DavidK71

One more post, this time of a coach I finished a little while back while waiting for the replacement side for the Hawksworth sleeper. Much earlier in this thread I posted about a Stanier 50' full brake that I'd done, but I was never completely happy with it - allthough it wasn't bad, there wasn't enough tumblehome on the sides, which detracted from the look of it, and the sides could have been more detailed. My original plan was to dismantle and strip it, but then I had the happy idea of selling it on eBay and building this as a replacement:

Nearly all my stock is Western region, so I'm not sure quite what this and the LMS CCT will do on the layout, once it gets built. Perhaps it'll be a small Midland region parcel train passing through ... 🙂

As usual, bogies are from the 2mm Association, with N gauge profile wheels. These close-up photographs emphasize that the roof rain-strips are too wide (1mm tape) but it doesn't look so obvious at normal viewing distances. I still wish I could find some thiner tape, though ...

That pretty much clears my workbench aside from the K22 full brake, on which painting is about to start.

On 24/08/2012 at 22:16, Karhedron said:

Unless you are interested in some comission work?

Thank you, but I think that the painfully slow speed at which I manage to complete these makes commision work unlikely ☹️. I think I started the sleeper back in November - in that time Coachman could produce an entire coach fleet!

It's taken quile a while, but the Hawksworth J18 sleeper is finally done:

The model has been finished in its original British Railways livery that these coaches wore when new, as number 9083. The real 9083 is at Didcot where it is slowly being restored, and has fairly recently been repainted and lined out, and very impressive it looks too.

This would have been done rather sooner, if I hadn't, after painting and lining it, discovered a problem with the compartment etched side: the attendant's window (on the far right) was missing, and the toilet window was where the attendant's window should have been. Alan at Ultima very helpfully redrew the side based on current photographs and had a new side etched, which I have used. Quality service!

While I think the six wheel bogies look great, I'm not sure I'll be making any more coaches that ride on such monsters. The coach is, it has to be said, quite curve shy. It will go round a Peco number 4 radius curve (which is about a 13" radius) but there is noticeably more resistance than on a straight, due to the wheels rubbing against the solebar. This is partly because I've tried to get my coaches to sit as low as is practical on the bogies, as it looks much more prototypical, but I guess is also partly a reflection of the truth that the real coaches wouldn't have been much use on tight curves anyway. Does anyone know what the rules were for minimum curves that twelve wheel coaches were allowed on? I haven't found much on anyone running twelve wheel coaches in N or 2mm, so I'd be interested to hear if anyone does. The only other such coaches I'm come across on RMWeb are wermy's thread (at http://www.rmweb.co....posite-sleeper/) on building an LMS sleeper, and Nigel Hunt's exquisite image of a scratchbuilt clerestory diner (http://www.rmweb.co....x-gswr-car-no3/). Has anyone else got a twelve wheeler?

Well, rolling the roof did not turn out to be as bad as I had feared it would be. A trip to the local DIY store provided lengths of 5mm, 10mm and 30mm diameter pipe, and using them to roll the etched brass gives this as the result, after about two hours of very slow work:

The roof is just resting in place, and is not quite finished: I intend to get the main shell painted and glazed before final adjustments are made to get the roof perfectly shaped. Overall, I'm very pleased - it seems that etched brass is a viable method of making roofs, if not exactly quick. This means that the planned experiments with 3D roofs will have to wait a bit.

On 03/07/2012 at 23:00, queensquare said:

Some superb coaches, the finish is particularly impressive - fancy painting and lining my eight coach MR clearstory Manchester Diner rake!!. Whether you stick with N or go 2FS is up to you although I'm sure you can guess what I would suggest!! Either way I would certainly dump those Rapido couplings, they do nothing for your beautiful modelling.

Thank you, you're very kind! Lining clerestories in 2mm sounds like an "interesting" challenge, I'll be interested to see how you get on with that.

You are correct that the couplers are not ideal. They are only attached to the bogies so that they can be removed fairly easily (or the whole bogie replaced, if need be). So many choices and decisions to make ... 😃

On 02/07/2012 at 19:06, D869 said:

That could mean two things. On the one hand there are kits that are no longer available... on the other, there are some that are just, well... not very good.

Ooops, that was not intentional! I did not want to suggest that Mr. Wright's etches were anything other than very nice 🙂

On 02/07/2012 at 19:06, D869 said:

By coincidence I emailed Mr Allen Worsley Works about suitable pre-formed roofs a couple of weeks back. Unfortunately he wasn't able to suggest many options.

My understanding is that the Ultima roof is extruded aluminium, to the same profile as the Ultima LMS kits. For both this roof profile and the 2mm LMS one the main difficulty I can see will be the lack of roof rain-strips. Looking around rmweb I can see that some people have used lining tape successfully for this in 4mm, but I haven't managed to track down thin enough lining tape, and also I suspect that any folds or creases in the tape will be more noticeable in 2mm.

I think 3D printing will be the way to go. Alan Cox's posts have introduced me to OpenSCAD, which looks very interesting, so at some point I definitelty want to try this. Having said that, experimenting yesterday with rolling the K22 roof was surprisingly okay: the shape is not completely there yet, but the roof at least looks evenly curved.

Next up on the workbench is a Great Western K.22 full brake:

D869 remarked in a recent blog post that he was posting about a kit you can't build, and this is rather similar: I bought this on a whim as just an etched sheet from an eBay auction. From the instructions on what is on the etch this was made by "5522 Models" and looks to have been shot down from 4mm in the 1980s or early 1990s.

This has proved to be more of a challenge than the previous kits I've done. The floor and sides are all one piece, which made creating the tumblehome an exciting challenge. The sides were then folded up and the ends attached. I have to say that I prefer separate sides, in the style of Ultima and Masterclass kits, especially as painting will have to be a "get it right first time" project. In the past I've occasionally been unhappy with what I've managed on sides, so I've stripped them and tried again, but that won't work here, at least not without stripping the whole thing.

Bogies are 9' American from the 2mm Association on N gauge wheels. Truss rods, underframe details and coach ends are from Ultima. Buffers are from NBrass, as these seemed to be the closest to accurate, but they're not really correct: the buffers should have square shanks. I've never seen square shank buffers for sale in 2mm, and an attempt to file a round shank square didn't end well.

One disaster during construction was the solebars. The original etched part is supposed to be folded along its long axis to produce the solebar, but that went completely wrong - I suspect it would have been easier in the original 4mm! I got round this by buying a suitable coach floor from Ultima and taking the solebars from that.

One essential item that the observant will notice is missing from the photograph is a roof. The kit comes with an etched roof, which I have not yet had the courage to tackle. Rolling a three-arc roof profile from thin brass sheet looks to be hard ... does anyone have any advice? A 57' toplight resin roof from a Masterclass kit fits perfectly, but I want to build the Masterclass kit too ... does anyone have a Masterclass 57' resin roof they don't want? No, I didn't think so ... 😪 My plan is to give the roof a try and if that doesn't work, experiment with 3D printing of roofs - this is something I want to try anyway, as if I can figure out a way to make roofs then there are lots of Worsley Works and Bill Bedford etches that I could use.

Overall, building this has been interesting and fun, but I couldn't actually recommend it as an approach to anyone wanting a 2mm / N K.22. After buying the etch I noticed that Worsley Works do a K.22 (or at least the sides and floor): a much easier approach would be to get hold of a Masterclass 57' toplight and replace the sides with the Worsley etch.

On 17/05/2012 at 14:17, D869 said:

It would still be a good idea to think about formations when planning your shopping list.

You are right, my current stash of kits does show a certain randomness in its selection. But that's usually how I do most things in life 🙂 As you say, more kits will sort that out ... Thanks for the tip about the BRCS group.

Any idea what sort of train service (and therefore formation) you are aiming for?

An excellent question! The original impetus behind the coach building experiments is that while I have long term plans for the space for a layout, they're likely to be a few years off, and until then I wanted something to occupy me. The first plan (which is stating it too grandly: the first vague idea might be better) was for a model of a section of Great Western main line. The Hawksworth full brake and sleeper are intended to be part of an overnight train, and the brake third and first part of a daytime express.

However, inspired by a photograph of Old Oak Common in (I think) Harris, I have considered instead a layout of coach sidings. This would allow a more arbitrary selection of interesting coaching stock of various ages, perhaps with a shunter loco or two pottering about. Still, I fully expect several more changes of plan before there's any danger of actually making a layout.

There's also the great N gauge vs. 2mm finescale question to decide. I have at least tried to sit on the fence by using 2mm Association bogies: it would not be hard to remove the N gauge couplers and put in 2mm wheelsets. So many choices to make ...

Another one done, this time a Hawksworth full first to diagram A.23, again from Ultima:

Bogies are GWR Pressed Steel, from the 2mm Association, on N gauge axles. Transfers are from ModelMaster (for the lining, '1's and the running numbers) and from Fox (for the first class 'sausages' in the windows). The sausages have just been applied directly to the glazing so I have a certain amount of fear that they'll eventually fall off, but that hasn't happened so far.

One slight cheat I have tried is with the filler pipes. Rather than try to bend two pieces of wire into the correct shapes, as I attempted with the original brake third, I instead have one curved piece which forms a near semi-circle, attached to the coach side, and two straight pieces, attached to the roof. This was much easier to form and avoids problems with having to get the roof in place before adding the pipes, but does mean close examination shows that the pipes aren't perhaps as prototypical as they could be. From any sort of reasonable viewing distance, though, the effect convinces me.

Finally, a shot of the three completed Hawksworths to date, all now running on 2mm Association GWR Pressed Steel bogies:

On 10/05/2012 at 18:31, Ben A said:

Does anyone know, in later years did those short brakes last as long as the 50' ones?

My copy of "LMS Coaches" states that withdrawals started in '64, and many were still around in '69, so they must have lasted well into the 1970s, at least. Paul Bartlett's site has a photograph of one in BR blue, albeit very faded and battered, taken in '85, though it looks like it has spent a while sat on a scrap line.

There was also a thread about this a while back (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/27920-ex-lms-42-guv-when-were-they-withdrawn/) which quotes the 1978 RCTS stock book as having two left in service, so it looks like they lingered on until about the same time as the 50' brakes.

On 10/05/2012 at 20:40, D869 said:

I'm just finishing off a Thompson BG so will post some words and pictures about that soon.

I'm looking forward to that!

Work has been progressing slowly on the Hawksworth J18 sleeper, and in the meantime a few other projects have managed to bypass it on the production line. First to completion is an Ultima LMS 42' CCT (or GUV), which coincidentally Coachman is doing a rather nice version of in 4mm in a nearby thread ... Pictures of the finished result, in British Rail carmine:

Bogies are LMS 9' from the 2mm Association, with N-gauge profile wheels, and very nice they are too. The Ultima kit itself is straightforward to put together and produces a very pleasing result: these short bogie coaches are, I think, very attractive. If anyone wants a simple coach project to get started on, I would recommend this one.

The only addition beyond what comes in the kit is the wire handrails and door handles, which are just made from 0.3mm nickel silver wire from Eileen's Emporium, bent to the appropriate shape and inserted into holes in the sides that had been drilled out with a jeweller's drill. One valuable lesson learned from doing this is that you have to take account of whether the lower holes in the sides will sit over the folded up edge of the coach floor - I ended up having to drill holes in the folded up edges to let the wire through in order to get the sides to attach correctly. This would have been easier to do if I had worked this out before completely assembling the shell.

Painting is much as for the previous LMS full brake: the sides and underframe are Halfords satin black, the sides Halfords red primer then AR530 cellulose car paint sprayed over the top. This is then covered with a spray of Halfords clear lacquer to give the transfers a smooth surface to adhere too, followed by another coat of lacquer to protect the transfers, and finally a very light spray with Humbrol matt varnish to achieve the desired finish. Transfers are from ModelMaster for the number, and Fox for the grey chalkboard panels.

One thing that does detract a touch from the appearance relative to the prototype is the lack of the horizontal beading stripes on the sides. I did experiment with the same 0.5mm lining tape as has been used for the roof ribbing, but it was just far too thick. (It's a little too thick for the roof, too, to be honest, but it doesn't seem quite so obvious there.) The search for some thinner lining tape continues ...

Thanks. I have a couple of these kits to make so this thread and your help above willl come in very handy.

They're nice kits - hope you enjoy building them and post about it on RMWeb! D869's blog at http://www.rmweb.co....draulic-heaven/ is also well worth reading for details of how he built a very nice Hawksworth full brake.

How do you finally fix the sides?

I glue thin slivers of plasticard to the folded up sides of the floor until the sides touch the plasticard as well as the edges of the ends, then glue the sides to the ends and the plasticard, with a tiny amount of glue to hold it to the roof, too. If the sides don't have a door right at the end (i.e. a brake end) I'll also glue a 1mm square piece of plasticard rod to the ends to provide a larger surface to attach to, as well. The glue for this is Evostick Impact - it's strong and quite viscous, so doesn't end up were it shouldn't.

2012 already, which seems like time to review what's on the workbench. The answer, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, is too many projects on the go at once ... Why is starting a new project always so tempting? 😍

One project that has progressed far enough to be interesting is an Ultima Hawksworth J18 sleeper, shown here with the roof and sides just tacked in place to check everything is okay:

This does provide a few challenges above and beyond the Hawksworths I've done before. The biggest source of complication is the massive six-wheel bogies this coach sits on. These are also from Ultima and are very nice: all the axlebox and spring detail is etched (rather than white metal) so can bear close inspection. They also run well, though they are a bit reluctant round very tight curves, unsurprisingly. With a six-wheel bogie the bogie pivot is directly over the middle axle, which makes life for this kit builder more difficult: I've had to discard the screws that are supplied as bogie mounts in favour of smaller M4 ones, which I had to heavily file down to get sufficient clearance for the axle.

I've also replaced the square LPG box on the underframe that comes with the kit with a gas cylinder, filed down to fit, which matches the photographs in Russell Appendix 2. The next challenge to deal with is the roof header tanks, one of which should be double sized. I have several ideas that involve having a go at etching, so the header tank may have to wait for that.

Are your 2 hawksworths slightly different heights?

You are right, though oddly the photograph makes this look more pronounced than it is. (Must get a better camera...) I have some very thin brass washers somewhere: I need to pack one under the bogies to lift it slightly.

The Association ones involve more folding and soldering than the ones you used. They are pretty good representations of the bogies used on the passenger carrying vehicles but many of the NPCS vehicles had bogies of the same basic design but with shorter springs and smaller footsteps.

That's interesting stuff. I think I'm ready to try the more complicated 2mm Association bogies - I've got a six-wheel bogie on the workbench at the moment that seems to work, so I must be getting the hang of them!

The correct basic pattern of bogies are also under the Dapol 1938 Collett coaches. Unfortunately they're not listed as a separate item currently.

I think Alan was working on persuading Dapol to let him sell them separately - hopefully he'll succeed.

On 15/12/2011 at 15:44, Karhedron said:

Superb work again. Sorry if I missed it earlier but who's transfers did you use for lining and numbering?

Thank you! The transfers are all Model Master, from the NGS. The numbers are from their sheet for ex-GWR coaches, cut up and re-arranged to provide the numbers I want. I applied them with plenty of Microsol to get them to flatten down completely, and then a coat of lacquer and a final thin coat of satin varnish to hold them and hide the carrier film. I do find the carrier film on these a bit thick - on the full brake it can still be seen if you hold the coach up to the light at just the right angle. I think for the next one I am going to try removing the film and see what happens.

On 15/12/2011 at 16:57, McRuss said:

The Halford paints are these acrylics or email paints? And the Alfa Romeo 530 rosso red paint for your LMS Full Brake, you said it was mixed at Halfords. What did it cost? I ask because I visit the UK next month and maybe would visit a Halford store to paint some paint cans.

The AR 530 rosso red is cellulose paint - what I think of as old fashioned car paint. I only seem to see cellulose paint these days in custom mixing services - presumably enamels and acrylics can't be mixed in the same way easily. I think a 400ml rattle can made up to AR530 cost me about £16. There are companies on the Internet and eBay that advertise similar mixing services and may well be cheaper or more practical from Germany. The grey and black Halfords paints are just from their standard range of acrylics.

And one more for the collection - this time a Hawksworth K45 full brake:

Construction was as per the previous brake third, except that this time the underframe was painted by spraying with Halfords satin black, which has produced a nice fine, even finish. I am not entirely happy with the bogies, however, as they really should be GWR 9' pressed steel ones. Time to investigate the 2mm Association's range ...

More Hawksworth coaches are on my workbench, but I thought I'd post this as a teaser of a more adventurous project:

The sides are from Bill Bedford, and are of a H15 restaurant coach. The roof is from a Masterclass Models 70' toplight kit, which will also be used to provide the correct underframe. I still need to source (or make) some appropriate gas cylinders, and decide on 4- or 6-wheel bogies.

Thank you both for the tumblehome suggestions - I shall start work on my "tumblehome jig" soon 🙂

Crikey, it's been a while since I updated this thread ... I have finally got round to finishing the Stanier full brake, and here it is, with a Dapol/NGS Stove R behind for company:

The bogies I'm very pleased with. Despite a few problems early on, they run very smoothly, and I'm glad I experimented with using top hat bearings. They were brush painted with Humbrol primer, then Humbrol satin black, and finally a coat of Humbrol matt varnish to give the final finish.

The underframe and sides were sprayed with Halfords grey primer, and then Hycote satin black sprayed on top. While this looks pretty good, I have had better results spraying with Halfords satin black on a Hawksworth full brake I'm also working on: the Halfords black seems to give a better finish, with the Hycote being a little bit thicker.

Painting the roof was a source of woe, and the main reason it took so long to finish this coach. I ended up repeatedly spraying the roof with undercoat, then sanding and filling the join between the roof and the sides, then spraying again ... in the end the finish on the roof was terrible as I'd sprayed too much paint on it, so I took it off, stripped it back and tried again, this time with more discipline about how much filling to do before considering the join acceptable . I also took the opportunity to remove the torpedo vents and replace them with shell vents, as I intended to model one of the later batches, which most sources say had shell vents. Looking at the pictures on Paul Bartlett's site I'm not completely sure I've got this right, as most of his pictures show either all torpedo vents, or a random mixture of shell and torpedo vents. Ah well, I'm not changing it now ...

The sides were sprayed with Halfords red primer, then sprayed with Alfa Romeo 530 rosso red, this time mixed by Halfords. To my eye this gives a very pleasing version of BR crimson. Custom cellulose paint in spray cans is definitely harder to work with than the standard acrylics, but I'm getting better at not applying too much, and the result is worth the effort. Transfers are from ModelMaster via the NGS, and then the sides were sealed with a coat of Halfords clear lacquer, followed by a final, very light coat of Humbrol matt varnish from a rattle can. I've had bad experiences with applying too much of this before, so this was applied very sparingly (one pass with the can 25cm away from the sides), which proved enough to take the glossy shine off the sides.

One thing I'm not completely happy with is that I don't think I got enough tumblehome into the sides. I've not found an entirely satisfactory way of doing this, and I've been wondering whether to trying to acquire a length of metal tubing to roll against might be an answer. Any suggestions?

Anyway, there we go: one Stanier 50' brake, and another very nice kit from Ultima. More coaches to follow in time ...

@Alan: Thank you!

@Simon: The kit is still available, I think. It's listed on the Ultima web site here (http://www.ultima-mo...by.cs?Section=K) as the first entry in the list. The list is slightly misleading as it says "etched sides" but means "kit with etched sides" as opposed to "kit with pre-printed sides". You'd also need bogie etches and axle boxes (listed here http://www.ultima-mo...by.cs?Section=K) as well as wheels and top hat bearings (which Ultima sell, but can also be obtained elsewhere). Looking at the above link the bogie etch is now out of stock but I expect Alan will have an idea of when he'll have more in stock. You'll also need couplers, plasticard rod and some way of tackling the roof rain strips.

Building the bogies did challenge me a bit (as described in a previous post) and I've modified what I've done with them since that post to get the couplers in close enough. Having said that, they do run very smoothly. As an alternative for bogies, you could also see if you could get hold of some spare Bachmann Farish Stanier coach bogies - I've not tried this, but looking at a Stanier coach they seem like a decent representation of an LMS bogie.

And yes, the silver finish does photograph well 🙂

@Kris: For the glazing I think the trick is thin etched coach sides, a thin plastic glazing strip and a small amount of a thick glue to stick the glazing strip in place. I used Evostick Impact which is a bit like the consistency of warm Mozarella, but its thickness does mean that you can put a small blob close to the window and then press down hard without having it run everywhere.

On the painting front I think we'd all do even better with an airbrush, it's just a question of getting the courage to buy and try it!

As previously promised, a few further photographs of the Hawksworth brake third, taken in rather better light:

These photographs do show one area for improvement: you can see at the very bottom of the coach sides where the paint doesn't cover the actual bottom edge of the sides. Will do better next time ...

Speaking of which, as mentioned in the past, the next project is an Ultima kit of an LMS 50' full brake. This is now mostly assembled, though the roof and sides are just tacked in place at the moment for the photograph:

I've not made many deviations from the instructions. The instructions describe soldering a small platform to the truss rod to hold the voltage regulator - instead I've attached a length of scrap brass fret to the side bracing and used that to support the regulator, which seems a more sensible arrangement (and was taken from the Comet instructions for their 4mm kit). Nickel silver wire has also been used for the rails at the ends, also following the Comet instructions. The roof has had the lining tape described in a previous post applied, along with the vents, and the roof then sprayed with undercoat - this seems to have worked well. I've also re-modelled the bogies somewhat to move the coupler holders back into the bogie, so that the coach couples acceptably closely.

Finished! The following photographs aren't brilliant as it is rather overcast today, but I will add better ones when the weather is more suitable.

There is actually some work to do on the couplers, but that will wait until I have another Hawksworth made up and can judge how closely coupled they can be.

Since the last post I've been experimenting with the finish on the coach sides. In the end I've left it as Halfords clear lacquer, which is glossy but not too glossy. While I could get satin varnishes like Purity Seal to apply okay to test pieces, I didn't really like how it made the colours, especially the crimson, so much less vibrant. The final effect, hopefully, is of having just emerged from the Swindon paint shop 🙂.

Apart from that, I've added the glazing using the supplied strip in the kit. The lavatory window has been frosted by rubbing the glazing with fine sandpaper. It doesn't show up well in the photograph but looks good here ... Curtains are simply painted on the inside of the glazing strip, and the corridor handrail is sections of nickel-sliver wire glued to the glazing strip.

Anyway, I'm very pleased with the result. On to the next coaches ...