The Fatadder

Going to be on my own again I think, though I must take wife and daughter to didcot some other time... Looking forward to taking a fully charged camera into the carriage shed, and getting up close to the Aero prop wagon with a tape measure, with its Filton branding, it's just too tempting

Very nice James, Having done the same respray on a Heljan, and then SS Great Britain using a Vi Trains model (although still not quite finished the yellow ends...) Think that must be the first time I've seen someone else painting something in Merlin. Now to convince you to do away with all that Fag Packet First stuff, and back date it to Merlin.......

Not 100% sure of my availability yet, but hopefully will be able to make it

Somehow managed to find a fair bit of modelling time over the weekend, meaning I managed a lot more progress on the coach projects. First up was the RH D95, The last remaining side was prepared and fitted following the same method as described in Part 3. The only difference being that less material needed to be removed in order to clear the new windows (as a result of not having separate droplights.) I'm guessing these must be amongst Comet’s older kits, as the level of detail is a lot less than the LH D95 (no etched holes for the hand rails / door bump stops. Once dry, they were cut and filed to the correct length (again colouring the back of the plastic side with black marker pen so that you could quickly see once the etch and plastic were flush. Next it was onto the ends. First the moulded grab handles, lamp irons and corridor connecter were carefully carved off. Using the pips on the back as a guide, about 1mm was removed from each side, this gives a profile which roughly fits into the coach end. The top was roughly filed to remove the bevel and to reprofile the corners (to add the steeped angle which was lost when narrowing the sides). The raised detail was then removed from the back of the end, followed by some trial and error removing more and more material from the sides of the end moulding until it fitted cleanly into the coach. The final job was to remove approximately 1mm of plastic off the bottom of the end, to line up with the bottom of the sides. In order to get the ends to fit recessed into the coach moulding, its necessary to remove material from the end of the chassis moulding. Making a cut on the inboard side of the two raised pips, and another cut on the buffer beam above the buffers. Again this was test fitted against the body to ensure clearance, before gluing the ends in place onto the coach body (and applying the necessary filler to tidy up the joins.) The final job on the body was to open out all the holes for the grab rails / door handles, and to glue on the hinges. (I have to admit to making a bit of a mistake here, not realising that they needed to be drilled and fitted before doing the sides. I have used some etches instead which are far too flat, and too wide, but better than nothing…) Moving onto the underframe, I soldered up some Frogmore etched battery boxes which were all glued in position. Along with fitting some new vac cylinders for the LH D95. The H33 also was fitted with its additional small battery box, along with new Frogmore boxes for the other side. The incorrect bogie mounts were chopped off, and the area around the new bolt opened up. A square of 80though Plasticard was cut approx. 20mm by 20mm, with a hole drilled for the bogie bolt. This matches a flat section in the underframe between detail around the new bolt location. Once glued in place, the bolt was Epoxied in position. (this method gives sufficient clearance for the interior above the bolt head. The below photos show the improvement in ride height on the modified H33 next to a Mainline C77, with an unmodified D95 for comparison (both are still riding on the BR1 bogies for the moment) So that leaves only a couple more jobs prior to painting, fit end hand rails, fit door stops to side, fit dynamo and some linkages to the underframes. I am also contemplating replacing the corridor connectors on the inner ends of the D95 and the H33 with the MJT or Modellers Mecca working ones. I will keep the castings for extra detail on the outer breaks. At some point in the year the new bogies will be sorted, but that can wait until after painting….. Hopefully I will manage to get these last few jobs done in the next week, as I have a Finney 2251 coming in the next couple of days which I can't wait to start and the Cotswold Models 54xx which needs an evening of soldering up…

Cotsworld I think, bought off John shortly after RMWeb live. With the intention of using with the forthcoming high level chassis and a load of archers rivet rransfers to improve on the detail. Hopefully the chassis isn't far behind the Bachmann model and I can make a start on building....

From the sounds of it the splashes on the 64xx are oversize to clear the OO flanges, that what you are buying may be closer to a 54xx in look anyway. If I remember rightly that (and the wheel size) were the major differences, and I suspect in OO the wheel size will be less noticeable

Looking at that makes me start wondering if I made the right decision going for a white metal kit / high level chassis when Bachmann are making it in the livery I want.... Still at least I can get the details specific to my loco from the start, and it will be a lot more fun than just opening a box

Looking at the finished loco, available in the livery I wanted I'm almost regretting my decision to build a kit instead...

Thanks, Will give that a try and see how I get on.

Once I get either my Mitchell Mougul or 4500 chassis working I think I will give it a go. Not had a whole lot of success getting the clearances right on an outside cylinder p4 loco yet, the Mougul has given me no end of problems!

Having completed the shortening of the sides for the first coach yesterday, the first job after getting home from work (and putting the baby down for the night) was to repeat the process on the other 3 ends. This time I thought to try and save a little time I would use a fine saw blade and cut the majority of the excess off the coach end, before filing back to the side. To assist with this the end of the plastic side was coloured black with a marker pen so that you could easily see if the file was touching the plastic. Once this was done it was back to work on the LH coach’s corridor side. As the corridor side’s etch was being fitted to the compartment side of the donor coach, there is an additional window on the van end which is only on the corridor side. After using the etch to mark the rough position, I chain drilled around the line and then opened up with a scalpel blade. (Shown in blue on the below drawing) Next up was the van doors / centre window. For these it was a simple case of removing 1mm around the edge of the centre window, and 2mm around the edge of the door windows (the latter is to provide clearance for the drop lights and was only needed on the LH etch). (Shown in green) Finally was the main corridor windows, I started by scoring across the tops of the plastic between each window. Next the left most window towards the van end had 1mm removed from van end edge. I then cut through a line the length of the corridor windows about 2mm below the bottom of the frames, before using the Duron cutters to chop the tops of the windows out. Once the section had been removed it was a simple case of tidying up with a file / chisel blade checking against the etch to ensure clearance (shown in red). Once complete I gave the model a final once over with a course file, and scraped the upper 3mm of the side with some scrap etch to ensure a crisp joint under the rain strip. Lines were marked on in line with the door gaps, to assist with the alignment of the new side. The coach was then covered with Evostick (with a line on the etched side along the top and ends), and the side was fitted to the coach. This time I left the interior out, which resulted in a much closer fit (as a result of being able to better apply pressure. I also made a start on the LH interior, flipping the Hornby interior through 180 degrees and removing one compartment. It now needs the toilet, guard’s compartment and van wall adding from plasticard. Out of interest what does the inside of the guard’s compartment look like?

Watching with interest as I have an old airfix large prairie that a school friend gave me, which I think I will now dig out and detail

Last night has seen more progress on the D95s, First up was the fitting of drop lights to the LH coach. I have gone for a lot of part open windows, given that I know the summer of 1947 had at least one very hot spell (based on the historical reports), I figured that passengers would have kept the windows open to try and keep cool. As per the work on the H33 these were super glued in position, cutting the etch in half where necessary to provide clearance for the door handle holes. For this I would apply a small dab of glue, before holding in place and checking alignment. Once clear more glue would be applied around the edge, which would be drawn under the etch before pressing down. Once dry, any surplus glue was removed from the top of the etch (where it would interfere with the fit to the plastic side) with a file. Fortunately the older RH kit has the droplights half etched in place, so no fitting needed here! Next was a start on preparing the coach for the sides. Starting with the LH coach I carved the plastic away from the van windows, ensuring enough was removed to clear the droplight. I repeated the process on the outermost compartment sides. The interior and chassis was then refitted and a sharp knife was used to cut through along the bottom and top of the windows (removing the whole thing in one chunk. The interior gives a bit more resistance to press against while cutting. Finally with a course file, clearance was filed above and below each door window to clear the droplight. This process was then repeated for the RH coach (although without the additional work providing clearance for the droplights). The final step for last night was to glue the sides to the body with Evostick. Given that the side has a lot less strength than the restaurant, I opted to leave the interior in place while I stuck the sides on. For some reason the bond wasn’t quite so good on the ends as with the H33. This was in part due to the tumblehome being in a slightly different position to the model on one etch, and probably part as a result of leaving the interior in place. This was resolved by running a lot of superglue into the gap. For the other side I am planning to revert to my original method, allowing greater pressure to be applied to force the side and coach together. This morning I had enough time to file down one of the ends, which worked really well (taking care not to touch the plastic.) So tonight when I get home the first job will be to repeat the process on the other 3 ends, before getting on with fitting the other side.

Assuming that the majority of the doors on the Hornby model are in the right place, (I think that was the case when I compared with Russell) There is a couple of mm to remove from each side. On the H33 I roughly marked a line on each side and then tried to saw off the excess, before filing down to the exact length. This time I'm thinking that i will glue in position and then file back to the plastic ends. So long as it gets a good bond, I think this will be eaiser than risking the tumblehome while trying to cut it. Once again wishing that Comet had been a bit more sensible in their design, a half etch on the inside of the side to cut along would have been much better (and making them the right length better still!

Now that the H33 project is ready for painting, its time to move onto the next project – a pair of D95. At the moment my plans are focused around putting together a 5 coach cross country rake consisting of A D95 BTK, ? FK, H33 RC, ? TK, D95 BTK. While the FK and TK are not yet decided, I was wondering if some conversions of Bachmann sunshine stock might be suitable (given that I have plenty of donor coaches already). I want to try and get a mixture of diagrams / coach types. The D95 is following the same approach as the H33, starting with a pair of old Hornby D95s. I have a set of Comet sides for both the RH and LH versions, roof vents and corridor connectors. Bogies will be MJT / Bill Bedford (the plan being to leave on the BR1s until painted and then get the bogies). The underframe will be knocked up from bits of plasticard and my scrap box. After stripping down the coach to remove the BR1 bogies and the ends, the first job was to remove the roof detail. Ignoring the Comet instructions (and using photos / a thread on RMweb) I have decided to model the coaches with the original roof arrangement (which only had two hand rails). The first step was to carefully carve off the moulded vents, filler and handrails with a chisel bladed knife, and new holes were drilled. When building the H33, I found a few of the roof vents ended up falling out while I was working on the sides, so this time they will be added once the coach is complete. The next job was the removal of all raised detail on the sides (there’s a lot of it!), again this was carved off with the chisel blade (before attacking with a course file). The key area here is the 2mm section under the rain strip, which needs to be completely free of any trace of the old raised door lines in order to give a good fit for the new sides.

Tonight saw a little progress on the underframe. The plan is to start with a fairly basic representation with the intention of further improvements later. (As such I'm aware it's on the wrong bogies, and the vac cylinders are on the wrong ends) New v hangers and separate linkages were added from wire and plastic strip, along with the tanks which were made from lengths of plastic tube Still need to replace the BR1 bogies with the tempory Hornby 7ft gw ones.... At some point the chassis will be rebuilt with brass section, at which point the battery boxes and vac cylinders will be replaced. I have also got the paints out to finish off the interior, (not properly located in the body yet.)

Thanks for that, glad I found out before I started adding to the underframe detailing.

Very nice, Very glad I saw your thread, as mine has been an enjoyable project so far

Is the extra battery box only on the pre refurb version? I can't seem to see it on Comet'sunderframe drawing

For my H33 project, the costs have come in at £10 for a doner coach from ebay (Just make sure it has the gw 7ft bogies (unlike mine...) Sides £10.50 Roof vents £2.50 Grab handles and door handles were about 3£ a pack each (1 pack being enough to do a few coaches) Corridor connections £4 Then it's just the usual wire and plastic etc for the rest, of course if you can live with the Hornby vents or corridors, or halt to make the grabs and door handles from wire you can save even more

A very short post this evening, as all I have done is remove plastic to clear the new windows, And then glue on the new brass side Tomorrow will be time to get stuck into adding bits to the chassis, along with getting some paint on the interior