Havenhouse - the reboot

[westerhamstation]

Hi Jason, the lettering looks really good, a few images that might be of use to you. All the best Adrian

Edited February 16, 2014 by westerhamstation

[JCL]

Thanks Adrian

 

Edited to remove link, again, see below.

Edited February 19, 2014 by JCL

[MikeTrice]

I don't want to put you off, but the restored coaches have got the lettering wrong so don't assume they are prototypical. Will be sending you a separate email.

[JCL]

No, it won't put me off. There was a blizzard here today, so 30 minutes outside in it clearing the drive means that I'm happy to spend a considerable time indoors afterwards.

 

Weather was so bad that the automatic barriers refused to budge at the crossing, and remained in the up position with bells ringing for over an hour. I'm so pleased I doing live anywhere near there, it'd send me looney.

[JCL]

I've looked at Mike's email and decided that, while the artwork was good enough for smaller models, being scaleable they could be used for other things. With this in mind, I hope you understand why I've removed the links. I intend to redo the lettering, and to make it much more accurate.

 

In the meantime, plastic has arrived in various forms. The triangular section means that I've been able to finish the LNER style fencing seen in Lincolnshire and plant it into the platform. Now, bcause my platform was made of foam insulation sheet, all I had to do was make a hole by pushing a with a bamboo skewer in and then inserting the over length posts.

 

 

I've also been playing around with the floor of the Barnum as I can restart this project with the new card as well. New sides here I come!

 

 

Sorry about the rubbish photos, I only had my phone this evening. If I get a chance I'll put up proper photos tomorrow a well, that's if you have an urge to see more photos of a fence!

 

Cheers

 

Jason

[pete_mcfarlane]

The ability to make banana shaped sides might actually be useful. Those short wheelbase LNER cattle wagons for example, which ended up decided bowed looking. 

[JCL]

It's been a busy week with 1.2m of snow over the last seven days. Autumn is finally out the way, and the snow blower (Bessie) has seen some serious action. In the meantime, I've stopped procrastinating and started building. The floor is a single thickness of .040" card that's been cut to shape. Luckily the scribing of the matchboard sides hasn't made any difference to their length, and I even remembered to take into account the thickness of the ends when measuring! The ends have been cut and folded in .020" to give a thickness of .040" in exactly the same way that Mike describes in http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/81902-using-inkscape-and-the-silhouette-to-create-a-4mm-ner-6-wheel-coach/ . You can see there's a notch at the bottom of the end wall to take the floor. Oh, and I realise I didn't have to scribe the door, but well, what can I say?

 

 

You've seen the side before. Since I showed the bow, I've laminated a .020 strip across the side that is .040" up from the bottom so that it can rest on top of the floor. It is also .040" in from each end as well so that the ends can rest against it, The only thing is, I have a bit of waviness across the top of the side between the top windows, hopefully you can see this in the photo below. I tried warming and holding underneath a heavy item, but it didn't want to spring back. Also, there are no compartments, a half wall type of thing halfway down, so I've a bit of "L" angle and I was thinking of putting that across the top to straighten it out and to stiffen the top edge up. I'd make sure that it didn't interfere with the top windows though. A bit of sanding on the ends and the first side should be ready to go up later.

 

 

Next up is recutting that banana side into something a little straighter. This time I'm using Testor's plastic cement to laminate the sides, as it worked really well on the ends which are as straight as an arrow.

 

The more I do this, the more I'd love to head over to Nottingham next time I'm in England to try to see one in the flesh. They were strangely good looking

Edited February 22, 2014 by JCL

[Jaz]

Those reference photos of the teak coaches are gorgeous. So we'll be expecting a nice paint job.

[JCL]

Absolutely! BR maroon

[JCL]

Hi Jaz, the lettering and numbering is for an idea I have that I'll hopefully start in a month or so. It'll be an experiment, but hopefully it'll work.

 

In the meantime, I've glued on the L angle, and then the side in between the two ends (best place for it). I've cut slots into the angle so that I can add the glazing later on. The side went on pretty, so it's just a case of a quick bit of filing then cutting and gluing up the other side later or tomorrow.

 

 

Aaaaand, I couldn't resist it, here it is resting on its wheels.

 

[JCL]

Well, I'm up early because some guests are leaving first thing. I mentioned above I'd been using the Testors Plastic cement. I've laminated the two layers of the re-cut side and it's absolutely flat! Also, no vertical bowing either, so I'm very pleased with it as you can guess. One thing I have realised is that the L bracing at the top means that I'll have to cut the insert with the carriage interior on it into two so that I can get them in. It's not a big problem, but I'm pleased I've thought about this now and not after I've built it up. The end doors are cut as well, and I'll be redoing the very ends later, so by the end of "my" day, I should have most or the carcass put together. Then it's just the roof, underframe, etc.

 

As I finalise each bit, such as sides, ends, etc, I'll put the files up onto this thread, then if anyone else wants them they are there for the taking. Also, if you don't have a cutter, the plans can always be printed out and cut out with a knife.

 

Oh, and this old duffer's got some buffers! The parts I've bought in turned up at the end of last week, so I think I've got everything I need to finish this. (Surely not? It's only been months since this was started!)

[Jaz]

You'll need to consider if you can sell any of this designs, to help cover the cost, I bet a lot of people would be interested. If you sell low (not too low because it is a limited market) and stack em high, it should help cover costs nicely.

[JCL]

Hi there

 

Just a quick one, does anyone know how many partitions there were inside? I have one at each end as the toilet walls, and one right in the middle. Trouble is, I've only seen one inside photo, and that carriage was being refurbished, so there were no seats, etc.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence Jaz, but I'm going to give the files away. That way I can release them as is, and I don't have to be ultra-professional about it. Also, it would be to say thanks for the advice and support that everyone's given, even when I've not had much to show you. I will release the files that I actually use to build this carriage, so they will work if someone wants to put one together, and I'll put together some notes as well. Today I've been cutting doors and ends ready for the vestibules, and gluing the other side to the floor. It's starting to come together now.

 

I'm away for a couple of days, but I'll be taking a box of tricks with me, so I'll still get a bit done. I'll try to take a photo of the current position before I leave.

 

Cheers

 

Jason

Edited February 24, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

Onwards and, well, onwards.

 

This end shows that I put a .020" layer onto the inside end of the carriage. The sides are vertical and will be used to both line up the two doors and make them stronger. It needed a slight bit of filing (.5mm), but is a good fit.

 

 

Then it's just a case of lining up the two doors and the end to give the following:

 

 

I've leave it to dry off now and sand it later. As Andy G pointed out, this must be one of the few carriages that taper towards the top rather than the bottom!

[MikeTrice]

Just a quick one, does anyone know how many partitions there were inside? I have one at each end as the toilet walls, and one right in the middle. Trouble is, I've only seen one inside photo, and that carriage was being refurbished, so there were no seats, etc.

Jason

Nick's drawing suggests that you are correct. One each end for the toilet and one in the middle.

 

Looking good by the way.

[JCL]

Cheers Mike. I had seen some photos of other ones where it was less clear, but these were departmental, so I'm assuming now that these had possibly been modified in some way.

[Buhar]

Excuse me, Jason, but back in mid-February you promised us some more photographs of fencing. What`s with this coach thingy when there`s a ready audience for Lincolnshire boundary joinery!

[JCL]

I was banking on the fact that nobody really reads this tripe You have a date with boundary destiny this weekend my friend...

[Alister_G]

I was banking on the fact that nobody really reads this tripe You have a date with boundary destiny this weekend my friend...

 

I've got news for you, there are at least 43 people who are interested enough to follow this tripe topic, and I bet loads more who pop in regularly

[LNER4479]

Onwards and, well, onwards.

 

_JCL3363.jpg

 

I've leave it to dry off now and sand it later. As Andy G pointed out, this must be one of the few carriages that taper towards the top rather than the bottom!

Great work with the cutter (plus your own not inconsiderable deftness with the mek-pak - other products exist) to get to this stage with the Barnum Jason. A most distinctive looking vehicle indeed

Edited February 25, 2014 by LNER4479

[JCL]

Oh the horror, the humanity!

 

The sides were about .040" too low, which was the thickness of the gutter. I had thought about a couple of ways of dealing with this, but in the end it was a bodge too far, so I decided to bite the bullet and take them back off again. I'll redraw the sides in Inkscape, and cut them before the weekend. In the meantime, there's some work I can get on with on the underframe and bogies.

 

I was in a model shop yesterday looking for a suitable brown for the underframe if I do create an lner version, and it seems that the closest colour I can find is, wait for it, "autopsy orange". Nice.

 

 

Edited to replace the auto corrected bodega for bodge. That said, bodega sounds better. I'm off to look up what it means.

Edited February 26, 2014 by JCL

[LNER4479]

Aaarrrrgggghhhh!! The coach has been 'Larry-d'

[JCL]

Weeell, the other problem is that the "inner-ends" have a curved top, which will be a bug.. too difficult to roof if I'm going to roof in the same way that Mike's done, so the cut backs will be even more drastic. Ok, I'm going to re-do everything from the floor up. The inner ends will be straight across the top at the height of the sides, and the outer ends will obviously be curved. It shouldn't take too long to do this weekend, and it should be a better fit this time.

[JCL]

So I'm back at the B&B and ready to start Barnum, son of Barnum. I've made a number of changes to the artwork based on the first attempt such as making the vestibule walls lower, chopping the curved tops off the inside ends to allow the roof to be fitted (doh!), and increasing the height of the sides to include the gutter. This makes the height of the doors the same as the height of the sides. I've also searched out my camera remote control cable, so hopefully these photos will be better than the iPhone one. I'll try to do a step by step, so that when I upload the plans when I've successfully finished the build and there are no more changesyou'll know why the pieces are shaped as they are. I'll try to keep this level of detail going

 

I try to cut all of the parts for each thickness of styrene at the same time. Here the doors and sides are being cut, along with some parts that will go onto the ends and also into the solebars.

The finished sheet (I hope)

Next I used a scriber to press out the small windows. I pressed into each corner to carefully release them without stretching the styrene. The surface is the back of a placemat which I find has just enough give to allow me to push small pieces out without damaging anything.

Then I use a bulldog clip to keep one end of the side together before gluing the other end. The clip is about the same depth as the placemat, so the piece isn't bent in any way. There are scored lines on both layers, so the layers have to be glued the right way around (scored lines to the outsides). Once a couple of inches have been glue on the opposite end I then remove the clip and glue an inch at a time until the whole thing is glued together. I've found I've found I've not found any warping using the Testers Plastic Cement.

Finally I put the sides into the following layers to press them for a while: placemat, side, ruler side ruler, jam jar (I do run the B&B after all )

While they are put to one side I then started on the four end doors by gluing the two layers together. To do this I took two parts that naturally curved away from each other, lined up the bottoms and used the resulting gap at the top to glue a narrow strip together. Then I glued the other end and added all of them to the layer press. There are four end doors, two open to the left, two to the right so I had to make sure that I get everything the right way around.

 

That's the .010" thickness parts done that I can think of. The next build post will concentrate on the .020' thickness parts which will be primarily the ends, bracing, and suchlike.

Edited March 3, 2014 by JCL

[Buhar]

Google search on Testors for the UK comes up with only a few suppliers, but it is available. 

 

I'm going to do some laminating experiments out of interest with Plastic Weld, Mek Pak, Limonene and any other glue I have squirrelled away.  Using up a sheet or two of styrene will be worth it if a conclusion emerges.

 

With a bit of luck I will pick up a Portrait today, I found a supplier based near where I have a meeting this afternoon, but I don't know if they are mail order only.

 

As a side issue, I was planning to go over to a Linux OS because of the withdrawal of support of W98 next month, unfortunately, it looks like Silhouette machines are not fully compatible with Linux.