Yorky D's Küchentisch - North Eastern - Boing! said the pantograph...

[simond]

Thanks Steph, How did I miss that!? I searched the “private” but only glimpsed the other categories. What a wally.

But no helpful “and this one was photographed in Pwllheli in June 1930...” unfortunately.

There are some nice ones here but of limited railway interest.

http://www.rhiw.com/hen_luniau_pages/Lluniau_hen_14/Lon_Blawdty.jpg

Splendid horse!

Best
Simon

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I rather like that. Would 1930 be too late...? Probably ok in a rural area...

Rule #1 - I'm sure you could justify it .

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The Brougham is nearing completion......

The remaining parts were completed, painted and a zap of Alclad gloss lacquer since carriages were well kept. Here are some photos and it still requires the hub caps, glazing, carriage lamps and of course a horse. In addition a liveried carriage driver would be nice but I haven't seen any suitable figures - they are either delivery cart or hansom cab drivers.

The roof is off here to illuminate the interior.


Rear 3/4.

Broadside.



Obligatory Peco helicopter shot to show the interior.

And this one to put in a sense of scale. The Charles Dickens figure is 40mm high (about 5' 7'' tall) - one of my early attempts at figure painting.

Mmmmm.... not quite what I meant by horseless carriage - where's Gottlieb and Karl* when you need them!

If I were to build another I would sand all the exterior panels to a smooth finish for a highly polished Brougham.... the benefit of hindsight . Ho hum.

*Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler and Karl Friedrich Benz

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Firstly the Brougham has now been glazed and hubcaps fitted.


Then the form of locomotion. An S&D models horse. This is the first one of three to be painted - my first attempt at painting livestock.





Next will be the reins and remaining tack.

 

[SimonT]

Dave,
that's a lovley job. I have used oils for this type of work and found it very good for capturing the variation in colour caused by the changes in the coat and the variations in light from the form of the animal. Make for an interesting nights modelling and messing around! I used Halfords rattle as the undercoat.
Simon

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Thanks Simon.

This was painted with acrylics and washes with a rattle can primer. The horse above is my attempt at a bay colour and ended up with several coats of oxide wash. As you say the coat colour changes are very subtle and I've noticed horses have a sheen rather than be dead matt.

I've two more horses to paint, one black and the other a more of a chestnut colour.

 

[SimonT]

The memory has just come back that I was put onto oils for livestock by an article in MRJ by Gravett. No idea which one though.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

300% increase in horsepower - the other two S&D horses have now been painted....

Believe it or not this was the most difficult to paint - 50 shades of black!


Then the brown one with markings.


And finally the trio....

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

As the title suggests it's not the Black Dyke Mills Band playing John Lee Hooker......

.....but an attempt to vanquish the demons of my brass kit building following the Met 6T ballast wagons.

At one of the shows I picked up this Alphagraphix LCDR coach kit which as usual does not contain wheels, couplers etc. Annoyingly you have to open the kit to look at the (scant in this case) instructions to find out what wheels are required. It would be nice if the 'missing' requirements list with part numbers was on the outside of the box. In this case which Slaters wheels and 0.9mm brass wire.


The brass bits.... I've already started some of it. Obviously this photo is an afterthought...

Some card interior parts and whitemetal castings. And thoughtfully they've provided some kitchen roll in case I run out.... Not any old kitchen roll but Blitz.


And some extras I purchased to complete the kit. As can be seen I will not be using the compensation system provided in the kit.

The carriage has tumblehomes which I've never formed before so I plagairised Rob Pulham's idea of using some broom handle - steel tube in my case. The side was taped to the tube with masking tape and then rolled.


The result.

The carriage sides have fold over tabs for attaching to the floor and roof. When folded these add an extra 0.5 to 1.0 mm to top and bottom which is just not there on the prototype and would certainly be visible if assembled this way.

So these came off and the top was replaced by 3mm angle and the bottom with brass strip. The droplights were also soldered in and alas.............. no F7 invisible solder here .

The kit does not have any locators for the ends and it was not stated in the instructions whether the end is to be fitted to the inside or the outside of the sides..... So I used some offcuts of angle to assist with positioning of the end to the inside of the carriage end.


And..... one side completed with the door ventilators and handles.



Other items which jump out are the etched door hinges (yuk) and the lack of door stops..... something to add to the to do list....

 

[Scale7JB]

The Laurie Griffin door stops are quite nice if they're the correct shape?



JB.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The Laurie Griffin door stops are quite nice if they're the correct shape?

I'll have to take a grinder to the doorhandles to produce a scallop.

.....and order some door stops or make some?

 

[Scale7JB]

http://www.lgminiatures.co.uk/product/36-017-general-multiple-use/

JB.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Carrying on with the Blues.....

The coach chassis folded up and the underframe detail laminations soldered on.



Rolling the roof using the same method as the tumblehome earlier.

The roof has half etched lines on the inside and either this is to aid rolling or provide the detail for the roof interior or both. Anyway here is the result. The roof will be covered with lens cleaning wipes which should hide the attempted multi faceted diamond cut.

And while I was soldering on the scrap angle to to inside of the roof to act as locators......

Disaster struck... - one arm of the magnifiers snapped.... oh .


Which meant a rummage through the scrap etch box to locate some 'C' section brass. After some cutting, filing, drilling, nuts and bolts from the pocket screw box a repair was effected.

This brass section was sunk into the plastic strengthening? ridge with a soldering iron.


Back onto the coach the end steps were rather plain and puny so I cut some scrap chequer place and soldered these onto the steps.

Then the duckets.... these have taken the most time so far. They are effectively a fold up design......Simple you would think, however..... the half etch fold line is on the outside i.e. the side with all the detail. Which when folded creates a nice round corner on the outside except LCDR carriages have very square corners. To square the corners I tried fillets of solder which was partially successful and finished them off with epoxy followed by much filing... in the marsh.


And plonk the items completed together thus far..... still plenty to do.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

No quite as bad as the title suggests but as the coach build continues there are some leetle niggles..... which has resorted to a bit of bodgery .

Firstly the compartment end. This carries the electrical switchgear (as fitted by the SECR when they converted LCDR coaches from oil to electric lights).

The etch with its fold up switch box just looked too crude so I made up a new one from some scrap nickel silver etch and incorporated the mounting brackets. New hand loops were made from nickel silver wire and the switch box from scrap laminated brass. In addition I added the small arm which operates the switch and the electrical conduit is brass wire. Both my bodgery and the original etch are shown.


The instructions suggest the grab irons be made up from 0.9mm brass wire. Given the short length of these and guessing the formed brass wire will look like what it will be - bent brass wire - and the fact it's not easy bending 0.9mm brass set me thinking how I was going to make these.

It was while I was trawling Laurie Griffin's catalogue for door stops I spotted the Highland Railway Jones Coach Door and Coupe handles and noted they looked very similar to the LCDR door fittings... then I ordered a set to see what they looked like.

And low and behold..... They are now fitted to the coach - to one side at least - as I now need to order another set. At the same time I replaced the 'modern' door handles with the HR versions as they are a dog bone shape commensurate with the age of the coach.


Oblique view of grab irons and door handles.


The completed side..... door handles and grab irons.


I'm now waiting on a delivery of the stuff that's just not provided in the kit i.e. brake end brake 'tell tales', lamp irons, battery box, dynamo, etc among other detail parts.

 

[Heather Kay]

It’s nice to see a little outbreak of rolling stock and coaches on WT.

 

[allegheny1600]

I like the repair to your magnifiers, a little crude but very effective!
That's just the sort of job that marks you out as a real modeller imho - a problem occurs and you come up with an effective solution, brilliant.
I'm always being presented with these kinds of jobs so I'll try and remember your solution.
The coach is coming along nicely too.

 

[Scale7JB]

I'm now waiting on a delivery of the stuff that's just not provided in the kit i.e. brake end brake 'tell tales', lamp irons, battery box, dynamo, etc among other detail parts.

Awww come on, make your own..??



JB.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I like the repair to your magnifiers, a little crude but very effective!

It was a case of making sure the repair was secure. Knowing me they will break in another place now...

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Slowly it goes whilst waiting for some more detail parts....

Attention was turned as to how the body is going to be secured to the chassis as it was not evident in the instructions. To overcome this I soldered some brass angle, strengthened with some brass strip, into the ends at floor level.


These were drilled and tapped for M1.4 machine screws. The hole centres are different at each end so it can only be assembled one way.


The fixing from the underside. The buffers and couplers will be last items to be installed after painting, etc. This photo also leads onto the axle boxes and springs....

Quite frankly the quality of these is not brilliant and some were poorly cast so bits broke off easily. Perhaps I'm just being too Teutonic in my expectations about the quality of parts and quality control . It's as if the items were removed from the mould, given a cursory glance (rather than check the piece all over) and thrown into the parts bag.

The collateral..... and one has managed to disappear into the ravenous carpet monster of Traal!

Then attention swung to the interior and I started this from styrene sheet. The aim here is to fix this (and the Connoisseur suspension units) to the chassis with small self tapping screws from the underside. The compartment end seat will be fixed to the body shell.


Being a coach with a tumblehome at the moment there is a gap between the partitions and the coach side and I have one or two ideas on how to close these before final assembly....

The battery box was detailed, supports made from brass strip and ready for installation.

Just another photo of the compartment end.

With hindsight what this brass kit malarky has taught me is to produce a checklist of items to check for when purchasing a brass kit. e.g. for coaches:

Wheels, Buffers, Couplers, Grab irons, Door handles, Door stops, Door hinges, Battery boxes, Dynamo, Electrical switch gear, Roof vents, Brake tell tales, Interiors, Lamp irons, Brake pipes, Steam heat pipes, etc, etc. And check the quality of the castings.

When purchasing a kit I'll just have to start asking manufacturers/traders to open the box so I can see what is included and what extras I would require?

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Yesterday I made up the Connoisseur 6w coach suspension units.



And tonight I marked out the centreline of the chassis, drilled and tapped the holes for 2mm machine screws.

Installed the suspension units... from underneath....

.... and above. These will screw through to the hold the interior floor.

The lamp irons and brake 'tell tale' arrived today. The compartment end - the LCDR mounted their lamp irons about 3/4 way up the corner posts.......

....and the brake end with the 'tell tales'. Just noticed one of the end steps requires some re-adjusting .