This time, I have finished working on the old Hornby chassis, making it look much more Shark-like in appearance.
The idea was to move the wheelsets in towards the centre of the chassis to make space for the ballast ploughs. The original wheels are located in holes in the moulded plastic frames - but in the completely wrong place for a Shark. So the first job was to open up the slots in the base of the frames. These slots allow enough clearance for the wheels, so they had to be extended towar
Here is the progress made so far with the brake van conversion. I think it is starting to capture the look of a Shark which is the main idea. The project was never meant to be a faithful replica so i'm happy with how it looks. Here's a picture so you can make your own judgement!
All the main body structure is now complete. The sides have all been constructed from 40 thou plasticard with extra pieces of framework made from strips also cut off a sheet of plasticard. The 2 inside walls/doo
I have made some progress with the body today. I didn't say at the start, but i don't expect this model to be of finescale standards. Hopefully though it will still capture the look of the real thing reasonably acurately!
I have removed the moulded on handrails that will now be in the wrong place and made start on rebuilding the bodywork. All of the pieces have been cut from a sheet of 40thou plasticard. The internal walls of the brake van are reusuable from the original. Also I have cu
This is my first ever go at converting an item of RTR stock so maybe slightly ambitious!
The basis is this old Hornby LMS 20T brake van i've had for a while. I don't model the LMS and nor am I likely to, so this became a perfect candidate for my first project.
I have scaled down some pictures of a shark brake van to 4mm scale and printed them off to use as drawings.
First job was to dismantle the brake van and identify the useful bits.
The wheels are lima ones, replacin
