LSWR Arc-Roofed Carriage Kits from Bill Bedford

A Review of the kit and Assembly Guidance Notes

CHRIS WESSON

Introduction

Etchings for four new LSWR Arc-roofed coach kits - a 29'6" First of 1882; a 30' Second of 1886-1890; a 34' Third of 1882; and a 34' Brake Third of 1886-90 have recently been produced by Bill Bedford. The models are supplied as 'etchings only' with white metal castings, glazing material, nuts and bolts and other parts having to be sourced from other suppliers or groups such as The South Western Circle.

There is also a 34' brake third with caboose lookout.

No assembly instructions, prototype drawings, historical notes, livery information, numbering details etc. were included. The only 'guidance' provided was two A4 sheets (three in the case of the 34' Brake Thirds) with diagrams of body and chassis assembly together with notes on the spring suspension system. This certainly gives scope for uncertainties in building the models, as well as inaccuracies or omissions as far as prototypical detail is concerned.

I was asked to build several vehicles for a customer to form a 7-vehicle close-coupled set. Apart from minor modifications to end detail, running boards, buffers and coupling arrangements, the kits were built in the form which the manufacturer intended.

The tools required to build brass kits has been covered on numerous occasions. Suffice it to say that, in terms of special tools, I used a Resistance Soldering Unit (RSU) for aspects of the assembly where I felt that it would make operations easier and neater. Even then a conventional soldering iron could have been used. I also used my Unimat lathe to turn components unavailable from other sources.

Apart from these instances the kit could have been constructed using basic hand tools.

Assembly

In the absence of any concise instructions I proceeded with the assembly of the chassis. I assumed that all folds were to be made with the half-etched line on the inside of the bend.

The inner layers of the buffer beam should be folded first or the stiffening flanges, which are bend upwards, will be out of shape.

The longer side flanges should be folded first. This is done by clamping the center of the underframe in bending bars so that only the flange protrudes. If you don't do it this way there is a risk of distorting the whole frame.

I noticed that the solebars were handed with four additional rivets on one side corresponding to the position of the brake shaft hanger. This detail could be easily missed - I had to learn the hard way!

A prototypically thick buffer beam is made up from three layers which were located for soldering using cocktail sticks passed through the buffer holes prior to applying the RSU. I filed the edges of the buffer beams smooth to remove the cusps caused by the etching process and improve the look. At this stage I was pleased to see that a strong, rigid chassis had resulted.

The manufacturer intends that the wheels be individually sprung with brass bearings soldered into steel springs. Axles with shouldered ends to run in the bearings are supplied. I replaced the outer bearings with pin-point bearings to reduce the rolling resistance of what would be a 7-coach set with 21 axles! I also felt that the original bearing system on all axles would allow the coaches to 'hunt' longitudinally and that pin-point bearings on the outer axles would remove this tendency.

People with sharper curves may need the extra float on the outer axles.

There was no retaining system for the springs and wheels so that when the vehicle was picked up the springs tended drop out of position. A short piece of brass strip soldered to the back of the 'W'-irons opposite the underkeeps stopped the axles dropping to the bottom of their slot and largely cured the problem. In persistent cases I made small brackets from bent up waste fret material and soldered them to the chassis to stop the springs dropping out of place.

A little weight added to the chassis and it was tried on my test track. On some curves the centre axle was initially prone to leaving its locating slot in the W-irons. This was cured by gently bending the centre W-irons inward slightly. The chassis still slowed on curves showing that unwanted rubbing was occurring somewhere. I noticed that instead of the centre axle sliding in the bearings, the springs were tending to tilt inward. This looked a likely source of additional friction so I gradually enlarged the bearing holes which improved the running. The centre springs still preferred to tilt so I cranked them slightly. This finally did the trick and the vehicles then ran almost as freely as those fitted with pinpoint bearings throughout. Fig 1 illustrates the problem and my solution.

Some of the turned ends of the axles are 'rougher' that I would have liked. Polishing these ends with fine wet and dry paper could be beneficial.

I am still unsure as to whether the running boards were intended to be soldered in place first and the whitemetal castings added subsequently, or vice-versa. I have tried both ways and feel that adding the running boards first is preferable as it removes the risk of melting low-melt solder and having the white-metal castings drop off.

For close-coupled vehicles the ends of the running boards required pruning as they should level with the face of the buffer beam. (Except with the Brake Thirds where only the inside ends of the running boards are pruned). The running boards were etched in pairs joined by the supports for the lower board which makes for a strong assembly, easy to form and no messing about using bits of bent wire to support the lower running board. The locating tabs on the upper running boards were tinned and the outer tabs soldered to the solebars using the (RSU). The running boards need to be positioned slightly away from the solebar otherwise the spring/axlebox castings, which have to be thinned in any event, will have to be reduced excessively. There is little space available once the running boards have been soldered into position.

Turning to whitemetal fittings, three different lengths of 'J-hanger' appear on the prototype vehicles. Short length 'J-hangers' are used throughout on the 30' All 2nds. An intermediate length 'J-hanger' is used on the outer axles of the 29'6" First and the 34' vehicles, with a long 'J-hanger' on the centre axles.

Roxey Mouldings supply axlebox and spring castings but only stock the short 'J-hangers'. Castings for W-iron/Axlebox/Spring with the short or intermediate hangers are available from the South Western Circle. As far as I am aware, no supplier offers the long 'J hangers' so I made my own using scrap from the etched fret.

I used South Western Circle spring/axlebox castings cutting away the unwanted W-iron parts of the casting and separating the 'J-hangers'. The backs of the spring/axlebox castings were then rubbed smooth on emery paper until they could pass between the 'W'-irons and the running board hangers. The accompanying photograph shows the stages involved. A suitable burr mounted in a miniature drill was used to cut a slot in the backs of the axleboxes so that the bearings can slide freely up and down. These slots can seen in the photograph of the completed chassis. The spring/axlebox castings were soldered into place with 70C low-melt solder.

The cast suspension rods, attached to the 'J-hanger', were removed. I drilled a small hole in the end of each spring and soldered a length of 0.45mm hard brass wire into the hole. The wires were them trimmed to length before soldering the 'J'-hangers into place. Depending on the location, part of the 'J-hanger' base was also removed to clear the locating tabs for the running boards.

As far as I am aware, again the correct castings for gas, vacuum reservoir and vacuum cylinder are not available from existing suppliers. I turned brass patterns for these parts using dimensions from Gordon Weddell's book, LSWR Carriages Vol.1, published by Wild Swan and had white metal castings made by Adrian Swain of ABS Models.

Alternatively you could have used tube and /or rod cut to length and attached to the mountings supplied.

The brake shaft hangers differed in shape from coach to coach and these have been correctly etched. However, unfortunately the sides of the hangers are spaced too close together. This causes problems as the brake operating rods are supposed to be on the centre line of the vehicles not to one side. I cut the hangers in two and mounted the sides the correct distance (approximately 14mm) apart. The vacuum cylinder and reservoir was added. It should be noted that the All Seconds, being of the later type, were fitted with a newer type of vacuum cylinder without a separate vacuum reservoir. Smaller items, again not included in the kit eg body retaining brackets on the buffer headstocks, lamp irons, gas filler cocks and gas gauges were made and added. As far as I am aware no manufacturer supplies the latter two items. They are noticeable - the filler cocks were painted red and the gas gauges clearly show up (dirty!) white on photographs.

Next came the brake gear. No information whatsoever was given in the instructions on the brake assembly which again varies from vehicle to vehicle. I feel brake gear to be so characteristic of many early carriages and vans that it is well worthwhile getting it right.

I spent time studying Gordon Weddell's book which revealed that three different arrangements of the LSWR 'clasp' brakes were fitted to the vehicles concerned.

i) The All-First had an 'A' frame connecting the brake blocks together. The frames are mounted with the 'A's pointing outward (see fig 2). This system was fitted to all block-set vehicles, presumably because it was the final development of the LSWR clasp-brake in current use when the block-set vehicles appeared.

ii) The earlier All-Third linkage again uses 'A' frames, in this case reversed ie with the 'A's pointing inward. The linkage has one element in compression as fig 3 shows. It was superseded with version i) which had all elements in tension.

iii) The final type of brake linkage was fitted to the All Seconds and 30' Brake Thirds. The operating levers were set diagonally to the vertical and pass through slots in the brake blocks which are consequently somewhat 'chunkier' than normal. The linking rods for each pair of brake shoes pass outside the respective wheel. This is illustrated in fig 4. No brake block connecting bars were used.

Brake blocks and hangers are included in the etches although not of the correct pattern. Etchings for 'A' frames and operating levers are not included.

I drew the missing 'A' frames on a piece of paper and soldered four pieces of 0.010" brass together. The drawing was glued on to the brass and the frames cut out. The layers were then separated. I foresee many of these items being needed for vehicles on the Southampton Group, ScaleFour Society's 'Southwark Bridge' layout with which I am involved. I have therefore since had the missing brake-gear parts etched for both the inside and outside pull-rod versions which in the future will save time and result in higher quality items.

The brake shoes soldered to their hangers. The 'A' frames were slid into place and located in the etched holes in the brake shoes. The assemblies were then soldered with a small 'dab' of solder at each joint. Other items of brake gear, cranks and pull rods were added, the exact arrangement being confirmed by reference to Gordon Weddell's book.

I had some discussion with my original customer about the brake gear, and I pointed out that to do real justice to the brake gear I would have to etch some components in thinner metal, and cast others in brass. Since the brake gear is for the most part invisible on a working layout we decided to leave the intricacies of the brake gear to the modeller - if he wanted to provide it.

Note also that no matter how good Gordon Weddell's book is it is still a secondary source with all the implication that that brings.

The chassis was tested again and the wheels removed prior to painting.

Body

I commenced assembly by soldering the bolection mouldings into their recesses. Some gentle cleaning of the etchings was required in order to achieve a satisfactory fit. As these items were very fine and susceptible to easy distortion, this part of the assembly took considerably more time than I expected but the final result was well worthwhile. I used the RSU for this task but a conventional iron would do the job although much care and final cleaning of excess solder is likely to be required.

The windows of the prototype All Seconds were slightly narrower than the other vehicles. Unfortunately. although the windows have been correctly etched slightly smaller, the bolection mouldings were originally supplied in one size only ie approximately 0.5mm too wide for the All 2nds. The offending items have since been redrawn by the manufacturer and replacements provided.

The droplights were then fitted. Holes for door hinges had been etched in the coach sides but, try as I might, I could not find any hinges. Instead I used a piece of 1mm wide brass strip (which looked as though like waste material on the etch) to make the hinges. I subsequently learned that the strip had been included by the manufacturer with this in mind. It has also been pointed out to me that the manufacturer has also missed an opportunity. The upper and centre hinges could have been incorporated as part of the droplights which would have killed two birds with one stone as the hinges could also have been designed to provide an automatic location for the droplights.

Etching the hinges into the droplight frames doesn't allow you to model the coach with the windows open, as they undoubtedly would have been in service.

To stiffen the coach sides two lengths of brass strip are provided on the etch and which require folding to form 90 angle sections. Because of their narrow width it is not easy to hold the strips and obtain sufficient leverage to produce a satisfactory 90 bend. I therefore used 1.5mm brass angle instead obtained from John Flack.

Bending bars, bending bars and bending bars.

Using ready formed brass angle used the wrong angle - see below in the notes on the roof.

Compartment partitions are not included in the kit. I feel this is a major omission as a brass coach needs the dividers to give the body additional strength as well as preventing viewing through compartments. I made dividers by again soldering several suitably sized pieces of 0.010" brass sheet together and, using one of the coach ends as a template, scribing around it before cutting out with a piercing saw.

Why exactly are brass compartment dividers are necessary? My feeling is that it is advantageous to be able to model any interior detail separately and add it once the rest of the model is complete.

The tumblehome can now be formed, an operation which many modellers do not find easy. I laid the coach side face down on a telephone directory and used a length of 3/8" diameter bar to roll the curve. A coach end was employed as a template.

The coach sides include etched tabs to position the ends for soldering. I tried to use this system but felt unhappy with the results as the ends stood slightly proud of the sides instead of being flush between them.

How much is 'slightly proud' and was it true on all the coaches? I have just checked this on some of these etchings and the end was exactly flush.

I now cut away the tabs and simply butt soldered the ends to the sides using a simple assembly guide similar to that used by Andrew Lambert in his article in MRJ No.80.

This sounds to me like the old 'not invented here syndrome'. I find that I can solder up a body with the tabs in about half the time that it takes with jigs and guides. I can also do it without feeling I need three or more hands.

Positioning the guard's van end of the 34' Brake Thirds was not as straightforward as it might as the overall width is greater that the main body of the coach due to the duckets and end windows. Half-etched lines on the ends to provide a location for the sides would have helped. Instead I scribed two lines to mark where the location of the sides before again butt-soldering the joints and checking that all corners were at 90. Mark:I can't put half etching on both sides of the same piece of metal.

The compartment partitions were soldered into place. In the case of the 34' Brake Thirds, I also soldered an additional spacer to provide additional strength in the van area. I make my compartment partitions to run down to the floor level of the coach so suitably positioned slots had to be cut in the chassis so that the body could sit correctly.

This is not a good idea because a/ you can't add a false floor and b/ it weakens the underframe.

The body was placed on the chassis and I was delighted to find that the fixing holes in the body brackets and the chassis lined up perfectly (which sadly has not always been the case in my experience with other manufacturers). Brass fixing nuts were soldered to the bracket.

End detail such as steps, gas pipe, switch box and operating rod are all supplied in the kit and were then added. With the close-coupled set there are no steps between vehicles so the end detail was removed, the slots filled in with solder and filed/polished to remove all traces. Mark:Plain ends are available.

However, there are steps on the van ends of the 34' Brake Thirds. Unfortunately the slots were etched too small to take the tabs on the steps. It is not always easy to open up slots without causing some distortion of the metal and this would have almost certainly been the result with the half-etched panels of the van ends. I therefore decided to dispense with the tabs altogether and cut them off simply butt-soldering the steps in place with the RSU.

I have checked this and there were no problems fitting the steps into the slots, though the end of the tab on the step needed smoothing, and the fit is accurate, if not tight. You could have had problems because one of the kits was slightly under etched, but I would not expect all your kits to be the same. I did find the hinge strip to be a tight fit in its slots, it needs to be filed down slightly, but you would need to do this anyway if you cut it with wirecutters.

Doors on LSWR coaches of this era were fitted with draughtproofing strips which are clearly visible on photographs. From the outside of the coach they appearing as two raised lines below the waistline at the edges of each door. Although these could have easily been portrayed by etching, for some reason the manufacturer sought not to do so and the body sides below the waistline were left plain. I made the missing door seals with .005" plasticard fixed in place with superglue. At this stage the body shell is complete which, particularly with the additional detail added, looked quite presentable.

I think that to etch the door strips would be as wrong as not etching them. The depth of the paneling was about 3/8in, the thickness of the leather door strips was not more than 1/4in. Therefore if these strips were etched into the sides they would always be over thick. Your solution of adding the strips from something thinner than the half etched depth seems to me to be the correct one, though I would have probably used paper rather than plasticard.

Roofs

The brass roof is supplied in the kit is unfortunately too wide. With holes etched on the centre line for gas lamps the excess would have to be trimmed from both sides.

The roofs have half etched lines on the inside to help in shaping them . It is a relatively trivial exercise to use these lines trim the excess with a craft knife.

My preferred way of building is to fix the roof to the sides. The easiest way to do this is to fold the top of the side angle to match the angle of the ends. The roof is tacked to the angle. A wire is soldered between the roof eaves and the the sides. This can then be filed flat to form the cornice.

Instead I used a pre-formed plastic roof available from the South Western Circle. Apart the need to overcome the error with the brass roofs, it is much easier to add details to a plastic roof using MEK or Superglue as appropriate instead of soldering them in place.

A false roof was cut from 0.060" styrene to fit between the coach ends on top of the side flanges. False ends, made from two pieces of 0.040" styrene, were added and filed to the profile of the etched ends. The entire length of the false roof which projects above the body sides was also filed to match the end profile .

Two strips of 0.040" styrene were cut to the same height as the false ends and fitted to each side of the centre line approximately 2mm apart. The moulded roof was now bonded to the false roof unit using an impact adhesive and allowed to set.

The unit was then tried on the coach body and marked on the underside where it overlapped the ends and sides. The roof ends were trimmed to overhang by about 0.5mm and the sides sanded to be just flush with the body sides. To represent the cornice mouldings (not cant-rails) strips of 0.010" styrene were cut 1.5mm wide and positioned to overhang the top of the body by about 0.5mm above the door vents and similarly protrude slightly above the roof line. A further strip of 0.020" square section styrene was then added in line with the top of the 0.010" strip to complete the cornice. Fig 5 shows my method of manufacturing roofs using the South Western Circle mouldings.

When the bonding was complete, the assembly was placed on the body and the centreline marked. The positions of the lamp tops and ventilators were then be marked and the components fitted. On certain vehicles an unusual but nevertheless attractive feature is that the roof battens appear on the outside of the roof. This requires a number of narrow strips to be attached transversely to the roof. These were again made from 0.010" styrene, the positions being taken from Gordon Weddell's drawings.

The gas pipe was made from 0.3mm brass wire superglued to the battens with a very small blob of glue on the end of a piece of fine wire. Grab handles (only on the outer ends of the 34' Brake 3rds with close-coupled vehicles) were similarly formed from 0.3mm brass wire. On the prototype the roof grab-handles were flattened at the ends and screwed to the roofs. These tiny lugs were made from 0.010" styrene and bonded with MEK. Again the drawing explains.

Painting

My client required the vehicles to be painted in the LSWR two-tone livery of Light Biscuit and Dark Brown. ('They were never that colour' he quotes believing the so-called Salmon to be an invention of the modelling fraternity. Having rejected the colours available via the trade as being 'far too pink', he provided me with a tin of Light Biscuit paint which he had mixed to his own exacting specifications).

Droplights and bolection mouldings are finished in a mahogany-red shade. The end ironwork on the body was painted black.

'The dual Brown/Red lining is a MUST' my client added, and I confess that I have been converted to his way of thinking. The inner dark brown line serves to define the body panels and give them greater depth whilst the outer red line is thrown forward by the brown and the red also give the 'Light Biscuit' upper panels a much warmer feel. I feel that the time spent on adding the lining was well worth it.

Roof were (initially) painted with white lead paint and as, any schoolboy chemist will know, this readily forms grey Lead Sulphide on exposure to sulphurous fumes, of which these were plenty in London of the early 20th century. I therefore feel that the roofs would have rapidly darkened fairly evenly through various shades of grey to almost black and maintain that photographic evidence bears me out. Nevertheless my client prefers white roofs (although a little darkening and dirt will be added in due course).

Cornices were painted dark brown with roof lamp tops, ventilators and grab handles (initially) black although some roof occasionally appear painted white overall including fittings.

Conclusions

All in all, despite various errors and omissions both my client and myself have been very pleased with the final vehicles. They certain have the character of late 19th century LSWR coaches but, as is often the case when building a kit, the character has been enhanced by additional effort and research into detail. Despite this, were the kits to be built as supplied without any embellishments, they would still make up into respectable models.

I did rather begrudge the additional work that was required - filing bolection mouldings to fit (a problem since righted by the manufacturer), making missing compartment dividers, draughtproofing strips missing, incomplete brake gear. I feel that much of this could have been accommodated in the design stage. I was also concerned that various components did not match up as they should have done and that etched slots and tabs similarly did not work as intended.

I feel I am being criticised for not designing kits in exactly the same way as some other manufacturer. I can assure you that much thought goes into the level of detail that goes into a kit. I tend to avoid adding parts that can easily be made from other materials, like compartment dividers, or that are intricate and near invisible on a normal working model, because to do so has implications not only for the costings of kits, but also because of the time involved in drawing, for the number of coaches I can supply in my range.

Because of the lack of instructions and prototype drawings, I feel that the [inexperienced] modeller could very well have difficulties in making this kit. There are no difficult operations to be undertaken but some experience and knowledge of etched kit construction is certainly needed to obtain a satisfactory result.

I have sold no more that a dozen of each of these kits, and I have never thought that sales would be very much more than this. I would suggest that the 'inexperienced modeller' does not really exist, at least as a customer for kits such as these. Almost every one of my customers, especially those that model the pre-nationalisation periods, have bought kits on the basis that they have done their own research or that such research has been published and is generally available. I believe everyone who purchased one of these kits did so because he knew of the prototypes existence from reading Gordon Weddell's book. In these circumstances, leaving aside issues of copyright, I do not believe that providing information taken from a well know published source would add substantially to the overall acceptability of the kit.

A similar case can be made for detailed instructions. I would argue that once someone has mastered the basic techniques for building etched kits, and has a general understanding of the type of stock he is building then only information he requires is that which applies solely to kit he is working on, and much of this information can be supplied by the judicious design of the frets.

Gordon Weddell's Wild Swan book - LSWR Carriages Volume I - proved again to be invaluable in confirming prototype information.

[The introduction of these kits does mean that the Southampton Group, ScaleFour Society will be able to see an LSWR 7-coach close-coupled block-set appear on our new Southwark Bridge layout in due course.]

Finally, the manufacturer has recently stated that he will be following these Arc-roofed vehicles with further LSWR kits for the later 6-wheel Semi-elliptical roofed Block-Set vehicles in late 1995/early 1996.

Text in brackets [] was not included in the MRJ version.