The bench was simply made from a couple of spare pieces of the pen pot. The control stanchion is made from a brass fitting I found in my scrap box with a base plate and quadrant soldered on. I spent some time trying to find or make a suitable handle, but failed - so decided to come back to it.
You can also see that I embossed some dummy bolt heads with a nail punch. I found that just pressing it on gave a nice result without the use of a hammer. The sides still looked a bit plain though and I spent some time pondering on enhancing the axle boxes (of course 45mm ones would come further out).
So then it was on to the wiring. The key requirement here was to be able to get it apart, so I used simple terminal blocks - one in the battery compartment and one for the motor leads under the seat. The wiring plan - and I did need extra wire - is:
1. Original battery box wires to terminal block on back sheet.
2. Wires from terminal block to switch, which was wired as in instructions to give forward and reverse. The switch fits through a hole in the seat.
3. The power wires for the motor go to the second terminal block and from there to the motor terminals.
The terminal blocks mean that I can easily remove the battery box and can remove the chassis/motor from below.
With the electrics sorted and tested, I decided to make some dummy plates for the side bars. These are just pieces of brass embossed with rivets. As they looked a bit too domed, I tapped each with a small hammer and then epoxied the plates in place. I used 16mm scale brass coach door handles on the front and rear covers, soldered in place.
Now it was time to take it apart for painting:
The base frame and deck was painted first using a little etch primer on the brass and then ordinary grey primer (and yes it does look a bit rough and ready underneath!)
The driver's compartment was masked up as I wanted it to show the wood inside:
It was primed
And top coated using Brooklands Green acrylic spray
The brass covers and stanchion were etch primed and sprayed, followed by an oven bake at 100 degrees C.
In this picture you can see the seat, which has a small semi-circular extension to cover the cut out in the base. As I could not get a strong enough butt joint, I drilled through and epoxied two 1.5mm OD steel pins to reinforce it. This allows it to be strong enough to hold the seat in place.
I also adjusted the position of the motor and glued it in position using a hot glue gun as suggested in the instructions.
Here it is assembled and looking very shiny. When I saw this photo I realised that it is important when using off cuts of the pen pots to make sure the good side is outside. See the side of the rear box (click on the image to see it large)!
I now had to return to the issue of the control handle to fit on the stanchion. As I couldn't find anything suitable, I filed on out of a piece of brass bar. Here it is as work in progress. Drilling the holes made a good guide for the shaping.
Here it is with the end of a fine paint brush used to make a wooden handle - and just before I re-soldered the spindle to straighten it!
A quick etch prime and some deep red paint completed it. I initially tried fixing it with double sided tape, but ended up drilling through from below the chassis, then marking the base before drilling and tapping 6BA. A long cheese head screw now secures all together.
It was starting to rain as I took this photo....
At this stage I felt that the front was a bit plain and so decided on a lamp. Luckily I had an old Mamod car lamp with a bright "brass effect" finish. I found that with the mounting screw in the back, it would slot perfectly into the V in the front board (and, indeed into the one in the back board).
I then masked the rim and sprayed it green. There is, of course, no logic to having an acetylene lamp on this ground breaking electric vehicle, so it was converted to electric......in my dreams......
Here is a photo showing the completed seat. It slots under the cross bar, which is glued to the bac sheet and then the single screw holds it down. The forward and reverse swithch really needs a dummy handle fitting......
And the side was a bit plain too - so I had a few very rough attempts at name plate etching. I had some rub down letters and so had a go at etching with Ferric Chloride. Let's just say I got a very 'antique' effect, but as a proper set would probably cost more than the whole loco, they will do for now. The name? Well i think you might have spotted the similarity to a certain item of church furniture....;-)
You might notice that I polished up the small handles on the front and rear boxes. Incidentally, the front is for the imaginary electric control system and fuses, and the rear, of course, contains the batteries.
Here is Pew with an early scratchbuilt coach and the overseer's wagon:
If you look at this image blown up (just click on it) you will see that the embossed bolt heads in the wood look very similar to the ones on the brass. The wooden ones have a tiny highlight of white on the top and a low light of black on the bottom.
It was still much too shiny though - so after a little rubbing down and touching up of some furry bits, I gave the chassis a very light weathering using a dilute brown/black wash with just a hint of white applied with an air brush. There is more to be done, but here the effect:
And here is a little video: