Because I'd built planked roofs before (for my WCR vans and bogie
brake), I was comfortable with the process and so had at it.
I cut planks of 1/8" ply sized to be a tight fit in the roof
openings. I then cut rectangles of ply that were a tight fit
between the sides and of a height that would put the top of the roof
base level with the top of the coach sides. I hope that makes
sense once you look at the photo below. Curved roof formers
were next. I arbitrarity decided that eight formers per roof
should be sufficient and cut 16 oversized rectangles from 3/16" sheet I
had to hand. I labelled the ends of each coach I and II and
because I didn't trust myself to have formed both ends with the
identical roof line, I traced the curve of end I onto four formers and
II onto another four, labelled them, and cut the curve with the bandsaw
and finished with the disc sander. To make double certain I'd
gotten it right, I checked the formers against the ends and touched up
the shape as needed. Then I glued them onto the subroof beginning
with the outermost pair, making sure they lined up as perfectly as
possible with the ends. Once those were dry (and I'd separated
the roof from the coach--a bit of oozing glue had tacked the roof to
the ends!) I added the rest of the formers, eyeballing the spacing,
using a square to keep them at right angles and a long straight edge
from end to end to keep them all aligned. Once again I was
surprised at how tidy they looked when everything was dry.
For the roofs I'd hoped to bend a sheet of 1/16" ply and glue it to the
formers. It became immediately obvious that the edges were going
to be hopeless wavy so I wisely bailed on this approach and went back
to what I should have done in the first place. I ripped the
sheets into planks roughly 3/8" wide and glued them down individually
with PVA. I needed to cut a few additional strips to allow for
the loss of width due to the sawblade's kerf. I marked out the
centerline on each end and glued a pair of planks on either side of the
marks and proceeded outward, putting a bead of glue along the inside
edge of each plank as well as on the formers so that the planks would
be glued to each other as well as to the roof. I lined up the
planks
on one end to have about 1.5mm of overhang. After all the planks
were down and dried, I trimmed the excess
overhang on the sides and other end with the band saw.
I next turned my attention to the interior of the coaches. For a
moment I considered planking the floors and ends, but being still
gunshy following the matchboarding, I opted against it. However I
thought the bare plywood needed some sort of treatment and decided to
stain the wood a slightly darker color. A trip to the local
hardware store yielded several potential shades and after looking at
test swatches I selected a dark oak stain and walnut for the
benches. Applying the stain was a fairly simple matter of
brushing it on and wiping off the excess. Remember to leave oily
rags hanging or lying flat and allow them to air dry before
discarding! Spontaneous combustion can and
does happen.. Below is the before and after...
Benches are needed unless you expect your passengers to stand, in this
case simple slatted benches running the length of the coach on each
side. A basic bench was built from 1/8" bass wood; the back was
measured to come up to the widows, the seat to be roughly two feet off
the floor and just under two feet deep. I put another strip of
bass wood behind the bench back to serve as spacer and support for the
glazing (.100" acrylic sheet sold as greenhouse glazing). I found
some cocktail picks in my grocery store that had nice turned ends and
used these for the bench legs. I drilled holes through the seat,
clamped the bench to a couple of squares to hold them vertical, and
glued the legs into place and allowed them to dry. When the basic
structure was
assembled I glued on strips of 1/32" deep bass wood (again ripped on my
table saw because I didn't have stock strip of the right width on the
shelves) to simulate the
slats and sanded the top and front edges round-ish.
When this had dried, I applied the walnut stain. The glue had
oozed in places and kept the stain from soaking in between the
slats. I applied several coats of spray varnish then ran a dilute
coat of black acrylic paint between the slats to cover the light spots
and accentuate the slatting. It was then just a matter of gluing
them into place. Below is the final result, photo taken outdoors
because I wanted to see how it all looked in natural light.
Back to the roofs. Next step was to cover the planks with
simulated canvas,. I coated the roof with dilute PVA and then
stuck down strips of toilet tissue to cover the top and edges.
When that dries hard, it's a crinkly mess. Not to
worry. I saturated it with sanding sealer--look for the
alcohol based variety which is much more friendly to your lungs and
central nervous system than the toluene based variety! When that
dried, I sanded it smooth-ish with 400 grit wet and dry, then applied
another coat of sealer and sanded again. I then painted it with
Polly Scale Engine Black--actually a very dark grey.
You can go as crazy as you want with the sanding. I preferred to
leave some of the texture, and photos I've seen of the roofs of
coaching stock support this. If you want your roofs nice and
smooth, go right ahead! Notice that at some point along the way
the vertical supports fell off
the roofs. I found that the roofs fit very snugly without them,
so
I left them off.
Next step was to prep the bodies for painting. I pulled out the
sanding sealer again and gave the bodies the coat/sand/repeat
treatment, with special attention to the balsa vent panels, which
soaked up a stunning amount of sealer. *
ADDENDUM 12/22: I then applied a
thin coat of Krylon grey primer from the can. If you're doing
this as I did--in November in an unheated garage with the doors open
for ventilation--make sure the paint and coaches are warm. I put
the spray can in a container of warm water for about five minutes and
shook it thoroughly several times to make sure it was evenly
warmed. The primer coat will highlight any blemishes in the
finish and give you the chance to do a bit more sanding as
needed.* Finding the right shade of
CIE green was a struggle. I found something labelled "Hunt Club"
green at the hardware store which I thought was a bit too blue. I
found a jar of Floquil "Dark Green" at the local hobby shop which I
liked, so I applied it with my air brush. Results below.
I happily e-mailed photos to several friends who unanimously tried to
persuade me to go with the other color. So I did, and guess what,
they were right.
Oh, well. After that I sprayed the ends a flat black. Back
to the basement for roof details. Lamp top
castings are Brandbright L&B lamp tops glued down with five minute
epoxy. The rain strips are 1/32" x 1/16" strip. They were
glued on with a dab of crazy glue in the middle. When that had
set, both corners were crazy glued down. When that set, a bead of
llightly-diluted PVA was run along the top of the strip and allowed to
soak into the gap, any excess being wiped off. It was at this
point I realized I should have done this before painting the roofs
because I had to paint the roofs again. Oh well. Twenty
minutes with a brush and all was made good.
This is where they stand as of 12/16/06. My only regret to
this point is using balsa for the vents. Despite my best efforts
the grain still shows through, but not so badly that I'm tempted to do
anything about it; I'll just live and learn and do it differently if
there is a next time. In retrospect, this may have been one of
those jobs where it would have been worthwhile to do the vents out of
four overlapping layers of very thin styrene or 1/32" ply.
What's next: end steps and grabs, roof top
grabs and electrical conduit for the roof lamps. I've also
decided that I want to plank the floor and interior ends given how
visible the interior turns out to be. Then it's on to the
underrcarriage and bogies. Watch these pages for further
developments!
12/23: Several friends have
collaborated to do up some beautiful artwork for GSR era waterslide
transfers (decals to us in the USA). After all of that, I'm now
considering whether I should paint the coaches in maroon GSR
livery!
