Triang TT Technical advice

[Golden Fleece 30]

 Brush type 2 to Brush type 4

 

As I am unlikely to get one of the old BEC whitemetal Brush Type 4 locos I thought I would have a go at converting the Tri-ang Brush type 2. All front window detailing was removed and a new central bar giving two windows was glued in situ. Headcode panels were cut in, all raised detail filed off then the body cut in half as the Type 4 is 21mm longer. Two flat strips of brass were cut to the new length to fit between the cab doors. I had thought about getting etches made with the small windows, door and handholds etched in but unlikely to recover the cost so went for plain sides. I know there is a step due to the new brass sides glued on to the original cabs but hopefully the handrails later will disguise it a little, it would be too much hassle taking the sides off for a flush fit to the cabs. The bogies obviously have retained their fixing positions but the roof is a different matter. Having cut one end off I had thought about making a piece to fit the two parts but now thinking of getting a spare to cut to the length of what is now missing. Unfortunately I will not pay the price for the one on Ebay so will wait longer. The buffers are a larger round shape so I am looking for some very old 00 ones to use (my Deltic used these filed oval). The paint job is the worst one I have ever done due to issues with a new make of primer and it would be too difficult to strip so this is in Matt finish.

 

Garry

Edited May 14, 2017 by Golden Fleece 30

[NCB]

Some conversion!

[Robert Shrives]

Hi 

Looking good, often thought of a similar "bash" with my damaged body shells but did wonder if Falcon was a better starting point as it had a very similar cab  and bogies to the type 2 albeit with a bodyside littered with grills! 

 

3SMR have from the arc a set of BEC based castings and a brass body etch for a 47 that with work can make a tidy job. Bogie side frames always a pain and possible a set of etches would be a good starting point   

 

Robert 

[Golden Fleece 30]

As you say Robert Falcon has a lot of grills so those sides would need to have etched I guess. Ideally for mine, and others, the sides need to be flush with the cab ends needing the sides cutting off but that would be too much work now, life is too short lol. At least the Brush Type 4's had flat sided bodywork, if not I doubt I would have done this conversion.

Garry

Edited May 14, 2017 by Golden Fleece 30

[Golden Fleece 30]

Here we have a Blood and Custard liveried Kitmaster Restaurant Car. This was all brush painted as there were no spray cans available for either colour, at my house that is. I may get some if I decide to do any more in this livery but I am not keen on the lining for this livery. It is certainly not as good as the maroon versions. The roof, like the other Kitmasters, has a slight bow. I did try a screw through the roof of one but unfortunately even the longest 8BA at 1" was too short so I am now looking at a brass strip screwed to the roof that has the 1" screw tapped into it. I am fitting Tri-ang coach bogies as the Kitmaster ones are not too good with metal wheels. Only one more to complete from the 8 I bought, but, I have managed to get another 6 which are on their way.

 

One thing I have noticed is that the windows are not moulded flat which does detract from the clarity through them, it seems as if the plastic "sunk" as it set in the mould. Also those window vents are a pain to paint though.

 

Garry

[NCB]

Garry

 

Where do you manage to find the Kitmasters? I've managed to get 2 from the 3mm Society 2nd hand shop (all they had unmade), but keep an eye out on ebay and haven't seen any for some time. There was a load around a couple of years ago or so but being daft I didn't grab them.

 

Nigel

[Golden Fleece 30]

Hi Nigel, they are all from Ebay and quite often on and yesterday I received another six unmade ones. Two were green although that is immaterial as they get painted. Sometimes they are cheap, my first eight, all boxed, were only £14.85 plus £2.50 postage for the lot yet this week two maroon ones went for £19.00 EACH plus postage. Those I did not bid on, they start at £5 plus £4 postage and I will not be paying that for one. The six I have just bought were £21.00 unboxed.

 

Does this mean I will be bidding against you soon lol?

Garry

Edited May 19, 2017 by Golden Fleece 30

[Golden Fleece 30]

The latest 6 Kitmaster coaches have arrived with two green ones. I have to say it is a shame these will get painted as the green plastic really looks to be a good shade for SR stock unlike the maroon plastic used being too bright (similar to early Tri-ang stock). I was tempted to leave the green plastic untouched but you can see some marks in the plastic, the lines from the top ridge curving to the window sides. These are not scratches and have no feel to them but I have no idea what to call them but it must be part of the moulding process as similar ones can be found on the maroon ones.

 

Garry

[sagaguy]

Hi Garry,they look like stress marks or slight imperfections in the tool.Trix coaches have raised flash sometimes where the ejector pins on pushing out the moulding don`t trim the flash off.A coat of Acrylic primer & rubbed down with some worn wet & dry paper would sort yhem out.

 

                         Ray.

[Golden Fleece 30]

Hi Ray,  They actually don't show after the primer has been put on so not had to use wet and dry (YET lol).  Thanks for the word "stress" that is what I was trying to think of. 

 

I think with my Blood an Custard coach I should have used the incorrect yellow/black/yellow lining too as it would have been easier to put on, and, cover up the freehand edges between the colours.  I may do another (or two) in this livery and see if I can get the spray cans from the shop in Hull I use, or look at my car ones again.  I have used various shades in the past but love the richness of this one.  There were two varieties on BR which were slightly different, Blood and Custard and Crimson and Cream, one of which was called Plum and Split (not spilt) milk.  All preserved coaches seen, and yours I think, are the slightly more "orange tinted" shade.

 

I am glad you never used a BR roundel on yours, a lot of people copy the preserved ones which are incorrect, the roundel only came out with maroon liveried vehicles and used on some named SR green and WR Brown and Cream train coaches, maroon coaches had them frequently named or not.

 

Garry

Edited May 19, 2017 by Golden Fleece 30

[Golden Fleece 30]

Here is the method I think I will be adopting to fix the roofs down. Two screws through the roof, these are 8BA to give the nuts a good flat surface. Due to being countersunk the nut on the inside would not fully tighten so a washer was used. These nuts are "spacers" as the main bolt at 1" is too short still. The long screw is tapped into the brass plate and then this is held onto the two roof screws. The long screw then goes through the base and has a nut fixed to it. All I need to do now is maybe use some Araldite where the plate and nuts are under the roof and paint in the correct dark Blue/Grey roof colour.

 

Garry

[NCB]

Ingenious! No, I won't be much of a Kitmaster threat. I'm planning another 2 or 3, for if I want any easy route to running the occasional BR train on my layout.

[sagaguy]

I suppose you could go down the route of making some tapped 8 or 6BA bosses from round ABS plastic rod & using EMA Plastic Weld solvent(not Mekpack,not strong enough)welded to the roof as in Trix coaches with long screws  through chassis.

 

                     Ray.

[Golden Fleece 30]

I suppose you could go down the route of making some tapped 8 or 6BA bosses from round ABS plastic rod & using EMA Plastic Weld solvent(not Mekpack,not strong enough)welded to the roof as in Trix coaches with long screws  through chassis.

 

I had thought of that Ray but decided that some roofs are curved quite a lot and did not want to take the risk of making them up only to find the pull may have been too much. 

 

I never use Mekpak preferring the Plastic Weld for anything I do.  I have the EMA but also use Carrs Butanone which is what I used on my 3-rail track to weld the centre rail chairs to the sleepers.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

The first five coaches all with roofs screwed down, but need spraying when time and weather permits. As I have a few of the Restaurant cars, 3 in the first 8 and 4 in the new lot of 6, I am making some up just as standard open coaches. As Restaurant cars go 1 is in maroon, 1 in Blood and Custard and I will do 1 in green, the rest just plain. The next item to work out is a new internal bogie frame for the metal wheels to give free running vehicles, I will get these etched to drop into the Tri-ang bogie.

 

Garry

[NCB]

Just wondering, when you've sprayed a coach side, do you have any trouble in getting the windows to fit? I was thinking of spray on the insides of the holes reducing the size of the holes.

[Golden Fleece 30]

Not at all Nigel, there is primer and finish coat with approx 12 passes of the cans, I just keep spraying till it looks good with sometimes the finish coat having a second set of passes (4 or 5). One or two windows may be tight to push in, thats all, but finger and thumb on either side and then no problem. However, the brush painted one in Blood and Custard did give rise to issues on some windows and that was after one coat only. They all fitted as such but the build up on the corners and a couple of edges came to the front of the window after pushing it in which looked poor so on those corners or edges I just gently used a sharp blade to cut away what had shown up. If you look carefully at a close up of the coach you can just see which corners were affected.

 

Garry

Edited May 22, 2017 by Golden Fleece 30

[Golden Fleece 30]

After spraying 5 more Kitmaster coaches (3 green, 2 maroon) and still waiting for a spare Brush type 2 to use its roof on my type 4 I thought about starting another project, an SR EMU. This will be a 3 car suburban EMU, 2 drivers have had 3 windows cut out in the brake ends and a smaller one on each side between the door and end. The second door attached has been removed leaving a single drivers one. The centre car will be fitted (hopefully) with a DMU motor bogie so pushes one vehicle and pulls one in either direction. At the moment it will be plain BR Southern green (lighter shade) but I may put small yellow panels on depending on its looks when finished in green. The DMU itself will become a fully freewheeling set to be attached/detached to another unit.

 

Garry

Edited May 22, 2017 by Golden Fleece 30

[sagaguy]

Southern EMUs were painted in SR multiple unit green which was slightly darker than SR coach green & Brunswick green.Railmatch do supply the right paint in aerosol form.

 

                  Ray.

[Golden Fleece 30]

Hi Ray, I have a spray can of the Railmatch green but wanted the earlier lighter shade which they dont do. DMU's were always the darker shade but EMU's had variety. The Dublo version is possibly too light. I have made my own version of coach green today for the Kitmaster Mk1's by spraying the darker EMU on and while wet a light coat of Malachite on top to brighten it, the Malachite was too light for me. The SR mainline coaches had a couple of different shades too I think and I am not keen on the darker olive version.

 

Garry

Edited May 21, 2017 by Golden Fleece 30

[Golden Fleece 30]

Ray, the 1950's Tri-ang EMU was not a bad shade to me.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

A general question, why when I use spray can colours I get a 99.9% lovely smooth finish, but, when I use a spray can varnish I get a 100% finish with odd bits in it? There is never much in the way of bits but it is never as good as the paint finish.

 

Garry

[sagaguy]

If it`s Railmatch spray cans,the bits probably come from the spray heads.Their caps commonly block.When i`ve finished a spray job with one of these,i pull the head off & soak in Lidl thinners,that stuff removes every thing i`ve found.I also pull the yellow nozzle from the head with pliers a clean the inside with a thin piece of wire.The amount of dried paint i remove is suprising.

 

                     Ray.

[TT3]

The first five coaches all with roofs screwed down, but need spraying when time and weather permits. As I have a few of the Restaurant cars, 3 in the first 8 and 4 in the new lot of 6, I am making some up just as standard open coaches. As Restaurant cars go 1 is in maroon, 1 in Blood and Custard and I will do 1 in green, the rest just plain. The next item to work out is a new internal bogie frame for the metal wheels to give free running vehicles, I will get these etched to drop into the Tri-ang bogie.

 

Garry

 You might not need the internal frame for freewheeling coaches. I tried a simple approach of knocking out the old wheels and axles and replacing them with steam era 12mm gauge sets and the appropriate nylon bearings. Just had to drill out the axleboxes about 1/8 inch and mill away some of the sideframe to allow the wheelsets to drop in. All that was left was push the bearings in from outside till you get a nice fit with minimal end float and a drop of super goo from the outside holds it all together.

 

Neat and easy fit

 

 

Looks same from outside just need to fill holes

 

 

One sure freewheeling triang coach with minimal improvements, what a difference the black solebar makes

 

 

I am very impressed with how well the old coaches clean up with a good scrub of water. For more intense cleaning for painted coaches brake fluid is perfect. Both of these were painted very thickly, was amazed that a tatty choc and cream mk1 that I bought because you can unscrew the bogies and roof was a genuine blue grey. Even the printing was saved, same as the french wagon that was a thick brown.

 

[Golden Fleece 30]

If it`s Railmatch spray cans,the bits probably come from the spray heads.Their caps commonly block.When i`ve finished a spray job with one of these,i pull the head off & soak in Lidl thinners,that stuff removes every thing i`ve found.I also pull the yellow nozzle from the head with pliers a clean the inside with a thin piece of wire.The amount of dried paint i remove is suprising.

 

The thing is Ray WHY is it just the spray heads from new tins of varnish only?  I have Railmatch colour spray cans from being last used 6 months ago (and never cleaned) yet they do not produce any bits at all when used.   It is only the varnish, new or old, that gives any issues.

 

Garry