hendie

Be warned folks - lots of photo's ahead again. I do try and be concise at times but the camera just runs away with me. Extinguishers. That's what we were doing last time around, so I may as well continue. The "boxes" were made up and painted and I decided I wasn't really to keen on them. However, when I placed just the extinguisher by itself in the car, it didn't look right, so out came the boxes again. In it's final resting place it doesn't look too bad, and I could believe something like this could be used. (Look, you can finally see the 'hot' & 'cold' taps in the bathroom!) Okay, fire extinguishers dealt with and on to the next bit of detail that takes forever. Steps. I could put these off no longer so I shaped some styrene and fired up the airbrush with Alclad black primer. Now, I love their grey primer, but I had issues with the black primer on my Wessex build and I wasn't too impressed with it. Things didn't go any better this time around but in a rare moment of fortuitousness (isata word?), the 'disaster' actually worked in my favor. The black primer spluttered and coughed and flatulated all over the place, with the result of the finish you can see here. Normally, I would have been not a happy camper when this happened, but on the steps.... it's non-slip paint isn't it? Works for me. The black alclad is now at the back of the shelf again and I'm going to stick to the grey primer in future. Anyone else aware of quality problems with Alclad paints? When the pebble-dash finish finally dried it was time to add the white edging - that really tested my patience. With such stark contrast between the two colors any, and I mean ANY deviation from a perfectly straight line looks like doo-doo. When it came time to fit them, I realized that it was going to be a butt joint onto painted brass - nope. That'll never work. That's prime candidates for knocking off just be glancing at them. I had no choice but to drill the chassis and pin the steps in place. Worrying and dangerous, having to drill into the chassis at this point, but I had no alternative here. Luckily the gods were smiling on me this day. While I was looking at photo's again (I really need to stop doing that!) I spotted more steps. Logical really - how do you get into the car when it's in the depot and there's no platform handy eh? I went with styrene again for these steps. Then painted up and fitted. I'm liking that, even though the white paint is a bit dodgy. Steps complete. Another job scored off the list. What's next? Urgghhhhh... more emergency equipment I'm afraid. This time the Passcomm bits. The original drawings have a nice curved brass plate for mounting the pull handles, but in the two photos I have showing these, it appears the brass was never used and instead they were mounted in a wooden surround - sort of an inverted "U". I'm not over the moon with these but I think I'm at the limits of what can be done with this material. 6mm wide x 3mm high and the 'legs' are just over 1 mm wide. When you get down to these sizes, the wood just kept breaking off, so I did my best and produced 4 barely acceptable parts. Not my finest work, but there it is. I considered plastic and painting them brown, but the color difference was too drastic, so wood it is. I also made up some 1mm wide brackets for the emergency hammers, and they got fixed in place. My oh my, these jobs are just flying off the list.. aren't they? At this rate I could be finished by Xmas... this year!!! Now, the light at the end of the tunnel starts to shine brighter, and get larger - if you ignore the fact I still have to build a completely separate roof and order a display case. Soft furnishings - time to fit the comfy chairs! Since the base of the legs is just over 1mm2 I wasn't comfortable with that as a fixing surface. When this thing is closed up I'm never going back in - so the chairs need to be secure! After toying with a few different ideas I settled on using a block underneath the chair, the same height as the legs, with the block glued to the chair and in turn glued to the floor. I turned a bunch of aluminum cores on the lathe and these were glued to the underside of each chair. There was a chance you could see the aluminum under the chair when peering through the windows, so these were painted brown so they kind of 'disappear' in the overall scheme of things. First up was the dinette. Cosy eh? And here's where things start getting awkward. The chairs had to go in before the table as there was no room to phennargle them into place afterwards, but once the chairs were in there was no room for my fat digits to get in there with the table. Emergency operation commenced... Ladies and gentlemen, the operation was a success! (eventually!) I have to admit that my camera really is not up to the task here when things start getting so detailed. I had to use flash here to capture anything other than a bluish brownish blur. Or was that a brownish bluish blur? Once I get this all to a decent stage, I shall endeavor to take the whole shebang outside and get some photos taken in natural sunlight. Production line started From these photo's you'd be forgiven for thinking that this all went together pretty quickly. Sadly, that was not the case. Each chair had to be positioned, and I had to use a glue that allowed me time to jiggle and joggle things into place - then I had to wait for it to dry sufficiently in order to be able to fit the table, without the danger of dislodging aforementioned chair, and like the dinette, I have to fit everything in turn. Once chair... one table ... one chair. I need the table in place to get the correct spacing. Nothing's ever easy is it? At the end of today's playtime we got this far. Another session, maybe two should see all the chairs and tables in place and then I can think about fitting the rest of the carlines. I have to say that I am really enjoying the build once again now that I see it all coming together. For a while there, it seemed as if there was never any progress, just a never ending stream of making bits and putting them away in a safe place. Then the painting and decals - That was such a mojo killer I really had to force myself to continue at times. Anyway, folks - stay safe and have a great whatever's left of the weekend!

Thanks Gordon. that's part of the fun of scratchbuilding - finding stuff that you can repurpose. I always get a kick out of finding a use for some obscure discarded item. For instance, the dome on my 1/6 scale Dalek was made from the domed lid of a milkshake - it was the perfect radius.

Thanks @Krusty - did Model Railroader also state how soul destroying it was? Well, how do I follow that last update? Anything after that is pretty much going to be an anti-climax innit? AS I've mentioned, it is getting close to the finish line though it seems every time I pour over my reference photo's I find something new cropping up that I have kept missing in the last 6 years. The emergency equipment was a prime example. When I started chasing that squirrel I found out that there were two fire extinguishers specified. According to the drawings, they were located on top of the electrical cabinets in the end corridors. Sure enough, when I looked at my reference stuff, I could just make out what certainly appeared to be a fire extinguisher right at the far end of the corridor. Nothing for it then but to try and make a couple. I'll be honest and I did actually google 1/32 scale fire extinguishers and found a couple of resin examples. Then conscience got the better of me and since I've scratch built 99% of this thing I figured I may as well continue. 3D printing came to mind, but again, I thought nah!.... let's try it the old school way. An hour later I had two of these thingamabobs turned from brass rod on the lathe. At the top end I drilled a small pilot hole - the hope being that I could make these mostly from brass. A couple of 0.8 mm lengths of rod were hammered flat on the vice, then in time honored fashion it was time to drill unfeasibly small holes in equally unfeasibly small handles. A bunch of Ø0.5 mm holes were duly drilled and a small brass rivet used to hang everything together. No need to worry about cutting them to length just yet. A dab of solder was added to keep everything fixed in position, then a few swipes with a file cleaned that all up and brought things down to the correct length. When I say 'correct' I mean something approaching sort of looks like what it's supposed to look like, maybe. The rivet was then rammed into the pilot hole and luckily was tight enough to stay put. I originally tried to solder the handles on to the body, but the larger part was too much of a heat sink and I couldn't get it to work - so interference fit it was. Follow that up with some enameled black wire, another small piece of brass tube, and a piece of electrical wire and we get a decent approximation of a fire skoosher Happy with that it was then time for paint. I used the last few drops of red gloss and then the airbrush decided to spurt and splatter causing a few expletives to be uttered. Since it was going to take some time to obtain some more (and Testors have stopped producing any more) I had to resort to Humbrol satin red of some description. It wasn't quite as bright as fire extinguisher red, but at this juncture, I considered it close enough. Black gloss applied to the handles, then Alclad chrome to finish things off While I was waiting for the paint to dry I had an idea.... I wasn't sure how the fire extinguishers were fitted atop the cabinets and thought some kind of housing may be used. Out came the 5 thou brass sheet and using just a ruler and a standard blade I managed to cut a form out. I kept the scribing on the fold lines light -just enough to be able to bend the brass but not break it Holes were drilled at the intersections of the folds so the edges would not interfere as it was folded Then folded up we have this. I'm not certain I'm going to use them but have painted them up and will have another look tomorrow and see what I feel like then. The thing about fire extinguishers is that they always have lots of labels slapped all over them. I checked my extensive fire extinguisher decal collection of which I have and let's be honest here...zilch. An executive decision was required so I decided just to press ahead and sorted out some decal scraps that when put together sort of looked like they were intended for this purpose. At the end of the day, you're only ever going to be able to see these things from above, so I really only needed something that looked suggestive of a label. These scraps all came from various Wessex transfer sheets Hose bits fitted I think those will do nicely. When I took this photo I noticed that I had forgotten to paint the small brass spout black - that has now been done and they've both received another gloss coat. Job done, now on to the next thing on the list. Passcomm handles I believe Stay safe and have a good weekend folks

As I get closer and closer to the finish line with this penance, I keep spotting more bits that need added. As I was zooming about photos during the week I spotted a small reddish thing mounted on the wall. Upon zooming in further, I discovered it was one of these... an emergency hammer to break the window in event of having to get out quickly. There were 4 of them in total. For the first time in what seems like ages, I resorted to scratch building - Shock! Horror! What - no 3D printing? Well, I did consider it but it was actually easier just to go ahead and scratch 4 of these little blighters and paint them up. According to my references, they are mounted directly to the wall, though I'm sure there's some kind of bracket there - I just can't see it due to the resolution of the photo. I did carry on with some easy things though. The roof structure got fitted over the bar area -then remembered somehow I have to set up a few bottles and glasses in there later. Gulp. Brass lamps got fitted to the dining area with chromed lamps being fitted to the bar area. After that there was pretty much no easy things left - at least nothing that can be done now. It was time to start the colossal task of upholstering the chairs. This was not a task that I had been looking forward to. For one - I hate doing decals, transfers whatever you want to call them. I hate 'em almost as much as I hate painting... Two... I wasn't even sure this was going to work. Just to make things easy - I have no copy of the original swatches that were used to specify the fabric. All I have to go on is a few photos of the interior showing the blue fabric covered chairs. After searching online for some time I found something that seemed as if it would work - though it was the wrong color. That would have been too easy wouldn't it? I sampled the color on a Pegasus chair then replaced the original color in the print to match. I then scaled it and mirrored/repeated it over and over a few times. Unfortunately it was not a seamless pattern I had used so it ended up looking a bit regimented and geometric. This was what I was aiming for. It's more stylized than the pattern I have but what the heck - lets give it a go and see what happens I had a sort of plan though. Due to the shape of the chairs there was no way I could cover a chair with just one piece of decal. I was gong to have to cut individually shaped pieces of decal for different areas of the chair. I was hoping that this chopping and rearranging would break up the pattern. Each chair took 12 individual sections of decal. Some of the template pieces shown here were reversed to provide right and left handed versions. Rather than bore you with gazillions of individual photos showing the process I stitched a few together to try and lessen the pain for you. From left to right, top then bottom.... (I was trying to do it clockwise but apparently I'm not good at getting things in a clockwise order!) The first wing goes on, followed by it's opposite number on the other side. The seat back (lower) piece was slapped into place, then the lower side panel Lower side panel on opposite side, followed by the small front section. The seat pan was a real pig to fit though not as troublesome as those arm rests. I couldn't believe how bloody awkward they were to fit. After that, the head rest area was added, and finally the back piece was slid into place. That was one of those tasks I never ever want to repeat. EVER. That effort took me two full days of nothing but cutting and slicing decals and fitting them, over, and over, and over. 16 chairs with 12 separately cut sections of decal = 192 pieces of torment They're not perfect by any means but I did my best and its a result I think I can live with. After all that, the decals were gloss coated to seal them, followed by a matt coat to remove the shininess and to try and make them look more like fabric. Italian Dark Brown was used to simulate the wooden legs - they'll get a satin coat later Now just for the hell-of-it. Here's a chair, just cos I took the photo Then no sooner had I believed I had finished than I turned around and there on one of my drying blocks at the back of the bench was these two sitting there, grinning at me... AAAaaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shoot me now. Please! I did try and take a photo of a few chairs in place with tables etc, but broke off one of the luggage racks while trying to fit the table. That decided it - I was calling it a night. That can wait for another day I'm off for a beer!

thanks Hilux - it's a great feeling after all this time haha! nothing! When this is finished I shall have accomplished what I set out to do so will be taking a nice long break from train modeling. ehrrrr.... see simonmcp'spost below Thanks!.. yes I did include the flat top on the buffers. I may have rounded the edge between the flat and the radius a bit too much so it's not as noticeable as on the 1:1, but it's there. After hitting this hard over the last few weeks I think I've hit a slight burn out period. I'm giving myself a few days off before heading down to tackle the remaining jobs. No fear - it will be completed

Today was just one of those days - loads of time spent on finicky little details, but all the while edging to the finish line (I hope) My first job this morning was to tackle one of those long forgotten parts that have been lying around for literally years - the buffers. No train is complete without a set of buffers is it? Well, I'd made these years ago and put them to one side, never really thinking about them again, but today was the day - time to fit them and get the ends of the car fully complete. Oh dear... anyone spot a problem here? (poor photo I know) The diaphragm plate interferes with the buffers. Oh crap. How did that happen? I checked my drawings and everything looked fine. Then luckily I checked my reference photos and spotted the issue. Since we were reusing the diaphragm plates I didn't make a fully detailed drawing - just an overall outline, and in that drawing I had the sides of the diaphragm plate parallel all the way to the bottom. When I checked this photo... ('scuse the ornery looking gent with the white facial grubble staring back at you here - I've been under the weather for a few days and couldn't be bothered shaving) I could see that the diaphragm plates angled in towards the bottom to clear the buffers. Problem solved - now what to do about it? I hummed and hawed for 10 minutes or so... when everything was together would anyone really notice? I could still fit the buffers and get them into position without any problems. You know where I'm going here don't you? I would know - and it would annoy me. Then every-time I looked at this car I would see that glaring error. Nothing for it but to try and remedy the situation. The weapon of choice for this fine fettling was the flexible drive with sanding drum. Tension was high - I could foresee all sorts of issues and damage arising from this, not least of which was the paint peeling off the diaphragm plate due to heat build up. Look out folks... I'm going in! Around 30 minutes later. Clearance! Okay it's not pretty and it's minimal clearance, but if you look at the 1:1, there's minimal clearance on that too. What is amazing is that the diaphragm plates held fast during all that butchery - and they're only held on with cigarette paper and superglue. Amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that I didn't damage anything else in the process. A quick touch up with paint and that will be fine and no-one will be any the wiser. (the couplings were also fitted but I don't appear to have taken a photo) Yet another job that I'd been putting off was fitting the "open" doors. I'd had a couple of attempts at it during the week but wasn't happy with the results. Mainly I was getting too large a gap between the frame and the door. The problem was eventually solved by using styrene hinges 2 mm wide and superglued in to the frame. The ceiling partition at the dinette was fitted. I don't have any photographic proof of the vent being there but it does show up on the drawings so, one got fitted. Seems a bit weird being off center like that, but it is centered to the dinette area and I guess they need ventilation in there too. The remaining two luggage racks got fitted. Then last photo for today is just to prove that I did finally get around to fitting the axle boxes. They do stick out a little further than the real things but I had to make them that length so they would cover the axles. I can live with this. If I'm not careful I am going to be running out of stuff to do. The list is getting shorter and shorter - about bloomin' time though! Still tables and chairs to fit. I made up the table lamps today, but I think I have decided to reprint the wall lamps to see if I can get them any better. The biggest hurdle facing me now is the patterned fabric on the chairs. Once again decals are going to be the answer. I just need to sit down and create the pattern - then buy a printer. Ouch.

Like these ? The axles boxes have been sitting in a container for years. That was one of those easy peasy jobs that was so easy I left them to concentrate on other items. I'll get around to it as the remaining jobs get knocked off the list

It's really getting close now. Unfortunately that means that I'm now down to adding the finer details - all of which seem to take an inordinate amount of time to accomplish. Take this ceiling partition for instance. First of all, make the partition, file/sand it to shape. File notches for the Tee section to pass through. Cut holes for the vents etc. Oh - paint the vents too. They have to be painted separately because in behind the vent is some brass mesh, so I painted the recess black to make the brass stand out. - Then fit the brass, then finally, fit the vent. Can you even see the brass in there? I made things a bit difficult for myself by following the 1:1 in exact scale dimensions here. That meant that the vent is just under 1 mm bigger than the hole it fits over - making it a real pits to align properly. If I had thought ahead, I could have made a slightly bigger flange on the vent and no-one would be any the wiser. The first vestibule end was finished off. Formers in place and shear plates and shear brackets added. To say I'm a bit chuffed with this would be an understatement. I fixed the skewy former as well - looking much better now. Back up the other end, the first of the structure got fitted, and I finished off the mahogany trim strips in the corridor Ceiling trim strips got fitted in the bar area as well. And that pretty much finished off the bar fittings - all that was left was to add the two bench seats between the windows. I wasn't sure what color the seats were but managed to find one shot on t'interweb that showed they were a vague sort of purple color with a very subtle pattern. I just went for plain color here but I think it blends in nicely. Nothing too obtrusive. Moving into the dining area, the new luggage racks got fitted (to one side so far). The new racks look much better. I elongated the top shelf by about 1.5 mm and added a slight rake upwards - this has made all the difference to the appearance. Very pleased with those. I threw some roof sections in place just to see what the overall effect would be. I think it's going to be stunning when finished. I just need to keep the momentum going. I tried to get a shot with the ceiling partition and vent in place but the camera wasn't happy focusing to that depth. The overall state of play at this afternoons break was this I've even started putting some thought towards the separate roof. I printed off some fixtures that I think will help a lot with the roof. I'll be using 6 mm diameter brass rod to keep all the sections aligned And for the roof itself I think I am going to go with bass wood strips - easy to cut and sand. This is just early days though and really just testing the concept out. I find it hard to believe that after so long the end is almost in sight. The one main hurdle I still have left is the soft furnishings - the chairs! They have rather a complex leaf pattern on the fabric which caused me some sleepless nights in the past, but I think I now have a solution so stay tuned folks. I really must put some more time into designing the display case as I'll need to think about getting one made very soon. Eek!

I found some spare time on Sunday to bunker down in the basement for a few hours and get some more done. I was looking forward to begin fitting at least some of the roof structure. A last look over before I began and I realized that I hadn't yet fitted the cover strips between the walls and the ceiling partition. There should be nice white strips going around the top edge of the bathroom here. I also spotted that as currently built, there were going to be elements of bare wood showing as well - seen here on the rear face of the dinette panel. The cant rail is outboard of those panels and while it hides them to some extent it doesn't hide them completely. This was something I never planned for as originally there was going to be a roof on this and therefore I never really gave it much thought... until now. I quickly made up some cover strips for the bathroom and then carefully, very carefully painted the top edge and rear of all the wood panels with stain. It must have been one of those days for remembering things - just as I was about to start my new roofing career, I remembered the toilet roll! I must have planned ahead for this at some point because as I ratched about in my Pegasus' boxes I came across one solitary "thingy" that I had turned on the lathe - I had even drilled a hole in it. Another ratch around found a small stainless steel rivet which worked to hang the toilet roll on. The toilet roll was simply a piece of styrene rod with a hole drilled though and then painted white. Looks convincing enough though. Then fitted. Apologies for photo quality but the camera just didn't want to focus here. At least you can see it's there. A job I was quite concerned about was the fitting of the three chromed rails in the bar. Fitting them was the easy part, but getting all three aligned was more of an issue. Get that wrong and it was going to look like crap from outside - and I couldn't see that side as I was fitting them. I finally got to turn Pegasus around and was pleased to find that the alignment seemed pretty good from outside. Not perfect, but certainly passable. After all that it was time to begin fitting the roof structure. First on were the shear beams from vestibule rearwards using CA and TET. I had a little cutting and shutting to do with the first carline section - I found the ceiling partition was just a tad too tall, and interfered with the longitudinal Tee section forcing it to turn skywards. That was easily rectified by filing two recesses for the Tee section to sit into. I designed the carline sections with a rectangular section just below, and offset from, the cant rail. I have a 2 mm gap between the skin of the side frame and the rear face of the paneling, and that rectangular section slips in there nicely with the cant rail resting directly on top of the side frame. The carline section was glued in using GS-Hypo allowing me some time to gently position the carline section in place. Next up were the formers that shaped the compound curves of the roof ends. This wasn't an easy task - 1.5 mm x 1.5 mm Tee section in very brittle plastic. It was swipe gently with the file, test fit and repeat numerous times. To be effective and not look out of place, the former must lie at the same height and level with the top of the carlines, and span between the end carline and the skin at the vestibule end. This is the first one glued in place Finally, all four formers done and in place. The two in the center run parallel with the longitudinal axis of the car, but the two formers outboard of them are slightly canted and angled in towards the two box sections either side of the gangway. From some angles they can look a bit weird, but that was the way we designed it - so that's the way it is. Convincing, no? Then a shot from the side just to check levels and squareness etc of the structures. I'm happy with that. Next on the never ending list of things to do during Covid was to start adding the shear brackets and shear plates. The three shear brackets that are fitted along the length of the outboard beam were straightforward, but there's also a vertical shear plate that connects inboard of that outer beam to the roof skin. That was a little more challenging. It was a case of trim a bit, try a bit to get the vertical portion of the shear plate - the awkward part of this operation was that there is a flange on top of that vertical shear plate and that flange is bent over and runs at the same angle as the roof... along a curve!. To accomplish that I cut a wide strip and glued it long the straight top edge of the the shear plate. I held it at an appropriate angle while the TET dried. Then glued around the curve of the shear plate. I ended up with a really wonky looking "T" shaped thing. Once the TET had dried I trimmed it back with a sharp blade, then finished off with a sanding stick. Another one of those to make then I get to do this all over again at the other end... then figure out how to do the soft furnishings as they need to go in before I can finish the roof structure.

Sorry Mike - I don't think I have enough years left in me to try this again Thanks Keith - the problem is once you add a certain level of detail, you have no option but to continue the same level of detail everywhere else. I think I shot myself in the foot there. Thanks Mike - I wish I could keep up at times. I feel sometimes that I need a little break from this, but it's so close to finishing I don't want to take a break in case it turns into one of those long ones that have interrupted this build at times y'mean you don't know? nope, no bananas there You nailed it Jason - it may have fallen out of use in the UK but here in the US it's still a common term. It's generically used for any pallet box/bin containers yes, resorts no, though I feel sometimes that it'd be better if someone just shoved me in a box and locked the lid Work continues today but nothing much to show - just loads of those really time consuming little details that never end up being seen, but need done nonetheless. I have a couple of days vacation this week so hoping to make some major progress - we'll see

Thanks Richard, I think this post may be even tremendouser...er - at least longer! Thanks Mike but I could fill a gaylord with all the broken bits I have - why on earth I keep them is beyond me. They're bound to come in handy one day Today's update may get quite long and there's a very good chance I am going to be jumping around all over the place - I've been working from one end to the other this week and also getting some of those "have to do before you can move on" jobs out of the way. Life sort of began this week with an oopsie. Bummer. My plan was to have one door closed and one door open on each side so that you can see into the vestibule at each end. When I picked up the door I realized I had glued the handle on the wrong side of the door - so, off it had to come - thankfully with only minimal damage. I still have plenty of the transfers left so a small patch repair was applied. Then I realized I had ran out of the door handles I had printed at Shapeways so long, long ago. Now, a year ago that would have been a major issue but now, I can just throw the model into the printer and have at it and an hour later I have more handles than I know what to do with. Honestly! I have no idea why I printed so many when I only needed about three. Senility eh? Here's a quick comparison of my home brewed handles versus the Shapeways expensive option. Can you tell which is which? Actually, the home brew is on the left. It could be argues that the home brew is lacking a smidgen of detail that the Shapeways version has, but that could well have been my printer setting - and my FEP film was getting a bit battered and needed to be changed out. But hey - if you can tell those apart from a foot away then you're a better man than I. Handles were duly glued in place - this time double checking I was applying them to the correct side for the door opening. After that, I had to shape the interior paneling. Surprisingly I got a decent fit at the first attempts on each doorway. complete with rebate for the door to close up against. Not that anybody will ever notice it. At long last, all, yes that's right... ALL the doors are finished, complete with hardware and ready to be hung... unless I decide to add hinges. Dammit! Hinges - I will need to add hinges to the open doors but that shouldn't be too difficult a task. At the newly fitted vestibule end, the fixed door got fitted. I do like how that all looks together. Some of that hardware was a real pig to make but it does bring it to life doesn't it? At the other end I did a quick dry fit to get a visual of how the open door scenario is going to look. Works for me it does. The hand rail on the right is a little bit out of alignment but those things are so fragile I don't want to force it and it can really only be seen from this angle. I dunno, downright sloppy workmanship eh? I guess this is really another milestone. For the first time in this build, both vestibules are fixed in place along with all the doors, or at least, two doors and two door frames. While all that kerfuffle was going on the printer was churning nicely away in the background. I kept feeding it until I had three prints ready. This time I removed 90% of the supports before the final cure, leaving only those support necessary to keep the part square while it had a sunlight bath. Things went pretty good this time with no breakage and the only damage was to the end of one of the cant rails where one of the clamps bent it over and I didn't notice until I was removing the clamps after curing. One thing I realized once I started assembling this was that I was being a tad dense in my design work. I had broken the roof structure up into 60mm long sections as that's what fits nicely on the printer. That meant that I had a lot of Tee bar sections ending in mid span and I was going to have to do a lot of joining these together to make up the full roof structure. I'm going to print off some lengths of Tee bar and some cant rail separately, that way I can end the Tee bar at the carlines, than add a small length of tee bar between the carlines. I think that will look tidier than trying to join a bunch of T's in mid span. Now, since I am going to have the entire structure open I am going to have to do something with the mess at each end - back when I started this whole adventure I never envisaged having no roof so I never really gave any thought to the internal at the top of the vestibule - the roof would have covered all that - not so now. Checking back through the drawings I found that 4 lengths of steel box section was used to strengthen the vestibule area - one of the main reasons for the rebuild and so that it would comply with (then) current crash regulations. A quick search through the brass parts drawer revealed some box section I had bought off the cuff about ten years ago - and it was the perfect dimension. Win! I cut some short lengths, glued them in place then added a small length of plastic I Beam between them. Okay, that's beginning to take shape now. That was the easy part - I then spent about thee or four days messing about with no clear idea in my head as to what I was trying to achieve. My first thoughts were to make the wooden ceiling panels and I could fit small brass light fittings to them. Then I changed my mind. Idea No 2 was to chuck the wood, and use plastic square rod to replicate the strengthening beams in the vestibule area. Then I changed my mind again. I prefer using brass if at all possible, so started all over again At this point, rather than just looking at the drawings, I actually looked at the drawings... and it all came back to me. A lot of design effort went into designing the vestibule ends to meet crash regs, and one of the things we had to do was really beef up those areas and we did that by adding more beams and shear plates to absorb any potential impact. Just above the vestibule ceiling we had beams going from the front pillars, back past the end of the side frames and extending into the first compartment from each end. Like this below. Those beams were then connected to the side-frames by a number of shear brackets to transfer the load from the vestibule to the main side frames, as well as being welded to another set of pillars coming up through the partition separating the bathroom (and kitchen at the other end) from the vestibule Unfortunately the brass sections I had available, though they were of the correct X-section dimensions, had very rounded edges that I didn't like (after I had started making up the frame.) So, I changed my mind again! This time I ended up with this That all looks a bit messy so I threw some primer on, and even with the primer it starts to look a lot more like it was actually engineered, and not just thrown together. The shear brackets I mentioned above fit between the outer section and the cant rail - the small white bit that you can hardly see here below. There are three shear brackets on each beam so I have to make 12 of these little when the time comes. It's going to be quite an interesting challenge when it comes time to fit this all together as I can't fit those shear brackets just now as they need to fit inside the cant rail, so I'll need to wait until the roof structure is in place before the fun and games begins. At some point during all this melee the partition got fitted between the bathroom and the dinette, along with the small plain cornicing. It's amazing the difference those last strips make to the overall appearance. The cistern got fitted. Then I had a realization... The bathroom ceiling can not be arched as in the rest of the car due to those honking great beams passing through. The bathroom ceiling either has to be flat - or it has a step to hide those beams from the interior. As I left the company in the final week or two of the build, I never got to see it fully fitted out, and there are no photo's to my knowledge of the interior of the bathroom - or at least I don't frequent those particular websites that would! That left me with a problem - the cistern pipework. That probably wouldn't exit into the bulkhead as I've shown but since it's above the ceiling it would just carry on and route to wherever it needs to go. Then an unlikely sensible portion of my brain kicked in - the cistern was not functional. We only included it because it was on the original car and it looked cool so we had it cleaned and refitted it. That being the case, the pipework would more than likely just disappear into the ceiling and end there as the ends would be hidden. Though that would be accurate I think it would look untidy so I've chosen to stick with my version. Sorted. So while it may not be 100% accurate, it is reasonably close. Disaster averted we moved on down the car. Probably 4 or 5 years after it was originally made, the dinette/corridor partition was fitted and that meant that I could now fit the cornicing around the dinette. What a difference instead of hang those raw edges exposed at the ceiling level. as a quick comparison, the bar side is still "unfinished" while the dining room side has the cornicing fitted. - Though not without some issues of my own making. I hadn't really paid close enough attention to the height of the cover strips and they weren't all equal. Yeah I know - sloppy workmanship yet again. That meant in order to prevent the cornicing wandering all over the place I had to trim the tops of the cover strips so the alignment was reasonably horizontal. A brand new sharp chisel blade came in very handy here to remove the high offenders and even up the top level. While I was traversing up and down the car, I remembered to fit the last three hand rails - the three chromed rails in the bar area. The drunkards can be herded safely now. I also started on more ceiling partitions - this time the dinette/dining area partition. The hole in the center is for the ventilation - coming soon to an exciting episode near you. There's been a bit of discussion here and there about white versus red oxide and which would be best. My gut instinct was to stick with red oxide as that would be be more realistic and actually reflect the real build. Well, during the week, a small jar of red oxide magically appeared. How as it going to look? Judge for yourself... ( beams just dry fitted) Personally, I think it looks great. It's not too bright and in a remarkable stroke of luck, it does seem to go with the overall color scheme, blending in very nicely. So while the airbrush was fired up I slapped some paint on a couple of roof structure segments. I'm liking this red oxide finish. - it really looks the part. The big question though is: How does it affect the overall visual when trying to look at the interior? As far as I can tell, it's gong to be absolutely fine. This shot is digitally untouched and all the color hues are very similar yet you can still clearly see inside without being distracted by the framework. I did adjust brightness and contrast on this one, but threw a table in there just to see what the effect was like. I firmly believe that once the tables and chairs and other assorted gubbinses (i.e. lamps) are in place, you will hardly notice the roof structure. wow. This has been a bit of a mammoth post so I guess it's time to leave and get some more coffee. I'll leave you with a couple of parting shots of where we stand now I find this shot strangely comforting okay. I'm finished - yes really. I am. The printer is finishing up another print and I want to see how it turned out since I went a bit crazy with the exposure times for a small experiment. toodle pip chaps

ah... the weekend. Storms and flash flood warnings. What more can a man ask for ? (Saved me from taking my evening constitutional in 90 degrees and ungodly humidity levels). So where did this weeks little sessions get us to with Pegasus then? All the paneling was finished last time around and now it was time to start on some finishing touches. In the bar as mentioned previously, there are three chromed handrails to prevent inebriated passengers from falling out of the windows. Unfortunately, when I came to drill the holes for the hand rails using the little jig that I made and surprisingly enough, hadn't lost, I came a cross a small problem. The drills were too long to fit in the available space between the wall and the bar front. That led to some expletives frustration kicking the dog innovative thinking and resourcefulness (of a sort). I ended up snapping a drill bit and gluing a small styrene disc to the end to use as a sort of thumb-wheel - that allowed me to get the shortened drill into position and eventually get a semblance of some holes in the woodwork. Not fun. The hand rails were made up from brass rod and I'm using the ruler here to verify that all three handrails are on the same plane. Everything seemed good so the hand rails are now off chromed and waiting for the clear coat to cure. I also did a test fit of the first luggage rack. While I think it looks okay, I also think it could do with the top rack being a tad longer and angling upwards slightly. I've adjusted the model and the new version is ready for print. Once I've printed those I'll do a side by side comparison to see what looks better. Remember the printed roof structure ? Even though it wasn't correct and one broke into many pieces, they didn't go to waste. I repurposed this bulkhead .. by sandwiching it between two sheets of styrene and this can now fit between the bathroom and the dinette. I'm using the other frame to ensure that I'm going to have clearance for the new roof when it's fitted And in a surprising stroke of luck, this bulkhead allows me to terminate the cistern pipework in a believable manner. The wooden strips shall be painted white - well, not those strips as I decided they were too thick, but their replacements will be white. The the corridor wall got fitted and the sink added. All that's left now is a toilet roll holder, if I can remember to make one. All of which now brings us to this stage. All the paneling is complete and really only finishing touches to be added to the interior for the main part. We're still missing a vestibule end and a few minor items. But before I get to that point I had to reverse a bit and flip her over. It's a long time since she's been belly up and I had a forest of cobwebs and an army of arachnids to re-home before continuing. Quite amazing just how many cobwebs can appear over the years when you're not working in there. Anyways, the reason for turning her over is that at some point, this is going to be fixed to some tracks which in turn will be fixed into a display case. With surprising forethought I had actually built in a method by which this would be fixed, although in the intervening 6 years I had never got around to actually doing anything about it. As I'm about to begin some fragile work that will be above side frame height, this was my last chance to be able to do something without having a possible wreckage on my hands. You can just about make out a small bolt and nut in the middle of the bogies in this shot. That's what holds the bogies to the chassis - or at least it is in this build Removing the original machine screw which was holding the bogies in place, I replaced that with a small length of thread rod. That thread rod was then locked in place with a slim nut, and on top of that I used coupling nuts - quite appropriate really. Coupling? Trains? oh never mind. When the coupling nut is painted black it disappears into the background and is not really noticeable - and it allows me to thread in a bolt from under the tracks when I'm ready. While that was going on I made some blinds - Luckily when I painted the curtains I kept the excess paint in a pipette and stopped with a cocktail stick. I find that paint can keep for some time in that fashion. The blinds were fashioned from some sheet styrene, some small plastic rod, and I found some brass widgits on a scrap PE fret I had lying around which make reasonable blind handles/hooks/restraining thingies. The blinds then got fitted to the dinette/corridor wall - this is the view from the dinette side and the view from the corridor side. They pass muster Once Pegasus was back right side up, the Trianon bar sign (finally) got fixed in place, and in this shot I'm holding a section of cornicing along the top edge which is how it will be in it's finished state. - with the dust removed of course. The second vestibule end got fixed in place - a job I've been avoiding for months with no reasonable excuse as to why then just to finish up this evenings work, I dry fitted the dinette wall even tho' I know it fits and took a shot from outside. I just know I'm never going to be able to get all the dust out of this thing. Anyways, must dash and make some dinner - hopefully some more work to show over the weekend.

I think the white is too stark over the interior and draws the eyes too much. Transparent carlines would be difficult and I don't think they would look good unless they were crystal clear like glass. Aaaand you are absolutely correct sir! I should have stated 40mm Tee bar -which works out at 1.25mm exactly. Beefing it up to the 1.5mm as I did would have equated to a 50 x 50mm Tee bar which wouldn't have been out of place. (me jaded memory got things back to front) Hopefully the red oxide will blend in to the build as hoped. I spent a few hours the other night and have constructed all the roof sections now I just need to build the support structure and slice them and then they'll be ready for print

With difficulty I would imagine. The double seat on the other side of the wall from the dinette also has the same issue. Maybe they get a partial discount? or extra napkins! Today's update doesn't bring much in the way of yer actual physical construction process, but it does give me a massive leap forward into knowing how this is all going to come together, more of which later. The dining area was fitted out. Heater box installed, curtains and pelmets installed, which leaves just the lamps, luggage racks, a mirror, table brackets, and chairs and tables. (The white is just the diluted PVA before drying - it disappears nicely when dried.). Oh, I also need a few signs and some other trinkets such as passcom etc. Paneling was finished off in the bar area. As per dining area - lamps etc still to be fitted. In addition, in the bar area, there are two small wall mounted bench seats which I still have to make and figure out how to do the covering though that shouldn't present much of an issue. Here's an overall view of how things stand at present. Still a few panels to fit in place, vestibules to finish off, doors between compartments to add, so still a reasonable amount of work to be done. It's really taking shape now though. Working at home has given me a lot of opportunity to move this thing forward. It's amazing how much those lunch-breaks and time not spent traveling has added up. I reckon I get about an additional 60 - 90 minutes per day on this compared to pre-CV19. Now on to something exciting - sort of. A problem that has presented itself on and off throughout the build is how on earth am I going to display all this when it's finished? All sorts of solutions have been proposed and explored and for every solution there was one or more downsides and I just couldn't figure it out... until last week that is! The conversation that spouted the Carlines option. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the perfect solution. Dare I say even... elegant ? I can still do a full roof, and I can do carlines, cant rail and bulkheads over the car which will still allow everything to be seen. In addition the carlines will add a real element of visual interest. I'm liking this idea more and more. I then spent several hours trying to figure out just how to achieve that. Using styrene was out as the carlines consist of around 8 radii and I would never be able to get styrene to hold its shape - and I needed 30 carlines to be exactly the same. I ruled out 3D printing as I thought it would be too fine to withstand my clumsy handling, which left brass as the only real viable option. Brass Tee section in the right dimensions is widely available - just not here in the States After some research I found a supplier who would ship to the States, but it wasn't going to be cheap - and given current restrictions, it could be some time before it arrives. I'd also have the problem of making 30 carlines exactly the same. I knew I could create a fixture/jig, but the brass would have some spring in it and even after annealing the brass, bending a tee section isn't the easiest thing in the world. All that combined to set me thinking again - I have the 3D printer so what would I have to lose by trying a test print just to see how things turned out? A few hours of my time and nothing else - so I gave it a try. 50 mm x 50 mm Tee section was used on the actual build which worked out to a nice 1.25 mm at 1/32 scale. That seemed just a little bit on the light side so I beefed the tee up to a whopping 1.5 mm x 1.5 mm and hoped it would not be obviously over scale. Apologies for the quality of the photo, but you can still make out the Tee section of the carlines and the cant rail turned out way better than I anticipated. The first print turned out to be just a little on the large side - the width was too great by about 0.5 mm but enough to cause fitting issues. However the next couple of shots prove the concept. The tee section doesn't appear out of scale at 1.5 mm and the skeletal structure still lets you see clearly into the interior The only down side to doing it this way is that I have a limited print area. The width is no problem but I can only manage about 60 - 65 mm in length with each print. I could print in a different orientation but that would create more issues with the number of supports required and the subsequent cleanup. It works out that I'll need to create about 10 different prints as the carline spacing isn't constant. That is no big deal and easy enough to account for and should only be around 2 hours CAD work The only real issue to overcome is warping as the structure cures. When the print first comes out of the bath, the plastic is very soft and pliable and it's very easy to remove the supports. However, removing the supports allows the part to warp as it cures as there's nothing to fix the structure in place. Even with the supports still attached there's a certain amount of warping so I came up with this little contraption to clamp everything in place while I placed it outside for half an hour to cure under natural UV light. This is print number two with dimensions tweaked slightly and I reduced the number of supports to make clean up a bit easier, Ouch! Even after just half an hour in natural UV, the plastic became very brittle and a couple of the Tee sections broke off while I was trimming the supports. Just that small amount of flex while the snips cut through the plastic is enough to make things fly. But the good news is that it fits perfectly! Creating the rest of the roof is going to be a doddle now. The next question which arose was what color should the skeleton structure be? Staying true to the 1:1 build, all the roof skeletal structure should really be red oxide. Is white an option though? The finished roof is white so I can see a case for either color. I was a bit concerned that having a white skeleton over the car may detract from the interior as the brightness of the white may catch the eyes but a quick test shows that not to be the case (I think) I've ordered some red oxide paint so I'll do a side by side comparison when that arrives, but I'm pleased that I now have a definite path forward to complete this build - just a few minor issues to resolve first. Its obvious from my two prints so far that I need to remove the supports before the final cure on the plastic so I need to figure out a clamping method to fix the structure after the supports are removed and while it undergoes final curing. I'm sure I can figure that one out easily enough. I think I've also figured out the final display - the car itself will be on a raised plinth inside the case with the full roof in front of, and at a lower level than Pegasus. That will allow the full chassis to be displayed without any obstruction. I like it when a plan starts coming together

I'll work out the method if you want to come across and fit them! Things are continuing to move in a forwards direction. A lot of the stuff over the last few days has been of the cut, sand, stain, repeat persuasion. Infinitely boring. A break from the monotony arrived when it was time to fit a few more transfers. This lot is for the bar area Yet more heater boxes - this time in the dining area. I surprised myself by managing to make the heat box in one continuous section and still get it to fit Followed by more measuring, cutting, staining, etc as I needed the heater box for the bar area as well. I realized that I couldn't cut any of the cover strips to length without having the heater box in place. Brass got fitted to the dining area heater box - my very last section of that particular brass mesh - which is now OOP. I had to end up buying a selection of meshes to try and get something similar, or rather, not too obviously different. Also started making up the pelmets - and now I've got to try and keep track of what all the different pieces are for - not easy for an old sod like mesel. A small disaster struck when I was putting the gloss coat on top of the transfers - I got a run on one of the panels. Easy I thought - just sand it all back and re-gloss and stick another transfer on (luckily I was sensible enough to order extra). However, when I re-glossed the panel, there was and obvious defect which showed up if you caught the light - you can just see it here if you strain. I toyed with the idea of carrying on, but after a few milliseconds, it was Nope!, make another panel or I'd forever be staring at that defect. This evening I managed to get all the main panels glued in place. Still a lot of work to be done though - heater boxes, window cills, cover strips, then pelmets have still got to be fitted. One of those jobs I'd been putting off was the TRIANON BAR sign on the art work behind the bar. As far as I can tell, the real sign has Chromed letters mounted directly on the frame. I tried printing out a sign (top) and painted it up, but it was too large. I tried another (center) but trying to paint the letters was difficult - they are only 2 mm high. Then I came across a piece of photo etch (bottom) I'd made a couple of years ago and wondered if I could use that. I painted it using the same brown I used on the side frames. When the paint had dried, I put a piece of micromesh on top of a piece of granite, then very gently placed the painted Trianon Bar sign face down on the micromesh. Even more carefully I rubbed the photo etch back and forth on top of the micromesh in the hope that I could remove paint only from the letters and not the rest of the signage. I'd call that a success! Okay the letters are now brass and not chrome as I believe they should be, but this is by far the best Trianon Bar sign I've made so I'm sticking with this. Nothing ever goes according to plan does it? When I came to fit the sign, I noticed that a bunch of dust had somehow got behind the glass and was very visible down the left side of the artwork. As much as I didn't want to do this, I felt I had no choice but to try and open it up again to remove the dust. I removed the minimum possible number of pieces to let me in - once I had got this far, I could prise up the edge of the clear sheet and blow under it to remove the dust Then glue it all back together again! (I had to take the photo at this angle so the light would catch the text As you can probably see in the photo above, I also got the bar heater box made up and brass fitted. The mesh is slightly different but close enough to the original mesh I was using. Downsides again - the new mesh is so unbelievably thin that when the heater box is in place you can actually see through it and see the carpet on the floor. I'll need to add a dark strip of wood behind the mesh so that you can't see the carpet - a fairly easy job. now to figure out how I can purchase a whole load of brass tee sections without SWMBO asking awkward questions

RIchard, that idea came under consideration, but the anal retentive in me said, the original racks had a brass rod going from one end to the other so that's the way it had to be done. Seems I just like making things difficult for myself don't I ? Thanks Paul, I shall look into those as that type of tool always comes in handy at some point. Welcome aboard Steve. I'm glad you're enjoying the thread. I hope I make it through this post... the wife moved the computer to a new location and the network is lousy in this location. I added an extender yesterday but am not convinced it's made a whole lot of difference. As I'm progressing through this build. most of the 'big block' stuff has been done and I'm now moving on to the more finicky parts of the build. For finicky read extremely time-consuming. Today for instance: In the grand scheme of things, not a whole lot got done, but what did get done made a huge impact to the state of the build and is a great stride forward. Unfortunately from this point forward, almost every part has to be rough cut, trimmed, multiple dry fits, then sanded, stained, then clear coated. In the case of panels with decals, that's a gloss coat, the decal, another gloss coat, then finished off with a satin coat, and the inevitable wait in between tasks. In a lot of cases, I have to fit one panel before I can even begin to measure up for the next panel. Did I mention this was time consuming? Lets start with something simple though - the first corridor panel got a squiggly transfer stuck on, panel cut and fitted, along with the electrical cabinet. At the other end, I found the cistern tank I made 4 or 5 years ago. I know I had a plan for fitting this but am damned if I can remember what I was planning. Better leave that for now, it may come back to me Or I may need a plan B With the bathroom getting to a good point it was time to move on to the dinette. I loved this feature on the actual car - a small private area where 4 travelers could sit back an relax to enjoy the ride. That's if you could actually fit in there of course. It was a lovely feature but completely impractical. How the person(s) in the window seats ever got in and out must have been a feat in itself. As always, things begin with the obligatory dry fit. This was a bit more complicated than any of the other panels or walls. Not only had the panels to be square to the walls, but also to each other, and truly vertical as well, otherwise the dinette would end up all cattywumpus, and we can't be doing with cattywumpus on a luxury train can we? Once I had everything square I marked it out with masking tape to use as a guide when fitting the panel, with the added benefit of the masking tape preventing any glue ending up on the newly vacuumed carpet! Both dinette walls are now glued in place. This shot shows how I did the wood/styrene/wood lamination to prevent warping. Inside wall to inside wall is about 64 mm so there's not a lot of room to be working in there, and the more I add, the smaller it gets. Remember what I said about rough cut, trim, dry fit, stain, gloss, decal, gloss, sating coat earlier? These were two of those panels. Trying to get both of those squiggles to look symmetrical was a fun job Perseverance wins the day. Both panels got fitted which meant I could then proceed with the panels above and below the window. Once again, lots of dry fitting, swipe with a sanding stick dry fit again. Tedious. The view from outside is starting to look interesting though Another heater box was made up, and the two covering strips fitted either side of the window. Why I bothered with the heater box is one of life's great mysteries. There's no way on earth it's ever going to get seen once a table and chairs are in there. All together now.... but we know it's there don't we! That prompted a quick coffee break to let the glue on the cover strips dry enough to begin the next task. Now the cover strips were on I could measure up for the pelmet. The pelmet was made, cut, trimmed, stained, varnished etc. etc. etc. So in between each of those monotonous tasks I fitted the curtains. Then finally, I could fit the pelmet to finish off all the woodwork in the dinette area. I'm drawing the line at fitting the skirting boards. (I think!) Okay, the wood work is done, but does everything still fit in there? Remember what I said about it being impractical cosy ? At least the corridor wall still fits - but there's still a table to go in there! At some point during the last week, or maybe the week before - I'm completely losing track of time these days - I redid the table lamps in SolidWorks and reprinted a batch. I should really have taken a comparison shot with the other larger lamps, but completely forgot. Anyhoos, I'm very pleased with how the reworked versions turned out. Trying to paint that little ferrule on top of the lampshade was a pure delight. Not. I had to use a 000 Brush, biggly magnifiers and lots of eye strain to get those any way half decent. But what a difference those lamps make to the overall effect! (table just dry fitted for the moment) You can see what I mean now about the person who has to sit by the window I'm very pleased with how this has turned out - that lamp is much more in scale then my previous effort. Well, I think we've passed the cattywumpus test there, at least in my book we have. Then when the corridor wall is fitted, here's what you get - just imagine I've cleaned the dust and washed the windows. You're still not going to see a whole lot from this side. on the plus side though - I'm over the moon about how the dinette has turned out. There's still 4 lamps to be fitted, but I might leave all the lamps until nearer the end of the build, especially as I still haven't figured out how I am going to be fitting them. and here endeth today's session. Bloody monotonous and incredibly tedious - until the end that is. That's when it all became worthwhile. Now for those folks wondering how I am going to approach the roof conundrum... my plan is: Here's a shot of a 3D model that I built over 20 years ago now for this project. I've always loved the way this skeletal form looks. I think I am going to build the roof completely separate from the car and have it on display somewhere in the case beside Pegasus, perhaps on some kind of trestle structure?. I've always wanted to display the full roof with all the vents and other greeblies that adorn it. This allows me to do that. It will end up being a large case as the roof will need to be positioned far enough away for Pegasus in order to see the full chassis. On Pegasus itself though, I am going to build just the framing - i.e. all the carlines in place, along with the bulkheads that you can see in this screen grab. That way you get to see the interior in all it's glory, and I think the carlines will add another element of visual interest. I may include a portion of the roof over just one or maybe both vestibule ends - minor details still to be worked out. Just how I am going to do the carlines is another issue yet to be resolved. If I can get brass T section I may try forming them myself. If all else fails I can always 3D print them. At least that's my idea for this week, until I change my mind again. Overall, I think that concept will work, and it answers all the dilemmas posed by removable roof, clear roof, lifting roof etc. which all had a down side as large as the plus side. All in all, a good days work until next time - stay safe

isn't it amazing just how long you can spend ignoring something that should be blatantly obvious? More outbreaks of modeling have taken place. I even took a days vacation today so I could dwell down in the basement away from the sunshine and warmth. Luggage racks were printed up and turned out surprisingly well. I had tried printing these before but the previous version did not have the shelves fitted, only the brackets. I found that although they printed out fine, they were too flimsy to actually handle. This time I added the shelves and hoped they would turn out okay. They were still very flimsy though even with the shelves which was no real surprise - the shelves are only about 0.3 mm thick. They were still problematic to handle. Prior to going under the UV light they were still soft and a bit floppy and if I removed the supports before the UV, there was a chance they would warp under the heat/light. On the flip side, after they'd been under the UV, they hardened up but became very brittle. Out of 5 printed, I lost two to the parts snapping while I was trimming the supports - even the small amount of flex introduced by the act of snipping was enough to make the shelves break. I lost another one part to a bit breaking off while I was drilling - I'm drilling a 0.6 mm bit into a 1.2 mm boss so that only leaves 0.3 mm around - if I've got the drill dead center. I'll make sure I print plenty extra when I do the next run. Primed and painted, they do look good though - but still very fragile Then some 0.5 mm rod inserted to help provide a bit of strength and some visual appeal. There's 4 lengths of rod per luggage rack. Drilling each rack is a ridiculous effort - I have to start with a 0.3 mm drill then step up to a 0.5 mm bit then a 0.6 mm bit.... 12 times on each rack.. Then just to make matters worse, the 4 holes in the center bracket are too far for a standard drill bit to reach so I have to go in at all sorts of weird angles and try not to break the darned thing. Worth it in the end though - I just hope I have made them the right size as I had to guess on dimensions from photos Another time consuming task were the doors leading into the car from the corridors. As before, I had to make a laminate and sandwich the 'glass' in between two layers of basswood. This was one of those jobs where you do a bit - then have to wait for glue to dry, then do a bit more, wait for glue to dry etc. Then I've got to go around and stain all the fresh edges, and only once that's all done can I clear coat the doors. Yes, I checked - the doors leading into the corridors have bigger windows than the door between the bar and dining area. The bathroom finally got it's mirror fitted - that was one of those easy jobs. Now I could begin fitting the bathroom... Everything begins with the usual dry fit to make sure it all goes together according to plan Eeek! Wait! This wasn't in the plan... I found that several panels I had made previously had developed a rather obvious warp. I guess it's not surprising since they've lain around for three or four years at least. However, it gave me pause for thought and I couldn't help but be concerned that even straight panels could warp over time. To that end I had to compromise with longevity as the prime aim as opposed to accuracy. My chosen solution was to use a wood/plastic/wood lamination on strategic panels to add strength and prevent future warping. The panel to the left of the dinette has been laminated while the panel between the bathroom and dinette has had the plastic (1 mm thick styrene) added but still awaiting the final wood lamination to be applied. It means I've had to fudge dimensions a little and the dinette is now 2 mm narrower than designed, but at least I'll be able to sleep at night now. No doubt that 2 mm shortage will throw up some other problems when I finish off the paneling in there. The dinette panel from the dining area Then back to dry fitting - checking everything is square to the side frames and to other panels, and that all the panels meet up as they should with no gaps and with minimal work needed once fitted. (I can just about get my fingers into that corridor area so hopefully there won't be a lot of fettling to be done in there. I then spent over an hour trying to get the flooring done for the bathroom. The original design had some weird pattern on the floor and tiles were at 45° to the side frames. Trying to get that pattern somewhere in the middle of the floor without being partially obscured by any of the fittings was fun and a half. I ended up with bits of templates taped to each other to get the outline correct then carefully cut out one of the few pieces of (ink) printed flooring I have left and assembled everything in place. I think that's about as good as I'm going to get it. Now all I've got to do is glue that flooring in place and I can assemble the bathroom I'm sure I made a toilet roll way back in the past decade for this... didn't I ? I'll need to ratch about all the parts boxes to see if I can find it ... or maybe just print one

thanks Bucoops. it's always nice to get a response. lots of things going on today but nothing photogenic. It's now on to all the fiddly paneling which you've all seen before so not worth repeating those same old photos. I got some more table lamps printed and they're looking a lot better, and also printed some luggage racks as well. The luggage racks are a real faffle. They are so fine that out of 7 racks, I've lost 3 to them snapping as I'm trimming the supports and lost another couple drilling some holes. Thankfully it's easy enough to print another batch anytime.

Just a small update this time around. Things seem to be taking forever to accomplish these days. It seems the closer you get to the finish line the longer things take, or it could just be that now I am getting to all the finicky stuff. It's curtain fitting time! I tried shading them but it failed miserably so I settled with a satin clear coat, I'm not really a soft furnishings type of guy anyway. I wanted to make sure the curtains stayed in place once fitted so thought about using the tie backs as a securing feature. Looking though my stash I found some nice brass rivets which fitted nicely into the center of the pommel I had created in the tie-backs. At least they would once I had drilled a hole for them. Luckily I also have some stainless rivets when it comes to doing the curtains in the bar area since it's all chrome finished The pommels were drilled through and I offered the curtains up to the side frame and drilled through the woodwork for the rivet, adding a touch of superglue to the rivet as it was inserted. Curtains should be nice and secure now. As soon as the curtains were fitted I could add the pelmets which finished off the paneling nicely. Table brackets were glued in place - the brass paint was very glossy so I gave them a misting of semi matt and they look a lot better now I just need to get moving and finish off the tables now Over the last few months I've had that same side frame fixed but never actually looked at that side of the carriage. Now it was time to carefully turn it around and see what the curtains looked like from outside. I'll take that! With only lights and luggage racks to fit (until I remember something else I've no doubt forgotten about), it was time to fit the other side frame - and what a job that was! I won't tell you how long I spent trying to get the second side frame bolted into position - I'll just tell you that the watchmakers kit I ordered provided teeny weeny bolts of various lengths, but what they didn't tell you was that there was more than one thread size... but only one size of nut!!!! Of course I had picked the wrong threaded bolts. I can't believe it took me so long to figure that out. Idiot! But it's on now It's going to be tight working in there So, more progress achieved but still loads more to do. I did consider trying to do all the paneling before the side frame was fitted but that presents a different set of problems so I'm going to have a go with the side frame in place and see how it goes

The mojo was waning a bit this week so I purposely stayed away from the build and concentrated on some 3D modeling for another project which is now printing as I type. Come the weekend though, I was all set for another session. Cue the wife... "I just bought a dining table and some chairs, let's go and pick it up". What she didn't tell me was that it was 7 ft x 3 ft with 8 chairs and an interleaf. Several hours later I managed to get home with the table (still fully assembled) and the 8 chairs all stuffed in my old beater, the 2005 Town & Country. Say what you like about those things but it's amazing just what you can cram into one. So eventually I managed to get within arms reach of the build and I had completely forgot that what was awaiting me was painting. Well, nothing for it but to dive in and get it done. I hate painting, especially hand painting and I had airbrushing followed by hand painting for a good number of hours today. Apologies beforehand for the quality of the photos but the camera must have been on some weird setting and I didn't notice. First up were the curtains. Primed and then sprayed matt white on the outside face. That was followed by a custom mix - and for once I think I got a great match to the actual color I was trying to achieve. This was a mix of French Blue, Matt white, and a drop or two of yellow. I managed to airbrush the majority of the curtains but had to hand paint the tie back and the return as it came around to meet the white. Then hand painted the hem along the bottom of the curtains which was a real pig to do. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the outcome though the blue is pretty flat. I may give it a coat of satin to try and provide some accentuation on the colors. I can't see me getting away with the usual methods of weathering here - the curtains would just end up looking dirty. Then it was eye strain time. Painting some of the interior lights. These were incredibly difficult to paint as the parts were so clear you couldn't see any detail on the light itself until you had applied paint to it - with a 000 Brush! There's no making mistakes painting these - being so clear, it's impossible to remove paint if it gets on the wrong area and the part is scrap. That 'splodge' at the bottom of each light isn't a splodge - it's a fleur de lis shape (sort of) rising from the bottom of the light. The two chromed lights are for the bar area. I can see in this photo that need to go back and paint a couple of missed spots. oh goody! The table brackets also got a coat of brass but it's way too shiny I think. I'll give them a matt coat to dull that brightness down. Two brass hand rails are required for the corridor / dining area. I suppose to prevent drunken fare paying passengers from falling out the windows of an evening. In order to make sure I got the handrails level and all at the same height I made a small fixture to help me get a repeatable location when drilling. 1st hand rail dry fitted (and checking the curtains would still fit) I need to make some mounting plates for the hand rails - I don't think it looks right with the rod just disappearing into the woodwork. Just for kicks I stuck one of the new lights in place - it fits! That's much better than my last attempt. The blue tinge btw is the blu-tack I used to mount it shining through. Based on that, I'll need to paint the back of the lights before fitting them to the wall. (and remove all the dust) As is almost always the case - when checking thought my reference photo's again I spotted that the wall cabinets in the bar had a chromed bar along the back of the cabinet. I believe this was for mounting those upside down bottle holders thingies - and before you ask... no! I'm not going to make them! I did think I should add the chromed bar though. That was relatively simple - a small styrene strip covered with aluminum tape, then I used a short length of wood to give me the level, and stuck them on. Both done. and I couldn't resist throwing a couple of bottles in there. Note to self: must make some labels for the bottles To finish up today, it was time for the obligatory dry fit of assorted bits. and I may as well add a table lamp, a bottle and a couple of glasses (that can hardly be seen) I find those dry fits are always a mojo lifter. This is really starting to look like what my vision of Pegasus would look like when I started this all those years ago. Still quite a ways to go though. I'm glad I redid the chairs as they look so much better then the originals. I think I am going to have to reprint those table lamps. As nice as they are, I think they are oversized now that I see this all together. The top of the lamp should only come up as far as the bottom of the sliding windows. That lamp being so large gives it a toy-like appearance imo. Stay safe and cosy folks.

Thanks Richard. I think you are right - the chairs look much better now and more in proportion to the rest of the car. I'm printing another bunch now and have added 1.5mm to the length of the legs as I think they are looking a bit squat. I think that additional length in the leg will make a big visual impact

here's a shot inside the kitchen - the brass guard rail finally got fitted across the window. Brass mesh got fitted to the heater box and the heater box was installed using the old trusty diluted PVA. I love how it dries clear and leaves no tell-tale signs behind. Very useful stuff indeed. Here's my patented method for ensuring the tables all sit at the correct height - the top of the "T" fits into a slot I machined into the resin tabletops Like so... and my method for ensuring all the table legs look the same ('ish) - I'm using cocktail sticks as table legs and I found that the taper varied somewhat with some sticks being sharper than others. By dropping the cocktail stick into a small hole, I can then razor saw the tip off the stick, knowing that the diameter at the cut will be the same on all legs. But then I found that my patented method wasn't up to scratch. Putting the leg in the middle of the T-bar thing made the leg sit too far back from the table edge. Easy fix though - instead of drilling a hole in the center, I just cut a small V groove into the front edge which placed the table leg further forward. I know it's hard to see here from this angle, but the table on the left has the leg too far back, while the table on the right has the leg much further forward and looks much better to my eyes at least. Time for another dry fit. I placed the chairs on 5mm high blocks to see how everything looked. ... and wasn't happy! Dammit! The chair backs are too high. When I compare to my reference photos the chair backs only come up as far as the center of the marquetry star thingy. Here they are almost obscuring it. Bother. I'm not gong to all the bother of spending hours on fine marquetry if you can't see my handiwork now am I? I followed Suzie's dimensions for the chair so I don't know where things went skewy. Time for a rethink. I've already made these chairs twice and don't fancy gong through all that palaver again. I did try cutting down the back of one chair and it was quite straightforward, however, getting the curves of those 'pleats' (wrong term I know) to flow nicely around the top edge just wasn't possible. But hey! I got a printer - what if I printed one? So I did - with a couple of small changes. Fast forward a day and here we are fresh out of the printer with support structure still in place. Remove the supports and things are looking promising While I was on the computer doing the chair CAD work, I thought I may as well have a go at a pair of curtains I was going to try and make them from material, honest - had a plan and everyfink - but trying to get a hold of material these days is a bit difficult what with masked marauders everywhere buying it up for their masks. Here we have a pair of freshly printed curtains. Would you believe those curtains are only 0.3mm thick? Piece it all together - still got a lot of clean up to do on the parts yet though as you can tell by the chair backs. That's looking a lot better. The chair height is about right now, with the chair backs just below the middle of the star thingy. I could maybe add another millimeter to the chair leg. I don't think that would look out of place. A view from above and a more standard view. Okay, I know some folks may consider it cheating what with just printing the chairs, but after having made about forty of the over the last few years I think I've paid my dues in the chair making department so printing them isn't a complete cop-out (I hope). There's still a few tweaks to be made here and there. The curtains may be a millimeter or so too long so I'll figure out if I'm going to take the hem up a tad or not. I may just leave them as is. The tables are more problematic though - being resin there are loads of little pin holes everywhere. I thought I had taken care of them but when I sprayed them today I found that I hadn't. I'm going to try dipping them in floor polish and see if that fills up the pin holes. I'm starting to wonder if I need to fit the other side frame as I need that to get the position of the bathroom and the dinette - but I know once that is in place it is going to be very difficult to work inside - but it may be the only way to get things done. Things will probably slow down over the next few days as work is taking priority and I have a bunch of printing to do. Stay safe and keep away folks!

Today was a bit of a drag all things considered. I had a bit of a clean up which took a while and in no time at all it was back to its former state. I just can't work in a tidy fashion. No sir. As part of my clean up, I replaced the FEP film in the printer ready for a new set of prints. I had come across an issue a week or two back and knew I had to deal with it at some point. I put it off until I knew I couldn't ignore it any longer. Remember those fantastic little lamps that I got Shapeways to print way back when I was a young lad? Can you spot the problem here ? Oh yeah - they're too big! Now, while I have drawings for the structure and paneling etc. I do not have accurate drawings for the original hardware and I had eyeballed the lamps from photos. Obviously, my Mk I eyeball was out of calibration when I did those. If only I had made it about three quarters of a millimeter narrower. Sod's law in action. Of course, this is one of only two panels where I am going to come across this issue, and I considered just trimming off the offending lugs so that it would nestle in there but the purist in me fought back. They are too big after all, and I have a printer. Ergo, the cleanup and new FEP film - ready for some clear resin (my first attempt using clear). Fixing the lamps was no big deal, I just applied a 0.7 scale factor to the model and off we went. Since there was plenty of space on the build plate I threw in a few glasses as well. Here we are fresh out of the bath - but don't get too excited yet. I've heard things about this clear resin and we weren't out of the woods just yet. It does look lovely and clear though doesn't it? In case you are wondering why the Shapeways lamp is all white - I had soaked them in IPA to clean up the residue that Shapeways hadn't cleaned out - and only then found out that the resin reacts with IPA. New lamps shown here still attached to the build supports. Can you see another potential problem? The clear resin has taken on a slight yellowish tinge hasn't it. I've read lots of comments online about clear resins not staying clear once they have soaked up some UV's, however those don't look too bad. Certainly not as clear as they were coming out of the bath but passable. And they're the right size. It's a shame you can't see the detail on them in this photo, but the Mars printer continues to impress me by what it's capable of. The only problem I am going to have is painting something so small and trying to keep it neat. I did encounter one further issue and that was to do with the cavity in the lamp. I had designed them hollow, but the viscosity of the resin was too high to allow the resin to drain out of the cavity so the lamps are almost solid. That cavity was about a millimeter deep by a couple of millimeters wide. I wasn't too bothered as I had half expected that to be the case when I started the print. But what about the glasses I hear you ask? These glasses? Well, I was completely blown away by the quality of the print, really blown away. Here's the same glass on my fingertip. And this is where I encountered yet another issue - those stems on the glasses are that fine - on one type of the glasses it's only about 0.3mm in diameter - trying to remove and clean up the supports is a nightmare. Thankfully I have printed plenty extra. Here's a glass or two on the bar top. (I just had to see what that looked like). Passable, yes? You can see that one glass has a slightly bent stem. I may get around that by placing the glasses upside down on the bar top Or I could just stack them into the wall cabinets Let's get back to this yellowing phenomenon - as a quick test I stuck one batch of lamps under my UV lamp for about half an hour - can you tell which one it was? Hhhmmnnn. That could be an issue. Whether the clear resin will react like that under normal sunlight I don't know. I suppose I should throw a batch on the window cill and find out. I do have a plan B though - the glass on the 1:1 lamps is frosted white. I'm hoping this resin reacts to IPA the same way as the Shapeways resin did so I've thrown a lamp in a small bath of IPA and will wait and see. If it does react the same, then that solves the issue, though if it yellows over time I don't know there's anything I can do to prevent that. The reaming time today was spent working on more heater boxes - and I had to order more mesh as I'm about to run out. I also spent an inordinate amount of time making the 4 pelmets for this side of the dining area. For whatever reason they seemed to take forever. The pelmets have now been stained and a coat of semi matt applied. Looming on the horizon though are the soft furnishings, and curtains to be precise. I would have already started those but every scrap of material in Walmart and elsewhere has been snaffled to make masks and I can't lay my hands on anything suitable - but there's a plan B, or is it C by now? Covid stole my curtains - whodathunkit? Anyways, must dash... the printer is kicking out some more lamps and some bottles and glasses, then I had a Yoda to print for my daughter stay safe you lot

and on to this evenings brief update - Paneling 101. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before but I'm altering contrast etc on these photo's to make them a bit clearer, but that has the undesirable effect of making the wood grain look very coarse. In the flesh, the grain is not nearly as bad as it looks here. (Honest!) Anyways. After I had finished up on the outer paint work and started on the interior, I realized that I had completely forgotten about the inlays on the paneling. Had I thought of this previously I would simply have had Steve at Railtec do them at the same time as the others. However, knowing that Steve was very busy, and given current circumstances and uncertainties around international post and all that, I found a place closer to home that I knew would get through the post reasonably easy. In the 1:1, several of the mahogany panels have a birds eye maple inlay that I needed to reproduce. At that scale you're never going to see the birds eyes so to make things nice and simple I chose a color that I thought was close to the maple, and just had the designs printed in a solid color block. It was all a bit of a chance as I had never applied decals to wood before and had no idea how a decal would react to wood-grain. You always hear that 'oh the surface must be smooth and gloss coated' and all that. So I gave the panels a coat of gloss, but wood grain is still wood grain. Taking a leap of faith, I applied the decals to the panels and micro sol'd and set'd them following up with a gloss coat to seal them in, and later, a semi gloss coat for that satin look finish Everything is looking good so far... Aaanddd the first panel gets glued in place, starting at the corridor I'm very pleased with the decals - the carrier film has disappeared nicely into the wood Then more panels get slapped in place. Add in an electrical cabinet and a heater box and it's starting to look as if it all belongs together. Please ignore the skewyness of the paneling at the carline level - I'll even that off later and it gets covered by some cornicing anyway. I didn't realize those two windows on the right were so bad though - not until I knelt down to take this photo. The line directly above the windows also gets covered by the blind covers, but I'm still kicking myself for not noticing that earlier. My bench is at waist height so I'm always working from above and this isn't the type of build where you can simply pick it up and turn it around to inspect as you go. Lesson learned - I need to pay more attention and look from different angles in future. Overall shot showing the corridor and dining area Window cills added. These close up shots are gruesome aren't they? The white line on top of the heater box is diluted PVA again. It will dry nice and clear and you'll never know it was there. You can see here that I offset the panel joins. I know they look as rough as a badgers wotsit but these seams don't need to be neat as they get covered by would you believe... cover strips Like these ones getting added here. Believe it or not but this is my second go round with these. I had previously cut them all full height and glued them in position before I remembered that there's heater boxes all along the wall at floor level and the cover strips start at the top of the heater box, so in a mild panic I had to gently prise the cover strips back off, remove the partially dried glue, cut 10mm off each strip, then reapply the strips. Luckily I had a spare heater box from the opposite corridor that I could use as a template to position the cover strips This job didn't take long at all and has a huge visual impact on the carriage - I like those kind of jobs! That squiggle inlay at picture center caused a bit of a kerfuffle. It should lie in dead center of the panel, but the squiggle is not symmetric around either the X or the Y axis so trying to position it correctly was very awkward - and I didn't get it right. The cover strips are 4mm wide and the cover strip to the right of the squiggle overlapped the darned thing slightly, even though I had tried placing covers strips on the panel when I was fixing the decal last night. So rather than make a new panel and still have to guess the location, I trimmed half a millimeter or so off each side of the cover strip to reduce the width and be able to see the inlay properly. You'll also notice that there's still a cover strip missing from the window second from the left - that's because a heater box starts at that location and I'm going to have to trim the cover strip to fit around the heater similar to the one shown at the end of the heater box in the first window from left. There's also a partition adjacent to that window, but I'll need to fit the bathroom and the dinette to make sure I get the partition position correct. more heater boxes next I think

I've no idea what a Pochin Cup is but filling it with Whisky sounds fine to me! I'll apologize before I begin and just let you know that there will be a lot of photos in this post. That's because today I reached one of those milestone thingies. Yup. A milestone. A great step forward and the completion (almost) of something that I had been dreading for months. As it turned out, it didn't go too badly at all. In fact I have to say it went quite well - way better than I had anticipated. First thing this morning I spent some more time on the lathe turning these little blighters. From the left we have a wall mounting boss, followed by a coupe of ferrules, then an assembled ferrule and boss, and on the extreme right we have one test fitted to the end of a piece of scrap rod. When fitted, these will be at each end of the foot and hand rails and mount to the adjacent panel. Like so Things were beginning to get serious now and I was getting dangerously close to have to fit the bar. In preparation, I made this little throwaway jig which allowed me to place the mounting hole in the floor at the correct position relative to the foot rail mounting point on the bar itself. There is a small pin which inserts into the bar fitting and positions the drill perpendicular to the bar front. In theory all three holes should align vertically. In theory that is. Theories are wonderful things aren't they? More heart pounding moments followed as I drilled into the floor. My first position was slightly too far out from the bar, but thankfully I had only used a 0.5mm drill so I could reposition closer as the holes still had to be opened out. Once drilled and opened out, the chrome mounting plates were fitted. Nice easy job, and you can hardly see them against the carpet. Another rail was made using the same jig as before. This one was a bit easier to manufacture and I seem to be getting quite good at these now. The stanchions were all soldered up this morning and chromed - the rail itself is still brass at this point as I wanted to get the stanchions in position on the rail here and then add a drop of superglue to each one to hold it all together so things stayed in one place when I removed the rail for painting. A little bit of tweaking will be required to get the height correct but overall it's looking good so far. Thankfully the superglue held when I removed the assembly so it got a covering of alclad chrome, followed by a clear coat of Mr. Color clear - which I find stands up to handling much better than alclad's clear coats. ooohhh, really getting serious now. Much measuring and double checking of the offset from the bar 'cos if I glued this in the wrong place there was no going back. Well, there was but it was going to be a to have to redo it all. The hand rail was fitted and I used my favorite of late - diluted PVA wicked into the hole with the stand-off rods. I applied that a few times to make sure it was going to hold. It dries nice and clear and doesn't affect the chrome finish. At least, not in the same way my grubby fingers do. The bar was then masked up using slices of kitchen roll and a multitude of masking tape. Scary moments ahead... The hand rail was then alclad chromed, followed by a clear coat. I should probably have waited longer before clear coating, but I was getting a little bit excited at all this construction going on and wanted to see if I could finish it before the weekend ended. Otherwise I'd be tempted to skive off work to get it done. (unfortunately my conscience gets the better of me at times) Wait ! what have we got here then ? A milestone that's what! The bar top is only laid on top at the moment which is why it's still all a bit skewy. It'll flatten out when glued in place (says he with confidence!). We have hand rails and foot rails!!! Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cheated a little bit - because the vertical rods coming from the floor really hold the foot rail in place pretty well, I used short lengths of rod in the bar itself for the horizontals and just pulled them out until they touched the foot rail. Works for me. A drop of glue on the end will hold them nicely in position. Alignment isn't too bad at all. The curve at the extreme left on the foot rail is a little bit wide but I may be able to tweak that slightly when I finally add the glue at the next session. For hand made though, I'm pretty pleased with this. and more shots just because I took them (and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself at this moment) - maybe you can tell! It's all coming together quite nicely. These last two weekends have been very productive. This is a BIG step forward - and I'm hoping to make just as much progress over the next few weeks as a lot of the more difficult stuff is now done. and there we have it folks. The bar is almost complete. All that's left is to glue everything in place. No doubt there will be a few heart stopping moments as I do that - careful selection of glues methinks. There's so many moving parts here that I will need some level of adjustment as things go in. I think I'll have a whisky now thanks