Finishing the door closing mechanism and making the brakeman's cabin were the next thing on the list.
A lot of details are shown on the original work drawings of these wagons. Most of it can be directly scaled down from these drawings, but some parts have to be made a bit sturdier, if they want to survive on a 7¼" gauge working model steam railway.
The doors are operated with a lever, that lifts the lower and upper part of the closing mechanism. It is fabricated from 3mm mild steel and filed to the required shape. The small pin to the right is the support for the door handle, that will be silver soldered to it.
Bending was done with a large adjustable wrench.
The bended angle was checked on the drawing. The handle is turned from 5 mm steel.
The hinge for the lever is fitted on the outside of the door.
Catches for the locking mechanism are riveted in position; the hole location is taken from the catch. A movable crossbar is be used to close the top of the door.
With the aid of a small home made bending tool the door grips are bended. They are made of 2,5 mm welding rod. The ends are flattened and drilled, so the grip can be riveted to the left hand door.
The doors almost completed.
When the door handle is lifted, the lower part is moved upwards (a catch on the bar below the doors has still to be fixed) and at the same time the top crossbar is lifted.
The brakeman's cabin (Bremserhaus) is made of wood.
A plywood back plate is used for glueing the side and cross planks on. This way there is some more strength in the construction and it is easier to get the assembly to the correct dimensions.
The back side is made in the same way. Of course I could have used the same material as was used for the side boards of the wagon (9 mm plywood), but than the grain of the wood would all be in the same direction. As to be seen in the picture, the planks were mounted in different directions on the real wagon and I tried to copy this in the model. Each plank was glued in separately.
The door opening was sawn out with a jigsaw.
The assembly of the cabin. With the small clamps a square is held in place during the curing of the glue. I found it more difficult to keep things square and straight in wood than in metal.
A test fitting on the end platform.
Again a primer coat was applied by brush. This to prevent stains on the wood during the further production process.
U-shaped profiles are needed on the back of the cabin. Alas the correct dimension was not available, but by milling a standard 10 x 10 x 2 mm aluminium profile to size, it was possible to make them.
The profile is clamped to a thick steel bar, so they could be machined over a relatively long length in one set-up.
These were also glued, and as an extra,2 mm rivets were used to fix them. These rivets were glued with super-glue in pre-drilled holes.
A general view of the wagon behind the locomotive. Although not on the correct height, it gives an impression of how the driving truck will look.
Because the driver will sit on the wagon to operate the engine, there is the possibility that the brakeman's cabin will get some knocks during usage.
Therefore on the top side steel girders are inserted, to give the construction some extra strength and hopefully some resistant to impact.
These girder plates give also extra surface for glueing the roof to the cabin.
The roof is made of 0.7mm zinc-plated steel. The front side of the cabin consists only 4 mm pine wood planks (ready available from the DIY-store)
