Coaches finished and running

And here we go - the coaches doing exactly what we wanted them to do - looking great behind the Peckett. 

We're running on the new L&WMRS Outdoor 45 track. Sorry about the lack of chuffing in some shots, the loco is a long way from the camera!

Roof rolling

 

 

Nice thick plastic sheet is included for the roof, but in the past I've found that simply bending it on the model produces a dip in the centre, if a full set of internal ribs aren't fitted. 

However, if the roof is rolled back and forth in the rolling bars, it takes a pretty perfect curve, and is simple enough to glue in place with more Speedbond. 

I'm quite pleased with this trick, and will definitly be using it in the future.

Handles and droplights

 

Let's get back to the wooden coaches. 

Door and grab handles are nicely moulded, whitemetal fittings. A little fragile, but there are spares provided. There's very little flash too. A quick coat of brass colour paint and they are ready to be fitted into holes drilled in the sides. 

With the body painted, the droplights, which have been stained with a water-based wood stain, are fitted and the model glazed. A bit more plastic would have been appreciated here, but with care, and plenty of Deluxe Speedbond, all goes in nicely. 

Take a seat

 

Inside the coach, the seats are simple plywood items, but with nicely etched buttons in the "upholstery" which will look fine as you peer through the window. These aren't finscale models where some shape would be nice. We'll go for strength rather than finesse. 

Coachs should run without people, so I picked up a pile of the cheapest mouldings I coould find, from Modeltown. And before someone says you can get really cheap figures from China, you can, but I like the cartoony style of these, and they fit in with the other miniature people on the line. 

Looking through the windows, you can see faces, which is how we need things as the coach rushes past, hauled by a stream engine.

Taking steps

 

Detailing time. All the whitemetal steps and buffers are sparyed off the model - more rattle can with the bits stuck to a piece of wood with double-sided tape. 

Everything is fitted with superglue, and the handrail bent up and fixed the same way. Lovely clean castings, so this is a quick and easy job, but starts to bring the coach alive.

Wheels on

 

The running gear on these coaches is minimalistic, but it's simple and robust, just what you need in the garden. 

Bearing are fitted in the MDF sideframes, and I reamed them out a bit to give a touch of slop to help in less than perfect track. 

Other than that, glue one solebar in place, let it dry, then fit the other one, trapping the wheels in place. Check it rolls and if so, let the glue harden. 

One issue, there's no marks to show where the solebars go, so a bit of jiggery-pokery was requied to work out how far apart they should be, 55mm, and marking things out either side of a centre line.

Blue paint

 

The other area I was going to be responsible for was paint. While Dad is happy enough splashing a coat of cream inside with a brush, the exterior really wanted spraying. 

My choice was a Halfords rattle can. Can't remember the colour as all this was a couple of months ago, and we used it all up. 

Lessons learned on the first coach was that even after sanding sealing, the wood, and especially MDF, really soaks up the paint. The trick is to apply several coats over a couple of days, paying particular attention to the sides of the framing and insides of the windows. 

By letting the paint dry, it seems that this stops the material acting quite so sponge-like. Perhaps it dries in the pores, and each subsequent coat fills them up. Dunno, but if you don't, the edged all look rubbish compared to the flat panels. 

This was supposed to be an easy job...

Hinges

 

OK, I couldn't resist getting involved a little.

The framing is nice, but to my eye, the coach sides still looked a little flat. What they needed IMHO, was hinged standing out. 

The positions are etched into the wood, so all I had to do was cut short lengths of stripwood and glue them in place. Then the coach was ready for a dose of sanding sealer. 

You might wonder why I didn't put the bump stops on as well. I was tempted but they aren't that prominent, and I was busy...

16mm scale wooden coaches

 

My personal modelling has been very limited recently, but fortunatly, my Dad has been busy. We felt we needed some rolling stock to run behind the Peckett, and other steam locos, and while there's a lot of 45mm stock on the shelf, it's mostly LGB Toy Train, or Playmobile. Fine when running with plastic locos, but it just doesn't seem right to couple them to real steam. 

Anyway, the couplings are wrong. 

Luckily, he had three IP Engineer freelance short coach kits to hand and fancied having a go. The first was built as a test, worked out well, so he moved on to the others, which is what we'll be writing up here. 

The models are standard IP style laser-cut MDF and plywood. To get to the stage shown above, you make up an MDF box, and glad it with ply framing. I'm told, everything fitted well, with just a little care required to line things up properly. PVA was the glue of choice, and many clamps were used as well. 

The results are nice and solid, ideal for haulage with a steam engine.