Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Turn the bottom of the gangway into a hinged fall plate which will rise as a coach is lifted out of the set. It'll also preserve the illusion of a Pullman gangway if the coach is left in a siding.

Another good idea that will be stored for possible future use. I doubt the set will be split during running operations, so missing the bottom of the inner gangways won’t be a problem.

We did discuss Kadees. I decided it was too much effort - in my current fragile state of mind, at least - to hack about the underframes to fit them. Where Kadees fit neatly in Mk1s and Gresley, these Maunsells appear to have a somewhat shallower buffer beam.
 
Once more, with feeling

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Oh dear.

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If you remember, the last brake third I put together developed a distinct downward bow to the floor. Attempts to rectify the problem seemed to work, but when it came time to fit the roof, it was apparent the downward bow had not been dealt with. Rather, the bow had transferred to the body sides as well.

Peering at the thing this morning, it became obvious the only way to correct the fault was disassembly. Hence the pile of plastic parts.

Luckily, I have made a properly poor job of the epoxy resin mix, and it didn’t take long to free the truss bar ends, remove the step boards, and generally get the underframe down to the barest minimum. Current thinking is to score through the joint on the floor, and slice through the solebars where they join, set the floor upside down on my glass plate, apply significant weight and flood the joints with MEK.

Not where I expected to be, but something that really needs to be dealt with now rather than ignore it.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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Pretty much back to where I was this time last week! Reassembly didn’t take long, but getting the ruddy roof to fit neatly was rather too vexing. I’ve ended up applying brute force to the roof in order to reshape it slightly. Whether it’s my construction or the plastic deformed slightly in storage I can’t tell, but it’s now about as good as it’s going to get.

Epoxy resin now applied in the reinforcing role.

By the bye, I ordered some magnets from a crowd going by the name of Magnet Expert. Their online store is First4Magnets. I recommend them. Made my selection and ordered Monday morning, and the magnets were delivered next day. So, all the coaches now have magnets installed to hold their roofs on.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
A brief update.

My client is resolutely old school, and doesn’t have the interweb. Correspondence is by honest, down-to-earth letters - with a stamp on the envelope and everything! - and phone calls. I sent a report by snail mail last week, and had a nice catch-up and chat yesterday afternoon.

The upshot is we will leave couplings for now. The client is arranging for a cast set like the old Bill Bedford 4mm couplings, with knuckles and pipework all attached. All he needs from me is to leave the draw bars open so the new rigid things can be installed. I also misunderstood how he wants to run the set. The "strengthener" brake compo will be run as part of the set and not detached, so four coaches all semi-permanently coupled. I should add another party is building some other coaches intended for this rake.

So, while enjoying some of the warm sunshine doing the odd domestic job, I’ve rejigged the various buffers and pipes according to the plan.

I think roof details and prayers for an extended warm spell so painting might commence in earnest are the order of the week.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Muttley has definitely made his presence felt this past two days. Even spring sunshine wasn’t enough to persuade him to bugger off and annoy someone else.

So, progress, inevitably, ground to a halt.

Today, things are a little better. Muttley is banished to another room, but I can hear him whining and scratching at the door. Onward! I set myself two tasks, feeling they were readily accomplished and would make the snagging list a bit shorter.

First, I fitted all the whitemetal torpedo ventilators. Aside from the WC tank fillers, that’s the roofs done and ready to be primed.

Next…

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The compartment ends. They’ve been nagging me since the start. You can see here that the WC compartment leaves an errant picture recess. In my usual way, I had been thinking of making styrene sheet plugs for the recesses. Eventually, the dawning realisation arrived that there was a much simpler solution.

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Just a strip of thin styrene sheet glued over the whole end. This also happily covers the little slot at the top where the ends meet the main compartment front, and tidies up the glue joint down the corner. Three birds with one stone.

I realise in most circumstances these little annoyances wouldn’t even be visible, but I wanted to make it look a bit more like someone cared enough to deal with them.

Now, I’m off to dig around for luggage and guard compartment details. Specifically, the colour of the luggage area in the 1950s. In earlier times it was a fetching lime green, and I would like to find out if that remained the case after the nationalisation. While I’m about it, I need to pin down the internal wood and varnish finishes for the public areas.
 

Jeremy Good

Western Thunderer
Heather,

I think Peter swift's MRJ articles in relation to the Hornby Maunsell Coaches covered the interior finishes of these but they may be more relevant for the late SR period rather than BR period. They are in issues 213 and 214.

Jeremy
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Thanks Jeremy!

I have MRJ 213 - I’ve kept it for the Bulleid Pacific article by Vic Burles because I took the pictures. It’s always nice to see your work in print! Sadly, I never thought to keep 214. It has been recycled in a vain effort to decrease the amount of clutter I have to deal with.
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
Thanks Jeremy!

I have MRJ 213 - I’ve kept it for the Bulleid Pacific article by Vic Burles because I took the pictures. It’s always nice to see your work in print! Sadly, I never thought to keep 214. It has been recycled in a vain effort to decrease the amount of clutter I have to deal with.

Ah, I’ve got that one. I can manage a scan if you’d like?

Adam
 
Sorting out end details

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
I was going to prime things over the weekend, but Life sort of had other plans. Nothing to worry about, it was just I went off and did something more interesting and slightly less messy instead.

My goal today was to tick off a couple more items on the snagging list.

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First, do some minor adjustments to a pair of the Slater's knuckle couplers. The twisted wire represents the fine chain you can see on various end photos. The outer ends of two vehicles have been assigned the full drawbar detailing mojo.

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Taking careful heed to turn my reference photo upside down to match my work piece, here is the van end of the composite brake.

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Back up the right way, and that looks reasonable. There’s sufficient slack in the "chains" to allow the coupling hook to be pulled out against its spring so other non-buckeye vehicles might be attached. It’ll be a right fiddle, and I don’t suppose it’ll ever happen, but it would be possible. The loco end, though, well, that’s another kettle of fish.

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This is the outer end brake third. I reckon that looks okay. A good dose of grime under there and all will be well.

Having consulted again with the client, I will be leaving well alone on the other drawbars. No extra slotting required, as the client will do the necessary to allow fitting of the semi-permanent couplings he’s having made. That’s all good, because I can fit dummy buckeyes for the portrait session at the end of the job. :thumbs:

At the end of last week I measured up all the windows. It would seem that there’s a lot of panels the same size, but when you get down to it one or two odd sizes sneak in when you’re not looking! Hopefully I shall be able to cut out the glazing without too much wastage. I may make up little ziplock baggies for each coach to store the glazing in until it’s time to fit. Incidentally, can anyone give accurate info on which compartments were non-smoking? I can only find one drawing in the King book that clearly shows such info.

Oh, just remembered! I need to tidy up the body side and end joins. That’s my next job, then.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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Underneath gets some red oxide primer. I am not going to explain myself!

When that’s dry I’ll swap the masking round to get grey on the bodywork. You never know, there might even be some green paint around by the end of the week.

That reminds me I need to bone up on numbering and other lettering.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
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Bodies all primed, inside and out. I’ll leave that lot sitting overnight and inspect things in the morning. I expect some inevitable remedial work will be required.

The game plan is to airbrush the underframes grotty black/brown, and varnish to protect against handling damage. Then, I think the sides should be painted, as they’ll be easier to mask off for painting the ends black than masking round all the fiddly bits on the ends themselves.

We shall see how far we get before my little burst of energy dissipates again.
 
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