A Bird for Brent Pt7 - The bogie & a problem
Hopefully this is the penultimate blog before the Bird enters the paint shop, (so I really need to confirm its colour!)
The first job was a couple of minor repairs after cleaning and priming the model, a handrail had come unsoldered and somewhere along the line a lower step had broken off. These were quickly soldered back into position before the real work could start. This was followed by gluing the reverser cover into place (which should have been fitted the night before…) There were also a couple of areas which needed a small amount of filler.
With that done attention turned to the smokebox, using Archers rivet transfers to add the ring of rivets around the front and rear edge. This was my first time using the product and I have to say I am impressed. It now needs another coat of primer to seal them all in before the next stage of work on the body.
Next up the bogie. As mentioned last night the bogie fitted to the model appeared to be scratch built, and had a number of errors (no rivets, missing the raised sections behind the wheels and the wheelbase was about 3mm too long.) The solution to which was to use a Bachmann spare bogie which was included with my City of Truro. However this only provides the frames, so it needed something to hold the axles in place. Looking through the scrap box I found a single Y25 bogie etched inner frame with the right spacing. Naturally this was wider than the bogie, my solution was to remove the two side frames and solder them to a Comet OO bogie spacer. A couple of modifications to the ends (removing the NEM socket, and removing plastic from the rear to clear the linkage) and it was ready to fit. The inner unit semi clicks into position on the plastic bogie frame, and is held into position by a bolt running the whole way through to the linkage. (Note at this point I still have the old wheels which came with the model fitted, as they are rather crude they will be replaced with some Gibsons at some point in the future.
However once the bogie was fitted it was apparent that there was a problem. I already had suspicions that the model might originally have been a scratch build, now I am even more convinced. The outer frame for the front half of the loco is too thick (so the bogie is stuck in the straight position). This is compounded by the left hand frame being almost a mm deeper than the right. Some work with a file got them back to the same thickness, but I think is still too thick (it certainly still fouls the bogie). I need to dig out the drawings in Russell and check the thickness as I think it still looks too thick, with as much as a mm of metal needing to be removed. All very annoying as it will risk damage to the smokebox, hence no work can be done until I have given the rivets a coat of primer to seal them all in!
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