by Doc
Finally, the Brandbright Directors' Saloon rolls out of the workshop and has already seen service as a committee room. It still has its lighting to be fitted and I have many issues to resolve about that. However, as you can see, it does the job.
I chose to use a slightly more sumptuous colour than the crimson lake conventionally used in the 'Blood and Custard' livery scheme. Whereas the rest of this collection of carriages is to be painted using Vauxhall Flame Red, this one merited a touch of Ford Oporto Red. Both were contrasted with vauuxhall Gazelle Beige. Sadly, this last is no longer obtainable from Halfords but easily found on ebay.
Richard, at Brandbright, the designer of this carriage, was extremely helpful in supplying the extras and generous with his time to discuss the ins and outs of lamp tops and ventilators. I chose to mount two lamp tops and three torpedo ventilators. One ventilator was essential over the loo and a matching one seemed obvious over the galley. All that was missing then was a third one at the observation end to extract the cigar smoke. He was quick to point out that pictures I had seen of carriages festooned with ventilators were of standard gauge carriages; wide bodied, travelling at the speed of light and packed with chain-smokers to a man. In comparison, narrow gauge coaches trundled along sedately, sparsely populated and with the windows open. Mostly he would mount lamp tops or ventilators but rarely both. There was a logic in this case to combine the two.
Aware of the flak I would fly into if I didn't, I mounted a lamp bracket on what will often be the rear of a train but failed to notice before taking this picture that the vac hose was loose.
Here, the saloon is in use as a committee room. Plans are afoot for an extension to the DLR and the General and the Vicar are hard at it, arguing about the fine details on the map whilst Lenny Strainer attempts an evacuation. Thank God for the ventilator! Of course, there is no light in the loo which, were it after dusk, might be a problem, particularly for Lenny who has not been able to find his backside with his eyes shut all his life
After a long deliberation and lots of helpful advice from the group, I ecided that gluing the roof down would be a mistake. It would forbid any change or renovation to passengers and lighting would be a problem in time. I chose to use two of the roof supports to help keep the roof in shape and used them to form new end pieces from spare fretting from the kit.
.A slot has to be cut from the end of the cubicle wall to dovetail with a similar slot cut in the roof support. I glued in place three of the roof cross bearers which was essential to srtengthen the carcase and bring in the walls which had a tendency to spread in the middle. Once those bearers were solid, I dry assembled the residual two, put a bead of pva on the tops of them and replaced the roof, holding it down for an hour or so with rubber bands. When i next came to lift the roof, the bearers vcame away fronm their seatings and now form two added reasons for the roof to stay in the right shape. They also act as helpful locators. The second roof layer also fixes the unit to prevent distortion if properly glued. Indeed, even ironing on a solartex sheet did not warp the roof.
