HR main line), and I also had a 4mm scale drawing in Jenkinson Illustrated History Of LNWR Coaches.

 

The way I started was to scan the drawing into the computer, which then allowed me to print it onto a sheet of 10thou, and also 20 thou styrene sheet. These would then be cut out to form the panelling.

The following photos shows how I did it:

DSC04634.JPG

DSC04635.JPG

DSC04636.JPG

DSC04637.JPG

DSC04638.JPG

DSC04639.JPG

DSC04640.JPG

DSC04641.JPG

DSC04645.JPG

DSC04646.JPG

 

Then I started laminating the sides together:

DSC04642.JPG

DSC04643.JPG

DSC04644.JPG

DSC04647.JPG

DSC04648.JPG

 

They took a long time to cut (from memory a weekend of 8 hour shifts, which was great, as the trains broke up the concentrated cutting), and were fragile until laminated. BTW the corners were rounded off using the tip of a small round file, that was the worst part of it all!

 

Andy G

 

Andy, I know this is going back slightly more than four years now, but can you remember what type of printer you used? Was it laser or inkjet?

 

TIA

 

Tim T

[uax6]

Tim,

Its a bit longer than 4 years ago I did it, I think closer to 8! therefore I must have done it at home, which means that it would have been an inkjet. Be careful though, it smudges easily, and needs to be left to dry a bit. It might print better if the surface is slightly roughened up first.

 

Andy G

 

Edit: while making lunch I remembered that what I think i did was to print off the drawing on paper and then take it into work and put the styrene in the copier and photocopy the drawing onto the sheet.... So it is laser copied....

Edited January 15, 2018 by uax6

[timbowilts]

Tim,

Its a bit longer than 4 years ago I did it, I think closer to 8! therefore I must have done it at home, which means that it would have been an inkjet. Be careful though, it smudges easily, and needs to be left to dry a bit. It might print better if the surface is slightly roughened up first.

Andy G

Edit: while making lunch I remembered that what I think i did was to print off the drawing on paper and then take it into work and put the styrene in the copier and photocopy the drawing onto the sheet.... So it is laser copied....

Thanks Andy. I was afraid of that! I retired at the end of December so no longer have access to a “work” laser copier, only a domestic inkjet

 

Tim T

[uax6]

Do libraries still offer photocopying? They might be able to help, or ask in a local print shop.

 

Or stick the paper to the plastic and cut through both?

 

There are many ways to skin a cat...

 

Andy G