Old Ambroid/NESL coach kit

[deemery]

Well, after talking to James Van Bokkelen and Bob Parrish, and then looking carefully at the Northeastern Scale Lumber website, I've discovered there are -2- different versions of the kit based on the roof.  The older Ambroid version has a solid milled roof piece.  The newer NESL kits, and the NESL website, have a new roof piece that has the cut-out for the clerestory lights.  One piece is for an 80' car, and the other piece is for my 67' car.  I have ordered 2 of those 67' pieces (and some other stuff) from NESL.  With luck, it'll arrive Saturday, more likely Monday.  

So now I'm waiting on 2 separate orders, one from LaBelle with my trucks and undercarriage pieces, and the other from NESL with the new roofs.   But I did make a little progress today, touching up some paint, and trimming the undercarriage to fit the ends and platform casting.  

dave

[Michael Hohn]

Dave,

Which trucks did you order?  Have you made a final decision on the distance the bolsters should be from the end?

Here's what I did with my LaBelle combine:



Mike

[deemery]

My box of goodies from LaBelle arrived today, including the 602 trucks.  These are 8' wheelbase, but don't have the obvious brake shoe outriggers that the Central Valley trucks have.  Looks like you have CV trucks on your car.  It appears that the bolster centerline is 8' from the end of the car ends (not the platform ends, and not the end of the undercarriage.)  A quick test-swing shows the 602 trucks should swing just fine with the bolsters at that position.  So tomorrow I'll work on the undercarriage, including the center sill, the bolsters, truck mounting holes in the bolsters & needle beams.   I found some Cal-Scale passenger brake parts (BC-220) and ordered those today.  

My NESL order should arrive soon.  It depends on how efficient UPS is (they're usually pretty good for shipments close to me.)  

Also today I glued the quarter round pieces to the car sides.   

dave

[deemery]

Here's the bolster check:

The bolster location is as specified by the kit.  The trucks I'm using is on the left.  That's an old Central Valley truck on the right.  It's the same wheelbase, but wider because of the brake shoes.  That will rub against the end platform steps.

You can also see my replacement center sill, 2 strips of styrene channel glued to 1/8" square solid brass.  This will provide both some weight and rigidity, pulling the slight warp out of the underframe.   I epoxied that part to the undercarriage, the glue is curing while I eat lunch and check the forums.  You can see the wood part that came with the kit at the top of the photo.  My substitute isn't quite as wide, but I don't think that will be noticeable.

Next step:  position the queenposts and work on the truss rods. 

dave

[GeorgeD]

No way that narrower sill will be noticeable, and it will allow for more swing on the trucks for smaller radiuses. 

George 

[deemery]

Checking clearances, etc.  I drew the truss rod shape, using the kit's queenpost casting height, and the apparently standard spacing of 11' (per several Car Builder Dictionaries I consulted.)  Then I experimented with truss rod length to make sure the trucks clear the truss rods:


Also a coupler check.  Looks like I'll need Overset couplers.  I ordered a package of each shank length.  Those won't hold me up, I have other stuff to work on while waiting for them to come in.  I do need to check coupler swing, though.


add:  Well bleep!   When I started to lay out the queenpost and truss rod hole locations, I discovered the bolsters were not equally spaced from the ends.  So I popped off the wood bolsters, and then cut down the center sill on one side so the bolsters were correctly spaced.  (I'd rather add than subtract that distance from the end.)  Then I glued the bolsters back into position.  I'll go back and re-measure the positions for the queenposts and truss rods tomorrow.   I'm still pondering how to do truss rods.  My default method is monofilament, but for this kit maybe bending from metal would be a better choice.  (The kit includes metal rods for the truss rods.)

dave

[Philip]

I hate metal truss rods unless they are pre-bent. I finally used an included monofilament on a Mount Blue car and it was so easy to tighten using CA as a bond.

Nice work Dave!

[jbvb]

Looks good. I've only done one car with truss rods, my own NESL open platform kit, so I have nothing to say about truss rods.

[deemery]

Somewhat frustrating day today...  I trimmed the car sides, getting the scribed siding even with the subwalls.  But I got some chipping along the bottom of the scribed siding, despite using a brand new knife blade.  Not terrible, but frustrating.  I primed the trucks, and decided to try 'light red' as a truck color.  But that paint would not go through the airbrush.  I ended up doing a deep clean of the airbrush, and by the time I got that done, my patience was done for the day....

dave

[ACL1504]

Dave,

 You are doing a nice job on the kit and great job solving the issues along the way.

Tom

[deemery]

NESL vs LaBelle roofs, LaBelle on the left:


Looks like I could get away with the LaBelle roof (and in particular, paying for their roof-rounding service):


Add:  After another hour or two with the airbrush, I finally decided the problem was the paint, not the brush.  Apparently this bottle of Vallejo ModelAir has started to 'cure' so that there are chunks, instead of their usual finely ground pigments.  Since I use a cheap airbrush and we know airbrushes can be finicky, my first inclination was the blame the airbrush.

dave

[robert goslin]

Just catching up here Dave.  Great build, even if frustrating.
But good to see you are working through the various issues and coming up with solutions.
Those roofs sure are chunky. Wouldn't be that way on a modern kit.

[Michael Hohn]

Boy, do I hate airbrush problems.  I feel your pain, Dave.

[jbvb]

How long had you have the Model Air?  I haven't bought any new acrylic paints in years; every bottle I'd bought of whatever brand was trendy about a decade ago curdled within a year.  But I may have to if nobody manages to bring Scalecoat back.

[deemery]

Generally, I've had good luck with Vallejo paints for shelf life.  I don't know how old this particular bottle was.

dave