KITMASTER TT MK.1 COACH WINDOWS & THE 4CEP

The four TT MK.1 coach kits produced by Kitmaster were for the SK, CK, BSK and RFO. Disregarding door windows, they all use only two of the sizes of window that could be found on a Mk1, namely the full height 4'0" wide and 2'3" wide ones.

On other coach variants, including those used as a basis for various EMU's, there were other sizes.

From my researches it appears there were full height 1'3" (nominally) windows to be found on Boat Second, some FO, many Catering cars and quite a few EMU's; (there may be an even narrower size used on some Griddle cars- I cant confirm as yet).

Full height 2'0" wide windows were used on many Catering cars; Half height 3'0" wide and also 4'0" wide were utilized on Catering cars also.

The 4CEP has a door in the middle seating bay of the DMBSO, making the use of a 1'3" wide window either side necessary. The problem was overcome by Alan Williams in his MRC article, by cutting bits of bodyside so that you got the edge of one side of the window, but it seems the other edge was just a straight cut, not the side of window, so it looked a bit odd. He filed down larger windows to make the narrow width ones required. No doubt he had to do it like that or he may have had to cut up even more coaches than was really necessary to get the exact bits that were right.

In 3mm I'd got lots of battered or broken Mk1s, so I had the luxury of being able to use two proper 'halfs' of a window which when joined looked ok, with radii on all corners. Whilst I could file a window down to the right width, other than extremely accurate cutting how could I get the window aperture the exact width so the window was a good fit?

I decided to glue down the filed down window to a piece of plastic card, then keep filing either side of the two pieces of coach side until the two joined together nicely. How to file the sides accurately and squarely was another problem, see this post:
http://twotonegreen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/joining-kitmaster-mk1-coach-side.html

Odd sized window creation, first glue the filed down template to a piece of card

You need to make a diagram beforehand with all your dimensions and window positions to get things right before starting; really this is to get the spacings between windows, doors etc correct.

keep filing the two sides down by the same amount until they meet the edges of the window template

Once happy with the fit, glue with MekPak and leave to set hard. Then glue say 15 though strengthener strip on the inside above and below the aperture, leaving enough room for the window to be glued in.

Below are the templates for all the different sizes. I found that when using half height windows, I had to glue several 'plain' bodyside pieces together and drill out the apertures to take the windows. I have in mind casting a plain section of bodyside for situations like this (a lot of Catering cars have big areas of blank bodyside with occasional half height windows) rather than cutting up too many coaches to get 'plain' pieces.

different sizes found on Mk1 coaches

I went to the trouble of making all the different sized templates even though theyre not all used on the 4CEP;
thinking ahead, my Mk.1 Catering car fetish will ensure they will be made use of!