Old Ambroid/NESL coach kit

[deemery]

Well, the side pieces have been painted (at least a first coat), they're drying under weights now.  So I moved onto the undercarriage.  A couple observations/issues:

1.  Where to put the bolster?  The kit has the bolster about 6' from the car ends (not the end of the steps, but the end of the body.)  The rule-of-thumb is "car wheelbase from car end", which should be about 8'.  

2.  The floor pieces have a bit of a bow to them.  But somewhere I have 1/8" square brass rod, which I can put into the channel of the center sill.  That should pull the bow out of the floor when glued into position.

3.  I'm looking at Kadee 451 pivoting couplers for this car.  Unfortunately, as designed, the pivot is at an inconvenient location.

But I'm thinking I could cut about scale 2' from the end (left side) of the 451 box, and move its pivot point to the left a bit.  I do have to work out coupler height, but that will depend on locating the bolsters and trucks (which are on order from LaBelle.)

dave

[deemery]

Side and fascia started:

I might redo the oval cut-out on the yellow car side.

Now the ends had me puzzled.  I measured and then drew a template.  I turned that into a jig (I'll show that tomorrow) for assembly:


dave

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave, the sides and ends look terrific in paint.  Nice work.  I'm looking forward to the assembly photos.  Have fun, mike

[deemery]

Here's the jig to assemble the ends:

The door piece is actually a bit short, so I ended up gluing 1/16x3/32 pieces above the door on the inside, then I filed that down to align with the curve of the roofline.

I also cut a template for the oval window from styrene.  I'll use this to recut and shape the oval pieces on the car sides.

dave

[jbvb]

Looks good. But I shouldn't get distracted and work on my own incomplete car.  Promises to keep re: proofreading and next Friday's HUB Division Railfun presentation.

[Philip]

Nice work!

[deemery]

Well, I wasn't happy with the ovals in the wood scribed siding.  So I cut some new pieces from1/16 spacing x 1/32 thick scribed siding.  I glued the templates to that piece of wood, and tried to cut better ovals.  That was hard, and then the wood split.  

So I dug into my stock of Evergreen.  Turns out the Evergreen O Scale 2 1/4" x .030 thick car siding is almost a perfect match for the NESL 1/16 x 1/32 wood siding.  

I double-stick taped the template and started cutting.  i used a combination of X-Acto #11 and X-Acto Stencil knives.  Once I could see the indentations on the back side from carefully following the template, I punched the oval out, and then smoothed it with a round file.  Finally, I lined the new siding piece on the subwall, and sanded top and bottom until it was aligned correctly.

Now I need to prime and paint these pieces to match the wood siding underneath.  I hope this is the hardest part of the build (but we'll see how hard it is to shape the wood ends...)

dave

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave,

Congratulations on the Evergreen find.  The plastic oval looks just right and probably better than wood.

Have fun,
mike

[deemery]

Progress on two fronts.  First, I redid the oval scribed siding pieces in styrene:

Then I airbrushed them the yellow siding color.  That came out a little too bright yellow, so after consultation with the "artist-in-residence", I applied a very diluted wash of neutral grey.  

That's a much better match.

I also worked on the couplers.  I'm using the Kadee extended swing couplers.  I tried two ways.  First, i cut back the coupler box where swings behind the cast-on coupler pocket.  The problem is that cuts off too much the coupler centering mechanisms (either the whiskers or the traditional Kadee bronze box spring.)  So then I decided to file open the coupler pocket more.  I suspect I'll need to open this even more than it is now, but my needle file set is old and worn out, so I ordered both regular and diamond replacements.


Until the trucks come, I can't really set the bolsters and determine the proper coupler height (offset or regular shanks).  The photo shows the Kadee long shank couplers, I think I can get away with shorter shanks.  

Now someone might ask, "Why not move the coupler box back towards the center of the car?"  I thought about that, the problem would be that positions the coupler mounting point at the edge of the casting.  Better to have a strong mounting point and a thinner/reworked coupler box, I think...

dave

[jbvb]

Would it be useful to try my Ambroid coach on your track and turnouts?

[deemery]

Would it be useful to try my Ambroid coach on your track and turnouts?

Sure!  I strongly suspect it won't work on the pony truss, but that's OK.  That's not on the main line.  It would help me figure out how much pivot I need in the couplers

add:  Once my trucks arrive, I can do my undercarriage and check coupler height, motion, clearance, etc

dave

[deemery]

Now the sides are really taking shape...


I need to add the quarter-round at either end, and the sides will be done.  

This car had a steel central sill.  That piece of wood in the kit is pretty chewed up, and I want to put a piece of 1/8 square brass.  So I checked my Evergreen stock.  I have 5/64 channel, which I can glue on either side of the 1/8 brass, to make a central sill.  But first I need to locate the bolsters (so I can cut the sill to fit between them), and that depends on getting and measuring the trucks (which should be arriving any day now.)

dave

[jbvb]

I seem to recall something in in the Car Builders Cyclopedia about the kits that converted wood passenger cars to Steel UnderFrame (SUF in B&M rosters).  But I don't find it in an on-line index to Train Shed Cyclopedia.  Maybe I'm thinking of Railway Prototype Cyclopedia.

Either way, there's at least one preserved "wood/SUF" B&M car in NH, but access might be difficult till snow melt.

[Philip]

Now the sides are really taking shape...
dave

The plastic pieces blend right in. 

Philip

[Rick]

Dave, looks good to me.