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 towards the centre for the new wheel positions. The left hand side had been done in the photo below.

Cutting out the slots had weakened the frames quite a lot so I have cut 2 pieces of plasticards and stuck them either end to restore some of the rigidity. An extra bonus I realised, this will give me something to glue the ploughs to! I have then chopped off all of the unwanted length of running boards and brake detail mouldings. As with most things cut off the old Hornby van so far, I saved the chopped off bits for use later on.

Admittedly my plan for re-wheeling the van was a bit dodgey but I gave it a go. I cut 4 identical shapes from my favourite low budget modelling material - Flora tub. I marked on where the point of the axle needed to go and used a sharp point just to push open a small hole in the plastic. These were glued in place on the inside of the remaining frame mouldings. A bit of time was taken to measure these as it would be important to get the axles square into the positions in the photo below. As it was, the whole thing looked a bit ridiculous with the wheels just hanging on bits of plastic tub so I trimmed up the old axle box mouldings to fit in the gaps between the running boards and the frame. Anyone that looks too closely will see that each wheel only has half a spring etc. but ironically the model actually runs really smoothly!

I have added a few other little squares of plasticard to represent the bottoms of the axle boxes - mainly a bid to try and hide the sheets of plastic the wheels sit in. After a coat off black paint and I think it looks reasonably smart. And i'm more than happy with how smoothly the brake van runs. I was expecting it to give me a lot more problems not having tried anything like this before.

I think all of the main construction is now complete. The roof has had a coat of paint. I have a few bits of other detailing to do now. I have bought myself a pin vice so I can drill some fine holes for the hand rails. I have made a start on some of the hand rails. I have found that the fine wires inside the ties that come with food bags is an ideal size for hand rails. Heres a photo of the progress so far...