pete_mcfarlane

I've been detailing the body, and this is the current state of progress. The parts are all included with the kit. The only tricky bit so far was bending the one piece boiler/smokebox handrail to shape. This took a lot of cursing and three attempts too get right. A far bigger problem is going to be the parts not included in the kit - there's a load of piping and injectors on top of the boiler in front of the cab that will need to be scratchbuilt. South Eastern locos have a lot of exposed pipework. Progress on the chassis has stalled. The coupling rods that came with the Branchlines chassis weren't very good. They were made from two layers, but each was half etched so the actual rods were only the thickness of a single 15 thou sheet. The fishbelly curves weren't symmetrical, and as a final straw the end of one snapped off whilst I gently opened it out to take Gibson crankpin bushes. An order will shortly go in the post for some Gibson rods. Replacement coupling rods for the replacement chassis.

I'm paiting these in Southern Livery, but they are definitely pre-grouping stock and should be of interest. Finecast SER R1 SECR Birdcage vans

It did indeed have the tank top plates cast as part of the boiler. It's actually a rather nice casting, with the various brackets etc included. Much nicer than the usual tank top castings you get in whitemetal kits. I think the use of common parts also explains why the cab sidesheets were a bit too long.

The latest update in my intermittent build of the R1. The boiler is now on - this took most of the my modelling time over the weekend. It's pretty obvious now that Finecast have reused a lot of components from their other SECR kits. The boiler sat too high, so it had probably come from the H class which have a higher piched boiler. It needed a lot of filing and adjustments at the front end to make it sit at almost the right height. Almost, but not quite as it is probably a millimetre too high, but that extra millimetre would need a huge amount of work to fix. Having fitted the boiler, to check that the motor would fit, I couldn't resist adding some of the fittings. I replaced the white metal safety valves with one from Branchlines. This was a nicer casting, but was wrong, despite being sold for upgrading the R1. The lever was the wrong shape, and has been modified to as close to the correct shape as I can manage. Basically it has a couple of 90 degree turns in it and enters the cab much lower down. The Finecast one was wrong as well..... Since the kit has no rivets on the smokebox, I've decided to keep my sanity (by not adding hundreds of rivets using Archer transfers) and model number A47 which had a flush riveted smokebox in Southern days.

I remember peering inside the one in Covent Garden and thinking that the insides were mostly taken up with resistance banks. I wonder if the round items in the photo are the traction motor blowers?

And anther quick update. The R1 now has wheels (4 of the 6) and a cab. The motor and Branchlines 39:1 gearbox have been assembled and test fitted. I'm using Gibson wheels with a GW models wheel press to assemble them. The cab is a bit of a pig - the kit comes with both the original Stirling round cab for the examples used on the Canterbury and Whitstable, and the later Wainwright cab, which I'm using . The side sheets were 2mm too long and needed shortening, and a lot of filler was needed to get the corners square. Even now it need a bit more work to get it right.

These were rebuilds of the Stirling R class, and were fitted with similar boilers to the SECR H class. They are one of those classes that was rebuilt and modified so many times that every single one of them ended up slightly different. The SEMG have a page on them that is worth a look.

The basic chassis is assembled, using Comet jigs and their frame spacers. These were wider than the ones Branchlines provide. Then I spent this evening making it fit, removing some of the cast lumps under the footplate with a mini-drill and burr. Next steps are too check the clearances for the wheels, as they are now in the correct positions rather than the ones intended by the kit designer.

Having nearly finished my SECR Birdcage brake, I fancied a suitable SER engine to pull it. So I decided it was finally time to build the Finecast R1 I've had in the cupboard for at least 12 years. This was the first whitemetal loco I bought, but it soon became clear that the kit had the wrong chassis - one of the generic ones that Finecast use for their G6 and possibly other bodyline kits. A suitable chassis is available from Branchlines, but this needs modifications to fit the body which were beyond me at the time. So the project ended up being shelved until I had the skills to do it. This is the basic chassis etch. I removed the frames, tack soldered them together and then marked the 1mm at the top which needed removing to get the body to sit at the right height. This was then filed off, and the frames checked against the basic footplate. All good so far. Next steps are to assemble the gearbox and motor, and work out if I can fit it using Branchline's frame spacer positions. I've already decided to use their EM frame spacers - the OO ones were a shade over 10mm wide, which makes you wonder how much sideplay they expected you to need on the middle axle. I also need to find the Gibson wheels and Maygib buffers I've bought at some point in the past for this loco...... I do have a soft spot for R1s, I have two ancient Hornby-Dublo ones bought cheap when I was a student, for £11 and £15. These were detailed and repainted to my (not very good) standards of the time. I'll have a crack at fitting decent chassis to these one day.

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.

After etch priming the brass bits, I gave it a coat of Halford's red primer. This has shown up the use imperfections, which will be filled and sanded on Sunday once the paint has fully hardened.

The picture on the cover is at Horstead Keynes, but in BR days. There are only a couple of pictures of preserved vehicles - the Bulleid Restaurant first that was on the Meon valley, and a SECR 6 wheel birdcage van (rather like the one I've just scratchbuilt). There are a few vehicles in Army service but everything else is in BR condition. It's a rather nice book.

There's a rather nice LCDR 6 wheeler on the previous page that I might try. But I'm tempted to try a passenger coach next - possibly a pull-push set, as these tended to be two completely different types of coach.

It wonder what kind of station Sir Clough Williams-Ellis would have provided at Portmerion?

The van is now ready for the paint shop. After re-reading Geoff Kent's recent article in the MRJ, I decided to try making the birdcage lookout using 10 thou plasticard laminated to clear Evergreen plastic sheet using the DiLimone solvent I got from Wizard models. This turned out quite well, and was a lot easier than making it out of sheet metal. In the end only the lookout roof needed to be from NS sheet. I also added the various detailing parts. The foot boards were a bit fiddly - they are soldered up from NS strip and brass wire. I was able to get some SER buffers from Branchlines along with a suitable dynamo. One oddity I've noticed from photos is that, whilst I can see a dynamo, there's no sign of a battery box. I can always add one if I turn up more information later (or were the batteries stored inside the coach body - it can't have had ore than a handful of light bulbs). Next steps are to paint and line - it's going to be in SR Maunsell green with a white roof.

A quick update to show the progress this week, as I've been able to spend time on this model every evening. It now has most of the body detailing in place, with door hinges, handrails (or least holes for them as I've left some off to make it easier to line) and various other bits of detailing. The axlboxes and springs are from 51L and are for a Midland 6 wheeler, but are close enough. It still needs a few odd things like buffers and a dynamo which I'll order shortly from Branchlines, but the only major tasks left are the lower footboards and the birdcage.

Progress has been slow due to work and other commitments, but I should have more time over the next few weeks. I decided to ty Bill Bedford's suggestion of replacing the axle with a length of tubing and having it slide on a 1mm Exactoscale axle. This seems too work OK, and passes through the points and curves on my test track without derailing. The axleguards are from MJT - fixed at one end, compensated at the other with the sliding axle in the middle. As you can see, it has quite a lot of sideplay (helped by using OO with it's underscale track gauge). The roof is now covered with cartridge paper - it took me three goes to get this right. The duckets have been given their panelling layer, and I'm ready too start detailing the body. The only really tricky bit left is going to be the birdcage - I'm currently thinking of either making it from nickel silver sheet, or clear plastic and adding the window framing with a bowpen.

Nice model, but it reminds me that I've still not finished my own Finecast I3.....

I didn't try sanding it. I sprayed it with matt varnish to give it a surface to print on, but that wasn't very effective. Sanding sounds more effective. The other thing I tried, with reasonable success, was printing the drawing on to self adhesive A4 paper and using it as a pattern, I made a GWR plywood van that way, and it was pretty effective. I'm not sure how it would work with a coach though, any slightly roughness in the paper is OK on a tatty looking van but not on a coach.

Some minor progress over the last few days. The plasticard inner core of the roof is finished, so I need to get some cartridge paper to cover it with. And some runny superglue, so I can try David Jenkinson's trick of soaking the overhanging end section in superglue to harden it. The end panelling is also complete - this was mostly assembled from Evergreen plastic strip. And finally, the inner core of the duckets has been carved out of several layers of laminated plasticard, and fixed in place. This will have a 10 thou panel overlay to match the rest of the body.

That sounds even easier, so I'll give it a try.

I dug out my one and only 6 wheel coach this evening - a D&S Chatham third. This has an arrangement very similar to the Comet etch. A fixed axle at one end, and compensated axle at the other, and a floating axle in the middle. It refuses to derail on my test track, even on the ropey bits. I think this might be the best solution. I've experimented with printing on plasticard, but I didn't have much success as it smudged a bit too much. Of course the best solution would be one of those vinyl cutters - it could cut the panelling layer out of scale thickness material, or do complete sides for flush sided stock. But I'm generally sticking clear of any computer based approaches like CAD and 3D printing as I spend all day in front of a computer at work.

Colin, Err yes, why did I not think of taking the dimensions directly off the drawing...... Thanks for that tip, I'll give it a go on my next coach (which is an incentive to have another go once this is complete). I'l going too give the paper roof a try. It's now at the stage where I'm alternately painting, filling and rubbing down to try and get it as smooth as possible.

Colin, It took about an hour to mark the panelling out, copying the dimensions off the drawing. Luckily the sides are a mirror image of each other, which speeded things up a little. I did do some sanding down of the panelling layer, but mainly to hide the joins where I spliced in replacement sections. I'll see if I can reduce the thickness a bit more, to nearer scale. Pete

The real things had steel sides over a wooden frame, so can rust if left abandoned for years. But obviously not in the way depicted here, which appears to depict a coach that got too close to a nuclear explosion. The seller has many such abominations, including some massively OTT 'fire damage' weathering.