Fill It Up

Himself is loading me up with jobs - which is a reversal of the usual situation, it has to be said.

Not only has he tasked me with finding a way of making the lamp pots for the roof of 19,  I have been presented with a bare body shell of number 15.

Long term readers will recall that this is the result of a rather silly error when we were making a second model of 16 in Col. Stephens livery to use on Bron Hebog.

Not considering the difference between the carriages we accidently ordered a Worsley scratch-aid kit for 15 which features the windows in the balcony end of the first and last compartments.

You may recall that he had soldered the frets together before we twigged.

Not wishing to waste them we put it to one side with the intention of making another model of 15, in its present high-Victorian condition, and so the time has come for me to make up an interior in styrene.

One Sided

One side of 19 has been fully lined out now.

Posed on the layout it does look most impressive, don't you think?

We've had to make a compromise which we're not fully decided on yet.

The panels in the doors beneath the windows are not wide enough to accommodate a regular 4mm transfer for THIRD or FIRST.

Instead what Himself has tried out is using 2mm scale ones to see what they look like.

They're undoubtedly smaller than they should be - but are they too small or could we get away with it?

Better to have them than nothing at all?

One of the ends has also had its white lining added.

It'll look very nice running with the Curly Roof Van, I think.

Tables And Chairs

To borrow a phrase from Britney: Oops, I did it again!

There's been another blunder, this time with the interior.

(This carriage seems fated.)

The re-cast table and seat units went in easily enough in one evening session, and I sat back to admire my handiwork.

It was only a couple of days later when I was looking at it again, and comparing it to 2046 that I realised something was wrong - the single and double seats were on the opposite sides of the carriage.

Which one of them had I got wrong?

I delved back through by research pictures and confirmed that, yes, both carriages confirm to the normal FR / WHR standard of having the double seats on the clock (inland) side.

I had made a very simple error when gluing them into place.

I was so concerned with ensuring that the seat backs lined up perfectly with the window pillars that I failed to notice I had it the wrong way round.

Fortunately, because they are resin and fixed in with superglue it's quite easy to snap them off without damaging them, and I can confirm that they've been replaced in their proper positions this time.

I really to need to start paying attention, though.

The Bits Beneath

So I've been getting on with the chassis of 2047 - and also getting it wrong (again)!

The original WHR saloons built by Winsons were very modest and keep all their gubbins covered up behind large panels which ran almost all the way along the underneath between the two bogies.

Quite literally a case of 'nothing to see here!.

Since then progressive designs of the carriages have opened everything up and all the brake gear and other stuff is on show, which is bad news for the modeller when the carriages sit so high on their bogies and there's so much daylight underneath them.

So what you can see here are representations of the vacuum cylinder and the reservoir along with the boxed areas which contain, among other things the fuel tank for the heater and the batteries for the electrics.

I had still to add the brake gear fashioned out of brass when I took this picture.

I have also since discovered that I've once again made the mistake of using 2046 as a guide and making a wild assumption about them being identical.

In fact it turns out that the longer of the two panels, nearest the camera, is cut back on 2047 allowing sight of the brake gear from both sides.

This is easily corrected at this stage, but it's annoying all the same.

Gold Lining

Himself has been busy starting work on lining out bowsider 19 with its gold leaf lining around the panelling and the first results are looking spectacular, don't you agree?

It's very intricate and tiring work, as you can imagine, and this is the result of one day's labouring at the workbench.

The product he's using for this is the thinnest waterslide lining sheets from Fox Transfers which come in packs with straight lines and corners of various radii.

Skin A Car

At long last Saturday night was modelling night.

With the two ladies in my life away for the weekend, and the youngest sound asleep, I had a couple of hours undisturbed to make some serious progress on 2047.

The first job was to finish putting in the remaining ribs and fixing the roof skin in position.

Fortunately the WHR saloon design has always had a flat area immediately above the inset entrance doors which means I can employ my usual styrene skin technique, rather than being forced to use a brass one (which shows the curve beneath) as we do on the FR Superbarns.

I also got a lot of work done on the underframe, but I'll show you that in the next post.

Squabbling

Himself has been getting on with painting carriage 19, moving onto the interior which is fixed onto the brass frame / chassis of the carriage.

If you read my earlier posts you'll know that the making of this carriage has been somewhat protracted (that's understatement for you) to the extent that we've had to update some of the details of the styrene interior bits which I made more than a decade ago.

The first class compartments now have headrest squabs fitted above the old Mersey Rail seat units and there is also now an upholstered back to the benches in the recreated second class compartment.

The irony is that compared to the modern carriages with their very large windows you can see very little inside a 4mm scale Bowsider and you could probably get away with fitting nothing more than the compartment dividers, but that's never been our style.