Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Atlantic 3279]

The A2/3 cab now sits in a tub of "pink blancmange" (RTV silicone rubber) forming one half of the necessary mould.

Meanwhile, this is how I've chosen to do my clerestory sides for the Howlden-look coach.

Layer 1. This flimsy strip of 5 thou plastikard has no cut outs for the windows, as you see, but as I'm aiming to reproduce this roof in resin the blanked-off windows will be a necessity, easily open out in the more brittle resin copies. The curved-down ends were scribed directly from the central remnant of the Gresley roof on the guinea-pig coach. Although the lower image shows the flimsy strip offered up to the clerestory side, it is NOT glued in place, this will be done after both sides are fully prepared, trimmed and rock-hard after solvent evaporation.

Layer 2. 40thou (1mm thick) pieces. White square plastruct forming the straight top piece, set about half a mil down from the top edge of the 5 thou backing. The rest cut from 40 thou sheet. I'd already cut some 2mm wide strips of 40 thou at this stage, ready for forming the individual uprights between the clerestory windows, so I used a couple of pieces of this 2mm strip to get the correct gap between the top strips of 40 thou and the musch broader black lower strips.

At this stage it looked like this against the rest of the coach body, with the lower part of the roof absent:

A third layer of additions followed, two strips of white 30 thou were added to the lower part of the side, about 0.5 mm to 0.75 below window level, ready to serve as a straight ledge on wich the inboard edge of the lower roof pieces can sit. Along the top edge I added some 1.5mm x 0.35mm (60 thou x 15 thou) microstrip to produce the overhang of the roof edge over the side.

With the lower roof still out of the way the clerestory side fits up like this:

And with the "Kent" style roof pieces also in place we have roughly this:

Just trimming, gap filling, and the other side to sort out now......

[LNER4479]

Great work and fascinating stuff

[drmditch]

Very impressive roofing technique. I may have to copy this - if you don't mind!

[Atlantic 3279]

Of course you may. No copyright on ideas, surely?

[Atlantic 3279]

For the time being at any rate, my progress with the Howldenisation of the Hornby coach is a source of joy, almost beyond measure (I say, steady on, that man).

For a start, over the weekend I spotted a picture of GN or EC clerestory brake-end vehicle with the later "standard" arrangement of only the brake portion built to a narrower width, as opposed to the (to me) seemingly much more common Howlden/Ivatt practice of making the whole of the coach very narrow to allow for heavy timber duckets. This makes it much more realistically possible for me to contemplate a clerestory conversion of the Hornby brake compo too, as I won't have to either cut EVERYTHING down in width, including new roof and underframe, or accept a coach that is ten feet wide over its duckets....
I can use a "standard" moulded copy of my new roof, inset the brake sides of the coach, and graft on some new duckets.

To my further satisfaction, that clerestory side looks viable this morning, the solvent having evaporated overnight whilst the part was held flat on the workbench. Considering that some aspects of my design so far have evolved without detailed reference back to the ends and the interior parts of the coach, I appear to have got away with it quite nicely too.

As this image shows, although the end is not pushed up fully into position here, once the overhang of my new roof sides is trimmed back there will be only a touch of filling and rubbing down invloved in tidying up the very ends of the visible roof area. When the ends are modified to portray panelled-in former end-windows all should be fairly convincing. I should also be able to cast some extra end copies fairly easily, reducing the number of modifications I have to do and generating some extra ends, which will be handy as I am short of ends at present.

Along the corridor side of the coach there is space to allow the substantial lower edge (or beam) of my clerestory side to drop down alongside the corridor partition, without intruding into the space normally seen through the coach windows.

A few quick snips with side-cutters will be needed to relieve the corners of the inter-compartment walls to clear the beam under the new roof on that side of the coach, but that's no hardship.

There will be a bit o' trouble wi' t' glazing, as the top of the moulded clip-in unit will foul the roof beams. I don't however consider it any problem to split the sides of the glazing unit from the top pieces and simply stick the glazing to the inner faces of the coach sides, after final painting.

[LNER4479]

For the time being at any rate, my progress with the Howldenisation of the Hornby coach is a source of joy, almost beyond measure (I say, steady on, that man).

When modelling gets to this state (joy beyond measure), is there anything better? I can tell you're excited as your post contains numerous dyslexic typos - a sure sign of excitability!

The thing that strikes me, as I pore endlessly over pictures of 1930's LNER coach cavalcades, is the equally endless variety of coaching stock in all but the most prestigious of trains. So all power to your elbow for finding new ways of generating this variety. Are you going to return to the GNR-isation of the bodyside windows at some point?

[Atlantic 3279]

Window alterations will certainly follow, but I felt that the roof work was likely to require the heaviest manipulation of the coach, potentially a death sentence for slim new glazing bars bonded in only at their ends.

Have I corrected all of those typos now, by the way?

[MikeTrice]

I am just enjoying reading about it. Brilliant concept.

[Atlantic 3279]

I'm certainly chuffed to know that I've managed to get Mike Trice interested in the method! That goes some way to compensate for the fact that I allowed myself to become such a busy-bee this evening that I forgot to try to snipe an item on eBay, which (naturally) I now find sold for a much more reasonable price than any similar ones I've seen for some time. Kicking myself? I should say so.
Anyway, here's some more validation of the roof re-modelling method. One side is now complete, the new side for the other face of the clerestory is hardening on the bench. Having provided a good strong straight edge onto which to bond the inner edge of the new side-piece for the roof, I "ummed and arred" for a while about the best way to keep the outer edge straight, level, and snug against the top of the side. I rather liked the idea of keeping the roof shell thin, in order to look clever and to minimise the need for resin if casting copies. Thus I almost persuaded myself to try to construct a fine and rather fiddly rebate joint at the edge of the roof, to provide both a good bonding area and a means of keeping roof edge and coach side straight. In the end I doubted my ability to get the desired result using my low-tech methods, at the same time realising that any rebated fit within the coach side would further interfere with the fit of the glazing, so I went for an easier option. I fitted a flat 30 thou thick ceiling between that deep beam under the clerestory side and the top of the coach side proper (resting atop the latter). With greaseproof paper between the ceiling and the coach side to prevent unintended adhesion I was then able to stick the whole of the roof edge down firmly along a dead-straight line. I'm glad now that I didn't trim the depth of that beam to clear the internals of the coach!
There is no ceiling under the clerestory itself of course, so acess is available for cleaning out the film of flash that will fill the windows, painting as required and for glazing. Light will also be admitted into the middle of the coach. The lazy approach instead would be to leave the flash across the clerestory windows and simply paint them grey to simulate dirty windows and/or the etched/frosted glass that seems to have been used.

With the roof end now trimmed so that an end can be slid fully into place, the discrepancy in top profiles is as minimal as I hoped. As recently highlighted elsewhere within this modelling forum, most of the discrepancy actually comes from the commercial roof end not being rounded enough at the eaves (i.e not a full enough semi-ellipse) yet these old Hornby ends are probably not as deficient as some other plastic LNER roof mouldings in that respect.

The revised A2/3 cab is now out of the pink blancmange too. Capture of detail in the mould looks good, including backhead details, window apertures and all of that improved roof detail right down to all of the boltheads.

[LNER4479]

Have I corrected all of those typos now, by the way?

Still a ‘barke’ (brake), ‘invloved’ (involved), ‘sustantial’ (substantial) and ‘galzing’ (glazing) in there as I can see. Su stantial - is she in any way related to the lead singer of the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band?

Don't mind me 3279 - keep up the good (amazing) work. It's fascinating stuff

[Dave]

Oh how I now regret giving my early Gresleys to my grandson now, why oh why did you not start this 3 months ago, or why did I not think of this....bugger !

The Bonzo's, what a brilliant band, I remember them first on Blue Peter in the late 60's then every week in "Do not adjust Your set", with Mrs Black and her magic handbag and the taps....great.

[IAK]

That coach = WOW!!!
Seriously clever and effective

[earlswood nob]

G'day all
A great treatment of the clerestory.
Earlswood nob

[Atlantic 3279]

I can't believe that I still missed three typos in that previous post, even after deliberately proof-reading it TWICE after the original allegation of errors. Is it possible to acquire dyslexia I wonder??? It all comes out of my brain in the right order I'm sure, it's the fingers and this damned keyboard that mess it all up.

Dave: Blame 4479 for my failure to start these coaches sooner (and everything else you can think of that needs blaming on somebody) . If he had roped me into the scheme to exhibit Grantham at Barrow Hill a bit earlier in the year, I might have been inspired to do this job sooner. He can then pass the blame on to his wife.....

Here's that arrangement of side ceiling and open clerestory space that I tried to explain above.

The eventual plan for duplication of the roof is to saw straight across the inner ends at side gutter level and then cast all that lies above that level. Fitting to further coach bodies should then involve nothing more than simple decapitation of the further new body at exactly the same level, stick on the new roof moulding, fit the ends and blend in the top end joint.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Fascinating stuff, where do you get these idea's from !!!!!!

manna