Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Hi Heather let us know how he gets on, we have ours later in the year.

Twenty-four hours on, and no side effects evident aside from a tiny bit of soreness at the injection site. He had the Pfizer jab. No idea when the second jab is scheduled, as we're all being experimented on with a 12 week gap instead of the expected three. Ho hum.

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Brassware going in, most of the vacuum and battery box assemblies have been glued together and tidied up. All the fiddly brake rigging for the brake third is next, then I’ll mix up some epoxy to reinforce the various glue points.

Did I mention I’ve started a snagging list for these coaches? I noticed one set of the bogies seemed to be suffering from sticky horn blocks. I wonder if failed to give sufficient attention to cleaning up the etch cusps, or whether it’s just dust build-up during storage. Taking things apart won’t be that simple at this stage, so I hope it’s the latter.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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This is all a bit repetitive now, as I’ve done this whole thing three times in this thread alone! I probably won’t bother documenting the remaining underframe build unless something unusual needs to be noted.

So, brass wire handles on the battery boxes, replacing the flat moulded abominations. One of the support frames had been mismoulded, losing one corner bolt location, hence the block of white styrene. All the main details are now fitted, with just the running board step brackets to fit.

I must, therefore, start to consider couplings. This may not be as easy as I hope.

As an aside, I’m much happier putting these kits together than faffing about with locos. It rather confirms my decision to concentrate on coach commissions as the right thing to do.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
View attachment 136809
As an aside, I’m much happier putting these kits together than faffing about with locos. It rather confirms my decision to concentrate on coach commissions as the right thing to do.
Coaches also means you have a regular cashflow rather than working for weeks or months and living off your savings. My business target was never to wake up to previous days work. I build one day and paint the second.....job done. Working like this leaves room for housework, shopping and meal preparation.

Ooops, I forgot you build in 7mm. It once took me a day to build a pair of bogies!
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
It once took me a day to build a pair of bogies!

The brass bogie kits for these coaches take me about a week. That’s pretty much full-on 8-hour days. I can’t do them any faster, and believe me I’ve tried! Bogies aside, I may be able to assemble one of these kits together in week or so. They’re not hard to build, but they do benefit from some extra detailing.

My aim is to get all four coaches to about the same level, then look at getting the exteriors painted. Then I’ll turn to fitting out the interiors, for which I have some ideas.
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Must be me then. I hate building coaches.

They’re big, fragile, fiddly, lots of repetitive details (which have to be all the same or it looks c..p) and you need lots of them for each loco.

oh yes, they have fussy paint jobs too...
 

paulc

Western Thunderer
Must be me then. I hate building coaches.

They’re big, fragile, fiddly, lots of repetitive details (which have to be all the same or it looks c..p) and you need lots of them for each loco.

oh yes, they have fussy paint jobs too...
Does your talk of fussy paint jobs mean you model the LNWR as well Simon ?
Cheers Paul
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
I know what you mean Simond. When considering producing coaches, I first set my mind on how to make coach construction as easy and simple as possible. Some of my etches can be assembled in 2 hours.

Of course, O gauge is a different matter, which is why I never etched any 7mm scale coach parts.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Must be me then. I hate building coaches.

They’re big, fragile, fiddly, lots of repetitive details (which have to be all the same or it looks c..p) and you need lots of them for each loco.

oh yes, they have fussy paint jobs too...

Your last point is a good reason for modelling BR(S).
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Most of my cronies are LNWR enthusiasts. The GW is a minority in Kent, so when recently challenged, I replied

When recently asked for his view
Of locomotives crafted in Crewe
Mr Churchward sighed
And calmly replied,
“Not as nice as mine, but I suppose they will do”

Though one of our crew, now sadly departed, had a lovely model of Swanage, for which I was “sparky in chief”. He had a few green coaches...
 

2-Bil

Western Thunderer
Was that the Swanage layout that appeared in magazines in the late 60s or early 70s.?....seem to recall "for the day" it as well observed well modelled and " S scale"....Regards Brian W
 

simond

Western Thunderer
No, classic 0 FS.

Beautifully modelled, pretty much scale length though compressed widthways a bit. I believe Ken won the building cup at Telford about 18 years back for the station building, which included individual card slates (lots of them) and the porcelain in the gents.

The outdoor bit is still visible on Google Earth, though I don’t know the current owner.

Happy memories.
Simon
 

2-Bil

Western Thunderer
Simon.....That sounds a treat for the eye.....surprised i don't remember it......are there any images out there ?? Regards etc
 

simond

Western Thunderer
I’m not aware of any. I took some video but it’s not very good, I should get the lads to look through their albums & see what we have. Ken wasn’t very keen on photographing it, so I don’t think there’s a lot. There are a couple of photos on the layout here GWR Showcase: 7mm locos by Simon Dobson - the top two. That was about 16 years back. Time flies.

Heather, sorry for the diversion!

Atb
Simon
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Today's jobs - I tend to set myself achievable goals these days, and anything extra is a bonus - were to fit the footboards to the latest underframe, then experiment with couplings.

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This is using the supplied cast knuckles. These are not autocouplers. Each vehicle must be dropped into its mate. I was originally thinking of using Kadees, but I can’t, for the life of me, see a sensible method of installing them in the Slater's setup without completely destroying the drag beam in the process.

My test plank is worst case for curves, intentionally so, but some measure of widening needs to be added to the coupling slots in the drag beams to let the couplings move sideways a little. Even on the straight, things go awry quite readily.

More experimentation needed, I think.

I also unstuck the hornblocks. They were all on the one coach, being a pair of bogies built together. I think I need to be more careful with the hornguide edges in future, though a drop of lubricating oil on errant blocks has helped a bit.

Time to mix up some epoxy resin and fix the footboards more permanently.
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Heather,

I used Kadees on my JLTRT toplights, and did indeed cut thru’ the drag beams in the process. They are boxed at the mo’ but I can get them out for a snap or two if it would help.

There are a couple in amongst the coach-building malarkey here, if you want any others, just shout.

Porth Dinllaen in 0

Atb
Simon
 
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