Today seemed to take an absolute age to get anywhere.
The plan was to work on buffer beam details, but as is the way with some kits, I got sidetracked by a problem with the brake vee-hangers.
First, though, I tried to work out a thought I'd had. Richard originally wanted Kadee couplers, and when I assessed the build I felt the reworking required to fit them might compromise the design of the kit a little. I looked at the kit couplings, and told Richard they would probably operate with Kadee-fitted coaches pretty well, and we agreed I would continue to build the kit as its designer intended.
Having thought about things as I worked on other parts, I came to think the Kadee coupler would actually fit into the kit drag-box. This is what I started out doing this morning. To cut a long story short, yes, the Kadee couplers might fit, but the ones I have in stock don't reach far enough beyond the buffer beam to function adequately. I toyed with the idea of some radical drag-box surgery, but decided in the end to just go with the original kit couplers. It's what we had decided to do, anyway.
On the way, I realised I had made an error in not fitting the drag-boxes earlier in the sequence. The subsequent disassembly and reassembly is not pretty, but I can make a better repair later. I also considered how the ETH connection boxes would be mounted on the buffer beam, the answer being the cosmetic items that fit behind the buffers - representing the system that transmitted buffing forces into the frame itself on the real thing - would suffice as support. It rather looks as if that's what they sort of did on the real thing, at least.
Moving on, I decided now would be as good a time as any to complete the underframe truss details, and look at fitting the vacuum brake cylinders and cross shafts.
Here's a mockup. The cross shaft and cylinder snap into the relevant mounting holes neatly. The two castings behind are the direct admission valve and the appropriate connections. As you can see, they need some careful bending to make them fit. The cross shaft also has some complex brass knitwear to fabricate - and one look at the exploded diagram was enough to put me off for a time. What I'd give for a diagram that showed how it all was supposed to end up when finished...
Meanwhile, I noticed the cross shafts were not sitting flat, and indeed had adopted a slight curve in order to locate in the frame. This puzzled me, as I couldn't see where I might have made an error in fitting the vees or the bracket on the opposite frame. I checked the main trusses were seated properly on the floor web, and even added some extra spot soldering to ensure it was all firmly fixed together. There was definitely something amiss, so I had a think.
The most obvious solution was to lift the vees up a small amount. You may recall they are fitted with effectively a butt joint along the top inside edge of the sole bars. To raise them, I soldered a strip of scrap etch at the bottom, so it would meet the solebar again.
To align the vee for its revised height, I tack soldered a length of wire across the frames, ensuring it was as square and level as I could get it. The cross shaft is almost touching the frames on the real thing, incidentally. The vees have only been raised by about half a millimetre all told, but at least the cross shafts are no longer bowed.
And that's as far as I got. I'm going to spend some time studying the drawings again to try and understand how all the brake rigging and connections components fit together - not forgetting I have to fit an air cylinder and lever in the mix.
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