P4ing the NRM Deltic
Another quick project which has very little use (prototypically at least) for the new layout. I'm back home in devon for a few days, and given the weather isnt good enough to do the painting I had planned I have dug out a quick project to keep me occupied, converting my NRM deltic to P4
I'm going to set about doing this slightly different than usual, this time using Exactoscale 14mm wheels. My reasoning for this is three fold, firstly the wheels were purchased with the intention of fitting them to my CDAs, however unreliable running (followed by the decision to mill out the wirons to accept Maygibs (and the prototypical break disks) resulted in these wheels not having a use. This loco is primarily intended as a display piece, a good reason therefore to go with the best profiled wheels. Finally, I know that the Bachmann all axle drive chassis can be something of a dog running wise, so I am hopeing that through using a combination of a tricky chassis with wheels that are the most sensitive to track imperfections, this loco will be ideal for testing trackwork on Bodmin (under the assumption that if this will work through it, anything will!)
So onto the conversion...
The first problem is that the wheels are designed to use Exactoscales own design of axle, which even for its intended use I really do not like. For this use its a complete no goer, given the need for a 2mm axle to accept the gears/bearings. So the first step was to modify the wheels to accept a 2mm diameter axle. thankfully the boss in the centre of the wheel has a 2mm OD, So I placed the wheels over a slightly open vice so that the inner face is on top, it was then gently hit with the flat side of a pair of pliers to knock the boss through the wheel, and in the process break the bond between it and the plastic surround. The next step was to use the pliers and pull the boss out of each wheel (being very careful to ensure that it comes out perpendicular to the wheel face and not mess up the alignment.)
Once the wheels were all sorted, I made up some axles. these were taken from some OO wagons that were due for conversion, pulling off the wheels and then filing off the pinpoints before fitting one of the new wheels to each axle.
The rest follows the standard procedure for loco rewheeling, pulling off the gears and bearings from the Bachmann axles and replacing them onto the new ones. Annoyingly I havent got my back to back or gear puller to hand, so this will have to wait until Ive returned to bucks later in the week (unless someone has one at DRAG tonight.)
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