Plastic surgery or how to renovate a Lima BR Brake Van
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It's been a weird week on the modelling front. From the excitement and adrenaline rush of getting Juniper Hill ready for the Rushden show and then exhibiting come Monday I felt like some modelling . There are bits to do on Juniper Hill and repairs required on the layout and some of the rolling stock but I wanted something quick and easy to do which in my case always turns into a major project.
Here's the link to Juniper Hill:
A mate of mine had an old Lima BR brake van which had been damaged following something heavy landing on it. The veranda on one end had been smashed and he had repaired it in a kind of a fashion. I offered to return it to him repaired and renovated
Looking at it once again I was impressed with the Lima moulding-its finesse compared to other offerings of the time. Yes, there's a few faults in the sense of the underframe detailing, buffer beam hight and the metal panel above the ducket is slightly too large but overall its not a bad model in my eyes anyway. I happened to have an old Airfix BR brake van body so thought I could bodge a cut and shut repair together to fix the broken veranda end..
I found a nice picture on Paul Bartlett's site of an early unfitted example without the four lamp brackets on each corner-just the one inset between the veranda end and ducket like the LNER brake vans. Although the prototype didn't have the metal panels above the duckets it wasn't meant to be an exact replica and I thought it would make a change from the norm.
The photos below show what I've done to this brake van. I've used some spare Dapol 3 hole wheels to replace the Lima ones. Staples have been used for the foot board stays and I've added the missing foot board from modified Plastitruct 'L' section.
As you can see the Airfix brake van veranda end has blended in nicely with Revell plastic filler. I've used a mixture of brass and piano wire to replace the moulded or missing handrails but soldering the horizontal handrail to the uprights. The small handrail next to the metal panel below the chimney should be moved across slightly and in hindsight I should have modified the panel to suit.
The roof has been detailed with MJT torpedo vents and an aluminium tube chimney. The rain strips are Microstrip positioned with the aid of a jig made from Tamiya masking tape.
Below are shots of the brake following a coat of Halfords plastic primer showing the finesse of the Lima moulding. I'm pleased with the result so far. Hopefully tonight I can get a few coats of Tamiya acrylic on,
Although this model has many faults it also has some good points including the standard of moulding and I believe it will give a good if not accurate representation of a BR brake. I would imagine that if the metal panels were modifiyed above the ducket and a new underframe added you would get an accurate model. Saying that you'd probably use the Airfix/Dapol kit or just buy a ready to run Bachmann/Hornby RTR offering.
However, there is something satisfying is renovating these old models and bringing them up to date using bits to hand.
Update soon.
Cheers,
Mark
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