ace wrote: ↑Tue Mar 04, 2014 8:45 pm
Hi Folks,
The significance of this rake is quite important. Its origins go back to 1995 when I had a brand new RH Billy and needed something to pull. The first coach was bought and built by myself as a 13 year old boy, the coach in question? A Brandbright PS16 panelled freelance luggage brake coach. This was the first introduction into building coaches for 16mm, and I really enjoyed it. This was shortly followed by a Brandbright PS21 3 compartment passenger coach in 1996. The rake was crudely decorated by yours truly and still stand in the same décor to this day. After the discussion in our meeting room online about my idea they expressed their interest in joining us at the
intersect to tackle more information together.
Here they both are in all their glory stood in 2013 for some website photos. Sadly I did not think of taking any during building.
Here is Billy in 2010 warming up ready to haul the two Brandbright coaches inside during the darkness of winter.
In more recent times, over the last 2 years, the rake has steadily expanded from two coaches to four, by means of help from IP Engineering. Credit where is is due the kits from IP Engineering are good, but not as good as the Brandbright kits of a few years ago. That all said, you get what you pay for.
The first new addition was a total steal on ebay. It is a short, four wheeled, open sided, third class, two compartment coach. If I remember correctly the auction finished at a silly time (something like 2am) so I bagged it for the humble sum of £7 odd. I built it up and found that all the sides and bottom were twisting out of shape, so I clamped it up and glued it all together. Mysteriously it came with some plastic wheels, and the usual quarry axle boxes and brass bushes. The roof is mild steel and made the whole thing ridiculously top heavy. Initially I glued the roof on with cyanoacrylate, but with all the derailments and subsequent 'fallings over' due to the terrible centre of gravity, this was not to last.
In short this coach was bloody awful. It was top heavy, didn't free roll very well and was slowly twisting back to shape so was rocking on the diagonal. Several attempts to correct the rocking were made with shims under the axle-boxes , but it would slowly change. This coach was shelved for some time.
Here is the IP Engineering short coach stood on a rare run with the other earlier Brandbright coaches
Here is the short IP Engineering coach stood with its brand new sister.
This follows on nicely to a purchase in spring 2013 of the IP Engineering 3 compartment coach kit. I bought this one direct from IPE, and is one of the last ply made kits that they produced (later swapped to MDF).
Here is the kit on delivery with a new Rapier electric loco.
Titan bringing in the parts to the works.
This coach was assembled and was without a roof for some months. The plastic roof that came supplied, I could just not work with. I ruined it trying to make it removable for easy access inside for placing figures and props. It took me some time to actually buy a piece of plywood to make a roof that I could form arches to make this possible.
Here are the formers for the arched ply roof.
All glued and resting in my new roof jig.
The finished article.
And fitted.
The idea for this rake was to simulate the growth of the line and the requirement for more carriages, therefore it was decided to buy the IP Engineering coaches because they were slightly different in appearance yet retaining the same style or origins.
Looking proud behind Billy
During the course of the next few posts, I'll update you all with things of how they are now and what the future plans will be. The rake is expanding and has plans to expand further and also have a totally different appearance, loosing the 'cartoon colours' of the early brandbright coaches.
Stay tuned folks!:)