End handrails and fillers

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
I distinctly remember the fuel bowsers like the one you are building.

Thank you for the kind words, Ian. Sadly, for various reasons, the refueller has been moved to the Shelf of Doom for a while. It may be finished one day, but not right now.

Finally, the mojo returned, sufficiently refreshed that I could begin to construct the end handrails and fillers. It’s a slow old job, because each installation is bespoke, not helped by my past self neglecting to work it all out before getting to the stage current self is at. The story of my life.

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Here’s one of the BTK van end installations. Things are always complicated because of my removable roof fetish. You’ll be pleased to know the handrail does unclip from the roof.

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And this is the other end of the same coach. As built, a poor railway worker armed with either watering cans or a hose had to clamber up on to the roof and fill the WC header tank. From my reading, after Mr Bulleid took over and as these coaches went through the works, the end handrails were converted to pipes so the tank could be filled from ground level. Anyone familiar with the BR Mk1 installation will instantly spot the similarities. Thanks to the SREmG web site, there is a fairly clear image along a preserved coach roof that shows how the modifications were made, and I’ve attempted to make it look about right. The split so the roof can be removed falls on the support blocks up by the tank.

I think it looks okay, and will look better once painted. Now all I have to do is repeat this lot twice more, and then four sets of pipes for the compo. I may be a while.
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Things are always complicated because of my removable roof fetish. You’ll be pleased to know the handrail does unclip from the roof.

That's a good fetish to have, Heather. I'm now going to have to remove those handrails/tank fillers from one of mine to replace a broken window. That's one of the prices of using real glass slides.

Brian
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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Here’s a funny one. For the filler pipe lower brackets I make flat strip by gently beating a 0.7mm brass wire on my anvil. It worked nicely on the coach just done, so I pulled another length of wire from my pack. It’s been in the stores for several years, as I always buy it in bulk.

Consider me bemused to find the wire splitting as it became flat. I tried another piece, same thing. I tried annealing, same thing. Four separate lengths randomly plucked from the pack, all split. It strikes me it’s a manufacturing fault where two bits of metal haven’t merged properly somewhere, or two separate feeds of brass were somehow drawn through the die to make a batch.

I think the wire will be okay for general wire duties, but for the strip requirement I have had to fall back on "spare" stocks and NS wire.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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The snagging list shrinks further. All solebar end steps have been reglued (they're very vulnerable to accidental knocks when handling bodies sans bogies), all coaches now have end handrails and fillers (delete as applicable), which have all been blackened preparatory to painting, and the gangways are finally attached.

That feels like a milestone - or was it millstone? Difficult to tell. Door furniture tomorrow, I think. Eventually, I’m going to have to tackle weathering these critters. The client did suggest he’d like the other coaches under construction elsewhere to be weathered to suit, so it may be I’ll have to leave dirtyfying until I have those on the premises.

Still, headway has been made. It feels good.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Hi Heather

Good to see these coaches still progressing, really starting to look the part now with all the finishings going in / on.

Hope you don't mind the question but on viewing the photo below, my initial gut reaction was that the set numbers looked very large - what height are they (and whose transfers)?

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This set (!) me off on a quest initially for photos and then, via a delve through the library, of a dimension for the numbers. In his book "an illustrated history of southern coaches" Mike King states that set numbers were 9" tall (Pg 24 for those that have the book).

Vertical placement seemed to vary slightly between the top of the numbers being level with the gutter line (as you have it) and the middle of the numbers being at that level (as in the photo below). I suspect date might have an effect here as in later life the coaches had the upper end steps removed giving a bit more leeway on position.

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Obviously feel free to ignore, particularly if your numbers are 9" tall.

All the best.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Obviously feel free to ignore, particularly if your numbers are 9" tall.

Now you have me. They’re Fox waterslide transfers. They come in two sizes, 7in and 9in I think, and I went for the larger. Having waved a scale rule at them, they do seem to be just a wee bit too large for the official 9in height. Bother.

I don’t really want to change them, partly because I’m lazy and it would be a faff. Hopefully, once weathered and faded they’ll look less conspicuous.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Now you have me. They’re Fox waterslide transfers. They come in two sizes, 7in and 9in I think, and I went for the larger. Having waved a scale rule at them, they do seem to be just a wee bit too large for the official 9in height. Bother.

I don’t really want to change them, partly because I’m lazy and it would be a faff. Hopefully, once weathered and faded they’ll look less conspicuous.

Well in many photos the set numbers are almost invisible, covered in grime, probably an easier get out!
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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Something I like to do is give some variation to roof colour when I’m building a set of coaches. Three of the Maunsells are part of a set, and would have remained together during maintenance and going through shops. The brake composite, though, would have been on a different regime. I’ve repainted this coach a different shade to suit. I may also weather it differently - when I get round to that. Further roof weathering will follow once the paint is dry. I’ll dry brush a sort of sooty grime along the centrelines and around protuberances, plus some streaking down the roof curve from vents and so on.

Time to think about the canvas gangway tops.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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I thought there was no reason not to fit the door furniture. I started with one of the BTKs, the one that gave me all the banana action further back up the thread. As I was carefully redrilling all the holes - to a size that would actually let the cast parts fit nicely, and not the same sizes Slater's quote in the instructions - the interior fell out! That’s why it’s all clamped up like this.

An odd thing I found when constructing the interior parts was that even using squares to ensure the walls were at right angles to the side they still didn’t fit into the slots on the coach body side. Everything is just a little bit off the square, annoyingly. I really think the interior needs to be built into the body as the instructions say, rather than doing all that fiddly detailing and painting in an easier way on the bench. :rolleyes:
 
Door furniture fitted

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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Another little milestone passed: all the brass work installed on the doors.

I have to say that some of the brass used by Slater's for their castings in these kits has been a bit soft. A couple of the T-handles snapped off as I was poking them into the holes, and two of the grab handles snapped while being cleaned up. Still, all done now. I’ve dobbed green paint on the fittings, which I’ll clean back when I also darken things with Birchwood fluid. Everything is a bit bright and shiny at the moment and needs to be toned back like the real thing as it tarnished in the wild.

Removing fingerprints from the glazing is the next job. I still have to work on the gangway top covers. I’m not sure about the supplied crepe paper, although it would be absolutely fine. It just doesn’t look quite right to my kind. The alternative is masking tape suitably painted, which is something I’ve used on other builds to some success. The worry there is the longevity of the adhesive and whether it needs bolstering with something for the long term.

I need to update the client with progress, and I’ll ask him how far he wants things weathered.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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I went with the masking tape for the gangway covers. I have generic roll of 50mm wide stuff that’s quite thin but very sticky. Coloured in with a black felt tip pen, it looks a reasonably like the rubberised canvas covers. You will also note the pass comm flags are now painted on the left-hand coach, they’re all done, of course. I cleaned all the windows, and blew out bits of crud from the interiors. All the brass work has been stained a little with Birchwood Casey to tone it down a bit.

I think I ought to refit all the bogies. I think these are all but finished. A letter went off to the client today with the latest updates, and it asks what he would like for the level of weathering.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
We are all back on wheels. Quite how these are going to run is anyone's guess. I can can roll a coach up and down my test plank, but I haven’t got anywhere to run them as a set.
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With all the faffing about, angst and aggro that went into their construction, I don’t think they’ve turned out all that bad.

So, pending further comment from the client, these will be carefully packed away to make space for something else. Who knows what!
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Heather,

I hope you don’t mind a small distraction - I just saw this on the other channel and am much impressed by the idea, not much use to this build but hopefully for future reference…

CR Grampian corridor stock , part 4, bodies.

The builder made the sides detachable and retained by magnets. This seems to me to be an ideal way of building JLTRT coaches & maybe Slaters too. He did it with brass etched, so it must work for that too.

Some other interesting ideas about lights too.

Atb
Simon
 

chigley

Western Thunderer
Heather,

I hope you don’t mind a small distraction - I just saw this on the other channel and am much impressed by the idea, not much use to this build but hopefully for future reference…

CR Grampian corridor stock , part 4, bodies.

The builder made the sides detachable and retained by magnets. This seems to me to be an ideal way of building JLTRT coaches & maybe Slaters too. He did it with brass etched, so it must work for that too.

Some other interesting ideas about lights too.

Atb
Simon
just 4 magnets self adhesive
Ken
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Just heard from the client.

He thinks the set numbers on the ends are way too big. Being a Suvvern Noob, I don’t know any better, but I have to agree. I reckon Fox have them wrong. I’m going to sort that out when they reappear on the bench. I’m wondering if I might get away with using loco numbers…

Weathering towards the end of life, tired, grubby, but otherwise cared for. We may wait for the other coaches he has/wants so I can do them all as a set. That might still be a way off, what with the way of pandemics and stuff.

Right, back to the North Eastern!

*whoosh*
 
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