Ok, so where were we? Ah, yes the victim had been reduced to pieces (or at least stripped of its means of movement( and was ready for reconstructive surgery. So now it is time to address the thorny subject of wheels.
As I mentioned before, you have basically three choices: Aland Gibson, Markits and Ultrascale. So lets compare what you can get for how much using a Bachmann 2251 Collett goods as our exemplar.
Ultrascale offer a conversion pack that includes all wheels (in
This is Mikkel's fault (something that Gareth of fond memory and posts past will be extremely grateful). Mikkel kindly commented that he had found one of my blog posts useful for visualizing the work required for EM/P4 RTR conversions. Unfortunately, the all too brief skirting over a great deal of faffing around with that particular conversion may give a false impression of the work - or thought - required.
The theoretical basic flow is something like this:
Invert victim in
So more progress on the Bachmann Std 4 mogul conversion to EM...
The reassembly if all the exterior knitting has started (and I’m soooo glad the GWR didn’t go in for all this). One side done....
Ive also finished the pony truck side control spring and drilled a hole in the lump of mazak behind the buffer beam to take the free ones of the spring.
One day soon it might even go back to Kipford who has been extremely patient....
So the ex MSWJR 2-4-0... a nucast kit built by Great Shefford of this parish, but in exchange for him cading the hull for a St Ives Mackerel Driver (don’t ask) I said I’d do the chassis.
The chassis was to be nice simple and rigid. The issue was the leading pony axle. It needed to have a degree of compensation but also needed to take a lot of weight, the 2-4-0 being quite nose heavy.
The solution was a central pivot from the main chassis that would take the weight
So it has been an indecent amount of time since my last post. I have been busy....
As some might have been following, I’ve now got a layout thread (which also had not had a post for a while) and a 3D workbench thread which because I can do it in my lunch break at work gets rather more progress, although when the prints get printed they fall into the workbench black hole!
Still when family, work and home maintenance permit I have actually managed to do some real modelling
I’ll be demonstrating wagon conversions and construction at the South Hants Area Group ‘Workshop wise’ on Saturday 14 July, Fort Widley, near Portsmouth. See https://www.shmrc.or...-South-2018.pdf for more details. DrDuncan
Well merry Xmas to you all!
It’s been quiet, but modelling has taken place. Two commissions have made their way off the Work bench recently. A Bachman 3F that was a saga, mostly due to problems with the wheels being loose on the axles. Nuff said.
The D16 went well after I managed to solve the problem of getting the gear wheel to stay put on the axle. Having tried pretty much every glue to hand without success I drilled down between the gear teeth and through the axle, inserting a bit
For those who have been following my now rather sporadic workbench blog I will be demonstrating wagon bashing at the Great Western Study Group's Member's Day on Saturday 3 June.
Despite the 'Member's Day' bit, the event is open to all comers, although the AGM at the very end of the day is members only. Besides me (if that isn't enough of an attraction) there will be at least the following: The P4 layout Lower Exbury running in BR (W) guise. The Sage of Fareham (aka Richard Butler of Westcli
I'm up to part 6! Oh now depressing...
Anyway, having had a good moan about 2811's chassis (not at all a) kit, I thought some photos were in order. I also have sorted out the over long slide bars so everything now seems to turn as it should by hand.
You can see in the image below the amount that has had to be trimmed.
The dreadful sliding washer arrangement on the pony truck can be seen here.
Anyway, now for more testing and another update in due course.
Right, 4321 was supposed to be a quicky. But...
The BR black body was repainted proper green, and made ready for lining. A replacement tender (with the correct unstrengthened underframe obtained - it was a Hornby 3500 gallon spare, the type used on their 28xx or a Star) was obtained.
The Perseverance chassis went together without any problem, the cylinders were rolled up, everything fitted where it should. I was busy feeling pleased with myself and loudly announcing my chassis building p
While I confess time has been limited, I have also made some significant progress with 2811.
Assiduous followers of this blog will remember that this has not been a happy tale to date. I now have a rolling chassis - well almost. The slide bars are too long and as a result the connecting rod strikes them jamming everything up nicely. This should be cured very soon with snips and a file.
The Comet chassis 'kit' has failed to impress. I think the best way of describing it is a number of sta
Its been a while, but I've not been too idle....
Commissions have been keeping me busy (or as busy as a 2+ son and a 10 month old daughter allow) with P4 dominating over EM for the last few months (but I'm due to pick up a loco for converting to EM at the weekend.
The Bachmann Hall was straightforward, although huge amounts of filling was needed to fit the P4 wheel sets to the tender.
The Gosport Guru also prevailed on me to convert 3 Bachmann L & Y radial tanks as a rush
This is a preemptive blog post.
Gareth, who delights in pointing out my errors, omissions and oversights (for the good of my soul and development, naturally), is - I am convinced - at this very moment penning a massive missive asking oh so sweetly, but with hidden barbs of reproach, what has happened to the the locos mentioned in previous blog posts. 'After all...' I can imagine him writing 'you've done all those other conversions that you talked about today, what about the others?'
A
It all started innocently enough - a gentle enquiry from a fellow club member about whether I'd be interested in converting RTR stuff to EM - not for him, naturally, but he'd had an approach from a third party and was it something I'd consider? Oh and I'd get paid for it too...
Well as an EM modeller, I'd done a few RTR re-wheeling jobs including a GWR City for the Sage of Fareham so I said yes.
Here is the GWR City I did for the Sage of Fareham. I swapped the Bachmann 3000 gallon ten
Well its been a while, but I've not been that idle - stop sniggering Gareth.
ExpoEM went well - I think. I had a good few people drop by for a chat and the lecture seemed to be well received and promoted a fair amount of questions and discussion. Suffice to say that the 3 Mink conversions I was doing didn't get finished during the course of the 2 days. The only down side about demonstrating is you don;t get to see much of the show...
Anyway after ExpoEM I got roped into demoing at th
Its been a while since I posted - not that I have been idle. Gareth, following his move back to the USA, has now been supplanted by Ray Hodson as the person voted by me as most likely to be blamed, although in the spirit of fairness and because we live in an inclusive world I do not intend to let Gareth's retreat across the Atlantic to get in the way of the blame game when the opportunity arises.
Anyway, Ray. Ray volunteered me to demonstrate at this coming weekend's EXPO EM, doing modifyi
In a well ordered and just society I would be able to blame Gareth. The fact that I can't is annoying me somewhat and I think that deep down he (Gareth, whose default fault assuages so many wrongs and set backs) is avoiding any blame just to vex me. But I suppose then he is to blame for something...
On that happy note on to the dirty wagons that are 'fresh' - if that is the right word - from the paint shop.
It's worth remembering how dirty the old railway was (and the modern one is
I blame Gareth.
It all started with an innocent remark that I thought just betrayed our Yankee friend's touching ignorance of real railways: 'Aren't you going to paint your pre-1904 wagons red?
'Of course not,' I replied brimming with confidence 'Red was only in use until the mid 1890s so I don't need to.'
'Are you sure? I thought the Great Western Way said the balance of probabilities was on Red until 1904...'
'Nonsense. See.' I showed him the pages from the bible.
'Not th
Quite a while has passed since the last blog entry - I've been busy, but as the project progresses so the law of diminishing returns sets in: the closer you get to finishing, the longer it takes to see meaningful progress as details and testing take time, without the obvious leaps forward in progress that can be made early on!
The observant will also notice that 2322 is now 2525. This is because the interesting arrangement of cylinder covers (or lack thereof) at the front of the smoke box wo
While continuing to work on the loco and tender chassis I have started compling the list of modifications that will have to be made to the body for it to represent 2322. As a reult I have been diggin around for information on the Dean Goods. The first point to note is that there were two different widths of footplate. Before 2450 they were narrow, after 2451 they were wider. Having run a ruler over the martin Finney drawings it looks like there is a scale 3 inch difference between wide and narro
While I have been mulling over the horror story that has been 2811's progress (or lack of it) since the early summer - as detailed in The Locomotive shop- 28xx no 2811 - I have been making slow but steady progress with 2301 class or Dean Goods class no 2322. The loco is based on the familiar Mainline/Hornby model - a bit long in the tooth, but capable of making a high quality model, especially with a replacement chassis (essential if you work in EM or one of the even wider 4mm scale gauges...).
It has been quite a while since my last post, and even longer since my last update on 2811's progress - aside from some sulphurous mutterings in other posts which just may have indicated I was vexed and discontented.
The causes of this winter (well autumn) of discontent were various:
First, there was the tender issue expounded on at length in my last blog entry. In particular the rewiring to match the loco wiring was rather timeconsuming and is seems that Hornby used spit to solder the ele
Thanks to the conversion of my Hornby long coned boiler 28xx into a representation of 2811 in 1912-1914 condition (2811 is currently still in disgrace but may soon be upgraded to an utter pig of a job in the next couple of weeks if things go reasonably well), I have become interested in GWR tenders used in the Edwardian period - God help us. The start was the observation that 2811 did not have the tender supplied by Hornby (a Churchward 3500 gallon tender), but had a Dean 3000 gallon one instead
After the last entry about 788, I was ready to test fit the wheels and coupling rods to check that everything ran freely. (2811 is currently my chief problem child and I'll post about this when there is something positive to say.) I used a GW wheel press and quartering jig and was expecting this stage to be a complete doddle. Unfortuantely, the reverse was the case. Fitting the wheels and rods was striaght forward, but when the chassis was tested under finger power a tight spot was noticed. Wors
The Empire Mills project's next phase is, as I may have blamed Gareth for in the past, back-dating the china clay dries to the Edwardian period, which means it needs a new set of china clay wagons. I managed to find an interesting picture of what appeared to be a line of china clay wagons which had peaked ends and a solid roof - rather like salt wagons. Gareth, clearly in a mood of contrition, found a drawing of such a wagon belonging to the West Of England China Clay company. It looks like it w
