Pierview

April 8

With the awful weather preventing me from getting on with the garden I made an effort over the last week or so to complete the Grange and here it is. There was a slight delay whilst I sourced a replacement firebox back head but this arrived and was fitted today.

I am reasonably pleased with the rebuild, especially considering the state that the kit it was in when I acquired it. However, these restorations are always a little tricky and very time consuming I find. It is difficult to pick up on someone else's work, and despite best intentions one can't usually make a silk purse out of a sow's ear! Despite that this has been another quite cheap build with the HL motor and gearbox being the only significant expenditure. The prototype chosen was 6861 which, following my usual practice, was an engine that I saw in my spotting days. This series of rebuilds has been great fun but I now need to get back to my stash of unbuilt kits. I am trying to avoid the temptation of restoring any more wrecks as apart from anything else I am getting a degree of duplication now. I think any other rebuilds will have to be extremely cheap or very rare subjects to interest me but you never know!

Barry

April 1

I have pressed on with the Grange re-build over the last couple of weeks and this was my starting point after paint removal. Back in the old routine!

The lower boiler section was missing on the model, presumably to make it fit on the Mainline Manor chassis for which the kit was designed, so I thought that I should do something about that.

I cut a curved blanking piece from a white metal kit spare (actually from a Wills E2) and glued it into position as shown.

The rest of the loco went back together quite smoothly although the broken RH cab side proved a little tricky to get right. I was able to re-use most of the original parts but I did replace the handrails and part of the ejector pipework. I drilled out the chimney and replaced the smokebox door handle with a finer brass one. Lamp brackets were fabricated in my usual way using office staples. The tender was fitted with a modicum of extra detail, including hand rails and lamp brackets and was fitted to the previously mentioned Comet internal chassis. The tender wheels were re-used from the smaller tender which arrived with the kit and are quite serviceable. The loco lacks a back head at present since ,unbeknown to me, the one fitted by the original builder was plastic. I only discovered this when the loco emerged from the paint stripper and the plastic had turned to a soggy mess! However a replacement cast version is on order.

If the weather permits I hope to get the loco primed shortly and then move on to painting and completion.

Barry

March 22

It seems that e-Bay is the present that keeps giving in terms of finding loco restoration projects for me but I will definitely try not to be tempted for a while after this one! The model for sale looked in a pretty sad way, and no interest whatsoever was being shown in it, but I could see some potential and made a modest bid, which was accepted. It seems that this model met its fate in the post on the way to the vendor. Apparently it was inadequately packed and suffered accordingly with bits being knocked off. The vendor had never got round to restoring it and he had decided to move it on. Despite the damage, however, most parts seemed to be there and , most importantly, it had a full set of later type Romford driving wheels. Had the latter not been present then I wouldn't have considered the project. This is what I got for my money:

The loco body kit is by M&L and I remember building one for a friend in the 1980's. It was designed to fit onto the Mainline Manor chassis but I always thought that it sat a little high. However this kit had a Comet chassis, albeit somewhat battered, whilst the tender looks to be a K's product. I wanted a 4000g tender for my grange so I will be discarding the K's one and replacing it with this Wills one which came as a bonus with the 57xx that I recently restored .Perhaps the seller thought that they went together! Fortunately, I also had an unused Comet internal frames set which fitted this tender.

I began work on the loco chassis by stripping it down and repainting. The Comet slide bars were so distorted as to be beyond redemption but fortunately I had an unused set in my spares box. These were duly assembled and fitted in place of the damaged ones. The connecting rods were not fully soldered together so I corrected this and dismantled the coupling rods before articulating them to pivot on the central wheel. I find that this improves running where a rigid chassis is used. The existing crossheads were re-used and I soldered on a small bracket to the RH one which will take the vacuum pump rod. Brake shoes came from one of the ever useful Mainly Trains etches. For motive power I fitted the ubiquitous High Level Road Runner + gear box with 45:1 reduction, and treated myself to a HL 1230 coreless motor. I have wanted to try out one of these for some time and following initial chassis tests I am very pleased. There is plenty of power there and I suspect that these motors perhaps have the edge on the Mashimas that I have used for many years.

With the chassis running I have now turned my attention to the collection of bits and these went into the paint stripper this afternoon.

After they emerge and the cleaning up is done re-assembly will commence!

Barry

March 21

I have now completed the King restoration as shown here. I only ever knew the Kings in their double chimney guise, but as I already have one of these I wanted the earlier version. I chose 6007 as being a member of the class that I saw in service, albeit by then fitted with a double chimney.

It hasn't been a very expensive project but, as is always the way with these restorations, there was an awful amount of work involved. Having done 8 of these white metal kit restorations over the past year it was my intention to now take a break from them and get on with some etched brass kits. However guess what? Yes - there is another kit restoration in the pipeline which is currently being worked on. Watch this space!

Barry

March 18

Mashima motors are still available from Branchlines and I bought one a couple of months ago. It depends on the size you need but it would be worth talking to Brian. I believe that he made a bulk purchase as manufacture was coming to an end.

As for alternatives i would suggest taking a look at the High Level website. I have used HL gearboxes for many years and recently I have had good results with the HL budget iron core motors. I have only used the 1015 and 1020 to date which are extremely good value at only £9.50 each. One of those should do the job for your B4 but Chris has other motors including the more expensive coreless ones. I am just about to experiment with one of those.

Barry

March 15

36 minutes ago, GernBlanstonShow said:

Welp my package from Ellis Clark just arrived, I went for the kit and motor!

I still want to get a few bits for kitbuilding; like a jig and a copy of one of Iain Rice's books you recommended.

Part of the reason I went for it is that I found what color I would paint the model. I know the modern GWR scheme the South Devon railway did (for 1369's last service in 2017) is definitely out there, but I fell in love with the particular green color. While I have mostly BR era schemes similar to you Barry, this color really inspired me. I'll look at either matching the modern GWR lettering or possibly doing a BR crest, but the bright Green-blue color is 100% for sure.

I appreciate your feedback Barry, looking to get wheels and axle covers from Markits and get to it!

It is an attractive livery but of course quite fictitious! The South Devon painters were having a bit of fun with their take on modern GWR livery before the loco came out of service. The locomotive 1369 actually managed to retain "Great Western" lettering on its side tanks until 1961 when it was repainted in BR livery. That didn't last too long though as it passed into preservation in the mid 1960's and was promptly repainted into GWR green.

Good luck with the model and it will be interesting to hear how you get on.

Barry

March 14

On 03/01/2019 at 10:55, Mr. Tree Man said:

Hi all, I originally set up this thread to document my rebuilt Bulleid pacific kitbash using the Dapol 9f and Battle of Britain kits, though I am modelling a bit more often now so I am repurposing it as a general workbench thread. If the posts are a bit image heavy I'm happy to trim them down, I'm planning on trimming down how wordy future posts are also. I would also like to point out that I am in Australia and so there will be a mix of British, Australian and other regions' prototypes worked on.

This first post documents my Rebuilt Battle of Britain build using the Dapol 9F (C49) and BoB (C048) kits with some minor aid from a 3D printer for things like handrail knobs. I had been hoping it would be a unique conversion when finished (and it sort of is) but found out half way through that the idea had been done before in the form of a rebuilt Merchant Navy.

Unpacking both of the kits and laying everything out proved quite daunting for me. I didn't really know what parts I wanted to start the cutting and shutting on so I printed out some OO scale drawings to have on the workbench and just took it slow. I started by drilling out all the holes in the wheels by hand as at this point I didn't have a micro electric drill. They aren't very accurate to the real thing and while time consuming, drilling out the holes made a big difference.

I laid out a few of the major parts over the scaled drawings to get an idea of where cuts needed to be made.

Originally I was going to use styrene sheets to build up layers on the lower half of the boiler and then fill with putty but as I already needed to cut up the running board it seemed easier to just cut the lower boiler section free.

It was very rough at this point but sitting the boiler on the standard BoB running board and checking against the drawings gave a good idea of the best place to cut to extend the boiler.

The next day saw all the moulded details shaved off the boiler as well as the funnel and dome. Behind is my original Biggin Hill kit from 6 years ago.

The next step was easily the most nerve-wracking - sawing the boiler in half!

The two haves were reattached using styrene rod with styrene sheet added after as support backing for the filler.

Some filler added to the boiler, front section of the running board cut down some more and attached as well as the smokebox door cut from the BoB kit's original front.

I have a 3D printer so decided to use it for the more difficult parts such as handrail knobs, funnel and dome. This is what the parts look like in 3D, ready to be printed. Originally I wasn't sure which style handrail knobs to use but I ended up using the first two. In future I'll avoid having the flat spot at the bottom as it only allows the handrail knob to sit a set distance from the boiler which in this case ended up being too far.

I wasn't happy with the standard kit's trailing truck and separated the ash pan(?) from the truck to be slightly more prototypical. The ash pan(?) parts were glued to the bottom of the firebox and while being a little more fragile, the new setup still moves more than enough. The cab parts were glued on but the firebox is a bit too small, making the cab look like it is sitting higher which isn't helped either by the inaccurate roof profile of the original kit. I did try to reshape it a bit but it is still very wrong. Dome and funnel prints attached, running board added and some styrene backing for more filler near the firebox.

Cutting down the tender was a bit easier than the rest of the loco, yet I still managed to make it look bad with poor quality filling and sanding.

Printed handrail knobs were attached as well as some other small parts and then the loco was ready for the first paint session.

Tamiya XF-1 was sprayed over everything to start with and left to dry for a few hours while I went to work. When I came home and had a look over the loco, of course I had to drop it on a rough and dusty concrete floor. Surprisingly there was no damage bar some tiny scratches on the rear edges of the cab.

Humbrol RC405 was used for the BR green which wasn't fun at all. Even after thinning to something stupid like 1 part paint to 6 parts thinner it was trying to gum up my airbrush. It was somewhat of a final straw so I didn't touch it for a while after this.

I didn't really want to leave it unfinished forever though because I have enough half-finished projects as it is. When I came back to it I decided to brush paint everything that was left including the smoke deflectors.

After fixing all the wheels I could start painting and adding the rods. I made flanges from styrene rod for the middle drivers as the original kit's were blind and while it looked better than leaving them standard, they catch on the brake gear and make it difficult - but not impossible - to turn the wheels with the rods on.

I ended up using the buffers from the 9F kit due to less flash on them, but still used the BoB ones as headcode discs. I decided to just do a generic express code as there are plenty of images of rebuilt BoBs and WCs with it.

Everything was sprayed with Humbrol Gloss Cote to hopefully prevent ruining the work I had put in to that point. It took some creativity to get this much lining from only the 9F kit decals, but I'm sure people will be able to work out how. I was going to give it the identity of 34077 as it was the only number of a rebuilt BoB I could make using the decals from the Biggin Hill kit and a spare decal sheet from the Dapol 257 Squadron kit. Oddly the number decals for those kits are printed in yellow rather than cream so I used the 9F number decals instead. Not only are they closer to the correct colour, but the sheet has 5 sets of numbers for various members of the class. Despite this, there were no 4s present in any of those number combinations nor any 8s. I ended up cutting the top curls from 8 2s to make 2 8s and used a 1 and the lower half of a 2 to make a 4... If that makes sense. After decalling everything was sprayed with Humbrol Matt Cote and the build labelled as complete.

I'm aware it is very much not the best it could have been which is down to my limited skills and patience but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, especially considering at a few points I was ready to give up all together. Would I attempt something like this again? Maybe - originally I was going to try converting the 4MT kit to a tank so I could use the tender for a Mainline 4MT I have. Would I attempt this specific conversion again? No. I ordered a Hornby BoB for comparison after finishing so will share once it arrives. Hopefully people like it and as unlikely as it is, if it inspires people to try similar conversions I'd just think that's neat.

- Tree

Well done - an excellent effort and quite convincing. I grew up with Kitmaster conversions and this takes me back to the 1960's !

Barry

March 10

This is the last of the quartet of careworn kit built locos that I acquired in quick succession just before Christmas. I described the restoration of the other 3 locos in previous threads and although this was the first to be worked on it has been held up for a couple of months awaiting spare parts. It appeared on e-Bay as part of a clearance sale by Hayfield of this parish and although it was lacking a motor it did have a full set of wheels, which for me is always an important consideration. Anyway, my bid was successful and this is what I took delivery of:

By this the time this photo was taken I had already dismantled the motion and brake gear. Clearly the original builder had taken some care but the loco then seems to have fallen on hard times and some parts were missing. I believe that this was the condition in which Hayfield acquired it. I began with the chassis which was stripped down to component parts and reassembled. The chassis block is the old Wills cast version designed to take a tri-ang X04 motor and I was fortunate that I had an unused MRRC 1001 5 pole motor just waiting for a home. After so many years with the convenience of modern gear box motors I was out of practice with direct drive units and I had forgotten the trials and tribulations involved in achieving satisfactory gear meshing. I concluded that the original motor must have a tapering slipper plate to support it in its correct position. I think that Wills probably did a cast version but as I didn't have this I fashioned my own by cutting down a section of a wooden clothes peg pilfered from my wife's stock. I think I used this trick on a K's kit more years ago than I now care to remember. It did the job, however, and I moved on to partially rebuild the pick up assembly and fit the brake gear. I originally attempted to re use the original white metal brake shoes but this was a false economy. They inevitably gave trouble and were replaced by ones from a Mainly Trains etch. The tender inner frames from Comet were re used after tidying up and I devised a better method of securing them to the tender body.

The loco and tender bodies had been assembled quite well but were a little battle worn and I felt that merely patching them up would not produce the effect that I wanted.

To do the job properly they had to be stripped down to basic parts and here we see the result:

The King is in the all together - and pieces! Fortunately re-assembly was rapid and this stage was reached by Christmas:

Thereafter things came to a halt, as amongst the parts missing were the front bogie castings with the distinctive outside springs. An enquiry to Squires found that King spares were out of stock and I had to wait for a couple of months whilst they were cast. They arrived recently, however. and have now been fitted as shown:

Eagle eyed GWR men will note that the chimney is incorrect for a King ,This was fitted just for effect and has now been replaced by a nice brass one of the correct shape. I have fitted my usual small amount of extra detail, including lamp brackets, and the paint shop now beckons.

Barry

March 2

14 hours ago, GernBlanstonShow said:

I've been considering picking up one of the last 1366 kits and a matching DJH motor and drivetrain.

Have you had these running on First radius curves? I would want to use it on my compact layout. What wheels would you suggest if someone were to do this kit today?

Have you tried the DJH drivetrain in one or just the high level ones you've mentioned?

Lastly I've never fashioned pickups myself, was that difficult on this model?

(My previous experience: fully completed an American Mantua 2-10-0 1970's era kit)

My personal opinion is that the 1366 class loco is one of the better DJH kits and I had no problems with assembling any of mine.

The wheelbase is short on this class and I found that the model, just like the prototype, was quite at home on short radius curves. I can't speak for first radius curves but my 1366's cope well with the tight curves on my small dockside layout.

The original Romford wheels supplied with this kit have been improved by Markits and are now more accurate with a finer profile. I would recommend them as being the best and easiest option.

Although I used High Level gearboxes and motors on 1366 and 1371, my other 4 members of the class have a variety of motors, including one with a Portescap. However 1370 was built using a DJH unit which I found to be very satisfactory and easy to fit.

Regarding pick ups these can come in a variety of forms and I would recommend Iain Rice's book "Chassis construction in 4mm" This gives a number of easily produced solutions for the modeller. Generally for under chassis pick ups I use a couple of pieces of circuit board fixed to the underside of the frames . Sometimes I solder a buzz bar of wire (about paper clip diameter) to these and solder in turn the fine wire pick ups to this. In certain instances I solder the wires direct to the circuit board but there are any number of variations, some of which have been described by others on this forum. It is not that difficult but care and time taken will give the rewards in terms of performance.

Good luck if you decide to go for it and I look forward to seeing the results!

Barry

February 16

1 hour ago, 30368 said:

Hi Barry,

Yes I built a Little Engines kit a good few years ago. I added as much detail as I could but my Hornby Q1's are an improvement on my efforts. The Q1 boiler cladding was fairly thin sheet steel made up of many seperate panels which seemed to have been bolted (rather than rivited) together. The panels were removable to gain access to the boiler fittings. Often the panels were not replaced. The kit white metal body castings had none of that detail so I scribed it on and used a fine point to replicate the set bolts. I also cut away part of the body where the cover over the two boiler feed clacks was located since often the cover was not replaced.

The Q1 is really basic with most of the chassis exposed - no running plate for example - so the chassis detail is important. I've taken a few pictures for you:

You can see all the pipework for the injectors under the cab on this side and the missing boiler feed clack's cover.

Bit more detail.

Sorry but not a great picture but at least the pipework is clear.

It can't have been much fun for engine men and for fitters to work on these loco's if they didn't have ladders and platforms.

Hope this is of some use.

Kind regards,

30368

That's a really excellent job and thank you for the detail shots. The missing boiler feed clack cover is a nice touch and so typical of engines in everyday use. You have given me food for thought!

Barry

February 16

4 minutes ago, 30368 said:

It seems to me that you have made a v.good job of restoring this ancient model. The wheelbase issue does not distract from the model to any real extent. I can't see from your images but lots of detail can be added to the Q1 - particularly the two injectors under the cab on the firemans side.

Good job,

30368

Thank you 30368. I think that I should perhaps have put a bit more effort into the chassis detailing. have you done a Q1?

Barry

February 16

My third kit rebuild of the winter is a K's Bulleid Q1, which was something of a random purchase on Christmas Eve. The "buy it now " price was reasonable and with the distractions of the festive season I didn't give too much thought to the merits or otherwise of the kit. If I had done my homework properly though I may perhaps have not bothered! What I got for my money was a quite well built kit, albeit motorless, fitted with Hamblings driving wheels, which I hadn't seen for years.

Until I consulted my files I hadn't realised that this kit was first introduced as far back as 1963, and it is definitely of its time. Further investigation revealed that the wheelbase is innacurate by a few mms, for reasons best known to K's, and the coupling rods should be fluted. What then to do with my purchase? I did consider selling it on again but decided in the end to accept the compromises and to make the best of a less than perfect model. The preceding photos show the kit as acquired but with some improvements already made. I began with the chassis and dismantled the coupling rods in order to carefully drift out the central driven axle and remove the k's worm wheel. The thick brass frames are quite narrow and I therefore used a High Level Slim Liner + gearbox with a 54:1 ratio and a Mashima 1420 motor. As can be seen. the new mechanism fits snugly in the top of the k's frames.

I added Mainly Trains brake shoes to the front and rear drivers but had to omit the central pair as the sandboxes were to close to the wheels and left no room - no doubt because of the wheelbase compromise. the generic K's brass buffers which were fitted were far too large and I replaced them with white metal ones which are a bit closer to the prototype.

The AWS kit under the LH cab was cobbled together from bits in the spares box and I then turned to the body and tender. Dismantling these was out of the question as they had been very solidly assembled, possibly with solder. Furthermore, the previous builder had seen fit to cram the loco boiler with lead, which made it very heavy indeed. it was only with very great difficulty that I was able to extract sufficient of this ballast to allow clearance for the motor. The sparse nature of this prototype offered little scope for detailing but I did fit lamp brackets and hand rail to the tender back. I also replaced the loco cast chimney with a turned brass one that I bought many years ago.

So there you have it. Not a patch on my Hornby Q1 both in terms of appearance and performance but an interesting exercise nevertheless. Will I keep it? Well probably! Three down and one to go and the last rescue is 90% complete and just awaiting spare parts from Squires. More to follow in due course.

Barry

February 15

During the weeks leading up to Christmas I somehow managed to acquire 4 pre-built kit locos on e-Bay, and my winter project has been restoring them. In a separate thread have already described my epic rebuild of the SEF C class loco and I have now completed the next two, which fortunately did not require anything like as much work. The first of these is a K's 57xx 0-6-0PT. I really don't know why I felt it necessary to acquire yet another 57xx as I already had 7 (or 8 if you include the 97xx variant) but I did have a spare set of number plates...... Anyway, I ended up bidding for and winning the said loco which came with a Wills 4000g GWR tender so for £24 I thought that I did quite well.

With past experience of K's mechanisms I fully expected to have to re-motor the 57xx and possibly fit new wheels as well but after adjusting the pick ups and cleaning the treads the venerable Mk 2 motor ran surprisingly smoothly and I decided to retain it, at least for the present. A bonus was that a previous owner had fitted brake shoes although the outside rods were missing and I had to add these from the invaluable Mainly trains etch. As the kit was quite well made I saw no point in dismantling it and stripping the paintwork and therefore concentrated my efforts on adding detail. The biggest improvement to be made to the K's kit in my opinion is to replace the somewhat undernourished chimney and I used a nice brass casting from PDK, who also supplied correct pattern tank vents to replace the originals, I also replaced the safety valve bonnet with a cast brass version as this was not being painted over on this particular loco. I replaced the smokebox door handle, and other improvements were rear cab grilles (from the Mainly Trains etch) and sandbox opening rods (from RT models). As my prototype had top feed I fitted a white metal casting ,again from PDK, with pipework shaped from fuse wire. Lamp brackets and rear bunker hooks were fabricated in my usual way from office staples. All 4 footplate steps were missing but Dave Ellis, now in his Nucast Partners guise, kindly supplied me with replacements.

My chosen prototype was 9642 which was a Weymouth loco from shortly after it was built until the mid 1950's and is now preserved.

WWhi

w

Whilst working on 9642 I also did a restoration job on the third of the e-Bay purchases and I will post details of this one next.

Barry

February 13

I have now completed the C class rebuild as shown here. I am quite pleased with the results but an enormous amount of work was involved. I was fortunate that Squires had the spares in stock ,which isn't the case for all loco kits. We were certainly spoiled by the superb service offered by Dave Ellis when he ran SEF!

Whilst finishing the C I have also been working on a couple of other white metal kit rescues which did not need quite so much resuscitation. They are both nearly complete and further details will follow shortly.

Barry

January 31

5 hours ago, 41516 said:

I've only got as far as the stripping stage (that took long enough!) - Like you it needed to be done while I had the enthusiam to see what was there. I did think it might be a Gibson kit, but the tender doesn't match the other Gibson etches I have.

There were some right horrors, the tender tank being supported by cardboard, no loco running board and part of the tender frames cut up to use instead!

Well done. Your purchase was even more derelict than mine and it would be interesting to see the progress that you make with the rebuild. I think that there is a great deal of satisfaction to be gained in breathing fresh life into a heap of junk!

Barry

January 30

2 hours ago, 41516 said:

I bought the Midland 2F, so no, not the only one! A full brass kit held together with what looked like UHU multi purpose....

I reasoned if I could salvage the wheels, chassis and tender to cross kit with parts of a K's kit, I'd come out ahead. I did, just about.

That's great 41516 - do you have any photos? I think UHU was used on mine as well !

Barry

January 30

Despite previous good intentions on my part not to take on any more kit built wrecks my resolution was not very good, and I somehow managed to acquire another 4 in the few weeks leading up to Christmas. I always make a point of dealing with such purchases as soon as possible as otherwise they are likely to go back in a box for another 10 years or so. In consequence, I have spent the last few weeks working on them and the first of the quartet, an SEF/Wills Southern C class is now almost finished.

I have to say that this is the most bizarre kit built locomotive I have ever encountered! The E-Bay seller was completely honest about the item in his description , and the photographs pulled no punches, but when I received the loco and saw the state of it my immediate reaction was to cut my losses and move it on again. Apparently the loco was one of a batch of similar items purchased by the seller some years ago and most shared the same characteristics of being poorly constructed and painted for static display on the LH side only. No motors were fitted and the wheels were glued into position. The RH side, which was not on display, was unpainted and also missing some detail parts. I am surprised that I had competition in bidding for this loco and even more surprised that all the other wrecks sold as well. Obviously I am not the only madman about!

Clearly what was going to determine if this was a viable project was whether the Romford wheels, which appeared to be in good condition, could be salvaged. I managed to extract them from the loco and tender frames and painstakingly picked away the copious residue of contact adhesive with which they had been secured. After testing them I found that they were all sound.

The loco chassis frames could have been salvaged but so much was missing that the only sensible solution was to purchase a replacement chassis etch from Squires, who now handle SEF spare parts. Unfortunately I also needed to purchase quite a few white metal parts to replace those missing or damaged,, and this illustrates the drawback of taking on a project such as this. Even so, the overall cost was substantially less than the current price of a new kit and wheels. The new chassis was assembled using the original frame spacers and powered by a High Level RR+ gearbox and 1020 FE motor, The tender frame was saved and rebuilt with etched brake shoes from my spares box. Loco and tender bodies then underwent the paint stripper treatment and were reduced to this.

Dismantling of the body revealed a break in the running plate in front of the LH cab side and this proved to be slightly tricky to repair. It was eventually achieved by aralditing a short piece of wire to join the two sections and refining the finished joint with Milliput to conceal any imperfections. Replacement and added detail completed things as shown here.

It received its top coat of paint this morning so completion should follow in the next few days.

Barry

December 22, 2023

13 hours ago, 45568 said:

Hi Barry,

Not too much modification with the Peckett. I picked up a relatively cheap black one from Oz Ebay and it started me thinking. From memory the chimney was shortened by cutting it in half and filing judiciously measuring by eye! The cab rear was moved on to the buffer beam top to increase the cab size and the rear cab panel cut to shape from 20 thou plastic card. the cab roof was extended again using plastic card, although in hindsight the Dapol 'Pug' kit may have provided a better solution to the roof and sides. The large cab shutter was made using 10 thou plastic card with brass wire handrails. Lampirons were added front and rear. The most difficult part was moving the boiler top furniture to the correct places and styles, the safety valve and tank filler leaving holes in the body which required filling. Vent pipes and other 'bits' made from plastic rod. The bell came from Bachmann parts USA, fortunately I purchased three which has allowed me to do other models. Where did you get your bell from?

Smokebox door handrail replaced with a straight one. Sprayed with Tamiya semi-gloss black from a rattle can, Narrow Planet provided the etched plates, Fox the transfers. I used a late crest as I had a good colour picture of the clean loco in this livery. In hindsight I should have gone for early crest to give a more elastic timeframe.

The picture below shows the cab rear/roof.

Hope this helps, as I say, the third bell is earmarked for 1144!

Cheers from WestOz,

Peter C.

Hi Peter

Well done on an excellent conversion. I may have a go myself if I can find a Peckett at a decent price. Regarding the bell, it is one of a batch I bought from Mercian Models a few years ago. The firm is no longer trading following the sad passing of its founder Trevor Cousens last year, but I note that CSP Models offer a similar GWR bell amongst their range. As well as 1144 I have also used the bells on my Weymouth tramway 03 and 04 diesel shunters and may fit one to an Ivatt 2-6-2T as well. The under tank ones fitted to steam classes 1361, 1366, 57xx and 74xx , however, are noticeably smaller and I made these myself by cutting down Billing ship accessories brass bells.

Barry

December 21, 2023

On 20/12/2023 at 04:47, 45568 said:

Excellent work! I have the same conversion in mind when the Dapol H/L arrives using 'Henry' as the basis. Plates already in stock from Narrow Planet! Companion for these two...

Cheers from WestOz,

Peter C.

I rather like those! Did the Hornby Peckett require much modification to turn it into 1151?

Barry

December 18, 2023

1 hour ago, CEINEWYDD said:

That really is a terrific upgrade - far better than I could do, even if I had won the thing! Well done you - through gritted teeth!

Thanks for that CEINEWYDD and sorry that I pipped you at the auction!

Barry

December 6, 2023

I have now completed 1144 as shown. The distinctive bell adds to the character of the loco I think.

I have wanted to build one of the Swansea docks shunters for years and this has been an interesting little project. On to the next rebuild!

Barry

November 30, 2023

When this little chap appeared on that well known on-line auction site recently I took an immediate interest. What was on offer was a quite neat Hawthorn Leslie industrial saddle tank, which I think was built from a Centre Models kit. I like industrial engines in any case but what drew me to this model was that it appeared to be almost a direct ringer for the GWR's own HL, which was originally with the Swansea Harbour Trust, and eventually became BR no 1144. Close examination of the seller's photographs seemed to confirm my suspicions, and I was sufficiently encouraged to take a punt at the auction. Despite some keen competition my bid eventually prevailed although I did end up paying a tad more than I had anticipated. Given that this is an unusual model that doesn't become available very often, however, I thought the cost was justified.

When the model arrived I lost no time in comparing it with the basic outline drawing in Russell's GWR absorbed engines book, and I found that all principal dimensions appeared to be correct. In addition there was only a modicum of "Swindonisation" involving small detail changes.

I began with the chassis. The loco was described as a non-runner and this was not surprising as the motor did not mesh with the worm wheel and no pick up assembly was fitted! The ECM motor was sturdy and quite serviceable but unfortunately protruded into the cab. I therefore replaced it with a High Level road runner gear box with a 60;1 reduction and a 1020FE motor. I don't like white metal chassis blocks and this one looked a bit weak owing to the cut out needed for the ECM motor. I therefore cut a couple of fill in strips from brass and araldited these to the chassis block. This had the dual advantage of both strengthening the block and also improving the appearance of the frames when viewed from beneath the running plate. The slide bars were missing the distinctive end support plates, so I fretted a couple out of NS and soldered them in place. The coupling and connecting rods were stripped of paint and a new pick up assembly was fabricated. The result was a quite smooth running little chassis.

The body was striped of paint via the usual dettol bath and I then set about some "Swindonisation". 1144 had an open back cab so I sawed off the cab rear as shown and added an upper arc fretted from brass strip. The sandboxes were of a different design so, they were sawn off to be replaced by some GWR style ones that, fortuitously, I found in my spares box. Likewise. the buffers were removed to be replaced by GWR tapered shank ones that I drilled out to take Gibson industrial pattern large diameter heads that will be fitted after the main painting. I filled in the cab interior with NS sheet and felt it essential to provide at least an impression of cab fittings. It is all rather conjectural and based on a few glimpses in photographs but with a crew in place I hope that it will give the overall effect. I used Mainly Trains etchings together with bits and pieces from my scrap box. The hand brake column is built as ingeniously described by Iain Rice in one of his books. The back head is actually the tender dome from an Airfix City of Truro kit - never throw anything away!

This is the current state of play showing the further modifications made. The safety valves have been replaced by a GWR bonnet, a continuous handrail is now fitted and the smokebox door securing wheel has now been replaced by handles. The rear cab handrail will be added when the roof is secured in position.

I need an improvement in the weather now to get the painting done!

Barry

November 28, 2023

I need foot steps to complete an old K's kit that I am rebuilding. I have one cab step but am missing the other and the 2 front steps. Paint condition immaterial so long as they are sound.

November 14, 2023

4 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

just going back a bit, to the tank kits, a couple of questions:

Has anybody fitted them with sprung buffers, and if so what did they use, what were the results?

While there are examples of the esso tanks painted black, the original colour seems to have been grey, although they look silver in one of the Paul Bartlett photos. Or were the individual companies tanks painted in different colours - Regent/BP/Esso etc. Would they have run in mixed rakes?

What colour has anyone used for the red frames?

The worst part of the kits is in my opinion the ladders. Where can replacements be found?

Thanks

Robin

RT models offer an etched detailing fret, including ladders , for the Airfix/Dapol kit.

Barry

November 3, 2023

10 hours ago, 33C said:

Good job! I heartily recommend getting a bow pen. A cheap one can be had for as little as £1.89. Dip it in thinned paint, close it up, wipe off excess, set the gap to thickness of line, use a ruler,( i raise my metal ruler on tiny blobs of blu-tac to hold it steady ) and draw steadily along. Or move the piece if easier. You can free hand the curves. No more slave to the HMRS sheets! Below is the sort of results you can get, and i am still a novice with it. You can also write with it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! (Incidentally, the LTSR "Tilbury Tank" started off as an L1.)

Some fascinating and cleverly crafted conversions there 33c - well done. I tried a bow pen once but didn't really get on with it. Subsequently I used to hand line using a mapping pen (anyone remember those?) but I am not sure that I have the patience and steadiness of hand for it these days!

Barry

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