First Coat

I told Himself there was no urgency on getting the Disco Car painted, which means, of course, that he's started work on it immediately.

The first coats of red and cream are looking good.

However, to my horror I've discovered a couple of oversights - and halfway through painting is not the best time for that!

Firstly, I realised that I forgot to make and fit fall plates on the corridor connections.

That, at least, is easy to fix.

The other thing will be a little trickier.

When I built it I only had a very small image - in terms of file size - which showed the ends on the 'engine side' where the push pull connections are and so I had to take a bit of a punt on the bits that I fitted on the model based on what I thought I could see there.

Well, it turns out that Himself has superb close-up picture of the top end of 121 but never thought to reveal this too me until it's almost too late.

Now that I can see what's there, or at least what was there at one point in time - because they're always fiddling - I feel morally obliged to try and correct it.

The tricky bit is going to be doing it without compromising the paint job,

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...

Labour Saving?

It is open to debate whether resin casting carriages ends up saving you much time and effort over scratch building the parts in styrene.

Yes, it is undoubtedly much quicker to cast a number of them once you have made the master and the mould, but it takes rather more time to clean them up and get them ready for gluing together.

For example it was an evening's work this week to tidy up the bits for Superbarn 117.

It's also the case that when you come to build up the carriage that comparatively brittle resin is not as easy to bond and work with as soft, melt-able styrene.

Very much in its favour, however, is the fact that the whole body side is much more rigid and robust than one fabricated out of styrene.

Next time you seem them here I hope these eight pieces will be a single carriage body.

Pre-Fade Checks

I took my client's model of the 'Disco Car' 121 over to Himself's place the other day for a wee test run just to check for any snags or alterations required before it gets painted.

Here are a couple of short videos.

Carriage Kit

Some time last year the carriage works crew told me, on their word of honour, that the next two Superbarns 117 and 118 would be identical to the recently out-shopped 119.

Ignoring a lifetime's bitter experience I choose to believe them and cast the body components for another two carriages from a master I made for our model of 119.

They've been stored nice and flat in a photo album since then waiting for their time to come.

Well, with 117 in service on the railway, and my model of the Disco Car handed over to Himself for painting, I've decided that time is now.

I'm getting close the point where I feel brave enough to have a go at the new Observation Car 150 but think I should probably get at least one of these out of the way first.

The Final Steps

Well, I hope they are.

I've been putting some final touches to the Disco Car 121 this week such as the footsteps and the vac pipes which run along each side beneath the frame.

They were really tricky to do because on this carriage I've made the 'frame' a strip which is attached behind the main bodyside as opposed to being an extension of the floor / chassis.

This means it somehow has to be attached to the chassis, which is removable, while giving the impression that they are firmly attached to the rest of the carriage.

I've also received a public correction (on our Bron Hebog Facebook page) for erroneous remarks I made on this blog about the various electrical connections I modelled on the end of the carriage.

I stated that some of them were part of the push-pull control system - they weren't.

It also appears that in true FR fashion they went through a number of iterations during the carriage's time in service so the pictures that I've been working from may or may not be correct, but I have failed to source any other photos which show that side of the carriage in enough detail.

My instinct tells me that this is maybe the time to do the modelling equivalent of 'publish and be dammed' and sent it into the paint shop.

Besides, I really am getting rather impatient to get on with the next project now.

Socket To Me

No one has ever gone so far as to accuse me of being a finescale modeller, and if they did I'd soon be able to show them things to disabuse them of the notion.

Over the years, though, I have developed a masochistic habit of adding smaller and smaller details to my carriage models, such as the electrical connections on the ends of the carriages.

On the push pull carriages there was a double set because of the control system running between the locomotive and the driving compartment in carriage 111.

It's quite a fiddly job but it really enhances the look of the carriage and now there are not many jobs left before I can consider construction phase finished.