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Scratch Build of 1951 Pullman Carriage


hendie

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Handle, the trip I made on the VSOE was back in the 80's. Too far back to remember the specific layout of the bar car I went into, so it could well have been Pegasus at the time. Looking at your build it would be nice if it was!

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It’s taken me a cup and a half of coffee worth of reading to catch up on the last few months progress.  Hugely enjoyable.  I had to remind myself not to respond with  a ‘like’ to every post, Alan or you would’ve been inundated.  I am too much in awe of your skills to add anything more intelligible at present - in fact  I think I need another cup of coffee and a sit down in a nice darkened room just to try and process it all…

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On 7/8/2020 at 8:43 AM, Fritag said:

 I had to remind myself not to respond with  a ‘like’ to every post,

I tried not to I really did, but resistance is futile.

 

Bonkers brilliant stuff Alan.

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On 7/8/2020 at 9:13 AM, Noel Smith said:

Handle, the trip I made on the VSOE was back in the 80's. Too far back to remember the specific layout of the bar car I went into, so it could well have been Pegasus at the time. Looking at your build it would be nice if it was!

Being a bar car, I can understand that you do not remember😎

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Quite right Pouln!    I probably had one over the eight at the time.      Brilliant journey though, and one I will always remember.

I see you live in the Netherlands.     Looking forward to having a Eurostar trip to Amsterdam from London maybe next year when things may have got back to some normality.

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wow. There's a lot of posts to respond to.  Seems those chairs struck a chord with folks.

 

On 7/6/2020 at 10:21 PM, roginoz said:

The English language does not contain enough superlatives with which to praise this marathon effort !!

 

Those chairs look absolutely stunning [as we would expect, given the rest of the build] and will set off the interior magnificently.

I, too, will be very sorry to see your build reach its final conclusion as, without much comment, I have nevertheless watch each development with awe !!

Thanks, Hendie,

Rog

 

It is edging closer to the end with every post isn't it Rog?   Don't worry, there's still a few things for me to do before this is all closed up for good

 

On 7/7/2020 at 12:59 AM, Brandy said:

Two days of torment maybe, ok 2 and a half with the extra 2 to be done! But the result is well worth it.

 

Ian

 

Thanks Ian.  The 2 delinquent chairs have now been dealt with and are sitting in the corner awaiting flat coat.

 

On 7/7/2020 at 1:27 AM, Pete in Lincs said:

Marvelous. Though I can see a pattern of repitition developing here. It only remains for me to ask, 'Wot, no fluffy cushions?' :poke:

I too will be sorry, but delighted (if only for the sake of your patience/sanity), to see this one finished.

 

Fluffy cushions?  I raised your expectations too high methinks I should have gone for the old British rail wooden benches

 

On 7/7/2020 at 1:39 AM, Heather Kay said:

Wow! Those chairs look the absolute business! :clap:
 

I have something similar planned to reproduce the moquette on some coaches I have lurking around the bench. Thankfully, the seats In those are somewhat plainer and don’t have backs or arms, but I definitely think it’s worth the repetitive and tedious work for the final effect.

 

Thanks Heather.  I don't know how you manage to keep the mojo high enough to do this as a business.

 

On 7/7/2020 at 1:43 AM, TheBaron said:

You make a lovely seamstress.

Surely the next  build has to be a three-piece suit?

 

something along these lines Tony?

 

s-l640.jpg

 

On 7/7/2020 at 1:43 AM, CedB said:

Superb upholstery hendie - you have the patience of Job :) 

 

Thanks Ced.  I'm ready to give it back to him any time now....

 

On 7/7/2020 at 1:54 AM, JeroenS said:

What they said! Those chairs look absolutely gorgeous. One's sanity is a small price to pay for this result.

On 7/7/2020 at 3:35 AM, MR2Don said:

Echo all of the above and then some. Magnificent work and workmanship!

 

Thanks Jeroen, MR2Don !

 

On 7/7/2020 at 4:02 AM, Aeronut said:

What no monogrammed lace edged antimakassas for the seat backs? You’ve been let easy. 😉

 

dammit!  I have seen some photo's where there is a white cotton antimacassar over the headrest.  Should I ?.....

 

On 7/7/2020 at 4:30 AM, Bandsaw Steve said:

Deep-button them I say! 🤔

My dad was an upholsterer for more than 40 years! He would have deep-buttoned these! 🤪

 

I really really wanted to Steve, but for accuracy sake I just had to stay with the pleats (are they called pleats or summat else?)

 

On 7/7/2020 at 4:46 AM, bentwaters81tfw said:

Next time, get a colour 3D printer, that would have saved some work. :door:

 

:rofl2:

 

On 7/7/2020 at 8:58 PM, larchiefeng said:

I’m probably a little late to the party as regards the display but, after looking at your proposed case set up, I have an observation. I like the car above and the roof below because as you say the car is the star of the show. The only thing that, I would do is, slightly tilt the roof section forward so that everything on top is also visible and then put a mirror on the wall behind the roof and one below it. This way it should reveal everything inside reflecting from two different angles. The top is fully visible as is the car. So, I think with some creative tilt and mirrors you should be able to show everything underneath. 

I know how much work decals on seats and interiors can be having done a fair bit of carbon fiber on model cars and these look great. I was looking at your reference pictures of the actual Pegasus and it struck me at just how accurate your build is, great work Alan!!

 

Thanks for the suggestion.  Working on different options now.  I've started looking at potential suppliers and hope to be contacting someone in the next week or so

 

On 7/8/2020 at 3:13 AM, Noel Smith said:

Handle, the trip I made on the VSOE was back in the 80's. Too far back to remember the specific layout of the bar car I went into, so it could well have been Pegasus at the time. Looking at your build it would be nice if it was!

 

I guess I should add a trip on Pegasus to my bucket list even though the chances are very, very slim.

 

On 7/8/2020 at 3:43 AM, Fritag said:

It’s taken me a cup and a half of coffee worth of reading to catch up on the last few months progress.  Hugely enjoyable.  I had to remind myself not to respond with  a ‘like’ to every post, Alan or you would’ve been inundated.  I am too much in awe of your skills to add anything more intelligible at present - in fact  I think I need another cup of coffee and a sit down in a nice darkened room just to try and process it all…

 

Thanks Steve, glad to have you pop in.  Any chance of a Hawk update while you're hanging around  :whistle:

 

On 7/9/2020 at 2:58 PM, Tomoshenko said:

I tried not to I really did, but resistance is futile.

Bonkers brilliant stuff Alan.

 

Thanks Tomo.

 

 

Well, how do I follow that last update?   Anything after that is pretty much going to be an anti-climax innit?  

AS I've mentioned, it is getting close to the finish line though it seems every time I pour over my reference photo's I find something new cropping up that I have kept missing in the last 6 years. The emergency equipment was a prime example.  When I started chasing that squirrel I found out that there were two fire extinguishers specified. According to the drawings, they were located on top of the electrical cabinets in the end corridors.  Sure enough, when I looked at my reference stuff, I could just make out what certainly appeared to be a fire extinguisher right at the far end of the corridor.  Nothing for it then but to try and make a couple. 

I'll be honest and I did actually google 1/32 scale fire extinguishers and found a couple of resin examples.  Then conscience got the better of me and since I've scratch built 99% of this thing I figured I may as well continue.  3D printing came to mind, but again, I thought nah!.... let's try it the old school way.

 

An hour later I had two of these thingamabobs turned from brass rod on the lathe.  At the top end I drilled a small pilot hole - the hope being that I could make these mostly from brass.

 

P7070001.jpg

 

A couple of 0.8 mm lengths of rod were hammered flat on the vice, then in time honored fashion it was time to drill unfeasibly small holes in equally unfeasibly small handles.

A  bunch of Ø0.5 mm holes were duly drilled and a small brass rivet used to hang everything together.  No need to worry about cutting them to length just yet.

 

P7080002.jpg

 

A dab of solder was added to keep everything fixed in position, then a few swipes with a file cleaned that all up and brought things down to the correct length.  When I say 'correct' I mean something approaching sort of looks like what it's supposed to look like, maybe.

The rivet was then rammed into the pilot hole and luckily was tight enough to stay put.  I originally tried to solder the handles on to the body, but the larger part was too much of a heat sink and I couldn't get it to work - so interference fit it was.

 

P7080004.jpg

 

Follow that up with some enameled black wire, another small piece of brass tube, and a piece of electrical wire and we get a decent approximation of a fire skoosher

 

P7080005.jpg

 

Happy with that it was then time for paint.  I used the last few drops of red gloss and then the airbrush decided to spurt and splatter causing a few expletives to be uttered.

Since it was going to take some time to obtain some more (and Testors have stopped producing any more) I had to resort to Humbrol satin red of some description.  It wasn't quite as bright as fire extinguisher red, but at this juncture, I considered it close enough.

Black gloss applied to the handles, then Alclad chrome to finish things off

 

P7100007.jpg

 

While I was waiting for the paint to dry I had an idea....  I wasn't sure how the fire extinguishers were fitted atop the cabinets and thought some kind of housing may be used.

Out came the 5 thou brass sheet and using just a ruler and a standard blade I managed to cut a form out.  I kept the scribing on the fold lines light -just enough to be able to bend the brass but now break it

 

P7100008.jpg

 

Holes were drilled at the intersections of the folds so the edges would not interfere as it was folded

 

P7100010.jpg

 

Then folded up we have this.

I'm not certain I'm going to use them but have painted them up and will have another look tomorrow and see what I feel like then.

 

P7100012.jpg

 

The thing about fire extinguishers is that they always have lots of labels slapped all over them.  I checked my extensive fire extinguisher decal collection of which I have and let's be honest here...zilch.

An executive decision was required so I decided just to press ahead and sorted out some decal scraps that when put together sort of looked like they were intended for this purpose. 

At the end of the day, you're only ever going to be able to see these things from above, so I really only needed something that looked suggestive of a label.  These scraps all came from various Wessex transfer sheets

 

P7100015.jpg

 

Hose bits fitted

 

P7100016.jpg

 

I think those will do nicely.  When I took this photo I noticed that I had forgotten to paint the small brass spout black - that has now been done and they've both received another gloss coat.

Job done, now on to the next thing on the list.  Passcomm handles I believe

 

Stay safe and have a good weekend folks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, hendie said:

 

 

I really really wanted to Steve, but for accuracy sake I just had to stay with the pleats (are they called pleats or summat else?)

 

 

:rofl2:

 

 

 

 

 

Yes they are called pleats.

 

When I were a lad growing up in an upholster’s house, whenever we kids asked for something it was always ‘What’s the magic word?’

’Say pleats!’

That’s how I got my good manners see! 
 

Very nice fire extinguishers BTW. They look exactly like this one in the emoticon library 🧯 so they must be accurate.

 

 

 

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Skooshers? These old Highland expressions do keep slipping through don't they? Well, it shows you haven't gone completely native over there. 

They do look the business, I'll take half a dozen, pleats.

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6 hours ago, hendie said:

  I don't know how you manage to keep the mojo high enough to do this as a business.

Nor do I, frankly. Popping into BM every day, and keeping something wingy and plasticky on the boil seems to help.

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Handle, when your model is finally finished, find out the name of the CEO of the VSOE and send some pictures of your model to them. I am sure that there would be great interest in your highly detailed Pullman carriage model. Who knows, you may well get invited as a special guest to experience the real Pegasus. I build models of classic cars and I find owners are generally quite keen to show their car to a model maker who has a general interest. The VSOE chief executive in your case may well be worth approaching to show the model to. Who knows, they might want to borrow it to display temporarily at their head office, and you may get to ride in Pegasus by special invitation.

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3 hours ago, Noel Smith said:

Hendie, when your model is finally finished, find out the name of the CEO of the VSOE and send some pictures of your model to them. I am sure that there would be great interest in your highly detailed Pullman carriage model. Who knows, you may well get invited as a special guest to experience the real Pegasus. I build models of classic cars and I find owners are generally quite keen to show their car to a model maker who has a general interest. The VSOE chief executive in your case may well be worth approaching to show the model to. Who knows, they might want to borrow it to display temporarily at their head office, and you may get to ride in Pegasus by special invitation.

They might commission a few for the gift cabinet. Nice little earner. :wall:

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3 hours ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

They might commission a few for the gift cabinet. Nice little earner. :wall:

He'll need it to pay the shrink!

 

Ian

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On 7/10/2020 at 10:01 PM, Bandsaw Steve said:

Very nice fire extinguishers BTW. They look exactly like this one in the emoticon library 🧯 so they must be accurate.

 

Buggrit.  If only I'd thought to look there first!   I spent hours researching different extinguishers, and there it was right in front of my face

 

On 7/11/2020 at 1:44 AM, CedB said:

More gorgeous stuff hendie - superb little extinguishers :) 

 

Thanks Ced

 

On 7/11/2020 at 1:47 AM, Pete in Lincs said:

Skooshers? These old Highland expressions do keep slipping through don't they? Well, it shows you haven't gone completely native over there. 

They do look the business, I'll take half a dozen, pleats.

 

You can't let the old language die Pete.  In this age of interweb, global communication, and instant gratification, a lot of the old dialects are dying out. Such a shame.  We have words in old Scots which are so descriptive and they conjure up all sorts of imagery.  I'm sure it's the same all over the UK - not so much here in the US where they've had trouble with the English language since day one.

 

On 7/11/2020 at 2:14 AM, Heather Kay said:

Nor do I, frankly. Popping into BM every day, and keeping something wingy and plasticky on the boil seems to help.

 

Rubber chickens for dinner then?

 

On 7/11/2020 at 2:28 AM, Noel Smith said:

Handle, when your model is finally finished, find out the name of the CEO of the VSOE and send some pictures of your model to them. I am sure that there would be great interest in your highly detailed Pullman carriage model. Who knows, you may well get invited as a special guest to experience the real Pegasus. I build models of classic cars and I find owners are generally quite keen to show their car to a model maker who has a general interest. The VSOE chief executive in your case may well be worth approaching to show the model to. Who knows, they might want to borrow it to display temporarily at their head office, and you may get to ride in Pegasus by special invitation.

 

Thanks Noel.   Terry Bye, the guy who runs the Pullman Society and issues a monthly newsletter expressed interest in doing an article on the build.  Mind you  - that was 4 or 5 years ago now. I don't think he realized it was going to take me so darn long to do this

 

On 7/11/2020 at 5:12 AM, Pouln said:

Fantastic. These little details cost a lot of time, but the result is life-like. 👍

 

Thanks Pouln.  More detail added this time around, and it's taking even longer

 

On 7/11/2020 at 6:03 AM, bentwaters81tfw said:

They might commission a few for the gift cabinet. Nice little earner. :wall:

 

If they paid me the going rate for the hours I've put into this I could just about retire!

 

On 7/11/2020 at 9:07 AM, Brandy said:

He'll need it to pay the shrink!

 

Ian

 

:giggle:  so true

 

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

Distinguished extinguishers!

Superb metalworking Alan on both items. :clap2:

 

Is it a non-smoking carriage btw?

 

 

 

It would have been smoking back in the 50's, but in 2000 it was non-smoking.

 

Be warned folks - lots of photo's ahead again.  I do try and be concise at times but the camera just runs away with me.

Extinguishers. That's what we were doing last time around, so I may as well continue.  The "boxes" were made up and painted and I decided I wasn't really to keen on them.  However, when I placed just the extinguisher by itself in the car, it didn't look right, so out came the boxes again.

 

P7120011.jpg

 

In it's final resting place it doesn't look too bad, and I could believe something like this could be used.  (Look, you can finally see the 'hot' & 'cold' taps in the bathroom!)

 

P7120013.jpg

 

Okay, fire extinguishers dealt with and on to the next bit of detail that takes forever.  Steps.

I could put these off no longer so I shaped some styrene and fired up the airbrush with Alclad black primer.  Now, I love their grey primer, but I had issues with the black primer on my Wessex build and I wasn't too impressed with it.

Things didn't go any better this time around but in a rare moment of fortuitousness (isata word?), the 'disaster' actually worked in my favor.  The black primer spluttered and coughed and flatulated all over the place, with the result of the finish you can see here.  Normally, I would have been not a happy camper when this happened, but on the steps.... it's non-slip paint isn't it?

Works for me.

 

P7110002.jpg

 

The black alclad is now at the back of the shelf again and I'm going to stick to the grey primer in future.  Anyone else aware of quality problems with Alclad paints?

When the pebble-dash finish finally dried it was time to add the white edging - that really tested my patience.  With such stark contrast between the two colors any, and I mean ANY deviation from a perfectly straight line looks like doo-doo. Okay then... :poop:

 

P7110005.jpg

 

When it came time to fit them, I realized that it was going to be a butt joint onto painted brass - nope.  That'll never work.  That's prime candidates for knocking off just be glancing at them.

I had no choice but to drill the chassis and pin the steps in place.  Worrying and dangerous, having to drill into the chassis at this point, but I had no alternative here.

 

P7110007.jpg

 

Luckily the gods were smiling on me this day.

 

P7110008.jpg

 

While I was looking at photo's again (I really need to stop doing that!) I spotted more steps.  Logical really - how do you get into the car when it's in the depot and there's no platform handy eh?

I went with styrene again for these steps.

 

P7110004.jpg

 

Then painted up and fitted.  I'm liking that, even though the white paint is a bit dodgy.

 

P7120015.jpg

 

Steps complete.  Another job scored off the list.  What's next?   Urgghhhhh... more emergency equipment I'm afraid.  This time the Passcomm bits.  The original drawings have a nice curved brass plate for mounting the pull handles, but in the two photos I have showing these, it appears the brass was never used and instead they were mounted in a wooden surround - sort of an inverted "U".

I'm not over the moon with these but I think I'm at the limits of what can be done with this material.  6mm wide x 3mm high and the 'legs' are just over 1 mm wide.  When you get down to these sizes, the wood just kept breaking off, so I did my best and produced 4 barely acceptable parts.  Not my finest work, but there it is.   I considered plastic and painting them brown, but the color difference was too drastic, so wood it is.

 

P7110001.jpg

 

I also made up some 1mm wide brackets for the emergency hammers, and they got fixed in place. My oh my, these jobs are just flying off the list.. aren't they?  At this rate I could be finished by Xmas... this year!!!

 

P7120017.jpg

 

Now, the light at the end of the tunnel starts to shine brighter, and get larger - if you ignore the fact I still have to build a completely separate roof and order a display case.

Soft furnishings - time to fit the comfy chairs!

Since the base of the legs is just over 1mm2 I wasn't comfortable with that as a fixing surface.  When this thing is closed up I'm never going back in - so the chairs need to be secure!

After toying with a few different ideas I settled on using a block underneath the chair, the same height as the legs, with the block glued to the chair and in turn glued to the floor.

I turned a bunch of aluminum cores on the lathe and these were glued to the underside of each chair.  There was a chance you could see the aluminum under the chair when peering through the windows, so these were painted brown so they kind of 'disappear' in the overall scheme of things.

 

P7120019.jpg

 

First up was the dinette.  Cosy eh?

 

P7120021.jpg

 

And here's where things start getting awkward.  The chairs had to go in before the table as there was no room to phennargle them into place afterwards, but once the chairs were in there was no room for my fat digits to get in there with the table.

Emergency operation commenced...

 

P7120028.jpg

 

Ladies and gentlemen, the operation was a success! (eventually!)

I have to admit that my camera really is not up to the task here when things start getting so detailed.  I had to use flash here to capture anything other than a bluish brownish blur. Or was that a brownish bluish blur?

Once I get this all to a decent stage, I shall endeavor to take the whole shebang outside and get some photos taken in natural sunlight.

 

P7120031.jpg

 

Production line started

 

P7120022.jpg

 

From these photo's you'd be forgiven for thinking that this all went together pretty quickly. Sadly, that was not the case.  Each chair had to be positioned, and I had to use a glue that allowed me time to jiggle and joggle things into place - then I had to wait for it to dry sufficiently in order to be able to fit the table, without the danger of dislodging aforementioned chair, and like the dinette, I have to fit everything in turn.  Once chair... one table ... one chair.  I need the table in place to get the correct spacing.  Nothing's ever easy is it?

 

P7120024.jpg

 

At the end of today's playtime we got this far.

 

P7120034.jpg

 

Another session, maybe two should see all the chairs and tables in place and then I can think about fitting the rest of the carlines.

I have to say that I am really enjoying the build once again now that I see it all coming together. For a while there, it seemed as if there was never any progress, just a never ending stream of making bits and putting them away in a safe place.  Then the painting and decals - That was such a mojo killer I really had to force myself to continue at times.

 

Anyway, folks - stay safe and have a great whatever's left of the weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nice to see you taking steps towards the finish line. 

They look good from here, Would a black marker pen around the edges help the demarcation?

Having struggled with a suitcase and carry on bag through train doorways in the past, how did they get the chairs in there?

I imagine the chairs were self assembly or they took out a window. The Dinette would be especially difficult.

Unless of course they took off the roof and used giant tweezers.

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I won’t use any superlatives today, in case I run out of them later. It’s all the little fiddly bits that seem to take forever, but they take the model just that notch higher.

 

How did you know about my cooking? :penguin:

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19 hours ago, hendie said:

Ladies and gentlemen, the operation was a success! (eventually!)

I have to admit that my camera really is not up to the task here when things start getting so detailed.  I had to use flash here to capture anything other than a bluish brownish blur. Or was that a brownish bluish blur?

Once I get this all to a decent stage, I shall endeavor to take the whole shebang outside and get some photos taken in natural sunlight.

 

Wow, but where is the cutlery and where are the glasses?😎
 

just kidding. Looks wonderful!

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Handle, my scratch built car models take a bout two years each to build on my spare time. Your Pullman model has to be one of the most well finished and detailed models that I have ever seen. All that internal veneer work, the intricate detailing and the superb livery paint job, lettering and lining out.Then all the furniture, carpets and small iems!  I can see why it has been a 5 year or so project

Someone suggested that you look for commissilons, but if you are like me the subject has to be of personal interest otherwise it just becomes a job.

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On 7/13/2020 at 12:07 AM, hendie said:

have to say that I am really enjoying the build once again now that I see it all coming together

:clap:Justly so.

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