Garden Railway Forum

Hi Peter.
I usually use Humbrol 'Clear Cote'. Comes in little jars for 3 quid each in clear, satin and matt. I usually brush finish my coaches as masking windows etc would be a pain. D.

Actually i might try a spray varnish. If i delay fixing the glazing permenantly until the end i can replace it with card while varnishing as i did when painting the body. This should give a nice sheen to the finished model.
As for using wood Peter, i am a retired design teacher who specialised in wood and as coach bodies were mainly wood it allows me to continue using the material i have worked with all my life. Albeit on a smaller scale.
At school i was responsible for looking after a woodwork shop with an industrial circular saw, floor standing bandsaw, two wood lathes and two drill stands. I have built a lot of furniture over the years.
D.

River Lin wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:49 pm
At school i was responsible for looking after a woodwork shop with an industrial circular saw, floor standing bandsaw, two wood lathes and two drill stands. I have built a lot of furniture over the years.
D.

Interestingly we seem to have similar backgrounds resulting in different opinions (just as it should be!)
My area of responsibility was for technicians in a woodworking workshop making and installing display systems for works of art in a major museum and art gallery.
Prior to that a qualification from the Fine Art Trade Guild in bespoke picture framing.... all wood connected. I love working in wood and it is without doubt my preferred material.... except for models. I have a blind spot when it comes to scale wood-grain, similarly I avoid using real water on layouts for the same reason.
I do admire your work and have mentioned before that I couldn't achieve the build quality in wood myself. I must remain faithful to plastic and live with its own limitations.

Peter Butler wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:45 pm
I have a blind spot when it comes to scale wood-grain, similarly I avoid using real water on layouts for the same reason.

Now then Peter, we don’t what you falling into any pools with that blind spot of yours...

Has for the modelling, you are both brilliant at what you do, has many other members on the forum...may only wish and hope is to be able to get some where close to you all in that respect.

Hi all.
On the Caernarfon plan there is not much detail on the 3rd class seating although the 1st class is fairly detailed. I have made a plywood template for a frame to hold the seat slats in 3rd and the photo below shows how it will look bearing in mind the slats will add a little height to the seat. To make the seat frames i cut two pieces of 4mm thick pine to 20mm wide and taped them tightly together with white masking tape so i can cut them out in matching pairs. As there are 3x 3rd class compartments with two benches in each, i need to draw around the template 6 times. The following photo shows this taped up pair of pine pieces with the shapes drawn on. One pair has been cut out, opened up and a small strip of softwood glued on to add rigidity and a larger surface for the slats to glue to. D.

Looks good.

Brandbright did something similar for the Accucradt IoM coaches.

Talking of Brandbright- D.

Icing on the cake! I sense your on the downhill run now.
Grant.

Brilliant work Grant.

Hopefully.
D.

Grease from fingers can affect a paint finish, especially if it has not quite hardened yet. While I do not pretend to understand the chemistry behind it all, I am given to understand that some paints remain quite soft long after they have dried.

That is certainly true Jim.
D.

As a rough estimate i think i need about 72 slats in total for the 6 3rd class bench seats. I am thinking of 3mm wide and 2mm thick hardwood. This i know i can buy at my local model shop but i am getting satisfaction from cutting my own from larger sections using a Proxxon modellers circular saw. (A treat to myself after Peterborough this year.)
I know it might be classed as a little over the top, but i want them all exactly the same length. I am cutting them slightly over length with a knife and then sanding the ends on a shooting board that takes me back to my GCE woodwork days. You can see that i have used this a lot over the past few projects. I have put a panel pin at the appropriate spot on the board so that i can sand one end of the slat lightly, turn it round and then sand the other end of the slat until the sanding block rubs on the end of the board and stops removing wood from the slat.

I then tried to start gluing the slats to the seat frames in the coach but found it too fiddly to hold the endframes in the correct position and to get the ends of the slats overhanging both ends of the frames by the same amount. I then found a low sided wooden box that had square corners and base. Using this box, and once i had glued one slat in position with equal overhang at each end, i could hold the seat touching the back and one side of the box and glue all of the other slats in position, each one touching the side of the box thus ensuring that the overhang is the same on all.
Now to get back to cutting and sanding more slats. Only about another 60 to do.
D.

The old shooting board! I remember that

Putting your patience to the test again I see. The end result will be good I'm sure.
Grant.
PS rather you than me though!

Looks good, it will be worth all the effort took to get them all looking the same.

Thats the plan
D.

Hi all.
6 third class seats done. 72 slats 3mmx2mm were cut to approx length oversize and the ends then sanded to exact length on the shooting board. I made up the 6 seat frames first as in previous picture from the pairs of ends and one slat was added to each, as in the pic, setting the correct overhang at each end.
I didn't, in the end, use a wire spacer to set the gap when gluing the slats. Unless i let each slat dry before gluing the next they started sliding as i pushed the next one up to it with the spacer between. I realised that with 72 slats to glue it would take hours to glue them all.
So For the seat base i used the wooden box to help set in place the front and back slat. 5 minutes later i glued the middle two, setting the gap between the slats by eye. I was happy with the result and did the other five seat bases in the same way.
For the seat back i glued the top and bottom slats in place with the seat lying flat and used the box to set the overhang as before. I then glued in the other four back slats setting the gaps by eye before the glue set. Once dry i then glued the slat on the seat front and the one on the seat back top. All the seats fit well into the coach and little Louis decided to try one out for comfort. He seems satisfied. Now to think about the 1st class seats. I would like to think padded leather is possible. We shall see.
D.

Nothing wrong with your eyesight then David. Superb job of lining up the slats, would have thought you did use a jig looking at them. When you originally mentioned the dimensions of the slats I thought they sounded a bit thick, but they look perfect. Buttoned padded seats, now that's the thing!!
Grant.

Hi Grant.
Even though i cut the slats to 2mm thick in obeche hardwood, i don't think i would like to go any thinner as these were quite flexible. I'll be honest and say i broke one while sanding it. There might be a tough plywood but i wanted to use hardwood because it looks more realistic, but that's just me.
I can't make up my mind whether to stain them a bit darker but i quite like them as they are.
D.