Thursday 10 February 2011

More On The Bog Barn

The last time I blogged about my latest FR carriage build - 105 - I had one side piece about 75% done. Now there's a complete bodyshell with a roof and floor in place (although not fixed down yet).



As I mentioned the last time one of the interesting aspects of 105 is how it has retained features and details from its various incarnations over its 45 year career, one of which is the rubber seal around some of the windows which was a 1970's / 80's alteration to the 'Barns' to make them more weather proof. The current generation of carriages being built on the FR don't have this, I guess because of the improvement in flexible sealant technology.

I thought it might be interesting to show you how I represent these in my styrene carriage models.

(If you'd like to read a step-by-step guide to the whole process take a look at some previous posts over on the Boston Largs Works blog)

What I do is glue small triangular off cuts into each corner of the window and shape them using a round needle file. This picture shows the two sides of 105. The top one has had its window corners filed, the bottom one still has the triangles showing.



Incidentally, to try and get the triangles as regular as I can I cut them from a piece of strip 0.60" wide. Make a cut at 45 degrees - while trying to ensure your triangle doesn't ping off into the distance - then cut once again to return to a 90 degree edge at the top of the strip. You *should* have 2 nice identical triangles. And just keep doing that until you've got as many as you need.

When gluing them in place I put the carriage side onto a piece of glass. I guide the triangle into the corner and hold it there with some tweezers in one hand and apply a tiny dab of solvent into the joint using a paint brush in the other hand.

No comments:

Post a Comment