Stephen M

Nick, Thanks for pointing this out. May be worth a punt if it saves a load of faffing about. For £10 I may get one to have a play with. Cheers, Steve

Fantastic - thanks very much for your responses. cheers, Steve

Ok - so prudent use of a decent square, clamps and care to build a straight chassis/hornblock arrangement and then install whatever springing or compensation approach as desired? Cheers, Steve

Thanks for the quick responses, certainly some food for thought there. Both seem feasible, though I'd be tempting towards hornblock and etched adaptors for springy beams, maybe using Gibson frames. Plenty of space in the back for some lead to add weight. Only reason I'd prefer this over compensation is because I love the running qualities of my Ivatt Class 4 tender on a Brassmasters fully sprung underframe. Narrow minded I know. In either case, how would you go about lining everything up without it being a fold up chassis? I can't see how you would use a jig and axles as it's not a coupled wheelbase...... this seems like a really straight forward question so maybe I am blind to the obvious solution. Cheers, Steve

Hi All, I'm pretty sure somebody has done this hence I am asking the collective knowledge on here...... I am in the process of converting a selection of models to P4 and am having more success than expected. However, I have a Bachmann LNER group standard tender (or several) and can't come up with a neat solution for springing or compensating one of these. I can't seem to find anything that really fits the bill for going under a rtr tender. My current solution uses a comet chassis with some spring wire pressing down on the centre axle. But this doesn't have decent bearing surfaces really and would take some modification to fit 2mm bearings. As such, I'm not overly happy with the outcome. One could try and source the bits from one of the various suppliers (SE Finecast, DMR, Bradwell) that make kits for the group standard tender but this seems a bit overkill. I have considered getting some profile milled frames from Alan Gibson, along with suitable hornblocks and building a fully sprung inside bearing chassis from bits - but I can't get my head round how I would line everything up and assemble it. So..... any ideas? Am I missing something blindingly obvious? Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance. Steve

Hi all, I am looking at building a few Scottish Region LNER K2/2s based around Bachman K3 chassis and Graeme King resin parts. This is more likely to result in a successful model than building the LRM kit as at this stage I have not completed any etched kits. Given that a number of these kits will have been built with the original cabs, I am hoping that some people may have the etches for the Scottish side-window cabs in their spares box. I would be happy to pay for these parts if anybody has one they would be willing to part with. Thanks very much in advance. Steve

I think that point you made is very valid - some models clearly don't need it. I felt the K3 did because of the wheelbase and relatively high running plate making it look a little funny. To prevent any issues I tend to pack the frames out to about a mil narrower than the spaceing washers used to limit sideplay and have never had any issues. Starting with thin black plasticard it is dead easy. The springs can then be removed from the keeper plate and extended out in a similar way. That said, for a streamline A4 I didn't bother as the skirts hide almost everything. So yes, it very much depends on a variety of things. Cheers, Steve

Hi Izzy, I've just spent some time reading through this thread and found it very interesting, especially the section on the P4 conversion of the Hornby J15 - so thanks! I have done and am in the process of doing some similar conversions - a Bachmann K3 being the current effort. It was completed but has been dismantled as the wheel quartering was a bit sketchy. In any case, it's certainly not as neat as the work that you are doing. One question though - have you ever though about adding overlays to the frames in order to fill the gap between the back of the driving wheels and the existing frames? And also moving the springs out by the same distance to closer behind the wheels? I've done this on the K3 and it makes quite a difference - I'd be interested in your thoughts. Cheers, Steve

Certainly not complaining and you're quite right - the last thing they need is for something to go wrong. Was certainly doing her fair share of the work - though slightly difficult to tell as she is clearly in phenomenal condition. I'd say she was purring. You can hear a duchess or jubilee from miles off coming up the bank from Whalley - Flying Scotsman was about 400yds away when you heard her and was probably moving a bit quicker too. In any case, The kids loved seeing her and I can't wait to get hauled from York to Carlisle in September!

I agree - I was at Langho this evening to see it go through (I reckon you live about 2 minutes from me) and FS was running very sweetly, almost purring. The 47 at the back certainly wasn't silent..... Steve