Dear all. I finally got around to reducing the gap between the bogies and chassis on two of my deltics. I'v ebeen meanign to do this for a while and whilst a number of people have mentioned it, I could never find anything that showed how it was done... so here's how I did it.
First picture shows a before shot... there is clearly a bit of a gap between the bottom of the brake lever and top face of the bogie. Whilst this allows the loco to be used on layouts with 2nd radius curves - my move to Code 75 finescale will make this redundant... and I can improve the look.
With the bogie removed, identify the two raised lips either side of the central pivot... seen here:
Here we see that the lip on the right has been removed - this is achieved by simply filing away until it is flush with the base - you can see the detritus still to be cleaned away:
This needs to be done both sides, both ends (obviously)... then, as I'd included a speedo cable, which being wire was stiff (maybe elastic next time!) I needed to create space for this given that it would now be closer to the body at the point of entry.... in short, I needed to hollow the body out a bit. Without affecting the finish, this can be easily achieved by filing out a rounded convex shallow where the speedo cable will sit. It looks like this:
So, that's it.... and the result is not drastic but subtle. It has closed the gap between the bogie and body - not as close as the real thing... but it's better that it was and evry little helps to contribute to realism. Note that the brake lever now sits just below the bogie top edge. Just add some 40 links-per-inch chain and it's there (must get some!)
And the finished item in the sun at lunchtime today. Please accept my apologies for the back screen. It honestly didn't look that bad in real life..
So, that's it. I suspect this is a "yea so what" to most experienced modellers... but it was the first time I'd tried it, so I thought I'd record the result. I hope that it might be useful.
Jon
- 1
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