LBSCR Early Horsebox

jamiepage

jamiepage

Western Thunderer
It is certainly curved, Jon!

For what it's worth, here's a picture of the 'Plastic Cutter' I used to score the aluminium sheet.
IMG_0008.JPG

I can't see any kind of identification on it, but here is something which I assume is similar-

Olfa PC-L Heavy Duty Plastics and Laminates Knife/cutter

Again, for what it's worth, I marked the sheet out with pencil, scored it heavily, then held it against a good straight edge and gently worried it until it snapped.

A quick file and sanding, gentle scoring for the planking, then I rolled it on a pile of carpet offcuts with a length of round BMS, about 1 1/2 in dia to reduce the risk of creasing it too much. A rolling pin would do well.

Once curved to sit as snugly as possible, hold it in position and push moulding strips (as required by the prototype) right up against the aluminium (or under the overhang), and weld with MekPak to the plasticard body.
They don't weld to the aluminium so it was therefore pretty easy to get a near invisible joint between plastic body and removable roof.

Permanent locating may require some kind of araldited pads on the roof underside if the mouldings don't actually trap it in position.

I probably have a spare scrap of the stuff around; very happy to send it over if you would like to practise on it before spending money.

Yours
Jamie
 
Mike W

Mike W

Western Thunderer
Jon, if you have trouble rolling 1mm brass or aluminium I have some rolling bars and will happily do it, or you could come here and do it. But bars don't do the very edges of the sheet which I find best done very lightly with a hammer over a curved surface.

Mike
 
Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Jamie
Thank you for the offer but, I have ordered some ali sheet from the link that you gave me. I've ordered 1m x 250mm so, enough for what I want plus some spare. I have a piece of 2" dia. bronze tube with a wall thickness of about 3/8" (quite heavy) that I was using on some copper and will use on the ali. It didn't work so well on the copper but, I don't think that I annealed it properly anyway.
Jon

Mike
Thank you for the offer but, I'll see how I go with my bronze tube first. I expect you just wanted a break from mixing all of that concrete, really.:)
Jon
 
Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
This is as far as I've managed to get with hand rolling the 1mm aluminium roof with the bronze tube on this very dense foam. I've also tried the carpet in my study and 2" of softer foam. I've a piece of 1" dia. brass bar which I think that I'll have a go with before finally giving up. Maybe I should have gone for thinner piece of ali and built the thickness up with thick paper that would have imitated canvas.
The first picture shows how far I've got and the second the piece of dense foam that I was rolling onto.

Jon

IMG_1275.JPG IMG_1276.JPG
 
jamiepage

jamiepage

Western Thunderer
Jon,
I can't add much.
I used 1mm ali. and scribed the planking on what was to be the upper, outside face before rolling.
Memory might be playing tricks, but the scribing process may have imparted a slight pre- curve in the correct direction, and in fact might have made further rolling easier. (Along the principle of half- etched fold lines??)
Beyond that, I used a pile of carpet offcuts which were to hand at the time and pretty hefty pressure on the length of BMS as it was rolled back and forth.
There isn't much spring in the ali., so presumably the ideal surface would be rigid, concave and similar in radius to that required, but I can't think of a readily available domestic appliance that would fit the bill !
The pile of carpet offcuts must have been sufficiently pliant to deform to the required radius but rigid enough to let it form.

Rolling bars - I have a couple of sets which would do the job so you're welcome to have a go with them if you're around here, but I recall it was easier at the time to reach for the carpet offcuts which just happened to be more immediately to hand. It worked so I left it at that.
(As Mike mentions, with rollers it is better if the blank is cut over width so the uncurved edges can be subsequently trimmed back)
Yours
Jamie
 
Peter Insole

Peter Insole

Western Thunderer
Jon,
Lovely smooth curves on shallow arc wooden carriage and wagon roofs can only be found on models - believe me! If you study old photo's the planking is regularly visible under the canvas when the sun is at a low angle.

Score deeply the underside and fold. the upper surface angles will be relatively soft and when covered with "canvas" will look absolutely correct for prototype.

When thus folded it has quite a surprising extra strength, requiring less bracing or framing and it is one heck of a lot less hassle than trying to achieve a beautiful, but completely inappropriate curve!!!

All the best,

Pete.
 
Peter Insole

Peter Insole

Western Thunderer
Jon,

I've found some pics of 16mm scale carriages with planked roofs that I made several years ago and I hope will demonstrate how surprisingly unobtrusive it is.

The Vale of Rheidol carriages were Brandbright laser cut kits. The ply wood roof planks were engraved for folding, but Richard Longley added fewer though slightly over scale roof sticks (ribs) and an extra outer skin for strength. I will add that neither precaution turned out to be necessary!

The last pic is of an L&B Saloon interior that I built for fitting into a second hand model. It also required a completely new roof. I made a template and cut scale proportioned roof sticks from ply and then glued individual planks atop. As the whole thing was intended to be removable I added an inner cornice strip for a snug fit along the entire coach length.

Once it had all set and the "canvas" (thin card weatherproofed by being thoroughly impregnated with cellulose paint) was glued on it proved to be incredibly rigid and perfectly stable!!

I hope this helps!

Pete.

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Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Peter, Jamie
Thank you for all of the hints and tips, the saga continues.

Bearing in mind that I'm working on 1mm aluminium. I heavily scored the underside of the roof and tried once again to roll by hand. This time, it wouldn't budge so, (can aluminium work harden?) I took it back into the shed and using the bronze tube as a sort of anvil, I had a go at forming the roof by the use of a small plastic headed hammer. I had to work on it for quite a while one way or another. It kept wanting to take on the shape of a banana, lengthwise. I had to continually tweak the ends to get it to fit the curve of the horsebox and these aren't perfect by any means. I found that if I tweaked it one way, it would throw it out another and so it went on. The pictures show the results so far complete with ill fitting roof. If I use this particular roof, it's a little too narrow and I'm not happy with the fit that can be seen, I think that the lamp base will fit better once it's embedded into the 'canvas' covering.

Jon

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Mike W

Mike W

Western Thunderer
Looks good to me Jon and covered in a material then painted matt it could be just the job.

Having recovered a real carriage roof with canvas and white lead I can say that it is far from perfect - or at least mine was! All fittings are on top of the canvas of course and sealed with more white lead paint, which is a bit like cream cheese to use, both in consistency and colour.

Mike
 
Stoke5D

Stoke5D

Western Thunderer
In answer to your question; common aluminium alloys in sheet form like you are presumably using in this case are very susceptible to work hardening.

Peter is right that you can see the planks that form the roofs on wooden vehicles like your coach through the canvas covering that they have (sealed with the white lead paint Mike mentions). Also, for example, the common or garden wooden box van regularly seen throughout the network until comparatively recently. It's not something often modeled properly, which is weird, since we mostly look down on the roofs of our models...


Andrew
 
unklian

unklian

Western Thunderer
I would be pretty satisfied with that roof myself. I think the shiny metal probably makes it look more ripply than it is, as others are saying painted it will look much better. looking back at the pictures of the real thing, I would say the overhang is about right too, it really isn't much .
I am more concerned about the three link coupling ......
 
Stoke5D

Stoke5D

Western Thunderer
unklian said:
I would be pretty satisfied with that roof myself. I think the shiny metal probably makes it look more ripply than it is, as others are saying painted it will look much better. looking back at the pictures of the real thing, I would say the overhang is about right too, it really isn't much .
I am more concerned about the three link coupling ......
Click to expand...


It really is a great model, it has that all important 'look' of the real thing.


Andrew
 
Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Here is the horsebox complete with painted roof and lamp cover. I covered the ali roof with a piece of drawing paper before painting. The first piece of paper, I stuck down with Spray Mount and when I applied the paint, it just bubbled up. The second time I used a starch based paste and had no problems at all. I'll gently sand down this paint layer as there are a few foreign bodies stuck to it, problem of spraying in the garden, and re spray. I glued into the roof and inside the horse box, some small magnets which keep it, the roof, in place. I left off the 'wooden' pad that the lamp was sitting on as there little or no evidence that they were/weren't used. There are lots of pictures showing their use on carriages which is where I got the idea. Next on the to do list will be the hinges which are, hopefully, on their way as etches.

Jon

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