Old Ambroid/NESL coach kit

[GeorgeD]

Nice upgrade of the car, Dave.

George

[jbvb]

The internet no longer seems to know much about the Railway Mail Service, so I can't say exactly when they standardized RPO apartment plans. But your MDC car seems to date from before they were standardized. Mail By Rail (Long & Dennis, 1951) hints it might have been 1911.

[deemery]

The internet no longer seems to know much about the Railway Mail Service, so I can't say exactly when they standardized RPO apartment plans. But your MDC car seems to date from before they were standardized. Mail By Rail (Long & Dennis, 1951) hints it might have been 1911.

That'll fit well into my 1890s era....

dave

[Michael Hohn]

Dave,

That looks really good.  It shows what can be done with an inexpensive model with a few well-thought-out upgrades.

Is body mounting the couplers out of the question?

Mike

[deemery]

Dave,

That looks really good.  It shows what can be done with an inexpensive model with a few well-thought-out upgrades.

Is body mounting the couplers out of the question?

Mike

The plan is to get the Ambroid kit done, at least far enough to test the couplers (that means permanently affixing the end platforms.)  Then I'll use that kit and the Model Power kit to experiment with couplers on sharp curves.

dave

[deemery]

I added the mailbag catchers

Underneath you can see the photo and some calculations on locating the hook.  

dave

[Philip]

A great detail. I just watched a documentary about RPO's. My dad worked on one after WWII with Monon.

[deemery]

Today's the Big Day, where I glue the body to the undercarriage.  First I have to attach the end platform castings.  Earlier, I positioned them, drilled and tapped the metal, and then drilled and tapped the wood.  Then I coated the wood threads with CA, and after that dried thoroughly, I retapped.  (That's a trick I learned from Bob McGlone, who does that on resin kits to reinforce the threads.)  I dug some shorter 2-56 screws, attached the platforms, and checked the fit. 

I built a rack/jig to hold the undercarriage, with 1/2" square underneath the bolsters, the width of the car. 

You can see some space between the casting and the car ends.  I think I'll fill that with some stripwood and paint it, so that'll disappear.  A look from below:

I put a thin coat of epoxy on the wood tongues that the castings fit under, making sure to keep the epoxy away from the screw holes.  Then I clamped the two castings while the epoxy cured. 


While the epoxy is curing, I added the LaBelle oval castings to the 'saloon' windows:


It's important to put the clamps this way to balance them out.


Test fit of the roof.  It'll need some trimming as well as shaping the roof outline.

But the good news is that the coupler height is correct (that's my coupler test track, the Kadee gauge is off-screen to the right.)

dave

[Jerry]

Looks great Dave.  Wonderful build!

Jerry

[GeorgeD]

I like the CA on wood threads tip.

George

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave,

The body work looks great. IT is a beautiful coach. Thanks for the tip on wood threads. Good luck on the roof.

Have fun,
mike

[deemery]

I have two roof options.  One is the NESL hollowed out replacement roof.  The problem with this is the clerestory opening isn't long enough, and it would be a lot of work to mill out the extension on either end:

This is a bit surprising, since the insert pieces that provide the clerestory windows are the correct length.

The other option is a LaBelle roof.  The problem here is the end radius doesn't match the car's end:


I think it would be easier to deal with the mismatched ends.  Either way, it's a fair amount more work before I get down to actually rounding the ends.

Thoughts?

dave

[Jerry]

Dave I would go with the clerestory.  When you look at it seems that it's long enough why does it need to have the opening over the round window??

Jerry

[deemery]

Dave I would go with the clerestory.  When you look at it seems that it's long enough why does it need to have the opening over the round window??

Jerry

Jerry, I thought about that.  The problem is the roof has no "slack" on the ends.  If I don't have it -centered- on the body, the roof won't cover one of the platforms.  If you look closely at my first photo, the end of the wood roof piece on the left is aligned with the car platforms on the left.  There's not much overhang on the right, and worse the right side clerestory opening still won't cover the window underneath. 

PLUS don't forget this car is mirror-symmetric.  The 'saloon' is located on the right side of the car on the other side.  So if I align it on this side, it'll be wrong on the other side of the carl.

dave

[jbvb]

Here's how my kit build came out. I might be able to find the kit box this one came from, to confirm who manufactured it.



Without putting the cars side-by-side, I can't say why the ends of the open area in my kit's roof are more or less over the end walls of the car body, and yours. Did you lengthen the car sides?  Putting them side-by-side isn't out of the question later this week.

The LaBelle roof you show has a rather high clerestory. to my eye.