Plasticard coach roof

[Steven.T]

Hi guys,
I'm just at the stage of building my I.P. coaches, and I've come to the first roof.
Now I would like to keep the roof removable, so I can add details/figures later, but I'm not sure on how to go about doing this.
I was thinking of bending the plastic over the roof, to get the shape, but it's holding it in this shape, whilst making it removable that has me stumped
Anyone have any experience of doing this?
Cheers,
Ste

[spooner]

You could try making rafters to the shape of roof to glue under roof?

[hussra]

Confession time: when building my IP VoR-style carriages I chickened out and bought a couple of lengths of moulded plastic roof from GRS which, as it turned out, were pretty much spot on for curvature. A couple of bits of plasticard glued underneath to slot into the carriage ends, and that's it. Cheating? Perhaps.

[GTB]

I was thinking of bending the plastic over the roof, to get the shape, but it's holding it in this shape, whilst making it removable that has me stumped

In the small scales you can form a sheet of plasticard by taping it to a suitable size tin, filling the tin with boiling water and leaving it all to cool. The plasticard will then hold the curve, but the trouble in the garden scales is finding a suitable size tin.

For my IP kits, I curve the plasticard by running it back and forth over the edge of the workbench until the curve is about the same as the carriage ends. This also softens the plasticard a bit and makes it more pliable.

To make it removable, I cut extra carlines and side members from the leftover ply in the kit and made up a frame that was a nice sliding fit in the carriage body. The side rails are beveled at the top so they are a good fit to the roof sheet, which gives a larger glueing surface. This stops the sheet from forming a wavy edge when fitted to the carriage. The photo below should give you the idea.

Once the frame glue was hard, I glued the pre-curved roof sheet to it with cyano-acrylate (superglue). Gives me a nice straight roof from end to end, with no sags and no wavy edges. I put a carline over every deadlight (the pillar between the windows), but the minimum needed would be one at every compartment partition.

Once it's all hardened up, if I want to be able to remove the roof, I fit it in place with a couple of tiny screws at the ends. The screws aren't necessary, except that I find visitors insist on picking up rolling stock by the edge of the roof, then give you a sheepish look when the roof parts company from the carriage.

Normally, I make the floor and underframe removable to get at the interior, rather than the roof. It depends on the colour scheme though, as it's a lot easier to paint a model if the different coloured bits can be separated.

If you don't want to see the roof fixing screws, use very small countersunk ones and fill them with a bit of putty before painting the model. You can always dig them out if you later need to remove the roof.

Regards,
Graeme

[MDLR]

That's a nice neat solution - I might just try it with my Director's saloon which is (still!) under construction!