Refurbished 4CEP from Bachmann model

[davyjcrow]

Hi Everyone

 

I had started a blog showing my efforts to transform a regular Bachmann CEP into a refurbished version, but typically I lapsed in keeping it up to date! So instead here is a recap of the project.

 

First let's cut to the chase. Here is the finished result:

 

 

Overall I'm fairly pleased with it and it was certainly a learning curve for me. Along the way I designed my first etch sheet and had a go at creating laser cut windows which wasn't a great success.. hmm. Very time consuming overall so this will probably be a one off but very enjoyable.

 

First some research. I had a thorough read of John Upton's blog on his own conversion and used that as a base for the items that needed changing. It was clear that I was going to half destroy the original model. The worst part was popping out the original windows which were glued in like a cornflake to an old cereal bowl. I nearly broke the coach sides trying to remove them, that much glue had been used by Bachmann's factory. My original plan was to keep the windows and file the detail flat and then re-polish, but they were so badly damaged after being removed that this had to be abandoned.

 

First I set about designing the etches for the new window frames. These were tricky but this part was a lot of fun. My thanks go to the Rmwebbers who contributed suggestions on how to improve the design. The etch was made from .2mm stainless, due to the window frame colours. This caused some challenges later on in the build with other parts. Also on the etch were fold-up headlights, cladding for the corridor connectors, and new sides for the TBCK where the guard's compartment sits.

 

 

Next up was the process of designing the laser cut windows to replace the originals. These were cheaper than I expected but I made one fatal flaw which was to forget to account for the kerf (width of the beam) which meant that the windows were about 0.5mm too small. Small difference but enough to cause a problem since the tolerances were so tight between the window frame overlap with the coach body and the window pane. In the end it kind of turned out OK, since they were just big enough to be glued to the new metal window frame to keep them in place. This has made the window assemblies very fragile however.

 

Having received the etch on the other hand I was pretty pleased. That turned out very well indeed and the etching company did a fine job.

 

 

Next step - cover up the guard's compartment door / windows. I used a small laser cut window to assist with that and a lot of model filler. Once these were covered, new windows were cut for the new seating bay in the DMSOs. New holes also had to be drilled for the shorter handrails seen on the refurb CEPs.

 

 

And now the cab fronts. The "ledge" above the corridor had to be removed. On the door, adding the headlight etch was relatively easy and it folded up nicely. The lens was made from a 1.5mm wide fiber optic, which was "flared" gently at the end with a lighter and then glued inside the headlight. The cladding was tricky and took some time, with one layer going around the original corridor connector, and the other fitting to the cab front to enclose the corridor connector. This part took some time and a lot of filler.

 

 

Roofs - removed the periscopes and filled the resulting hole. The roofs were primed and repainted to give a more realistic colour.

 

The underframe required the bogies to be changed to Commonwealths and this was relatively trouble free, having followed John Upton's method to reposition the pickups. I also took the opportunity to change the through wiring to allow the two contacts to operate directional lighting, with the circuit boards being modified in the cab ends to take two additional LEDs - one for the headlight, and one for a red headcode light.

 

 

The coach lighting is now unswitched and is run directly from the DCC current via the track pickups on each coach, using the bridge rectifier already built into Bachmann's circuit boards. This has the disadvantage however of causing more flickering between coaches since the lighting is no longer strung together. To help this, I soldered the pickups to the circuit boards with thin wires rather than rely on Bachmann's press contact metal strips. This part still needs some work as the lighting still flickers too much for my liking.

 

It has always escaped me why manufacturers insist on using yellow, blue-white or orange interior lighting LEDs when perfectly good warm white ones are available anywhere. I obtained some warm white replacements on Ebay and soldered them up to the roof PCBs. The DMSOs have very poor lighting out of the box and I re-wired the boards so that they had surface mount LEDs at regular intervals instead. If anybody wants more detail on how I did this please PM me.

 

 

The interiors were also changed somewhat to reflect the new arrangement. I cheated on the TSO and simply removed the compartment walls, I may get around to correcting that in the future.

 

Next was fitting the new sides to the TBCK. I filed away very carefully around where these would go, aiming to reduce the thickness of the plastic coach sides by the exact thickness of the etches. The etches are not easily bent to shape as they are made from steel, but they are bendable. Lots of superglue sealed the deal and some filler on each side helped them blend with the rest of the coach. I discovered very quickly that drilling through stainless was near impossible, and having forgotten to half etch holes for handrails, I found myself supergluing mounting points for the handrails on instead. Far from ideal but the only solution that had a chance of working.

 

 

Next - off to the paint shop!

A layer of surface primer later and it was clear that stainless steel will just not accept regular primer. After help from some Rmweb members I settled on using self-etching primer designed specifically for stainless. This is really nasty stuff. I was very wary of spraying the model with it so I cut a mask around the steel sides, to ensure that only the steel got coated. A couple of quick blasts and it seemed to have done the job pretty well. I got some primer on the outside patio so we'll see if it eats a hole in the decking in due course.

 

Painting the livery was a long process but good (tamiya) masking tape made the job much easier. Way more time was spent ensuring that the masking was in the right place for each colour than actually spraying the paint. I had to use a coat of gloss varnish over the red stripe before putting the grey down, for fear of pulling up the red stripe totally when masking it off. Even after two coats of gloss, some small parts of the red did still peel off when I removed the last piece of tape, but they were easy enough to touch up with a brush afterwards.

 

Adding the windows was one of the most mundane parts. The tiniest amount of superglue is required to hold the frames to the coach side, and being fragile, if it breaks it will take paint with it! The other problem is that having glued the frames to the windows first due to the size issue with the laser cut windows, the window frames are not totally flush with the coach side at the top and bottom due to the slight profile of the coach body. This is not really noticeable unless looked at straight along the side of the model, but I may try to remedy this later on. Transfers were easier but I had trouble with the orange cantrail transfers and had to remove these as they kept peeling off. Painting the cantrail is therefore on the "still to do" list, may happen one day.

 

So here are some more photos of the finished article!

 

 

One final word is that anyone is free to use the artwork for the windows (now corrected for size) and to order a copy of the etch directly from PPD if you want to try your own conversion (or I can supply you the art so you can get the etch done elsewhere) - I received a lot of help from everyone on this site when creating the designs so it only seems fair that they should be made public in return. PM me for a copy of the art which was drawn up in Illustrator but I can supply you a PDF as well.

[SRman]

This is great! Wonderful work there, Davy. It is also very good of you to share it with everyone.

 

One small suggestion: if you can acquire any Bachmann SO coach you could try swapping the interior into the TSO of your CEP. I'm not sure if it will fit straight in or may need some modifications because of the electrics inside the CEP, but it should be reasonably easy.

[5Bel]

Hi,

 

Brilliant, what a fantastic conversion. Excellent paint job aswell. I wouldn't mind doing one in Jaffa Cake livery. It would bring back memories of travelling down to Hastings on the their first weekend of operations on that line.

 

Cheers for now, Ian

[Colin parks]

Hi Davyjcrow,

 

What in interesting topic. You have made a very neat job of the conversion and paintwork on the CEP. Two quetions: Did your window frames have some sort of location into the window apertures? What glue did you use to attach to laser-cut windows to their etched frames?

 

I ask this as I am about to convert four Bachmann coaches into a 4 CIG with, yes you've guessed already, etched windows and separate window panes (hand-cut). (The sides will be scratch-build though.)

 

 

Colin

[Southernman46]

THAT is a quality job - looks great

[dseagull]

That's just as I remember them - excellent.

[Xerces Fobe2]

Nice work really looks good. I have used PPD as wel,l they are a very useful and helpful company.

 

XF

[10800]

Good stuff, and added to Southern electric links http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/41640-southern-electrics-forum-and-other-useful-links/

[kintbury jon]

Looks an absolute beauty. You have done an excellent job with this. Very impressed!

[Welly]

A great job despite the travails - very brave of you to do that work on an already excellent model! Liked the lighting modification as well.

[griffgriff]

Well done... I'm in agreement with everyone else on it being a really nice job (and we all know it will run nicely too)... can't help thinking that this should have been the variant that Bachmann should have done - those lovely bright livery options - but never mind you have got one all to yourself.... enjoy

[kintbury jon]

Well done... I'm in agreement with everyone else on it being a really nice job (and we all know it will run nicely too)... can't help thinking that this should have been the variant that Bachmann should have done - those lovely bright livery options - but never mind you have got one all to yourself.... enjoy

 

Hopefully sods law will now come in to play and they'll announce one in March!

[griffgriff]

Hopefully sods law will now come in to play and they'll announce one in March!

 

It did cross my mind but I didn't want to say

[davyjcrow]

Folks, thanks for the kind comments.. and yes I am fully aware that Bachmann will probably announce one tomorrow. Actually the exact same thing happened when I repainted my EPB into NSE so I consider this as a kind of rain dance as I would like to have a second refurb CEP, but at the moment I couldn't be bothered to do another conversion!

 

Colin, I did toy with the idea of having a half etch on the back to help center the windows in the apertures but I decided it was another source of potential problems, so I just placed them by hand which while time consuming, worked well enough. To attach the windows to the frames I used regular superglue, albeit very small amounts applied with the tip of a scalpel blade to the back of the window frame before press fitting the pane. I know you can get glue specifically for attaching windows but I didn't have any to hand.

[Uk_Steve]

oh wow i love your work

 

im not brave enough to have a go myself however this has me lusting for 1

even more now in this livery and jaffa he!he!

 

i have always loved them windows on those trains and the funky interier

on some of the trains he!he!

 

well done all the best from Steve

Edited April 13, 2012 by Uk_Steve

[John Oxlade]

Folks, thanks for the kind comments.. and yes I am fully aware that Bachmann will probably announce one tomorrow. Actually the exact same thing happened when I repainted my EPB into NSE so I consider this as a kind of rain dance as I would like to have a second refurb CEP, but at the moment I couldn't be bothered to do another conversion!

This is one reason I am holding off making a DC Kits Tadpole - I know full well that a Hastings set will come out at some point (fingers-crossed for a short, 3-window motor coach), then add a trailer from the 2EPB and hey-presto.

I never raved about NSE myself (I'm a child of BR blue/grey) but this is a superb model. Well done.

[jjnewitt]

Hi davyjcrow,

 

Nice work. That paint job looks especially good. Can I ask you where you got the laserglaze done?

 

Justin

[EMUsLEE]

Did you do the 4 cep yourself or did you have it done by someone else ?

[retbsignalman]

Hi

 

Cracking workmanship!

I've probably missed the link, but could you post/repost the contact details for PPD for the etchings please?

 

Thank you!

 

Graeme

[Lee Clarke]

About 22 years ago I made my own 4-BEP from four coaches I had spare (three from a childhood train set and a fourth picked up at an exhibition/swapmeet.) I used an old Hornby HST to provide the motor. I painted it myself (Network South East) and transfers came from Fox Transfers. It definitely captured the look of the real thing, but having seen this, I realize now there was a lot more I could have done. I'll never be up to your standards. I should stick to weathering and detailing RTR models, which I can do a good job with. We all need to find our level, or find the balance between what we're capable of, and what we're reasonably happy with.