Aside from some brake pull rod details, which still need a little thought before I plunge in with the wire and solder, I have completed the underframe for the brake third. The couplings and hooks, of course, but they can be fitted at a later stage. I didn't want them flopping about getting in the way.
Here's another view of the dynamo and belt. I've just noticed I've put the bogie back in the wrong place. Both "loops" of the belt should be below the bogie end frame.
An upside-down view of the battery boxes. I studied the photos at hand for quite a while, and decided the gap between the truss frame and the box is larger than it actually appears in some shots. Of all the locations I tried, tucked up against the moulded frames seemed about right.
Buffers fitted. The heads are held in place by a cast brass collar, which I've solder to the pin. I've whizzy-disced a slot across the frames to take a length of steel wire, which has then been soldered to the end of the collars. While the heads project what I think is the same amount from the housing, their pins are different lengths, hence the kink in the one end of the spring. The compression required to push the buffers in is quite a lot, but I think that's sometimes preferable to a soft spring. We don't want this rake of coaches bouncing back and forth under tow.
General shot of the underframe to show the battery boxes in place.
And the view from the other end. Looks rather neat. I have to say the undersides of these 1920s vintage coaches are quite tidy and uncluttered.
Attention turned to the ends. I acquired three sets of CPL detailing bits for the passenger communication gear. I wish I'd known about these things when I was building Richard's Mk1s. The castings are just perfect.
You may recall the D94 kit lacks the end step and lamp bracket etches the other Collett kits have. CPL to the rescue, once more. On the left, a virgin bow end. On the right, modified to accept CPL etched steps. The various pencil marks were to remind me which holes were for which handrail and whatnot. Unlike the underframes, there's a ton of lovely clutter on each end of these coaches. On the right hand end I've marked out the area left clear when the gangway plate is fitted, and begun the process of adding the gangway door handles. Holes have also been drilled for the electric lighting connectors to have copper wire fitted.
Here are all the bits to fit. The resin end, etched plate and pair of gangway suspension brackets are JLTRT. The etched steps, lamp brackets and utterly exquisite cast passcom gear is CPL. To give you some idea, the pipes and rods are all cast in place. They are about 0.5mm in diameter. I'll let that sink in for a moment...
Oddly, the only way I felt comfortable cleaning up those castings was to carefully run them over a grinding disc spinning in the minidrill. There was literally no way I could hold the parts so I could use even the finest file on them. The only other work needed was to carefully run a 0.7mm drill through the valve box and the loop at the bottom of the right-side drop link to open up the holes a little.
Anyway, after about 90 minutes of fettling and gluing. It looks like the right side passcom link is wonky, which is probably true as it's the only way to get it to sit neatly on the bow end. It doesn't look as bad in real life.
I have to say I enjoyed putting that together. With hindsight the grabrails are a little heavy. Perhaps 0.5mm wire instead of 0.7mm would be better. On the real coaches, the grabrails look very weedy. I'll consider swapping them out after I sleep on it.
but glass in a window is certainly a step up on the usually-provided plastic. The glass is so thin, it looks absolutely amazing! I'll have a practice every now and then during the build, but the glaziers will have to wait until the sides are painted.
