Scratch Build of 1951 Pullman Carriage

[hendie]

3 hours ago, RichO said:

If your interested, I can direct you to a site that has small lights for lamp.  It might be fun to see the carriage all lit up from the inside.  Just a thought.

 

I did consider it at one point Rich, but since it's very likely I'm going to have a removable roof, it might get a bit complicated.

 

oh. go on.... point away... but I'm promising nowt !

[RichO]

If anybody is interested go to "Ngineering.com".  LED lights down to 0.5mm.  Cool stuff.

 

Rich

[hendie]

darnit !    now you got me thinking

 

 

well, today has been rather a non-event.  I had big plans to get the first coat of paint on the side frames - so far, I haven't even managed to get downstairs.  Between grass cutting, shopping and making a curry for this evenings dinner, my allotted time was stolen and allocated elsewhere.  I think I am going to have to take a day or two vacation so I can be in the house by myself and actually get something done.

 

What little time I had last evening was spent working on the new electrical cabinets.  On checking through my photo's I found one of the end corridor and you can just make out the electrical cabinet.  It's not full height as I had made the first one.  They look to be around 3/4 of the height of the corridor itself.  Thankfully I caught that now before it was too late.   I also got new drawings done for the vestibule ends which I'll feed to the cutter when I get a chance.

 

oh well.... back to curry making....

 

[Nigel Heath]

Installing lighting would be so cool and a great way of showing off the interior. Possibly an option to having the roof removable? Definitely worth thinking about.

[larchiefeng]

I really like the way you keep packing detail into each and every area of the coach. I was watching an episode of Downton Abbey the other night and they were on the train to Scotland and I could swear that, the car that they were riding in, had the same chairs and fabric as you showed us. It was as if yours had come to life.

A quick note on LED's, I spent a lot of time with them on my Pocher Mercedes build and they do get extremely tiny. The SMD LED's for modeling come in three sizes but, for this build you are more than likely going to looking at the nano or pico size. The pico is the smallest with a 32 gauge or smaller wire. They come in bright white and soft white color renditions as well. I also used miniature connections and a IR remote control. I got all of these from a model train supplier here in the US; modeltrainsoftware.com. The model train guys have all sorts of cool stuff that can be used for other applications but, since you are building a railway car, it's a perfect application.

Edited April 30, 2017 by larchiefeng

[hendie]

You know larchifeng, it's quite possible that it was Pegasus.   I know they do hire the coach out privately, and I'm certain it's been used in more than one television episode. I believe it was also used on some TV advertisements as well.   Terry Bye would probably know more about that.

Ah. just found this... a glimpse of the bar area can be seen around 7 seconds in... Meerkovo Express

 

One question I have on LED's at the moment (and a thousand more to come) - is how much heat do they generate ?  I have concerns around the styrene walls and/or the paint being affected by the heat given that the walls will be around 3mm thick in total.  1mm thick wood on the inside, about 1.5mm spacer, then 0.5mm styrene on the outside.  I'd really hate to get this all painted then discover that the heat distorts the styrene or paint finish.

[silver911]

To allay your fears about LED's and heat....push one into a piece of styrene...leave it on for a couple of hours and see what happens...even at 12v you will get no discolouration or damage.

I have used LED's in many models and never had any problems other than the rare dead one.

 

As Wayne says...the train guys have a plethora of lighting to choose from...which also benefits the models guys (us).

 

Ron

[larchiefeng]

The heat generated is negligible; I used the nano in the dash to light up the instruments behind a thin piece of clear acetate and I've had no issues. Having said that, I don't usually leave the lights on very long and I doubt that, you will either. It's one of those things that, you do occasionally to show friends or enjoy now and again. I went through a whole lot of iterations of types of lightbulbs, switches, connections, controls, power supplies and wiring before settling on the nano and pico SMD LED's and a breadboard with a 120V to 12V power supply. I figured that the car wasn't going to be moved much when assembled and using a watch battery or AA or AAA batteries didn't make sense to have to get inside the model to replace. The PS was the better solution for me and I had  room under the seat to use a breadboard and test the lights as I was building it so I just kept it. 

[RichO]

And remember Allan, that the Crawler is loaded with the naon's and pico's .  All with no problems so far.

[hendie]

Evening folks.   I hope you are all satisfied now that you have my brain churning over things of electrickery and nano pico LED stuff.  Who knows where that's going to lead.

 

Anyhoos, today was a good day.  It was a slow day but it was a good day.  I got modeling time !   The best laid plans of mice and all that... as I have mentioned gazillions of times, I've been desperate to get a coat of paint on the side frames, so guess what I did today ?  I never went near the darn things !  Such is life.   I was full of good intentions, but working on the end vestibule drawings over the weekend got me all kerfuffled and excited.

 

So, being all excited and such, I completely forgot what I was going to start on, and carried on with the electrical cabinets.  As before, two blocks of balsa were glued together, then radiused along one edge.  Once that was complete, I skinned it with a piece of 1/32 basswood soaked in IPA.  The IPA really wicks into the basswood pretty quickly so within a few minutes I was able to bend it around the radius and glue it all up.   Enough here to make a bunch of cabinets methinks.

 

 

The minor problem facing me at this point is the fact that the cabinets are too deep, so in order to get an even cut all the way around, I jigged up my patented slicer tool.   A razor saw blade clamped at the correct height - I could now run the "cabinet" back and forth along the blade creating a nice even cut to bring the depth of the cabinet down to the correct width/depth.

 

 

Then I got bored with that.  Upon reviewing all my reference photo's the other night I spotted a small feature I had previously missed.  Check the top left of this photo - above the dinette windows are some brass covers.  The dinette walls are rather thin, so in order to be able to use roller blinds in the dinette, a slot was cut in the wall, the blinds fitted, then the brass covers hid the roller mechanism from the corridor side.  Pelmets hid the same in the dinette side.

 

 

I thought that would be a nice feature to add, so I cut some 0.005" brass sheet, then found some brass rod which was then filed flat along one side (do rods have sides ? - anyways, you know what I mean).  These were then glued into position on the corridor side of the dinette wall.

 

 

And then I remembered what I was exited about earlier.... the end vestibules.  I fired up the automatic cutter, and cut out a couple of end vestibules.  Now, previously, I had made the end vestibule up from three separate pieces.  They looked great until I gave them a coat of primer - I was not happy with the seams. I just couldn't get a nice even vertical seam, at least, not one I was happy with.  It was time for a rethink.  This time I decided to try cutting the entire vestibule end from one piece.  That was the easy part.

Now, I took a chance, and decided to try creating the bend, by scoring a line along the vestibule end with a scriber.  A few passes gave me a nice deep, and more importantly, straight line which I could use for creating the bend.

 

 

It worked !   You can see how straight the bend line is in this photo here.  The styrene got a bit cruddy from my cutting mat, but a little micromesh will soon sort that out.

 

 

Now, this is where my plans went all to pot.  I got so carried away with the quality of the bend that I just kept going with the vestibule.  The vestibule is paneled (as is everything else in this carriage),  but the vestibule is slightly different.  This was one of the challenging aspects of the project - the carriage had to meet modern crash standards. In order to do that, we had to beef up the carriage ends.  In the side frames, we used standard steel "C channel - in the vestibule, we used heavy walled steel box section.  This meant that the paneling stood off the exterior walls by a significant amount so I tried to replicate that here.  Using 5mm thick blocks, I framed the gangway entrance.

 

 

I then cut a chunk out of the styrene and started hacking away at anything which didn't look like a gangway entrance.  The dremel clone came in very handy for this work.  Looking at this, I can see that I still need to do a little fettling in the doorway arch - which will end up being hidden by the diaphragm - but it will bug me if I don't do it.

 

 

Then on the interior, I started shaping the gangway frame.

 

 

I cut some spacers to use between the styrene and the basswood, which allowed the interior panel to sit back at the right depth (to my eye anyway). Then it was time to attack the window - slowly and multiple dry fits later, I had a window opening - you can see just how far back the panel is from the styrene in this photo.  I also had to cut the window larger than the corresponding opening in the vestibule to allow for the insets.

 

 

This is all just dry fitted but it shows the idea.  I think I am going to have to stain all these pieces individually before fitting, so I can get a decent finish on the parts. Just before the insets go into the window, I'll throw in a piece of clear styrene to act as the window.

 

 

and that is as far as I got today - a very satisfying day it was though. I'm very happy with the progress on the vestibule.  It took a good few hours to get this far, but I think it was worth it.

 

Now I need to start thinking about how this is all going to go together if I am putting lights in there.

 

until next time....

 

 

 

 

 

[RichO]

Thanks for showing your "patented slicer tool".  Another idea saved for later.  Nice work.

[larchiefeng]

Beautiful wood work on the vestibule. Here's a couple of pictures of the lighting on the Mercedes. The tail lights I used are the pico size and the dash was one nano. In retrospect, I think the nano might have been too bright but, I kind of like the foot lighting. You can also see the breadboard I used under the seat. The gear shift lever also has a toggle switch to turn the lights on and off. I installed it inside the transmission before I added the IR with the remote.

 

[hendie]

thanks larchiefeng.  The idea is really tempting - I just need to convince myself that I can pull it off - and figure out the wiring plan.

I just checked my drawings and it looks like there would be somewhere around 4 dozen lights in this carriage

[Nigel Heath]

Lovely looking work hendie.

[larchiefeng]

That's quite a few lights but, the power draw is so small you can combine multiple hot leads together as well as doing the same thing with the ground wires. This allows you to simplify the number of wires running through the coach in each area by wiring them together and then bringing single leads out of each area that you may want to isolate. You can use a controller with a remote to control the various lights in each area of the coach, individually or all together. Using a breadboard to figure out how you might want each section to work might make sense so, you can actually see how each would work and how you would wire it up before you put any lights inside. It's a great way to mock up and figure out how much you can reduce the number of wires before running anything. Then you can decide how much room you need to allow for everything or if you really want to continue. Just a thought.

 

[hendie]

thanks.

I'll probably end up with a number of separate circuits as they will need to be be different intensities: 

1 for table lamps

1 for wall lamps

1 for ceiling lamps

1 for vestibule lighting

1 for bar lighting

1 for bathroom / kitchen lighting

 

let me figure it all out then I'll be back with a multitude of questions.  It will be fun trying to run wiring inside a 1/32 thick piece of basswood !  I'll need to see if that's even possible first of all.

 

[bentwaters81tfw]

31 minutes ago, hendie said:

thanks.

I'll probably end up with a number of separate circuits as they will need to be be different intensities: 

1 for table lamps

1 for wall lamps

1 for ceiling lamps

1 for vestibule lighting

1 for bar lighting

1 for bathroom / kitchen lighting

 

let me figure it all out then I'll be back with a multitude of questions.  It will be fun trying to run wiring inside a 1/32 thick piece of basswood !  I'll need to see if that's even possible first of all.

 

You'll need a timer for the bar lighting. Don't forget our restricted licensing hours back in 1951.

[larchiefeng]

The wire on the pico LED's is very thin. You should probably order a couple of the sizes so you can see what you are working with and that will give you a better reference point.

[TheBaron]

Nice to see you getting some bench time under your belt again hendie. Now I have the vicarious pleasure of watching somebody at work on a lighting scheme from a safe distance.

Notepad out...

[RichO]

   I'm with larchiefeng, I couldn't believe how small these thing are.  Order several sizes to get thing correct.  You might also find the intensity of the lights to be to bright, scale wise.  I used a simple dimmer switch after the plug, to get thing right.

 

Rich

[perdu]

Suddenly I feel the 'bar' is being raised again...

 

 

 

 

 

Still with there being a bar in there we will all be able to gather together and get a drink

 

Cheers H

 

🍷 🍻 🍺 🍹 🍷 🍷 🍹 🍺 🍺 🍻 🍸 🍸🍻

 

And after

 

☕ ☕ ☕ 🚬 🚬 🚬

[perdu]

That's a bit funny

 

On my tablet where I found those fun emos the after boozing slow down shows coffee and cigars

on the pc it shows ciggys instead

 

how UN PC

 

[Pete in Lincs]

I  was in Boston today (no the one over here in Lincolnshire)

and sitting in the railway station was a train of brown and cream

coaches, some with the word Pullman on them!

Hendie needs to know about this, I thought, However, I found the link below

and all is not quite what it seems to be.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiB2reT3tHTAhUoD8AKHbzsBLYQFghZMAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.westcoastrailways.co.uk%2Fspirit-of-the-lakes%2F&usg=AFQjCNFQ4QOBLTvQf6jbfOnP355jBFqCVw

 

And there was an old diesel on the front too!

 

BTW, with the overcast sky (big surprise) the brown was quite dark.

 

[hendie]

I see what you mean Pete.  It looks like BR Mk I's masquerading as Pullmans (may not be Mk I's - I know nothing about trains!).  Carnforth - that brings back memories, as does Boston... is Spalding close to there by any chance ?

[hendie]

Electrickery!    So I've had a think, and I think I may well be heading towards lighting this particular endeavor though I still have a few kinks to iron out.

 

What I would like to do, and I hope this is possible otherwise lighting will be a nightmare, is: 

Use one power lead coming into the train. It will be mains powered as I hate batteries for this type of thing

As mentioned above, I'm going to need separate circuits... so I'd like that one power lead to power all those circuits.

I assume the best approach would be to wire each separate circuit in series ?

The difficult part is: I don't know how bright I'm going to want each circuit to be, and I won't know until everything is in there and pretty much buttoned up, so, is there such a thing as a micro potentiometer for LED's ?

 

In order of highest to lowest intensity (possibly....)

Bar downlighters / Kitchen / Bathroom

vestibule / corridor lamps

ceiling lamps

wall lamps

table lamps

 

My current (no pun intended) line of thinking is that the power source would come in from under the tracks, and enter the carriage somewhere in the region of the bogie. That is a pretty busy area so the power lead should be mostly hidden.  I think, but I'll need to check, that the bogie extends under the kitchen area, in which case, the lead would enter the structure in the kitchen.  The kitchen will probably be the least interesting area, though it will still be detailed, but bringing the power source in there will cause the least amount of disruption/damage and hopefully, will not detract from the build too much.

 

Now I just need to see if such components exist...