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Obbekaer & Ribe Skibbroen - P87


Middlepeak
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.....As I mentioned earlier, the wheel problem, particularly for steam outline locos, is a difficult nut to crack. Fortunately I have been able to get round this by astute purchase of Gibson P87 or Sharman P4 types for most of the models I'm likely to make. Operating a few diesels from the transition era (Epoch III) helps to relieve the situation, as these are easier to turn, even if you don't possess the best equipment...

 

Particularly if you want German P87 steam. You can get cast wheel blanks from Teichmann, though, at about 4.50 Euro per wheel......but then you need to have P87 form tools.....

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Trevor,

 

I still have the mental scars of that day in the car showroom in Saffron Walden when the flash went off just as I was lining up another brick. The scalpel did fly and I avoided injury by a whisker. Those were the days when I was literally laying things brick by brick and wondering why I couldn't get them to line up straight.

 

Then along came some bright spark (can't remember who) with the suggestion that I lay a whole course at once and then mark off the vertical joints later, and hey presto, things lined up and the process suddenly got easier. And so the time honoured method now known as 'Knick Knick Flick' was born (see previous post for an explanation).

 

Funny how you remember the awkward so and so's, but not the enlightened ones!

 

Ian - ah yes those dim and distant days in Herts! I finally escaped 6 years ago and haven't looked back!

 

G

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Geraint and all,

 

I have at last signed up to this here site. Great to see Obbekaer here on RMweb, and I am very pleased to be a small part of it too.

 

I think a bit more info on my engine number 3 might be of interest. Whilst it did start out as a Fleischmann 'Black Anna', there is now relatively little of it left. The shortened boiler, dome, front footplate and the cab are all that is left of the body. The motor is all that is left of the original chassis. I have contributed a new etched nickel chassis and valvegear, Gibson hornblocks, Sharman wheels (reprofiled), gearbox with ultrascale gears, resin cylinders, chimney and various details and castings on the body. There are still some bits of valve gear to add and a bit of weathering wouldnt go amiss !

 

All the best Ian

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Good to hear from you Ian.

 

For those of you who have to travel northwards to London (think about it!), there is a chance to see Obbekaer in the flesh at the Crawley show on 14th and 15th April. We're making reasonable progress here, and I'm hoping that my efforts with the hitherto uncharted areas of servos will produce one or two working 'accessories' for the show.

 

The layout is presentable, but still some way off completion. However, it will hopefully simulate a little interest amongst those of similar persuasion!

 

And to close, here's a close up of the street sign near the level crossing - one of the little bits of detail that keeps me amused!

 

All the best,

 

Geraint

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And to close, here's a close up of the street sign near the level crossing - one of the little bits of detail that keeps me amused!

 

That sign looks like Guardian typo...

 

Go on, give us a clue. Printed on an inkjet or colour laser from a photograph?

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Almost Trevor, actually drawn in TurboCAD and printed very small .....

 

Can't be Stevenage Horsetan - that's grass in the picture!

 

Here's another one that is taken from a photograph. A famous Tuborg advert from (I think) the 1950s, with a crate or two of the real stuff just being secreted in the Pakhus (goods shed) by one of the station staff. He appears to be responding to requests for a taste with a firm negative!

 

Geraint

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  • 1 year later...

I can report a highly successful foray to Aylesbury last weekend, where an 'upstart' Obbekaer performed well amongst the heavyweights of the P4 world. We took the opportunity of providing our own insurance against disbelieving souls by including a couple of international guests in the team. Anders Lehnsted and well known Danish railway historian Jens Bruun-Petersen were with us for their first experience of a major British exhibition, and brought a number of pieces of Danish rolling stock with them, including the brand new Litra F 0-6-0T from F2010/Hobbytrade. Jens also brought a number of Powerpoint presentations on Danish railway history, which helped to entertain and inform the punters. Both are members of the Ribe Model Railway Club, and have provided much inspiration for my project over the years.

 

A weekend spent in their company has generated some inspiration to take the project a stage further, with a number of rolling stock improvements to follow. Monday evening saw us playing with a 1:1 track plan of the proposed Ribe Skibbroen project, and Jens re-writing Danish railway history in order to provide some substance to the idea - a novel experience!

 

Many thanks to our two Vikings for making the long journey to see us, and to both Ian Thomson and Brian Page from our regular team for very welcome and much needed assistance, both in the run up to the show, and over the weekend. Our next outing is at Wycrail on 2nd November, after which we shall be taking a winter break to consider the further projects on the stocks!

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

 

 

 

 

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  • 6 months later...

Maybe a little update is in order .......

 

The last post focused on the 'home leg' of our European double, but the first weekend in April saw us embark on the 'away leg' with the layout safely packed in the car for the long drive to Kolding in Denmark. The venue was the Danske Model Jernbane Union (DMJU) annual exhibition, which this year was held at the Bramdrupdamhallen, on the outskirts of Kolding, and our good friends in the Ribe club had managed to secure us an invitation as the international 'guest layout' for the weekend.

 

After two whole days on the road, we arrived safely at the hall on the Friday evening, to be met by Anders Lehnsted and Jens Bruun-Petersen from Ribe, and within a couple of hours, the layout was erected and running perfectly.

 

Our previous 'exposure' through the pages of Lokomotivet magazine had clearly whetted the appetite of modellers in Denmark, and the whole weekend was the most convivial of events, with many people stopping by for a long chat about the layout, the techniques we had used in building it and the whole question of building a 'might have been' layout, which is clearly something novel to many Danes. What helped was that we had two local people on the team, who were happy to spend their time delivering a short lecture in Danish on p87, Obbekaer and the RGVJ to a very interested audience, which left Ian and I to do the operating.

 

Above all, we were so impressed with the camaraderie amongst exhibitors and the trade at the show. On the Saturday I found a photo of a steam loco I am modelling on one of the trade stands, and when I indicated my interest, the proprietor went away and found me 7 more of the same loco! A request to one of the kit manufacturers for some castings for a project resulted in him bringing them specially for me on the Sunday, and a deal was done for me to source some parts for him in return for a 50% discount. On the Sunday, a visitor politely pointed out that the numberplates on my road vehicles were incorrect- it turned out he was the proprietor of trader Witzel Hobby, and he returned later from his stand with free samples of the correct numberplates from his product range!

 

All in all an excellent weekend, and lots of inspiration to press ahead now with the remaining stock construction for Obbekaer, and to give some thought to the next layout 'Ribe Skibbroen', which is where this idea all started. Out thanks go to our very special friends Anders, Jens and Claus in Ribe, to the DMJU organisers, and to Carsten at Hobbytrade, Peter at Freja and the many new friends we have made.

 

Our next outing is to Scalefour SouthWest at Wells in August, where rumour has it that we will be appearing alongside the noble Lord Harrap and his Quai 87. Do come along and say hello, if your preference is for the unusual in fine scale HO!

 

Pictures from Kolding attached.

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

 

 

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Particularly if you want German P87 steam. You can get cast wheel blanks from Teichmann, though, at about 4.50 Euro per wheel......but then you need to have P87 form tools.....

 

Teichmann used to offer P:87 form tools.

 

Andy

 

PS. Terrific modelling job!

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Just to add a few bits to Geraints post about our visit to Denmark with Obbekaer.

 

As he said our Danish friends were very hospitable and generous. My first picture shows the small amount of loot I brought back. Kits and parts are very expensive in Denmark, due in no small part to the restricted market. I did get the little red wagon at a bargain price. The stake wagon is a Swedish type, which is often seen in Denmark. I searched in vain for one in the exhibition, but in the end Anders sold me a spare he had. Both wagons are Hobbytrade products. The transformer tower is a lazer cut kit from Witzel Hobby, a very welcome gift, looks like I might have to build a layout to put it on one day ! The rest are etched details from Epoke Model, and a set of transfers from KMtext .

 

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 I also thought I would put in a word about P87 wheels, as there has been some discussion about them and their availability in this thread. As many of you know the range of P87 wheels produced by Alan Gibson proved short lived, although some of us managed to stock up with a few sets. Geraint and I have however modified quite a few P4 profile wheels for P87 now. I have used the Blackbeetle wheels sold by Branchlines turned down in my lathe a little. And I have also turned wheels by Maygib, Sharman, Exactoscale and Trix (!). One thing we have also discovered is that P4 wheels merely regauged will work on well laid P87 track. The red coach in the second of the pictures in Geraint's post is running successfully on Exactoscale 3' splitspoke wheels fitted to modified Exactoscale parallel axles.

 The pictures below show Blackbeetle 10.5mm disc wheels turned and mounted on shorter axles for a Hobbytrade coach. The pony wheels are an example of cross fertilised parts, being turned down Gibson 12mm 9 spoke centres with Gibson 10.5mm P87 tyres, mounted on an 00 axle. The 2-6-0T chassis has turned down Romford mazak driving wheel centres, with tufnol rim insulation and Alan Gibson P4 tender wheel tyres, turned and pressed on. The pony wheels are 3mm Society finescale wagon wheels.

 So I think you can see that with a lathe ( not such fearsome or necessarily expensive machines, ask Brian Harrap for a demonstration !) and a bit of ingenuity the wheel problem can be solved. I would not from personal experience recommend form tools. Spoked P87 wheels especially are very delicate and the turning forces generated by a form tool will destroy the centres. However if you were making new disc wheels or tyres from blank material a form tool could be useful. I would argue that to use a form tool you need a lathe, once you have a lathe you can turn wheels using much less brutal techniques !

 

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Once again many thanks to Geraint for his encouragement and letting me play on his layout with my eccentric collection of rolling stock. Also many thanks to Anders, Jens and the Danish railway modelling crowd for their encouragement and help ( especially the research ).

 

There will be more of this to come I am sure !

 

Regards  Ian

Edited by unklian
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An interesting set of shots from the weekend at Kolding. It's been nearly three years since I saw the layout in the flesh, so to speak, but I don't recall the rather impressive metal trussing on the leg assemblies. Good stuff.

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An interesting set of shots from the weekend at Kolding. It's been nearly three years since I saw the layout in the flesh, so to speak, but I don't recall the rather impressive metal trussing on the leg assemblies. Good stuff.

 

They look very familiar - recycled from Middlepeak maybe?

 

Robin

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  • 3 months later...

I'm with Uncle Ian regarding the suitability of P87 form tools for amateur home use. An engineering setup turns the tyres before they are affixed to the plastic centres.Baron

 

Me too. The Teichmann wheel blanks that I knew of were all solid bronze or NS. So I wasn't implying one could just shape up plastic centered wheels as is.

 

Hopefully, in not too many years time,  I'll be able to knock up some suitable things myself for shipping over as visiting vehicles. Unfortunately I have a lot of new product stuff on my to do list for a while yet.

 

Andy

Edited by Andy Reichert
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Last weekend saw the introduction of Obbekaer to those charming folk down in Zummerzet as we appeared at RailWells. A fantastic show with a wonderful atmosphere for both exhibitors and visitors and time to catch up with many old friends.

 

We try to have something new to show each time we hit the exhibition trail. I'd been doing quite a bit a work to make the point indicators turn as the prototype, but time ran out on me, and these will have to wait until the next time. I'll post something later in the autumn when they're successfully installed.

 

However we did have a new train to run this time. The RGVJ now has a track maintenance train, pulled by our Kof I tractor, which is seen in the foreground of the attached photo waiting its next departure from the Ribe fiddle yard. At the front of the train is a G10 van, which I scratchbuilt a few years ago, with a brass chassis and plasticard body. Behind that is a litra PUR open wagon carrying ballast - this is a conversion of a Fleischmann or Roco product done by Ian, and lettered for the FFJ (Fjerritslev - Frederikshavn Jernbane). This is followed by a new addition in the form of a ballast hopper, which is unashamedly 'foreign', even for Denmark. It's actually an FS wagon, made from an Italieri kit with the chassis sliced very delicately to accommodate my home produced w-irons and springs. It's assumed to be another of the RGVJ's second hand imports, and is duly weathered to convince the onlooker that it's seen better days. Bringing up the rear is the company's 'sprojtvogn' or weedkiller wagon, which is a copy of the one from the Kalvehavebanen, courtesy of information, drawings and photographs provided by Jens Bruun-Petersen. Essentially it was a conversion of an open wagon, with one end removed and an old boiler installed, feeding a spray pipe at the rear. Most of the wagon is brass, apart from the bodywork, and the boiler is formed from a piece of pipe with plasticard overlays. I went to town on the boiler with the Archers rivet transfers, the first time I had used them - they are quite addictive!

 

As the layout doesn't see the light of day too often at home, I took the opportunity to take some more photos of bits of detail which hadn't come out too well on previous shots. I hope you like them.

 

Our next exhibition appearance is potentially over a year away, so we're planning to spend the intervening time on more stock to give us some additional coverage in case of failures. More on that later!

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

 

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