Coach works(5) : Guards Doors and Seating ...

Marked and scribed the edge of the guard's door on the sides of two brake 3rd carriages.

Cut the seating pieces up and refitted them so there is a gap for the guards compartment in the brake 3rds

Seating pieces slightly altered to give a better arrangement for the 'all third' carriage.

Next job, make up the guards compartment to fit in.

 

Coach works(4) : Roof - Rain Strips ...

The order for the styrene strip for the roof rain strips arrived this week....

First one cut to length and fixed in place ....

tricky job, once I'd got the scheme I added the second one for this roof and did the other two roofs.

Now I have underframes, running gear, couplings and roofs done;  the big job remaining is to do the coach bodies.

Coach works(3) : Those Darn Couplings ...

A picture note to myself to remind me what to cut off the end of each of the coaches for coupling clearance. 

• Extra support for the steps (still robust enough without)
• The cross bar

A nice little box of 2mm nuts and bolts arrived in the post, so now I can redo the connections of the couplings to the bogey wheel sets... right hand side is the new look....

Down the garage for a run test....

Plenty of room for the couplings with the rest of the veranda 'end-bits' added...

very tight but just enough room for the couplings to traverse across to negotiate the Radius 1 curves on my layout...

Thats sorted out the couplings. 

Styrene strip has been ordered for the roof rain strips and for detailing the coach sides. 

I've also spent some time working out how to do the coach side layout for the Brake Composite coach; I'm going to be lazy and give the guard a larger door, (avoiding a smaller window and filling/sanding etc - keeping it simple).

Coach works(2) : Coupling Test and Storage

Getting started on aspects of the project ....

My large Bagnall 2-8-2 loco will be hauling the full train of bogey coaches so I replaced the coupling on it's tender with an Accucraft one

Coupling Test

The problem with the Accucraft couplings, using the fixing bolts they come with, is that the bar at the end of the underframe get in it way.....

simple cut and remove solves that one ....

testing on the layout curves, the coupling fittings catch just enough on the corner of the underframe - another 1 mm of travel would help.

I will get some replacement nuts and bolts; the top of the bolt will sit nearly flush with the top of the coupling and fix the problem round the curves - thats the theory 😀

Storage...

Having now unpacked and dismantled all four of the coaches, I needed some space to store all the bits..

a bit of re-arrangement of stuff in the game room freed up a filing cabinet drawer - which is alright for now 

at some point I will have to clear space in the garage to store the finished coaches.

Coach works(1) : Disassembly and Couplings

Disassembly

The coaches I've selected for my project are held together with screws, so a quarter of an hour with a screwdriver ..

Couplings

I found on the Web that someone else had done a conversion job using the same coaches and had adapted them to use Accucraft chopper couplings which most of my loco's and rolling stock use.

A small bit of surgery on a standard LGB coupling and the Accucraft coupling fits on top and lines up nicely with my rolling stock...

However some additional surgery is needed to the end of the coach underframe to allow proper movement of the coupling with the bogey as it negotiates the curves.

Coachworks - The Project

The madness of the 'yearly project' is upon me; this time to make some freelance bogey coaches.

Rather than buy some expensive kits (a bogey coach is £120+) I decided to do some conversions of commercially available rolling stock.  On Ebay I picked up 4 of the Newqida coaches at £30 each, like this one

In theory they go round the LGB radius 1 curves on my layout, but not quite so some tinkering required.

In terms of conversions I'm leaning towards making them into something like the W&L Pickering coaches which were made by Accucraft....

Something to aim for 😀 At least with four cheap coaches to hack about and modify if one goes wrong I won't be too bothered.