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pete_mcfarlane

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Blog Entries posted by pete_mcfarlane

  1. pete_mcfarlane
    After an seemingly endless exercise of carefully opening out the coupling rod holes, the J chassis is now free running and can move under power. The motor is just held in place for now, but it all seems smooth and quiet. That's my ancient Hornby trainset controller from 1984 providing the power.

    There's a fair bit of work left to detail the chassis, fit pickups etc, but it's all downhill from now on.
  2. pete_mcfarlane
    Some progress on my coach building.
     
    The two Phoenix Maunsell coaches are now painted in 1930s Southern Olive Green. I've cheated with the lining - it should be a yellow line with a black line inside it, but I've only done a yellow line. My defence is insanity (avoidance of). The lining is from HMRS pressfix, with the corners added by hand.

    The interiors are now added - Southern Pride seats and Slater's passengers. All a little crude, but good enough when the roof is on.

    The Worlsey Works Thanet third is nearing completion (and did you know that Chrome's built in spell checker doesn't have Thanet in it's dictionary?).

    This went together in much the same way as their Continental. I used a Southern Pride Mk1 roof, and replaced the solebars with Evergreen plastic channel. There's nothing wrong with the etched ones supplied in the kit, but I cocked up bending one of them to shape.
     
    Plastic solebars also avoid the fun of soldering the foot boards in to place. The various underframe details are Comet, the battery boxes are scratchbuilt and the bogies are from NNK (now available again and my first choice for SR 8' steam bogies).
     
    Lastly, a model from the box of long term incomplete projects has been completed.This is one half of Pull-Push set 609, and has been built from an Ian Kirk kit (which I bought from Colin Ashby's stand at the Derby show in the Assembly rooms just in case you wondered how long it's been lurking half complete in a shoebox).
     
    This has had quite a lot of work done on it - the body has been increased in height by 1mm, and a scratchbuilt underframe fitted. The roof was reprofiled as the Kirk roof is way too wide and had a horrible thick cantrail, and most of the end detail replaced.
    .
    I have the Parts (including the Branchline conversion kit) to make the driving trailer, which should follow during 2012.
     
    One thing to watch with push pull sets 600-619 is the orientation of the trailer third. The outer end has the corridor connector removed and heavy duty EMU buffers fitted. This varies from coach to coach - some have the end with the alarm gear sealed up and some the other. To make matters even more fun the Southern never painted the set number on the inner end of pull-push sets, so it took a lot of peering at photos to work out which way round my chosen set was orientated.
  3. pete_mcfarlane
    This is the current status of 816.

    Not the best phot, and the body is only resting on the chassis. Painting is now complete, and it needs the bodyside windows and headcode box flush glazing and various other minor tasks doing. And I've just noticed that the marker lights as still masked off.
     
    The biggest challenge is going to be that A1 buffers, and these have a threaded tail which is retailed by a small nut. I'm trying to figure out a way of retaining the buffer heads in a way that stops them rotating - otherwise the loco will be condemned to having wonky buffers.
     
    The other thing that's apparent from the photo is how OO gauge Warships never quite look right as the bogie frames are too far inboard. There is a comment section below this for smug remarks from P4 modellers.
     
    And this is the EPB driving trailer, which needs a good brush to get rid of the white specks that are covering it.

    I had endless problems glazing this to a reasonable standard. It now uses a mix of Replica Mk1 suburban glazing for the compartments, and Evergreen clear sheet cut to shape for the cab and brake van. A lot of the windows took two or three attempts to get right, but it's nearly there.
    I'm now quite pleases with this - it captures the slightly grotty and down at heal look of a Southern Region suburban unit in a way that Bachmann's shiny perfect EPBs don't
  4. pete_mcfarlane
    I've spent quite a bit of time on the J this week, but have struggled to get a smooth running chassis. The coupling rods bind for no obvious reason - despite all the usual remedies such as opening out the holes in the rods. I've also checked the wheels are correctly quartered, the chassis is square with all wheels touching the track etc etc.
     
    After a few hours of this, I'm starting to suspect there's something fundamentally wrong with the rods., probably through my hamfisted assembly although I'm never keen on having the rods etched on a separate etch to the chassis.

    The next step seems to be an order to Alan Gibson for a set of his etched coupling rods - I've always had success with these.
  5. pete_mcfarlane
    I thought I'd start a new blog to record my slightly hamfisted attempts at building 4mm loco kits.
     
    The first victim is a Chiver's SECR J class 0-6-4T. These are one of Harry Wainwright's more obscure classes - there were only five of them, and all were scrapped by 1951. I've heard it claimed they were the last 0-6-4T tanks in Britain (although the type survived in Ireland until 1969 due to the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties' peculiar attachment to them).
     
    When finished it will be 31599 in early BR condition.
     
    The chassis is a pretty conventional affair in etched brass, with a separate etch containing the coupling rods, brake gear and a gearbox (to go with Romford gears and a DS10 motor). I'd experimented with the settings on my camera, the combination of an LED desk lamp, flash and macro mode on the camera produced the slightly odd effect in the photo (which reminds me of a German silent film).

    The kit suggests starting with the chassis, but then mentions that it needs shortening slightly to fit the running plate. So I started by assembling the running plate (using epoxy). This needed a bit of filler, but otherwise went together OK. A couple of millimetres was then removed from the chassis etch to ensure that it fitted before soldering it up.

    I used a Comet jig to help with the assembly. I also added extra frame spacers off one of their etches to ensure that the chassis was nice and rigid.
     
    The next step was to paint the basic chassis before fitting the Alan Gibson wheels. These were then fitted using a GW models wheel press. This is my first use of the Gibson driving wheels, and no major problems so far. Once they are on, it's not straightforward to remove them, hence the need to paint the chassis (or at least the bit's behind the wheels) first.

    The moulded plastic gearbox is from a firm called Northyard, who hail from New Zealand. I bought it from Branchlines a few years back and have now finally found a use for it. The huge side tanks will hide a fairly large Mashima 1628 motor driving the gearbox via a length of neoprene tubing. Again this is something I've not tried before, but so far it all seems to fit.

    The motor will intrude in to the bottom of the cab, but with the doors modelled in the closed position this shouldn't show.
     
    So it has taken a week of odd hours here and there to get this far. The rest of the kit seems pretty straightforward, so I'm hoping for a quick build.
  6. pete_mcfarlane
    This is the state of play tonight. It's sitting on it's bogies, with the body and underframe mostly complete. The nastiest bit so far was adding the bogie footsteps - the etched brackets were rather small (scale size?) and a bit flimsy. Some then dropped off when trying to bend them to shape and had to be replaced. Soldering the footboards in to place without melting the whitemetal springs needed a steady hand and plenty of patience.
     
    Next step is the brake linkage. I cheated on the bogies and left off the brake shoes as they looked very fiddly.
  7. pete_mcfarlane
    The Comet GWR C54 third and Worsley SR Continental 3rd are now complete.

     
    I couldn't find a decent photo of the compartment side of the C54 in 1930s livery, so for now it's missing the various smoking/no-smoking signs. Not that any of the passengers are likely to smoke, being a mix or plastic and whitemetal....

     
    The Continental is finished in late 1940s condition. As an experiment I used Humbrol acrylic Malachite green, which seems slightly darker than the Precision equivalent but isn't far off some colour photos. I'm assuming this coach has had a few coats of varnish which has darkened the paint....
     
    I'm rather pleased with both of these. The Continental was my fist attempt at one of the Worsley "scratch aid" kits and it went together very well (although lets face it, a slab sided coach with 4 doors is never going to be that hard!). I've got a Thanet 3rd and the one off SECR Continental brake composite in my to do pile and hopefully they wont be far off getting started.
  8. pete_mcfarlane
    Fitting the cooling fan over the DCC blanking plug turned out to be simple - I removed the lower 5 layers of the etched hub (which isn't visible) and it now fits nicely. It's held in place with tape in this photo.

     
    Buffers from A1 now fitted at one end. These have plasticard mounting plates, and tiny some tiny etching from Shawplan to represent the chequer plate steps on their top.
    I've never been 100% convinced by the Bachmann's Warship's front end. After spending some time comparing it with photos tonight, I think the problem is that there is a distinct "brow" over the front windows. On the real thing the area above the windows is more rounded and doesn't project forwards. Compare this the photos of the model on Hatton's site.

    I'll sit on this for a day or two before I take a file to the model.....
  9. pete_mcfarlane
    Another detailed Southern Region locomotive on my workbench- this time a Bachmann Class 42 Warship. This has been lurking on my bench for a which, but the purchase of some fan etchings from Shawplan last weekend will hopefully speed things on.
     
     
     
    I'm doing 816 in blue (using the Bachmann D812 as a base). There are a limited number of Warships that can be produced from the Bachmann model without major work. It's suitable for the D814-832/866-870 range (except for D830 which had a different engine). Class 43s didn't work on the Southern, and I've not yet figured out a way of modifying the side grilles for D800 - 813.
     
    The first thing I did was to replace the rather crude wheels with Gibson EM gauge ones, mounted on the original Bachmann OO axles. These look much better - I've lost the photo so you'll have to take my word for it until I take another.....
     
    Moving on to the body, apart from the roof grilles and catwalks (which will be replaced), the biggest problem seems to be with the front end. The moulded glazing is a poor fit with areas of unpainted plastic showing. On mine it was also very well glued in, so I resorted to masking it off with Copydex to protect it from damage and paint rather than attempting to remove it and risking damage.

     
    I then carefully filled around the window frames with filler. This will be sanded down and painted yellow to match the rest of the front.

     
    Other work I've done on the front end includes:

    Removing the plastic buffers. These are a bit flimsy and will be replaced with some sprung oval headed buffers from A1. Removing the tension lock couplers and glueing the front cowling in place. This has been blended in with filler and painted Removing the front headcode panels. These don't fit very well and look crude. These also look too small, which I think might be down to the surround (which is part of the body moulding) being painted yellow rather than black. Removing the handrails, which are attached too close to the body.The ones under the window lacked the distinctive centre support.
    I've also drilled out and removed the roof fans, ready to take the etched replacements.

     
    These do look very nice. In the past I never understood the fetish for replacing perfectly good moulded grilles and fans with crude etched replacements, but these are a million miles away from the horrors of the past!
  10. pete_mcfarlane
    Not had much spare time lately, and have been doing things other than building wagons. I am trying, however, to clear down the vast collection of half built brake vans.
     
    I managed to get the LNER van ready for painting.

     
    The principle body modification was to replace the inner ends with spares from a Dapol kit of the BR version, fitted with a new planked door (the early vans have no windows in the door), Other body modifications included new wire handrails, bigger ventilators on the roof (although I still think these aren't big enough and will be swapped with larger ones when I can find some) and revised lamp irons. I also added the fixed side lamps.
     
    An awful lot of work, considering I'm going to number this as the vehicle that the Bachmann original is supposed to be representing. These Bachmann wagons are nice but not always 100% accurate.
     
    A while back I put the chassis from a Parkside LNER lowfit under a 3H open to make the fitted version. This left me with the body.

     
    Cut down, and mounted on a Parkside PA16 chassis it makes a reasonable BR diagram 1/001 Lowfit (the kind with a LNER wooden body on a LMS steel chassis).

     
     
    The various 21t minerals are all now finished.

     
    Chivers Coal 21VB. The Modelmaster sheet for these is now out of print, so the "To work within South Wales and Monmouthshire only" was made of from letters an words on the HMRS wagon instructions sheet. Over several nights to save my sanity.

    Parkside 21t riveted mineral.

     
    The welded version (modified Chivers MDV on Parkside chassis)

     
    And lastly the modified Hornby PO mineral
  11. pete_mcfarlane
    The Continental third is nearly ready for the paint shop. The body is complete, but I'm just waiting for a few Comet parts to finish off the underframe. It's going to be Malachite Green.
     

     
    The door handrails were a bit of a pig to bend to shape. These were originally straight when the coaches were built. When the doors were rehung to open outwards in the normal way (they originally opened inwards) the handrails got a joggle in then to avoid people scraping their knuckles when opening the door.
     
    These are amongst the oddest coaches to run on a British Railway - inward opening doors, droplights to every compartment (but no doors) and matchboard panelling. They also looked odd when coupled together, having buckeye couplings and flat ends, so the ends of the coaches were far closer than usual. There's an example preserved at the VCT museum on the KWVR and it's the interior is open to the public if you want to have a look at a real one.
  12. pete_mcfarlane

    E6001 finished

    By pete_mcfarlane,

    Slightly poor photos taken at half eleven tonight, but I've finished the class 73. It's in early 1970s condition, as per this photo.
     

     
     
    Finished using HMRS transfers. I'm rather pleased with the result, but at the same time happy that I only want one 73/0 as the underframe needed an awful lot of work. Hopefully the 73/1 will be a lot easier when I get round to doing a couple of these.
  13. pete_mcfarlane
    Not updated this blog for a while now - I must get a bit better at doing it.
     
    I've built a couple of Phoenix/Branchlines "Goldstar" coaches - a Maunsell Open third and one of the 1935 type brake composites.
     
    I'm not a fan of the original BSL/Phoenix coaches - nasty stamped aluminium sides and some strange pressing that are supposed to be the chassis. However these are much better, having much thinner etched sides for starters.
     

     
     
    I replaced the rather crude Phoenix bogies with MJT compensated ones - time will tell if these are worth the extra time and expense. The brake composite uses Comet underframe castings from their Bullied as these are correct for the later Maunsells. The biggest problem by far was attaching the rainstrips to the roof - eventually I managed to use a combination of superglue and Johnsons clear floor polish to hold them in place.
     
    Next up is the first of some GWR through coaches - a C.54 open third. There's one of these parked by the buffers at Kidderminster Town station, and after a few trips to the Severn Valley I rather like choclate and cream GWR coaches. I can leave all those identical 4-6-0s and Pannier tanks though....
     
    This was my first go at a complete Comet kit and it went together fairly well. My biggest mistake was to cut the chassis to length based on the assumption that the coach was 57' long as it says in the instructions... Once I'd noticed that the buffer beams were too far back I checked the drawing in Russell and discovered that these were actually 58'4" long. Some replacement solebars from Evergreen sorted this problem.
     
    The other deviation from the kit was to use 247 battery boxes, and these look much nicer having a cutout to represent the daylight between the box and the coach floor (which to me is one of the key features of these coaches). I also fitted Slaters sprung buffers and Frogmore lamp irons to the ends (another key feature). All in all I'm quite pleased with the result.

     
    Lastly, a first look on my current coach project. A SR Continental corridor third (the 8'6" wide type). This is based on a Worsley works etch - here laid out on my ironing board.

    And after some basic assembly.

    The first big problem is width - the etch appears to be designed to go together with the side inside the ends. This would make it 2mm too wide - by putting the ends outside the sides I got this down to .5mm too wide, but now the chassis won't fit! Some swearing and alterations are needed.
  14. pete_mcfarlane

    Another shock!

    By pete_mcfarlane,

    I've built yet another shock absorbing wagon - in this case a Red Panda Shock Van (bought off Ebay for a sensible price as this kit seems to be out of production). It's been completed as one of the batch with the shock absorber located between the frames and not visible.
    .
     
    It uses some rather nice case buffers from Lanarkshre model supplies, some Parkside solebars and the original Red Panda break gear.
     
    I've also finished the BR wooden Lowfit - actually about 2 months ago but it took me ages to get round to fitting the couplings This was built from various Parkside bits, mainly from their LNER Lowfit.

  15. pete_mcfarlane
    I bought this kit at an exhibition at the old BAe site in Hatfield in Autumn 1996 (my last year at University!). So sometimes kits from the great kit mountain do get built, rather than sitting forever in the cupboard or endlessly changing hands on Ebay.
     
    Now at last it's finished!
     

     
    The only thing I'm not 100% happy with is the fit of the roof - it's OK, but not brilliant. I'll work on this on subsequent 2-Bils, as I've been buying up a stock of the kits now that they are (temporarily?) available again. 3 more Bils and a couple more to turn in to 2-Hals should fllow of the next few years.
     
    The 73/0 is nearly painted - just some touching up of the blue and the jumper cables to do, then it will be time for transfers.
  16. pete_mcfarlane
    Some pictures of the detailed Hornby 73 - now with lots of bits of wire and plastic attached to the bogies to represent the various cables etc. The 73/0 has vast numbers of cables on it's bogies, far more than the production loco.


     

     
     
    The roof mounted horns are from A1 and are soldered to a mounting plate to hopefully make them a bit more robust.
     
    It's taken a lot of work to get this far - the 73/0 looks superficially similar to the 73/1 but there are a huge number of detail differences which the Hornby model ignores.
  17. pete_mcfarlane
    The 2-Bil is nearly done - here's a photo of the very rudimentary interior, which uses Preiser figures and the original Kirk seats (one of which is wonky and has since been stuck back in properly!).

    I've also wired it up. I fitted Steam Era's wheels (as used in their Black Beetle) to the trailing bogies. These are only insulated on one side, so each trailing bogie picks up current from two of it's wheels. By soldering wires to each bogie frame and interconnecting the two coaches using a connector sold by Comet for loco to tender connections I now have pick up from both coaches. How well it will work in practise remains to be seen but hopefully the unit will never stall on points or dirty track..

  18. pete_mcfarlane
    Progress has been a bit slow of late.
     
    The 2-EPB is still in the paint shops. I had problems getting a good finish on the varnish, so it is being rubbed down and repainted in places. Much cursing and a vow never to use Humbrol Matt Varnish spray cans again. This particular model seems to be doomed to take much longer than it should do!
     
    The 2-Bil is painted (bar a bit of touching up) and ready for final assembly, glazing etc. I'm quite pleased with it.

     
     
    The 73/0 E6001 is progressing slowly. The underframe is rebuilt, using a combination of plastic strip, sheet and bits of the Hornby/Lima original. As well as being two dimensional, this is very much intended for a 73/1. In fact the whole Lima attempt at doing a 73/0 seems a little half hearted - an accurate body but all the other components are from the 73/1. Doing this conversion made me realise how different these locos are from the production batch.
     

     

     

     
    Bogie pipe work and steps have been added, and the big task remaining is to add the vast number of power cables to the bogies.
  19. pete_mcfarlane
    Here's another photo of the 2-Bil motor coach.

    Buffers heads now added, using the Slaters rams and some spare plastic heads of (almost) the correct shape left over from a Southern Pride Mk1. The heads were glued to the rams and reprofiled to the correct shape. Not exact precision engineering but they look OK.
     
    Since the photo was taken I've made a start on glazing the motor coach.
  20. pete_mcfarlane
    Firstly, a look at the bits I didn't use for the Bil! Mostly underframe parts and interior partitions. It shows how "basic" this kit is when so much has to be replaced.
    And a quick update on the EPB. Now painted and having grab handles (etched from Southern Pride) stuck in place using Johnsons floor polish. This is a bit boring and so is progressing quite slowly.

     
    The Modelmaster transfer pack for the 2-EPB is a bit odd, as it includes first class stripes and "1" characters for the doors. I ditched the numbers and used HMRS ones instead, as I find these easier to use for making up numbers.
  21. pete_mcfarlane
    I finally tracked down some suitable square shank buffers for the 2-Bil. They are Slaters GWR coach buffers, and are sprung. Not cheap but very nice.
     

     
     
    This has spurred me in to finishing this unit. The inner ends have been detailed with various bits of wire and plastic (not the best photo as the roofs aren't attached and the toilet fillers aren't properly attached yet),
     

     
     
    The worst bit was doing the toilet filler pipes - I hate bending bits of wire in umpteen different directions. Anyway, it's now ready for a spot of green paint.

     
  22. pete_mcfarlane

    Coal 21

    By pete_mcfarlane,

    Having done the fitted version, I've also turned out a trio of the unfitted 21 ton mineral wagon.
     

     
    This is a Chiver's MDV modified to remove the top doors (with a very sharp scalpel), and mounted on a Parkside chassis to represent the unfitted welded variety which nobody does a kit for. Even in 4mm scale there are plenty of common wagons that aren't available as kits.
     
    It's riveted cousin is a straightforward build of the Parkside kit. The only modifications are buffers, wire handrails, a decent tiebar from 1mm nickel silver strip, and some spare door spring from the Chiver's kit
     

     
    Lastly, a Hornby ex-Airfix riveted ex-PO mineral - a very nice body moulding like most of these Airfix wagons. A query on here pointed me in the direction of a photo of a suitable prototype. This has the same Parkside 12' chassis as the other two, but with MJT W irons and springs, and 51L heavy duty axleboxes.
    Next step is to paint them all in a rusty c1970 grey! The weird pretend MDV livery on the Hornby body has to go
  23. pete_mcfarlane
    The 2-Bil is nearly complete - I'm currently adding the vast number of rain strips to the roof. No photos as bits of white plastic on a white roof doesn't really photograph.
     
    I've also made a start on my Hornby 73/0. This is it straight out of the box.

    The first step was to replace the overscale wheels with the Alan Gibson rewheeling pack. This is sold for EM, but can be used for finescale OO. The wheel profile is the same, and although the axles are too long this doesn't show. And the wheels came in a week not 4 months

    Next step was to remove the 2D underframe moulding and fill the hole with 40 thou plastic, ready to rebuild the underframe.

    I've also tracked down MRJ 11 from 1986, which has a Monty Wells article on the original Lima 73/1, including converting it to the 73/0. Beautifully written and illustrated as was always the case with his articles.
     
    It includes drawings of both types of class 73 and a list of differences. Based on this, and some photos of the 73/0 on the GC, I reckon that the Lima/Hornby 73/0 isn't quite what it claims to be.
     
    The body has the right grills/windows, but:
     

    It has 73/1 battery trays (although some 73/0 got this type in later life)
    It has 73/1 end jumper cables, missing the extra front end cable on the 73/0
    It has 73/1 bogie sandboxes
    It has a 73/1 fuel tank (the filler is in a different place on the 73/0)
    It has strange small round buffers. The 73/0 were built with oval buffers, and got large round ones in the early 1970s

     
    Some of these I can understand, as they reused parts to keep the cost down. But why the mistakes with the body moulding? It's ended up as a hybrid of the two sub-classes in best RTR fashion. On top of these, the airhorns are rubbish, there's no steps or cabling on the bogies and the side windows are larger than the glazing.
     
    Anyway, all of these should be fixable given a bit of work. There's all sorts of nice moulding work on the body - some very nice grills for example (I never understand why people replace the grills on this model) and it looks like a class 73.
     
    It will be E6001 in 1970 rail blue condition, complete with original oval buffers.
  24. pete_mcfarlane

    Coal 21 VB

    By pete_mcfarlane,

    Not much progress recently due to all sorts of other distractions (skiing holidays, parties, boring stuff like that) but I've managed to get a few wagons ready for painting today.
     
    A Parkside BR van built as the Fruit van version using the optional ventilators. It's also had the solebars replaced with the plate fronted ones from the ever useful PA16 underframe kit. The yellow van is a Dapol ex Airfix "LMS van" which is actually a BR diagram 1/204. I bought a job lot of "second" bodies from a trader a the Grantham show last year, and this is the first to be tackled. Parkside underframe as usual, body modified to represent 3 part rather than 2 park ends and removal of some non-prototypical reinforcing around the bottom of the strapping were the main modifications. Presumably the yellow is a base for some strange Dapol livery, but this will be in bog standard Bauxite.
     
    Next up are a couple of Chivers "Coal 21 VB" - the MDV TOPS designation is a bit after my time. These built up very well despite a surprising amount of flash for such a new kit (must be selling well and wearing the tool out). My only gripe with these was the poor quality of the cast buffers - luckily I had some spare from a third kit being converted to the unfitted version. I've added wire handrails, rivets on the door springs and vacuum pipes - everything else came with the kit.
  25. pete_mcfarlane
    I've finished off some of the LNER wagons. I'm impressed with how well the 3H LNER opens have turned out, despite the many problems getting them square
    The LSWR stone block wagon is also finally painted, after months lurking in my shoebox of stuff to be painted!

     
    I've also been working on an Airfix meat van. Not the most common prototype - only 100 of these were built, but for some reason they chose this over the more common 12t van.

    As with the cattle wagons this went together very well, but needed some work to eliminate the toy like opening doors. I also had problems getting 26mm axles to fit, and ended up having to massively recess the bearings (using a soldering iron to melt them in!). Perhaps it was designed for shorter HO axles? I didn't measure the horrible plastic Airfix wheels before binning them.
     
    Usual ABS brake gear and add ons.
     
    One of the longest lurkers in my backlog of unfinished stuff is a Maunsell R4 first. I started this in 2000 using an Ian Kirk coach and Bill Bedford etched sides. This was before the Roxey kit and Hornby RTR versions.
     
    It's now been dragged out again and worked on. An interior has been knocked up out of plasticard, Southern Pride seats and Preiser figures.

    I hate doing corridor handrails (one of the reasons this had stalled) so as an experiment tried using black cotton. This was stuck on to a scrap of plasticard at one end, stretched and stuck to another scrap at the other end to give a nice taught handrail.
     
    Small blocks of plasticard were superglued in place as strategic points, and then the sections of thread across the doors removed to give the effect of a handrail. This seems to have worked quite well.

    Of course the inevitable happened and I got superglue on the windows, but a coat of Johnson's Klear got rid of the white mark that this leaves.
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