A Carriage Truck. - Introduction PDF version
This interesting little brown vehicle dates back to
1899-1901, when many were in use carrying wealthy
traveller's personal carriages, often with a horse
box in tow too. This is the second such I have
built, the first was long before I kept records but
here is the picture of the finished vehicle.
It is
not a build for the feint hearted or the beginner,
but there are some well designed features.
What's in the Box?
So
what's 'in the box'? In fact there is no box, it
comes flat packed, wrapped in some type of
cellophane. A sheet of etched parts, a bag of white
metal castings and some, fairly minimal,
instructions. One will also need suitable wheels
and couplings. The castings are good and so I did
not replace them. It comes with compensation built
in, one of the nice design features.
The Build
Without
doubt, the hardest part of this build is bending up
the side rails. The instructions suggest bending
the top rail first but, if one has something like a
hold & fold, then the other way round would be much
easier. It is critically important that these bends
are
accurate and neat because they are so visible.
Here are the major parts ready for the main construction to commence.
The basic floor is done together with the solebars and buffer beams.
Building the basic underframe and detail is relatively easy; one simply has to dry run everything.
As you can see from this picture, all
the parts fit well and, from normal viewing angles,
provide an excellent
level of detail. My only gripe
is that the holes for the axle bearings are far too
large.
Though one can fit the brake rodding exactly as the prototype, since that which is behind the wheels cannot be seen, I left the bits off.
There are a great many, small, parts to this vehicle and it is important that they are fitted as accurately as possible. One, because there is not much room to play with and two, because clearances are tight, especially on the compensated axle.
By the time the various castings are fitted, there is not a lot of movement available for the rocker to operate in. However, with care, it is enough. Back to Top
These three shots of the completed vehicle shew much
of what the work is about in building the vehicle.
The
springs, hangers and axle boxes are all separate
castings.
The restraining bars across the bed are designed to make up from several layers of etch but this time I used some 1.5mm square brass stock instead, much easier.
The vacuum pipes provided were the tall stand up type, wrong for this vehicle since they would foul any vehicle being loaded so I hunted in the spares box for some under slung ones and glued those on with 408 instead.
It will now be sent off to Dennis's paint shop along with several other vehicles of various types to be painted. When it comes back the couplings, shackles and chains will be fitted and I'll try to put some more pictures up then.