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Farish 12t LNER Van


justin1985
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I've been using a relatively recent Farish 12t, 10' wb LNER ventilated van which I had rewheeled and weathered some time ago to test the track I've been laying on my shunting plank "Snape". I had been pretty happy with this wagon, and bought another 5 or 6 of them very cheaply from a discount shop that was shifting old Modelzone stock a little while ago. However, now I've been paying closer attention to the wheels and underframe from using it track laying, the more I've noticed how "wrong" it looks that the brake shoes are moulded in line with the W irons rather than the wheels.

 

 post-3740-0-58363200-1453651142_thumb.jpg

 

Otherwise the underframe moulding is excellent - the brake leaver is about the best I've seen on an N gauge RTR wagon, and the rivet/bolt head detail, builders plate etc are all excellent. With a bit of weathering its really convincing - apart from those brake shoes! I'm almost tempted to think the Chinese CAD designer misinterpreted a drawing. So, what to do with them all? With a whole batch of them to do, I really can't decide whether to:

  • Live with it
  • Cut off the brake shoes and cannibalise etches to epoxy brakes on to the existing chassis (are there any etches of just brake shoes?)
  • Replace the whole chassis with an Association etch (2-333 with 2-336 steel solebar conversion?)

Any thoughts? Has anyone else finescaled one these vans?

 

 

Justin

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I agree about the van being pretty nice apart from the brake shoes.

 

I have an etch at the final test stage that has fold up brake shoes for the LNER van. This came about after converting one for Llangerisech with some spare brake shoes I had lying around and discovering it wouldn't roll. This turned out to be because the Farish axleboxes have so much slop in them that the wheels were dragging on the brakes.  However, the axleguards are so far apart on this van that it is actually possible to fit in fold up pin-point bearings with a little bit of filing to the inside faces of the axleguards, and this is what the etch does.

 

I hope to have these available soon.

 

Richard Benn

Wealden Area Group

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That sounds perfect Richard - I look forward to seeing the result - and I'd probably be happy to buy about 6 sets if you're offering them to other members?

 

Justin

 

Of course - when they are ready I will canvas the members for likely numbers. The problem is I have around six mini projects like this that are sharing test etch space, and a delay on one holds them all up!

 

Richard Benn

 

Wealden Area Group

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I spent a lot of time cutting & shutting Peco N gauge chassis to make correct looking wagon underframes to go under Parkwood kits.  The end result still wasn't very satisfactory, so I sold the whole lot and started again with 2mm chassis components which looked much better.

 

The new Farish van pictured above is streets ahead of where the N gauge market was when I was making my wagons but I would still be strongly tempted to replace the whole underframe with an Association etch. The width over the W-irons will be more prototypical. there won't be such a large gap between the W-iron & wheel, the springs/axleboxes won't look so shallow and you'll lose the axle end slop inherent in the Farish chassis.

 

Are the buffers seperate parts? I would be tempted to re-use those, they are excellent. Likewise the vacuum hose.

 

But I really am being picky now. For N gauge RTR, it's an excellent product and it's good to see a recognition that freight stock doesn't just have a "standard" underframe. Perhaps there just isn't a accurate Chinese translation for "the brake shoes must be in line with the wheels"

 

Mark

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  • 3 weeks later...

On my LNER opens and vans, I have replaced the whole chassis with 2-372 which has the LNER 8 shoe brake gear. It is designed for the Parkwood kits, but fits these vans nicely too.

 

Andy

 

2-371 can also be used as some of these vans had a 9' fitted wheelbase. And there were unfitted examples too so you can do quite a variety with the same body.

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If you are being picky then the 9ft planked vans require a bit of work to be done on the bodies as they had a sliding ventilator rather than the ventilator hood of the wartime planked vans modelled by Farish and Parkwood. The door mounting is also slightly different, but life's too short for that alteration in 2mm! These etched chassis are great as they really open up a range of possibilities.

 

Simon

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2-371 can also be used as some of these vans had a 9' fitted wheelbase. And there were unfitted examples too so you can do quite a variety with the same body.

 

I have used the 2-382 chassis for the unfitted LNER steel-bodied opens - some of these had the 4 shoe brake gear.

 

Andy

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  • 3 months later...
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I thought I'd resurrect this topic to give an idea of what can be done with Richard's etch and the 2mm Scale Association etches designed by Chris Higgs. 

 

The first photos shows the underside of a Farish van with Richard's etches fitted and with etches in the flat (plus bearings) in front.

 

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The second photo has a Farish van with Richard's etches, an unmodified Fruit van, and one with a partially complete Association 10 ft 8 vacuum braked chassis (wooden solebars ready for the body to be backdated to one of the earlier Fruit vans) showing how nicely it fits.

 

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The Association etches were designed to go with the Parkwood and Foxhunter vans. I'd already started to put together some of these overwide vans before the Farish ones became available.  I've now stated to hack these down to nearer scale width (to be consistent with the Farish vans), and to produce more of the full range of LNER fitted vans.

 

Left to right are the Foxhunter 12' wheelbase fish van and two modified 9' wheelbase vans (The wooden underframes have been primed in black, but the solebars will need painting body colour later on).

 

post-3982-0-44224600-1506785457_thumb.jpg

 

Finally an end view showing my crude work with a piercing saw and some rough attempts at representing the earlier vans without hooded ventilator (the Parkwood planked van as supplied makes into either the hooded ventilator-fitted Diagram 161 van or the corresponding fruit van - both now produced by Farish), but with one form or other of sliding ventilator.  Still a bit of tidying up to do.

 

post-3982-0-11479200-1506785455_thumb.jpg

 

Simon

 

 

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