The kits are here:

A typical kit contents:

Fairly standard.  You have etched brass sheets for the coach body and bogies.  There are also bags of whitemetal and lost wax brass castings.  The roof is vacuformed.

I have the wheels which arrived separately and these are being painted.

16 July 2012

After completing some wagons, I can now get back to these coaches.  First the wheels:

These run nicely now.I soldered the bogie compensation springs to the bogie, those castings to the left and right in the picture below.

I had to do a fair bit of fettling of the axlebox castings to get them to sit properly on the bogie sides.

I didn’t solder the axleboxes because it would have meant soldering on the visible side which would have left a mess.  Instead I used super glue – for the first time on this kit.A word on bogie attachment.  You will need to solder a nut to the inside of the bolster.  The trick here is not to get solder on the threads.  I did it by using a marker on the screw threads and using the screw to temporarily hold the nuts in place:

The last thing to note is that I attached the last piece of brake rigging.Now to turn our attention to the body.

The instructions say to do the tumblehome using a piece of dowel and then make the top and bottom bends.  In fact it is better to do the bends first I think.  A bending tool would be useful but I don’t have one so I resorted to my square nose pliers.  First though, I scored the bend line with a couple of passes of my Olfa.  This made things easier although I still made a bit of a pigs ear of my first bend.  Subsequent bends were better.  The inside folds were reinforced with solder.

There is a double thickness tab that folds up on itself – this is soldered together.  The nuts are also soldered on using the screw and felt marker method.I spent some frustrating time getting the droplights on.  These have to be soldered from the back but there aren’t any cues as to whether they are centered or at the right height.  I did scribe some lines to help me but these were of limited usefulness.  The only thing for it is to get the droplight as close as you can by eye and tack it.  Check the other side to see where you are and if you missed, desolder and try again.

I took the completed underframe to the club this evening and ran it through the most challenging pointwork we have – it took these with ease.  I am well pleased so far.19 July 2012

I decided today to look at a representation of interior.  I was inspired in this by an article by Andrew Lambert in MRJ 82.

I cut some 0.010″ plastic card to be a snug fit, marked with a felt pen and taped the card behind the windows.  I marked the windows with a scriber and then cut them out with a sharp Xacto.

Following this I wanted to get the body soldering out of the way.

I soldered the guard duckets on – it was a bit of challenge to get them on square but I managed.

I then soldered the lower door hinges in place.  The etched holes should be cleared by inserting the end of an Xacto blade.

Following this I soldered the ends.  These are located by fold down tabs on the ends.  Reinforce with solder, then clean them up with a file.  There are slots in the lower fold of the sides.  Again, clear these with a Xacto blade, make sure the tabs fit.  Adjust the tumblehome  and ensure there are no unsightly gaps between side and end.

Position the end tab in the slots, press down firmly (but don’t buckle anything) and solder the lower corner.  Make sure the end is flush with the side.  If not desolder and correct.  To get the end to go in a bit, file of the corner of the tab so that the end can slide a bit.  Once happy with this first tack, tack the top of the corner.  Again make sure things are flush.  If not put the end on a flat surface and apply the iron while pressing down.  Once happy, complete the corner with a bead of solder.

Now, join the opposing ends and sides in the same way.

It took me some while to get everything as correct as I could.  I finished off with one of the etched compartment separators.  I’ll come back to these later.

I thought I’d mate the body to the underframe:

Strangely, I had trouble with the screw holes in the underframe not lining up with the nuts on the body.  I say strangely because everything has fit perfectly up to now.  I’ve got to think that maybe it’s me.  Anyway, holes were fettled and the body is on.

It will make up into a model of GWR diagram P4 ballast wagon.  I plan to construct mine in BR service.  Pictures can be found here:  http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brstarfish/h545911c#h1935fcc7

I thought I’d start by illustrating some of the tools and equipment I use for this work:

Obviously I have a soldering iron – mine is a Weller (can’t recall the power but about 45W) and not the cheapest.  The tip is still in good shape after several years of abuse from me.  The little pot is a tinning compound.  Solders:  I like Carrs and mostly use 145 degree C (orange packet).  If I need to solder someting to a part that needs two solder joints, I use 188 deg. C (green packet) first and 145 deg for the second join.  There is less chance of the first bond coming adrift.  Flux:  I like Carrs Green label (dilute phosphoric acid) for brass and nickel silver.  There are several sources of soldering supplies, Carrs is available from: http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=56.  Also check out: http://www.dccconcepts.com/index_files/DCCsolderfluxes.htm  These are well regarded from what I’ve read but I’ve never used them.

I have never found a good source for brass modelling solder and flux in North America – possibly because brass kit building is pretty rare here (I wouldn’t mind being corrected on this).

The keys to successful soldering:  The right tools and materials, hot iron with clean tip, clean surface, lashings of flux, a drop of solder on the iron tip and then in and out.  There should be a fizz and the solder should flow readily.

Some may disagree but the regular electrical rosin cored solder is not suitable for this job. (On the other hand acid flux should NEVER be used for electrical work).

I also don’t like lead free solder – it doesn’t seem to work well, for me anyway.

I think the thing that puts a lot of folk off soldering is the fear of burnt fingers.  Well, not to worry, you will burn them but not with any kind of severity (so far I haven’t – I’ve done far more damage with knives).  It’s wise to hold parts with something other than your fingers when soldering but sometimes it can’t be helped.  It’s amazing the speed of the heat transfer – just grit your teeth.

Spring loaded pliers are useful for holding parts as are tweezers.  The yellow pack is a set of broaches – invaluable for enlarging etched holes.  The good old Olfa knife is a fine general purpose tool – useful for cutting parts off the etch.  Next  to it is a propelling fiberglass pen – very handy for cleaning and burnishing.

There’s also a steel rule, large file (with a dead edge) and a very fine file (red handle).  I’ll use the scriber to push out half etched rivets.

On to the kit.  Here it is:

As can be seen, it is one sheet of etched brass.  The parts are cunningly and artfully laid out.  The instruction sheet runs to four pages of exploded views with very few words (ideal for us guys).  The kit includes some steel spring wire, steel buffers, and something I’ve never seen before – 3D printed axlebox/spring and buffer shanks.  You will need to source wheels, paint and transfers.  Hornby, Bachmann, Markits, Alan Gibson, Exactoscale (EM or P4 only) and Ultrascale all do wheels (3′ diameter or 12mm on the tyre, 8 spoke ).  I’ve listed the wheels in more or less ascending price and quality.  I am using Markits wheels (at least I think they are – they were in my wheels box).

29 June 2012

I started the kit build today.  First step was to separate the solebars from the etch and gently file down the etch tags:

The first thing to do with these is to push out 8 rivets per side with scribe.  It’s seem better days and is not especially sharp.  There are actually 2 folds to make.

Folds made.  At the base of the solebar is a narrow ledge that is formed making a bend in the etch.  This was surprising difficult to do and I really should have scored the fold line better than I did.  I tried to use the steel rule as a bending bar but it wasn’t  very effective.

To join the two halves of solebar together, I tinned the inside surface with 4 small drops of solder.  I then folded the solebar.  Because of the small ledge I used the steel rule to support the piece.  I applied some flux to the INSIDE of the sole (not the side with all the detail) and ran the soldering along it starting at the center and working out.  The small file is useful for pressing the two halves together.  There should be a hiss and you will see solder just showing itself as it flows.

Lastly, in order to straighten out the ledge I pressed the steel rule against it and used the file to complete the fold.  You can twitch the ledge with pliers here and there if necessary.  I put a small amount of solder under the ledge at each end.  I left the middle – it seems strong enough.
The result is acceptable.

Next, some details:

There are 4 boxes (I don’t even know the technical term) to be added to the solebars.  These start out as flat pieces with two fold lines.  There’s also a rivet to be pushed out.  To cut a long story short I used the file (isn’t it useful!) as a former and folded the sides around it.  Use pliers to straighten things out if required (it was for me).  Then, cut very small pieces of solder.  Apply flux to the location (there’s a raised rib so you can’t get it wrong) and place the box.  Use the file to hold the piece (easier said than done) and pick up a small piece of solder with the iron.  Hopefully the solder will flow and the box will in the right place and straight.  In a couple of cases I botched it.  Simply heat and remove the part.  If there is a lot of solder on the rib, I found desoldering braid useful to remove it.  Try again.

I was asked, the other night, to install Kadee couplings a club member’s rake of Hornby Pullman cars.   These are brilliantly done and favourably reviewed in several places.  There are, however, two versions of coupling.  Most recently the cars are fitted with NEM pockets and these, of course, are a doddle to do.  The cars are also fitted with the coupling extension cam for going round curves.  I am no fan of these and, in my opinion, the mechanism is really only necessary for really tight curves.  Four of the cars in the rake have the earlier coupling, making the job into a major task.

The photo above illustrates the problem.  I stared at it for some while.  Thought about, and started working on, a mod. to the coupling mount to take a Kadee.  However, I decided in the end that it wouldn’t do.  Reluctantly, I decided to do away with the coupling extension cam and to mount a #20 Kadee directly on the bogie.

Bogies do pull out with a firm tug.  The first thing to be noticed is the wire for the interior lighting.  This should be pulled out and cut at the heat shrink covered splice.  (In one case the wire inside was tangled and pulling on the wire broke it.  I had to remove the body (easy enough to do) to access the wire inside and bring it out through the bogie pivot hole.

I checked the back to back measurement with a DCC Concepts gauge and, to my surprise, this seemed correct.

Next undo two screws attaching the keeper plate for the coupling extension.  Remove and discard the coupling extension.  Re attach the keeper plate (it doesn’t do anything now).

To the bogie next.  Remove the front axle.  (Note that there is one un-insulated wheel on each axle, so when removing these pay attention to this when re-installing).

I built up the front of the bogie with plastic strip in order to take a screw and position the Kadee at the correct height and distance.

1)  Cut a piece of  0.040″ strip to length to fit over the front of the bogie.  The plastic used for the bogie is impervious to plastic solvent so I use a pin and superglue method.

2)  Drill two holes in the strip for 0.032″ wire.

3)  Drill two holes in the front of the bogie at the same locations (it’s a good idea to use the strip just drilled as a jig).

4)  Take a 0.100″ x 0.125″ piece of strip cut to the same length as 1) above.  I beveled mine to make them look a bit neater.

5)  Insert two shortish pieces of brass wire into the holes in the bogie, securing with superglue.

6)  Cut a piece of strip about 10mm long.

7)  Now, push the strip in 4) over the brass wire and secure with plastic solvent.

8)  Glue the strip in 6) to the center of the assembly.

You should have something that looks like this:

The photo shows the bottom and top of the bogie.

Next, drill a hole directly adjacent to the center piece of strip.  The size of hole will depend on the kind of fixing you use.  Any screw with sufficient will do.  The Kadee Delrin screw is convenient and you can tap for this using the Kadee tool.

Drill your #20 Kadee just ahead of where the split tails end.  Cut these off.

Secure the Kadee.  I like to add some superglue to the fixing to prevent loosening.

The Kadee fitted bogie looks like this:

The only question mark will be distance from bogie center.  I chose this such the the knuckle hinge is about even with the buffer head.

Remove the V shaped plate inside of the buffer beam to ensure that bogie swing is not restricted.

You will have to splice the wires together and stuff them into the body.

When all is done the coaches look like this:

I’m also fitting working gangways.

18 June 2012

A quick update on progress.  I’ve had a couple of test sessions.  There is one spot on the circuit where a couple of cars have derailed, at different times.  It looked to me as though there was something snagging the bogie as it exited a curve.  On examination there seemed to be a potential foul between the rear of the bogie and the trussing.  I scraped down the back of the trusses so that there is a bevel there now.  Yesterday’s session revealed just one car with a tendency to derail at the same spot.  I have used my Dremel to grind down the top front of the built up plastic card on the bogie to give a bevel and more clearance.  I also rounded over the rear of the bogies slightly.  Finally, I also snipped off the top of the clip that holds the glazing.  I’ll do another test on Wednesday.

David Finch roped me into weathering his new Class 23 loco from Heljan.  I’m no expert on this machine but it looks good to me and runs extremely well.

More information can be found here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_23