Boxes & Brake Bits

There's been more progress on the underframe for the Super Barns,

They are relatively simple affairs - once you've gone through the trauma of bending the truss rods - with two basic boxes to be formed out of styrene for the batteries and the fuel tank for the diesel carriage heating as well as something to represent the pivoting crank below an imaginary brake cylinder.

(I've always worked on the basis there's no point adding detail that no one can see)

The underframe for the carriage that will be 103 has been completed but I have run out of 0.7mm wire so I've only been able to do one side of the second and the third remains untouched.

However, I have made up the boxes and brake gear for all three and kept them to one side so I'll be able to complete the other chassis as soon as I get more wire in.

Angle Tangle

I've started working on one of the underframes of the resin Super Barns - 103 to be precise.

The first job is to get the truss rods in place which are formed from styrene strip for the four posts and a couple of lengths of 0.7mm brass wire.

I've always found making these to be a process of trial and error.

Mostly error.

I've tried drawing out a template on a piece of paper as a guide to getting the bend points and the angles correct, or just offering the wire up against an existing model, as I did in this case.

Whichever method I choose, however, it always takes a long time, twisting the wire this way and that. The angle's always too steep, and then too shallow, then too steep again.

Eventually I end up with somethng that I can live with and drilling a couple of holes in the floor and super glue it into place.

I've written before here that I have a bit of a mental block about bending brass and this is yet another example of it.

More Of The Same

 So that's all three Super Barns now up to the same stage.

The most recent modelling sessions have seen 103 - nearest the camera - gain its roof rib and corridor connections.

What's been very interesting in this process of making these resin carriages is that even though the sides are cast, and theoretically identical, it is still very much a case of scratch building rather than kit building.

For example, each of the three chassis / floor units - which have to be a close fit inside the carriage body - are all slightly different and will only fit inside their own carriage. They are not interchangable.

Some of that, I suspect, will be down to very small differences in the thickness of the castings or perhaps variations in the positioning of the parts as they were glued together.

Or perhaps it's just a manifestation of how all my models are just bodges to a greater or lesser extent...

Anyway, time to press on.

Having discovered a forgotten about length of 0.7mm brass wire I think I will attempt to make some truss rods next.

That'll be fun. Not! Bending brass always drives me round the bend...

Pony Is Hot To Trot

After many weeks working on the extension to the layout it seems that Himself is definitely in a 'loco phase' because he's making very rapid progress with the chassis for Welsh Pony.

After sorting the motor and gearbox he's already moved onto fitting the motion.

The first task was getting the wheels and the connecting rods on and apparently that went well and it seems to move very smoothly.

Of course, as we have discovered before, this Mercian Models kit has a habit of biting you in the bum.

The latest set back was when Himself fished about in the box looking for the crossheads.

Apparently what he was expecting was some kind of white metal casting. What he discovered was some etches to be assembled in a sandwich fashion to make a crosshead.

Did you notice I wrote Crosshead, there? The singular and not the plural.

That's right! There are only enough parts supplied to make up one.

Terrific!

Fortunately Himself is tremendously resourceful in these situations and managed to take some scrap pieces of brass and make up a pair using the etches from the kit for the front bits and the homemade pieces for the rear which were very carefully soldered together.

Here they are in position on the cylinder / slidebar assembly.

He tells me they had to be made very slim because, as you can see, there is literally a fag paper clearance between the crossheads and the front crankpins.

And so here we have the chassis with all the motion on.

Looks great, doesn't it? Can't wait to see it with the body on and even more so moving!

I Couldn't Resist

I've ended up putting together the third set of Super Barn castings for the model of 103 for a client, so I seem to be committed to building a batch of 3 rather than 2 2's.

It's gone together as smoothly as the others, although I had a moment of brain fade when it became apparent I had forgotten to mark and drill the holes in the floor for the bogie pivot bolts. Whoops!

Fortunately the chassis isn't too far advanced so I was still able to measure and mark the position easily and hold it firmly enough in my hand to drill through a couple of mm of styrene without dislodging any details.

So the plan is to add the bits to bring it up to the same point as the other two, which means a rib along the top of the roof, some little bracket bits along the false framework and some corridor connections, and then I'll make some more progress on the first pair.

I have to choose between finishing off the underframes, doing something about the roof skins or making some masters for interior seats and tables which I would be able to make casts of.

Welsh Pony Chassis Breakthrough?

Himself has had some titanic battles with kits over the years.

Some have had him turning the air blue, others driving him to the point of hurling recalcitrant mechanisms across the workshop.

But the Mercian Models England kit must rank as the most difficult yet on account of the sheer unbuildability of the chassis.

As previous discussed on this blog the motor and the gearbox will not fit together as designed - the laws of physics will not allow it - and so he has had to resort of creating his own solution to get our Welsh Pony on the move.

After two days hard slog he has bodged up a gearbox and a longitudinal motor mount (as opposed to the damned silly transverse arrangement in the kit) and installed it in the frame.

He reports that he had to cut a bit out from the inside of the frames and so will now have to find an alternative way of attaching the chassis to the footplate at the front as he had cut some bits out at the front trying to fit gearbox in the original position.

As you can see from this video below  the motor is running in the frames.

Until we get the other axle in place and the motion fitted up we won't know for sure how good the gearing is and whether our pony will go at a canter or a gallop!

Little Tweaks

So, I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to press ahead with making more Super Barns or finishing the ones I have part built, but in a few minutes I had free a couple of nights ago I decided to make the modifications needed to the end pieces to make a model of 103.

As you can see from the picture above the windows at either side of the corridor connection are not so tall as on the later carriages - 121 & 108.

Fortunately it proved simple enough to add in a couple of pieces of styrene and slice off the small sections of beading detail at the top of the original window and replace them with pieces of thin strip.

I have also had to hack away some of the double door castings.

On 103 they never bothered to fit a wood-framed droplight in the narrow door so they had to be carefully cut away.