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Izzy

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  1. Unfortunately it seems to be hosted on photobucket..........or is there another way of seeing it? Izzy
  2. Perhaps you could alter the track a bit at the junction - I can't remember how far it had got when I saw it - and fit in a small exchange yard in lieu of the station. Or even off the long top siding in the plan. I was sort of thinking of the sidings at Haughly where the MSLR joins. So wagons coming of the Bury branch could be left to go on to Cambridge etc. Goods trains could reverse, Bury to Cambridge and visa versa. And of course Passenger trains could be 'held' at the junction signals awating the road to overcome the lack of a platform in which to pause. Anyway, very glad it has survived. especially considering all the care that went into the baseboard construction, which is beautifully made to a high standard. Thanks for sharing more shots of it. Izzy
  3. It must be said that reading about locos with differing motor arrangements to that which was expected and provided with magazine review samples, one flywheel, two flywheels, motors fitted reversed, does not give complete confidence in those offered for sale. One could be forgiven for gaining the impression that the factory ran out of parts with which to assemble the locos and found an ad-hoc work-around to complete them, just missing in the process the fact that the motor wires were not reversed to suit and the locos thus run the opposite to normal convention. However, reading further comments about poorly placed/executed printed details made down to a price rather than up to a quality seems to resonate with me. Indeed this is the overall view I am left with after reading all the comments posted on the various threads relating to the Oxford locos, Radial, Dean Goods, etc released to date. This might be unfair and the fault is poor assembly/QC, but the end result is the same. Izzy
  4. Total height is about 24mm, width 10.5. Should mention that all HL gearboxes now use grub screw fixing for the final drive gear. I believe I am correct in saying this, and I don't think it alters the final size of any of the designs, but some ratio's are slightly different. The roadrunner+ I got recently is now 60-1 rather than 54-1 for example. Izzy
  5. Hi Londontram, In order to try and help until HL's site is up and running again I have attached the gearbox planner PDF you can normally download from there. If you have the means to print it out onto transparent sheet of some kind - I have even used tracing paper - then it's quite good putting it over a loco drawing to gauge how things might fit. gearboxplanner.pdf cheers, Izzy
  6. Could I offer a bit of perspective/history to perhaps help explain how things got here. When I first dabbled in 7mmFS a few decades back I too was surprised/disappointed by the amount of wheel drop I found with shorter stock with smaller wheels, so 9'/10' wheelbase wagons mainly. At the time S7 was just emerging and it was mostly a question of the Coarse scale or Finescale standards then offered as the normal ones by GOG. However, allied to the emergence of S7 was the arrival at around the same time of wheels from both Slaters and Alan Gibson which used a finer profile (for FS) than had been available until then, finer flanges, narrower treads. It was these that showed up/exacerbated the wheel drop with FS which until then had not been seen as a problem/issue. Indeed many O gaugers back then felt that FS was 'too fine' and pushing things, but you have to remember that very tight radius curves ( by todays general standards) were quite normal and getting longer wheelbase stock around them was the challenge. Being a bit thick I didn't think of the clever ruse of just narrowing the gauge a bit, and instead adopted my own standards of the Slaters/Gibson wheel profile along with a wider b-t-b of 29.8mm, so 0.6mm more than the standard 29.2mm, allowing the flangeways to be tightened up a bit to overcome the wheel drop. So basically the same result as using 31.5mm today. This wasn't too much trouble, and of course you can forget compatibility with RTR, because at the time it just didn't exist, except I seem to recall for a couple of Lima offerings at odd times. Today the situation with O gauge has changed completely, large amounts - comparatively speaking - of RTR in all shapes, sizes and standards, most of which is aimed at 7mmFS. Personally speaking I think 31.5mm/ O-MF gauge should now be considered as the defacto standard to use given the compatiblility with RTR stock and using anything on 32mm gauge. Izzy
  7. I have ordered one, perhaps I didn't compose the sentence very well, sorry. Oh, it would be nice to get it tomorrow. Then the fun will really begin........ Izzy
  8. Could I add that I believe that the Prodigy express handset speed control is either by Rotary knob or buttons, as per the Prodigy advance wired/wireless versions, any of which can be used with the PE command station. You can swap between which method you prefer as often as you like, just by using the particular control. Perhaps of equal advantage is that any system that uses buttons for control, (and in conjuction the rotary knobs are encoder type rather than plain potentiometer), that 'picking up' the speed control of a loco - when controlling more than one at a time and swapping between them - is easier than with simple rotary knob speed control types because they remember the loco speed setting. Izzy
  9. Yes, many thanks. Just trawled through the GER society PDF on loco allocations to discover 5551 was allocated to Ipswich in 1960/62 and it suits me very nicely if it was later at Stratford as I am modelling the ex GE 1960's based around North East Essex. regards, Izzy
  10. Er, no, I'd be re-machining the Hornby wheels to suit. As per here - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/124592-some-Hornby-j15-alterations/ Well I will be, I hope. On the other hand......... Your pointer to the BV site tempted me, but the postage - classed as courier - was a fiver. Still, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And at least a skinhead would be an East Anglian loco in it's early/later life. Trying to find where 5551 was mainly located in the '60's. Anyone know by any chance? cheers, Izzy
  11. Hornby price all their TTS separate sound chips at £39.99 here - https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/shop/power-control/tts-sound-decoders.html But I do not know whether this includes the speaker. I kind of assume it's all wired up together and ready to plug in/ go, but not sure. I rather fancied taking a punt on one of these skinheads (for conversion to P4 and see what sound was like in the flesh on a home layout) until I read they have traction tyres. Never mind, saved some money. Izzy
  12. I can't say I have found the conversion muffs any different as regards axle fit. I do twist the wheels as I press them into the muff, (I am afraid I have never used a wheel press in any scale), and also dress both the axle end and the muff bore to aid initial egress. It's just a thought, but did you assemble them during the recent spell of hot weather? It might be that the parts expanded very slightly, just enough to make a tighter fit. Izzy
  13. I am afraid I haven't being following this saga very closely as GWR locos don't really interest me ( I know - sackcloth and ashes!), but looking at Andy Y's underside shot in conjunction with those posted by Quarryscapes on the other thread I can't but help feel that there is a lot of what could be termed 'common ground' in design between this loco and Hornby's J15, even down to where many of the screws are positioned. Looking at both the stripped down loco and tender shots you could almost believe they came out of the same factory.........but the J15 does seem slightly more refined overall, which may be a mistaken impression on my part. As such it might again be the case that room between the splashers is tight even if the tender doesn't prove too much trouble. See here to get an idea of how I did it. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/124592-some-Hornby-j15-alterations/ cheers, Izzy
  14. New Crankpins. Just a small update with regard to the J15 crankpins. The Hornby ones are 10ba hex head bolts with part of the head reduced to 2.3mm dia where they enter the coupling rod. They do the job, and are easy to fit/remove, but the hex heads look a bit big. I did consider replacing the coupling rods once the loco was up and running and proven to be okay, but comparison with some spare Gibson rod etches I had to hand indicated that while they might look slightly better there wouldn't be much in it, the Hornby ones not being too over scale. It would also mean bushing the wheels (fitted with 10ba brass inserts) to fit the finer Gibson crankpins. So instead I made up some new crankpins with rounded heads. Trying to keep the machining simple I turned the heads in steel, tapped 10ba and then soldered to lengths of brass 10ba studding then cut to length afterwards. It's just a small change but I think another slight improvement which adds to the general look. Izzy
  15. I have a I have a pack of Evergreen 5 thou marked as 9009. I don't know if it's been renumbered or is a different pack, but I must warn that what I have is very soft, and melts away quite easily with the minimum application of liquid glue such as Mek. Nothing like the harder plasticard from Slaters or others. As has been said it seems the only option at present. I now only use it when there is absolutely no other option. Izzy
  16. Fully agree with Jerry. Very helpful to see Ian's post with the cap pack against the decoder - which I guess is a CT 76 - and the size comparison that can be made showing just how small some of these bits are. Although I have seen Nigel's packs in the flesh and working it still amazes me the results that are produced. Hats off to you all! Izzy
  17. The Loco conversion to P4 As I said previously this is where it gets interesting - depending on your viewpoint. I started off by removing the keeper plate and dropping the wheels out, the intention being to take off the coupling rods, remove the wheels from the axles, and start machining the wheels in a similar manner to that of the tender wheels. However, this is the view that meet me when the wheels dropped out. The driven axle/gear wheel absolutely covered in grease. Now a little grease smeared on to aid movement is no bad thing, but this level? Oh dear. More than likely to harden off after a time and seize up the drive. Concerned about this I decided to look a bit further, took the worm assembly off, and found this. Yet more grease. This prompted me to undertake a partial strip down of the chassis, since I could not leave this as it was. Asking for trouble in the future. There is a gearbox cover moulding on the right hand side which just plugs into place. Removing it revealed this.......ugh! This helped explain why the loco appeared at odd times at slow speed to become a little 'sticky/jittery' even on DCC, it was! After removing the gears and giving it all a good clean this is how it looked upon being re-assembled A little light oiling and it was good to go. When the loco was tested after re-wheeling the difference in slow speed control was noticeably better. This is the worm housing, the shaft running in PB bearings. And all tucked away with the worm and gearbox covers. Just to complete the tour, here is the other side showing the wiring runs from the pickups and motor. These of course go via the plug connection to the tender. Strangely the wiring cover is held in place with two screws by comparison with the gearbox side. So, after that little detour it's back to the main menu - the wheels. ................... These are the wheels removed from the axles. I tapped them off with a little drift through the centre of the wheel which is thin plastic which gets destroyed when you do this, as the axles don't come right to the outer face of the wheel hub. Apparently this is to allow the false plastic/cosmetic centre finish to the axle ends. Don't try and twist the wheels off the axles, they are splined to ensure the wheels don't rotate on them. So the only way to get the wheels off means the wheel centres get destroyed............great. Sometimes you just couldn't make it up....... The wheels were machined in exactly the same way as for the tender ones, except I ran the cutting tool up to the wheel hub on the front which took some of the front edges of the spokes off and thus left a flat square edge. This was necessary to get the overall wheel thickness down to the 1.85mm figure. I did not reduce the thickness of the hub itself. But I did remove the raised portion of crankpin housing so the hub was flat. This did mean the coupling rods would be closer to the wheel, but was needed to provide just enough clearance for them under the footplate. This was all part of the nip & tuck work required to get it all to come together and work. A lot of work then commenced with profiling the spokes back to a reasonable state at the front and removing the moulded flange that existed at the back half of the wheel mouldings, at the rear portion of the spokes. Perhaps this crop will show what I mean. I have coloured the thicker flange bit. I have noticed this appears to be a common feature on many Hornby steam loco wheels. Perhaps it's to provide extra strength to the moulding but is visible in many cases. Removal was carried out using a small no 11 scalpel blade in a 3 handle. My main scalpel combination. At the rear it was cut back to the outer edge of the wheel rim, and attacked from the front with both scalpel and needle files. This is a shot taken part way through to judge the progress. The plastic is difficult to clean up. Any cuts or filing seems to produce a rough, feathered finish which proved very difficult to get smooth. My first thoughts were that it might be a GRP (glass reinforced plastic) mix, but later considered that perhaps it was more nylon based, which does produce this kind of rough surface if filed. I had mounted the wheels on axles to better judge the situation, which despite the amount of work wasn't that good as you can see, and look at how the clearance was in the chassis under the footplate. A lot more work ensued. Eventually I got to a position where I felt it was as far as I was going to be able to get. These are the wheels mounted and painted prior to fitting. Even here more bits can be seen that needed further cleaning up - which was done, but seemed never ending. However, this shot does remind me that I have forgotten one aspect. The wheels were mounted on new axles. Spare pin-point Romford ones with the ends filed flat to the length needed. These were plain shafted i.e. no splines. I did not find the wheels gripped any less, in fact they were quite tight, (they were a loose fit on Gibson plain end tender axles which I tried first), but the gear wheel wasn't. To ensure it stayed put I thus drilled through its centre boss and the axle and inserted a lock pin - some hard brass wire As I had re-used the Hornby wheels it meant I could also use the coupling rods and crankpins. The rods are like many fitted to RTR locos these days, jointed ones which are held together and pivoted on a rivet. The problem is that in this case, as with so many, the pivot/rivet joint is loose and sloppy and so the rods don't keep a constant crankpin distance through a wheel revolution. This can lead to poor running at times, and especially when, as in this case, the drive is off an outer axle rather than a central one. Prototype rods are generally jointed in relation to the driven axle, working outwards in both directions ( in the case of 8/10 coupled ones) from the driven axle. When a model joints the rods as per the prototype, but then drives off a different axle............. As I didn't need or want the loco to traverse anything much under A5 turnout radius - very roughly 36" - I did what I have tended to adopt in recent times in these situations. I made the rods solid, by tightening up the rivet joint and when the rods were found to be correct in respect of crankpin distance and straightness, soldered them up at the joint. There is still enough slop of the rods on the crankpins to allow a modicum of up/down axle movement - there is some slop in the chassis as well in this aspect, enough to produce good electrical collection and track holding, which the deeper than normal for P4 flanges aid. Alongside altering the wheels I made some modifications to the underside of the loco footplate, or rather the splashers, to provide the necessary clearance for the wheels. this was carried out using mainly burrs in a little mini drill, but also scalpels where needed. Care was required to ensure the burrs didn't slip and attack the other surfaces of the footplate and cause paint damage or worse. I had one or two close calls. Generally the insides of the splashers were thin at the outer edges, and then there was a step ridge to greater thickness. It was this step that was found to be the main culprit to fouling the wheel flanges. This was all allied of course to the basic thickness of the footplate. This is of the front splasher which should show what I mean. The finished result. Quite a few hours work here. Before painting of course, a nice thick coat aiding electrical insulation against any unwanted shorts. And that's about it. Oh, just one more thing. A couple of shots of the actual total clearance. The whole point of the exercise! I'm not sure if it is clear to see, but that is because it is, as calculated at the beginning, only around about the 0.6mm - 0.7mm mark in total, so 0.3/0.4mm per side when the wheels are central. But this is enough that the loco can quite easily traverse an A5 crossover in either direction i.e. with the loco or tender leading. This is with the distance between the loco & tender set at the close drawbar setting Hornby provide. Just as an aside I will add that it runs under DCC, a Zimo MX600 being installed in the tender (my standard decoder of choice for my 4mm/P4 locos). Now it's all done and dusted I am quite satisfied with the result, both in terms of looks and performance, and is all I could want. I make this statement with the experience of building quite a number of J15's from etched kits for others in the past, in both 4mm/P4 and 7mm/FS scales. While not perfect, and an etched kit might produce a bit more finesse in some areas, generally this is probably as good as any of them, indeed I doubt I could have bettered it overall with one made from a kit these days, so I am happy. Equally I hope this thread will help others. regards, Izzy
  18. It's the same basic method by which I and many others 'convert' N gauge wheels for running on 2FS standard trackwork, skim 0.2mm off the backs to take the flange down to the 0.3mm needed, the flange depth of 0.5mm being the same, (this is in regard to the RP25 profile wheels which are now pretty much standard in N with regard to newer stock production). How far the wheels are thinned to the 2FS 1.2mm width depends. 1.5mm is reasonable, but anything is better than the original, which can be between 2.1mm - 2.3mm wide. As it seems there are wide variations in wheel standards and profiles in all scales it is often a case of adapting the actual machining needed to suit the track standards the wheels will run on as well as the actual construction of the wheels themselves. Differences in production methods often mean that no two makers wheels, or even wheels from the same maker, can be assumed to be similar let alone the same, as regards not only the rim material but the centres material too. An important factor is the root radius of wheel tread against the head profile radius of the code of rail used. Many times I have encountered wheels from one maker to different overall tread profiles, even recently on the same loco - a new version Graham Farish 4F. So how they are mounted in the lathe for machining is crucial to the process. The hardest wheels to machine and continue to get to run true are actually those using a metal wheel on a metal axle with a small insulating bush. These bushes can distort whether they are removed or left in place making true running wheels difficult to maintain. It's all good fun though......... Izzy
  19. I have a horrible feeling that when you see what I did to use the drivers, and that the finish is less than perfect (!) you may find that altering the Hornby wheels is no real advantage.Probably one of those suck and see situations. Anyway, when I can generate the copy I will post it. Might not be today. A lot more words/pictures to sort out. I don't find it either quick or easy, especially as the shots were only taken with a digicam kept on the workbench for reference and double-checking things as I proceed. There was no intention to post them or write about the conversion at the time so they all have to be run through photoshop to make them reasonable even where suitable ones exist. Izzy
  20. Hornby J15 to P4 Converting the J15 to P4 is a really mixed bag. Fairly simple and straightforward for the tender, but less so with the loco. To be thrown into the mix is the choice to be made about the wheels, which where it might be best to start, for this turned out to be more difficult than I originally thought it would be. The eventual path I took will not be available to most I would surmise, but the information might be of use none-the-less. The J15's had 15 spoke 4'10" drivers with the crankpins in line with the spokes and 4'1" 10 spoke tender wheels. The Hornby J15 replicates these mounted on 2mm axles. For anybody wishing to convert the loco to EM I think just re-mounting the wheels onto new, longer axles, might work, although whether there is sufficient clearance under the loco footplate with the wheels set wider I am not sure. Alan Gibson Workshop does produce a conversion set for both EM and P4 using 2mm axles. Indeed there is a PDF they have produced detailing the EM conversion. However there is a slight problem. The AGW loco wheels are 16 spoke while the tender wheels are 3'11". This is because they do not produce the exact size/type of wheel in either case. If this does not matter to you this is fair enough, but although the loco will sit at the right height the tender might not because the 3'11" wheels are 0.9mm diameter smaller than 4'1" ones, the Hornby originals size. With a kit built tender chassis where the ride height can be adjusted to suit then this is not really much of an issue, but the Hornby design is such that it can't, well not that I could see anyway. We are talking here about a 0.45mm buffer height difference. Some would call it negligible, and it might prove that in practice, but I have been there in the past and got caught out with such differences which can stand out quite badly. More to the point I wonder about the loco/tender coupling heights and whether problems with close coupling of them could result if there is a height mis-match. AGW do 4'1" tender wheels of course, but they are 12 spoke. The choice is yours........ Worse still though is that space under the footplate for P4 wheels is virtually non-existent. The measurement between the splashers is almost exactly 22mm, the normal nominal overall width of mounted P4 wheels being 21.7mm. A further complication is that the splashers don't have enough internal clearance to allow the flanges of such wheels to clear them. And of course the footplate is whitemetal, so just allowing the wheels/flanges to rub up against it would cause shorts. Oh dear. Hmmm..........(this is why I query whether the Hornby wheels pulled out to EM would cause similar issues). A lot of thought then went into considering what I could do. Nice though it is an altered J15 to OO gauge just sitting on a shelf would be of no use to me at all. I began to wonder if perhaps the loco wasn't the bargain I originally thought. Eventually I decided to throw caution to the winds and machine the Hornby wheels in my little lathe to run through P4 trackwork, which would overcome the size/spoke issues, and doing this would allow me to reduce the drivers to the minimum width recommended for P4 wheels, 1.85mm against the normal 2mm width used. A total width reduction of 0.3mm might not sound much but it would double the sideways clearance and when push comes to shove, well.... what is there to lose? If this all went to pot then I could always get a set of AGW wheels and try again. The Tender P4 conversion I'll start by describing the tender conversion. Firstly because this is relatively easy and uncomplicated, and second it's what I did first. Trying the machining ideas on the tender wheels, not knowing what standards Hornby wheels were made to. Here is the up-turned tender - sans body - with the keeper plate removed. The axles run in small plastic clips/bearings with wiper pick-ups bearing on the backs. These are gentle enough not to prevent the wheels turning and held firmly in place by location spigots and the keeper plate The brakes and rigging are attached to the keeper plate and needed re-making to suit the wider gauge wheels. These are the tender wheels removed from their axles. It turns out they are composed of a nickel plated brass tyre and injection moulded centre, moulded into the tyre and thus locked into it I concluded. This was most fortunate as I found I was able to machine the wheels to the standards needed without too much trouble or the wheel centres and rims parting company. You will see there is a large back to the rims upon which the wiper pickups make contact - the loco uses the same design - and a very thin rim at the front. They were machined on the little lathe I use indoors on my portable workbench (a much modified Sieg 'baby' lathe). I'm afraid I kept no details of the actual amount of machining carried out in respect of the total amount of material removed, just that the backs of the wheels were skimmed so the flange width was reduced to 0.4mm at the flange root. The rear central bore portion was left alone at full depth to give as much bore depth for good grip on the axles, but was obstructed by the tool holding the wheels in place anyway. Then reverse mounted and the fronts skimmed to give an overall wheel width of 2mm. The front centre bore portion was trimmed to the same depth after with a scalpel, easy being plastic, and the front of the spokes cleaned up with the scalpel and needle files. The flange depth was also reduced in combination with the rear skimming to around the 0.5-0.6mm mark where needed (using needle files). I think, but can't remember clearly, that the original depth was around 1mm but this was of course reduced with the reduction in flange width. All my current P4 rolling stock - save a Bachmann 08 - use their original wheels (RTR locos) or Romford/Gibson re-machined with 0.4mm width flanges and 0.5-0.6mm depths and 2mm wide. In the case of wagons etc - nearly all Parkside - it saves messing with any compensation, they can be built simply as the kit was designed, and the included wheels used. All the machining was carried out gently. No big cuts, just repeated small ones with a round nose tool to prevent any stress to the wheels or moulded centres. The wheels were loosely mounted on an arbour (in a collet chuck) so the plastic bores weren't damaged/altered/enlarged and held tight against a simple plasticard jig to ensure they were flat against the chuck and machined true. Absolute concentricity was not needed as the wheel tread and flange faces were not touched. There was no need and this preserves the nickel finish. This general procedure also applies to the other wheels I have machined and used. And a shot after painting before final fitting To alter the brakes and rigging the blocks and hangers were cut off the keeper plate, drilled to accept 0.7mm hard brass wire and then re-assembled with the aid of cryno. The same technique was adopted later for the loco's brakes and hangers. I find having them all attached to a removable keeper plate a nice system. That it all pivots on the hangers is useful for getting them set right. Close enough to the wheel rims but not touching. Here are the wheels in the chassis. Axle spacers cut from K&S brass tube were fitted to keep side play to a minimum. and prevent the tender crabbing from excess play. This with the keeper plate before painting the brake gear. And after. So, that was the easy bit.... now for the loco....... Izzy
  21. Hi Horsetan, Yes, I re-used the Hornby wheels. It wasn't that difficult to do, much easier than I thought it would be actually, although the wheel standards I mostly use with P4 track at the present might not find favour with everybody if you know what I mean...... Finding space under the footplate was the bigger challenge, but it was all connected. I am currently writing up the details which I will post next. regards, Izzy
  22. Boiler Handrails Perhaps the most noticeable fault with the J15 is the boiler handrails. It seems a crying shame given the quality and accuracy of most of the rest of the loco. Quite why they ended up as they are seems unclear. Several thoughts have been directed to how the boiler is cast as the reason, but a bigger question is how to correct them. It's not just that the stanchions are at the wrong angle but that in order that they fit the boiler large cast bases are present into which they plug. I'm sorry but this is the only shot I have showing them as they were. It's an odd view because at the time I had lifted the body from the footplate to straighten it as it curved a bit, the casting being very slightly distorted. The front of the boiler/cab is glued to it, but screws hold it in place at the rear. Anyway, it is here that it gets interesting in that the stanchions themselves are correct in shape and size as if they were produced to fit the boiler in the correct position as per the prototype. Indeed the actual handrail itself is correct in both position and shape. So it becomes the question that if new holes in the right place are made in the boiler, then the stanchions can be fitted correctly but since the boiler is cast whitemetal this involves removing the original bases, and filling in any holes left behind. This is the tricky bit, making it all look better rather than worse once it has been altered. Recently a way of achieving drilling the new holes using a jig was posted in a blog on RMweb. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/186/entry-19411-work-on-a-Hornby-j15/ It's a nice and neat method and far superior to that I used, which was simply to take a pair of dividers, set them to a distance that was right between the top footplate surface and the underside of the handrail, and scribe light lines where the holes should be, a method I have always used when setting the distance on boilers. Here is the state after drilling the holes, filing off the original bases using needle files, and then filling the resultant holes left over with Humbrol model filler. It needed several goes at this. Rubbing down, re-filling, left to harden, before it was satisfactory. These shots show an intermediate stage. Although they were test fitted a few times the handrails weren't fitted properly until the several other jobs also going on were completed. As I have stated a lot was undertaken at the same time, different aspects, and the whole re-assembled together to try and make it easier and also prevent/reduce any paint/body damage that might occur. Here are a couple before touching up the paint. This was done using my Iwata Neo coupled to a new little Expo compressor I have acquired recently. Humbrol 85 satin proved a good match to the original paint. A couple more shots of the nearly finished loco. Izzy
  23. Yes, the variance in what people find with different examples of RTR is down I think to the fact that in reality they are now factory assembled kits given the large number of parts involved. I cheated with the drawbar, having found the same problem that the closer setting fouled the wiring plug on the tender, and just cut off the excess. Izzy
  24. I thought I might post about some of the RTR rolling stock I have altered and converted for the small P4 layout I have made. Originally this thread started as a description of a few modifications to a Hornby J15 which now occupies the start of the thread. Other rolling stock will be added as time permits. - Hornby Railroad TTS class 31 - Heljan class 15 mods - Hornby J15 sound install - Bachmann class 03 to P4 + sound install (sorry, there are no post numbers now to indicate where they start) Some Hornby J15 modifications When the Hornby J15 first arrived I thought that perhaps I would get one, but the issues of the horizontal boiler handrails and visible boiler/chassis joint rather put me off let alone the issue of whether it could be converted to P4 and the idea was shelved. Recently I popped into a model shop to get a couple of bottles of liquid glue and came out with a J15 as well. Quite how it happened I am still not sure, but the reduced price was a significant factor together with the fact it could be used alongside my early livery W&M railbus without jarring too badly as the actual loco, 65477, was a Cambridge allocated one. There is no doubt that overall it's a very nice model which fully captures the look of the prototype and runs quite nicely too, but having got it I faced several problems. Not only how to sort the handrail & boiler/chassis joint issues since closer inspection confirmed they weren't aspects I found I could live with over the long term, but also convert it to P4, since those are the track standards I have long used in 4mm. Actually handling the loco and then taking it to bits led me to consider that the overall design and construction of this little loco is quite something, with the tender being almost beyond reproach (a tarpaulin rail as an optional fitting would have put it in this category for me), and quite easy to convert to either EM or P4 as well The loco however is a slightly different prospect. Very good and some might say exceptional in some respects, but rather sadly let down by the two very visible faults, those horizontal handrails with very prominent bases on the boiler, and the large joint along the lower boiler where the chassis slots into the body. In addition I also found the later raised roof cab moulding not sitting properly in place with a noticeable air gap visible in the front. That room for P4 wheels was tight under the metal footplate was just a bonus feature........... I thought there might be some interest in how I managed to tackle these aspects, which although done in a piecemeal fashion at the same time I will describe separately since they can be done as individual tasks. Indeed it turned out that sorting the boiler joint issue was something very easily and quickly addressed. As such I'll deal with that first. Boiler/chassis joint There are many RTR locos that now have the lower half of the boiler integral with the chassis and this does pose problems with ensuring that when assembled the joint between the two halves isn't too visible. I was quite disappointed with the way the joint on the J15 showed so badly, almost as if the body wasn't sitting down properly on the chassis. Indeed looking closely at it the joint line didn't seem the same size all the way along, and investigating this as I took the loco apart revealed that my first thoughts were correct The body 'hooks' onto the chassis at the rear using a rectangular square on the chassis and a corresponding slot in the body. A screw through the front of the chassis then holds the body firmly in place. So in a sense the body pivots on the rear chassis point and this pivot radius matched the boiler joint, the mismatch being larger at the front than at the rear. I don't know if this shows clearly in this shot. Looking at the front of the chassis it seemed there were raised lips cast onto it along with the wire sand pipes (in one continuous piece), that together appeared to be preventing the body sitting down far enough onto the chassis. And so it proved. Removing the sand pipes and making them two separate halves by removing the middle portion along with filing off the cast ridges allowed the body to sit down properly and the joint almost disappears. It's not perfect, but much better than before and probably as good as this kind of design will allow. The front buffers also then sit at the right height. You might notice that the wheels are now to P4 compatible standards. I am afraid the photos were taken piecemeal as work progressed, and when I thought about them, so you'll have to make allowance for this. My apologies. Later raised Cab joint The later style of raised roof cab is a plastic moulding that fits down onto the cab front and sides with internal lips on the inner sides to hold it in place along with some glue. It seemed this was too tight a fit and had the effect of squeezing the curvature so the roof became raised away from the cab front at the centre, giving rise to a noticeable gap between the front plate and the additional roof line. I managed to slide a scalpel blade between the roof lips and cab sides where it was glued, thus breaking the glue joint and allowing the roof to be removed. This was done with considerable care and not a little apprehension given the risk posed to damaging the roof moulding. I had visions of it cracking or breaking apart, but with luck it didn't. The cab detail is nice, as is the glazed spectacles. You can see the filler in the boiler where the handrails are being attended to. I filed the lips thinner and gently bent the roof moulding to a flatter profile so that it sat down in place correctly without any gap and then glued it back on. You have to be careful to get the front face correctly positioned, I nearly didn't. Well, that's the two easy bits. There is a third, adding a tarpaulin rail for those locos having them, or rather their tenders. Tarpaulin Rail Working from photos can of course help here. I did find some that showed 65477 did have such a rail in BR days. I also found that at one stage it ran with a tender cab fitted tender. Not surprising perhaps given that it was Cambridge based and seen on the branches between there and Bury St Edmunds and Colchester. The rail was added using nickel-silver strip and brass wire. I suppose a photo might help here. This is the nearly finished loco with altered handrails and to P4. It needs some real coal in the tender, crew, and some gentle weathering, nothing too much. Worth the effort I feel. Izzy
  25. Sorry to hear of your close friend, but blow me Martin, that would mean that nearly all the locos I built for people in the past were only fit for the scrap bin when I handed them over. I only ever remember one or two odd ones that were left in 'just out of shops' condition. Most modellers I have encountered, as opposed to collectors, seem to want stuff in what could be termed 'working condition', clean, tidy, but looking as if they actually work for a living rather than sat in a museum. best wishes, Izzy
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