By Brian Dominic
In this Model of the Month Brian Dominic builds a simple guards van with added modifications…
Introduction
For Flagg Fluorspar, I’d identified a need for some noise on the railway. I’ve already got a welder, but the trains themselves need to be able to make a noise when they were operating, so I decided to build a pair of Budup Wagons with sound units in them, so the trains will make a noise as they trundle round. The first one, a Goods Budup fitted into an EeZee Tool Wagon has been around for a while, and I’d got the parts for the second, the Passenger Budup built into an EeZee Passenger Brake van in stock for a good long time, so I dug them out and built it up.
Opening doors
As I wanted the doors to slide, but they don’t (in fact they are the same size as the door opening) I had to build a rail to retain them, and a piece across the doorway to stop the door falling out. This is the view from the inside, showing a way to ensure the door will be
able to slide when it’s fitted………….
Painting before assembly
You will note that the pieces you’ve seen are all in primer. I decided to do “Something Different”, and paint and/or stain all the major parts before I started assembly.
The solebars were sprayed on a convenient horizontal bar on the door (guess where I do my spraying?) and the rest of the body parts hand painted – the buffers having been built onto the ends, apart from the floor (seen here with two of the holes which will hold the speaker down) and the non-window end (note the holes for the switch and its securing screw) which were both sprayed matt black.
Bearings and axleboxes
The next job was to glue the bearings into the axleboxes and the final job before assembly was to sand the ends of the sides and the inside surfaces of the body, to remove any paint that might have accidentally got there.
Internal finishes – Antique Pine
This is followed by a coat of wood stain on all the inside surfaces – this is Antique Pine. I keep a whole pallette of these in stock, mainly for interiors. This is the non-window end – the notch for the switch and the hole for the switch fixing screw show up better in this shot.
Assembly
Having added glazing (secured with double-sided tape on the inside), assembly followed my usual method, using track pins at the top of the sides to hold sides and ends together at the top, and a rubber band near the bottom. The fact that the channels for the sliding doors were set a floor’s thickness up from the bottom of the sides provided a ledge to locate said floor, now complete with speaker fixed in place and wired up to the circuit board, switch and battery holder.
Once the glue had gone off, the switch was fixed in place, a top runner for the sliding doors (the full length of the van just below roof level) was fitted each side inside, just below roof level, followed by the doors themselves. DON’T FIT THE HANDLES UNTIL THE DOORS ARE IN PLACE! or the doors won’t slide into place. I threw Uncle Ivan’s plastic roof away – I much prefer to use very thin ply, which cuts easily with a hobby knife, and secured it to the body with PVA and rubber bands to hold it in place whilst the glue sets. Finally, the solebars and wheels were fitted and the roof painted with two coats of LNER Roof Grey.
Final job
The final job was to touch in the ends of the sides – the end without windows in black, the window ends in cream and brown.
As my hand gets less steady, I found that painting before assembly worked for me in this instance, but you do have to be VERY careful not to damage the painted surfaces as construction continues – newly-dried paint is still very soft and can be easily damaged if you’re not very careful.
Brian Dominic