It Doesn't look quite like this...BUT ITS FINISHED!!

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Good and very interesting as always Steve look forwood to seeing them in the flesh when they are finished by the way is your mum o k and out of hosptail yet

Hopefully on Wednesday..........
I've spent more time in Heath Road Hospital in the last fortnight than I have done in the rest of my life!

At least the coach conversion job has taken my mind of the proceedings, which is why I started the job earlier than I had planned to.

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Apologies for the lack of reports on the rebuild, but I have not been able to devote much time to it of late due to other commitments. I should be able to get back to posting reports from the coming weekend, but one thing I have done in the past week is fix some panels to the chassis around the entrance steps as shown in the photo below, which has improved the appearance of this area considerably.

A coat of undercoat has been applied ready for painting as well.

[attachment deleted by admin]

 

[nygma]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Impressive. Very steady progress.

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

I've managed to get some spare time over the past couple of days to get some more work done on the conversion, primarily on getting the first of the end saloons to an almost finished (bar the roof) state.

The external paintwork has been completed and the self adhesive white lining strips have been added to the bodysides. I decided to add whilte borders to the lower grey band as well, as I couldn't be bothered to try and get a "perfect" meeting of the grey and blue painted areas!

The interior seating and the window glazing has been refitted with the only majr part missing now being the door ino the saloon from the entrance area, but this is currently under construction and awaiting the paint to dry before fitting.

The next job will be fixing the corridor connection to the end of the coach.....

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

The corridor connection is now completed.

I stuck the unit onto the end of the coach and then realised that it was set to high to re-use the checkerplate fall plates from the original carriage to bridge the gap between the end of the coach and the end of the corridor connection. I used an offcut of plasticard for this instead, whilst to cover the top of the connection, a couple of sections of plastic rod and a piece of paper suitably painted black make it look like a retractable canvas cover.......

Once the connection was completed, I added a couple of red/white end markings from plasticard and some red automotive pinstriping, originally purchased for the brake van scratchbuild on a previous topic.

This is how the body section is going to look on the chassis. The large gap won't be there when the body is screwed down onto the chassis!

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Doorway into the passenger compartment is now painted and fitted - just needs some hinges now........
The door was constructed from a sandwich of two thin plasticard sheets either side of a thicker, clear sheet.

The two-window section in the centre of the coach will be fitted with longditudinal bench seats and these have been made from plasticard ready for painting and fitting.

That man gets everywhere, doesn't he...........?

 

[wandgrudd]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Don?t care what anybody says about these coach?s but it?s fantastic to see so many new and interesting models being made that wouldn?t have seen the light of day if they had to be stated with the £100+ lgb equivalent.

Looking good, are the doors getting the window as per you real life picture in post 1?

 

[Alec K]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

So that's how you glaze doors..! I wish I'd known that a long time ago. A great thread with great outcomes.

Alec K

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Don?t care what anybody says about these coach?s but it?s fantastic to see so many new and interesting models being made that wouldn?t have seen the light of day if they had to be stated with the £100+ lgb equivalent.

Looking good, are the doors getting the window as per you real life picture in post 1?

If you mean the porthole style windows in the end doors, the answer is no (well, not on this one anyway..).

I'm undecided on the type of passenger access doors into the vestibules as I have two possible versions to choose from on this one, although there appear to be three variations in total.

Some coaches have been fitted with sliding doors, and I may try this variation on the baggage/brake coach that will follow sometime later in the year (after I have built the 2 IP Engineering VoR coaches I bought at Christmas...).

Manuallly operated doors are fitted to some coaches, and this is likely to be what I fit to this example, albeit opening outwards rather than inwards.

A third variation is the fittment of bus style folding doors as seen at Tapiales works in 2007 on this coach which was actually a conversion job from hauled stock to a two car railcar.

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Centre section of the carriage is now complete apart from the two entrance doors into the compartment which are currently under construction.

Remaining end section now being painted. Once complete this will be screwed in place on the underframe and the centre section glued in its final resting place - Then I can get on with the entrances + doors!

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

The other end of the carriage has now been completed and screwed in place on the chassis. Once the end door has been fitted, the centre section of the coach will be glued in place.

I have been painting and fitting passengers into the different body sections whilst the work has been ongoing on the coach itself.

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

The centre section has now been fixed in place and i've taken the opportunity to get some pictures of the coach outside in the daylight

Attention will now turn to constructing the entrance doorways and the addition of further detailing.
The vestibules work out at just over 1 3/4" wide, which rules out a double entrance door arrangement as can be seen with the positioning of a suitable figure below.

Entrances will therefore consist of a single doorway in a frame instead of double doors. If I wanted double doors, that would have extended the coach length by another 3" or so, which would have caused clearance problems on the main circuit.

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Not a lot to see at the moment, but I've started work on the passenger doorways into the vestibules.
Some framework from plastic strip has been fixed to the coach body ready for the doors to be fixed in place.

The door design has changed again, as a single piece door would have been too wide for any passenger to open from the outside if they were attempting to get in whilst standing on the entrance steps!
The door has been split into two sections - a bit like some DB coaching stock - so 4 door units have been produced and have received an initiaL coat of paint. Door handles & glazing have yet to be added.

 

[Tony]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

A well executed piece of butchery its coming along a treat
Tony

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

The door units are now finished with glazing fitted and door handles attached

This shows the trial fitting of one of the doors into place. The white area above the door will be painted blue before the door is fitted to the bodywork. Note that the lower section of bodywork to the right of the photo has gained an extra white band - actually an unpainted section of white plasticard. This will be repeated on the left hand side and helps break up the solid blue mass below the grey band at mid-body height.

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

One side of the coach is now complete, with the doors fitted in place and some handrails fixed by the entrance steps. The handrails came off an elderly Bachmann gondola wagon (bought secondhand for £3!) that was the victim of an earlier rebuild/refurbish job.

Close up of one of the entrances.

Full view of the completed coach side.

Just the other side to do now and then it will be on to the really "fun" stage of the build - making the roof!!

 

[Tony]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Its getting there
Tony

 

[dragon]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........


Good logical progress.

 

[mole]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

Another great job steve I have been lucky enough to see some of Steven other kit bash / scatchbuild model's not just this scale but 00 and N scale building's as well as rolling stock and without exception all are 1st class

 

[Miamigo259]

Re:It won't look quite like this...........

I'm now at the stage where I am ready to construct the coach roof.............which presents a bit of a problem given the size of the coach.:thinking:

Has anyone got any advice on what the best way of forming plasticard into the curved shape for a roof. I've recently made an IP engineering coach kit and they reccomended using a rolling pin - assuming you have one, that is!
I managed without one for that coach, but the roof was rather a lot shorter on a 4-wheeler than it is on this 25" long beast!!