Rosie Taylor

That's such a cool find, I love Comet coach kits. This thread is as inspirational and interesting as ever!

Ah, visiting in person makes a lot of sense. Thats a possibility for me - a little far, but perhaps cheaper than ordering scans. Interesting that two drawings are different, I guess the only sure way is to look at photos as you say (especially with a locomotive like Leader). I'm starting to understand the massive amount of work and expertise that goes into designing models such as yours, will be following with interest!

This is absolutely amazing! Can I ask how you translated drawings into your 3d model? I've been having fun with my own resin printer and am trying to design my own super-detailed version of the leader for bigger scales, so far the drawings I'm working from are a bit rough. How did you get drawings from the NRM, order scans etc? Your shop is great - as mentioned I'm more into printing my own designs but I think I'll definetely be looking at buying your Crampton loco in the future...

Part 2 of the previous post - I've missed out some photos because I apparently took them "the wrong way" with my phone and they were flipped when trying to upload. Incredibly frustrating. After the ends were marked I simply sanded down to the line, and am much more pleased with the profile. It now matches my templates I traced from drawings, but more importantly "looks right". I also sanded and refined the horizontal top rail along each side of the roof - this will be bare wood. It's slightly over size but again, looks correct to the eye. It needs some more refining at each end, as can be seen from the photos, but I'm on the right track. Happily this allowed me to finally make a start on the roof furniture, after re-priming and giving another, finer sand. I marked a centerline for the roof-vents and laid the roof alongside the drawing to mark the positions. I'm using some LNER torpedo vents I had in my bits box - something I never thought I'd use! By happy coincidence they were from ABS (so the same origin as the bogies), and I had exactly enough for the two coaches! There was a fair amount of flash but they cleaned up well. The coach is really starting to take shape now. Next step is to mark out and fit the rainstrips, does anyone know the sizes of these? I can't find a measurement for them anywhere and it's hard to gauge the thickness/depth from photos.

Thanks, have done

Can I butt in to ask if anyone in this thread knows of a source for works (or other accurate) drawings of the Leader? I know the NRM has them all but as far as I can tell it's £27 per drawing, and I'm after quite a few - more than the general arrangment (which I already have). I was initially interested in the KR Models version but am considering attempting my own 3d printed version (no slight on those who have ordered one, of course, just personal preference). Thanks

Moving on from the sides, I'm focusing on the roof - this has been bugging me for a while and it's time to finally sort it out. Getting the shape right and smoothing the surface will unlock being able to fit the rainstrips, roofvents, etc. The join between the removable roof piece and the ends is very close (almost zero gap) and is a testament to both the manufacture of the kit and the assembly by the original owner - but there is a slight mismatch in profile when held down properly. I secured the roof down as firmly as I could for now - I'll be using long brass screws through the floor at each end, but am waiting on the correct nuts arriving (the nuts will be permanently attached to the inside of the roof). I masked and primed the roof...I want to pretend masking a straight line across the end had some clever purpose, but I just had a brain fart and forgot what the end profile of these coaches looked like (even though I have prototype photos and drawings)! The primer here isn't to prepare the surface for paint, but to help me mark out and determine what I need to change about the roof profile (and where to sand rough/incorrect spots). The ends need to have a sharper, noticeable angle change between the vertical and horizontal, as it is now it has a smooth rounded end. I traced the Isinglass drawings I have and made card templates that I can offer up to the coach and keep checking as I reshape the profile. I've started sanding the ends and am very pleased with progress, but have reached the photo limit for one post! Thanks again to everyone who has been leaving likes, it's very rewarding and encouraging.

One of the most interesting parts of this hobby to me is the highs and lows, the tedium vs reward. I commited to doing the beading on the coaches a certain way, and this became a chore to complete...and that's what I decide to spend my spare time doing! The reason is eventually apparent though; the satisfaction from having completed the beading makes it more than worth it. It might not look perfect, but to my eyes it vastly improves the coaches and from normal viewing distance really looks "right", despite small innacuracies and the odd wonky vertical. To smooth and help hide the joins between pieces, I applied little dobs of Vallejo Plastic Putty. Once dry I sanded it all down, carefully. Despite pre-painting the white styrene used for the beading, it needed a lot of touching up and repainting - sanding/filing the top surfaces obviously removed a lot of paint. Still glad I painted beforehand though, as it was just the "tops" that needed paint and not the tricky "sides". One final stage before I move on from the beading was to add some "pre-weathering"(?) I applied a coat of varnish, then I painted all over with burnt umber watercolour... I used cottonbuds and water to wipe off almost all the paint, leaving traces in the corners and edges of the panels. I meant to use oil paint, but didn't look too closely when in the hobbyshop and bought the wrong tube - thankfully it still achieved the desired effect! The end result is subtle, but to my eye it adds some depth and helps blend the beading with the varnished wood of the original kit. Next step is to add the ventilators above the doors, and scribe the edges of the doors themselves. However, I've noticed for the first time that the windows in the doors are far too short, when I add the vents in the proper position it's immediately obvious. I'm half tempted to try and enlarge them using a small saw, but I don't think I'd manage without damage the delicate sides. Something to ponder...

Ah! I see it now. Wow that seems quite a rookie mistake on KR Models' part!

Forgive me but I can't see any difference between the two photos? Or am I missing something?

Progress has slowed somewhat as I've ran out of thin superglue that I was using to help with the beading (I would put a tiny dab on each corner for reinforcement). I've been busying myself preparing the small whitemetal details; door vents, gangways and electrical connections. All are very good - the vents are from Dart Castings and are well cast, considering their small size (no flash and a good, consistent shape). The stuff from Comet/Wizard is good as always, the gangways are solid but look right. I did consider making working gangway connectors(?) from folded paper as shown by others here (including on @MikeTrice's excellent threads) and that I've done before for my Mk1/Mk2 Coaches, but I don't know how I'll run or display these coaches so will leave for now. The castings have been cleaned and fettled, and are ready for priming and painting - I hope to get some more modelling done over the Christmas period 🙂. In the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys the Holidays!

The bogies are very well designed, their only "fault" being the limitation of the materials (and perhaps the manufacturing methods) available at the time. I can see that they must have been considered quite deluxe, even now they assemble into a solid, free running unit. They've been really easy to convert to kadee as well, and as it's all soldered into a solid piece, very strong!

Ah! I was wrong then, but I think I might try painting them the same colour as the beading. I'm hoping weathering blends them in, they are very small pieces?

It's been a while since my last update, but I've finally almost finished the beading...on one coach 🙄. Looking at these photos, I've just remembered I still need to do the vertical beading on each end, as well as the doors on one side (ignore the one bent horizontal piece)! As you can see, the beading is a different colour from the teak sides and so stands out - I lightly sanded/filed the styrene to blend the pieces together, but this of course removed the paint. It was still worth painting the beading beforehand though, as now I just need to touch up the "top" surface rather than the difficult edges. It's very slow work but rewarding. I like how it looks and how much it transforms the coach, accepting that it's more an impression than an exact copy, although I have been trying to follow the beading spacing and layout from the drawings. The main difference is that on this model the beading is all the same depth and on the same level, where as on the prototype (I believe) the vertical parts of the coach between the windows are recessed slightly. After this, I'll be looking at fitting the door ventilators. From photos these look like painted metal, can anyone confirm, and if so, suggest a paint colour? I may try using my brown mix that I made to match the teak sides.

The drawings from Isinglass arrived, and very impressive they are too (to my eye)! I'm not going for complete prototypical accuracy as mentioned, but they will be a great aid and sanity-checker. Happily, comparing the coach bodies to the drawings show that the shape of the roofs is right, as are most important dimensions. Beading is outlined as well, which will help greatly. One issue that I noticed is the bufferbeams seem to be much further forward on the model than on the prototype, ending almost flush with the coach ends. I'll need to check photos but I'm fairly sure I'll need to move them back - not too much work with a razor saw. I've included this photo as an advertisement of the quality and content of the drawings as a happy customer (although I can't speak to their complete accuracy). I've tried to take this at an oblique enough angle to prevent copyright issues - the last thing I want is to lose Isinglass money rather than send people their way! If anyone has other thoughts I'll happily remove or obscure the photos.

I've put a pause on the beading, as I realised it would be a lot easier if I had decent drawings to refer to regarding the layout. Not that I'm being too precise, but Isinglass do very affordable drawings so it seems foolish not to order a couple. I'll get back on it once they arrive. In the meantime I've completed the ABS whitemetal bogies; one pair built as intended from kit, the other I ended up only using the sideframes and soldered them to a Comet brass chassis (due to missing pieces). The ABS bogie kits are great and very well detailed, the only improvement made by the Comet brass frame is the etched brakegear and rodding (something I don't think whitemetal is suited to). Next to do is fit them to the coach, I've marked and drilled pilot holes but will wait until later in the build so I can set the correct ride height. For now they've had a coat of primer (the wheel surfaces will be cleaned of paint!) For those who are familiar with the ABS bogies and wondering why I've built the coupling mount in a strange way (splitting the end of the bogie), this is to seat a Kadee coupling box.

Ah, that makes more sense! Thanks

Ah you're totally right regarding beading before varnishing - that makes complete sense. I've been doing one side at a time so I'll try sanding the next side free of varnish before trying more beading. Regarding the bogies, I see the way the instructions want me to attach them to the coach floor, but it's giving me pause for thought. The kit provides a self tapping screw that the instructions seem to advise screwing into the whitemetal bushing? I'd expect that would strip out just by looking at it, but don't have a lot of experience screwing into whitemetal (having only used such parts as details on brass frames). I hadn't examined an alternative yet but was thinking along the lines of using a seperate screw and nut as you suggest. Many thanks for the encouragment and help! And for the offer of spares, but as I've combined one pair of bogies with a Comet brass etch, I have doubles of a few components already.

The best way I could come up with to do the beading was using 0.5mm Plastruct Rod - I would have preferred to use real wood obviously but I'm not sure it exists in those sizes! At least, I couldn't find it. I spent a while mixing up paint to be the best match to the colour of the varnished wood of the coach body, using what enamels I have. It's not perfect of course, but I think it's close enough. I'll be doing a light wash over everything and some subtle weathering using very thin oil paint, so hopefully this will help. There's always the lining as well, which will disguise the beading even more. I gave the coaches a coat of gloss varnish first, the idea being this would help the styrene "stick" better and fill the woodgrain somewhat. I used some "Lord Nelson" varnish, brushed on. I'd never heard of it before (I believe it's for model boats, hence the product image) but dries thick and was available for cheap at my local hobby shop. Once I'd primed the styrene (using a rattlecan of Halfords grey) and airbrushed on my brown mixture, I started fitting the beading following my scribe marks for the panels. I used Plastic Magic solvent and just held it into place until it "set" - I guess it melted enough to adhere to the varnished wood. It's not the strongest joint but I'll be varnishing over it all anyway. The spacing between beading isn't quite correct, but I have one side finished now and I really like how it looks. It is tedious and time consuming so I've been taking a break to work on the bogies, I'll post an update regarding them next.

Interesting; they are certainly well detailed bogies, considering they're entirely cast of whitemetal. There was a lot of flash but they clean up well and are smooth running. The one weak point I've discovered was the method of fixing to the coaches, but I'll cover that when I have something to show. Thanks for the offer of the coach, but I really shouldn't - my pile of unfinished projects is already quite large!

This is so helpful, I've had my eyes on one of these kits for ages. I love the prototype but have had to make do with a heavily modified version of the Hornby "model"

Thanks for the ideas - I think I'm going to carry on as @Bucoops suggests, building them as well as I can but accepting the limitations of the kits. Most important in this project is to enjoy myself! It's difficult to not want to put every rivet and pipe-run on, but that would be a little silly considering the origins of the kit. Having said that, I think using the brass etched parts I have (alarm tells, underframe, door handles, etc) will help "sell" the model a lot. I've found before that the eye is drawn to finer, intricate details and helps distract from flaws or crude compromises. Let's just hope that's the case with this project... I've been making steady progress with the beading, but it's quite tedious so have been breaking it up with work on the bogies. Will post more update photos as soon as I can work out how to upload images that aren't rotated!

I've had somewhat of a "Stop the presses!" moment thanks to @MikeTrice, who linked me to his amazing thread on Western Thunder forums with a massive amount of prototype detail and photos (I've also been following his great thread on ex-Kirk coach kits here as linked above). It's both encouraging/inspiring and overwhelming, and now I need to make a decision regarding the rest of the project... I knew such information was out there, but decided to not get too bogged down in research as these coaches could never be scale replicas anyway and would require too many compromises. However, with Mike's thread and such a wealth of helpful information in one place, I can't help but want to replicate every little detail. Is this futile with what I've started with though, with so many innacuracies built into the wooden bodies? It's the eternal modeller's question of how much detail to try and achieve. I have a whitemetal MTK kit of a Class 40 that is posing me a similar problem, how much do I try and replicate the prototype when what I'm starting with is so problematic and innacurate? Something to think on. Meanwhile, I've cleaned the whitemetal bogie kits in the ultrasonic cleaner and filed smooth the mating surfaces and any flash (of which there was quite a lot!), ready for soldering together.

I've been following that thread with interest! I'll go through it again to check my working

I wont have any updates for a couple of days due to work and parenthood, but have a preview of all the goodies I've collected to finish these coaches... (Hmm, first image is rotated even when the original isnt? Apologies) I found two sets of the correct pattern bogies second hand, and was keen to find something of a similar vintage as the coach kit itself. Coachmaster was a brand under ABS Models I believe? They're whitemetal only, and the unpackaged set is only part complete and pretty rough, although I believe they can be built up into some well running bogies. Some more helpful packages, courtesy of Comet/Wizard Models. The etched bogie frame is to help complete the partial whitemetal set, and while I was shopping I found the rest - gangways, buffers, details for each end such as lighting jumper cables, alarm mechanisms, etc. I also have a package with the correct roof vents, door handles etc on it's way. Have I done my research properly or is there a glaring omission/something incorrect? I'm fairly new to both LNER and coaches from this period, although fairly familiar with coach-building in general.