4mm B.S.L./Phoenix Coach Kits - A Retrospective.

[Mike Trice]

The 2.6mm drills have worked a treat fitting the Peco (or should that be PECO) bearings. Here you can see the very useful hand drill I use purchased many years ago from SM Tools in Leather Lane. I note that there are similar still available on Amazon:


Depth was judged by eye and keep trial assembling the bogies to test end slop. The next dilemma I faced was whether to paint the bogie parts before assembly, not idea when gluing. In the end I did spray them first masking off various glueing areas.



It is a real juggling exercise putting the bearings in then gluing and assembling. Fortunately I used Araldite Original which give plenty of work time. The first assembly was held together with masking tape but on the second bogie I had difficulty holding the sideframes square so opted for a couple of engineer's squares:


Did I do right painting the castings first? Probably not and they could do with some minor touching in.

Meanwhile the bogie mounts were Araldited to the floor with the screw heads also Araldited so they do not turn. I did have to countersink the recesses a little for them to sit flat:

 

[Mike Trice]

The BSL Underframe kits are generic. The angle trussing is trimmed to suit the chosen prototype:


After careful marking out the end trussing was stuck with EvoStik:


The reaming trussing was then added. Two battery boxes were glued together. This is where the generic nature of the kit rears its head. On LMS coaches the battery boxes are rebated into the trussing flush against the solebar unlike say the LNER which place them some distance inboard. The BSL battery boxes are too large to allow this, and I suspect the trussing is too shallow. I could spend time cutting them down to fit but decided to do what I suspect most builders did and use them as is locating them behind the trussing. Glued with EvoStik:


I then decided to clamp the trussing to the battery boxes and glue in place. Unlike earlier images I have left this one uncropped so you can see that my build area is getting smaller and smaller as I fail to clear away things I no longer need! A tidy up is long overdue:


The following dodge is something I feel others would find useful. A wooden clothes peg where the wooden parts have been removed and replaced in reverse position which is the form used to clamp the trussing above:

 

[Mike Trice]

Another peg variation:

 

[simond]

Wooden pegs are great for things like this, and are also pretty good if you're soldering as they generally don't cook your fingers.
Less good if you're using a flame, of course...

the other thing that is worth looking out are "rustless hair clips" which are ally - these can be bent to suit the job and are cheap enough to not worry about
Banbury Postiche - Aluminium 2 Prong Curl Clip (Clips)

 

[Mike Trice]

Thanks. I have some of those hair clips but in this instance were not up to the job.

Elastic hairbands also have their uses.

 

[DavidB]

Miniature clothes pegs are also very useful and the jaws can be reversed just as Mike describes. I have used them for years. A big plus is that they take up much less space in the tool kit.

 

[RichardG]

The supplied (aluminium?) wheelsets have axles 23.8mm long. Modern pinpoint wheelsets have axles 26mm over the points.

Mike, when I was modelling in H0 scale I used coach disc wheels from Steam Era Models. These have a 24 mm axle and I used them as a drop-in replacement for Lima coaches. These were 10.5 mm wheels (for H0) but if you can find something larger to suit 4mm scale then they might help you too.

 

[Pete_S]

Miniature clothes pegs are also very useful and the jaws can be reversed just as Mike describes. I have used them for years. A big plus is that they take up much less space in the tool kit.

Also available from The Works at £2/100. Mini Wooden Pegs: Pack of 100 From 2.00 GBP | The Works

I suspect I bought mine from Poundland - no idea if they still do them, they seem to be forgetting their roots IMO.

Pete S.

 

[DavidB]

I suspect I bought mine from Poundland

I reckon I might have got mine from there as well. The link was just for illustration.

 

[simond]

Also available from The Works at £2/100. Mini Wooden Pegs: Pack of 100 From 2.00 GBP | The Works

I suspect I bought mine from Poundland - no idea if they still do them, they seem to be forgetting their roots IMO.

Pete S.

Well, they’d have to be Twopoundland…

 

[Mallard60022]

Blimey Mike, I've acquired a few of these in some poor lost soul's roundtoit collectons at Auction and to see your project has nudged me into almost thinking I might dig one out. That is before I too become some lost soul with dozens of boxes of roundtoits.
Excellent, especially the HInges and the 'Door shape lines' beautifully scribed.
Lovely job so far.
Phil

 

[Mike Trice]

My name is Mike Trice and I am addicted to buying BSL kits. For some reason known only to myself I have just bought 3 early BSL GWR kits

Meanwhile all the BSL underframe fittings have been added in LMS(ish) positions. 1mm styrene rod has been threaded through the V hangers. For stability I have added a couple of 1.5mm styrene square section cross trussing although with the battery boxes being too long I have had to cheat and attach them to the back of the boxes. Hopefully once painted black my subterfuge will not be apparent. The buffer mounting holes have been enlarged and the brass buffers glued with epoxy:


The underframe has been sprayed with uPol 8 etch primer. I then could no longer resist the urge to pose the parts to see how things looked:


P.S. Still not tidied the workspace.

 

[Mallard60022]

Vectis Auctions Day 2 LOT 1037, 28th August. Large Box with many unmade BSL Kits in it and a choice of a few others. I think they may be LNER?
I was tempted Mike, but as they are not my Region I am giving a Head's up here.
As your builds are very unlikely to fall off and turn over, only readers of your Thread will know of your subterfuge Underparts.
Phil

 

[Mike Trice]

I am just approaching the time to start painting the model. I will be doing the sides Crimson Lake with ends and underframe black. The most logical sequence to me, would be to spray the sides first then mask off and spray the black. Strangely I cannot find any obvious sequences on the internet or in @Ian Rathbone 's book (unless I am missing it somewhere). Any suggestions?

 

[simond]

I’d probably spray the sides and hand paint the ends, but the same order you propose makes sense to me

 

[Mike Trice]

Before spraying the body I needed to square up the duckets. Masking tape was applied alongside the offending edges to protect the primed sides:


A curved riffler was then used to make the corrections:


The body has now been given a coat of red primer followed by Halfords' Gloss Red S4-030:


When that had fully hardened overnight I could mask up using painters tape and Modelcraft Masking tape starting with the fine edges:


Then blocking in the rest. Every care was taken to ensure the tape was well seated:


Before spraying the black I used a trick I had mentioned in another thread, spraying the coach again, or predominently where the tape edges are. This is counter intuative but reduces the risk of bleed of the final colour:


The Halfords' Matt Black could not be applied. After removal of the masking tape it seems to have worked:

 

[Mike Trice]

Really have not been in the mood recently to progress the kit build. However I did fancy having a go at building the interior!

The body kit comes with assorted styrene strips/stampings in 20thou styrene. There is also a strip of 10thou white styrene included and I have no idea what it is for. Also shown are a bag of BSL 3rd seats:


The styrene supplied did not cater for a floor, the instruction stating the parts should be glued direct to the floorpan. Instead I cut a strip of 20th styrene to the width of the body to act as a removable base for the interior. Having added this thickness I then had to remove the equivalent from the partitions. Partitions were cut to the width of the moulded seats and sub assemblies solvented together:


I could now start assembling the main corridor partition. At this point I swapped to using di-limonene as a solvent as I was aware from past experience how more agressing solvents can cause the "T" joints to warp:


The remaining intermediate partitions have been added:


Finally the unit was placed in the coach and solvented to the false floor and end toilet partition added:


The partitions have all been cut square so there is a gap between the partitions and ali sides to allow a full length strip of glazing to be added later.

 

[Mike Trice]

Why on earth start other BSL kits when I have not finished the LMS coach yet? Well I wanted to try some other kits to see if they had similar problems. I though some LNER Thompson coaches would be an easy change and I would be working on more familiar ground.

I bought a job lot of these kits on ebay complete with bogie and underframe kits. The problem was they had been started with the sides drilled, scribed, painted, handrails fitted and glazed. So my first job was to strip all the paint off, remove the glazing and the wire handrails:


Before starting these new coaches I TIDIED MY TABLE:


To go with the 4 compartment Brake Third I also prepared a Full Third:


Examining the end casting I noticed they were not square:


This occurs during casting as the mould halves are clamped under pressure and distort at the unsupported top edge:


The top of the end was carefully tweaked by increasing the "bend" resulting in a far squarer casting:


As before there were marks on the solebar units that would need tweaking with flat nose pliers:


As has been stated these sides had already been scribed for the doors but I was not 100% with it:


So how to proceed? I started by spraying a couple of heavy coats of uPol 8 etch primer. This effectively fills the light scribing of the supplied sides:


I started scribing the new door seams and hit a snag where a door opening had been punch in the wrong location. By now I had already scribed the new seams. Oops:

 

[Mike Trice]

First job was to fill the errant door seams. This time I used Humbrol Filler:


After filing down I inserted a thin strip of N/S to move the opening over. This was fixed in place with superglue:


After filling, filing, extending the right had edge of the door opening with needle files and spraying, new seams were scribed. I think it worked:


All single doors were scribed with seams 9mm apart. Double doors were scribed with 8mm seams. The midpoint location is marked then the two external seams:


With the seams scribed: