Autocoach upgrade
Entry posted by Neal Ball in Carriage construction
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The Autocarriage rebuild.
Starting with an Airfix model from the 70’s and the Dart castings kit, I plan to make a few upgrades to this carriage.
I have always been happy with the Autocoach, but latterly as my skills have improved, I have thought it was due for an overhaul. Seen here with the DJH / Hattons 48xx.
Back in the day – my hand painting skills left a bit to be desired!
Here is the kit and the donor carriage:
The Airfix carriage; Dart castings kit and a traintech lighting bar. I have never tried the latter before and don’t know what to expect. It was an impulse purchase at the Bluebell railway shop. If its too bright, I will either put some paint over the LED or replace it with one of my homemade lighting kits using pick-ups from the wheels.
By lunchtime, the carriage body was put into a bowl of IPA and the paint stripping process began.
I then started work on removing the underframe details – cutting into part of the truss rods at the same time. A quick delve into the scrap brass box and I quickly managed to fabricate some replacements – I just need to do the other side now. (The instructions say keep the plastic truss rods)
The carriage has been removed from its soaking in IPA and looks like this. It has had a wash in cold water and will have another soak to get rid of the remaining paint.
Which proved tricky to get off – it seems that IPA has a limited shelf life, so I duly bought another bottle.
It was soaked initially for a couple of days, then probably as much as a week – some paint proved very stubborn to remove. I ended up using a coffee stick and a cocktail stick to gently scrape the paint away – when it did come off, it came off in brittle chunks as if the IPA had not soaked in.
Thoughts at the same time turned to the underframe and the dreaded instructions….
At several points in the process, I thought I had items missing. The diagrams say some items are not shown for clarity – when in fact it would help enormously if they were shown.
If only I had known this when taking my photos at Didcot, I would have known exactly which bits I needed to photograph!
I knew the steps were going to be awkward – more fiddly I guess. In putting them together, there are just too many small parts that need fixing at the same time.
It was at this point – I referred to another set of instructions – namely, the advice on RMWeb! With thanks to @MrWolf and @MAP66, (thank you both) where the ipad was continually set up on the workbench with their progress being much more useful than the instructions.
In this photo, the assembled steps are on the left, held in place with the “helping hands” with the iPad open in the background.
Together with my reference photo of the steps from the Steam Railmotor at Didcot.
Even then, I made a few mistakes – where one item was put upside down and the other was back to front. The latter only became apparent when I put the bogies back on.
In setting everything out on the underframe, I have only added items to the driving end. Anything added at the luggage van end will be in the way of the Kadee coupling.
However, seen here the right way round and you wont see much of the details!
Trial fitting handles:
Autocoach cleaning on 19th September – despite liberal application of IPA some of the paint refused to shift.
Ready for spraying! Fast forward to the 23rd of September and this is as good a basic finish as I reckon I will get. From here it will be primed and then painted up with the shirtbutton logo applied.
I started to add handles and steps, but then realised that they would be in the way when it came to applying masking tape. In any case it looks as if they were all painted black, so I can easily add them after painting.
This is the carriage on 23/9/24:
In taking this photo, I can see some more paint that needs to be scraped off. In the photo can be seen the first grab handle and step applied to the front.
To be continued
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