Barry Ten's Blog

Good progress Al! I’ve not heard of “Mr Surfacer” sounds a useful product that I must check out.

There is something a bit iffy about the front buffer beam on the Dapol and |Bachmann Cities.    The buffers are at the bottom of the buffer beam on the City and 6" higher at the top of the beam on Bulldogs.  Hardly any models of Cities or Bulldogs have this right. The only real difference between Bulldog and Arbara/City/Flower frames was the buffers were higher on teh small wheeled locos and the big wheeled ones had decorative shields to hide the top of the bogies. Hope this helps.

But it does sort of indicate your City buffer beam is also wrong compared to photos of City of Truro.

I can't remember how I mounted the buffers on the City (it was built 12 years ago) but the instructions do cover the buffer issue, so I think I'd have been aware of it. The snag is that, even though a Bird might have had a lower ride height than a City, and needed its buffers raised to the top of the beam to compensate, in model terms they're going to end up about the same due to the clearance issues with the front bogie. The bogie doesn't just need to be able to swivel without obstruction, but needs a bit of vertical clearance as well to allow for track dips. I found that my City was slipping in places until I packed up the body a bit more - not ideal but an unavoidable solution given my layout's undulations.

Games Workshop do a product which sounds similar to Mr Surfacer - Liquid Green Stuff. It's water based and easy to paint on, works very well for gap filling and removing blemishes.

Bullfinch is looking good. I know mixed materials isn't everyone's cup of tea - but I like it, there's something creatively satisfying about it. 

I like working with plastic as well as metal so it suits me.

 

Good value, too, compared to a convention kit. The current RM lists the City/Bulldog kit as being about 107 pounds, if memory serves, and for that you get everything, including motor, wheels, etc. I suspect you'd struggle to get a high-spec RTR tender loco for much less than that now. OK, there's the small matter that it has to be built as well, but we can't have everything.

 

I weighted up the boiler to the limit yesterday and it's running nicely. But, I think I'll swap the motor orientation around as it's a tad smoother in reverse than forward at the moment.

22 hours ago, Barry Ten said:

 

I think I'll swap the motor orientation around as it's a tad smoother in reverse than forward at the moment.

Isn't that always the way!

Yep - I swapped the motor around last night. Initially it was much, much worse (oops!) but then I realised I'd also swapped the orientation of the main axle gear, so it was all dismantled again, the gear re-orientated, and bingo, instantly smooth running in forward and (surprisingly) a distinct improvement in reverse as well.

 

These fold-up single-stage gearboxes can be a bit of a fiddle to get working well, but I find they do settle in quite nicely. The City was a bit grindy to begin with but it's now lovely and smooth in forward gear. 

I have only just found this topic and it’s got me tempted to have a go myself. Like yourself, I can live with some inaccuracies as long as the result looks the part. Should I add this to my pile of projects?

 

This also reminds me of the articles which used to appear in the Airfix magazine of many years ago, I wish that I still had them.

 

Well done.

 

Brian

I'd recommend it as a nice project which doesn't perhaps require quite so much time as a normal loco kit, and which is also cost-effective.

 

The two options are quite comparable. The City doesn't need that much doing to the body, but I found it more of a struggle to

get free-running because the large wheel diameter and the tight clearances under the splashers. 

 

The Bulldog/Bird is more straightforward in that sense but there's more to do on the body - although nothing tricky.