Big Rib

Once again I find myself lamenting that I've not spent as much time as I would have liked to at the work bench in the last week or so, but there has still been a little bit of progression on the 2047 project

I've cut and fit the laminated false ceiling which along with the chassis will help to keep the sides of the carriage straight, and in particular the delicate top rail along the top of the windows.

One piece of it rests on top while there is a slightly smaller piece beneath which sits in between the sides and stops them bowing inwards.

Along the top is the first of the longitudinal ribs which will help support the stressed styrene skin which I will fix in place over the top - these are to stop it bowing like a banana in the middle.

There will be another two lower ones glued on either side before the roof skin goes on.

Deep Purple

Himself has been seized by a mania for vintage carriages.

This is not a problem - indeed it is something I am doing all I can to encourage.

19 is making rapid progress having been primed and given a couple of coats of glorious deep purple livery since I last posted about it.

The tricky bit with this carriage will be attempting to replicate all the ornate gold leaf lining around the panelling.

Given the size of a 4mm scale model and the limits of how fine the transfers available are it will probably have to be some kind of lining-lite compromise.

The mania I mention is that he has also dug out a Worsley body for 15 in its current high-Victorian state in order to finish it off.

(It was purchased and soldered together a couple of years ago when we were making a new model of 16 and to our shame didn't initially notice that the one we had had windows in the ends and the one we needed, didn't. Opps!)

He's also talking about repainting, or replicating, our models of 17 and 18 which currently are Langley ones painted in the basic, two tone Mountain Prince livery as per their condition in 1988.

This is not entirely satisfactory because the etch for the bodies shows the full panelling but back in the 1980's this pair were running around with most of it stripped off. (Such different times!)

So option A is to dunk them in a bath of paint stripper and repaint them in their current livery BUT only if it is possible to replace the existing Grandt Line bogies with Dundas FR ones.

That will depend on whether there is enough room beneath for them to swing.

If not then he is talking about purchasing another pair of frets from Worsley Works and making complete new carriages.

As I said previously, I'm not about to stop him.

Bogie Swap

Building bowsider 19 has caused Himself to have a rethink about out existing model of its sibling, 20.

This was also built from a Worsley Works kit but we opted to go our own way on the bogies.

We used the same ones that are running under our Langley pair 17 and 18, which are plastic Grandt Line 'trucks' - plastic wheels and all.

25 years ago it seemed like a better option that using the fold-up brass bogies which came with the kits, but they've always wobbled like nobody's businesses.

So for 19 Himself has decided to try and fit a set of Dundas FR 3'6" bogies, but he was concerned about whether they would have enough swing tucked up between the bowsider's frames to get around the tightest curves on Dduallt.

Well, it turns out they do, so he's decided to retro-fit them to 20 as well, which also means mounting the coupling on the bogie (as opposed to a an independent sprung fixing) and chopping away a tiny bit of the frame beneath the balcony.

Hopefully there'll be a whole lot less wobbling going on now.

One One Eight

Our latest Superbarn is passed for traffic.

(I'll be in trouble for writing that - officially we're supposed to call them Super Saloons.)

As the kids used to say, whatever!

So we now have a fleet of six of them - three of the original style and three of the later style with the big windows - to go along with the service car and the Obs 150.

I'm looking forward to being able to run all of them together as one rake when we show Bron Hebog at Bressingham in June.

It won't be long before I'll have to start work on the 7th of them because Boston Lodge are busy building number 120.

The Body Shell

It's time for the most exciting bit of a carriage build - gluing all the parts together to make a body shell.

The first task is to fix the sub-assemblies for the doors in place on each end of the main side pieces.

In the shot below you can see all the parts laid out.

And a few minutes later here they are joined together.

One of the things about gluing styrene pieces together with solvent is that they can twist and warp if you give them the opportunity so once the body parts are put together I am always anxious to make the floor piece to sit inside and stop any ideas it has about bending inwards like two back-to-back bananas.

The next job will be to drill the holes for the bogie pivot bolts and begin to think about making a roof.

Back To Work

I have managed to shake off the modelling malaise and found an hour or so to work on putting the beading onto the ends for 2047.

The truth is it wasn't so much a lack of motivation but a case of lots of other things to do which had kept me away from the workbench.

There's not much more to do on these now.

The corridor connections have already been made so it'll be very easy to glue them on.

When that's done in I won't be far away from being able to glue the 8 bits together to make up a body shell.

Pay Attention!

I'm kicking myself for falling for the oldest one in the book.

There I was merrily making bits for 2047, using our model of 2046 as a guide, without stopping to check that they are completely identical.

Talk about a beginner's error!

The difference I discovered was at the top of the doors.

Every other WHR up to and including 2046 had a solid panel, with beading, above the window.

What I hadn't clocked was that on 2047 this has been changed to a small glazed panel, the same as the FR Super Barn design.

Fortunately I noticed this while I was still working on detailing the sub-assemblies, so it was reasonable straightforward to chop the panels out and add in a bar at the top of each of the windows.

If hadn't noticed until I had glued the bits of the body shell together, or even worse finished the whole carriage, I would have been fuming.

Oh well, we live and learn, Or not, as the case may be....