Connoisseurs NER/North Sunderland Railway Saloon Second or Third?

Paul,

Just been back to reread your 6-wheel brake build and having just finished the 4-wheeler learning all sorts of lessons while adding extra bits and pieces, can I suggest you amend Jim’s build sequence. If I were doing another one and at your build stage I would go for the following:

Fit the 4mm strips of card to lift the floor clear of the build tabs.
Fit the full floor from card. Since the floor is clear of any soldering it won’t get hurt.

I assume the coach has witness lines for the suspension units on the underside of the solebars (my 4-wheeler did),
you can pencil lines on the card floor across the coach and using the coupling hook slots mark a line along the coach.

All that a) will significantly aid fitting the suspension units without building a jig like Pete did and b) provides loads of references to check it’s all square.


You have fitted the lower step boards I wouldn’t they get in the way but that can’t be helped.
Add any under floor pipe if you are going to do so.
Make up, blacken, and fit the suspension units.
Add the dummy axle boxes and brake shoes.
Add the lower step boards.

These two steps could be reversed.

Finally, any brake yokes etc. you are adding.

Effectively build the underframe details from the inside out.
Oh one last thing that I am sure Pete and Toto would add – get your finger out.

Mossy

 

Paul,

Being a hone spun medic I diagnose that well know post retirement syndrome - dadhasplentyoffreetimehecandoitforyou.
My daughter has even infected our 2 year old grand-daughter with it grandad can fix ANYTHING, her mum can't fix anything.

Just part of life's rich tapestry I guess and I wholly agree work was definitely easier.

Mossy

 

Hi,

I need a critical appraisal please. The copper tape arrived yesterday 10m for £2.22 from China (how do they do it at that cost).

I have use all of an inch and added tie downs as per pic 2, what do you think?

Mossy

 

Paul,

Long shot as requested I will mock up some scrap wire and tape and give it a coot of primer later.
BTW it's dreadful stuff to work with.

Mossy

 

Paul,

you could be right at least a sticky label wont wrinkle like to copper tape, it's just so &*^%$ thin it's impossible to get a smooth finish.
I will add a paper label to he mock up.

Mossy

 

Keith, yep by the short and ...... and swinging us over their heads.

Paul,
I added a couple of sticky label 'retaining clips' to the test scrap before a quick spray with primer.
Pic is a bit brutal, but 2nd and 4th from the left are paper also it does clearly show the copper tape wrinkling.
I definitely prefer the paper to the copper strip, so other photo attached is of all 6 clips made from sticky label. They are 2mm x 5mm.
The leftmost clip needs adjusting, but, overall far better than the copper strip solution.

Mossy

 

Rob,

That would help cutting the foil to the right size, sadly the foil starts wrinkling as you pull off the backing strip and gets worse as you try to lay it over the pipework.
Just fiddling and playing this afternoon, sticky labels are definitely easier to handle and use. The next experiment I am going to try is bog standard 80 gsm computer paper.
The theory is pre-form it over the pipework dry then use tiny spots of superglue to fit it permanently. Which all sounds good, but the proof as always is in the eating.

Even if it doesn't work the sticky label process looks good, but what can I do with the now redundant 10m minus a bit of 5mm copper foil?

Mossy

 

Rob,

You know what it for what thickness would you consider appropriate?

Mossy

 

Cheers mate

Sticky label works ok, but how robust will it be.
80gsm paper with superglue is ok but the glue residue is difficult to clean.
80gsm paper stuck down with varnish - ok, but again how robust
So it looks like another trip to ebay for a 0.02 shim. At least cleaning solder is easy enough

Mossy

 

The .002 brass shim has been ordered, delivery expected Wednesday, so today I fished out the other two 4 wheelers which I built but never quite finished 20 years plus ago.
I knew they had fallen off a bench/shelf/something, and after surveying the damage I think I am going to strip everything below the solebar and rebuild them from there.
A few odd paint chips on the bodywork I hope to renovate without a full strip job.

In the mean time the roofs have been strip back to bare metal and will be rebuilt with full gas pipework. I made a start using my revised plan, i.e. pipework first followed by the feed stubs slightly over size, also engrave grooves in the underside of the lamp tops. Then solder everything together. The results are far better than I expected, it's almost worth thinking of redoing the dia 61 saloon. Photos are of the dia 58 Third and yes the lefthand feed stub was too long, only spotted looking at the photo, so it was replaced.



In the mean time I have a puzzle to figure out. Every diagram I have seen of NER coaches has the emergency brake gear at one end and the gas supply at the other.
Looking at the dia X Brake Third, the emergency gear is at the opposite end to the birdcage. Following the 'opposite ends' logic, that means the pipes work needs to over the top of the birdcage and back down to the main roof - that doesn't sound right some how. Anyone got any views on the subject.

Mossy