Interesting find on eBay

[hayfield]

I notices on eBay a listing stating Airfix 0-4-0 saddle tank locomotive kit with motor. On inspection there was a brass bar type chassis with what looks like Romford (Mazac) wheels on one side and a motor similar to an X03. Too tempting to pass over and there seems to be instructions for the chassis conversion kit. Cost me £16.39 inc postage and at worst will join my collection of vintage locos with minimal work

[bertiedog]

It is Not then the Amazing Peco conversion kit for the Pug by Kitmaster, of which I had one up and running on the original parts, which included metal tyres for the Kitmaster wheels amongst other delights of very dodgy engineering. Mine went Awol many years ago, but I would like to trace the conversion kit and recreate the worst idea Peco ever had.......

 

Stephen

[hayfield]

 

This is the photo with the lot, curious as to what comes

[Golden Fleece 30]

It is Not then the Amazing Peco conversion kit for the Pug by Kitmaster, of which I had one up and running on the original parts, which included metal tyres for the Kitmaster wheels amongst other delights of very dodgy engineering. Mine went Awol many years ago, but I would like to trace the conversion kit and recreate the worst idea Peco ever had.......

 

Stephen

They were called Perfecta kits. Usually a whitemetal block fitted over the frame joints and needing a Tri-ang XT60 motor.

 

Garry

Edited August 13, 2017 by Golden Fleece 30

[hayfield]

Time will tell, as the instructions should mention the make

[BernardTPM]

I do remember Wilro Models (22, Clarence Road, London E5) advertising Airfix/Kitmaster motorising kits (Simplas), including the Pug, in the early '70s. Checking old ads these had cast chassis, so not that version.

[hayfield]

I have a friend who will be listing on eBay the Airfix 08 shunter, which has an old motorising kit. It has a cast centre chassis piece (as previously mentioned) but one side frame is metal the other Paxoline with wiper pickups fitted, all 6 wheels are cast metal with stub half axles, which I guess are joined by plastic tubes(which are absent). No idea of the maker as only the Airfix or was it a Kitmaster box with no instructions

[stewartingram]

Kitmaster did the 08, Airfix did the 04,

 

Stewart

[hayfield]

Kitmaster did the 08, Airfix did the 04,

 

Stewart

 

 

Kitmaster then it is

[Il Grifone]

It is Not then the Amazing Peco conversion kit for the Pug by Kitmaster, of which I had one up and running on the original parts, which included metal tyres for the Kitmaster wheels amongst other delights of very dodgy engineering. Mine went Awol many years ago, but I would like to trace the conversion kit and recreate the worst idea Peco ever had.......

 

Stephen

 

I built one too at great expense - 3/6d for the Kitmaster kit (or was it Airfix by then?) 7/6d (IIRC) for the Perfecta Kit and 22/11d (or thereabouts) for the Romford 'Terrier' motor. It worked after a fashion but would only haul 3 Dublo wagons and the motor overheated rapidly sufficiently to melt the plastic replacement sides for the lower boiler. This experience put me off trying any of the others. There were 4 or 5 of them: for the Italian 835 class tank (in 4mm scale, why?), BoB and?

 

I wanted to do the diesel shunter as suggested using the Hamblings chassis (Essar?), but a better (and cheaper) solution would have been to buy the Dublo model, which it is I did about forty years later.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Il Grifone

[hayfield]

The loco duly arrived today and the instructions refer to the chassis as a H N chassis. Looking at it I think it was a ready to run item as the instructions only refer to it fitting the Airfix Pug and adding the Airfix cylinders, coupling rods and crosshead

 

 

The wheels are on plastic axles and has a very sprightly motor

 

 

Looks to be set up for 3 rail as the wipers for both wheelsets are soldered to the brass chassis, also the second motor connection is missing

 

I have unattached one set of wipers so a quick adaption to 2 rail running should be quite easy to make, also need to fix the cylinders to the chassis

 

No idea what H N stands for, but well worth the investment

[bertiedog]

Interesting item, and obviously rare, the wheels are presumably mazak on both sides, with the plastic axles, which to my mind would indicate two rail as the main option, if washers in fibre were added under the sprung contacts. This point may be why the project was abandoned as the instructions or the knowledge of the builder did not stretch to adding the washers. The motor appears a standard Tri-ang made unit. Perhaps the axle and gears come from a Tri-ang diesel bogie..........

 

Stephen

[Ian Kirk]

Hi,

The motor looks too small to be the standard Triang item but is probably the little scaled down  version the X500 that they produced for the Rocket. A similar motor was in the Minic Motorway cars.  In the early days of British N gauge we used these in tender locos. Shoe horned into the tender driving the loco through a shaft drive. 

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

[hayfield]

I think given it mentions Airfix rather than Kitmaster dates the chassis to the late 50's / early 60's when 3 rail control was still much in use, which is also backed up by the Peco Simplex couplings enclosed

 

As for the motor, I have no idea of its origin. it has a 3 pole armature

 

In one way the conversion was quite ahead of its time with the motor not entering the cab, but I guess the saddle tank helps a lot. I will also need to fashion someway of attaching the cylinders to the chassis bars. From memory I have a spare kit squirrelled away where I can rob some parts from the frames. I will also need to do something with the slide bar fitting

 

As I have said, very happy with the loco

[stewartingram]

The loco duly arrived today and the instructions refer to the chassis as a H N chassis. Looking at it I think it was a ready to run item as the instructions only refer to it fitting the Airfix Pug and adding the Airfix cylinders, coupling rods and crosshead

 

129.jpg

 

The wheels are on plastic axles and has a very sprightly motor

 

130.jpg

 

Looks to be set up for 3 rail as the wipers for both wheelsets are soldered to the brass chassis, also the second motor connection is missing

 

I have unattached one set of wipers so a quick adaption to 2 rail running should be quite easy to make, also need to fix the cylinders to the chassis

 

No idea what H N stands for, but well worth the investment

 

Those axles look to be from a Triang class 31 bogie. The "plain" one appears to have evidence of the gearwheel being shaved off.

 

Stewart

 

edit: The motor looks either like a modified X04 (rear end shortened for instance, note the position of the screw for the brush spring), or an XT60 - which I admit I haven't seen for many a year.

 

Stewart

Edited August 15, 2017 by stewartingram

[Il Grifone]

IIRC the motion bracket on the Kitmater/Airfix kit plugged into a hole in the frames but the relevant part has been cut off. (There appears to be a hole drilled in the frames.) The cylinders fixed to a projection on the original frames.

 

I was always intrigued as to the reasoning behind Kitmaster's decision to replace the prototype's dumb buffers with spring and removing the slide bar covers. I would have thought that both would have made the kit simpler. I can remember trying to correct both in my youthful attempt to assemble the kit and making a hash of both. I joined the piston rod directly to the connecting rod (as Hornby do with their various 0-4-0Ts) but there wasn't quite enough clearance. (Proper metal parts required!)

(This was when the kit first appeared (1959?). The failure of the Perfecta kit was later. IIRC 51212 had already been scrapped at the time - it was hard to keep up; steam locomotives were disappearing so fast)

Edited August 15, 2017 by Il Grifone

[stewartingram]

Those axles look to be from a Triang class 31 bogie. The "plain" one appears to have evidence of the gearwheel being shaved off.

 

Stewart

 

edit: The motor looks either like a modified X04 (rear end shortened for instance, note the position of the screw for the brush spring), or the smaller version (XT60/X500?) - which I admit I haven't seen for many a year.

 

Stewart

[Golden Fleece 30]

Those axles look to be from a Triang class 31 bogie. The "plain" one appears to have evidence of the gearwheel being shaved off.

 

Stewart

 

edit: The motor looks either like a modified X04 (rear end shortened for instance, note the position of the screw for the brush spring), or an XT60 - which I admit I haven't seen for many a year.

 

Stewart

It is not the XT60 which was used in the TT range and both 00 and TT turntables of the mid 60's.  This motor had a cast metal front screwed on through the brush holder and deep drop bend on the lower pole piece as here in my re-motored TT Castle.

 

Garry

[Il Grifone]

It's an X.500.

 

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/360/1111/02/triang-Hornby-mega-x500-motor-r651_360_5a0299837903b851aa37730fe19b2d07.jpg

 

On another (inferior) forum I found a discussion about a resistor in series with said motor in the Tri-ang 'Rocket' (apparently measured as varying between 106 and 110 ohm - typical cheap digital multimeter!)

 

http://www.modelrailforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23780

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/service_sheet_details.asp?sheetid=127

 

And it would appear the motor cooks itself...

 

http://www.modelrailwayforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-2565.html

Edited August 15, 2017 by Il Grifone

[kevinlms]

It's an X.500.

 

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/360/1111/02/triang-Hornby-mega-x500-motor-r651_360_5a0299837903b851aa37730fe19b2d07.jpg

 

On another (inferior) forum I found a discussion about a resistor in series with said motor in the Tri-ang 'Rocket' (apparently measured as varying between 106 and 110 ohm - typical cheap digital multimeter!)

 

http://www.modelrailforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23780

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/service_sheet_details.asp?sheetid=127

 

And it would appear the motor cooks itself...

 

http://www.modelrailwayforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-2565.html

Regarding the resistor, how was it measured? If if the leads are just hand held against the wires, it could vay quite a bit. You need proper clips to take measurements. The difference between 106 & 110, isn't significant for a motor.

[Nimbus]

I have a friend who will be listing on eBay the Airfix 08 shunter, which has an old motorising kit. It has a cast centre chassis piece (as previously mentioned) but one side frame is metal the other Paxoline with wiper pickups fitted, all 6 wheels are cast metal with stub half axles, which I guess are joined by plastic tubes(which are absent). No idea of the maker as only the Airfix or was it a Kitmaster box with no instructions

That chassis kit was by EAMES. I picked one up paired with the Airfix Drewry shunter kit at an exhibition held in Welwyn Garden City in the late '60s. It was packed in a robust cardboard box about the same size as the Airfix one, but with much more free space inside. Astonishing what Airfix gave us for our 2-bob! The chassis was XT60 powered and designed for split chassis pickup. The axle muffs had 'D' holes to key the axle halves with correct crank quartering. It went together quite well, but was prone to pick up muck on its soft alloy wheels. I fashioned Tri-ang-compatible coupling bars from piano wire, which avoided unsightly hacking of the deep buffer beams.

 

The Nim.

[roythebus]

the motor in the Pug is deffo the Triang X500 "Rocket" motor.

 

EAMES made a motorising kit for the Pug along with a few others. I don't recall seeing one. However, I do have an EAMES chassis under an Airfix diesel shunter, the chassis with D section axles and plastic tubes. It ran quite nicely. I also have a couple of EAMES Airfix Railbus chassis which take the X04 mounted sideways under the floor.

[Il Grifone]

Regarding the resistor, how was it measured? If if the leads are just hand held against the wires, it could vay quite a bit. You need proper clips to take measurements. The difference between 106 & 110, isn't significant for a motor.

 

I assume that is in fact the case (it's not specified), but as you say the difference is insignificant and usually the resistance of the meter leads adds an ohm or two in any case. It's probably a 100 ohm 10 % resistor, probably 1W (short circuit requires 1.5W see below). It would run warm as reported. 

 

However, doing the maths, this would limit the current to 120mA which is quite a low current for a locomotive motor (not that much effort is called for in a Tri-ang Rocket!)

[hayfield]

Thanks all for the replies, the chassis instructions relate to adapting the Airfix body plus calls the chassis H.D.

 

My thoughts are this was a ready made, has the design and characteristics of an Eames chassis with the exception of curved ends on the frames, also the pickups for the wheels look manufactured not home made, also not in the Romford Eames style of the day

[hayfield]

I have listed these kits in "what have you done with your k'S kit) but it also falls into this thread

 

Only a couple of days ago in the other thread  K's narrow gauge kits were mentioned. I bid for a lot of what I thought were 009 models described as TT gauge

 

 

And as I thought these were 009 items

 

 

Initial thoughts were they were GEM or similar

 

 

But looking at the way the sides and ends joined each other, very much in the K's style