In the prior post you may have noticed there were 2 different prices for the Dallee Adjustable Constant Lighting Unit. The price increased with a new order. Always contact the vendor for up-to-date pricing plus the avilability of products.
Should a vendor (manufacturer) be mentioned of which you are not aware, feel free to contact me for information on how to contact them.
Now is the time for some homework. Before going into this section of rebuilding the interiors of your coaches you need to look at photos of the prototype to refresh your memory regarding colors, the style of the seats, interior windows, plus other interior items.
These are 3 of the NSL cars at IRM. The interior photos will help you in choosing the colors for the interiors of your coaches. The floor on which the seats are mounted will be called the interior floor. If you check your model’s interior floor and seats you should notice your models’ floors and seats don’t match the interiors of the cars at IRM.
To help you in the reassembly processes, before starting take ample photos of the interior floor with the seats and partitions (smoker/non-smoking sections, equipment locker, and lavatory). Don't worry about the bulkheads between the seating and vestibules. They will be coming up next as we proceed with the interior.
One interior floor will be worked on at a time. There are a number of parts and holes in the floors.
First my philosophy about interiors - while getting the interior correct is important; I don't invest a lot of resources (time and money) on them. Once the model is assembled the color of the floor and items below a certain level will not be seen. I place my resources into the exterior where they can be seen and enjoyed.
Floor - From the IRM photos is looks like the center of the flooring in this group of cars was a dark gray. It was a commercial grade flooring with black and other colors mixed in.
The interior floor of the model is brass and longer than the power truck floor. This made the floors hard to remove. After taking off the seats and partitions, 0.020" was file off of each end.
The floor was soaked lacquer thinner to remove the sticky stuff from the bottom. The top side was sanded smooth. The floor was painted with left over gloss dark brown Rust-Oleum spray paint.
These are the before and after photos of the floor.
Seats - They are the wrong style and color. The seats in the model are lost wax brass castings and are the reason the each model is so heavy. Remove the screw holding each seat in place. The seats can be replaced with the correct style seat. Current Line has C-468 and Q-Car has CS-077 (close but not exactly) in soft metal castings. If you want to lessen the weight of your models, Kiel-Line may have the correct seats cast in plastic.
To reuse the seats soak both them and the screws in an organic solvent to remove the gooey substance on them. After soaking and cleaning the seats, a small area was filed off on the top corner edge of the seat back - at a 45 degree angle for the hand hold. Then a 0.020" brass wire was ACC'ed over the sides and top of the seat back to simulate the chrome piece.
The seats were painted a semi-gloss red using Rust-Oleum spray paint. When dry the seat frame and sides were painted black. The brass wire was painted using Floquil Bright Silver to imitate the chrome piece on each seat.
These are the seats from my lead coach after being painted red.
One alternate to adding the brass the wire is to place a narrow aluminum decal strip over the sides and top of the seat back. This can be done whether or not the 45 degree notch is filed out. Another alternative is to paint the top and sides of the seat back with an aluminum paint stick. These contain aluminum paint in a ball point like pen.
The seats can be reassembled on the interior floor. The same screws were used to reattach the seats to the floor. Once the alignment of the seats is checked they were ACC'ed to the floor.
Interior Partitions - They can be reused if you want. The brass partition is for the heater equipment locker in the smoking part and the lavatory is in the regular coach section of the car. You probably noticed the wiring went through the heater locker. Both the heater locker and lavatory need doors. If you're reusing the brass partition it needs to be straighten out plus the window between the smoker and the coach needs to be cut in. Photos of the interiors of NSL coaches are readly available on the internet and in books.
In my cars the lavatory/heater locker partition was made of styrene. The lavatory and heater locker are combined into 1 larger space for wiring and the location of a Dallee Adjustable Constant Voltage board. For this reason I didn't make any doors in the interior partition for the equipment room or the lavatory. The partition was painted with Floquil’s acrylic paint Aged White. The inside of the bulkheads will be painted the same color.
Passengers - YUCK! Toss them out. The paint job is terrible. They do not look like humans! Use any passengers you want. Don't forget to place a passenger in the "Railfan's seat" in the first seat by the window for the 1st car of the train. Along with the passengers include a trainman - conductor and trainman. The attendent for 415 will be mentioned in the posts on 415.
I usually place single passengers randomly without any thought of a prearranged pattern. Seeing a model with passengers placed this way seems to give the idea of a filled car. I've seen some pairs of passengers in models but this didn't give the impression of a filled car. My exception to the random seating is to place a child with a female passenger. The thought being a child would most likely be with his or her mother or aunt on the train.
This is a comparison photo of before and after. The interior is complete including passenger and trainman.
A spacer for between the interior and power truck floors was made from 0.100" x 0.250" styrene strips. (A thicker spacer was required for my models due to the older style of power trucks.) It was glued on using ACC to the power truck floor. Leave space for wires.
Some fitting and cutting was required. There are the screws holding the seats in place plus the power truck mounting. A Dermal tool with a cut off wheel helped to gouge out the styrene.
Here is a photo of the power truck floor with the styrene spacer plus the passenger floor to be placed on top. The brass spots on some of the seats are the tip of a 00-90 screw used to hold the seat in place. Not all of the screws holding the seats in place could be loosened. The head was cut off with a cut off wheel in a Dermel tool.
To screw the 2 floors together, the interior floor has 2 metric nuts soldered on it. These nuts were easy to pull loose from the floor. I switched to 2-56 screws, washers, and nuts. With the soldered on metric nuts out of the way, additional styrene was added to support the passenger floor at the point of attachment; the ends and in the center of the floor.
On my cars the interior floor was not square with the power truck floor if the predrilled holes were used. The holes required some filing to enlarge them. This process is important. If the assembly of the interior floor to the power truck floor is square, the final assembly will go smoother.
I tried to slip the coach body over the floor. The fit was very tight plus the small body tabs to hold the floor to the body interfered. Now is the time to round off the corners of these tabs with a file. Remember to protect the finish of both the exterior and interior. The body was not tried on the floor(s) again. I didn't want to risk damaging the paint.
Next comes the bulkheads and cab interiors.
Cheers,
Ed
Very nice work, clean and methodical. Like it.
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