JOINING KITMASTER Mk.1 COACH SIDE SECTIONS

I soon realized when making the sides up for the 4CEP DMBSO, I couldn't file something straight to save my life, no matter how hard I tried. Getting the mating faces perfect of the pieces to be joined  to get a strong glued join was proving difficult.  I needed some sort of jig that would keep the bodyside still and square with some way of controlling a sanding action. After a lot of thought, and seeing what I'd got lying around to save buying anything, I found an offcut of 19mm MDF with a perfect square corner. I cut it down so it was square in size and slightly longer each way than the length of a Kitmaster coach side.

Next I glued onto the top edge a piece of aluminium angle (overlapping underneath the board), which would act as a 'fence'. Another piece of angle was glued on the right hand side for the sliding sander to move along. The sliding sander itself was another piece of angle, but with the face of it covered in wet and dry paper fixed to it with double sided tape, with the bottom edge of the w-n-d level or very slightly above with the top edge of the MDF board, to stop it sanding away. The pics will show whats what.

BIG ENOUGH TO ACCEPT THE LONGEST COACH SIDE IN 3MM

ONLY GENTLE PRESSURE NEEDED ON THE PIECE BEING SANDED

NO LIMIT TO HOW MANY SLIDING SANDERS YOU COULD MAKE FOR DIFFERENT JOBS

FIXED WITH DOUBLE SIDED TAPE. REGULARLY CLEAN PAPER FACE USING A TOOTHBRUSH TO STOP CLOGGING

 The only thing to keep in mind is to make sure when using the sliding sander that you keep it pressed against the angle on the edge of the board. With hindsight,this would probably have been better 'U' shaped, sliding in a 'U' shaped channel, but you might need some sort of handle then to hold onto.Also you need to keep the slider and the channel free from sanding swarf. 

Obviously there's no limit to how many sliding sander you can have, you could have a longer one, or others with different grades of sandpaper fitted.

Now it's by no means a perfect job, but it works and I can join together coach side pieces quickly and strongly, though I still add a thin strengthening piece of card behind each join for extra rigidity. The beauty of the perfect join only becomes apparent when you come to the painting!

It will also  come in useful for making items which need to have perfect 90 degree angles.

And needless to say some weeks after making it I by chance found out that NorthWest Short Lines in America make a similar  contraption, though as far as I can see none of their UK distributors stock it. Click this link below to see it

 NWSL True Sander