7mm On Heather's Workbench - wider and longer

Les Golledge

Active Member
I couldn't put the day off any longer. It was time to relearn how to use a lathe.

Here we are, ready to square up an end. Ideally, there would be less of the work sticking out. I have the wrong chuck in the machine, which previously has been used for reprofiling wheels, using the tail stock and various bits and bobs. This chuck won't let the work poke all the way through, and for some reason my tutor today, Best Beloved, felt it was too much effort to fit the proper one. Let's just say we got away with it, and have agreed to install the other chuck for future work!

The first stage was to square up one end of each of the bars. I ought to sort out numbers for you: four coaches, two bogies each, that's two bars per coach, eight bars. I cut two off two spare lengths to allow for the inevitable visit from Captain Cockup.


Once I had been through and trimmed one end of each bar, we set up the tail stock to centre pop them.

Then I was ready to begin again. It took a while to get my eye in, but eventually all the bars were trimmed to near enough the correct length. Once squared up, the ends were centre popped, then it was time to drill.

Swapping the tail stock for the one with the drill chuck, a 1.2mm drill was used to make a hole in each end about 2mm deep.

Hi Heather,
Rather than use the centre in the tailstock use a centre drill in the tailstock chuck to make a starter hole in the centre of the end which can then be followed by a drill which will follow the hole created by the centre drill.
Here's the result of my Dogpile search for centre drill:-
Web - centre drill
Here's a page from RDG Tools:-
Model Engineering and engineering tools online from RDG Tools Ltd Home Page (Engineering Tools) Tel 01422 885069 /884605
I hope the links appear in this post.
I hope this is of help to you Heather also note these bits can be used in a pillar drill to more accurately start a hole ready for drilling with normal twist drill bits.
Regards,

Les.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Thanks Les! I haven't had to repeat my lathe shenanigans just yet, though I'm being threatened with a couple of 8-wheeled PLVs (and a Rover!) so that info will definitely come in useful.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Embarking on a week of these coaches, and as usual I spent a good deal of this morning contemplating things. I decided the pseudo-bogie holes more or less arrived in the right places - by pure happenstance.

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The etched holes, though, were too big for my chosen 6BA bolts. I cut some brass to cover the holes, which you can just make out in this shot. I then consulted the diagrams and did some more accurate measurement to mark out for new holes to be drilled.

Having marked out, centre popped and drilled, I did my best to fit some roundhead bolts so they were vertical. Some solder fixed them in place. Underneath, a nut, nipped up tight to the floor plate, washer, bogie, washer and nut, and it all looked good. The ride height seemed good, the chassis would roll adequately, though some attention to insulating the insides of the solebars and axleguards will be needed. Then I spotted one bogie on the longer chassis (both of them, at the same end) was a little too far towards the outer end. Even allowing for the remaining clutter festooning the frames, it would look wrong. I was puzzled as to how I had managed to mismeasure one end of two coaches, but that seems to be normal for me. How to overcome it, though.

First off, I thought I might be able to unsolder the whole blanking plate and shuffle it along a millimetre or so in the right direction. Of course, the problem plate was on a narrower part of the floor etch, which was already showing signs of heat distortion from previous soldering. I decided the safest course was to remove the bolt and file the hole oval. Thankfully, it worked.

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And so I end the day with four coach frames on wheels. There is still a long way to go, but it feels like a milestone has been reached. The next stage, I think, will be working out how to fix the body shells to the frames.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
More procrastination this morning. While I enjoy the challenge posed by such old-fashioned kits, there are times when it just becomes such a chore dealing with shortcomings.

Today's adventure is working out how to attach bodies to underframes. I will gaily skip across the slight discrepancy between length of underframe and length of body, specifically the longer E3 and E7 ones. Let us also pass over some bodywork remedial stuff because muggins here wasn't paying attention at the time.

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There are some serious floor issues, particularly regarding the first class accommodation in the E3! You can also make out the length discrepancy in this shot. It's better the body has a slight overhang than the other way round, I suppose. I also discovered the underframe is distinctly banana-like - bit like the real thing, you might say. The issue, then, is how to marry the body to the underframe.

Some time spent with furrowed brow, turning the various parts this way and that until an idea finally arrived.

There are holes in the underframe "floor". I would prefer them smaller than they are, but I'm not going to do the filling and patching routine again. I can get away with 8BA bolts, with washers. I decided to fit a brass floor into the ends of the body.

Now, I have some brass strip, well, sheet really, which is nigh on a millimetre thick. I felt this would be sturdy enough to make a solid floor to take the strain of being bolted up. The problem was how to cut it to the sizes I wanted. I don't have a guillotine. I tried scoring so I could bend it and snap it, but that didn't work. In the end, I contrived to cut it out with a hacksaw.

So far, so good. I managed to fix these plates into the end compartments.

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This is upside down, obviously. I have marked through the holes from the underframe, and you catch me posting here instead of just getting in with drilling suitable holes to fit it all together. See what I mean about procrastination?

Anyway, if this works, I shall repeat the exercise with the three other coaches. Remaining flooring will be in styrene. I suppose I should get on with it, then.
 
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Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
You know when you think you've had a good day, and then you realise there's something fundamental wrong? Well, that's today.

I started out well. I added some extra bolts to the E3s, as the centres of the bodies had a tendency to flap about a bit on their underframes. That sorted, I decided to investigate the brake gear. I picked the E6, one of the shorter coaches, for my guineapig.

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I spent a while studying the "instructions", the diagram and as many photos as I could find that showed the Dean pattern cylinder and rigging in place, and got a pretty good handle on things. The end result can be seen above. You can also see one of the wheelsets strikes the vac cylinder. Something was amiss, as it should have some space.

Down the rabbit hole again!

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A side-by-side comparison of the E6 (bottom) and the E7. Note how the latter's cylinder fits nicely without hindrance to the inner wheelset? Idiot that I am, I have managed to fold up the E6 vee-hangers the wrong way, and then mounted the whole floor plate upside down.

*sigh*

Well, nothing for it. Tomorrow I shall disassemble the inverted floor plate, take the vees off and refit them the other way up, if I can, and then try again. At least this time I will know how it's all supposed to fit before I start! Hopefully I won't make an utter horlicks of the construction so far, as I don't want to do more remedial work than I have to.

Incidentally, I have learned something new. The odd setup the GWR adopted of having the cylinder centre ram fitted to the coach underframe, leaving the cylinder to move up and down gave rise to the characteristic levers with the forged quadrants at their ends. I noticed some setups had plain levers, but I couldn't immediately spot the pattern. Reading the text in Russell, instead of studying just the pretty pictures, revealed why there was a difference. The quadrant arms were used when there was a handbrake on the vehicle, and plain arms otherwise. The quadrants let the handbrake work independently of the vacuum braking system. The E6 does have a handbrake in the luggage compartment, the E7 doesn't. I'm not sure about the E3s, but I'll come to those in due course.
 
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Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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Stage One achieved. No major damage caused.

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Stage Two, after some cleaning up. I even managed to reverse the vee-hanger bends without snapping anything off. All are safely reinforced with solder.

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And now I'm back to where I was last night. There is still potential for a wheel to make contact with the cylinder. I rather think the cylinder castings are slightly over scale, but there's not much I can realistically do about that. Cylinder position is dictated by the brake cross shaft and the length of the operating levers to the cylinder itself.

I plan to try and get the remaining three coaches to this level, and I will consider that a good week's work.
 
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Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
The state of play…

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A diagram E3 of the 1876 lots.

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A diagram E3 from the 1882 batch. No, I can't tell the difference, either.

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Diagram E7. Note the lavatory compartment to the right of the luggage/guard compartment. The lav was only accessible from the compartment to its right.

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An E6.

That's all for now. I expect I won't pick these up again until after the festive season. I need to solve the suspension and axleboxes detail problem. The quality of the castings is beginning to give me sleepless nights, so I'm considering make up one set as a fair master for reproduction in some form or another.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
There's nothing for it. I must attack the whitemetal suspension parts.

I've been, as is my way, mentally worrying at the suspension parts for some considerable time. The issue has always been the sheer quantity and the slightly iffy quality of the parts required. Three hangers, two pairs of leaf springs and axleboxes, and all joined by a loop rather than a pin. I had - and, indeed, still may head this way - considered making one or two fair assemblies and arranging for castings to be made. The whole units are cosmetic, after all, and also partly hidden behind step boards. Anyway, I felt I should at least see what I am up against, and work out if assembly the long way round was feasible.

That was today's task.

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Here we see one coach worth of suspension. I've cleaned up and straightened the castings, removed a great chunk of metal from backs of the J- and T- hanger plates so they sit flush on the solebar, and assembled the springs with the axleboxes. Where next?

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Ah, yes. I need to attach the Slater's brass step brackets with hot soldering before I do any low-melt soldering.

With that out of the way, on one side at least, I drilled 0.8mm holes through the ends of the springs, and into the hangers. The idea is to form tiny hooks from 0.7mm brass wire, on to which I can then hook the suspension shackle loops. In order to make the loops, I need to work out how big they need to be, so partial assembly into place on the coach is required. I've attached the axleboxes and springs in the photo above.

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Here's my first hanger hook installed. Only 15 more to go!

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Here you can see where I've got to. I'm trying out the hooks for the springs, to gauge how long they need to be. Once I've made up the hangers and hooks, I'll attach everything properly and measure the space that will be filled by the shackle loops.

Frankly, it's not much to show for a day or so of faffing about and getting covered in whitemetal filings. I now have a clearer idea of how everything fits together, and I plan to press on with this coach doing it The Hard Way. I have this vain hope that the next set of parts will go together much more quickly. We shall see, I suspect. Whether I end up making masters for castings in the end will remain to be seen.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
As predicted, it's been a bit quicker today. Well, another pair of springs and bits has been installed, and I'm having a crack at the suspension links.

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The main bits, with 'ooks installed. I've just realised I've got to do it all over again on t'other side, with the added complication of avoiding damaging this side! Those castings are a little soft and liable to inadvertent bending.

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It is a right old faff, but I think it scrubs up okay. With the footboards in place, and a good layer of gunk and weathering, it'll pass. Now, for those links…

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With the castings in place, I could measure the size of the link required. Other builders have used circular links, and I have no reason to doubt them. I have a modern drawing that shows an oval link, and that's what I've elected to go for. A circular link would be of such a diameter it would look like a classic Chatham Girl's loop earrings! Anyway, first step, having decided 3.2mm would be about right, was to arrange a couple of 1.5mm drills into a pair. Clamped in my vice, I then wound some 0.7mm copper wire round them as tightly as I could. I chose copper because it's soft enough to wind and manipulate: brass, even annealed, would have been too rigid to fiddle into place.

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I tried to cut the links off using the piercing saw. I gave up in the end, mainly because I couldn't achieve a sensible cut at a sensible angle. I ended up using some Xuron snips. A little manipulation with pliers gave me a shape I was happy with, so on to actually fitting them.

You don't want to hear the language I invented. Colourful describes it well, I think. When fitting the hooks to the castings, I neglected to leave sufficient space on some to get the link on. The risk of bends and breakages was high, though some gentle tweaking moved hooks sufficiently that I could drop a link in place.

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I call myself satisfied with that. Now to do it all again on the other side. I'm still considering masters and castings for the other three coaches. Fitting all this clobber takes a fair old time, and I would estimate at least two days per coach at my current rate of progress. Then again, it's what I'm doing this week, so perhaps it's worth the time spent. I'm thinking on.
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
When forming the links to go between the spring and the irons, consider cutting the wound copper wire at the top (or bottom) of the loop so that the cut gets hidden when fitted into place.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
I did consider that, Graham. However, I didn't want the link to open up and drop off the hook while I was fiddling about getting it into place. A quick dab of low melt solder has been applied to make the construction solid.

I am thinking a better route would be to install the links on the spring hooks while they're on the bench. It'll be a bit easier to manipulate things that way, with less flowery language!
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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Well, the idea of fixing the links to the springs while on the bench worked well. I do need to find a better way of joining springs and axleboxes so they remain square, though.

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In two shakes of a lamb's tail, one coach now has the full complement of suspension. Once again, proof that once something awkward has been worked out, it's much quicker to complete the task subsequently. I could fit the footboards at this stage, as they will assist in protecting the delicate parts, but my brain is not in metal-folding space right now.

Instead, I think I shall make up the parts for another coach. While I'm on a roll, as it were!
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Not a lot happened yesterday, unless you count clearing the bench and raising the trestles so I can use my new chair. Today, with snow laying outside, I decided to fit the brake shoes to the pseudo-bogies.

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Hang on. Half a tick! That looks more like step boards than brake shoes. Okay, I admit it. I got distracted. Now, the E6 and E7 are shorter than the underframe kit. You may recall the work involved in shortening the various parts to accommodate the 40ft coach bodies earlier in this thread. The same thing applies to the step boards - and I did check the body kits didn't include suitable step parts before I committed to surgery.

Others use L-section brass strip, or even bass wood. I felt the parts supplied were probably adequate. The question became where to cut for a subsequent shut. It turns out the cutouts for the axleboxes on the lower step were ever so slightly out of alignment, so I ended up chopping out a millimetre or so between the cutouts as well as a general shortening cut. I made several measurements, checking with the underframe layout, before committing with the piercing saw. I cut away from the mark, filing carefully back to as square as my fumble fingers could make it. Using a steel rule taped on my paxolin soldering board, I aligned the pieces and soldered a bridging strip to the underside of the join. There is still a hint of a joint on the upper surface, which I hope some filler and several coats of paint will fill later. All of this was done before the steps were folded to give the kick board.

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You can see one of the joining plates, to the right of the bracket and blobby solder. I filed the front of the plate edge to a chamfer to hopefully disguise the extra thickness, and it sort of works. It's not as obtrusive as it could be.

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The upper boards were a much simpler exercise. I matched the length to the lower boards and cut them down. More underframe clutter, and things are looking rather good. Perhaps I shall sort out the brake shoes and rigging tomorrow. Then I must give some thought to the clerestory and roof, as well as the buffer beam details. Then repeat it all three more times!
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Brake bits today.

The kit includes etched brake hangers with half-etch overlays to represent the actual cast iron shoes. These assemblies are intended to be bent once and soldered to brackets that fit in the intended compensation units. Obviously, these need adjustment to fit on the pseudo-bogies. Working that out was today's task.

The first job was to solder the overlays on to the brake hangers. They are handed, as these coaches were fitted with full clasp braking - at least by the period being modelled.

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What I worked out was the kit brackets could be used to in a similar manner as the designer intended. The hangers then, with some suitable bending, would literally hang from them in pretty much the right place. What I didn't allow for was the hangers varying in length… I think this is probably a drafting error as the artwork dates from a time BC (Before CAD). Error or not, it means some fiddly bending and no doubt some vocabulary extension as I try to solder them onto the bogie! The pencil marks in the photo show the worked-out-by-trial-and-error bend positions.

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Anyway, here's one bogie completed. You can see the bracket extensions to position the outer brakes. I plan to amend the artwork for the bogie frames to include for fitting brake gear. As there are no suitable brake yokes in the kit, and you probably couldn't tell if they were installed anyway, I've limited further details to a brass wire between each opposite brake hanger.

A slight complication I haven't worked out yet is the fitting of current collection. My client has always asked me to allow for the possibility of installing lighting in his coaches, so I usually oblige by fitting wipers to a pair of wheels with attendant wiring into a luggage compartment. I still need to decide how this system will fit on one of these bogies without significantly restricting rotation.
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Heather

On my JLTRT toplights (see my PD thread in t'other place) I made the bogies live by shorting out one wheel on each axle, which avoids pick-ups, drag, dirt, hassle, etc...

This is of course easier on a resin-bodied coach than a brass one, but I'm sure you can contrive an insulated bogie mount - which you'd certainly want to apply to all bogies (otherwise the coach bodies would be live and might short at couplings/buffers)

That bolster/cross beam might be remade in Tufnol, nylon or acetal, as an option.

Best
Simon
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Some good ideas there Simon. Sadly, I think I'm a bit too far along the road to rearrange things presently. If I should get to write up these bogie ideas for the BGS, I shall certainly include them.

I like the idea of a Tufnol bolster. I shall consider that if I get any more large BG coaches commissioned.

I shall probably install a couple of bits of copper-clad on each side frame, phosphor bronze wipers to the back of a wheel, and run the wires with plenty of slack. Potentially, a plug and socket on the underside of the coach body as well.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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There's a law of the universe that states no matter how large the area of a workbench, work will be done in a tiny area right at the front of the bench.

After what seems like months… oh, hang on, it is months! Whatever, work begins again on these coaches. Well, work begins on one of them, at least. I am missing castings, and the BGS is having trouble with their casters at present. I've resolved to make as much progress as I can with what I have.

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So, today has been cleaning up and prepping squillions of suspension castings, bending up brass wire hooks, and making loads of loops. It's tedious, but satisfying once it's all together. I think I'll make up and fit the steps this evening. One coach underframe a day isn't too bad.
 
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