IP Engineering's Freelance Coach kits

Having seen the thread about painting the IP Engineering coach kits (but never even heard of them!),  I had a look at their site and thought they looked good so I bought a couple.
 
They arrived today and my word, are they good or are they good!
 
They combine my 2 favourite hobbies - building wooden models and building things 'train' related. 
 
Quality wood, excellent laser cutting and what seem like perfect white metal castings:
 

 
I'm about to embark on building the first one - has anyone got any building tips that they can pass on please?

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Very interesting, Tom.

Prior to laser cutting, the original kits were CNC routed, which removed the top skin of the plywood from between the beading.
Something of a revolution, avoiding handling the delicate fret.

BUT...  the routing tended to leave rough edges which were quite difficult to sand smooth, and affected the finished paint job.
(I guess you saw my pic)

This is the first close up I've seen of the new versions.  OK there is a delicate fret to handle, but they do look good.

I always liked the concept of the kits being complete with wheels etc.

In terms of building tips, the coaches look like they have straight sides and I can't see any real problems.
The original bow-sided versions needed a bit of ingenuity like gluing the bottom edge first, before trying to curve the rest of the side.

I recently bought IP's roof fitting jig, and it's worth considering.
It forms a cradle, and the coach body is laid upside down on the roof panel, and weighted down until the glue sets.
If you want the roof to be removable, you make a frame to fit inside the body top edges, and use it on the jig in the same way.

Happy gluing!

They are good little kits.
Use superglue if you are confident, if not use PVA wood glue and wait a little to dry.
If you are using them on LGB radius 1 curves you will have to set the axles a little closer together than in the instructions, I set mine at 140mm centres. I painted them with car spray paints.
The plastic roofs are a bit flimsy so I constructed mine from thin strips of ply
Hope this helps...........

and here's some we did earlier

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Paint the overlays before gluing if you want them a different colour from the body.

Hiya,

I built the 7/8ths version of IP's 4 wheel 2 comps but the same applies on 16mm. They fit together like a dream, but I must say I spent a lot of time preparing the sides/ends etc to get a really smooth finish for the paint. I used sanding sealer/shellac with least 7 or 8 thin coats with gentle smoothing with very fine sandpaper to remove the over scale grain of the wood which I find quite obvious even when painted (of course this wouldn't work if you were going to just stain them). If doing this you must remember to treat each side equally as unequal treatment could cause the ply to warp slightly.

Because mine where to be all one colour I fixed the frets to the sides and ends before painting using the appropriate exterior grade PVA. This gives a little wriggle room which gave me more confidence in getting it right which I wouldn't have had with super glue although mates have used the latter with great results.  

As has been mentioned I found the one part that lets the kits down was the plasticard roof..... but I always build my own anyway using strips of thin ply and then cover it with a fine grained cloth ( For 7/8ths I use and old cotton pillowcase, but in 16mm this may be a bit coarse?)

Oh yes and don't do what I did, suddenly realise you haven't provided for fitting lighting etc to the interior after you have finished...... I detailed the insides a bit but now have started to do more and I had forgot to drill etc for lighting wires etc... now its going to prove interesting

Hope this helps

Steph'

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Alpineandy's coaches look great, must try car spray paint in the future. I also put a bit of weight in my coaches to help them over springing points.
To help them link up to your Caradoc Tom you will have to remove the chopper on the buffer and use the hook with a 3 link chain. www.back2bay6.com do some very handy coupling adaptors for Accucraft which makes the buffer look neater and work better, click on 16mm scale link and scroll down.
Nice coach StephH, i wish i had spent a little more time on the painting of mine now.

Looks like I have influenced you Tom!

I spray painted my coaches before gluing. I used Halfords car paint; I recommend to paint the coach a grey undercoach/primer prior to painting as I found this braught thr colours right out nicely.
I was recommended super glue but I found the wood just absorbed this and had to use PVA and other glues to get the initial "bond" of stickiness and then sealed the deal with super glue to ensure effective bonding! If you need any help, PM me and I can send you further piccies of my recent embarkment of building this coach!

I've got one of the bogie coaches waiting to be built. Compared to IP's earlier efforts, these kits simply fall together. The accuracy of the fit of the parts is amazing.

I recently built this Vale Of Rheidol guards van and it was one of the easiest kits I've built in a very long time.



The one problem I still have is with the standard of IP's wheel sets. I just really struggle to get them to run reliably on the usual manufacturer's 45mm track and try to replace them with something more suitable (usually Bachmann) whenever possible.

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Thanks everyone, lots of great tips there.
 
Particularly useful are the ones about the roof and which glue to use on the frets (I'll probably go for exterior PVA because I've used that before and know how it handles).

I was going to leave a wooden finish, but seeing how they look with a great paint job has got me thinking again.

Cheers!

Interesting developments while building these two coaches in parallel:
 
The three compartment coach kit was a lot more accurately cut than the 2nd class/Guards kit.  Apart from lot of the ply sheets on the guards kit were warped, the seats were 1mm too short and the base was 1mm too long!
 
Building in parallel allowed instant comparisons which proved the guards coach kit was the bad one.  If I'd have only got that one, I'd have been very wary of buying any others from the range - a case for more stringent quality control if ever there was one.
 
 As it is, I'm really enjoying the challenge to get the guards coach to look as good as the other one
 
Anyone else had similar problems?  Perhaps IP Engineering's laser cutter had an off day when it produced my example...

Just to round off this thread...
 
I opted for 1/16" ply for the roof and used a method I've often used when making ship models.  I soaked the ply in very warm water for 30 or so minutes (until it was so soft that I could actually roll it into a tube!) and formed the curve of the roof.  I then applied the PVA glue and used gaffer tape (a.k.a. duct tape) to keep it in place until the glue dried:
 

 
I left it for about 2 hours (to make sure the PVA had set), removed the tape and the job's done:
 

 
 Finish them in grey or give them a coat of teak varnish?? I dunno! 
 

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That looks vert good Tom

Can I ask a question in relation to this thread...

I'm in the process of building an older IP kit with the cast bogies but am having a problem with the coach body wobbling on the move. These bogies are screwed onto a top hat cast pivot.

Any suggestions to improve the ride quality, please?

Gary

I have some IP bogies on scratch built coaches, but didn't like the look of the "top hat", thinking it would lead to wobble.  So far, I've used a simple wood screw, with packing on the chassis either side of the pivot point, to allow the body to sit square on the stretcher/transom (or whatever it's called).  Some slack is allowed on the pivot screw, the exact amount being determined by trial and plenty of error until it seems right.

Old Tom


Interesting developments while building these two coaches in parallel:
 
The three compartment coach kit was a lot more accurately cut than the 2nd class/Guards kit.  Apart from lot of the ply sheets on the guards kit were warped, the seats were 1mm too short and the base was 1mm too long!
 
Building in parallel allowed instant comparisons which proved the guards coach kit was the bad one.  If I'd have only got that one, I'd have been very wary of buying any others from the range - a case for more stringent quality control if ever there was one.
 
 As it is, I'm really enjoying the challenge to get the guards coach to look as good as the other one
 
Anyone else had similar problems?  Perhaps IP Engineering's laser cutter had an off day when it produced my example...

That is the same problem I experienced with an earlier IP kit.
My suspicion is that it is caused by the moisture content of the wood causing it to expand or contract across the grain after cutting.