Building NER carriages

[Will L]

Thanks, Will. I'm kind of doing what you say, but I need the clerestory to be separable from the roof (for glazing after painting), as well as having the roof separable from the carriage as you suggest.

That is what I intended. If they all line up they can be bolted down with single bolts, while the clerestory and the roof remain independent and separate pieces.

... U-shape hadn't occurred to me - I've tended to use 15 thou flat.

The pieces across the each side need to be U shaped (actually a flat strip with turned down edges, more exercise for the triangular file) so they are strong enough not to bend when the bolt is used to pull the whole roof down tight.

[Daddyman]

That is what I intended. If they all line up they can be bolted down with single bolts, while the clerestory and the roof remain independent and separate pieces.
The pieces across the each side need to be U shaped (actually a flat strip with turned down edges, more exercise for the triangular file) so they are strong enough not to bend when the bolt is used to pull the whole roof down tight.

I suppose I could have a bolt through both roofs - can't remember why I didn't, but it's been useful to be able to have the clerestory bolted to the main roof, without having to bolt them to the body.
I've had a look at the carriages I've built and it looks like I used an L-shape on one of them and flat 15 thou on all the others. There's no sign of the roof being pulled down any less tight across the different systems. I suspect if the roof fits perfectly, there is no need for the bolts to be very tight - mine never are. The D.116 on page 2 has the non-L-shaped braces and the tightness of the roof looks good - I'd say?

[Will L]

That is what I intended. If they all line up they can be bolted down with single bolts, while the clerestory and the roof remain independent and separate pieces.
The pieces across the each side need to be U shaped (actually a flat strip with turned down edges, more exercise for the triangular file) so they are strong enough not to bend when the bolt is used to pull the whole roof down tight.

I suppose I could have a bolt through both roofs - can't remember why I didn't, but it's been useful to be able to have the clerestory bolted to the main roof, without having to bolt them to the body.
I've had a look at the carriages I've built and it looks like I used an L-shape on one of them and flat 15 thou on all the others. There's no sign of the roof being pulled down any less tight across the different systems. I suspect if the roof fits perfectly, there is no need for the bolts to be very tight - mine never are. The D.116 on page 3 has the non-L-shaped braces and the tightness of the roof looks good - I'd say?

Agreed, what works, works. I take it your using rolled brass roofs. I used Danny's curved plasticard ones. These need pulling down tight to obtain the right curve and a tight fit.

[Daddyman]

Agreed, what works, works.

Agreed!

I take it your using rolled brass roofs. I used Danny's curved plasticard ones. These need pulling down tight to obtain the right curve and a tight fit.

Rolled brass, yes. I'm impressed you got the plastic to work. I'd be interested to know at what point the metal parts attached to the plastic - presumably either the nut is soldered to a piece of metal and that is then joined to the plastic roof, or the nut is joined to a piece of plastic; either way, at some point metal and plastic have to be bonded. I'm asking because I have the roof on my elliptical still to secure, where the plastic roof supplied certainly can't be pulled down to shape. My replacement is solid plastic from the cant rail up...

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... and is a good interference fit between the ends ...

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... but I'd like to secure it somehow. Nuts embedded in the underside of the solid roof is all I can think of (used in conjunction with my/your usual strips/channel on the body), but I'd need a good bond between nut and plastic, and would need some way to stop glue getting in the threads of the nut.

[davebradwell]

Too late now, you should have embedded tapped plates in your laminations as they're bound to pull off if stuck to the bottom. Do you fancy boring down from the top with blind holes?

DaveB

[Paul Cram]

On the Elliptical roof milk vans I have created a ceiling on to which a narrower pice of 40 thou plasicard is laminated. This is drilled and tapped 12 ba near to each end and a 12 ba bolt fixed in. I secure with Buaranone. The roof is the held in place and glued along the edges. This then locates throgh brass strips fixed acroos the top of the body and a nut secures from underneath. The milk vans have troof loghts so a hollow roof is needed.

[Will L]

Agreed, what works, works.

Agreed!

One of the things I have learned over the years is that even when there is a method I find unlikely or impractical, there is often some smart **** who manages to make it work. Not saying there is anything unlikely about your methods of course.

More on making Danny's plastic roofs work follows.

[Daddyman]

Too late now, you should have embedded tapped plates in your laminations

That's what I'm thinking... But if the plates were bolted to the underside of the roof, borrowing Paul's method of tapping plasticard, with two bolts, I might be safe.

Do you fancy boring down from the top with blind holes?

I might fancy it if I could understand it. But I've googled blind holes and stared at this sentence for 5 minutes and no lightbulb is coming on!

The milk vans have troof loghts so a hollow roof is needed.

The D.53 has the same lights, and I have a milk/luggage van half built; on both I was planning to do the roof lights in brass - they were too dirty to ever be seen through:

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What stalled me on the milk/luggage van was the "2D" look of the spring hangers on the underframe.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that even when there is a method I find unlikely or impractical, there is often some smart **** who manages to make it work. Not saying there is anything unlikely about your methods of course.

I think you're calling me a smart ****, Will, but it's so wonderfully subtle I'm not even sure! On the Virtual Forum they're not usually so subtle...

[Will L]

I'm impressed you got the plastic to work. I'd be interested to know at what point the metal parts attached to the plastic - presumably either the nut is soldered to a piece of metal and that is then joined to the plastic roof, or the nut is joined to a piece of plastic; either way, at some point metal and plastic have to be bonded. I'm asking because I have the roof on my elliptical still to secure, where the plastic roof supplied certainly can't be pulled down to shape. My replacement is solid plastic from the cant rail up...

To illustrate how I get the plastic roofs to work and how they are bolted down I've done a rough picture, dimensions aren't exact. The plastic roof is made to a slightly tight version of the correct profile but with excess material on all the edges. It needs flexing out a bit to make it the right shape. Danny provided these, or you can make them for yourself my making one in wood and slumping the plastic over it in the oven.

coach roof make up2.jpg

1. Coach profile. Note that the curved roof profile isn't as wide as the full coach width
2. Add a flat plastic roof. This should be less than the full coach width by twice the thickness of the plastic roof.
3. Fit the U shaped cross pieces under the top flange on the body side. These are drilled centrally to suit a bolt. A rectangle of brass with the nut soldered on and taped through is superglued above the flat roof to align with the hole in cross piece. U shaped because they wont touch and you don't want the cross piece to bend up when you tighten the bolt
4. Fit two stringers the full length of the flat roof and cut to exactly match the roof profile of the ends.
5. When its dry, force the flat roof into the profiled roof so the stringer are against un underside of the profiled roof. This should flex the roof out a bit into the correct shape. Weld it up solid down the sides and where the stringers meet the roof (run solvent down the joint from the ends). When dry trim off the excess profile roof side flush with the flat roof. Fit back on the coach, trim off where the roof overlaps the end and use thin plastic strips to form the cant-rail so they overlap the joint between body and roof

The resultant roof is very rigid. Where it overlaps the body ends it form the visible roof ends. I sometime think this may be slightly over thick but nobody as picked me up on it yet.

[Will L]

I think you're calling me a smart ****, Will, but it's so wonderfully subtle I'm not even sure! On the Virtual Forum they're not usually so subtle...

If I did (I deny it) I called me one too.

[Winander]

Do you fancy boring down from the top with blind holes?

I might fancy it if I could understand it. But I've googled blind holes and stared at this sentence for 5 minutes and no lightbulb is coming on!

My understanding of a blind hole is one that has a bottom, the inverse of a cylinder. I believe it is blind because it has no hole in the bottom. I think what Dave means is to drill from the top, a thought I had. You could use a countersink bolt right through and patch the top.

I could be, however, the blind leading the blind, fumbling around in the dark etc. etc.

Edit: I have nothing to say on recent comments

[Will L]

..-

The milk vans have troof loghts so a hollow roof is needed.

The D.53 has the same lights, and I have a milk/luggage van half built; on both I was planning to do the roof lights in brass - they were too dirty to ever be seen through

I've done a couple of GN 6 wheelers so equipped. The brass bits and glassing are fiddly, but they go into my roof structures nicely, but its worth painting the roof interior black (dirty grey) underneath them.

[Daddyman]

Thanks for explaining all this, Will. I must say, I think brass is easier, but then if I wrote out everything I do to form and secure the brass roof it would probably sound as complex.

A rectangle of brass with the nut soldered on and taped through is superglued above the flat roof to align with the hole in cross piece.

This is the interesting bit for me. If I understand, you have no access to that rectangle of brass once it's glued up there. You've never had them come unstuck (Dave's worry)? My rectangle would be on the underside, so I'd have access to it, and I'm inclining towards Paul's bolts to stop that rectangle ever being able to spin - belts (glue) and braces (bolts).

My understanding of a blind hole is one that has a bottom, the inverse of a cylinder. I believe it is blind because it has no hole in the bottom. I think what Dave means is to drill from the top, a thought I had. You could use a countersink bolt right through and patch the top.

I could be, however, the blind leading the blind, fumbling around in the dark etc. etc.

Nope, still can't see it. Is the blind hole only blind so far down, and then changes to a narrower bore to allow the "stem" (as opposed to the head) of the bolt to pass through (the way we drill buffers with a "double bore")? But what would stop the bolt being able to spin?

[davebradwell]

Blind holes don't go through so really this would be a thru hole with a counterbore. I would put a bit of tapped plate in there and screw up into it as inserting a screw will be much easier than trying to add a tiny nut in the roof of a coach. I'd probably use a long screw with head under floor.

DaveB

[Will L]

...This is the interesting bit for me. If I understand, you have no access to that rectangle of brass once it's glued up there. You've never had them come unstuck (Dave's worry)? My rectangle would be on the underside, so I'd have access to it, and I'm inclining towards Paul's bolts to stop that rectangle ever being able to spin - belts (glue) and braces (bolts).

No, none have ever come unstuck, and as they are pulled own into the glue joint, there is no stress on the joint so I can't see why they should. Once the coach is done you wouldn't want to undo then very often either. Also if it still bothers you, you can arrange that the stringers pass over the plate and trap it in place .

[Will L]

Also If mounted on the underside, the stress on the joint is trying to pull it apart, and if it does fail it will pull way and your roof wont be attached any more.. If its above the roof, should it fail, nothing will happen until you next try to undo it.

There is a general lesson here, if using a captive nut, always arrange that what ever the nut is captive too is between the captive nut and what ever you trying to bolt to it.

[Paul Cram]

Blind holes don't go through so really this would be a thru hole with a counterbore. I would put a bit of tapped plate in there and screw up into it as inserting a screw will be much easier than trying to add a tiny nut in the roof of a coach. I'd probably use a long screw with head under floor.

DaveB

I use a 12BA nut spinner. Easier than a flat head spanner on a bolt.

[Will L]

Thanks for explaining all this, Will. I must say, I think brass is easier, but then if I wrote out everything I do to form and secure the brass roof it would probably sound as complex.

It is very trues that trying to explain how you do something often makes it sound more complex than it is. I practical terms, I wanted removable roofs and this method, once you've got your head round what your trying to achieve it seems as simpler approach as anything else. The first time I did it I was very unsure how well forcing the flat roof into the profiled roof would work out. I practice it works easily and well and produces a remarkably rigid roof. The last CLC coach I did for Knutsford East had rolled brass roof, but I used essentially the same approach in brass to make that removable too. I also convinced Dick Petter (MHRIP) to adopt the same approach on the coaches he did for Knutsford. Now Dick was a real engineer and tended not to fancy my Kitchen table methods, (probably though I was a...) but that didn't stop him making his coach roofs this way too. We had many an interesting conversation about the merits of CSB as against the way he full compensated his.

[davebradwell]

Better to have nut-plates positioned so they can't pull off and they don't really need any glue, just some plastic strips to maintain position and prevent lifting. Make them out of something substantial, say 0.45 minimum but preferably twice that. I'll stick with my 10BA screw as being far easier to handle than a 12BA nut, especially if the head's under the floor. Why do modellers always use tiny screws? The larger threads can be safely tapped into plastic, given sufficient length, with little danger of them pullling out.

Cheated with my skylights and made them solid as we reckoned nobody would bother to clean them in later days.

DaveB

[Daddyman]

Ready for painting by Tuesday then!

Well, ready for a bath anyway.

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Very roughly 25 hours so far, and 248 parts of the 330 needed (excluding bogies).

Close up of the ends:

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The long handrail on the end on the left is held at the top by two filed-down handrail knobs - they look too chunky for this job as they come (these are Romford small) so I put them in a pin chuck and turn by hand against a file.

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The shape of the handrail is key to the character of the end. I copied it from my D.116. The ex-handrail knobs are an interference fit so they can be turned until the handrail adopts the right shape. You can just see a Sharpie mark between the knobs showing the centre of the piece of wire. When all's well I solder the knobs in place, then the lower anchor points for the handrail, and finally solder it into the knobs. EDIT: just noticed I forgot to remove the tabs from the ends of the steps!

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Underframe next... but possibly not tonight.

[pete55]

Hello Daddyman,
earler you have shown a picture of the underframe complete with vacuum cylinders. Can you tell me where they have been obtained, as none of my D&S kits have them supplied!!

Pete Hill

[Daddyman]

Hello Pete,
I get them from Lanarkshire. 21". They come with the operating lever. The quality is superlative - the best I know: deep and crisp and even, unlike many whitemetal components. The website seems to be down at the mo.
Then you'll need vee hangers. These weren't supplied in my recent acquisitions, though they were in the D.116 and at least one other. I've taken to using these from Wizard as they, correctly, don't stretch across the whole width of the carriage underframe.
https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/carriage/c63/

[pete55]

Hello Daddyman,
thanks for that information, Lanarkshire castings are always good.
Fortunately, I have vee hangers in the kit.

[Daddyman]

Hello Daddyman,
thanks for that information, Lanarkshire castings are always good.
Fortunately, I have vee hangers in the kit.

Pleasure.

Are you building North Eastern carriages? If so, what period?

[pete55]

I'm building a diagram 116 Autocoach at the moment, mainly to go with my Rails/Heljan North Eastern railcar.

I always thought that D&S kits were great, given the ebay price fights....but am not currently so impressed when parts are not in the kits, and the instructions are really not good either.