Carriage glazing

[Steamcoaster]

Hi

Making progress on my IP Engineering Gladstone Car. I'm ready to install glazing. Do I:

1) stick it on the inside or
2) cut out pains and glue them in the window openings?

The is true of the internal partitions.


Thanks

Rupert

[MDLR]

It all depends on how fussy you want to be..........................

I've actually lined IP coaches with thin ply, so you can't see the glazing................

[Andrew]

It all depends on how fussy you want to be...............

Or, in my case, how careful you can be with the glue. Which, I found, wasn't quite careful enough.

I've actually lined IP coaches with thin ply, so you can't see the glazing.

I do that too, if it's going to be a varnished interior, or use card if the inside's painted. Then I slot the glazing in from the top, adding a thin smear of glue to the very bottom edge. I've stopped getting gluey windows that way.

I'm building a Gladstone too at the moment (heavily modifying an old IMP kit) and will use that technique with the partitions. I'm undecided about the sides - there's very little wood there so I don't think I'll make an inner skin. Maybe just strips of varnished wood on the inside matching the outer uprights and holding the glazing in place? Or, if you're going for the full NWNGR first class effect you can hide the lack of inner uprights behind curtains.

Have fun,

Andrew

[Keith S]

You fellows are going to think I'm nuts, but on my guard's van and an ashbury coach I am actually very carefully cutting out the clear plastic to fit exactly in the window openings. It's very time-consuming but it looks a lot better than sticking the plastic over the windows from behind if you want to do a nice interior.

You're in luck with the Gladstone coach, however. I stuck the glazing in from behind like the plans say, but I detailed the interior with stuffed seat cushions and curtains. The curtain rods cover the top of the glazing and the seat backs disguise the bottom, so I have to say unless you look very carefully, you can't tell the glazing is one piece stuck in from behind. On other wagons though, I am actually cutting out individual windows. It takes about 15 minutes per window but here's what I do: I put the plastic behind the window, then scribe the outline with the point of a sharp knife. Then I use a ruler to cut the plastic along the scribed line, and then I sand it carefully to force-fit into the window opening.

I'm pretty good at avoiding gluey finger-prints, but a little white glue is what I use because it scrapes off the window fairly easily once it's dry.

If you search in "rolling stock" you will see a thread I did about the Gladstone coach. Again, some interior details will hide the edges of the clear plastic from view in this particular coach.

[MDLR]

You fellows are going to think I'm nuts, but on my guard's van and an ashbury coach I am actually very carefully cutting out the clear plastic to fit exactly in the window openings. It's very time-consuming but it looks a lot better than sticking the plastic over the windows from behind if you want to do a nice interior.

You're not nuts - you've just got a lot of patience and you're a perfectionist - more power to your elbow!

[Andrew]

You fellows are going to think I'm nuts, but on my guard's van and an ashbury coach I am actually very carefully cutting out the clear plastic to fit exactly in the window openings. It's very time-consuming but it looks a lot better than sticking the plastic over the windows from behind if you want to do a nice interior.

You're not nuts - you've just got a lot of patience and you're a perfectionist - more power to your elbow!

Too right! I remember reading a Peter Jones article in which he advocated using separate glazing for each window on a building - he reckoned that because no two windows will then be 100% parallel the light will reflect slightly differently off each one, just like the reall thing. I imagine the effect would be even better on a carriage, which moves through the light and changes direction as it does so...

Don't think I'll be taking that approach though, much as I admire it - most of my builds seem to take about 6 months each as it is!

Cheers,

Andrew

[MDLR]

I must confess to being very impressed with the glazing on my Yatton Darjeeling coaches, the first of which is in build. You get transparent glazing accurately cut to size, as you might expect with a modern kit. The REALLY nice touch are the "aluminum" window frames (these are modern coaches) which come as self-adhesive laser-cut vinyl, very slightly larger than the glass. They are designed to be stuck to the glazing very accurately, with the self adhesive actually fixing the glazing in place, by attaching to the painted body. Very, VERY elegant!

[Peter L]

I must confess to being very impressed with the glazing on my Yatton Darjeeling coaches, the first of which is in build. You get transparent glazing accurately cut to size, as you might expect with a modern kit. The REALLY nice touch are the "aluminum" window frames (these are modern coaches) which come as self-adhesive laser-cut vinyl, very slightly larger than the glass. They are designed to be stuck to the glazing very accurately, with the self adhesive  actually fixing the glazing in place, by attaching to the painted body. Very, VERY elegant!

This is a brilliant idea! I'm planning a Sand Hutton inspired coach for later this year and will have to try this out.

[MDLR]

Pictures will appear in due course.................

[Keith S]

I'm looking forward to seeing that. It sounds as if it would look very good.

[METHSSNIFFER]

Cut the glazing out individually and use beading strip either side like real practice glue the beading in first then place glazing up to it and then push fit internal beading no glue no mess

[Steamcoaster]

Thanks for this. I started on the partitions and plumped for cutting glazing to size and gluing in. It's a bit tedious but the result is good.

I used slowish drying cyanoacrylate dabbed on with a tiny screwdriver. Capillary action does the rest.

I was thinking of using some beading for the large windows.

[METHSSNIFFER]

If you need to glue there is a glue on the market that doesnt react to clear acrylic called plastic magic

[Keith S]

Well, I don't know why I feel the need to report this, but my previous efforts at cutting out individual windows and fitting them to the openings has always worked on less ambitious projects like my guard's van, so I boasted that I was doing the same on my WHR ashbury coach.

Well, I did an absolutely atrocious job. It all started when I decided to use epoxy to glue the windows. I got some on my fingers without realizing it, and put a gluey fingerprint over several windows, then decided to clean the fingerprints off with alcohol. This appeared to work well so I glued the roof on; only then did the windows decide to haze over because of some reaction to the alcohol. So now the coach looks as though it has just finished an entire day of hauling small schoolchildren, all with an icecream cone and grubby paws smearing every glazed surface from the inside. And then getting rained on.

sigh. NOT my best work.






At least it's not noticeable from standing height.

[GTB]

only then did the windows decide to haze over because of some reaction to the alcohol.

The PETG sheet that IP use for glazing is resistant to ethanol. What did you use to glue the roof on? Superglue by any chance?

Superglue vapour reacts with any residual moisture on a surface, especially in a closed box. Alcohols absorb water from the air and leave a residual water layer when the alcohol evaporates. I imagine that's what caused the fogging.

I always make the roof of a model coach or van removable these days. Experience is a great teacher and I found out the hard way many years ago, that if I couldn't get the roof off, something was bound to go wrong........

In this situation, I'd pick some suitable rude words to use and then run a sharp blade around the roof joint.

Graeme

[Keith S]

I suspect it's the epoxy I used around the edges of the windows. I used alcohol because I have found it does a good job cleaning off uncured epoxy. I think it just smeared a diluted wash of uncured epoxy on some of the windows. I haven't any replacement glazing at the moment; when I get my hands on some I'll probably cut the roof off and try again. Or maybe by then it will have stopped bothering me.

[TonyW]

White spirit removes freshly-smeared epoxy, but only while it is still sticky!

[tom_tom_go]

If you weather the coach the windows will match as it will give the impression that it has been in storage for some time...

[Keith S]

That's probably the way to go. The windows aren't gluey with fingerprints, they're just streaky. Good idea, Tom.

[METHSSNIFFER]

Streaky windows a carriage with no heating suffering with condensation maybe.