The Welshpool coaches have been on on the back burner for too long. It was time to make progress. The first action today was to complete the roof. I had previously cut the roof with a V at each end and had them rolled to the required radius. I had also cut out some inserts to go in the V. The trick was to hold the roof upside down against some double sided sellotape with the insert roughly placed and then tack a bit of solder to give a little strength and then tack a bit in the other corner. Working like this you can push the ends of the insert around quite a bit until happy with the rough position. After that I bend a bit of waste fret into the inside and soldered that in to provide a base for the join. Adding solder from above then fills the inevitable gap and it is out with the files to smooth it down and make the end shape. The rain strip is then soldered on from 0.31mm brass wire. It gets a little dicey towards the ends as you are in danger of undoing the work already done on the joins.
The fittings on the roof are my own 3D prints and they are superglued in place. The roof was cleaned under the tap with soapy water and then took a turn in the ultrasonic cleaner to remove any final residue.
The next task was to add the truss rods underneath. The undersides of wagons and coaches are always hard to see but I decided the posts for the truss rods were really transverse girders. They should be attached to the underside of the solebars but mine go onto the underside of the floor to provide more strength. After that it was simply a case of adding some 0.5mm wire for the truss rods themselves. A clean and a session in the ultrasonic cleaner and now everything is in the airing cupboard drying out and warming up ahead of priming.
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