MÁV G^h car model building

1. Introduction

The G^h Class car model was constructed using the "old" technologies worked out for the previous freight car models. The only difference against the last G Class car was that this time even the base plate was made from nickel silver, rather than brass. I alreay learned it is much easier work with nickel silver, especially solder it, it makes sense to use it when possible. The profiles are from brass as there are no similar products available from nickel silver. I also made the thin etched parts from brass, because I had no 0.2mm (0.008") thin nickel silver sheets.

2. The Chassis

The base plate is made from a 0,6mm (0.024") nickel silver sheet. This was painted with basecoat, lined with a scriber and etched. The bottom surface was lined everywhere, the upper surface only in the middle, around the doors, where it can be observed, when the doors are off.

Both longitudinal main framesides are from 3.0x1.0mm (0.12x0.08") brass C-profile. The pre-made leaf springs and bearing boxes were soldered to this. One of the car models is equipped with old type two-part bearing box, while the second one with new type one-part box. The main framesides were also equipped with the reinforcement bars. The longitudinal rods were soldered on the bottom of the base plate. They are not prefectly parallel, though. One end opens up some tenth of a millimeter. This way the wheelset support can be mounted sideways tiltable which is important for a long wheelbase four wheeled car.

The bearing supports were etched from 0.4mm (0.016") nickel silver sheet. One of the cars has straight support the other one bent ones, as seen in the picture. After etching the edges were filed smoothly and the holes were drilled round.

The supports and the crossrods were soldered together to one single block. A distance holder aluminium template helped to keep exact size when soldering. The top edge of the tilting supports was filed shorter that allows the tilting movement.

3. The Superstructure (box)

The box is constructed from four side panels and two front panels. The doors were added later and the roof is a stand-alone component. The front panel outlines were printed in 1:1 scale on a paper and this drawing was used for comparison when filing to size.

The slanted enforcement strips on the side- and front walls were also made by etching. This time, unlike with the simple boxcar, the strips were etched in full length. This way the soldering was much easier as the positioning was a simple task. There are total five different strips, a right slanted and a left slanted for the sidewalls, a right and a left one for the front walls and one horizontal one for the front wall top. The grids on the sidewall openings are the same ones as on the simple boxcars, just in this case there is an opening on the door too.

First the strips were fixed on the walls. Now it was possible to solder them, as the nickel silver base material allows soldering on large surfaces, that is a hard task on brass sheets. The strip shapes determined the position for the vertical U-profiles. These were filed thinner where the slanted strips cross behind and they were also soldered on the walls.

Both sidewall parts were soldered to a longitudinal brass strip keeping care of the full sidewall length. The door opening was fixed by a temporary distance holder and later on a strong 2.0x1.0mm (0.08"x0.04") nickel silver rod was added along the sidewall top inside. After these preparations the side- and front walls were sodered together to a box.

The vertical rivet strips were soldered to the box corners. This could be made only after mounting the box together as they also cover the joints of the side- and front walls. As last component a strong crossrod was soldered behind the front walls, this also contains the threaded holes that will fix the box on the baseplate.

4. The Roof

The construction of the roof made many headaches. It was soon clear it could not be made from one single sheet. It is impossible to bend the middle part round when leaving both sides flat with a corner between them. Thus I made the roof cover from three nickel silver strips, one round and two flat ones.

But it was also clear such a soldered structure will not keep itself straight, but when cooling down it will curl. Thus four internal "ribs" were added that keep the final shape. To hold the ribs fixed during the soldering a longitudinal tube was also added, with a threaded rod inside. By tightening this structure with two nuts on the ends it remained rigid during the soldering. Originally I wanted to remove this threaded rod after soldering but it turned out it was soldered inside the tube. Thus the threaded rod remained inside the roof and the nuts were only removed and the rod ends cut off. (in the picture they are still there)

Back to the G^h Class Car Project Main Page

MÁV Gh car model building

1. Introduction

2. The Chassis

3. The Superstructure (box)

4. The Roof

MÁV G^h car model building