Here's one I made earlier...Bachmann/Mainline D1694 to Breakdown Train Unit

[Zunnan]

Having a rummage around the local exhibition last week, I happened upon a cheap and cheerful little project...I didn't intend for what is going to happen to it, as I have done one already! Lets just say it turned out to be more of a fixer upper than I anticipated.

 

£10 for a Bachmann CK, bargain! But wait...

 

 

Lining touched up with gold paint, which I was expecting. I was going to just re-line, or perhaps have a stab at full panelled LMS livery. But then the missing corridor glazing presented itself and that little devil got the better of me.

 

'Do you really want to order flush glazing and then want to do the glazing on other half a dozen Bachmann P1 coaches you have?'

'You know that BTU you bashed together to go with the crane? It needs a partner! Two is better than one...'

 

As luck would have it, I still have half of the corridor glazing from that little project. Game on!

I kind of wished that I'd done a build project on that first one, so here we go again!

 

 

Within 30 minutes of debating the pros and cons of repeating myself, into the IPA it went and within a couple of hours the lining and numbering were coming off. Point of no return, rapidly approaching!

 

Two days later...

 

 

 

 

A bit of an attack with the toothbrush and not very much time needed, the paint was literally oozing off. IPA baths are very effective with Bachmann paint of all ages. Two to three days and its down to bare plastic with very little effort.

 

Spaghetti jars...who knew they had multiple uses? (Don't tell the missus!!!)

 

 

All spotless and ready for the real work to begin! Next up, and on the to-do list is all of the beading removal, window filling and ironcladding of the upper bodyside. Oh...and cutting two whacking great holes through it!

 

This one is going to be another conversion of a D1694 LMS CK. According to the LMSCA, five such coaches were withdrawn in 1958 then converted and released to traffic in 1959. The one I've done already being ADM395478 which went to Westhouses. This one will become ADM395470 which remained in service until 1981, but unlike the rest survives in preservation as the Bahamas Society Learning Coach.

 

As the title implies, I've been down this rabbit warren before; so in good old fashioned Blue Peter tradition...

 

Heres one I made earlier!

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by Zunnan

[Zunnan]

A few hours over a couple of evenings with a fresh scalpel blade and a coarse nail buffing file saw the majority of the surface detail done away with. Gone is the entirety of first class, along with one and a half third class compartments, some beading around the toilet window and also the ventilator. Some of the lower beading on the compartment side may yet succumb to removal if I'm to go completely faithful to ADM395470.

 

 

Marking for the cuts is a relatively simple task in comparison to the epic shave this coach has undergone. Just keep it square and around 5 feet wide and all is golden!

 

 

Does the warranty cover accidental damage?!

 

 

Now that the sides have been opened out, its time to begin filling those unwanted holes. The compartment windows and droplights are both 4.8mm wide, so a length of 1mm by 4.8mm Evergreen styrene strip was cut into 10mm and 9mm lengths. A dab of Plastic Magic and a metal flat edge to keep the infill as flush as possible and it doesn't take long to plug the gaps.

 

 

The compartment side has a section converted to a kitchen area, which necessitates half of the third compartment plus the door window for the fourth compartment be retained. Over on the corridor side, the larger windows require a bit more styrene! Door droplights are again 4.8mm by 9mm by 1mm thick, but the main windows this time are plugged using 6.2mm and 4.8mm cut to 10mm, with the added fun of less than half a window remaining where the tool doors have been opened out. A new toilet window was also created on the corridor side by partially blanking the large window opposite the original toilet location. The gangways have also at this point been blanked off with suitably shaped 1mm thick plasticard.

 

 

Next up is ironcladding over the window blanks. On the previous coach I used 0.4mm styrene strip for both cladding the windows and also the gangways blanking plate, which worked quite well. Those end steps also need removing from both ends, and an extra water filler pipe adding to the remaining toilet end.

 

Those wonky buffers are really going to have to be dealt with too!

[Zunnan]

This time around I've gone for slightly thinner material, 0.25mm by 6.2mm styrene strip with a 1.5mm filler between in order to get the width out to cover the windows fully. I tend to prefer this route as when I previously used one single sheet cut down to size the edges weren't quite dead straight when cut with a steel rule and scalpel, and when feeding glue (I'm using Plastic Magic for these builds) in it didn't quite penetrate fully leaving some air bubbles which showed when painting. Going the Evergreen strip route gives nice straight edges and makes it easier to get an even spread of glue beneath the strip as the window fill draws it in very nicely. Once dry the whole side was sanded over with a car body sanding block with a fine grit in order to even out the joins in the cladding. It doesn't need to be perfect, in fact a few dents and dings are going to be ideal for portraying this vehicle in the late '70s after 20+ years of abuse.

 

Once the cladding was done, some thin strip was added to replace the beading sanded off at the coach end, as well as for the new side doors.

 

 

With the cladding done its time for the first primer coat to show up areas in need of further attention, including filling the remains of the removed compartment doors. Removed beading showed through, as did the joins in the cladding so another gentle sand over with fine grit was called for.

 

 

I deliberately left the filler slightly shallow so that the ghost of the compartment doors would show, a few choice dinks were left to show in the cladding as well. A nice sunny day and its time to get the final primer coat laid down.

 

 

Tool doors to do and the body is complete, so its time to make some alterations to the interior and chassis while the primer hardens enough for some more rough handling to get the doors in, the inside of the coach body has a few moulding pips which need removing for the recessed coach doors to mount to. The interior needs material removing so that the narrower body can clear and the chassis needs locating holes filling where the body locating tabs used to go. I'll also look at removing the moulded battery box as photos of this coach in its latter days show a very sparse chassis devoid of everything but trusses and brake cylinders.

[Zunnan]

Shaving the interior to fit the narrowing of the body at the doors is a nice simple task of removal by rough file. So, while the primer has been hardening I've blitzed out the chassis and interior modifications. The doors will be constructed using 1mm plasticard and spaced inwards on a 1mm thick styrene frame around the inside of the body. To be safe, 2.5mm either side of the interior has been removed as well as opening out the compartment so that when assembled you can see through the tool van section without obstruction.

 

 

 

At the same time, the locating holes in the chassis were filled with slightly oversized styrene flooded with plastic magic and crammed in. The resultant goop was scraped out and filled over.

 

All of the chassis battery box detail was also removed using a soldering iron (!!!) to separate around the truss rods. The resulting mess was tidied up with a file or two and a nail buffer to ease the sratches.

 

 

 

After building the previous coach, I learned the difficult way to not use red primer on the interior. Photos of the real thing show the interior to be off white, so when I primed the first coach with red for the woodwork and then overpainted with off white it took several layers to get the white right. This time around the interior is going white primer from the start and the compartment doors will go brown over this.

 

 

 

Next up the tool van doors were carved from 1mm plasticard. To make them as mirror images of one another all of the carving was done on one sheet before each side was separated. The droplight was carved into the window opening with a fresh scalpel blade.

 

 

 

Once assembled on a 1mm thick styrene frame glued into the body, its ready for the doors to to be painted. The lower step to floor level was masked on to the chassis moulding, when clipped together the doors are intended to sit flush on top of the chassis. It worked first time around, hopefully this ones been measured properly too!!!

 

 

With the bulk of the bodywork completed, its time to begin the paintwork next.