hendie

good afternoon fellows I bring news. Plan B worked. Plan A involved meticulous planning (so was therefore doomed to failure), drilling, soldering, lathe work, more drilling and then I couldn't get the darned thing assembled together... but it did point me to Plan B so it wasn't all in vain. The constituent parts of Plan A (& Plan B ) are shown below: A section of hand/foot rail. A section of tube slid over the rail, and a length of brass rod as the stand-off. But first things first, I had to address the thickness of the brass tube. It was way over scale so took a journey via the lathe to get turned down - shown here a small portion turned down, and with the "hand rail" inserted The original plan was to drill a hole in the tube, insert the brass rod, solder it up, then remove the rod sticking through on the inside of the tube by sticking it back on the lathe and drilling it out. That actually worked very well - surprisingly well. I was convinced something would break, but no. However I could not get the hand rail down the inside of the tube afterwards - a small sliver of solder had worked it's way inside and my drill bit was just a fraction too small to completely clear out the inside of the tube. So the question was how could I solder it without getting solder on the inside? Aluminum! I had some aluminum rod that was a nice slip fit inside the brass tube, and since solder doesn't like aluminum, I figured that if I soldered the brass with the aluminum inside, then it might keep the solder from flowing inside. and guess what? It worked! A quick clean up of the solder on the outside, trim the tube down in length and it slipped nicely over the hand rail and could be slid from one end to the other end of the rail without jamming on the curves. The first one is shown here - this was a highly motivating moment - there was now a chance I could do this! The tube/rod arrangement was surprisingly sturdy given that the wall thickness of the tube was probably less that .25mm, so there wasn't a whole lot of area for the solder to get hold of. But it worked and that was all that mattered. All 6 stand-offs were made and slid on to the rail. They were then taped in place so I could stare at this for a while and try to figure out how to assemble it. This could be awkward. In preparation for the big assemble, I fitted the chromed back plates. Even just drilling that bar front was nerve racking - one slip and I'd have to start al over again from scratch and build another bar. I'm really glad I added the resin reinforcement yesterday as that really made a difference handling and working on the bar. I had a couple of false starts trying to assemble all the bits. Initially I had the bar sitting upright as shown here and tried to insert each of the little rods into it's associated hole. It was like trying to herd cats. Gravity had a better grip on those rods than I had. Then I laid the bar down on its back and used gravity to assist in aligning the rods with the holes. By gently lowering the rail from above I could guide each of the rods into its mating back plate. The hand rail was not centered on the bar at first (no surprise there then), but there was just enough wiggle room in the rail/tube interface to allow me to gently shuffle the rail along until it was centered Obligatory dry fit/Mojo booster I'm very pleased with that and a bit overwhelmed by the fact that it worked so easily. I do have one problem facing me though - the rails and all the fittings need to be chromed. While the assembly of all the components isn't terribly difficult it does take a fair bit of handling, and Alclad chrome just will not stand up to that handling. In addition, Alclad chrome needs a clear gloss coating to protect it. If I chrome the rails and clear coat before assembly, I'll lose the ability to be able to slide the rail into position through the tubes - yes, the tolerances are that tight. That means it is looking very much like I shall need to assemble the hand rail and the bar, then chrome the handrail is situ - trying very hard not to get it on any other parts of the bar. I think I need another lie down. The foot rail will be a lot easier to position and secure, but that's a job for another day.

Thanks Simon. I should have been more clear - what I meant to say was that each of the fixtures will enter the bar at different angles relative to each other. You are correct in that they will all be perpendicular to the bar itself. That poses a unique problem in that the end points of the stays are not in the same 3 dimensional location as the holes as they will be buried inside the bar. Does that make sense? I've spent a frustrating morning attempting different solutions with no luck so far, but each iteration has provided some useful information and I think I now have a solution - stay tuned You're not the only one! I'm making this up as I go along and never quite sure where things are going to end up. I surprise myself at times (other times I just want to slap myself!) thanks for following the thread - I really appreciate the comments and suggestions

I decided I couldn't live with the wall cabinet being out of whack so with heart in one hand, and a chisel bladed knife in the other I cautiously wiggled the chisel blade down the back of the cabinet. A slight crack was heard as the superglue gave way and I just had to repeat the operation along the length of the cabinet. Once released, I cleaned it up and with a bit more care this time, stuck it back in place. There... much better now. During multiple sessions this week, mainly lunchtimes, I got all the windows sorted out. 44 little panes combined to make one big pain but at least the job is done now. The small panes were cut from 0.25 mm thick clear styrene sheet and the large panes were cut from Acrylic sheet - 1mm thick I believe. (and just realized that I mentioned all this in my last few posts!) Anyhoos - here they are from the inside and from the outside (without clamps!). I still need to send the window cleaner in at some point. The opposite side was a lot easier to do since it wasn't attached to the chassis. though I did temporarily attach it to get a sense of what this is going to look like one day... One of the windows was a bit tight and as I was fitting it the paint cracked and started to lift. Once my little panic attack had subsided I decided the best thing to so was to press the paint gently back in place and then applied some diluted PVA to hold the flakes in place. A bit annoying but not the end of the world. I like this shot - it really makes me feel like the end of this build is within reach, and gives a great sense of what Pegasus is all about. Then it was back to reality! One of the more challenging portions of this build are the hand and foot rails that adorn the bar. Like everything else in this build, I hadn't given it much thought until it was time to attack it - I'm just making this stuff up as I go along you know. The hand rail and foot rails need to follow the curvature of the bar itself, and maintain a constant offset from the bar, otherwise it's going to look all cattywampus innit? I had ordered a bunch of materials to (hopefully) be able to try and get these rails sorted out this week. Among the materials was a soft bendable (or so it was advertised) brass rod. To create the rail I drew around the bar top then stuck a bunch of spacers offset by 2mm which is the gap I want to maintain. The bendable brass was certainly bendable - a bit too bendable to be honest. This was my first attempt Not too shabby but I was annoyed by the small kink seen on the left side just as it transition into that large curve around the front of the bar. I've tried rolling it and a bunch of other stuff but can't seem to get rid of the kink. It doesn't look too far out when just laid against the bar. There is a certain springiness to the brass which would would allow me to pull/push into alignment as it's fitted But it still annoyed me so I made one in aluminum. This one seems better - the curves flow more fluently. However I'm not sure how the aluminum will take the Alclad chrome paint. I know that I can get a really nice chrome finish spraying the Alclad directly onto brass, but never tried it on aluminum... time to try it out I guess. Shown here are the 4 tools I used to obtain the different curvatures -yes, really, those are what I used! As I was pondering all this stuff over, I had another realization - the bar was pretty flimsy. Now, I made this bar way back early on in the project and it's sat around and I've never really given it much thought -but now... if I am fitting rails to the front, the surface I am going to be fixing to needs a bit of rigidity and some strength behind it. I had used thin styrene sheet to get the curvature and that would never stand up to my usual clumsiness when fitting the rails. I considered gluing strengthening panels in behind, but it was awkward and wouldn't work on the tight curves. Then I remembered a solution I had used before - I mixed up some resin and just poured it in where I was going to need support. It's not the prettiest solution but it works. Sometimes that's all you need to do. The bar now has a bit of weight to it and is a lot stronger I thought the rails were going to be the hard part - until I realized that the rails need to be held in place by stanchions or whatever they're called. 5 on the handrail and 10 on the foot rail (5 to the bar and 5 to the floor). I spent a couple of nights thinking about this while going to sleep and ended up ordering a bunch of stuff off the web to try out - then thought "Numptie!' - I have a lathe. I should be able to do this myself. After a few false starts and design iterations I had something that I think is going to work All I had to do was make at least 15 exactly the same. Actually it wasn't that difficult once I had the first one worked out. The two empties stuck in the styrene square were first generation. The one with the brass rod sticking out is the final version. 2.75mm in diameter, a metric baw hair thick, with chamfer on the edge, and a 0.8mm hole through the center. I threaded them all onto a rod for ease of painting, then thought -aha! I can solder these in place and just cut the rod to length - but I'm not convinced that's the way to go just yet (I'm still making things up as I go along) Due to the curvature of the bar - these are all going to enter the bar at different angles - and they still have to be attached to the rails yet. I need to get the holes in the bar to line up with the (still to be drilled) holes in the rails, taking the offset into account... I'm off for a lie down while I try to think this one through.

Today was another one of those spend ages doing things for not much visual progress, but things that need done one way or the other. I did start off with my 'quick win' for the day, though it took a bit of courage to actually do the work. The final position of the cabinets was marked out - after measuring and measuring and measuring as once they're glued in they're not moving. There is a cornicing fitted around the roof line so I used a 1mm brass angle taped to the top to get an even line - butting the cabinets up against it and still managed to mess up with the cabinet on the right. Thankfully it's not too noticeable when everything else is in place. It's on with superglue so I was too scared I'd cause more damage removing it so just left it in place. The cover strips went on without any issue though. Then the obligatory dry fit to boost morale. I also added the second heater control, though I've still to paint the knob (blob of PVA glue) red. The Golden Arrow frame is still not glued yet as I have a TRIANON BAR sign to fix to the front of it and I reckoned it would be easier to do that then fix the entire shebang in place. If I'm feeling brave at the next session I may try and lever it off and refit - but only if I'm feeling VERY brave. The bar is almost complete -apart from the opposite side paneling of course. I'm also waiting on some assorted tubing arriving so I can tear my hair out trying to make the hand and foot rails. THen there's the bench seats... then the lights... window rails... dammit, still lots and lots to do here. The majority of yesterday and today was spent cutting windows... lots and LOTS of little windows. Then another age was spent wicking diluted PVA into the joints. I did that once yesterday then several times today to make sure I got a good seal in there holding the windows in place. The last thing I want is for one of these blighters to pop out when I'm doing the final tidy up. Then I bit the bullet and glued the frames, well, four of them, to the main window itself. After that it was another of those 'how on earth am I going to do this?' half hours where I just sat there staring at the build. I needed to see the outside of the car to make sure there were no glue trails or leaks, but I also needed to be able to see inside in order to be able to apply the glue. After faffing about for a while I ended up with this ridiculous arrangement - precariously leaning the car over about 45° so I could apply glue, then tilt it back upright so I could check outside that all was well. So far so good... After the 4th window I'd had enough for the day - my nerves were shot so I'm taking a rest for the evening. Overall, I'd say I made pretty good progress over the weekend, but it's back to stay at home to work tomorrow so I dare say things will slow down a little.

For those of you who are just dying to try this at home, and I know there are many... Here's hendie's guide to mirror making. Use the template to mark the 4 pilot holes, and scribe two lines. Enlarge the 4 holes slightly, cut along the two guide lines, then just remove anything not mirror shaped. Easy wasn't it? Well, it was 'cept it took me most of the day to get two that I was happy with. So here we are - the bar side of the partition is 99% there. Some skirting was added, along with a heater control on the skirting. (and now found out I need another heater control for the opposite side skirting) The door was finished off, chrome handle added, and two of those damn mirrors stuck in place. and can you see that double curvature that I was trying so damn hard to capture? Can you heck as like. Oh well, that's modeling for you. I also (very fortuitously as it happens) found out today that I can't fit the center partition now or I won't be able to put the second side frame on later - at least not without slight modification. I need to fit both at the same time. at least the two mirrors on this side look close enough to being identical. Doesn't really seem much for a full days work does it? I'm not sure whether to model it with the door closed or with the door open to the dining area. Until next time....

Thanks @Hilux5972, @Bucoops, @Ceptic your comments are appreciated I've been tied up with a lot of small odds and ends - nothing really major, but a lot of those tedious little tasks that take an age but you'd spot them (or rather not spot them) a mile away if they weren't there. The windows, those damn windows, got a second coat of clear this morning and I spent about an hour just cutting and trimming lots of little windows to go into the frames. Then I got bored. So I made up the threshold plate that sits betwixt car and diaphragm and stops you falling through the gap. I had made some up in styrene and covered in textured foil - then remembered I had bought a sheet of tread-plate some years ago. It's a little bit over-scale but works for me. I also fitted the drop down shelf inside the vestibule - you can just see it hiding out of focus in this shot. The replacement mirror tiles finally arrived, so the bar got a mirror fitted. The tiles are 1mm styrene and the quality of the mirror is very good - the down side is that being styrene, the surface scratches VERY easily - hence why I'm leaving the protective cover on for now. The mirror was cut with a razor saw, then I filed the edges to give that beveled look. Now it was time to tackle another of those jobs that I had been avoiding - with no real defense as to why. The center partition. I've been mulling over whether to fit the second side so that I can really start tying things together - but am a bit hesitant. I know there's some things that will be made really difficult if that second side is in the way. However, the center partition needs to go in so I can continue paneling so... cut a bit of 1.5mm styrene Then realize that by the time I cut the door in there, there's going to be no strength left in the structure - and I feel that I need some rigidity over that length so - I found some square brass tube , trimmed the top of the styrene and glued the tube in place - making sure I had clearly marked out the door section which was going to be removed. Once I had removed the door section, it was a straightforward job to add the paneling. In cases like this, I often find it easier to make things oversize then trim back as opposed to trying to get exact sizes first time around. The door jambs as a classic example. I just glued in some big chunks, then butted the paneling up to that. Then to get a nice even lip I placed another piece of basswood on top of the paneling and sanded the door jambs down to that height. The piece of basswood prevented any damage to the paneling and set a nice 1mm lip all round the door frame Constant dry fitting When I had all the edges finished I also realized that I did not have the edging inside the door frame that the door closes up to ... the rebate? another dry fit - with some window dressing this time (sorry - it keeps me happy!) So now the partition is almost complete, (I always say 'almost complete' then within hours realize there's a whole bunch of other bits still to get done), it was time for the door. This part of the door was simple - just cut a door sized rectangle, then cut a window sized rectangle out of the door. So far so good... However, that piece of door is only one piece of basswood sheet - 1 mm thick, and somehow I have to fit a window into it. Well, I have a plan. That plan is to butt join two lengths of thicker basswood, mainly because one piece wasn't wide enough - but I was also hoping that having multiple pieces of wood joined here will help resist warping (which I have found happening on some of the pieces I made years ago) Since this basswood was much thicker - I could also hog out some of the inside face and place the 'glass' in there - and while I was at it, I hogged out some more and threw/glued in a chunk of brass plate Then when the twp faces of the door are placed together, there's no gaps. The chunk of brass should stop any twisting of the door in future. The door is now glued together and curing. Tomorrow the partition and the door will get some clear coat to add a bit of shine. One thing that needs added to the partition are the mirrors. There's 4 on the center partition alone. Dammit. And they're not just simple rectangular mirrors.. Oh no. They're fancy schmancy shaped mirrors they are. With 4 on the center partition and a number of those same mirrors stuck elsewhere throughout the car, I thought it only prudent to make up a template. Here is my first attempt in brass. Complete fail! - trying to trace around that shape even with a sharp blade was just asking for trouble. Another approach was needed. Template number two. Yes, this is the finished template, believe it or not. While it may look like a piece of crap, my first test worked quite well. The mirror has a double curved profile on each side - those 4 holes allow me to pilot drill the mirror, then open the holes out to form the double curve. The bottom section of the brass is the same width as the mirror - so this is going back to my 'make it oversize then trim it back' statement from earlier. It's much easier to form those double curves, then remove excess material, than to try and form those curves directly on an edge This is my first attempt with the new template. I've lost most of the double curve I was trying to create - I used a drill that was too large. I'll drop the drill size down for the next version Beveling was done by scraping the back edge of a blade along the edge of the mirror Then provided I can make a bunch of them that look half decent, they get fitted either side of the doorway on the center partition Stay safe and enjoy the weekend

More updates again though not much this time around. I spent a lot of the time fettling so the majority of the time was spent on non photogenic taskery. Still concentrating on the bar area, the bar top needed to be made. I traced around the bar then manually (and carefully) went around again with a fresh blade and trying visually to maintain a 1 mm or so offset from the pencil line Once I had the rough shape formed, it was a case of carefully scraping along the edges to get the curves as smooth as possible. I'm finding these days that I'm using the back edge of a blade to scrape rather than sand - for whatever reason it feels as if I have more control and I end up with a better (I think) result. Bar top placed for dry fit. Once I was happy with the shape, I took a tracing of the bar top, marked it clearly 'BAR TOP DO NOT LOSE!!!' and put it in a safe place. (It's a different safe place from where I placed those mirror sheets some months ago and then spent hours yesterday fruitlessly searching for those damn plastic mirrors... ended up buying them again from Amazon. Buggerit.) I'm going to need that to help make a jig for forming the hand and foot rails at the bar. That's going to be another one of those fun jobs which will either go surprisingly easy at the first attempt or will have me wrangling with bits of brass and wotnots for weeks trying to get a decent rail. At least now I have the final position for the bar so can now think about fitting the cabinets and such. A fair amount of time today was spent measuring up and cutting the wall paneling for the side frame. Once side is now complete - at least cutting-wise. I still have to glue in the spacers then sand everything back flush and a whole bunch of other stuff, but I'm getting there. I've taped a cover strip over the left most seam by the window. By Jove I think this is going to work! The window frames were all fettled as well but I never got around to painting them... dunno why to be honest. and that's pretty much it for today - other than an experiment I tried out for the bar top. The bar top was Uba Tuba granite and I've been putting some thought towards how do I replicate granite at this scale? I had been considering printing out a photo of the granite and sticking that onto the bar top, but that didn't feel right and I wasn't sure if I'd get the effect I was after. Well, I think I may have a stunningly cunning plan. I'll know if my experiment worked tomorrow... *** some days later... The bar top. This particular item has been gnawing at me for months, if not years. Just how do you replicate granite sheet at such a small scale? In this case, Uba Tuba. For those that are not aware, Uba Tuba is a very dark green, almost black granite with a predominant gold fleck running through it. Sidebar: I used to design, manufacture & fit marble & granite furniture many years ago and I remember when Uba Tuba first started making it's way into the UK. It was a very exotic looking material, very rich looking, and at that time was ridiculously inexpensive. I thought it would look cool in Pegasus and that was why I proposed it - and Suzie (our interior designer) loved it. Hence the reason Pegasus has an Uba Tuba bar top. If I had know I was going to build a model of it, I'd have proposed something easy to model, like a stainless steel top, and be done with it. if wishes were horses... Anyway, here's what a chunk of Uba Tuba looks like in it's natural surroundings. So, just how on earth do you go about trying to imitate that then? For a long time I struggled and couldn't make my mind up. I considered many options: Just go with a plain colored bar top Print out a photograph and stick it on the bar top. Get a tile of Uba Tuba and cut it to shape! Try and make a decal of Uba Tuba and use that. a bunch of other ideas I discarded very quickly None of those seemed likely to have a successful outcome. Then I had a brainwave. At least I think it was a brainwave. (I'm not entirely sure). The gold fleck was the key. Well, that and the black/dark green. Oh, and the overall green tinge. And the shiny surface. What if I... Yup, you guessed it. What if I Painted the bar top black. What if I then randomly sprayed some thinned down dark green on top to give a slightly mottled effect? What if I then sprayed some clear green and... While the clear green was still wet... took some brass, a file and then started filing over the top of the wet green layer in a random pattern. let it all dry then sprayed some clear green and... took some brass, a file and then started filing over the top of the wet green layer in a random pattern Then when I had performed this routine 4 or 5 times, let it all dry Clear coat the lot micromesh to remove the worst of the sticky up lumps and clear coat again Just what would that look like then? Maybe something like this? To say I was happy with the result is something of an understatement. Astounded I was. The layering has worked wonders - those brass filings laid down first have a slightly deeper tinge of green over them and the different layers reflect differently giving it all a bit of depth. Did I say I was astounded? You'll have to indulge me as I show a couple of dry fit shots just to keep the mojo flowing Once the rest of the fittings are in and the mirrors fitted, that is going to look very cool So, it may not have been a massive step forward in terms of the amount of 'physical' progress, this is a HUGE leap forward and a real mojo enhancer to have had such success with a part that I was convinced would never be anything other than average at best. did I say I was astounded?

thanks Adam. Very useful photos providing food for thought Michael, the only thing I know for sure s that whatever version I go with - will be wrong! Thanks Ian. I think that's the way I'm leaning at the moment, though it's very like to change on an almost weekly basis. Over the last few days I've been fettling the window frames. Tedious but necessary. Brass got sprayed on the inside face. Umber got sprayed on the outside face. Everything was looking good Until I went for the clear coat. Instead of spraying the Mr Color Clear like I did last time I thought I would save 5 minutes and just spray from a rattle can. Buggerit! Despite working great on everything before, the rattle can decided to play up and I ended up with spits and globules of clear all over the place. It didn't settle down and dried all lumpy. Now if I'd paid Shapeways for those I'd have been well peeved. As it was, fire up the printer again, load up the file and print another two runs. I'll have another go at painting them tomorrow, or at least begin the process. At least I got the three chromed frames coated without issue. Trouble is I was hoping for the brass/umber frames to let me get on with the paneling on the first side frame. Oh well. I suppose I need to find something else to work on instead... do you think the wife will notice if I pinch these? Nice soft leather on the outside - but also nice soft suede on the inside. Makes a passable substitute for coir matting at this scale. Ideally it should have been grey and these are black. I'm calling it a very dark grey. (must get the dyson in there - it's looking a bit grubby) Still some tread plates to be added and that vestibule end should be finished. While searching online last week I came across these decals and thought I'd give them a try. I needed a light wood for the bar which was covered in birds eye maple. There was no way I was going to find 1/32 birds eye maple transfers anywhere, but this 'plywood' looked about the right shade so was worth a try. 5 mm was cut off the end of the bar at the kitchen end - which now leaves enough room for a hand rail to fit between the edge of the bar and the display cabinet without looking all squashed in. The bar was then primed a mixture of 'depot buff' and aged white and then given a gloss coat... of course the rattle can worked perfectly that time! 1st transfer sheet goes on. Actually this is the second sheet - I tried to do too much of the bar at once with the first sheet and messed it up so decided to play it safe and do it in sections. I'll let that dry overnight and fix the next two sheets tomorrow. I'm not sure what to do with the bottom end of the bar. Judging from photo's the bottom inset is also maple, but I'm tempted to maybe try some aluminum/tread plate or similar to break up the expanse of wood. Determined as I was to get on with the paneling, I took one of the best window frames to use as a template and started working on the paneling. This is going to take a lot longer than I thought. Once the 'glass' is placed against the inner skin, there is a small gap between the glass and the paneling.which needs filled. I had two options in my supplies - a 1 mm thick strip of basswood which was too thin, or a 1.5 mm strip of basswood and you guessed it... too thick. In the end I sanded down the 1.5 mm thick strip until it slid into the gap without force. Panel and strip were then removed and glued together - with a little bit of the strip protruding. This is so I can then sand the edges flush when cured. Then the edges need to be wire wooled, stained, then satin coated before they can be fitted. I've got to do that on all 4 sides of each of 11 windows. That is going to be one tedious job. What makes it worse is that those panels are all aligned flush with the edge of the window opening on the outer skin. The mojo is going to take a battering on this job that's for sure.

hi Richard, the plan at the moment (and it could change) is to fit the flooring before fitting the opposite door. I still have some working room in there though it's tight. Today may see the first try and determine if I need a Plan B ah... the elephant in the room as it were. Yes, it is getting perilously close to me no longer being able to avoid the issue isn't it? I have been giving it some thought - many times over the last 6 years in fact - and it will come as no surprise to learn that I still have not made a decision. There's been a lot of suggestions over the years and some I have ruled out and some are still in play. Removable roof I'n not keen on this as the car will be going into a display case. I'd have to open up the case to remove/refit the roof albeit very infrequently. Removing and refitting the roof also gives to the potential for damage Hinged roof Better than a removable roof but I'm still not sold on the idea. The hinge would have to be unobtrusive and likely very small. Any hinged mechanism would have to by definition have some slop in it and there's a chance the roof would not align properly when closed. I suppose it could always be modeled in the hinged open position permanently, but there's some nice detail on the roof that I'd like to be seen. Automated Rise & Fall Roof Great idea but way too complicated, plus I'd probably need to lose the kitchen and toilet in order to fit in all the necessary doo-dahs Clear plastic. I had considered this in the past - clear roof with standard vents and stuff fitted. May look interesting. I can hardly keep a 1/48 canopy clean and without glueprints and I just know an entire roof of clear stuff would be a disaster for me. Buggeritall and just close it up. Just take lots of photos and have a small monitor play a slide show beside the display Cutaway Roof I've mulled this one over several times and it's becoming more and more intriguing. A few years ago, this would have been an almost impossible option to achieve in any decent manner. Now with the advent of 3D printing it really opens up the possibilities. I already have a trial section of roof modeled to try out on the printer to see what it turns out like. I also have some clear resin to try out though I'm reading that it turns yellow under UV light so probably not good for the long term. But I have been seriously considering the cutaway idea - my thoughts (as yet unfinished) were to model one side of the roof as normal so that when viewed from that side the car would look complete. On the other side I could have most of the roof cut away and have the carlines and other bits of structure still in place and in other areas nothing - that would allow viewing into the interior. So from one aspect visually it would look like a complete model, and from another angle, you still get to see all the detail. Maybe I should have built two of them - that way one could be closed up and I could leave the roof off the second car

In the works Mike, but don't hold your breath Full to begin with of course. I changed my mind. Again. The drinks cabinets. Changed. When I made them a few days ago I was following the original drawings that Suzie made. I was aware from photos that what ended up in the bar was slightly different, but wanted to keep to the original concept. However, after looking at them, the photos, then back and forth, I decided to make the drinks cabinets look more like the 1:1 version. That meant adding a second shelf, two chromed rails, and sliding glass doors in the top section. The chromed rails were made up from 0.7mm brass rod, alclad chromed then clear coated. I couldn't drill through the wood of the cabinet as the rails were too close to the front edge and drilling would have just split the wood, so I cut the rod slightly over length, then swipe by swipe with a file, test fitting until the rails held in by friction alone. I used alclad chrome directly on to the brass as I find this gives a perfect finish, then clear coated. After the clear coat had a day or two to cure, I wrapped the tips of a pair of tweezers in masking tape and very carefully lifted the rails into place. Once there, a few drops of dilute PVA was applied to the ends to fix things in place. The glass doors was simply a rectangle of clear acrylic sheet, lightly scored twice to give the impression of overlapping doors. For a slight detour and some light entertainment I made up some cover strips which I'm going to need later in the build. On Pegasus, these cover strips are mahogany inlaid with birds eye maple strips. I found a relatively straightforward way of imitating these cover strips with just masking tape and wood dye. First the basswood strips were cut to width, then given a good thrashing with fine wire wool. Next, I used 2mm Aizu tape laid along the length as close as I could get to center using the old Mk I eyeball. The tape was then burnished down, followed by a swiping of wood dye along the length. In the photo below, extreme right = bare wood with masking tape applied, center = wood dye applied, and on the left the masking tape has been removed leaving a nice even inlay of birds eye maple! I wish. Those were then given a clear coat to seal everything in In use, they will be cut to length and placed over any panel seams, and around windows etc. While I am messing about with the bar area trying to make my mind up about a few things, I made the mistake of trying a quick dry fit of one of the doors and the vestibule ends. Fatal mistake! I couldn't leave it alone after that could I? To be honest I've been thinking about this over the last week or two - what's the best way to assemble this all together? There's so many pieces to the jigsaw and they all need to play nicely together otherwise it could be a real mess. There's still one or two items to fit inside the vestibule ends, including the floor covering. The vestibule end really needs to be in place to get the right dimensions for the floor, the doors need to be fitted to get the correct location for the vestibule ends and both sides need to be fitted to get the correct location for the doors and so on. He who hesitates and all that... there was no point in hanging around any further. Of course, no sooner had I decided to bash on with this than I spotted a few loose ends. Inside the door for a start - we need some wood paneling here don't we? That wasn't too difficult. Now I just need to fit the hardware. Sorry about the quality of the photo - I took about 4 or 5 shots and this was the best result - I'll try and take a decent shot next time around. Well that's all well and good but what does it look like on the outside then? Here you go... Drilling those locating holes was very nerve wracking I can tell you. In this scale drilling a hole even a fraction of a millimeter out throws everything out of whack. If I'm honest there is a slight misalignment between all the components, but it's not that noticeable unless you look for it. Don't look for it!! One door down, three to go. Fitting the second side in place (temporarily for now) really started to give me an appreciation of just how big this is going to be when finished. After looking at these photos I think I need to begin paying attention to dust. It's going to get to a point where I won't be able to clean inside so I'd better start thinking about a dust cover for old Peg. Is this what they call a train wreck? The bar area is taking a lot of my thought just now. I'm not sure if I want to use the bar I made years ago or whether I want to try and make another, better version. I need to lose about 5mm off the current length so I can get the handrail in place without messing up the display cabinet. (a millimeter can be a big deal in this scale) Without the bar in place I can't really mount the drinks cabinets and Trianon Bar sign as the bar sign is mounted centrally to the bulge at the front of the bar - so without knowing where that location falls, I can't locate any of the cabinets accurately. More this weekend hopefully... stay tuned

Aaaand another little progress update Starting with some strips and blanks of basswood, first primed then painted If you assemble them in the right order, you can arrive at something resembling a wall mounted drinks cabinet Chop off anything that doesn't resemble a drinks cabinet then a little bit of sanding to bring it more into line, followed by some careful application of wood dye to the appropriate surfaces and we can end up with this which then mounts on the wall behind the bar, not sitting on top of the bar like this cos that's be a bit daft Then simply make another cabinet following the same procedure outlined above. Once you have both cabinets, dig out the golden arrow thingamabob that you made about 3 or 4 years ago and you can dry fit them in place as a mojo enhancer. (I'll bet most of you had completely forgotten I had made that didn't you?) Add a gift cabinet to add a tad more effect of the finished article and you can relax safe in the knowledge that progress has once again been made. Not bad for an hour or two's work. Of course they're not actually finished yet - I think I'm going to add glass doors to the top section of the cabinets, mainly because it seems I like making things difficult for myself. Then there's a chromed rail across the front to prevent the bottles falling off, then I've still got to decide if I'm adding bottles and wotnots yet, but that's a decision for another day.

It's taken it's time coming but we're finally moving along. some coming together and lots still to be made I fear indeed. What's even better is that it appears (so far) to fit! Howdy folks, a little bit more progress this evening. The very first wall panel got permanently fitted. After checking my files I found that the flooring behind the bar is exactly the same tiling as that in the kitchen. Thankfully I still have a section of flooring left over that is large enough to cater for that, but I'll wait until I'm further into the build before doing that. I figured out how to mimic the partition and sliding door into the kitchen. I used a laminate of three sheets of basswood with the middle sheet protruding slightly to give the appearance of a door not fully open/closed. A door handle was made up from some stainless wire, and I found a piece of PE grill that I cut in half and glued a piece on either side of the door. You can see how the laminates work here. Next problem for the day was to work out the angles for the wall section containing the door. That was a bit tricky as any misalignment in the vertical direction shows up quite drastically when looking at the paneling square on - which no-one is ever going to be able to do once this is all closed up. Once I was convinced I had the angles correct, I added some beading on the corridor side to give the impression of a door, then finished it off with one of my chromed door handles. I love those things - they really add a lot to the detail. There's a slight misalignment along the top end of the partition and door but that isn't a problem (yet). There's a beading to be fitted along the top edges which will hide any unevenness along the top edges. But what does it look like inside I hear you ask ? Well, here you go. The door "frame" inside the kitchen was thin strips of aluminum tape - then I realized after I had taken this photo that I had forgotten to add a door handle inside. That was easily rectified though it was awkward ensuring that the handles were at the same height on the interior and exterior of the door. See... proof that the handle was fitted. I even put a blue dot and a red dot on top of the taps... otherwise the elfin safety occifer would have been after me. This shot shows the interior of the sliding door. Admittedly not a great shot but at least you can see the door and the handle and other section of grill. ah... this shot shows it better I need to add some splash-backs to the counter tops as well as a hand rail across the window - which I just spotted on a drawing yesterday. The only other thing to be added to the kitchen is the above counter cabinets but since they are formed into the curvature of the roof, I'm not really sure what to do about them yet. Next up will be the bar area. This might slow things down a little as there's a few things to be made for the bar. At least two drinks cabinets, a couple of wall seats and a few other bits and pieces. I'm not sure if I should populate the drinks cabinets with bottles or not. If so, I'll have to print them. Decisions decisions. Also, I need to figure out how to replicate the granite top of the bar itself. Bar handrail and foot rail... the list goes on but it's starting to be fun again!

The windows got printed - got plenty of them but got fed up cleaning windows today so thought I would try something a bit different - how about some construction for a change? Baton down the hatches folks, we're going in. Yes, batons. Batons got glued in place with gloop (yes there is a product called gloop!). I used 1.5mm thick wooden strips as a substrate for the paneling. This, plus the 1mm thick paneling gives me something approaching the correct scale thickness for the sides. Then in a moment of madness I actually fitted one of the side-frames. This may come back to bite me later but I felt it was about time to commit to something and do some of yer actual construction on this damned car, after all it's only been just over six years. What I didn't take into consideration was that once the batons were in place, I could no longer get to my nuts! Drats. It's not good when you can't get to your nuts. Tweezers were called into action and washers and nuts got fitted and I could use the tweezers to lightly tighten the nuts in place. Then realized that the carpet fitters hadn't been in yet, so off came the side frame again. First piece of carpet fitted. The camera is making the carpet look more blue than green. In the flesh it's much greener but you'll just need to take my word for that. Once the carpets got fitted, the side-frame went back on again and this time I made a small tool to help me tighten the nuts down. - and it worked very well! Progress! This is progress - what a feeling. At this point I hit a slight bump in the road... keep moving forward? or work on something else? I could always remove the side-frame if needed, but once I start fitting all the gumff inside, there's really no going back is there? Remember, I still haven't fitted the car to the track or to any kind of base. I hummed and hawed for a while then decided what the hell, lets go for it. What's the worst that can happen? (don't answer!) For a number of reasons, most of which I can't remember, I decided to begin with the bar/kitchen end. The end partition was made up of a laminate of 1.5mm styrene, 1mm basswood sheet, and on the kitchen side some "Formica" I had printed years ago in this build. I was quite lucky in that respect - I kept all the scraps of photo paper from back then and there was just enough to do the job. Lady luck must have been with me 'cos my printer packed in moths ago so I'd need to go buy a new printer then try and find what graphics I used for the Formica. I managed to get a nice smooth transition from the side-frame to the partition. Definitely no going back now. So, keeping with the kitchen and working my way down that side, the first panel went in place - and I discovered another problem. Note the cutout I had to make in the bottom of the Formica panel to get it to fit over the nut and bolt. The brass angles I have used to allow me to fix the side-frames to the chassis protrude into the car. Unfortunately there's no way around that. The angles are only about 5mm wide so it's not a huge problem. Now, I could thicken the batons to end up with the nuts behind the panel - but that would throw out all the internal transverse dimensions across the car. For the most part they will be hidden and I have some ideas how to disguise those that aren't hidden away. This construction stuff is fun innit? It's been so long I had forgotten just how exhilarating it was. Out came one of my favorite tools... the holemaker. To make a hole of course. Why ? Well, once the carpet fitters left, the cabinet fitters came in and started on the kitchen worktops and we needed a hole for the sink. Yesterday morning I was going over the drawings and noticed that the kitchen had a small sink in it - I had never really paid much attention to the kitchen area before - as it's probably going to get closed up never to be seen again once the roof goes on. However, the sink caught my fancy so I fired up SolidWorks and created this sink in about half an hour or so. As the printer was running making windows, I just tacked this print onto the end of my print run and by end of play last night I had three sinks to play with. Cabinet then made, and in searching through my scraps again I found some 'tiled floor' so cut out the floor-plan for the kitchen area and stuck that down. Cabinets in place, dry fitted only. It's tight in there innit? I don't suppose the barman needs much in there - enough to wash his hands and slice a few oranges and lemons I guess? There's another set of cabinets fitted up top, but the top edge of the cabinets follows the roof profile so I need to give that some thought before starting with all that. I also wanted to get all the kitchen fittings in place before deciding how to finish off the diamond window aperture. Now that I see this altogether, it makes it a lot easier to decide what the next steps should be. By way of mojo enhancer I threw in the bar and display cabinet to see what things looked like Not sure if I should stick with carpet behind the bar. May need to replace the carpet with tiles... if I have any left over. It would probably be a good idea at this point to check the floor coverings drawing wouldn't it ? 'doh! There's another partition between the kitchen and the bar, but it has a sliding door and the whole partition is going to be less than 3mm thick so I will have to put some thought as to how to construct that and still have it looking half decent. Hope you are all safe and well in these trying times.

The trouble about this working form home malarkey is that sometimes you've just got to work from home and it's been eating into my valuable modeling time. Still, things could be worse I suppose. I hope everything is well with you lot and no-one is suffering any adverse affects from this latest situation, at least health wise. We're all suffering some adverse affects to a degree. Putting real world issues to the side for the moment, it's been one of those one step forward, two steps back weeks. Just when things were going so well. In my last post you'll have noticed that I had printed just short of a gazillion windows. I only needed eleven, so I sorted through that bunch, picked the best of the lot then primed and painted them. Umber on 8 windows, gloss black on 3 as they will be alclad chromed. The 8 umber windows will receive a lick of brass paint on the inside. The alclad chrome turned out very nice indeed But the trouble with alclad (I find) is that the chrome finish is just not durable at all and needs to be gloss coated. That brings another problem in that anything over the top of the chrome finish reduces the effect. Left here is original untouched chrome finish. On the right is a chrome finish that's had clear gloss on top. It dulls it down to an almost flat aluminum finish. It's passable though and something I can live with. Now before I get to the two-steps-back news I'll show a very slight piece of progress. The diamond window got fitted to one side-frame. Well, that's progress isn't it? (don't look at the squinty arrowhead!) Now for the two-steps-back part. In my quest to keep everything as true to scale as possible I tried to be keep the window framings delicate and as far from toy-like as I could. Anyone spot a problem here? Yup, beginners error. I hadn't taken into account the thickness of the side frame. There's a small overlap on the front of the window frame to fit over the glass and it should fit flush against the 'glass'. I should have added some thickness to it but as it stands, it sits proud of the glass and allows the bottom edge of the window frame to warp a little. Would it be noticeable in the final product? Probably not, but the great thing about having the 3D printer is that I can just tweak the design (already done) and reprint the windows again (tomorrows task). Two runs on the printer should yield enough windows as I can print 6 at a time, though I may do a third run just to make sure I have spares. I have also added a lip on the inner surface of the new version to try and capture the glass and not rely so much on glue - as there's very little surface area to glue on. It kind of sucks because I just spent the last couple of days cutting out 44, yes... forty faffing four individual panes of glass for the window frames and sticking them in place. Then painting the brass on the reverse side. As I wanted to fit them to the side frames all in one session I waited until they were all completed before going to fit the first window... and then found the issue! If you wanted to know what the three chromed windows looked like in place.... (there's glass in the top section - just imagine there's glass below the frame too!) On the bright side, I have now perfected my technique for fixing the windows in place. - Mix 2 parts canopy glue (formula 560) with one part water and apply with a cocktail stick. The thinned PVA will wick into the gaps around the glass and secure it to the frame. The glue starts to go off pretty quickly so the process can be repeated after about 10 minutes to build up successive layers of PVA and really stick those suckers in place. To cheer myself up and pretend I was still making progress I chose the version of carpet I'm going to use. The chairs were put in place to give me a scale reference to check against photos of the 1:1 I'll be going with the smaller/tighter printed version Oh. Other news - I clear coated the last side frame without issues so they're both finished now. Putting that last clear coat on top of the transfers was always a worry - but it's all behind me now!!!

What we have here folks is another momentous occasion. a.k.a. Momentous occasion n+1 I'll begin with the menial stuff and by menial I mean only in relation to the other stuff. This was the results of this weekends printing sessions. There should be enough there for me to be getting on with over the next few days. There's not really a lot to show in the way of photos but major milestones have been reached following a Stupendously Stonking Sticking Session. Initially I thought this was going to take me at least a few sessions broken over a few days in order to get all the transfers in place. However, I got an an early start and things went remarkably well. Case in hand... the "Trianon Bar" decal was the largest single decal I had to apply and being the clumsy oaf that I am I did not hold out much hope of being successful with a single transfer here. I already had Plan B in place - cut the transfer between the A and the N in Trianon and whack it in place over two sessions. Wish me luck folks, I'm going in... doesn't look too disastrous so far.... Well... whadya know? First attempt and it went great The last hour or two of transfer sticking was almost tortuous but I blasted through the pain barrier as I knew if I got it all knocked out today then that was it! So I kept at it and then finally about 5pm this evening... Transfers all done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe it. Of course I still have to gloss coat the Trianon Bar side and hopefully I won't stuff it up, but this really is a cause for celebration. Over 6 years working on this and now it looks like there may almost be an end in sight.

Aaaand work continues - well, it is the weekend isn't it? I'm forging ahead with the transfers even tough it's a task I don't particularly like, but once it's done, it's over and I'll never have to do this again. It's probably going to take at least two more sessions before the second side is completed but I'm getting there. This was end of day today. It's a tedious job. In between times, I've been bombarding the 3D printer with stuff. Mainly rotating vents and windows. I had printed out the diamond windows before but yesterday I had a sort of brainwave. Previously I had designed in 4 ledges that aligned with the opening in the side frame. It worked fine, but then I thought - what if I make those ledges a snap fit instead? That will help keep things in place and there will never be any danger of it falling out. So, four snap brackets later Then about an hour in the printer then after some clean up it snaps right into place. Sorted! Prime and paint for those then cut the glass and they can be fitted. Tomorrow, more transfers, more windows and more other stuff.

Despite Armageddon work continues... mainly from home. It's not all it's cracked up to be is it? Too many cats distractions and network speeds grinding to early dial-up speeds at best prevent one from being as productive as should be possible in this digital age. Conference calls abound and I hate them - despite all this technology, conference calls just never work as good as an old fashioned face to face meeting. Still, occasional breaks from the day job to prevent burn-out is the order of the day. In those occasional breaks my 3D printer has been taking a pounding - and producing results. Here's a home printed window. I'm very pleased with the way they have turned out. The two center (sliding) panes nicely recessed. I'm not yet sold on the color of the brass though. Maybe a gloss coat and a Flory wash to emphasize the detail will change my mind. At least I have plenty of time to experiment over the next few weeks. Now here's a home printed Diamond window (slightly elongated to account for my earlier mistake). It's a little on the large side for the opening, but it only finished printing about 20 minutes prior to this shot. I'm going to leave it and check it again tomorrow as it will shrink slightly and that may just be enough for a comfortable fit. If not, it's no big deal to tweak a dimension and reprint it. Just for kicks... Now I have all the fun of cutting out individual panes for each of those windows (and another 7 windows on the other side!).

Momentous Occasion Number ...eh... 2? Maybe it's three I can't remember. Anyhows, what we have here folks is a real, genuine, honest to goodness momentous occasion It is 1926 days from the start date of this build. Or 5 years, 3 months, 9 days Or 63 months, 9 days or put another way 166,320,000 seconds (and counting) 2,772,000 minutes (prolly more now) 46,200 hours (ditto) 1925 days 275 weeks and I have FINALLY completed sticking on the transfers on one side of Pegasus. Can you believe it? Me neither. It wasn't without issue though. Before I sprayed on some more clear coat the other day I gave the side-frame a quick wipe over with IPA to remove any greases from handling. In my rush to get things done I failed completely to see that one of the arrowheads had twisted slightly Gaahhh I considered trying to rework it but a) it's under a coat of very hard gloss, b) I'd probably cause more damage than I'd like while trying a repair, and c) that color has been discontinued. So, all things considered, I'm leaving it entirely as it is. Like the Navajo weavers I am introducing this as a "deliberate" mistake to my build as apparently there's only one being who can make things perfect - and it certainly ain't me! It was the Pegasus nameplate that caused me grief last time around, but this time it went down without too much of a fight And an overall view of side-frame 1 I'm leaving that overnight then I shall give it a final coat of clear gloss and be ready to begin internal paneling on that section. My squiggly lines don't look too squiggly (from a distance) oh momentous occasion. How long I have waited for this moment.

Thanks for all the well wishes folks. We got Stripey back on Friday night about 11 pm, but on Saturday he still wasn't eating or drinking OR peeing (though he did a little through the night) so Saturday afternoon it was back to the Vet hospital again. This time only for a few hours though. He appears to be doing a lot better now - he's perked up a lot and is eating and drinking though he's still having a little trouble in the waterworks department, but we reckon that's just from the pain so hopefully he will keep recovering and we won't have another visit to the vets. So here we go for another update - that's several in a week or two - we're on a roll here. There's not really much to show this time around but it's one of those updates where pretty much everything has taken an age to complete. The clear gloss I was waiting on still hadn't arrived so I took the opportunity to man up to one of those jobs I hated - getting the other side frame all painted up and ready for transfers. All that was left to do was the orange electrical warning line which all went well until the last couple of inches. Drat! I must have tried to peel off the masking tape too soon. So I left that overnight to harden up then a quick mask and squirt of orange and we're where we should have been at yesterday, which brings us back to where I was about a year ago. That's now being left to harden up then I shall micromesh to get rid of ridges left by the masking - and trust that I don't do any more damage while micromeshing. In between the painting shenanigans I had been pondering over a job that on the face of it seemed relatively simple - but one little mistake could send me back months again. This was adding the horizontal handrails to the front of the doors. The first problem that I had was deciding what to use for the mounting boss on the door. I'd had some parts printed way back last year but when I went to use them I realized I had made them too small so I had to find some alternative. I tried a bunch of things, including squeezing plastic rod in the vice to make ovals, and a number of other failures before arriving at a solution. The solution was Meng resin bolt heads of all things. I bought a set of them a couple of years ago and have been finding all sorts of uses for them ever since, obviously, not just as bolts and nuts. I settled on bolt heads of 1.4mm and drilled through the center of the head. Brass rod which had been bent onto a U shape was then inserted and I used a small thick section of styrene to set the height - important as all 4 handles need to be the same distance from the door face otherwise it could all look a bit naff. A drop of CA fixed the resin bolt heads in place, then the parts were Alclad chromed and then clear coated. Now came the next really important bit - fixing them to the door. The horizontal rail is fixed at the center point of the oval window. Again, if they're slightly off it shows up really obviously so I needed to take extra care here. I ended up making a fixture that fitted over the oval window and set the position of the holes for me to drill - and completely forgot to take a photo of it. Care was needed drilling the holes as I had already fitted the inside face of the door so I could only drill through one layer of plastic to mount the handrails. After much fretting we have this: I'm very pleased with the way that turned out, especially the resin bolt heads as they no longer look like bolts at all. Then fitting the inside fittings was a lot easier. I chose the two worst sets of rails for the open doors as they will be almost impossible to see when the doors are installed. Front face of door. and I include this photo just so you can see how different the same color shows up under the same lighting depending upon the relative angles of camera and lighting to the object. I love those door handles. I had no idea they would turn out anywhere near as good as that. Jumping to and fro here but I was looking to keep things turning over since there was such a large intermission in this build and I want to keep things moving this time around. End vestibules. There's something we haven't seen for a while. You may be forgiven for thinking you had seen the last of them but there was one small job left before they could finally be called finished. And what a of a job it was. Each vestibule has two electrical connectors connected (obviously) to the junction boxes and secured by a length of chain fixed to the diaphragm. I know this chain is a tad over-scale but it's the smallest chain I could find and doesn't draw the eyes too much from the rest of the structure. The chain was secured to the plug by a small hoop of very thin stainless wire superglued into the plug. The cable was then attached to the junction boxes, chain cut to length, and then fixed to the diaphragm. One length of chain goes behind the diaphragm while the other is attached to the hook on the right. If I had known about this task 3 or 4 years ago I would have drilled the hooks to accept the chain, however, hindsight and all that. Instead (since I don't trust superglue much at all) I twisted a small length of ss wire around the hook to secure the last link in the chain. You can see the wire quite clearly in this photo. The next session will see a touch of black paint over that bright wire and it should merge into the background quite easily. Vestibules finished! To finish off todays adventures I took my life in my hands and decided to gloss coat the side frame so I can complete the transfers on this side Seems to have gone well. I'm going to leave that coat to harden up before continuing with the transfer sticking but it looks like I may be finished with the transfers on this side by the end of this week! Momentous moments! Quite glossy isn't it? Once the last of the transfers are on, another coat of gloss is required but it will then be ready to start working on the interior paneling. Unfortunately what with this Covid thingy going on we have been told to work from home from now until further notice. Damn shame. I promise not to spend any time whatsoever downstairs during the working day... honest guv!

A touch more progress on Pegasus. I ended up taking the day off work as I was at the animal hospital for most of the night with a sick cat. When I got home last night I found him lying beside the water bowl pretty much motionless. He couldn't even stand up and refused food. It turns out Stripey Cat has a serious UTI and blockage so he's in hospital for 2 or 3 days with a whole bunch of procedures and medications. So the morning was spent laying in bed trying to catch up on missed sleep but after lunch I headed downstairs. It turns out that my Helo Helper Jig is also a train helper. It came in very useful when applying these end pinstripes. Current state of play for the first sideframe. This is about as far as I can go at the moment as I am waiting on some more clear gloss arriving so I can coat these decals. So I turned my head from transfer sticking back to actually making things. I don't seem to have done that for a long time on this build. Now that the decals were on the doors I could start to assemble the doors themselves. Each door consists of a outer (front) face, an inner (rear) face, and a clear layer sandwiched in between for the window. A 0.2mm sheet of clear polystyrene was used to create the window Then scrap strips of the same thickness were glued to the outer edges (and I don't know why I just didn't cut the clear stuff to the door dimensions as I would have saved myself some trouble) Then the door inner face was glued in place. I used two brass square tubes and a coupe of clamps to hold everything straight while the glue cured. With the doors underway I started to attack the door hardware. Some times it pays to sit down and think things through instead of jumping right in like I did here. I think I was so excited at being able to make things again I just rushed in without thinking. On the inside of the vestibule doors are some chromed bars - more for decoration than for preventing people form falling through the windows I think. My first iteration started off like this before I realized that both the vertical and the horizontal bars should be on the same plane... 'doh! That led to version number two. I was quite pleased with this version. I had some scrap aluminum channel lying around from some LED lights I fitted in the kitchen last year. I also had a steel scriber that I found was a bit vicious for plastic, but ideal for the aluminum. I scribed two lines for the vertical bars, followed by another across the channel for the horizontal bar. When the lines were scribed deep enough they formed a nice little V groove that the brass rod lay in and didn't roll about, holding it nicely in place for soldering. I chose aluminum for the jig as it repels solder which meant that the parts wouldn't stick to the jig when soldered. The two holes were drilled to allow the solder to flow around the brass to the back face to make the joint complete. My first version did not have the holes and I found that the solder would not flow to the back face. Test number 1: Success by the looks of it. After the solder and the brass was cleaned up, I superglued some small plastic C channel to each end segment of the frame to represent the mounting bracket, then gave everything a quick spray of Alclad Chrome. That should suffice to do the job. I'll leave the Alclad to cure for a while before hitting it with some clear gloss to protect it - when the clear gloss arrives. Now I need to figure out if I fit all the hardware to the doors then assemble everything or do I wait until it is assembled before fitting the hardware in case anything goes wrong - namely getting knocked of by my clumsy handling.

Oops, my apologies. You are of course correct. In my haste to respond I transposed the dimensions. They are 1190mm for width and the window height is 1000mm. (In my defense, I can be incredibly stupid sometimes. How I designed an entire Pullman car still baffles me and no doubt a few others!) The other dimensions still stand... at least I didn't mix those up

Thanks Rich, glad you like it. I'd love to see your build - do you have a link? the height of the side-frame from bottom edge to roof line is 2145mm. The large windows are 1000mm long by 1190 high and the distance from the roof line to the top edge of the windows is 315mm. Those dimensions are all full scale of course. let me know if you need any more information Alan

Knock knock... I'm back! Look what arrived in the post the other week! No excuses now is there? Lets get on with things then... I spent an absolute age staring at these parts trying to figure out where just to begin. I also spent about half an hour looking for an wayward door frame, going as far as having to read many pages back through this thread to see if I had actually made the darned thing. It turns out I had made it - and then eventually found it - the frame had somehow crawled underneath the chassis and found a nice little nest to live in. Therefore, in order to avoid the fear and apprehension I had about applying the transfers I found something else to work on as usual. This time I dug out the other sideframe. I had applied the cream color a while back but never got around to applying the umber - mainly because I had ran out and then found out that Testors no longer produced that color (Italian Dark Brown). After scouring the country I did manage to find a source that had two jars in stock at exorbitant prices and promptly purchased both of them. I probably only need less than half a jar, but just in case y'know. For the masking I used Aizu tape 1.5 mm to lay down the boundary lines, that was followed by Tamiya 6mm just overlapping the Aizu, then poly sheet laid down and taped in place with Tamiya 10m just for good measure. Masked up and ready to go The brown sprayed beautifully. The inner child got the best of me and the masking was carefully peeled off as soon as thought the paint was dry enough. Despite the abundance of protective covering, somehow this little blotch or two of brown got through the defenses. No big deal though, that will come off with a light micro-meshing That has now been curing for the last week and all it needs is a light micro-meshing before applying some clear gloss - followed by the orange pinstripe up at the cant rail level. Now I'm not entirely sure why I took this shot. I know I had a reason at the time but buggered if I can think of what it was now - maybe to show where I got to last time around and where I was starting from now? AAAAAaaaaaaannnnnnd the first transfer is applied! Squiggly? yes, but try laying down a 0.75mm wide line over 3 inches or more and keeping it straight. I'm calling that a win. I know the electrical warning (orange) line should go over the top of the pin-striping, but minor details? pah! The more I look at the pin-striping and it's not-quite-straightness, the more it's growing on me and I think I like it. It gives it that hand painted look. It was an unnerving experience paying that line down though and has really put the fear of the modeling gods in me for the remainder of the pin-striping. The horizontal pin-striping is nearly two feet long. Gulp! So I found another squirrel to chase instead, this time the PULLMAN logo along the upper umber band. These letters were individually printed as the spacing made it impossible to fit on one sheet. I had been quite worried about applying these but they weren't too bad once I got started. Maybe it was all relative and they seemed easy after applying that single pin-stripe. When drawing these particular decals up I could not find a single photo that showed the PULLMAN logo straight on in a decent resolution. In the end I think I used about 4 different photos to trace over and then try and match up the detailing of the lettering. - Every car had been painted by (I assume) a different painter so there was a slight difference between the lettering detail on each car. The first side completed. I think my spacing is ever so slightly off. The P & N of PULLMAN are evenly spaced over the second window in from each end. I think I should have started with the P about another millimeter over to the left, but when viewed at any distance the offset is not really noticeable. Then there was no way to avoid more pin-striping. This time these single lines were over 6 inches long. I'm definitely going for the hand painted artisan look here. I think you'll be able to tell that this car was not mass produced by the time I finish this transfer sticking malarkey Sheesh - these close ups are really unforgiving aren't they? That lower pinstripe is as wavy as the water at Portobello beach on a windy day During that application above, I had a few heart stopping moments as the scroll work decal which had been in place for months started to be affected by the microsol and started wrinkling. A few moments of panic ensued while I tried to mop up the excess and get that decal back down and settled. Given that I have to apply a double pin-stripe immediately below it along the two foot length, I think I am going to have to apply an intermediate gloss coat to seal these down before I start to work with the double pinstripes. In order to keep my heart rate at a reasonable frequency I changed tack once again and went for the double ended arrows bounding each window. My goodness, even those look wavy. No wonder though - my eyeballs are probably all shrivelled up and wrinkled after applying those pinstripes. You might think these were easy after the pinstripes? Well... no! They weren't. I've found that leaving the decals too long in microsol really softens them up - that means they stretch! Even just the act of brushing microsol along the length can stretch them quite easily, so I have to try and get these in place really quickly as the arrow tips are supposed to be in line with the top and bottom edges of the windows. That was fun wasn't it? I have to say that it feels good to finally be applying some artwork to the car - it's only taken me about 6 years to get to this point. It was starting to feel like a Bandsaw Steve build it was taking so long. and now it's time for another coffee and I'm going to head back downstairs for another round of holding breath while trying not to tear things apart with the shaky hands. Oh what fun! Later that day... This sticking on transfers business really takes it out of you doesn't it? I finished up a bit earlier than usual yesterday as concentrating on keeping things straight was starting to get to me. As each transfer is applied I have to move to another area to ensure it dries completely without the opportunity for me to dislodge or otherwise mangle the transfer while laying down the next one. The doors were a good opportunity to leave other bits to dry off. The double ended arrows were all put in place with only one casualty lost in action - the very last one. By that time my hands were starting to shake a bit and I think I was rushing to get finished. Thankfully I have plenty of spares, so I ripped it off and made a conscious decision not to rush and that time it laid down without any issues. Yesterday - end of day and we have made serious progress on this side frame. I think it's still going to take a few sessions to get this side finished though. The pin-striping is tedious work and with some of the pinstripes being so close to others, I think I am going to have to gloss coat to protect already laid down transfers from more application of microsol. lets see how today goes.

We are getting towards the end of decorating the end vestibules. All the greeblies are on with the exception of the PassComm system hardware. This task was a bit fraught with danger as there were lots of little fiddly bits that had to line up to make a credible looking mechanism. First up were two boxey things (either side of the warning sticker). The one on the right was made from aluminum, and the one on the left scratched from scrap styrene, Meng nuts and bolts, and some brass wire. The next stage was to add the conduits- the only way I could achieve this was to use superglue so I was taking no chances. The conduits were placed in situ and then little squares of masking tape added all around the mounting blocks, to ensure any errant superglue would not end up on the paintwork. Thankfully, it all went to plan and no vestibules were harmed in the making of this one. Next up was the connecting linkages. On most cars I've looked at, the linkage extends all the way up to the roof, but with Pegasus, it stops short of the roof and takes a right turn through the bellows. This actually helps me as I can finish off the whole job now instead of waiting until I have a roof on the car. I cheated on this a little by not having the connecting rod go all the way through - it stops short once it is inside the bellows, but unless you peer up inside you'll never know. In all my reference shots of Pegasus there is not one clear shot of the linkage, but after looking at other references I reckoned I could fake it enough to look convincing. It was a bit of a kerfuffle though. I used a single piece of brass rod with multiple bends to obtain something that sort of looked like it was a linkage with a couple of lever actuators. The first one was relatively simple but the second took a couple of attempts - trying to match the lengths/angles and make them look symmetric. That wasn't helped by the fact that I kept looking at one, and then bending the WIP the same way - when it should have been bent in the opposite direction. Difficult to see here, but I added 0.8mm nuts and bolts at each of the bends to create the illusion of things being bolted together. It works for my eyesight. This closer shot doesn't really make it any clearer does it? Maybes aye, maybes naw. The last piece of this jigsaw was to add the "flags" that will show when the emergency brake has been actuated. One side done. T'other side done. Fiddly stuff, and it took me most of the day but I'm happy with where I'm at. All that left to finish off the vestibules now is to add the electrical cable and plugs, and some chain to hang them from the diaphragm. They will be rather fragile so I'm not sure if I'll do those yet, or wait until later in the build. Work on the new side frame continues. More sanding and the first coat of Pullman Cream. It should come as no surprise to you that when I went to the store to pick up another aerosol, I found that the color I was using has been discontinued. To be honest I wasn't even surprised at this, after all, it was about 3 years ago when I bought the first aerosols. I may have *just* enough left in the current rattle can to finish the job off if I'm very careful - but we all know how that goes don't we? Just like the order of two jars of Italian dark brown that I ordered two weeks ago... I didn't see anything happen in my paypal account so I called the hobby shop. Only to be told their website hasn't worked in two years and they don't get any orders coming in through it. They checked their stock, and of course they had none. I did find someone on ebay who apparently has some but was charging ridiculous prices, however, I had no option but to go ahead order two jars - now thankfully delivered so I have enough stock. I've also been working on some 3D stuff for printing - The small diamond windows needed a small modification, and took the opportunity to try the luggage racks (2 versions) and the main window, again 2 versions. Luggage rack Luggage rack V2. Probably won't do this one and try using brass mesh on the rack above Main window. This version requires that I cut individual panes of glass to fit in the openings - with a land of about 0.25mm! I've also done a second version which has a slit along the length so if it all goes well, I just need to cut one rectangle of glass and it will just slot into the frame, without having to be so accurate in my cutting. The new diamond window is on the right, old version on the left. I noticed that the top of the vent (on top of window) should be in line with the top edge of the main windows. This second version corrects that error. I had a bit of an issue with the software upgrade this week, but the support team provided a fix, so the models were prepared and set up for printing Files then transferred to the printer... everything looking good in case you are wondering - those shapes are the base of the print which attaches to the build plate After a couple of hours it appears we have success. It always looks so bland when it first comes out of the tank but a quick wash in IPA and the details starts to show Some quick clean-up and the prints are a success. The luggage rack is incredibly flimsy so I may have to do some redesign work there to beef it up a bit. The detail is there but the part is so fine, I just can't handle it without deforming it in some way or other. Very pleased with the diamond window though and with the main windows though again, I may tweak the designs just a touch next time around. The great thing about having a printer of my own is that I can iterate through designs pretty quickly, making any changes and test them in a few hours instead of waiting a few weeks from Shapeways. It's also a hell of a lot cheaper... a print that I had done at Shapeways which cost almost $20, cost me around $0.14 on my home printer.

Look! Windows in the right place this time!!! A couple of hours later, the end pieces have been soldered on, along with the solebar and pseudo cant rail. First coat of primer on. I'll let that harden overnight and then start sanding it back tomorrow. There were also a couple of scratches on the brass so I want to make sure they're filled, so this will probably take a few coats of primer. In other news, I was playing with my new 3D printer, and made a bunch of parts... axle boxes (or end covers), some lamp bases and some lampshades. In between working on the side frame, these all got a coat of paint. and here we have an assembled table lamp. Not too shabby, and certainly noting that I could have made by hand - and I'm going to need around 8 of them I think Then I couldn't resist throwing one on a table to see what it looked like (even if the table isn't quite finished yet) I sent the final decal sheet off to Railtec so hopefully turnaround won't be as long as my first set., I guess I'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime I'll just keep working on internal stuff while I'm getting that side frame back to where the last once was - before I realized my oopsie!