One Five Two

So, I've run out of excuses and there's nothing else for it than to clean up the castings and start putting the second Superbarn observation car 152 together.

I find I need to make sure I'm in the right mood to tackle a job like this because gluing the pieces together is a precision job.

It's been a lot easier since I discovered 60 second Loctite which does indeed give you an opportunity to play around with the position of the piece without having the difficulty of trying to hold it in place for minutes on end as happens with even the fastest-setting epoxy resins.

You might be able to see that this one has an almost imperceptible curve on the front section which was done by altering the master (a piece formed out of brass with styrene layers on top) which could be bent very carefully and another mould made from it.

Once again I will be giving it to Himself to add the roof, and the window pillars at the front, in brass,

Before that I will drill the holes for the bogie pivots.

This time I will do my utmost to make sure they are completely central. 

You may remember I failed to achieve this on 150 with unfortunate consequences when it scraped the sides of the cutting beneath Rhoslyn Bridge on Dduallt.

Not my finest modelling hour, that.

Interior Done

It's all come together in a rush.

In a couple of sessions work I've got all the seats and tables in position.

In fact the most awkward bit was completing the cupboards in the vestibule.

Once again I was very pleased with the performance of the 60 second Loctite glue which gave me enough time to adjust the pieces into the right spot but not so long that they would move before they were properly set.

Himself found the same when using it to assemble the latest B wagon.

The major outstanding items now are the tanks and various brake bits hanging underneath and the bad pipes.

I know that Himself simply can't wait to paint it and tackle all that ornate lining....

Screen Time

I remembered one last job I had to do on the inside of 117.

(I told you that snagging lists were never ending.)

It's the small screens that divide the saloon from the vestibules.

You can see from the picture that I knock these up from styrene and I've glued them to the inside of the body rather than have them fixed to the floor with the seats.

This was another job where I was very pleased with the new slow-bond super glue I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.

With a task like this it's good to be have half a minute or so to make fine adjustments to the positioning but also know that you will get a firm fix very soon after that.

Seating Installed

I can report back on my rather pricey tube of glue and..

..I'm quite happy with it, actually.

I doesn't quite give you the full 60 second adjustment time 'like it says on the tube', but it's not a completely instant bond and I was able to shift the seats and tables slightly after I'd dropped them into place.

I think this may be the last knockings of the old mould for the seat units, however, because the tables came a bit taller than they should have done.

Well, 1mm or so, anyway, but it makes me think that perhaps the rubber has stretched a little as the parts have been removed each time.

This meant I had to go through the rather dull process of sanding a little off the bottom of each casting on a sheet of sandpaper before gluing it on.

Otherwise it all went quite smoothly.

Last Of The Big Spenders

I invested a small fortune in glue the other day.

A whole £6 on one tube!

I needed to go and lie down after that.

(I blame a glimpse of sunshine after a wet weekend.)

The reason is that I've been looking around for something to fit together resin components that offers the solid bond of regular 'Super Glue' and yet allows for some adjustment, but doesn't take at least half an hour to set like the alleged 5 minute epoxy I used last time.

Last year I did come across a gel 'Super Glue' that did just that but I was unable to find it in any of my local hardware stores.

Instead I found this, an apparently 'new' product - hmmmm - which promises 1 minute of wiggle room but with a brand name which suggests it will stick like sugar to a blanket.

Well, we shall see.

I shall report back on my findings.

I'll Just Be 5 Minutes

That phrase has got to be one of the biggest fibs in the English language, now that we no longer send cheques to each other in the post!

In this case the 5 minutes in question is the time it is alleged that a popular brand of rapid-set 2-part epoxy resin glue takes to set.

Not in my experience this week it doesn't. More like 5 hours, if at all!

Allow me to explain.

I usually fix resin parts together using a slow-set 'super glue' which gives you quite a few seconds adjustment time, but I have run out of that at the moment and I only have the standard stuff in the house.

The Super Barn castings are quite tricky to join together and you've got to position them very carefully so I thought it would be best to allow myself a little wriggle room and I elected to use epoxy resin instead.

Perhaps it is because the tubes are quite old - maybe as much as two years old - but it has been very slow to cure. In fact 24 hours on from being mixed the stuff left over on the pallet remains soft and tacky.

I wanted a glue that allowed me some adjustment time but what I definitely didn't need was one that allowed the parts to adjust themselves by the force of gravity whilst they set!

I had to leave it a whole day between gluing the doors on either end of the main body sides for them to be fixed firmly enough to be handled without moving - and during that time I had to return to them every so often to check they hadn't slipped out of place. (And they had.)

Trying to put the ends on was even worse!

Six hours after I'd joined them together, and with countless visits back to the workbench to fiddle with them, there was no sign of the joints curing into a firm hold, so I pulled them apart, cleaned up the parts and resorted to Super Glue.

Within minutes the basic carriage body was formed and I could cut out a basic floor to slip inside to help keep it in shape.

Epoxy resin?

Poxy resin more like...