At last, the brake gear. I always make a meal of this, even though on the surface it's quite simple. What makes it harder, I suppose, is having to make things fit after having chopped the underframe apart.
Dedicated followers of my broad gauge ramblings will recall that these coaches were constructed before the advent of continuous automatic braking. In fact, I'm not even sure they had any form of braking, not even a hand brake when they rolled out of the works. During their lifetimes, though, both braking was fitted and lighting upgraded.
This "after the fact" brake fitting must have followed some official pattern. There seems to be little available about it from the usual sources - or should I say the sources I actually have to hand. I rely on the IKB instructions, and some photo references, in order to make a best guess as to layout. For example, there doesn't appear to be a hard and fast rule about where the vacuum cylinder and cross-shaft was fitted. It does appear, though, that the vacuum pipe stands at each end did not cross the centreline in the manner that was adopted as standard later on. The stands appear to be fitted to the ends of the coach on the same side as the vacuum cylinder, unless the latter was fitted centrally - as does sometimes occur, just to muddy the already cloudy waters still further!
Anyway, without an actual photograph of the actual coach I am building, I must rely on previous experience, the resources I have, and educated guesswork. I am satisfied I can make a reproduction of something that might have existed. Whether it's a true representation of a real installation must be quietly pushed to one side. My client is happy enough, it seems.
Since this kit included the brake vee-hangers, this sort of fixed where the cylinder should go. The Dean cylinder design worked the other way up to the more familiar later designs. Where a "modern" system would have the cylinder suspended from trunnions, with the operating rod pushed and pulled up and down, the Dean system fixes the central piston rod to the chassis frames, and the whole cylinder moves up and down instead. I chopped the cast piston off and used the supplied mounting bracket etch to hook the cylinder to one of the cross braces. The location is dictated by the looped levers to the cross-shaft, albeit a little too close. I suspect the casting is a mite over scale, or the levers aren't long enough.
The next stage was to fit the brake shoes and associated levers. Both levers pass through the brake shoes. The innermost levers are fixed to pivot points on the frames, with a bracing strut between, the levers being at right angles to the wheels. The outermost levers sit at an angle. For a standard narrow gauge build, all the parts may well fit properly. Since this is a widened chassis with replacement footboards and bracketry, some measure of adjustment is required to ensure the levers protrude beyond the axleboxes sufficiently. The pivot point rod also had to be relocated, as well as a replacement bracing strut fabricated. The electrical wires are for the putative coach lighting system, with wiper pickups on one wheelset.
After some mild cusswork I managed to figure out a way to run the pull rods from the cross-shaft to the shoe levers. There must be a way the real thing dealt with a pair of pull rods meeting on one adjuster, but I deal with it by popping the wire into the nearest holes and leaving it at that. I suspect there was some kind of Y-shaped attachment involved. Happily, with this build, I found I had a surfeit of etched clevises and so on, so I was able to fit adjusters at each outer end. Working out where pull rods may or may not have passed over or under axles and so on is an exercise in frustration. In this case it is made worse by the suspension system forcing the axle down. To overcome this on the longer rods, I have introduced a subtle bend to help clear the axle. Hopefully it won't be too obvious when things are up the right way and covered in dark gunge.
Finally, time for the outer clasp rods.
Four sets of three parts each: single clevis, length of rod, adjuster. Oh, and some 0.5mm wire bent up to little L-shapes to drop into the holes to hold it all together. It kept me occupied for about two hours, folding, drilling, soldering. I'm quite pleased with this rendition, being my third attempt at such an underframe. I think it's turned out reasonably well.
The only bother now is I have to paint the model!
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