A lamp housing for a GVT coach.

 I was recently asked if I could turn a lamp housing for an N Brass Models Glyn Valley Tramway coach, in fact the same kit that I attempted some years ago. There's nothing supplied with the kit, and photos and information of this early coach are scarce. Will, who was building the kit, provided a drawing to work to based on some poor quality photos. Neither of us were happy with the result so Will revised his drawing. Again the results weren't quite right. At the third attempt we came up with something that we were happy with, and this is the result;

This was of course turned from brass on my trusty Unimat 3. The gently curved top was formed using a graver and my watchmaker's tool rest. To form the base to suit the roof curvature I first roughed out the bottom with a half-round Swiss file, then finished by drawing the base back and forth along a piece of wet & dry held on a roll of brown parcel tape, which was a rough match to the roof curve.

Here's another side-on view;

A simple enough job, the only complication was working out the size. It may or may not be accurate, so it's a case of if it looks right then it is right. Now all I need to do is send it to Will, and turn another for myself.

Paul.

N Brass colliery tubs

I saw these at an exhibition a year or so ago on N Brass Locos trade stand, its an etched brass kit for a pair of coal tubs of the type used underground. The waggons are designed to static items, we'll see about that...

Two etches are included, one for each waggon, and two sets of wheels;

The instructions are brief but adequate, and include some useful hints on working with etched brass.

Each body are made up from three parts, the main being a folded up floor and sides and two ends which locate inside the body. The fit is excellent, the ends having folded tabs which sit inside the body sides;

The etch includes lengths of rivetted strapping, and the instructions suggest fitting it in a U shape on the waggon sides. I ignored the sketch and copied an idea from Will (Little Giant on the NGRM-online forum) and instead soldered it around the upper edge of the bodies, to strengthen to top edge. On one waggon the end strapping is made up from two short pieces due to the way I cut the strapping down.

Underneath there are four separate 'axleboxes', which have tabs that locate in slots in the floor, and a U section chassis which sits between the axleboxes. I deviated from the instructions at this point, they show the chassis section forming a closed box under the floor, I fitted the chassis upside down to allow me to fill the U section with lead;

No couplings are included or even mentioned, hardly surprising as these are sold as static models, so I fitted RT Models etched couplings, bending the tail of the coupling over at 90 degrees and soldering them to the ends of the waggons.

The plain disc wheels are 5.1mm dia., running on 1.1mm dia. axles. I found the axles to be a sloppy fit in the axleboxes, so I turned up new shouldered axles from 1.5mm silver steel with the ends turned down to suit the wheels. An alternative would be to use Dundas 5.1mm curly spoked wheels, which would in fact better suit the waggons.

Before I started painting the waggons were chemically blacked with Birchwood Casey Brass Black, to reduce any 'silvering', where paint rubs off leaving the bare metal behind which can and does happen with brass kits. This was followed by a quick waft of Hycote red oxide car primer. I gave the outer body a coat of Phoenix Precision Dirty Black, and the inner my usual mix of Citadel Rhinox Hide and Humbrol Leather.

Coupling loops were fitted after painting. As these will run together one waggon has loops both ends but the other has a loop on one end only.

The axles are held in pace by gently squeezing the U shaped axlebox forks together, done carefully the axles should be free running.

Just to give an idea of size, here's one sitting on a penny;

The body is 19mm long and 17mm wide.

In my view this is a nicely designed little kit, and a good starting point for anyone contemplating building etched kits. I'll be building some more, a train of these snaking behind a suitable loco would look just fine;

The loco is an A1 Models kit and is described here.

Paul.

N Brass Locos Glyn Valley Tramway Horse Drawn Coach - part 5.

As part of my spate of finishing off old projects I dug out this little coach. It was actually mostly finished a long time ago, the final steps being giving it a coat of Testors Dullcoat, glazing, and fitting the coupling loops and wheels.

I left the coach in its two main parts, body and chassis, for painting. As the body is a tight fit over the chassis there's no need for any additional means of holding the two together, handy should I ever wish to fit figures inside.

The instructions state that at one stage (date unknown) the body was possibly painted with buff sides with mid-green ends and ventilators, which is the livery that I've chosen. Which leaves the actual colour hues open to interpretation without further research, especially as the fashions and paint pigments of the day would have been very different than they are now, so colour schemes that would look odd to our eyes might have been the height of fashion back then. I've not added any lettering, in part due to my lazyness and partly because I want it to be a generic coach rather than one belonging to any particular line.

For the body sides I chose Tamiya XF-57 Buff, for the ends XF-5 Flat Green and the roof XF-20 Medium Grey. XF-69 Nato Black was used for the underframe. All applied with an airbrush, over etching followed by auto primer, both from rattlecans.

Glazing is just clear sheet, glued in place with Rok-It card glue.

Here it is again, with my Penrhyn workmans coach and a Saltford Peckett, which I think makes an attractive if somewhat odd little train;

Quite a nice little kit of a very unusual prototype. And no, I will not be attempting to make a working horse to pull it. But I can see myself building a few more small etched coaches, of different designs.
This kit is available from N Brass Locos.

Paul.

N Brass Locos Glyn Valley Tramway Horse Drawn Coach - part 4.

The steps are now fitted below the doors. These are again quite delicate therefore the instructions tell you to reinforce the two uprights with wire. After bending the step itself along the half etched line I made a little jig to bend the legs on all four steps to the same length as the legs don't have a bend line etched onto them;

Once all four steps were bent I soldered a length of brass wire onto the back of the legs. The wire was filed flat on one side before being bent at a right angle and trimmed to fit;

 

Note that the wire was left overlength to give me a handle to hold whilst soldering. I used 188 degree solder for this.

The steps could then be soldered under the floor, again the legs needed a little trim so they stuck out at the right distance from the solebars;

 

Not my neatest piece of soldering I'm afraid. I used 145 degree for this stage to prevent unsoldering the reinforcing wire, the only time that I've step-soldered on this kit.

Its now almost ready for the paint shop, here it is with the wheels and coupling loops temporarily fitted;

In the foreground can be seen some of the etched vents, these fit above the windows. As they're painted in a contrasting colour to the body sides I'll paint them seperately and glue them in place before varnishing. Before painting I'm going to add some lead weight under the seats as the completed coach only weighs 17 grams.

The instructions mention that this coach was possibly painted with buff sides and mid green ends and ventilaters at some stage, which is probably the livery that I'll use.

Paul.

N Brass Locos Glyn Valley Tramway Horse Drawn Coach - part 3.

I've now fitted the seats and couplings;

The seats are simple one piece etches, the centre pair is just two seats back to back. The couplings are a little too low, not a problem for me as I rarely run anything anyway. The coupling itself is made from three pieces, main body, curved end and the loop which I'll blacken and fit after painting.

The drivers seats/footboards are made up from a single etched piece;

As can be seen these are rather delicate. The angled footboard is attached to the main assembly by 2 small tabs and is designed to be folded up at a 30 degree angle. I decided to strengthen them by soldering brass wire underneath as seen in the photo above. I used .45mm wire filed half round and bent to suit. More .45mm wire was used for the seat side rails, these aren't mentioned in the instructions so the shape and height is just guesswork.

Here's a couple of pics. of the coach as it is at the moment, I still need to add the footboards and vents;

 

 

Of course the drivers seats were removed after steam traction was introduced to the GVT, but I think that they add character. The seats might prove troublesome if I ran the coach in a rake however...

All soldering done with a 25w iron and 188 degree solder.

Paul.

N Brass Locos Glyn Valley Tramway Horse Drawn Coach - part 2.

More work on this one today with a start on the chassis;

In the photo above the solebars have been folded up and soldered in place. There's tabs on the top of the solebars which fit into slots on the floor. Rather than use seperate bearings the axle ends run in etched holes in the w-irons, these might need gently broaching out if the wheels run tight. Mine needed opening out very slightly.

I fitted the bases for the couplings next followed by the axleboxes. These need to be folded back on themselves which gives extra depth and allows for a little relief. A degree of care is needed when soldering these in place, otherwise the axle hole can become filled with solder. Of course a smear of epoxy or cyano would do just as well for fixing these in place. A pic;

I've also fitted the handrails and tiny door handles to the body, here's a pic. of body and chassis temporarily united;

 

Again all soldering done with my trusty 25w Antex and 188 degree solder.

Paul.

N Brass Locos Glyn Valley Tramway Horse Drawn Coach - part 1.

With my magpie eye for etched brass, a love of the unusual and a liking for small narrow gauge coaches its not suprising that I walked away from N Brass Locos stand at the recent Nottingham exhibition with a kit for an early Glyn Valley Tramway horse drawn coach.
I know little about the prototype, and judging by the scant information in the instructions neither does anyone else!

The kit comprises of the main etch, a second etch of door handles, some wire, wheels and well written and nicely illustrated instructions covering 3 sides of A4.

Here's the etch;

 

The first job is to bend up the bufferbeams and sides of the floor (left seperate from the body until later), then fold up and solder the one piece body;

The join is down the middle of one end of the body, unusual but the joint is actually hardly noticable. I soldered it from the inside, before re-inforcing the corners with a fillet of solder.
The next step is to solder the window inners in place inside the body, alignment is made easy by lining up the top of the inner etch with the body top. Then the roof can the rolled to shape, this uses tabs and slots to locate in place;

 

In the photo above one of the end panel overlays can be seen awaiting fitting, it can be seen soldered in place below;

The slots in the ends are to locate the drivers seat (remember that this is horse drawn) and the lower one is used to locate the end panel whilst tacking it in place.

So far so good.

All soldering done with a 25W Antex and 188 degree solder.

Paul.