Rooves

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David B
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Rooves

Postby David B » Thu Aug 11, 2016 6:39 am

. . . or as some people prefer, roofs. Both spellings are correct.

How do you go about fixing these? A box van is straightforward enough but if one is glazing or wants to add detail after painting, then the roof needs to be attached later. In some cases, it is desirable that the roof is removable.

I would be interested to know the preferred methods people employ, especially for keeping the roof square. Long bolts, clips, magnets, glue . . .

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Paul Townsend
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Re: Rooves

Postby Paul Townsend » Thu Aug 11, 2016 10:27 am

I have successfully used two similar techniques for removeable rooves.
One has a nut attached to the underside ( 2 or 3 according to carriage length) and a long screw (often made from studding) passes from the bottom of the floor to connect. The inside of the floor has a long brass or plastic tube attached which guides the screw to its nut. Said tube is adjacent to a partition which braces it and helps disguise it.

The other method is inverted, long screw attached to roof and nut below floor. Tube is again essential else your sanity is overtaxed trying to get the long screws through a distant hole!

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PeteT
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Re: Rooves

Postby PeteT » Thu Aug 11, 2016 12:24 pm

Is it not easier to fix the roof, and have the floor removeable?

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David B
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Re: Rooves

Postby David B » Thu Aug 11, 2016 5:37 pm

PeteT wrote:Is it not easier to fix the roof, and have the floor removeable?


Yes, it this may well be but many kits (brass) come with the floor and sides attached. There are even some which have been pre-folded. I have several kits with integral floors, most of which I would not want to separate, hence my question.

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PeteT
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Re: Rooves

Postby PeteT » Thu Aug 11, 2016 9:58 pm

David B wrote:
PeteT wrote:Is it not easier to fix the roof, and have the floor removeable?


Yes, it this may well be but many kits (brass) come with the floor and sides attached. There are even some which have been pre-folded.


Oh right, I can only think of 1 type in my kit pile - the 5522/Lochgorm LMS/LNER van. No doubt it depends on how the prototype sits, & on the kit designers preferences.

One method I have seen on loco rooves is a strip on the underside of each corner, which between them create a friction fit between the cab sides. This method may work as well on short wheelbase vans & coaches, but probably not on longer vehicles.

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Guy Rixon
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Re: Rooves

Postby Guy Rixon » Fri Aug 12, 2016 7:57 am

I read in one of the magazines, some time ago, of a coach where the roof clipped to one end and was retained by the springy handrails at the other end.

I once made a roof for a 4-wheeler using planks cut from plywood glued on lateral, wooden formers about 1/8" thick.

nlr- - 1.jpg


nlr- - 2.jpg


I made that about 15 years ago and it has stayed perfectly stable. It doesn't need extra bracing, but only a way to keep the whole assembly on the body.

The formers were carried down slightly below cantrail level and locate the roof on the body. They aren't quite tight enough to retain the roof by friction and I was planning to add tiny dots of weak/tacky glue to the former ends, such that I could break the roof free if I needed to lift it for repairs.

I would finish this coach, but I no longer need NLR stock and there's a queue of others to do...
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Chris Mitton
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Re: Rooves

Postby Chris Mitton » Fri Aug 12, 2016 9:05 pm

David B wrote:How do you go about fixing these? A box van is straightforward enough but if one is glazing or wants to add detail after painting, then the roof needs to be attached later. In some cases, it is desirable that the roof is removable.

I would be interested to know the preferred methods people employ, especially for keeping the roof square. Long bolts, clips, magnets, glue . . .


Hi David

On my D&S GNR six-wheel luggage brake (which can be seen on my thread), I resorted to using the oil lamp tops - soldered some strips of scrap etch linking the tops of the sides at the lamp positions, soldered a captive 14BA nut to a hole in the middle of each, then drilled and tapped a 14BA hole in the base of each lamp top and secured a 14BA screw with the head removed. The lamp tops then screw onto the roof and down into the nut, thus holding the roof firmly in place while being easily removeable. Somewhat fiddly getting everything aligned though, and doesn't work for anything that wasn't oil lit :cry:

Regards
Chris

williambarter
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Re: Rooves

Postby williambarter » Sat Aug 13, 2016 8:48 am

I use brass roofs with planking lines etched on the inside to assist forming into an ellipse. My practice now is to have a bracket within the coach locating below the top flange of the etched sides - this takes a bolt that matches a nut within the roof. So unless you are looking up into the coach from below, the bracket does not show.

The trick is getting the bolt-hole in the bracket to line up with the nut in the roof! I line up the nut and the hole as best I can by reckoning and eye, but of course that will never be good enough for a critical dimension. So - the bolt-hole in the bracket is oversize, and the bolt also has a washer. I fit the roof and secure it with the bolt, and then solder the washer to the bracket (which does mean poking a soldering iron up from the base of the coach). So the critical dimension emerges and is captured rather than having to be set, as the hole in the washer is now in perfect alignment with the nut in the roof.

The down side is that roofs may not be quite interchangeable between coaches.

William

Paulhb
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Re: Rooves

Postby Paulhb » Sun Aug 14, 2016 8:03 pm

Similar to Guy I use formers but made from brass which are joined together by brass angle and provide a frame for the roof. The end formers match up to the coach ends while the middle ones meet the sides. There is enough contact for them to appear fixed although I wouldn't pick a coach up by it's roof! You could but a dab of glue or blue tack to keep them firmly in place.

The system is used by 5522/Lochgorm models and I successfully used the idea when I scratch built a roof for the Highland 6 wheeler.

First picture shows the Lochgorm set up, the longer one is from the 6 wheeler.

IMG_0180.jpg


IMG_0172.jpg


IMG_0174.jpg


Paul Bannerman
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David B
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Re: Rooves

Postby David B » Sun Sep 04, 2016 10:44 am

Thank you for the replies and my apologies for not doing so earlier.

I have now got back to some modelling and am inclining toward soldering the rooves on to some D&S Siphons. I need to paint the inside of the van first so will mask the tinned ares on the van and use resistance soldering to attach the roof.

Siphon-roof_1755.jpg


The suggestions made above will be useful when I get round to my rail motors (yet again!) where I want to have the rooves removable. They will have to go on after painting in order to glaze and fit the internal detail.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on roof fixing?
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Will L
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Re: Rooves

Postby Will L » Sun Sep 04, 2016 11:48 am

David B wrote:Does anyone else have any thoughts on roof fixing?


Mine were on the back of snooze 195, though perhaps more applicable to coaches than wagons.

Some years ago I did some W&U coaches (from the d&S kit) and for these, two of the oil lamp tops per coach got modified by having the screw end of a 10 ba bolt screwed and glued into a suitable sized hole in their underside. Remove the bolt head and these were then use to bolt the roof to brackets inserted between the tops of the coach sides. The curve on the provided coach roof, slightly more than the curve on the coach, meant they bolted down very well with no gaps.

On the stocks at for a while has been GN balls brake (D&S) again which will be fitted inside and needs a removable roof, I'm thinking hard about that one at the moment.

Mark Tatlow
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Re: Rooves

Postby Mark Tatlow » Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:26 pm

David,

My approach to building (etched) coaches is gelling into a personal standard, although sometimes the kit desgin preclude it! My desired approach therefore is to:

- build the coach in three assemblies; the roof, the body and the underframe. If the coach is a bogie one, the bogies are also detachable. This makes the coaches construction easier, their painting much much easier and any maintenance / tweeking less likely to damage things.

- all of the assemblies are held together with 10 or 12BA bolts with nuts secured in hidden locations. I find that without the mechanical fixing it is not possible to ensure that the parts are held tight together and unsightly gaps start to appear that scream "hey, this isn't real, its just a model"!.

- I run a smallish bit of brass strip (1.5 * 1mm square) along the head of side to provide it stiffness and avoid bulging along the length of the coach (I might increase the size of this strip for a long coach).

- Sometimes the end pieces are already laminated with an inner piece (to provide footsteps etc) which makes them stiff enough anyway; if not, then the same strip is used at its head but set a bit lower down the end than to the sides.

- If the kit does not have a fold over piece at the base of the sides (many do), I do the same at the base after the tumblehome has been formed. I then use a bit of flat plate across the ends that has a pair of holes to each end to provide the fixing point for the underframe.

- Although I used to, I no longer fix any of the internal partitions to the sides, I find it causes the sides to distort at these locations and look altogether "rough" - instead partitions are formed later with plasticard;

- I form the roof from a rolled sheet of 0.35/0.4mm brass - this is thick enough to hold its shape without additional bracing. If the manufacturer has provided a roof with etched on roof detail, I find that this is much too thin to use so either throw it away or laminate it to a thinner rolled sheet.

- either end of the roof gets a short projection that slips inside the external ends. This is sized to ensure that the roof sits square and witht he appropriate degree of overhang to both sides and the end;

- the fixings for the roof are either extensions of these short projections that pass down to floor level or are similar plates that are located to the same positions as internal partitions. These form the point at which bolts to secure the roof can reach the utilised that then clamp the roof in place.

One issue with this approach is that anything that is attached to the underframe and the body (for example vac pipes on a non-corridor) need to be sufficently strong to survive the disassembly. I am now using cast brass fittings for these.

I, of course, do not have any convenient photographs to hand to show this concoction, I will get the camera out at the weekend to supplement this posting.


Mark
Mark Tatlow


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