Mike, there's nothing revolutionary here, just something I'm sure others have done before. As regular readers will know, I like my coaches to come apart at the solebar. Mainly because it's easier to hide the join and I'm never going to be good enough to get the invisible roofline seam which Larry Goddard can knock out in half an hour. Mike's coaches, for those who haven't built one, are a single piece body and underframe and a roof which is stuck or clipped on. I built the D50 I made in that way and the roof join is still the thing I'm most unhappy with about it. So this one will return to my usual approach.
First of all I snapped the ends off the floorpan, tidied the break up and stuck them and the sides together to form the basic bodyshell. Then I stuck captive nuts to two pieces of brass strip and soldered them into the ends of the shell.
The floorpan sides fold up and these now need to be shortened by the width of the brass strip at each end.
I've already made the holes above, but use the nuts to guide you then drill out the holes to allow a certain amount of clearance. Number sides and ends so you remember which is which although unless you're far more fastidious and accurate than me, they'll only fit one way round from here on in.
Once you've done this, you can fasten the two parts together. You did make sure to leave room for the solebars, didn't you?
After a short delay while some fool worked out he'd put the presstuds on the wrong way round, we had a rolling body, just three evenings (and one of those cut very short) after starting. It's nice to feel you're getting somewhere.
[imghttps://s20.postimg.cc/htov9387h/rolling.jpg[/img]
