adrian
Flying Squad
I managed to grab a few hours at the workbench this weekend amongst other chores to make a little progress.
So first job was to solder the doors into the sides, unfortunately for this there aren't any location tags or steps to hold them in the right position so it was a case of holding them by hand and spot soldering. If it looked right they were soldered in, if not then they were removed and tried again. It usually took two or three attempts to get them looking ok.
As with the cattle truck the stanchions on the end panels are supposed to be soldered up from 3 laminated pieces. So as before I ignored this and just soldered in some appropriately sized nickel silver strips.
Quite a lot of time was taken making sure that the sides and ends were flat and straight. With all the laminations the sides did have a little bow which needed correcting. Once happy with that the sides and ends were then tack soldered together.
Again double checking everything was square before soldering all together. Not visible in the photo but there are a couple of floor level gusset plates with 12BA nuts soldered on so that the chassis can be bolted on later, these were fitted after soldering the sides together as they needed a little fettling to fit and I didn't want to distort the sides.
Next task was to look at the roof - not a simple roof panel in this case as it has the distinctive sliding door in the roof. On the left hand side are the etches for a fold up frame which locates in slots across the doors. To the inside there is a etched overlay to fit with a half etched slot for the sliding door, on the outside another overlay to provide a support for the outside roof panels. So to the right hand side are the roof panels. two large ones for either side of the doors. and two smaller ones for the roof door but they are different widths. I'm still trying to work out how these fit as the wider door fits neatly in the half etched slot but the narrower one leaves a gap between it and the roof frame.
The frame slots neatly into the body sides, this is not soldered in but simply pressed into the slots. I haven't soldered it in yet as I'm still trying to work out how to fit the roof doors, the large side door overlaps the etched slot, i.e. a little too high so I think a little fettling will be needed. Also it looks tricky getting the roof panels when in situ. So rather than soldering it in at this stage I think I will try to fit the roof doors to this sub assembly before fitting it to the van body.
I have been very impressed with the fit of all the components considering the size, bear in mind the sides are only 1/2" high the corners have been spot on. Although that view might change after trying to fit the roof doors!!
So first job was to solder the doors into the sides, unfortunately for this there aren't any location tags or steps to hold them in the right position so it was a case of holding them by hand and spot soldering. If it looked right they were soldered in, if not then they were removed and tried again. It usually took two or three attempts to get them looking ok.
As with the cattle truck the stanchions on the end panels are supposed to be soldered up from 3 laminated pieces. So as before I ignored this and just soldered in some appropriately sized nickel silver strips.
Quite a lot of time was taken making sure that the sides and ends were flat and straight. With all the laminations the sides did have a little bow which needed correcting. Once happy with that the sides and ends were then tack soldered together.
Again double checking everything was square before soldering all together. Not visible in the photo but there are a couple of floor level gusset plates with 12BA nuts soldered on so that the chassis can be bolted on later, these were fitted after soldering the sides together as they needed a little fettling to fit and I didn't want to distort the sides.
Next task was to look at the roof - not a simple roof panel in this case as it has the distinctive sliding door in the roof. On the left hand side are the etches for a fold up frame which locates in slots across the doors. To the inside there is a etched overlay to fit with a half etched slot for the sliding door, on the outside another overlay to provide a support for the outside roof panels. So to the right hand side are the roof panels. two large ones for either side of the doors. and two smaller ones for the roof door but they are different widths. I'm still trying to work out how these fit as the wider door fits neatly in the half etched slot but the narrower one leaves a gap between it and the roof frame.
The frame slots neatly into the body sides, this is not soldered in but simply pressed into the slots. I haven't soldered it in yet as I'm still trying to work out how to fit the roof doors, the large side door overlaps the etched slot, i.e. a little too high so I think a little fettling will be needed. Also it looks tricky getting the roof panels when in situ. So rather than soldering it in at this stage I think I will try to fit the roof doors to this sub assembly before fitting it to the van body.
I have been very impressed with the fit of all the components considering the size, bear in mind the sides are only 1/2" high the corners have been spot on. Although that view might change after trying to fit the roof doors!!