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ebay gem - O guage 02 diesel kit


As ever I can't help looking for a bargain. Something in me just won't let me buy something at full price. Fortunately I have managed to pick up a little gem of an O gauge kit from Ebay in the last month or so. For some reason hardly anyone placed a bid on it and it went for a song despite retailing for something like ?‚??199! The seller advertised it as a part built kit with one or two items missing and even provided a list of the bits missing. Always up for a challenge I figured I could source a few missing screws and scratchbuild some brakegear so put a silly low bid in on spec. It arrived on my doorstep shortly after. :)

 

The kit is a Tower models Class 02 diesel which is mostly whitemetal, in fact pewter, with some brass chassis bits and all wheels, gears and motor. An ideal starter kit in O gauge for a bodger like me. As it happens when I inspected the kit I couldn't find any bits missing!

 

02_9May09.jpg

 

The previous owner had started the assembly of the chassis and also cleaning up the castings. Sophisticated chassis? NOT! On arrival I gave it 12 volts to see if all was well and with a couple of minor adjustments to get the gears meshed nicely the wheels fairly whizzed round.

 

02chassis_9May09.jpg

 

Most of the castings are actually very clean with the exception of the cab which is a single piece and has required hours of filing to get it close to good enough. The hood and cab are mounted as a unit onto the footplate with screws and here they are roughly offered up.

 

02body_9May09.jpg

 

I assembled some pickups as per the instructions and took it up to my local model railway club for a little amble round on the O gauge layout. It worked fine and will even run quite slowly despite not having been run in. The pickups though were less than wonderful. The phosphorbronze strip provided seemed a little too thin for the job and so after consulting some experts I decided to scratchbuild something better.

 

Several of the O guagers at the club use scratchbuilt plunger pickups made from 1/8 inch brass tube and rod with either wire or phosphorbronze springing. I opted to try some guitar spring and having sourced some brass rod and tube from a local model shop and dug out some copperclad sleepers knocked, something up. Here's the result as yet untested on the layout so will probably require some adjustment, certainly works if you whack a couple of wires on the tyre treads.

 

02pickups_9May09.jpg

 

I'm waiting on delivery of some low melt solder via the postie so I can get on and start sticking the castings together.

 

Cheers

Dave

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eldavo

Posted

17th May 2009

 

This week I've mostly been fiddling around with the Tower 02 kit, the ebay gem. Of course when I put an order in for several grades of solder which is the one that is on back order, the 70 degree for use on whitemetal. Impatient as ever I decided to assemble the castings using adhesives, 5 minute epoxy for the large bits and gel superglue for the details. All has gone together without any problem and the only laborious bit was drilling holes for the numerous handrails and handles that have to be bent up from brass wire.

 

I've added a few other bits and pieces along the way that weren't in the kit, lamp irons, extra handrails on the front steps and sanding pipes, but otherwise the kit is as intended (I think!). The rear handrail is extremely vulnerable and the kit provides pewter stanchions for the uprights. I didn't think these would be man enough for the job and the prototype appears to have uprights made from the same tube as the handrail so I soldered something up from brass wire.

 

Here she is ready for the paintshop which is where she has been today...

 

021_17May09.jpg

 

022_17May09.jpg

 

Cheers

Dave

  • RMweb Premium
eldavo

Posted

26th May 2009

 

For the past week or so I've been splashing paint on the 02. Intially it was primed with Halfords white primer then given shots of various Halfords car paints along with some Games Workshop Chaos Black which I happened to have around. I've hand painted wasp stripes on the front and rear and these still need some work to smooth out one or two dust bits that have managed to find their way into the paint. :mutter

 

She has also been glazed with the provided glazing strip. Individual panes were cut and fixed fairly flush with the surface using Johnsons Klear.

 

Here she is so far.

 

022_26May09.jpg

 

021_26May09.jpg

 

Close-ups are cruel and expose the problems with the stripes. Probably can't get the stripes too much sharper so I will eventually add a little light weathering to disguise any imperfections (I hope).

 

Cheers

Dave

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