7mm Rob P's Coaching Stock Workbench - Kirk Twin Set Diag 105/125

[Rob Pulham]

Progress on the bogies hasn't been quick due in part to me not feeling at my best and then due to the instructions on the Kemilway bogies telling you to drill through the shock absorber castings with a 0.6mm drill.
This hasn't proved easy and 6 broken drill bits later, having only got through 4 of the 16 castings I abandoned that idea and took the safer route. This route had me drilling either end of the casting and fitting a stub of 0.6mm nickel rod in the bottom of the castings and then shortening the spring rod and inserting it into the top of the casting before solder them on.



This is a shot with them complete on one of the bogies and very nice they look too - they have a nice chunky feel to them now
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I haven't made much progress on the Newbould versions beyond soldering up the springs and studying the shock absorber castings which already have a screw thread at the bottom - this is what I believe the 0.6mm rod represents on the Kemilway version.

 

[Rob Pulham]

The bogies trundle slowly forward, doing 4 at a time means a lot of repetitive tasks before appearing to get anywhere.

All the axles boxes have been soldered up and their face plates added etc. I test fit them in their respective bogies and then hit a snag.

These are the axle boxes - cruel close ups





And these are the frames





The axle boxes for the Kemilway bogies slide right to the top of the horn guides but the Newbould ones hit the curved cut out for the bearing. Struggling to understand this I moved on with other things and emailed Peter Dobson. Peter replied and explained that this was an anomaly that was due to him using a similar design to his Gresley bogies where the bearing cut out is to accommodate compensation. Whereas these particular bogies are not design to be compensated.

His suggested solution is as follows.



The suggestion is to cut of the area marked in red and either stick on or solder the axle box in place making them rigid. I am going to go further with the Kemilway bogies first to see if I can pick up any tips that might help to compensate these - albeit the Kemilway ones have a phosphor bronze spring plate for their compensation.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Whilst waiting for Peter's reply I made a start on the bolsters. On both types of bogies there are quite a few parts to get to here.

First the Newbould:





Then the Kemilway - I haven't got so far on these.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Having got as far as fitting the bolster to the bogie frames last night I hit another minor snag with the Newbould bogies. The Kemilway bogies are designed that you can have one fixed with a little play and one that pivot's from side to side. This is done via the three holes in the side of the bolster frames. The newbould bogies have the same holes so I attempted to duplicate the Kemilway set up and found that the fold down "wings" that have the three holes in the bogie frame are slightly too long and need a couple of mm taking of each side.



Now that I know on the rest that I have for other projects I will take it off while the bogies are still flat with a piercing saw - on the assembled bogies I had a to do it more crudely with the Dremel and a slitting disk. Thankfully it is tucked up out of the way and cannot be seen on the finished bogie.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Progress has been steady and I have to confess to getting a little bogged down with the bogies.

Not the best shot in the world but you can see where I had to hack out the ends of the bolster supports with the cutting disk.



This is what it looks like with the bolster assembled - nicely detailed.





Once I realised I wasn't making much progress with the bogies I decided to move onto the detailing of the NBR BG. I have a few more exterior photos now so I am just in the process of adding bump stops, grab handles etc.

What I have done is make up some interior details, the first is the pressure gauge? (not really sure of it's name) from some brass sprue, rod washers etc. The second is a very nice Sidelines brake standard casting which I have modified by creating a head mechanism that allows the handle to be side mounted instead of on the top. Once again scrap etch to the rescue - I based it on an outline drawing and the casting that Jim McGeown provides in his NBR Brake van kit.

 

[Rob Pulham]

This afternoon has seen me complete the detailing of the sides.



The bump stops are the etched ones from CPL they are tiny and you need a fair degree of patience to use them. The best way that I found to fit them was to drill the hole 0.6mm solder in a piece of nickel (what I had to hand brass would do equally as well) rod and leave a blob of solder at the back with a short stub at the front. Run a broach through the hole in the etc to open it out and cut off and tidy up one of the bump stops etches. slide this over the stub of rod and push home with either nails or tweezers. Apply a drop of flux and use the microflame to heat the blob of solder from behind. The flux draws enough of the solder through to hold it without trying to get the iron to do it. I did manage with the iron on a couple but found it much cleaner with the microflame.

I received an MMP LMS Roadstone Wagon for Christmas so I count this as practice for fitting the many small details that come with it.





I managed to glean from photos the postion of the rather unusual handrail and the fact that the guards door had some visible hinges that I needed to add - these are not visible in many photos so they may be an LNER addition.



Next up the ends and hopefully I will be able to think about soldering it together.

 

[Rob Pulham]

One thing that I forgot to mention in the last post was the door ventilator bonnets. I bought some very nice cast brass examples from CPL but they had ridges along them. When I have studied the few photos that I have of these coaches the ventilator bonnets are smooth in appearance. Rather than spoil the CPL castings by filing them smooth I added them to the spares box and soldered a couple of strips off the edge of the etch together giving me a reasonable thickness that was the right width. Then with the piercing saw I cut enough lengths to fit all the doors that needed them and patiently filed them to shape. I think that the result was worth the effort.

yesterdays efforts were centred on the gangways, these are a set from CPL that are designed to cover scissor or suspended and have lots of spare parts to allow LNER gangways to be produced too if you have a decent photo to work from. I built them as scissor gangways as per the drawings and photos that I am working from.

The gangways as designed have a fold up concertina of black paper that fits inside the working scissor section. I need to come up with a different solution because I have made doors on the coach end that I want to be visible.

The photo below shows them in the closed and extended positions next to a ruler to give an idea of how far they move.



As discussed on Ian G's Siphon G thread
I have included this shot to illustrate where I had to cut the top of the fold around inner support strip. The strip has tabs to locate in slots in the sides but the bit in between which curves over the top of the gangway is too long . Once I had worked this out I cut the strip in half and and worked in towards the centre at the top which is marked. I repeated this for the other half and then soldered them in once happy with the fit. There are some other strips that you press rivets out on to represent the Pullman style gangway that would also need the same treatment if used. It's a simple fix once you realise what the problem is.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Today has been spent making underframe details - namely vacuum cylinders and Dynamos.

First up is a Gladiator Dynamo. These are a bit plain albeit very nice castings as they come, so taking my lead from Heather I added a block (from square brass bar) for the wiring loom and an eye to connect a restraining chain. The "wiring" will be cut shorter and soldered to the underframe once I fit it.



Next is a bit of a comparison between the Gladiator dynamo and a Sidlelines example both are sold as LNER examples.



The Sidlelines example comes with a bracket/adjuster so I made one up from scrap etch a piece of rod that I threaded and a 14ba nut to go with the Gladiator dynamo.

Last is one of a pair of Gladiator vacuum cylinders mounted on a set of Slaters V hangers from the spares box and some scratch built levers/pivots.

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The long soft brass wire will be bent round to meet up with the vacuum pipe that runs down below the solebar - when it's fitted.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Yesterday was a good day at the bench seeing the underframe complete (I think!) and the sides/ends assembled along with the end doors and corridor connections fitted. I need to do a bit of a repair job on one of the scissor connections because when soldering it on I got the whole thing a bit hot and one of the joints soldered solid.

I will get some photos of the body work later but here are a few of the underframe to be going on with.

 

[7mmMick]

Lovely work as usual Rob, I'm very envious of your bench time, I've forgot what mine looks like! Looking forward to seeing this one finished

ATB Mick

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Mick,

It's going to come to a bit of a halt soon because I am waiting for the roof. I have been collaborating with a gent who is building one the same (and a few other NBR coaches) that we both bought from the same guy on Ebay. He has some roofs on order from Dave at Roxey Mouldings and he is getting one for me too but I am not sure when it will be ready.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Once the bogie coal wagon was finished the mojo stayed in place and I made some good progress on the D71

First I found photographic evidence that Bill was right when he said that the gangway versions of these coahes had internal opening guards doors - so of they came.












The bogies are the Newbould models Fox bogies and they only come with brake shoes/supports for the outer ends of each bogie. By good fortune a rummage in the spares box yielded enough spare Connoisseur brake shoes/and supports for the inner sets - they did need a bit of creative bending to get them fitted but fitted they are. The spares box also supplied enough yokes (Connoisseur again) for the outer axles which left the inner ones without. To get around this I first put a piece of rod through the brake shoes and then I measured the Connoisseur yokes. Next I got some scrap etch strip and filed a V 17mm from one end and then bent it around and soldered the joint. I then filed the open ends to and angle that would allow a second strip to be soldered across the open end to create the triangle all these joints were made with 227 degree solder.

These were clipped to the rode across between the brake shoes to make up the yoke. They still need a piece of rod to give the appearance of being able to be pulled on/off but they are better than nothing at all.

The rather nice full stepboards finish the bogies off and they were surplus from the Kemilway Fox bogies (they are designed to cover both GNR and NER variants).

 

[Rob Pulham]

Continuing the painting theme I also managed to get the bogies painted for the NBR BG

 

[john lewsey]

Mmmmmm a lovely model Rob very nice
John

 

[Rob Pulham]

The BG has been on hold for a while because I have been waiting for a friend to sort out a roof for it (who was in turn waiting for another friend etc.) I collected it at Telford earlier this month so I will progress that once the CCT leaves the bench.

In the meantime to wet appetites following on from the excellent coach modelling seen here recently I thought that I would share another Telford acquisition which came quite out of the blue from a chance query.

Earlier in the year I bought a set of etches for a Gresley Restaurant triplet set from CPL and I was in discussions with both Rupert Brown and Peter Dobson about etches for the underframes and roof parts etc. I can get some of Rupert's underframes from Wizard Models but Andrew needs to sort them out and Peter Dobson although having wound up newbould models as a business is still supplying bits and pieces and had done a test etch for the underframes but had never progressed them. I had arranged with Peter to bring some Gresley bogies to Telford for my CPL set and he said would I like to see his test etch underframes to which I said certainly.

It turned out that not only had he done a test etch for the underframes but also for the bodies as well but he had taken them so far an then popped them aside. Having had a look at them I asked since he hadn't touched them for quite some time, if he would sell them 'as is' and a deal was struck.

This is what I got for the money:

















Also included were the remaining partitions for the restaurant cars and some etched tables. And hidden away under the tissue paper in one of the boxes was a very nicely finished Kemilway roof - so now I know what they should look like and can be made to look like.... note to self must try harder!

 

[iploffy]

I don't know what it is about articulated vehicles it just seems such a good idea that has not been used to good effect. Even the APT had them.

 

[Rob Pulham]

I don't know what it is about articulated vehicles it just seems such a good idea that has not been used to good effect. Even the APT had them.

As I understand it the idea was originally patented by Gresley but presumably the patent expired long before the APT came along so that shouldn't have been a barrier to it's use by BR

 

[Steph Dale]

Rob,

That's a very classy project, but I bet it'll take you a while to do. I really like Peter's stuff, it's a shame he's packed it in. I'd have liked him to do his Fox bogies for LSWR or SECR prototypes; it would have saved me a job!

I'm really looking forward to seeing this progress.

Cheers,

Steph

 

[Rob Pulham]

I am inclined to agree there Steph, even taking into account what Peter has already constructed there is a fair bit to do - and a lot of castings to buy......

 

[dibateg]

A great project Rob. The Newbold underframes were very good, it would be a shame if they were no longer available.
Regards
Tony