The Disco Car Rides Again!

It's a long way from being finished but I couldn't resist posing 121 for a sort of pre-works portrait the other night when I mounted it on its bogies and placed it on a length of track for the first time.

Seeing it on wheels feels like a significant step, and I suppose it is, but it's just displacement activity for all the foutery little jobs that have still got to be done.

Jobs like bending and fitting the vacuum pipes. The handrails. The bits and pieces that hang from under the frame.

And most fiddly of all, cutting the glazing.

Now this is going to be the job from Hell because the client would like to have some of the sliding windows in the open position, or at least the appearance of that. (The party-goers got rather sweaty back in the day, apparently, so maximum ventilation was required.)

Cutting perspex sheet neatly and without scratching the surface is a horrible job at the best of times because it's very tough to slice through compared to normal styrene.

Doing so with the accuracy required to line up with the tiny window pillars on this carriage is going to be an absolute swine of a job!

I'm thinking that I might try to make templates from thin styrene to begin with.  Not only will it be easier to cut but it is also much simpler to mark it out so you know where the holes have got to be.

No wonder I'm finding other jobs to be getting on with in the meantime...