Old Ambroid/NESL coach kit

[deemery]

Well, I went back and looked closely again at the coach and the NESL stock.  The number of windows on my model matches what's on James' model, so from that I conclude the sides are the same length.  I bought the roof pieces from NESL, I presumed they would be correct, since NESL updated the old Ambroid kit. 

Bob Parrish suggests cutting 2 NESL roofs and splicing them together to the correct length.  I do have 2 roofs, so that's feasible from a parts perspective.  And I looked closely at the roofs to figure out how to glue them together.  The result will be a bit delicate, but doable.  

The clerestory height seems to be about the same between the two roofs (LaBelle and NESL).  The LaBelle roof piece is thicker on top of the clerestory, so that adds probably 1/32 of height.  I didn't measure total roof height, though.

dave

[jbvb]

I have several unbuilt kits, plus the built one and another in (stalled) progress.  I'll measure the length of the open part of my kits roofs tonight or tomorrow and report. It's possible your kit wasn't slotted wide enough. And it looks like there's enough wood to make a couple of razor saw cuts and drill a hole crosswise to extend it a bit.

[deemery]

I have several unbuilt kits, plus the built one and another in (stalled) progress.  I'll measure the length of the open part of my kits roofs tonight or tomorrow and report. It's possible your kit wasn't slotted wide enough. And it looks like there's enough wood to make a couple of razor saw cuts and drill a hole crosswise to extend it a bit.

I thought about that, too    The wood is solid where there's not the clerestory opening.  It seems they used a router to shape these.  One bit digs out the roof, and then another opens up the clerestory windows. 

Here's the 2 roofs, LaBelle on the bottom:

You can see on both roofs how the routed-out roof aligns with the end of the clerestory window opening. 

At this point, I'm getting frustrated with the build.  I might just put it aside and start something else.  Unfortunately, I have a lot of almost-finished projects.  I could get back to the Lamson build, or maybe move back to the other corner of the layout where I started on a LM3 Wichendon Machine Shop kit (with machine tools, etc.)

add  I sent a question to NESL asking about those roof kits.  The laser-cut insert for the clerestory 'slot' is the correct length to match the car.

more...  I swapped emails with NESL today.  They said "the clerestory opening is not an accident, it's really designed for scratchbuilders."  But she said she'd check with the shop to see if they could do a custom roof that's open a bit more.  No promises...  

dave

[deemery]

Here's the special order roof from NESL, where the clerestory is open the full length of the car:

I should get back to this project tomorrow...  My plan is to practice shaping the roof on the solid stock first.  

dave

[jbvb]

That looks a lot like the roofs in my 3 kits from "Rails & Structures": The milled opening reaches the end walls of the passenger compartment.  A "Northeastern/Ambroid" kit came with a solid roof that's about 1/8" shorter than the R&S version.  The B&M Bulletin 1981 plan shows the roof extending to about the outer wall of the  step well.  The Ambroid kit's roof won't do that. I'd rounded the ends so I'll probably have to splice it in the middle. It's been ~25 years since that stalled and I wasn't documenting progress online then, but that was probably why I put the kit aside.

[KentuckySouthern]

 

[deemery]

Well, after a week away, I'm back on this.  A couple of small accomplishments.  On the Ambroid coach, I added a piece of 1/32 x 1/16 which fills the notch in the roof against the car sides.  There's a small drip edge on the roof.  I'm not sure if I'll paint this strip Roof color or Trim color.

The other thing was I added the Kadee underset (small shank) couplers using the Kadee Talgo adapters.  Height is correct, and a test-swing of these two cars on the 15" radius test track (to the right) worked fine.

Of course, the hard part remains, shaping the roof ends.    I'm training on one of the solid roof pieces.  First I shaped the lower parts of the roof.  Then I did the upper part.  I'm using the LaBelle roof shaping templates to capture the shape.  Then I cut, again using the LaBelle templates, a new trim piece with the profile of the roof.  I glued those into position, and will sand them tomorrow once the glue is dry.  If this works correctly, I should get a roof piece that follows the trim line, but I might have to do some filling and fiddling.


dave

[robert goslin]

Looking good Dave.
Hope the roofing comes out OK.  I know you've been frustrated with this kit, but I'm sure it'll all come together nicely.  Just time & patience with the shaping.

[deemery]

My practice roof:

I think the challenge here is to get the arc for the trim pieces correct.  Then glue them into position and sand the assembly.  But I'm pretty happy how this came out.  (I blew some sawdust off after I took the photo, so it looks a little better than here.)

add  I'm putting this on the shelf for a couple weeks.  There's a custom part I need, and the source is going on vacation. 

dave

[PABOB]

Dave. Your modeling skills are excellent sir. Your coach is really beautiful. Will be following. Bob.

[deemery]

Rounding the roof wasn't quite as difficult as I expected.  The LaBelle template helped.  

dave

[Michael Hohn]

Looks good, Dave.

[Philip]

Nailed it Dave!

[ACL1504]

Dave,

Well done on the curvature of the roof.

Tom 

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave, nice work on the roof ends. Have fun, mike