hendie

I guess that depends upon the definition of update I haven't been working on it directly, but I have been working on developing a process that I am going to need further down the line... Photo Etching. I needed to take a bit of a break to stop the project becoming stale and the break has gone on a bit longer than I intended. I seem to have developed some completely irrational fear of painting. I don't know why but I have! That's what originally made me stop as I kept messing up the paint job. What makes it even more bizarre is that even If I really stuff it up, I know that the worst that can happen is I have to strip the side frames back to the brass again. No big deal, but apparently my brain thinks it is. In the meantime, I have been accumulating all the bits and pieces that I need to do my own photo etching. There are a number of areas where that will come in handy -- brass luggage racks, window frames etc. So far I have been unsuccessful in actually producing an actual PE part, but I think I know where I've been going wrong and provided SWMBO will leave me alone, I intend to get back to the photo etching today. To answer your question in a more proactive way... I shall endeavor to start work on Pegasus again in January come hell or high water. If I can't get rid of the painting demons I'm sure there are plenty of other areas for me to work on. Sorry for the delay

Well so far I've only glued two parts together. My last project of this particular aircraft (Wessex HC2 helicopter) took nearly two years and I plan on outdoing that build with this new one. I can certainly add it if folks are interested enough. Not in the slightest. I've had some great information provided by the folks on here - information which I couldn't have gotten anywhere else

Well, modeling is all great and good when it all goes well. At other times it can all become rather frustrating, which to be honest is what has been happening recently. I did get the vacuum, air hoses, and valves finished. Brass angle was used as stanchions to support the hoses, and glued into place using epoxy. Then once I had connected everything in place, I wasn't too happy with the result. Most of the photo's I've seen of these items have the hoses mounted more or less vertically. I think these are at too much of an angle. There's not really a lot of room for placement here so I can't get them mounted vertically, but hopefully better than this. The stanchions were cut off and remounted, this time with better effect. Still not perfect but better than they were. I also took the opportunity to fix the chains in place and do some touch up painting. Now onto those side frames and vestibules. They are fighting me all the way... and so far, they are winning. I don't know what it is about these parts but I am just having no luck at all. The etch primer went on the brass frames perfectly - I couldn't have been happier. However, when I applied a coat of ordinary primer over the top, it didn't go so well. I think it was my fault in not shaking the rattle can enough prior to spraying. Mea culpa. So as I write, the side frames have been taken back to brass once again. Vestibules: Again, just not going well and I couldn't get a decent paint finish on them. I'm going to have one more try and if it doesn't work, I may have to remake them yet again. Recently, it appears that every time I try and work on something in this project, I end up a bit further back than when I started. Incredibly frustrating - especially when I was so close to crossing a major milestone. After pondering it for some time, I have decided to start another project as a diversion from this. I do not intend it to be a long diversion but I need a little break from this to refresh the batteries and prevent it from becoming a real chore, which is not what this hobby is supposed to be about. So... I'm going to take a little break and I'll be back when I have some good news to post.

Thanks Les, thanks Peter, It's getting there but certainly taking a lot longer than I originally anticipated. However, for the most part it is still enjoyable although I am tempted to start another build just to have a bit of a change. The worry is that if I put it aside I'll lose momentum, or get side tracked fro a substantial time, neither of which I want to happen.

Back from my travels once again and I managed to sneak downstairs for a few hours before SWMBO came home. Since I only had an hour or two I didn't want to get into anything too deep. I had started this job before I departed earlier this week - During my frequent photo reviews I spotted that the electrical boxes have some conduit running alongside the end of the chassis. It was one of those small details that can easily be missed but once you see it, you know you have to do it. Stainless steel wire was used to replicate the conduit... Which was then painted up and had a few days curing while I was away. So it was a relatively easy job to fit that today, and also to tidy up a few loose ends, namely, the cover panels on the electrical boxes, and the retaining chains for the buffer spacers/extenders or whatever they're called. Just a few paint touch ups and that will be complete. I had also spotted that I still had to add the airlines or vacuum pipes for the brakes. A quick search around my scrap box yielded no results, but I did find some solder that was a good match for the thickness I was looking for. I drilled out some Meng nuts to start the connector.... Then added some styrene tube, followed by some aluminum rivets. Can you see where I'm going with this ? Then the valve was finished off with another Meng nut. The dome head of the rivet was filed flat and a hole drilled in the end to accept a brass pin, around which I formed the levers that appear on these valves. The front two are complete and the rear two are still in process. A quick squirt of primer and you can get an idea of what they are going to look like in position. I still have to make the brackets that they're mounted on along with the connector on the other end of the hose. Small progress but enjoyable nonetheless.

It's been one of those modeling sessions hours days weekends. Let's start with the good news. Okay, that's over, let's continue with what else has been happening. The side frames were given a coat of etch primer on the external faces. That went reasonably well with the exception of a couple of small blemishes in the covering on both side frames. I micro meshed those this morning and gave another coat of etch primer, then I caught a small sink mark where I had not filled with enough solder. That was filled with some filler I had handy, then sanded back. The side frames have now been given their last coat of etch primer and are sitting curing as I type. I will leave those at least overnight before giving them a coat of primer type primer. Actually, I'm off on business again this week so it may be next weekend before they get the primer coat. All that being done, I am pretty happy with the side frames. I also took the opportunity while I was rattle canning to spray some of the styrene side frame failures as test beds for the different paints. I will coat these test pieces before I spray the side frames to ensure there is no reaction with the paints. Now the vestibule ends.... those damn vestibule ends. Aaarghhhh! I don't know what it is about them but they seem determined to fight me all the way, and back again! After my last post, I marked up the ends for the material to be removed - it was about 2.5 mm give or take from each upright. I had allowed 19 mm for the door opening when I should have allowed 21.5 mm. The door itself is 19 mm but there's also a door jamb in there too. This is how much needs to come off. A simple enough job... place sandpaper on the bench then rub end vestibule back and forth to remove unwanted plastic. Which all went far too well until I came to remove the masking tape - a whole bunch or primer and wotnot came off with it too. Well, that's not particularly good or confidence inspiring is it? Especially when I know I'll be masking that lot later. So after considering the options, I took the decision to sand everything back to plastic again On the face of it that also went well, until I realized that some of the wet from my wet and dry had got in behind the plastic and soaked into the wooden paneling - yes, you guessed it... another disaster. At this point I almost considered asking my friends back at the machine shop to EDM me a set of vestibule ends, but sanity prevailed - in brass there would be six bends in each piece, and I know I'd need about a dozen attempts to try and get all the bends in the right place. I'm sticking with what I have, and the de'il tak the hindmost ! Obviously, I know that water and thin sheets of absorbent wood don't go particularly well together.... I know that! So why I didn't try to protect the paneling better is a question best left to ehrr... someone else, not me. After messing about with it and trying to fix things it was obvious I had to go back to square one. Well, not quite square one but almost... The main issue I had was that I had used rectangles of basswood as a spacer/strengthener between the outer wall and the paneling. Now, because of the grain, it was good in one direction but not the other. I needed a different material - 1 mm thick styrene. The plastic could be rescued as could the main door beams so I cut out styrene spacers and glued them in position, as well as adding some other little blocks here and there to add strength. The problem I face here - and I knew this one was coming is that we all know what happens when we glue two flat surfaces together with styrene cement... one of them ends up with sink marks. At least this time I was prepared for that. You can see one just at the angle near the left top of the gangway opening. Overall, not too many sinks at all - much better then I anticipated. So that's where I'm currently at with this purgatorial build. I'll let that glue cure overnight before filling and sanding (yet again). I'm surprised there's any plastic left on those vestibule ends after all the sanding they've endured. I tackled a couple of small jobs, but gave up as my heart wasn't in it today. I'm really focused on getting the side frames and vestibule ends painted and since they've been my nemesis for what seems like at least the last year, I need to get those defeated before I can move on. I'm so close, but it appears that every time I get close, something falls out of the sky to give my butt a great big kick and bring me back down to earth again.

hi Richard, I'm still undecided as to how to display the car when finished but you do make a good suggestion. I'll mull that over and see what comes to mind thanks for the input !

Progress has been made - and what's more is that it is progress in the forward direction. Unusual for me but there you go.... the law of averages at work I guess. Taking onboard some information provided about the paints I was using, and weighing up my chances, I decided the best option for the vestibule ends was to sand them back nice and smooth then add a coat of primer to eliminate any chance of the alclad primer reacting with the enamel again. On the first go round, I did get a very slight reaction along one edge as you can see here, but once that was dried, it was sanded back and another coat of primer was added - this time no reaction. In theory, it should now be ready for enamel, but I'm leaving it for a couple of days and I may add yet one more coat of primer as a safeguard. In between sanding and spraying sessions I looked for some light entertainment, and remembered that in the vestibule there is a drop down shelf mounted on one of the walls. It's a bit of a weird arrangement and the only reason I can see for a shelf there is to give the guard somewhere to rest his cup of tea - as when in use, it completely blocks access via the entrance/exit door. Anyways, that was made from a piece of basswood (as usual) but sanded down until it was about .25 mm thick, I then mounted some frame around it, added a hinge along the bottom edge from some brass rod, and found a small piece of unused PE from an earlier build which managed to look remarkably like a small recessed latch. That has now been given a coat of semi gloss and is drying off, ready for installation later. Now onto my cunning plan. Unfortunately, my cunning plan proved to be not so cunning as I fleshed it out and realized that it was not really set up for success. In the end my cunning plan was to revert back to plan A and persevere. You can see just how close to the edge of the styrene I am here in this shot. I took it as gently as I could, trying to keep the drill bit from slipping too much and just bursting out the side of the styrene. I started out with a small drill (Ø0.8 mm or so?) and then opened the holes out to Ø1.2 mm. A couple of the holes were elongated but nothing disastrous. Through the week I had ordered a bunch of hardware which included a bunch of Ø1.0 mm nuts and bolts. This seemed to fit the bill nicely - I was using 2 mm bolts before and they were just far too big. 1 mm doesn't sound like much but in this instance it made a big difference. As you can probably tell from this photo, getting the nuts started on the thread was a bit challenging for an oversized oaf like myself. Thankfully, I only need to get them on about half a thread or so and then I could use the tool which came with the hardware to snug them up nicely. I had envisaged having to make my own tool to get the nuts tightened down, so finding the kit came with the tool was a nice surprise. With just 6 of these 1 mm bolts in place the side frame was surprisingly secure. Much more secure than I ever thought it would be. For the curious of mind, this was my high tech way of securing the bolts in place while I gently lowered the side frame onto the chassis. you can just about make out there the big issue I had to deal with - the fact that the holes I drilled straddled the top flange of the "C" channel I used in the chassis... as soon as the drill hit half brass, half air, it just wanted to wander out to the air side. I'm just putting the nuts and bolts in now to see how it stands up. I need to remove the side frames for priming and painting, so I'll deal with the step issue at that time. And now - with both side frames in place. It's starting to look like something now. Actually, it's starting to look very grubby and a bit mockit. My greasy grubby mitts have rather mucked up the beautiful side frames that were delivered to me with such care. This weekends job will be to get those side frames cleaned up and a first coat of primer on the outer surfaces. That aside - this was a very refreshing moment for me... I can just about see a Pullman car sprouting from this after nearly three years of work. and to give myself some further encouragement, I threw on a couple of bits for a dry fit.... The door is just a piece of scrap card I had lying about but it gives the general idea. Looking at the above, I think I may have made the return on the vestibule ends a tad too long - rather too long than too short though!. I may need to lose a millimeter or so off the width of the return to allow the door to fit properly. At least that is a straightforward task. it's nice when things work out....

I also try and use just one manufacturers paints. Unfortunately, in this instance, I just could not get the colors, hence going to the rattle can enamels. I'm going to give them a few days, then sand back and see where that takes me. It's just frustrating as I finally get to a point with them where I can really move forward, then something happens that halts the progress. Still, that's modeling I guess.

None of those Richard. I model in the basement so it never gets too hot down there, plus there are two air conditioning units to cool and dehumidify the house. I'm convinced it's some kind of reaction between the alclad primer and the enamel top coat. I'm going to micromesh these back to a flat surface then try again using a different kind of primer

As promised earlier, here is this weeks progress forwards, and this weeks progress backwards. It seems I can't have one without the other. Brass ! Side frames. Two off. Carriage, for the building of. I got 'em. This time, with all the windows, and even better... all the windows in the correct place. What a palaver... all caused by my very own stupidity no less. However, that episode is now behind us, or me, at least. I shall pay more attention in the future (don't we always say that though?) I have to say that I am really liking this Tix solder stuff. For a ham fisted oaf like myself it's really easy to use and does exactly what it says on the tin. The first job was to solder some angles on each end.... after CAREFULLY examining photo's, then the side frames, then more photo's, then the side frames again, before sticking a dod of masking tape on the inside of each side frame to remind me that was in fact the inside! After the angles were added, it was a case of squaring off the ends. I tried to lay on some extra solder to fill up the gap as the brass angle I used had a radiused edge and not square, resulting in a teensy weensy gap where the two parts met at the outer edge. Then after driving around town looking for a decent set of files, and being totally out of luck, I set to adding the radius on the car sides. Being very careful with a bastard file (all I have at hand unfortunately), I followed that up with a diamond file, another smoother modelers file, then finally with 400 grit wet and dry, and lastly with some wire wool. It looks like I managed to keep the radius on the edge fairly even. I'll know better when I finally get some primer on them. The next job was one I was definitely in two minds about. I need some method to fix the side frames to the chassis, and checking my limited stocks, I decided that brass angle would come into play again. However, should I solder it or glue it ? I was worried that soldering would deform or otherwise mar the brass side frame, on the other hand, gluing brass to brass has never really worked well for me and I was worried that at some point the bond would break, and if I was near the end of the build that could be disastrous. So I decided that solder was the only way for this part. I cut 3 x 4" length of angle and after a quick test on some scrap brass, I felt confident enough to proceed. It all went rather smoothly though my soldering skills do leave a lot to be desired. It's just as well, this is all on the inside. As you can see, not the best soldering in the world but functional. I also drilled two holes in each of the three angles in the hope that I may actually be planning ahead. The side frames will be glued to the chassis but I hope to be able to use the holes to screw the side frame in position while I'm still in the build process, just in case I need to remove them at any time... who knows. After the chassis mounts were in place, I added some "C" channel along the cant rail area. This time I used E6000 - which remains quite flexible once cured. The last thing I need is for anything to pop off if flexed. Both side frames done with one still to be cleaned up. The nice thing about using brass is that I don't need the multitude of vertical formers I needed when using styrene. I may still add some in later though, as I will need some support for the interior paneling. Then it was a milestone phase for me - getting etch primer on the interior. I used the standard rattle can for this as I wasn't really bothered about the finish in this area. And this is what the brass side frame looks like in position. Yes, it was a wise, if somewhat delayed decision to go with brass for the side frames. It does look much, much better than my earlier attempts. It all sits nicely on the chassis with no tin -canning or warp. Yippee! Now, with all that forward progress something just had to go not quite right. While working on the vestibule ends, I noticed that one of the ends had developed a nasty curve where no curve had a right to be... Thankfully, I managed to sort it out using superglue and some luck. I really don't fancy having to make another set of these (again!) So, the ends were almost ready. I had added the interior paneling, the ends were primed and filled, primed and filled etc. etc. I finally got them to a stage I was happy to proceed with so it was time for paint. I decanted some of the brown enamel from the rattle can and put it into a clean jar. It was rather exciting as it all started frothing up and off gassing for some time. This is about half an hour after the paint was decanted - it eventually settled down after a few hours to about half full. The airbrush was cleaned out and some test spraying on some scrap and everything looked good to go... so I sprayed both ends... Ouch ! (again dammit!) I'm not sure what's going on here. The ends were clean, I micro-meshed the primer before spraying and the parts looked good. However, I seem to have arrived at a rough-cast finish. I did a couple of mist coats, followed by a heavier application then a wet coat - and I got pebble dash! Still, these are not quite as bad as my last attempt. I'm going to give them a few days to cure, and try a micro-mesh to see if I can get an acceptable finish. I wonder if the enamel is reacting with the alclad primer? I'm at a loss to think of anything else. I'm not the best airbrusher in the world but I can normally get a half decent coat. It's things like this that really put me off and just exacerbate my fear of painting. On the up side, I feel I have really made some good progress getting the side frames to where they are. Next stage is to etch prime the outer surfaces after a good clean. No rattle can for that though - I'll decant the etch primer and lay on several thin coats to be on the safe side. Preparation will be everything for those parts.

Another small update today, but quite a good one as far as I am concerned.... more on the vestibule ends I'm afraid. It's difficult to see in this photo, but I added two strips 1.5 mm wide along each end strip of the bellows. I spotted that the 1:1 has a reinforcing strip to bolt the bellows in place, and this will add a little bit of rigidity to the bellows as I am gluing it in place. Only one done as a test, three more to do, but that one has gone off to the paint shop for now. Now, the good part... on closer investigation of the buffer plate area, I discovered that the bellows has a cowl, or shroud over the top. This was going to be a bit of a problem - 1, getting it to look right, and 2, getting it in place and secure without stuffing up the rest of the vestibule end. I already knew I was going to use the cigarette wrapper as it had both the texture and the strength I was looking for - but how to make the shroud ? My plan for assembling all these parts are - bond one side of the bellows in place, bond the opposite side of the bellows in place. The buffer plate sits about 6.5mm off the face of the end vestibule - somehow I would have to fit the shroud in there. Obviously, it had to be preformed as there was now way I would be able to glue it in place neatly and form it into shape at the same time. So, how to preform.... I still have some parts from my earlier attempt at making the buffer plates from styrene... so that was the right shape. I cut the top of a scrap one, and glued the ciggy paper around the edge. Add a few wrinkles and it starts to take shape. This end will eventually be glued on to the vestibule face. Now, all I had to do was form the front edge. That had me for a few moments until I came up with the idea of using the buffer plate as my template - 'doh! I glued some scrap basswood together to give about 7 mm thickness, and then sat the buffer plate on top of that. - I'm making it slightly longer so that I can get some nice wrinkling in place when it's all squeezed up to the right dimension. With my temporary jig all set up, I simply wrapped the excess ciggy paper over the buffer plate as tight as I could, flattened it all down... Super gloop was applied all over the front of the ciggy paper, then the other buffer plate was pressed on top of that one. Remove the scrap basswodd and the first buffer plate and hey presto ! A buffer plate with a shroud all ready to go. Followed by a quick visual test.... Looks good to me! This, in combination with the bellows should look about as realistic as I'm going to get. That will make fitting the buffer plates a lot easier, and once the cig paper is painted up, I think it is going to look fine. It's nice when something goes right for a change isn't it.

well, here we go for another round of scratchety scratch, with a free helping of blundery blunder, and some choice expletives and other utterances of the non publishing type. (see later in this thread...) I was so pleased at getting on with the buffer plates last week, and rushing into primer that I completely forgot about the transition plate which overlaps the carriage floor. However, that was quickly sorted by cutting some brass angle, - and since I didn't want to chance boogering up the primer (dunno why - it was just primer after all...) that I chose to glue the angle in place using E6000. Easy huh ? Now it was time to get serious with the vestibule ends... again. This time hopefully I won't stuff things up. Basswood strips to form the archway... and basswood sheet to form the interior panels. It was a bit tricky on the arch side of the panel as that strip is only about 1.5 mm wide so care was needed to ensure that my clumsy handling did not break or otherwise destroy the panels. Eventually it starts to take shape. Everything is just dry fitted at the moment. I can't fit the interior panels until the "glass" is fitted, and I don't want to fit the glass until the exterior of the vestibule ends is painted. Pondering on these I realized that there will be very little contact are between them and the car itself. I needed something to beef things up a bit. You can just make out here that I have added and upper and lower cross beam from thick styrene. It helps the vestibules hold their shape and the lower one - just visible under the left side of the "mat" will provide a much larger surface area for gluing when the time comes. The mat is a piece of felt I have left over from another build. In the 1:1 there is coir floor matting in this area. I think the felt will work to represent the coir mat - withe the added bonus of being able to hide the step in the floor created by me adding the cross beams And as is always the case... very little of the work will be seen from the outside once it's all buttoned up. The fawn colored thingy lying in front of the car is a tread plate which is fitted between the car and the buffer plate. That will get a coat of aluminum in due course. (yes... I'm still working on the electrical boxes and chains 'n' stuff hanging off the undersides here) AND NOW..... take a look at these.... the long awaited side frames arrived. Of course I couldn't wait to unpack them - and I wasn't disappointed. Absolutely flippin' amazing or what ! Dimensions are perfect. Everything is absolutely square. The frames are perfectly flat. Look at the quality of these window cut outs. The edges are fantastic. I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the work. While I was still in a dizzy, I put them away IN A SAFE PLACE !!! I had some supplies arrive courtesy of those South American women who set up a big shop on t'interweb. I had been hunting for ages for some low melting point solder, which for some obscure reason appears to be as common as a Trump apology here in the US. However, I did eventually happen across some product which piqued my interest... Tix ! No... not the little boogers which bury themselves deep under your skin, and which we have to pick off the dog every time we take her for a walk, but Tix - a solder intended for jewellery. It has low melt solder (pronounced "sodder" if you speak Americanese), a special flux which apparently does not need cleaning afterwards, and even more interestingly a magical compound called Anti-flux. I can only imagine it's to prevent the DeLorean from accidentally firing up while you are in the process of soldering that last connection on the capacitor thingy. Apparently, you paint this anti-flux compound on areas that you do not want solder to flow - I shall need to investigate this magical compound in the near future. (you can't tell from this photograph here, but both liquids are very low viscosity, and have nice little brushes inside the cap) So, for those of you who have been following this prolonged and somewhat interminable chronicle involving the mythical creatures known only as "the side frames"... I decided that NOW WAS THE TIME. !!! If you are not familiar with the layout of this (and many other) Pullman's, the side frames stop short of the carriage ends, and the doors are recessed from the carriage sides before joining up with the vestibule ends. This means that there is a 90° return at each end of the side frame as it turns to meet the recessed doors. I now had to fabricate that return. Now, not wanting to jump in feet first and end up destroying the lovely pieces now resting in a safe place, I thought it only prudent to test out this new low melting solder on a test piece. So, scrap piece of brass, same thickness as the exquisite side frames, and a piece of brass angle were prepared. Unfortunately the brass angle has a slight radius on the exterior 90° so that will necessitate filling with solder and shaping afterwards. The brass was cleaned, soldering iron fired up (at low temperature) the flux painted on, and I attacked the brass as gently as I could. I now like Tix very much! It was as simple as simple could be- the solder flowed beautifully and it was easy to fill up the gap between the flat sheet and the radius of the angle. Then the file came out and I shaped the edge to provide a fillet along the length - as can be seen here. (ignore the little ugly bit at the extreme right - I tested my normal solder to see how it worked... it didn't fare well. However - with the Tix, I am a happy man. Very. Exuberance still exuberating, I went to my safe place and pulled out the exalted side frames, being very conscious of them, and trying my very best not to ding, scratch, bend or otherwise chew on them. Soldering gear was all set up and running, my pulse was steady. The bench was cleared (very unusual!) and I prepared to start work on adding the returns. The first thing to do was to mark the INSIDE surface of the side frames. I didn't want to make such a stoopid mistake as soldering the angles on the outside of the frames now, did I? Just how silly would I look then ??? I placed the side frames down on my bench and a small but very unsettling thought started meandering through the cerebral sponginess that is my grey matter.... it didn't twig at first but something wasn't quite right. I could see it but I couldn't see it. Then I could see it! The meader turned into an avalanche.... INSERT CHOSEN EXPLETIVE HERE !!! insert another expletive here and here.... and here.... and throw in another half dozen just for good measure ! Take a look at this photo shown below - this is both side frames overlaid on each other Did you spot my deliberate mistake ? I'll forgive those of you who are not familiar with this carriage, but the rest of you must be falling off your chairs right about now. How did I do that ? How on this big #$%#*8@#!!!!!!!! earth did I do that ? My first thought was that my machine shop had made a blooper, so I raced upstairs, checked my emails and found the PDF that I had sent for the design.... Nope - the machine shop had made EXACTLY what I had given them. They had made it perfectly. Perfect I tell you. It was my fault. My fault. IT WAS ALL MY OWN STUPID FAULT. (got it yet ?) I missed a window. Yep. I completely and utterly missing an entire freakin' window !!!!!!!! 'doh! Dork!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Imagine just how stupid I felt at this time ! - I designed the darned thing back in '98. I worked on the design for almost two years. I watched the 1:1 car being constructed in front of my very own eyes. I've been building this model of it for over two years and cut about two dozen side frames which weren't quite up to scratch - but they all had the right number of bloody windows didn't they! Words fail me. Suffice to say that I have now calmed down a bit, and very, very sheepishly, sent another email to my buddies at the machine shop asking if they can see their way to either adding the missing window to this frame, or make another frame. Oh dear... I feel so embarrassed, particularly the last 5 characters of that word. So... my carefully laid plans of working on the side frames are now back on hold again as I await a response, and perhaps a jeer or two from my metalworking buddies and see how I move forward from here. I did consider attempting to cut the window out by myself as initially, I was too embarrassed to approach the machine shop given I had made such a glaringly obvious error, but sanity prevailed and I realized that there was just now way on earth that I could match the quality of their workmanship, and I'd more than likely stuff the whole thing up. I don't even have the proper tools to hold the work piece securely, so I'd just be asking for trouble. Anyhoos.... with a spring in my step, a smile on my face, and an onion in my pocket, I took stock of the situation and started planning what I could work on next.... and settled on the passcom. The emergency brakery that stops the train when you pull the cord, in some cases the handle, or smash the glass (or is that for a fire ?). After some (a lot actually) searching I found some decent photo's of the areas of concern. There was enough detail for me to think I knew what I was looking at anyway. Thankfully, I still have the end vestibule that I stuffed up some time back, so it was brought into play as a surrogate to allow me to start throwing together what I imagined the actuation system looked like. This is just a rough "put it together to see if it is going to work" attempt, but it looks promising. I'm using a mixture of styrene rod, sheet, brass bits and bobs, resin hex nuts, and some solder to achieve the effect. The biggest problem I had were the two elbows directly beneath the control box... There should be a short length of tubing between the two elbows, but no matter how I tried, I just could not get the elbows tight enough or short enough to allow me to fit a short length in there (cue a fnaar!). For reference, those two elbows are made from Ø1.2 mm solder. The nice thing about using solder, is that when it's cut cleanly, the flux core shows up nicely, and being softer than the solder itself, it's relatively easy to start drilling and stay centered. As I mentioned, this is just a rough put together - I think when this is all added to the real vestibule end, cut to size and painted, the overall effect will be good enough. I think this proves the concept anyway. and here I end this enthralling installment of Sorry, I'm a Doofus... sponsored by Windex

Thanks Colin. I believe it may have a cowl - I'll need to check my references - hold on... just checked - and yes it does. The cowl is almost flat with just a few wrinkles at the corner radius That makes things a good bit easier.

Small updates seem to be the order of the day - for me anyway. Even the smallest thing seems to take forever these days. Continuing with the buffer plates, I added the brackets that hang off each side. Being so small, these were quite fiddly but they submitted in the end and are happily in place. To add a bit of strength to the joint, I filed a small notch into the edge of the buffer plate, then inset the bracket before soldering. That meant that when soldered into position, there was solder on three sides and not just one. The upright part of the bracket was soldered on top, as from what I can see, that is the configuration of the 1:1 ... in place of the vestibule end Once happy with everything, I gave the vestibule ends a coat of alclad primer, and the buffer plates got a coat of etch primer. Now came a job that is going to take portions of skill, determination, and luck - probably around 20%, 20% and 60% respectively. That job is the cover that spans between the buffer plate and the end vestibule itself. I'm not sure of the exact terminology, but we've all seen them, and walked through them at some point. As far as I can tell, they are canvas like, and bellowed like and accordion, and just to make things difficult, they curve around the top of the buffer plate - so what could be easier hey ! Well, I scouted around for some materials and nothing much jumped to the fore. However, I did find some textured tinfoil that I rescued from somewhere a few years back. I cut a length of that and folded it over and back on itself a few times, then tried gluing it to the old scrap vestibule end. Fail! The tinfoil was too thin and tore far too easily, however, it wasn't a complete failure and gave me some hope - I just needed a stronger tinfoil - but not much thicker. That was important. Scouring around, I came across an empty cig packet - and guess what's inside ??? Yup ! thin, textured tinfoil with a paper backing... interesting. Same thing as before, the paper folded over and back on itself a few times, then I grabbed the scrap vestibule end and slapped some more superglue on it, tehn quickly applied the "bellows". Once that was done, I glued a styrene buffer plate on the other side and started to pull the two apart..... squeeze it back and forth a dew times to create some nice wrinkles and ... I have to say that I am quite impressed with that. Considering it was a very quick and dirty test, and glue just slapped on. I think if that was painted black it could look quite convincing. I have one rather significant issue though. The standard ciggy packet does not provide a long enough section of the tinfoil - it ends about halfway down the other side in the photo above. I'll need to scour around and see if I can find someone who smokes 100's

Thanks Peter, I'll look into that Y'know... I've used that technique on multiple occasions, but for some reason this time around, my mind went off down a different path. Mea culpa

Mike, my cunning plan was to hit them with a file after I had glued the two haves together. I'll have a think and see if I still want to cast them or head down an alternative path - I've still got plenty time as it will probably be about two years before I need them !

and.... here we are - back in the real world, vacation long forgotten about, save for the credit card monthlies being the only reminder. Casting went reasonably well though it's hard to see in this shot as the resin is white. There's a few bubbles, but I got a couple of good casts before running out of resin. The one on the extreme right is the worst case, with a few voids in the rear fins. However, since I only need three of these, I think I already have what I need.... now to put these in a safe place... But before that, I fired up the lathe and made some mounting collars for them out of Aluminum rod. Well, one collar actually - then I ran out of play time for today. Though I did get the outer and inner diameters to size, so all I have to do not is slice off the required thickness with the parting tool and I have a full set of mounting collars for the vents. While that was going on, I had a go at the torpedo vents - seemed simple enough... cast each end of the torpedo vent in resin, glue together, then add a small piece of brass tube for the outer cover. I knocked up one half of the torpedo vent on the lathe Then punched a series of "vents" into a layer of (American) plasticine - which to be honest, is not great, but for this job I figured it would be sufficient. Unfortunately things did not go well with the vents. The vents in the plasticine were too small in diameter and I kept getting voids at the end of each of the castings as can be seen below.. I even tried "injecting" the resin into the holes but still ended up with the same result. The resin was just to viscous to flow into the mold down one side, and fill up from the bottom. It just kept filling up the entry hole (about Ø2 mm) and blocking the exit for the air trapped inside. Back to the drawing board with this one I'm afraid. In other news, I continued with the (2nd attempt at the) vestibule ends. One problem I had was that all my drawings were in 2D, and it was hard to define the curve on the vestibule end as it transitioned from the side into the roof. Luckily I work (sometimes) with Solidworks in my day job, so I extruded the vestibule ends in 3D, then subtracted the roof profile, and when that was done I used the sheet metal tool to develop and flatten the pattern. I then printed out a few copies of the pattern on paper to use as templates. Here I am comparing the template with the vestibule end and the old side frame to ensure that the curves are all where they are supposed to be. One down, one to go... and again, comparing the start of the roof curvature with the side frame. Everything is looking good so far. and following my usual pattern of jumping about all over the pace in builds, I decided now was a good time to start with the diaphragm plates. Originally, I was just going to use styrene sheet for these, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that brass would be a better choice. No doubt the ends will be subject to more dings, bangs, and oh-craps than the rest of the carriage during handling, so brass will stand up to the man-handling better. I had some spare pieces in my scrap bin that appeared to be the right thickness, so shaping commenced.... cut to approximate width by hacksaw, then file down to finished width, then start the detailing.... The gangway aperture was chain drilled and removed, followed by more filing.... Finally, a diaphragm plate... or is it just a buffer plate ? Rinse and repeat for t'other end.... The thin brass strip is for the brackets that are welded to each side of the plate. There are two "L" shaped brackets that protrude form each side of the plate and initially I thought I was going to have to shape the complete "L" in brass, however, upon zooming in on my reference photo's, it became clear that the "L" was made up of two small straight pieces welded together. More fun ahead.....

okay... vacation over and now it's time to get back to the real world. Fortunately I managed to avoid that for a few hours this morning, headed to the basement for some modeling, and made some advancement in a generally forwards facing direction. While the side frames are being manufactured I had a look around to see what else I could be phaffing about with in the mean time. I have a habit of jumping around in builds, particularly as I find my focus starts to wander a bit when I've been on the same thing for too long. Now was one of those times. I found a nice piece of potential scratch build in the form of the rotating ventilators that are perched on top of the roof. I had a basic drawing of the ventilators but was missing some vital information - thankfully those photo's above (mucho thanks!!) provided me with pictures which showed exactly the detail I was missing. I started out by turning the basic form on my lathe before realizing that I was making things difficult for myself. The shape of the ventilator can be seen below (and above!) - the basic form is a circle tapering from two tangents towards a flat edge. On the lathe, I can only form circular shapes so there would have been a lot of joining and shaping to do. There was a much easier way.... I grabbed a piece of 1/8th inch styrene, drew out the shape on that and then cut and filed to size - that can be seen in the bottom of the picture here. After that it was fairly easy to get to the shape I wanted - just one step at a time. (Numbers below refer to the sections in the photo below) 1) If you look at the side view in the photo above, you can see that there is a small lip on the underside - that was achieved by simply gluing another piece of styrene sheet on the bottom surface, cutting roughly to shape then using a file to bring the profile into line. 2) It's a vent innit? Therefore it has some ducting that goes through the roof into the car below. - I rummaged around in my spares box and found a tubular thingy that was the perfect diameter. (I think this was part of the Wessex gearbox that Italeri tried to pawn off on me). All that was needed was to notch a thin slice around half of the end, and that fitted nicely onto the underside of the now, almost recognizable ventilator 3) Perhaps the most difficult operations in scratching this part were 1) shaping the downwards taper towards the rear of the ventilator - trying to keep that nice and even, and 2) Cutting two slots through the ventilator. Cutting the slots was easy - it was keeping them straight and parallel that was the difficult part - that and not breaking off the thin outer edge. Now, why did I want to cut slots in it anyway ? 4) Well, the ventilator has two fins to help direct it into the airflow, and rather than trying to profile ridiculously small pieces of styrene to the exact profile of the ventilator, it was a much easier prospect to just cut a slot and then feed in a section of flat sheet, then... 5) Once the glue had set, it was just a little bit of care and some gentle filing to produce the two fins. All in all, an enjoyable piece of scratching. The thickness of the fins are slightly out of scale, but some concessions have to be made to scale effect here - plus I intend to cast these in resin so I wanted a reasonable chance of the fins being able to be filled inside the mold. Then it was time to add the final detailing. I drilled a small recess in the top and fitted a resin bolt head Followed by a quick squirt of primer to see what needs tidying up before making the mold. (thankfully not too much!). (Ignore the forward fin below - it's the paint and sanding that makes it look ragged in the photo - it's perfectly fine.... trust me, I'm an enginee not fibbing! Then it was out with my recently acquired Lego set to make up the mold base - I finally got fed up with having to search and scrounge for some kind of container every time I needed to make a mold ... and silicone poured. That will be ready tomorrow and then we'll see how successful the whole enterprise was. After that was set aside, I had a quick attempt at mocking up a torpedo vent - mainly to see how feasible it will be to make the gazillion of these little blighters that adorn the roof of Car 310. This was scratched (fairly obviously) from a piece of scrap runner, a punched styrene disc, and a piece of brass tube cut to length and squashed in the vise. While making just one of them wasn't too bad, I can see me getting mightily de-mojo-ed and quickly losing the will to live by the time I reach number three, if not sooner. I think I'll fettle the torpedo a bit more (or make another one), and once happy with the shape, I shall be casting the little boogers in resin - much easier. Punching the discs and cutting/squeezing the brass tube I can live with. and here endeth todays adventures in Tales From A Basement. Other tales are available.

excellent - thanks !

can anyone by any chance point me to a good picture of the rotating roof vent on the Pullman cars ? It's the large rotating vent with the two fins. There are 3 of these on Pegasus (not the torpedo vents) I have a drawing but I think I missed some information on features, so was looking for a decent photo to help me try and decipher my drawing.

The enamel had at least a week to cure and off-gas to its hearts content so I'm not sure what's going on. Colin, I'll look into those Limonene solvents you mentioned - thanks! So, back from one business trip, about to go on vacation, then another trip for business - modeling time is at a premium just now, so I am tackling jobs that I can hunt and pack at. Buffers! That's what's important! Buffers! Them things on the end of trains which stop them crashing into each other. One on each corner there is. So I needed 4 (if my math is correct!) This is another one of those jobs that I had been putting off for some time, though I'm not really sure why. It was (so far!) a lot easier than I imagined it would be. My original plan was to make one good one and use that as a master to cast more in resin. However, after I made the first one and realized just how easy it was, I decided to continue and use brass for all 4 buffers. I printed out a buffer at the right scale, taped that to some styrene and filed that to shape. Then, digging through my scrap bin I found an earlier abortive attempt at a bogie side frame from way, way back in time. The brass was about the thickness I was looking for, so I chopped out a section, used the styrene template and scribed around the perimeter of the buffer. I used a bastard file to get the rough shape before switching to a finer tooth to get the final shape. The brass was a bit battered which didn't really concern me - have you ever looked at the condition of those buffers ? Rinse and repeat several times.... Once I had the shapes all looking similar (or as best I could manage) I had to add some curvature to the buffers. This was accomplished by first bending the buffer around the handle of my razor saw. That was then flattened slightly in the vice before adding a final curve to each end of the buffer. Next stage was to cut out some small lengths of brass tube to act as a mounting point. These were ca'd into place, as close to the center as I could guesstimate (I really should have marked them out better) - that was followed by a generous helping of Milliput to fill out the form. As the real buffers are big humongous castings, the brass by itself didn't look convincing - the milliput helped add some beef to the shape. It looks kind of nasty here, but should shape down nicely later. (My trial version is on the far right) After some gentle sanding and filing, and getting the first one looking really good, I found that all the handling made the milliput pop off the brass buffer at the slightest opportunity. Ouch ! So, superglue was called into action once again, this time to glue the milliput back into place on the buffer. Once glued in place, another sanding brought the buffer back to the land of bufferdom. Small slices of brass tube were called into play to look like collars and slid over some brass rod which was in turn, inserted into the buffer. Center shot - rear view of a buffer - dry fitted at the moment. I know these are not 100% accurate but it appears that there are more flavors of buffers out there than you can shake a stick at. The main profile is good though - the oval with a flat top - as long as that's good I am fine. Once the buffers are in place, it will be very hard to see behind them, but I think this is realistic enough. ... and more dry fitting - mainly to give myself a lift and some encouragement to keep going with this. Even though these would have been relatively easy to cast, I think brass is the way to go here as I am not sure that resin buffers would have held up over time. I may need to make the flat on the top of the oval more pronounced but overall, not too shabby methinks. I doubt I'll get any more done before going on vacation, so... until next time....

I have now decided to try going down the brass sheet route... stay tuned Thanks for the compliment Bucoops. I'll get there in the end - it looks like I'll just need to take a couple of detours along the journey. at least I now have a couple of test pieces to try the transfers out on

So, onto today's little escapade with paints, pigments and problems. Let's start off with what went well.... eh.... well... uhmmnn... Okay, now we've got that part behind us, let's carry on with what really happened... The vestibule end was sanded down nice and smooth. A straightforward job that didn't take long at all. That was done a few nights ago. Today, it was cleaned, dusted down and holding my breath.... I went for the respray. Holy crappola. Things just aren't going my way with this build are they ? About the only part with a decent finish is the part that was sanded down. The previous "good" finish has gone all phnargley Based on that, it appears that the enamel paint is reacting with itself ! (By this time, the mojo is getting a little battered). Okay, vestibule end is not back on the shelf while I rethink that approach. I still have another one to make so I may just as well make two new ones. On to the dreaded side frames. (by this time i have taken another deep breath). This brought with it another whole new set of problems - have you ever tried masking a straight line nearly 600mm in length ? (that's about 2 feet in Americanese) - Then another one and tried to keep them parallel ? It didn't help that Cleetus here kept masking to the outside of the cream demarcation instead of the inside ! 'duh! Anyways, after a good 30 minutes I eventually had one side masked and ready to go. By this time abandon was thrown to the wind and I had already decided that these side frames are going to be my test pieces - unless things go completely against plan and they turn out okay. Rattle can shaked and rattled until the ball bearing wore out, finger depressed (not just my finger at this point!) and whooshy whooshy paint sprayed.... then demasked at the earliest opportunity. On a cursory glance it sort of looks okay doesn't it. And while we still have some tin canning effect going on, it is not as blatantly obvious as I thought it was going to be. However, on closer inspection we can see that once again, there is some kind of reaction going on - and about a third of the way up from the bottom of that photo is yet another I-won't-take-paint spot. Booger and bolloricks! Overall, the finish is rather pants considering it had all been micro-meshed smooth. Just as well, this is a test piece (now!) Fear not! says I, and promptly start banging my head on the concrete floor in a typical Cleesesque fashion. So, moving on.... I've also been continuing to work on the transfer sheet, and am almost complete. That called for a quick print out to check scaling and to make sure everything fitted where it should. (...still a couple of "transfers" missing here) The paint reaction can be seen better here just to the left of the Pegasus name plate. All of this paint malarkey had my mind in a boil and I decided to try a different tack. Up till now, I had been using the brown enamel straight from the rattle can. Probably not the best approach but I thought it was worth a try. Now I know better. While I was trying to sort out the paint colors some weeks ago, I had bought another color - "Italian Dark Brown" from Model Master. It looked worth a shot and by this time I had nothing to lose had I ? I had bought it being under the impression that it was acrylic - and it wasn't. It was also a matt finish while I was looking for a gloss. What the heck, let's try it anyway - I opened up my tin of humbrol enamel thinner to find that the inside of the can had corroded and I had lots of rusty floaters in the tin. Nice one Humbrol! Let's cut to the chase here... Upper is the brown enamel from the rattle can, and the lower is airbrushed Italian dark brown. Whaddya know - I got a nice even decent finish all over - no reaction either ('cept from me). The photo above doesn't really do the color any justice - artificial light and all that. I had a rattle can of clear enamel gloss lying around so before the Italian brown even had time to cure I gave it a lashing of clear gloss - well, part of it at least - so I could see what the color change effect was like Despite what the photo above shows, the two colors are in fact very close to one another. Close enough for me to consider using the italian brown. It is certainly within the range of Pullman "Umber" shades that I have seen. Thoroughly depressing huh ? Well, not quite - despite almost nothing going right over the last few weeks, I do feel that I am making some headway - mainly by making mistakes and ruling things out. Rattle cans are out! at least for using to apply the paint. I will do another test mule at the earliest opportunity using decanted brown from the rattle can to see what that turns out like - safe in the knowledge that I have the Italian Brown to fall back on (if I get hold of some not-rusty not-Humbrol enamel thinners) The tin-canning effect is not as pronounced as I thought it was going to be, so with a different bonding agent, less pressure on the joint, and a bit of care, I think I can minimize that effect. I will have two different thickness of styrene to use for the side frame to see which is better. Currently I am using 0.020" - about 0.5 mm. I have also ordered 0.030" - about 0.75 mm. Obviously, the thicker styrene means that the windows will sit further back from the outer surface, but it may look okay - only a test will tell. Where are we now ? well, the mojo is definitely not 100% but it is on the rebound so at least heading in the right direction. It feels crap that I haven't made any real progress in the last few weeks, but I am finally getting to a point where I feel progress is forthcoming in the not too distant future. or perhaps just another few "learning opportunities" - who knows ?

I'm sure it must be the solvents that are causing the reaction. That is, when used directly from the rattle can. I am going to decant the next batch and try again. Thanks for the input ! What you say about the styrene is undoubtedly true. I had used c channel as backing to give it more strength, but used a bit too much styrene cement, thereby softening the flat sheet too much. I have ordered some more, and of different thicknesses. I have a couple of tests I want to run as I think I have a path forward now - just need to test my theory first.