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Scratch Build of 1951 Pullman Carriage


hendie

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Somehow, I am going to have to sneak a new vise into the basement.... I already warned the other half that I intend to buy a lathe as soon as my pennies jar is full.

I am sure you already have many vices so adding another one should not be too much of a problem. You have to get yourself a lathe, all serious scratch building modellers like you should have one.

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Many vices... hah!

yes I do!

Anyway, steaming on with this and staying on track..... (oh bad puns) - I realized I had made a slight boo boo. I had gone to all the trouble of painting the chassis, and then realized that the underside of the floor would also need painted. - Just as well I was ready to start fitting the floor pan.

The first part was easy - mark out the chassis rails on the styrene, mix up some epoxy glue, and slap it in between the lines. An extra chunk of granite came in handy to weight things down while the glue cures.

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And true to form, I ran out of glue after fitting the first floor section.... a quick nip down to Walmart and I was ready to go again.

Unfortunately what I don't notice was that in my haste to get going, I had inadvertently picked up a 5 minute cure version when I really wanted the long cure stuff instead. Of course, the first I noticed that was when I was applying the glue to the styrene and it started going off on me !! arghhhh Thankfully I managed to save the styrene (it took me ages to cut it that accurately!) - so here we are ready to prime

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Thank heavens for such a large spray booth....

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and here we are almost back to where we were when I ended my last post!

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But at least the floor is in place now.

Yo can see the typical Pullman style vestibule ends, which are inset from the rest of the side walls - they do give it a very distinctive look.

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I placed the large rattle can in the booth so you can get an idea of how big this train is going to be when finished.

Then it was back to the bogies.....

Following Nigel's suggestion, I purchased a chunk of aluminum from ebay to make a former for the side of the bogie. 0.125 x 4 x 14" - I only needed a small section of it for the bogie but I am sure the rest will come in handy sometime soon.

Following my usual method - print what I need out 1:1, tape it to the metal and start filing away...

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My modeling vice may not be heavy duty, but it is versatile when I need to get into those awkward angles....

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I had a feeling that the brass I had in stock was a little too thick, but what the heck.... I had the metal former.. why not give it a whirl ?

This time I really blasted the brass with the gas torch to soften it up. Into the vise it went and I started hammering - this time using a wooden block between the brass and the hammer. It didn't turn out too badly....

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However, you can see in this photo that it's not perfect

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and here's the reason why - the metal is too thick to get the tight radius that I need on this.

It's hard to see in the photo but the brass starts to belly-out just before the bend. I'd really need a male and female former to get this to work at this thickness.

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I think that if I drop the thickness down to 0.025" or even 0.015" I'll be able to form the metal around the template I created - Even if that metal is a tad on the thin side - by the time it's primed and painted, I think the flange will look the correct thickness.

So now I'm off to order some more brass.

Edited by hendie
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Very nice work on making the forming tool, glad that my ideas were of some use. It looks so very nearly there, I am sure you will get it with some slightly thinner metal. That's proper engineering that is. Nice to see this quality of workmanship.

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As a suggestion, a bit of file finishing will knock that bulge out - correct use of a file is a good skill to master. (I'm no master - I'm a left hander, which means that the teeth on files run the wrong way for me to use them correctly.)

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As a suggestion, a bit of file finishing will knock that bulge out - correct use of a file is a good skill to master. (I'm no master - I'm a left hander, which means that the teeth on files run the wrong way for me to use them correctly.)

It would probably eliminate most of it (I was a rigger for 9 years and I went through the A Mech A course at Halton so I am no stranger to a file), but my biggest concern is the outer radius - I want that to be tighter.

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Rob G, are you serious!? :) Most file patterns are symmetrical as far as I know! I'm a lefty but file with both hands.

I can't let this lie. Files can be asymmetrical. The single cut pattern is an example. I am a left hander but have never found any problems using standard files. I hadn't even thought about them being handed until reading this post. Maybe us left handers adjust to what we are given.

Nigel

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I can't let this lie. Files can be asymmetrical. The single cut pattern is an example. I am a left hander but have never found any problems using standard files. I hadn't even thought about them being handed until reading this post. Maybe us left handers adjust to what we are given.

Nigel

Cheers Nigel. I'm a trained metal conservator and didn't know that!!!

Sorry to digress from your excellent thread Hendie!

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A small update.

More brass sheet has been ordered - two different thicknesses so hopefully one of them will be successful in the great bogie forming adventure.

The Wessex has taken a back seat over the last couple of weeks - I was drying off the rotor blades after micromeshing a few days ago, when the paper towel caught the end of the blade and snapped it in half - so I took a deep breath and stepped away. I should be able to recover from that disaster but decided to keep away from the Wessex for a few days just in case....

So, the water tank and effluent tank have been complete for some time but I had to wait until the underside of the floor pan was painted before I could fit them... one last job was to open up the "pipe" fittings in anticipation of fitting pipes 'n' stuff later (I hope!)

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Both of these tanks are suspended underneath the chassis by "J" brackets. I used some scrap styrene as spacers above and below the tank while fixing the J brackets in place with epoxy glue.

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Both tanks now fitted.

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I also added some support brackets for the battery box and regulator on t'other side. I made these brackets up from lengths of styrene.

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... and now started fitting some pipework on the underside.

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The battery box and regulator will be up next for fitting after I paint the support brackets black. After that I think I will be concentrating on the bogies as I really want to get those taken care of before too long.

It's a lot harder to paint this thing than I imagined. Getting to the root of those J brackets for priming was a bit of a pig but I got there in the end.

I'm not entirely convinced that the black I have used on the tanks is dark enough - the camera flash has made it much brighter than it appears to the nekkid eye, but I still have lots of time to splash paint around before I commit to a finish.

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The Wessex has taken a back seat over the last couple of weeks - I was drying off the rotor blades after micromeshing a few days ago, when the paper towel caught the end of the blade and snapped it in half - so I took a deep breath and stepped away. I should be able to recover from that disaster but decided to keep away from the Wessex for a few days just in case....

Hendie .

Are you taken lessons from me too ..Nigel had a ugly spill .. Now you .Broken Blade .

HEHEH

Rick

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Rick, I always seem to have at least one major upset on each model - usually it involves dropping the thing while painting it, but this time I thought it would be much more fun to break a critical item! :banghead:

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it don't get no worserer does it? ;)

No it dont

I'm enjoying the bracketry stuff, all the little things that bring a model to life

And you do 'em so well

I think I will be subbing out the framery for my Hansom when I get round to it

b

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This is a fascinating build of a really unusual build! Makes a great change from the norm. The craftsmanship involved is something else!

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  • 2 months later...

thanks Trevor - it's sitting on the back burner just now while I reach the end of the Wessex build, but it will be coming back on track soon (no pun intended!)

Spectacular and meticulous work Hendie. Lessons for everybody here.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hendie, we need another hit!

okay, okay, I'll take a look and see if I can get some work done on this over the next week or so - thanks for hanging in there - I know it's taking it's time but this project is definitely not going to be a "shelf of doom" sitter... it's just going to take a while

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