MR Clayton 40' Brake Compo
Raymond Walley
Sourced from various suppliers
This vehicle is not a 'kit' in the normal sense of the word.
The parts shewn below arrived as a disparate set of etches and were credited to Bill Bedford by my client, who had bought the parts for the body second hand. The underframe etch is certainly from Bill Bedford, it arrived from him a few days previously but the body parts, specifically, the sides are not his. The consensus at present seems to be that they are sides are from PC Models version of the Clayton 40' brake Compo but I have my doubts. If anyone has more information about their provenance, I would be grateful if you would let me know. I am not even convinced that the sides are from the same source as the ends and bogie overlays.
The sides are clearly intended to be folded to line up the inner side with windows in the outer side. I was wary of doing this as it is too easy to finish up with the part slightly out of true, which would be difficult to rectify so I separated them. Once that was done it was a simple matter of setting up the parts on the steel plate with dabs of solder cream in strategic places and held down with a few magnets before carefully soldering them together.
Then the drop lights are soldered in place. The next problem will be finding, or making, a lot of hinges and sourcing some suitable ventilators to go over the doors.
A fiddly end.
The end steps have holes where normally one would expect etched bolt heads and matching holes in the ends. One is expected to fit the steps using 0.5mm wire. An unmitigated fiddle! And, very prone to misalignment too so I simply soldered them in place using the holes as guides and fitted the wire later. There are etchings for bogie sides and ends etched in a similar fashion that would be a real pain to assemble. Thankfully I don't need too.
The problem of the missing door hinges was solved by Peter Dobson kindly donating some spares from his scrap box so here are the sides, ends and compartment walls, scratched up from sheet nickel silver, ready for assembly. The door ventilators are from Slater's and holes have been drilled for the door handles and grab handles. One end needs a telltale to be fitted yet, which will be done when the parts arrive from CPL.
Here is the assembled body mounted on the underframe; this is bolted in place. The compartment walls needed some modification to allow for the various protrusions inside the vehicle.
A better view of the inside, the slight bend is due to the very short lens, I have straightened it out as much as possible using the Gimp, the picture was positively banana shaped originally.
Then ends have a brass angle fitted (part of the underframe kit) that match holes in the underframe floor. Once the body sides and ends were soldered up, shortened bolts were soldered in place, which go through the holes in the floor and can be bolted up from underneath. I then fitted the compartment walls, making modifications as I went along.
Not difficult provided one takes due care
Underframe.
This is the sheet of etch from Bill Bedford for a 40' MR underframe. There are no instructions but a little examination and thought soon indicates how best it should be put together.
Bill's underframe kit is interesting. The basic floor pan is simply folded up, though I am puzzled as to why the Vee hangers have the bend etch on the wrong side. The sole bar has tabs that fit accurately into slots in the floor. The overlay, which is an exact fit for the sole bar, has the footboard etched as an integral part of the overlay; so it is simple to solder it to the sole bar before folding up the running board and fitting the whole unit to the floor, clever. However, there are also tabs on the overlay that do not fit any slots, they were cut off prior to soldering the parts together.
The bolsters are a close fit and appear to be designed for Invertrain (used to be Wayho) bogies to be a direct fit by discarding the bolsters that come with the bogie kit and soldering the bogie centre pin in the hole, which is just the right size.
So here is the part completed underframe mounted on a pair of bogies. Now I have to source all the underframe gear and buffers. The central lower steps are provided in Bill's kit and fit in the slots visible under the running board step visible in the previous photograph. Steps to fit the bogies are also present on the etch too but appear to be too long.
