Hornby Thompson B1 to B2 conversion.

[45568]

The B2 is another of those Thompson locos. that I find fascinating. I remember in my 'Ladybird Book of British Locomotives' there was an illustration of 61616 'Fallodon' which was my introduction to the class.

 Moving to the 1990sand I obtained a Crownline kit to convert the Hornby tender-drive B17 to a B2. My adventures with that project are described here...

Hornby B17. 6/4 or 4/1? Hornby B17 variants.Now with B2 added! - Modifying & Detailing RTR stock - RMweb

As mentioned above, I purchased a Railroad loco-drive B17 with a view to updating the B2. However, problems with fitting B1 cylinders and  valve gear  plus deterioration of my original B2 body work put an end to that idea and the B17 was sold on.

Having several of the latest Hornby B17 and B1 classes, my thoughts turned again to a B2. Thorough reading and research led me to the conclusion that the way to go would be to add B17 wheels to a B1 chassis, adjusting the fittings on the B1 body to B2 configuration. According a victim was sourced from Ebay and work commenced.

Choice of B1 model. 

My first purchase was the apple green 61310....bad move! This loco. is fitted with electric lighting with associated conduits etc. which entails removing them from the boiler and smokebox, a tedious and time-consuming job which has the potential for disaster.

 My second purchase was 'Stembok' , which is ideal, no conduits or lighting. Incidentally both of these models were lacking their smokebox door handles, easily replaced with Nairnshire models examples, but odd all the same. 

It will pay to look at the B1 before purchase to make life easier when converting, e.g. 61243 is a non-starter because of the footplate infills.

I obtained the necessary Hornby  B17 spares from Peters Spares, his service was as usual excellent. Required are a full set of B17 driving wheels, and I also purchased a B17 bogie for one conversion. If you are modelling 61639 then you do not need to change the bogie as it ran latterly with a B1 bogie. Rather than use Hornby B17 bogie wheels, an alternative would be Gibson 'Darlington' bogie wheels, in facy they may be a better option and it saves the cost of a B17 bogie.

 Now let us begin...

Separate the body and chassis, I started work on the chassis to make sure it would work!

The Chassis:

   With the chassis separated, remove all sandboxes and sandpipes from the chassis. Leave the brake gear alone.

On my first model I stripped the chassis completely removing valve gear, cylinders, motor etc. which later proved un-necessary. The second model was treated as follows. The chassis was turned upside down in a cradle.

The keeper plate undoes with cross-head screws, (3 or4). It is pulled away carefully and the bottom part of the keeper plate with the brake mouldings can be separated. Each driving wheel has two brass bearings, I found it was possible to undo the rods from each wheel on each side in pairs, remove the B1 wheel, replace with the B17 wheelset, and replace rods. The best order is Wheelset 1, wheelset 3, then saving the most complicated till last, wheelset 2, with all the valve gear! 

We now come to the first problem. On the B1 chassis all three wheelsets have two small bearing each. The B17 wheelsets have identical bearings on set 1 and 3, but 2, the drive axle, has a larger bearing which will not fit the B1 chassis.

 The answer is to remove a wheel from one of the redundant B1 wheelsets and obtain a small bearing. Then remove the wheel from the B17 driving axle on the side with the large bearing, replace with the B1 bearing and replace the wheel, ensuring that quartering is as original. The B17 driving axle can now be placed in the chassis and the valve gear re-attached. The pick-up baseplate can now be put back, adjusting pick-ups as necessary to clear the larger wheels. 

 The base plate with the brake gear attached can now have the screwholes elongated to move the plate forward to allow the brakegear to clear the wheels, this really is trial and error. It is necessary to trim the upper part of the middle brake gear to clear the wheels. When this is done the baseplate can be screwed back to the chassis, check that all wheels have sideplay and brakegear is not binding.... then test under power. You should have a B1 chassis running with B17 drivers quite smoothly! 

Bogie wheels can now be exchanged if required, The B17 bogie is slightly bigger than the B1 bogie and will foul  brakegear if exchanged. So use the B1 bogie with your wheels of choice.

 

The Body:

Strip all small fittings from the footplate carefully and store them safe, they will be reused. These are the sandbox fillers, lubricators and other small fittings, The exception is the front sandbox on the right hand side, this is in roughly the right place. Strip all the sandboxes and the footplate supports from underneath the footplate. Remove buffers and cab steps. All of the items are glued into position and will usually respond to gentle persuasion, do not be tempted to be too rough or they will deform and are difficult to replace.

 We have fitted larger wheels, and so the wheels will foul the bodywork in several places.  Material  needs to be removed carefully from around the splasher area and under the cab, There is no magic formula for this, I used a variety of stones and burrs in a minidrill to clear the areas under the footplate around each driving wheel set. Pay particular attention to clearances on wheelset 3 under the cab, it needs a surprising amount to ensure the wheels have sideplay and are not catching at the top.

 I found it best to work on each wheelset then place the body on the chassis and check for sideplay or fouling. It also shows up when the body is screwed down in place, you might think it is all good but.. try some more!!

Small splashers are filed to shape from styrene, or can be liberated from the old Hornby tender-drive B17 body if you have one.

Chimneys are tricky. DMR models list a B17 chimney which is ideal. It is a lost wax casting that requires a fair amount of work to seat well. I found with my second model that the top can be removed from the B1 chimney. This top can then be filed down to just the rim and reaffixed to give good likeness. 

Bufferbeam and steps:

The bufferbeam and cab steps require height adjustment as well. Glue a piece of 40x40 thou. styrene to the top of each set of cab steps, and to the bottom of the bufferbeam. When this has set hard take a small square file and file the buffer fixing points down to the new base of 40x40. Cut another piece of 40x40 to fit at the top of the buffer fixing points, the new fixing points are now in the modified buffer beam. Smooth down to ensure a good finish.

Painting:

You should now be ready to paint by your preferred method. Both of my examples were hand-painted using Humbrol 104 from an unopened tin that is around 30 years old. It was beautiful to brush with, smooth and easy to apply. I gave three coats over three days. Lining is Modelmaster dark orange, I am getting to the end of my stock and resupply seems well-nigh impossible. I have has good service from Jim over the years and have championed his products, but I still have an order outstanding from April and have given up. 

 Plates and numbers/emblems are from Fox, and lovely they are especially the 'Footballer" plate!

All the small fittings can now be placed back on the footplate using photographs as a positioning guide. I found a lovely pic of 61639 broadside on using google and 61639.

Tenders:

This is down to you! The B2 class ran with a variety of tenders. I was fortunate enough to pick up an NER tender from a Hornby Q6 for 'Fallodon', and beautiful it is! 'Norwich' trails a modified 'NE' tender utilising bits from the Crownline kit. "Royal Sovereign" can use the B17 4200 gallon tender.

 

 

All thoughts, comments and questions welcome. Apologies for the lack of in-progress pix, it really was a trial and error exercise!

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

Edited December 10, 2020 by 45568

[46444]

10 hours ago, 45568 said:

The B2 is another of those Thompson locos. that I find fascinating. I remember in my 'Ladybird Book of British Locomotives' there was an illustration of 61616 'Fallodon' which was my introduction to the class.

 Moving to the 1990sand I obtained a Crownline kit to convert the Hornby tender-drive B17 to a B2. My adventures with that project are described here...

Hornby B17. 6/4 or 4/1? Hornby B17 variants.Now with B2 added! - Modifying & Detailing RTR stock - RMweb

As mentioned above, I purchased a Railroad loco-drive B17 with a view to updating the B2. However, problems with fitting B1 cylinders and  valve gear  plus deterioration of my original B2 body work put an end to that idea and the B17 was sold on.

Having several of the latest Hornby B17 and B1 classes, my thoughts turned again to a B2. Thorough reading and research led me to the conclusion that the way to go would be to add B17 wheels to a B1 chassis, adjusting the fittings on the B1 body to B2 configuration. According a victim was sourced from Ebay and work commenced.

Choice of B1 model. 

My first purchase was the apple green 61310....bad move! This loco. is fitted with electric lighting with associated conduits etc. which entails removing them from the boiler and smokebox, a tedious and time-consuming job which has the potential for disaster.

 My second purchase was 'Stembok' , which is ideal, no conduits or lighting. Incidentally both of these models were lacking their smokebox door handles, easily replaced with Nairnshire models examples, but odd all the same. 

It will pay to look at the B1 before purchase to make life easier when converting, e.g. 61243 is a non-starter because of the footplate infills.

I obtained the necessary Hornby  B17 spares from Peters Spares, his service was as usual excellent. Required are a full set of B17 driving wheels, and I also purchased a B17 bogie for one conversion. If you are modelling 61639 then you do not need to change the bogie as it ran latterly with a B1 bogie. Rather than use Hornby B17 bogie wheels, an alternative would be Gibson 'Darlington' bogie wheels, in facy they may be a better option and it saves the cost of a B17 bogie.

 Now let us begin...

Separate the body and chassis, I started work on the chassis to make sure it would work!

The Chassis:

   With the chassis separated, remove all sandboxes and sandpipes from the chassis. Leave the brake gear alone.

On my first model I stripped the chassis completely removing valve gear, cylinders, motor etc. which later proved un-necessary. The second model was treated as follows. The chassis was turned upside down in a cradle.

The keeper plate undoes with cross-head screws, (3 or4). It is pulled away carefully and the bottom part of the keeper plate with the brake mouldings can be separated. Each driving wheel has two brass bearings, I found it was possible to undo the rods from each wheel on each side in pairs, remove the B1 wheel, replace with the B17 wheelset, and replace rods. The best order is Wheelset 1, wheelset 3, then saving the most complicated till last, wheelset 2, with all the valve gear! 

We now come to the first problem. On the B1 chassis all three wheelsets have two small bearing each. The B17 wheelsets have identical bearings on set 1 and 3, but 2, the drive axle, has a larger bearing which will not fit the B1 chassis.

 The answer is to remove a wheel from one of the redundant B1 wheelsets and obtain a small bearing. Then remove the wheel from the B17 driving axle on the side with the large bearing, replace with the B1 bearing and replace the wheel, ensuring that quartering is as original. The B17 driving axle can now be placed in the chassis and the valve gear re-attached. The pick-up baseplate can now be put back, adjusting pick-ups as necessary to clear the larger wheels. 

 The base plate with the brake gear attached can now have the screwholes elongated to move the plate forward to allow the brakegear to clear the wheels, this really is trial and error. It is necessary to trim the upper part of the middle brake gear to clear the wheels. When this is done the baseplate can be screwed back to the chassis, check that all wheels have sideplay and brakegear is not binding.... then test under power. You should have a B1 chassis running with B17 drivers quite smoothly! 

Bogie wheels can now be exchanged if required, The B17 bogie is slightly bigger than the B1 bogie and will foul  brakegear if exchanged. So use the B1 bogie with your wheels of choice.

 

The Body:

Strip all small fittings from the footplate carefully and store them safe, they will be reused. These are the sandbox fillers, lubricators and other small fittings, The exception is the front sandbox on the right hand side, this is in roughly the right place. Strip all the sandboxes and the footplate supports from underneath the footplate. Remove buffers and cab steps. All of the items are glued into position and will usually respond to gentle persuasion, do not be tempted to be too rough or they will deform and are difficult to replace.

 We have fitted larger wheels, and so the wheels will foul the bodywork in several places.  Material  needs to be removed carefully from around the splasher area and under the cab, There is no magic formula for this, I used a variety of stones and burrs in a minidrill to clear the areas under the footplate around each driving wheel set. Pay particular attention to clearances on wheelset 3 under the cab, it needs a surprising amount to ensure the wheels have sideplay and are not catching at the top.

 I found it best to work on each wheelset then place the body on the chassis and check for sideplay or fouling. It also shows up when the body is screwed down in place, you might think it is all good but.. try some more!!

Small splashers are filed to shape from styrene, or can be liberated from the old Hornby tender-drive B17 body if you have one.

Chimneys are tricky. DMR models list a B17 chimney which is ideal. It is a lost wax casting that requires a fair amount of work to seat well. I found with my second model that the top can be removed from the B1 chimney. This top can then be filed down to just the rim and reaffixed to give good likeness. 

Bufferbeam and steps:

The bufferbeam and cab steps require height adjustment as well. Glue a piece of 40x40 thou. styrene to the top of each set of cab steps, and to the bottom of the bufferbeam. When this has set hard take a small square file and file the buffer fixing points down to the new base of 40x40. Cut another piece of 40x40 to fit at the top of the buffer fixing points, the new fixing points are now in the modified buffer beam. Smooth down to ensure a good finish.

Painting:

You should now be ready to paint by your preferred method. Both of my examples were hand-painted using Humbrol 104 from an unopened tin that is around 30 years old. It was beautiful to brush with, smooth and easy to apply. I gave three coats over three days. Lining is Modelmaster dark orange, I am getting to the end of my stock and resupply seems well-nigh impossible. I have has good service from Jim over the years and have championed his products, but I still have an order outstanding from April and have given up. 

 Plates and numbers/emblems are from Fox, and lovely they are especially the 'Footballer" plate!

All the small fittings can now be placed back on the footplate using photographs as a positioning guide. I found a lovely pic of 61639 broadside on using google and 61639.

Tenders:

This is down to you! The B2 class ran with a variety of tenders. I was fortunate enough to pick up an NER tender from a Hornby Q6 for 'Fallodon', and beautiful it is! 'Norwich' trails a modified 'NE' tender utilising bits from the Crownline kit. "Royal Sovereign" can use the B17 4200 gallon tender.

 

 

All thoughts, comments and questions welcome. Apologies for the lack of in-progress pix, it really was a trial and error exercise!

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

 

A very nice bit of modelling Peter and captures the prototype nicely..  

 

Thanks also for information re: sourcing donors and suitable parts. 

 

Being named Norwich City where's Delia when you need her?..

 

Cheers,

 

Mark 

[thegreenhowards]

11 hours ago, 45568 said:

The B2 is another of those Thompson locos. that I find fascinating. I remember in my 'Ladybird Book of British Locomotives' there was an illustration of 61616 'Fallodon' which was my introduction to the class.

 Moving to the 1990sand I obtained a Crownline kit to convert the Hornby tender-drive B17 to a B2. My adventures with that project are described here...

Hornby B17. 6/4 or 4/1? Hornby B17 variants.Now with B2 added! - Modifying & Detailing RTR stock - RMweb

As mentioned above, I purchased a Railroad loco-drive B17 with a view to updating the B2. However, problems with fitting B1 cylinders and  valve gear  plus deterioration of my original B2 body work put an end to that idea and the B17 was sold on.

Having several of the latest Hornby B17 and B1 classes, my thoughts turned again to a B2. Thorough reading and research led me to the conclusion that the way to go would be to add B17 wheels to a B1 chassis, adjusting the fittings on the B1 body to B2 configuration. According a victim was sourced from Ebay and work commenced.

Choice of B1 model. 

My first purchase was the apple green 61310....bad move! This loco. is fitted with electric lighting with associated conduits etc. which entails removing them from the boiler and smokebox, a tedious and time-consuming job which has the potential for disaster.

 My second purchase was 'Stembok' , which is ideal, no conduits or lighting. Incidentally both of these models were lacking their smokebox door handles, easily replaced with Nairnshire models examples, but odd all the same. 

It will pay to look at the B1 before purchase to make life easier when converting, e.g. 61243 is a non-starter because of the footplate infills.

I obtained the necessary Hornby  B17 spares from Peters Spares, his service was as usual excellent. Required are a full set of B17 driving wheels, and I also purchased a B17 bogie for one conversion. If you are modelling 61639 then you do not need to change the bogie as it ran latterly with a B1 bogie. Rather than use Hornby B17 bogie wheels, an alternative would be Gibson 'Darlington' bogie wheels, in facy they may be a better option and it saves the cost of a B17 bogie.

 Now let us begin...

Separate the body and chassis, I started work on the chassis to make sure it would work!

The Chassis:

   With the chassis separated, remove all sandboxes and sandpipes from the chassis. Leave the brake gear alone.

On my first model I stripped the chassis completely removing valve gear, cylinders, motor etc. which later proved un-necessary. The second model was treated as follows. The chassis was turned upside down in a cradle.

The keeper plate undoes with cross-head screws, (3 or4). It is pulled away carefully and the bottom part of the keeper plate with the brake mouldings can be separated. Each driving wheel has two brass bearings, I found it was possible to undo the rods from each wheel on each side in pairs, remove the B1 wheel, replace with the B17 wheelset, and replace rods. The best order is Wheelset 1, wheelset 3, then saving the most complicated till last, wheelset 2, with all the valve gear! 

We now come to the first problem. On the B1 chassis all three wheelsets have two small bearing each. The B17 wheelsets have identical bearings on set 1 and 3, but 2, the drive axle, has a larger bearing which will not fit the B1 chassis.

 The answer is to remove a wheel from one of the redundant B1 wheelsets and obtain a small bearing. Then remove the wheel from the B17 driving axle on the side with the large bearing, replace with the B1 bearing and replace the wheel, ensuring that quartering is as original. The B17 driving axle can now be placed in the chassis and the valve gear re-attached. The pick-up baseplate can now be put back, adjusting pick-ups as necessary to clear the larger wheels. 

 The base plate with the brake gear attached can now have the screwholes elongated to move the plate forward to allow the brakegear to clear the wheels, this really is trial and error. It is necessary to trim the upper part of the middle brake gear to clear the wheels. When this is done the baseplate can be screwed back to the chassis, check that all wheels have sideplay and brakegear is not binding.... then test under power. You should have a B1 chassis running with B17 drivers quite smoothly! 

Bogie wheels can now be exchanged if required, The B17 bogie is slightly bigger than the B1 bogie and will foul  brakegear if exchanged. So use the B1 bogie with your wheels of choice.

 

The Body:

Strip all small fittings from the footplate carefully and store them safe, they will be reused. These are the sandbox fillers, lubricators and other small fittings, The exception is the front sandbox on the right hand side, this is in roughly the right place. Strip all the sandboxes and the footplate supports from underneath the footplate. Remove buffers and cab steps. All of the items are glued into position and will usually respond to gentle persuasion, do not be tempted to be too rough or they will deform and are difficult to replace.

 We have fitted larger wheels, and so the wheels will foul the bodywork in several places.  Material  needs to be removed carefully from around the splasher area and under the cab, There is no magic formula for this, I used a variety of stones and burrs in a minidrill to clear the areas under the footplate around each driving wheel set. Pay particular attention to clearances on wheelset 3 under the cab, it needs a surprising amount to ensure the wheels have sideplay and are not catching at the top.

 I found it best to work on each wheelset then place the body on the chassis and check for sideplay or fouling. It also shows up when the body is screwed down in place, you might think it is all good but.. try some more!!

Small splashers are filed to shape from styrene, or can be liberated from the old Hornby tender-drive B17 body if you have one.

Chimneys are tricky. DMR models list a B17 chimney which is ideal. It is a lost wax casting that requires a fair amount of work to seat well. I found with my second model that the top can be removed from the B1 chimney. This top can then be filed down to just the rim and reaffixed to give good likeness. 

Bufferbeam and steps:

The bufferbeam and cab steps require height adjustment as well. Glue a piece of 40x40 thou. styrene to the top of each set of cab steps, and to the bottom of the bufferbeam. When this has set hard take a small square file and file the buffer fixing points down to the new base of 40x40. Cut another piece of 40x40 to fit at the top of the buffer fixing points, the new fixing points are now in the modified buffer beam. Smooth down to ensure a good finish.

Painting:

You should now be ready to paint by your preferred method. Both of my examples were hand-painted using Humbrol 104 from an unopened tin that is around 30 years old. It was beautiful to brush with, smooth and easy to apply. I gave three coats over three days. Lining is Modelmaster dark orange, I am getting to the end of my stock and resupply seems well-nigh impossible. I have has good service from Jim over the years and have championed his products, but I still have an order outstanding from April and have given up. 

 Plates and numbers/emblems are from Fox, and lovely they are especially the 'Footballer" plate!

All the small fittings can now be placed back on the footplate using photographs as a positioning guide. I found a lovely pic of 61639 broadside on using google and 61639.

Tenders:

This is down to you! The B2 class ran with a variety of tenders. I was fortunate enough to pick up an NER tender from a Hornby Q6 for 'Fallodon', and beautiful it is! 'Norwich' trails a modified 'NE' tender utilising bits from the Crownline kit. "Royal Sovereign" can use the B17 4200 gallon tender.

 

 

All thoughts, comments and questions welcome. Apologies for the lack of in-progress pix, it really was a trial and error exercise!

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

Peter,

 

Thanks for posting this. It’s a useful guide and gives confidence that it can be achieved. My donor was going to be 61310 as I picked up a couple when they were being flogged off cheap. But that’s gone back in the box now after your warning!
 

I will keep my eyes peeled for a Stembok, but in the meantime I may try with a Replica B1 body and a Hornby B17. I realise that would mean a lot of mucking around with brake gear but I have nothing else to do with either of them!

 

Given that Hornby seem to have all the necessary parts, I wonder how long it will be before they announce one? About 5 minutes after I finish my conversion I suspect!

 

Andy

 

 

 

 

[31A]

Thank you from me, too - this might spur me on to make a start on mine!  I must admit I hadn't thought of using a B1 as a starting point (and I've already got a B17 set aside for it), but it does make a lot of sense.  Good idea to get hold of a Q6 tender too; a friend gave me a DJH white metal North Eastern tender (already made up) but I'm afraid it won't really match the quality of the Hornby mouldings.  Anyway, enough excuses not to do it ..... !

[45568]

Getting hold of the Q6 tender was pure luck! An LNER Q6 was advertised on Oz Ebay as non-working  and I won it for a reasonable sum. I fixed it, a problem with the tender wiring, and managed to sell the loco. body/chassis for more than I paid for it. I had originally set it aside for a D49 'Shire' but the B2 trumped it. Cannot find another anywhere, I am currently building an NER tender from a DJH kit I won on Ebay, it is a brute of a thing! Only wish Dave Alexander was still producing his!

Please do not point me towards the excellent etched brass kits, these are way out of my soldering league!

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

PS Anyone with a spare Hornby NE tender, the pm button is available!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[David_Belcher]

On 10/12/2020 at 19:59, 46444 said:

 

A very nice bit of modelling Peter and captures the prototype nicely..  

 

Thanks also for information re: sourcing donors and suitable parts. 

 

Being named Norwich City where's Delia when you need her?..

 

Cheers,

 

Mark 

As no. 2839, 'Norwich City' was originally 'Rendlesham Hall' until 1938* - in the words of Norwich's favourite fictional son, "they've rebadged it you fool!"

 

David

 

*Along with 'Tottenham Hotspur' (the plates for which appeared on 3 different locos of the class), the only Footballers not part of the actual Footballer batch.