LSWR Ironclad conversion

[petethemole]

The thread on ex LSWR Ironclad departmental coaches prompted me to have a go at converting a Graham Farish 00 coach to an Ironclad. I have several from e-bay including the older kit versions with metal roof. I chose the corridor type as they’re based on Maunsell coaches, so there’s a family resemblance as it were. The coach selected was a corridor 3rd in GWR 1922 livery.

 

The intended end result is a 57ft corridor 3rd. The model as it comes is a scale 55ft 9in long with bow ends. As it is to run with correct length stock I decided to lengthen the body, roof and underframe and fit flat ends. I’m still undecided whether to remove the ends completely or build a flat end onto the existing ones after removing the corridor connection mouldings. The compartment section of the body matches scale drawings quite closely. I checked out the Terry Gough article in the August 1967 Modeller (e-bay again) but he used the non-corridor coaches as a base.

 

The first stages of the project are under way, despite a few setbacks.

 

I removed all the detail from the roof; vents, tank covers and rainstrips. The roof profile is too shallow so I glued two lengths of 2.5mm x 0.75mm Evergreen strip down each side, filed and sanded to profile. The ends are being extended to length with plastic card and scrap for support. Then I have to replace the rainstrips; there are few if any roof vents on these.

 

The underframe is in three parts, two ends holding the bogies and a middle section with the trussing. I cut off the buffers and added new headstocks to extend the length. The bogie pivot locations are the right distance from the end as they come but will have to be re-set for the new length. I knew I had bought some appropriate “dreadnought” bogies from e-bay; I found them in a box of SR coach kits that also held 4 Phoenix Ironclad kits that I’d forgotten I had. I thought twice about carrying on with this but I’ve started now. The kits will prvide a useful three-dimensional check on what I’m doing. The central part needs the trussing removed and re-doing with rod.

 

I started fiddling with the body. These coaches were noticeably smooth-sided and the model has raised door lines. I decided to shave these off and scribe new lines which may be a bit of a challenge. I’ve done a couple so far so can’t back out!. The corridor side windows need the tops lowering to match the ones at each end. I’ve done one so far with 1mm strip. I found working on the body frustrating as the paint job was obscuring what I was doing, so I left it until I could strip the paint. After a couple of failures (Modelstrip wouldn’t touch the factory paint) I used Fairy Power Spray to great effect. The plastic is quite brittle, possibly due to age, and using a toothbrush on the softened paint resulted in two bits of window framing coming off, one of which went down the plughole. I can rebuild the missing bit but it was a bit of a DUH! Moment.

 

The lavatory/vestibule windows at the end are wrong if the sides are extended so will need partial filling at one side and extending at the other.

 

There's nothing worth taking a photo of yet.

 

Pete

[Tim Dubya]

"There's nothing worth taking a photo of yet".

 

Anything yet?

 

Cheers

[petethemole]

Sorry to report lack of mojo recently so no progress; not just on that but on anything! I have too many ongoing projects cluttering the desk at present; I need to put the seriously stalled jobs to one side and finish a few off, then I can get back to the Ironclad.

 

Pete

[Tim Dubya]

Fair play!

 

Me too by the way, I have some Phoenix Ironclads on the back burner, I have most of the detailing parts now, just need to crack on...

 

Cheers

 

Tim