08 plus 08 equals 13

[Penfold]

Class 13 in N-Gauge

 

I have a sweet spot for Class 08s and had been considering a Class 13 for a while but couldn't bring myself to cut up a perfectly good loco as there isn't room in the original Farish model to retain a working motor in the slave loco. Secondhand 'spares/repairs' on auction sites seemed to be going for as much as a working loco so the idea got shelved until a friend dropped a bag of Farish customer returns on my doorstep one evening to see if I could get them working. Out of 6 units I got 4 running well (bad/missing brushes or pickups), 1 runs rough until it has warmed up and 1 had an armature shorting out so was given the last rites.   As it happened the dead motor loco had a departmental grey livery so I had no qualms about taking a hacksaw to that one. 

 

Spoiler alert - this is not a perfect replica of a point in time for a particular loco. It is a representation of what existed based on what I can achieve and the materials available. 

 

The key differences are the obvious lack of an enclosed cab on the slave and the deeper buffer beams acting as counterbalance and ballast. The rapido couplings give roughly the correct spacing between the 2 locos. There are several different configurations of the slave upper bulkhead and sometimes they carry rear wasp stripes and sometimes plain BR blue. Also, unlike the 'OO' versions you can't cut away the doors otherwise the first time you shunt it will snap off the rear of the unit, so I have had to deal with practical limitations of the scale.

 

The master unit needed very little body modifications. I saved the BR Green body and swapped it for a spare 08748 body. The buffer beams were modified using plasticard and fitted with NBrass loco's #23353 buffers to give the slightly larger heads than the Farish items. I added the 2 centre bonnet hinges behind the exhaust port. The connecting rods were stripped and repainted yellow.
Paint touch up and freshening was using Phoenix BR Blue and Warning Panel Yellow, although I did add a little red to the yellow to match the Farish shade to save having to restripe both ends.  I added cab rear outside wiring conduit and the additional light.  The '13001' and loco data panel were extracted from Railtec 2mm 1206 (BR Blue numbers / data panels / depot codes: Wales/Western). Overhead warning signs are Railtec 2mm 1003.

 

The slave unit needed work on both the motor and the body. 
Motor:

To create space for the bulkhead changes and to minimise rolling resistance you need to get rid of everything except the frame casting,  wheelset and pickup plate. Strip the entire unit down and remove the brushes, top hats, wiring and resistor, upper motor frame and magnet  - put all of these in the spares pot for the master unit if it ever needs them. Throw away the faulty armature (if your one is good then also put it in the spares pot). Remove the pick up plate retaining the axles, cut off the pickups and file the cut edges smooth. Remove the transfer gear and pin and put in the spares pot if not split - this pin is tapered so check which side has the smallest diameter and drive it out towards the opposite side.  Refit the axles and pickup plate and you should be left with a free running wheelset providing you haven't overtightened the pickup plate - if you have just back the screws off until it runs freely.  I had to strip and repaint the connecting rods on my one. Put the rapido couplings and springs to one side as these will be refitted. 

 

Body:

Cut this horizontally across the bottom of the rear windows above the waist rail forward to the rear of the engine bay. Cut it vertically down the line of the cab front windows to the horizontal cut. Now comes the horrible bit as you need to take out the solid centre post but leave enough metal for the rear rapido pocket and to keep it attached to the rear panel. I drilled down with small drill bit in the four corners and then spent 3hrs with a hobby drill and dentist burr removing the waste metal. Try to get this as flat as possible but don't make it perfectly smooth. Do NOT remove the remains of the doors as it will be too weak and you'll be looking for another body to do it all again too. Now loosely refit the frame casting as you need to make up plasticard inserts to recreate the steel panel work and flooring. Cut a rectangle for the floor of the open cab - if you removed enough metal this should now be in the correct place so that if there doors were open it would be a level gangway from the door aperture. I stuck mine in place with green putty onto the rapido pocket (now you know why is didn't need to be smooth as the putty needs to grip to it). Once that had set I created the vertical gangway wall ensuring it allowed the framework to be removed for axle maintenance later. This was glued in with cyano as well as the floorpiece as the putty alone would not last that long. With those in place I created the engine bay rear panel and the closing plate over the top and glued those in place. After 24hrs I set about creating the sloped section with layers of green putty built up and filed back each time. Smooth and file everything until you are happy with the shape as this is, for me at least, the defining characteristic of a '13'. Fit the bonnet centre hinges to the 2 front sections. Treat the buffer beams and buffers in the same way as the master unit. I chose to recreate the pipework and small box on the upper right of the slave rear panel but these do seem to vary from unit and date of the photographic evidence. There is also a handbrake mounted in the centre rear of the gangway on the slave - mine was made from copper and steel wire but you may be able to use a professionally produced one or one from a discarded brake van. There are maintenance access panels in the modified panel work of the slave unit. To represent these I used self-adhesive labels cut to size, applied and then soaked with cyano for good measure. I chose to put wasp stripes on the rear of the slave - also from Railtec (2mm 1243) - cut down to size before fitting.

The BR arrow logos are leftover from a set of Fox transfers I commissioned for my Class 305 project (F2212).

All that's left to do now is some satin varnish to seal the transfers, paint the grab rails white and make up the multiple working cable between the 2 units. As this will be going on a heritage line layout I'm not going to weather this one.

 

Thanks for reading, and if you can track down a burned out Gronk, have a go at it yourself.

[jonw]

My version, yet to be renumbered, based upon 2x new farish 08, both with working motors. The conversion parts we crudely made in a 3d resin printer

[Penfold]

Hi Jonw, that has promise as an after market kit and I love that you got to open the rear cab fully.

My one regret is that the early version can't have a working motor as I get some wheel slip that puts both motions out of synch and looks odd. Ideally I'd have liked both mine as DCC running as double headers but that would get eye-wateringly expensive as well.  Are you analog or DCC on yours?

[jonw]

These are both analogue, i agree it would make a good conversion kit