Whitemetal Body Kits for Dublo Chassis

[Wolseley]

I recently picked up, relatively cheaply. a Wills Finecast LMS Stanier Class 4 2-6-4T body (yes, I know you can still get it from South Eastern Finecast, but this. old Wills body was too good a bargain to pass up).  It is pretty well put together, but badly painted, so I'll have to strip it back to bare metal and repaint it before I fit it to a spare Dublo 2-6-4T chassis I have.

 

It wasn't the only kit made to fit a Dublo chassis, but I'm not sure what other ones there were other than an MR 0-6-0T (can't remember who it was by, maybe K's but, in any case, that was for the R1 chassis, and I'm interested in three rail).  I was wondering if anyone could advise what kits from what manufacturers were made to fit Dublo chassis.

[Il Grifone]

From what I recall, K's made a MR1F 0-6-0T (which would have been better on a Tri-ang chassis which is nearer the correct wheelbase) a J50 and a 97xx condensing pannier for the R1 chassis. Wills generally favoured Tri-ang chassis and AFAIK only did the Stanier 2-6.4T (2 and 3 cylinder). Again the wheelbase iis wrong (IIRC the Dublo chassis is not even correct for the BR locomotive, but no one cared much back then. The R1 chassis can be converted to 3 rail by the addition of 3 rail pickups. I did one (green renumbered to 31335), but she can only manage 3 Dublo coaches (about par for Tri-ang too) so it remained at one.

Hattons  used to sell the Gaiety die-cast body fitted to either the Dublo or Tri-ang 0-6-0T chassis (either is better than the original) Probably the Gaiety N2 body could be made to fit the Dublo chassis, but, since it's almost identical to the Dublo product, there's little point.

 

Possibly the Wills Star and Saint could be made to fit the1/2" Dublo Castle Chassis and Wrenn fitted the K's Streamlined Coronation body to the City Chassis. Almost certainly it would also fit the Duchess chassis. (I got the City body to fit a Duchess chassis but have since fitted a City chassis.

 

There may be more, but that's all I can think of.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Il Grifone

[CKPR]

The Wills E5 and GWR ex-TVR U1 were also made for the Dublo 0-6-0 chassis

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The Wrenn 8F mechanism could be got to fit inside the K's 28xx, once the kit builder had despaired of the K's mechanism ever proving to be a reliable running job. (Whether the H-D 8F mechanism would go, I don't know.)

 

There was a dreadful rumour of an MTK BR Std 5 with a tended able to take an H-D Deltic power bogie. I remember the hysterical laughter over the advert, but never saw such a beast.

[sagaguy]

R1 chassis converted to 3 rail,Copperclad PCB,phosphor bronze spring arms,drawing pin collector shoes & gounding the insulated wheels to the chassis.Works a treat but noisy little devils though!.

 

                         Ray.

Edited January 27, 2020 by sagaguy

[Steamport Southport]

9 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

From what I recall, K's made a MR1F 0-6-0T (which would have been better on a Tri-ang chassis which is nearer the correct wheelbase) a J50 and a 97xx condensing pannier for the R1 chassis. 

 

Slight pedant mode, it was a MR 3F 0-6-0T.

 

Still a reasonable model if you can find one and I don't think anyone else makes them. Alan Gibson did an etched kit a few years ago, but also not currently available.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/145245-help-identifying-loco-kit/

 

 

 

Jason

[DCB]

It's not just a shortage of Body kits but a shortage of suitable prototypes which fit there chassis.  I have used the wheels and valve gear more than the complete chassis, though I do have a 56XX with a Ring Field Castle chassis, re wheeled, and a long dead K's 42XX with H/D Ringfield motor, It snapped its coupling rods.

There only seem to be about 4 wheelbases, N2/R1    City ,Castle, A4    2-8-0 and 2-6-4T plus the 0-6-0 Diesel shunter    The Ringfield motor fits just about nothing as it is so wide, the Vertical motor is very tall and  the 1/2" motor is very long with a big overhang at the front bearing end.

The 1/2" do run very nicely though with single start worms, compared to the Triang X04 twin start worm.   They run even nicer with 5 pole armatures which can be found in K's motors and shortened to fit.   I have a couple of R1 chassis with the leadiing axle re positioned to give 29mm + 33mm for GW Pannier Tanks using Mainline coupling rods, and have R1 chassis under a Triang King Arthur body with Duchess cylinders as an S15 and one under a Mainline 2251 class 0-6-0 as well as now retired R1 chassis Gaiety Body panniers

Edited January 28, 2020 by DavidCBroad

[great central]

On 27/01/2020 at 22:22, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

 

 

There was a dreadful rumour of an MTK BR Std 5 with a tended able to take an H-D Deltic power bogie. I remember the hysterical laughter over the advert, but never saw such a beast.

 

I have one, picked up cheaply from York show many, many years ago, must be pushing 40 as my son was only a baby and he's 40 on Sunday.

Scratch built a loco chassis with an XO4 in, I think, nicked from one of my childhood locos. I was unemployed at the time and model funds were all but nonexistent.

[Il Grifone]

I have just remembered there was a Wills LSWR G6 to fit the Dublo R1 chassis. I suspect it was the same as the body for their kit for an O2.

 

Anything with an HD Deltic powered tender would not lack haulage power, whatever else its defects.

[hayfield]

Certainly the Wills G6 fitted the R1 chassis, as did the K's J50, 3F & 97xx

 

Most of the other Wills kits & the BEC ones use Triang chassis, should not be too much of an issue converting Triang / Hornby (early) chassis

 

Then of course the same could be said for most old and new kit chassis, all just as easy to build as 3 rail as 2 rail. Many of these kits can be bought at quite reasonable prices if you keep looking

 

Probably too good for 3 rail

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hornby-KIT-BUILT-LMS-0-6-0T-3F-CLASS-LOCO-No-47516-BR-Black-Livery-OO-Gauge/312964667245?hash=item48de25d76d:g:m3oAAOSwRD5eLB4T

 

A bit on the dearer side, but somehow has the R1 chassis and Romford wheels and of the right modelling era. Not a bad price considering the price of the kit and a set of Markit wheels

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KIT-BUILT-Hornby-SR-E2-CLASS-0-6-0T-LOCO-No-101-LB-SCR-Brown-Livery-OO-Gauge/312964633058?hash=item48de2551e2:g:vGkAAOSw1y1eLBat

Edited February 1, 2020 by hayfield

[2750Papyrus]

I have a GN "Long Tom" 0-8-0 (from a Sutherland Models kit?) fitted to a modified HD 2-8-0 chassis, which is a good and powerful runner.

[97xx]

Just joined this rather excellent forum, prompted by the dreaded lockdown and time to revisit some of my collection. 

 

Relevant to this was my rediscovering a very ill-fitting and poorly-made 97xx condensing pannier K'd 'bodyline' white metal kit which fitted the R1 chassis as mentioned. Although it was a pretty terrible kit - the chassis protruding through the buffer beam by well over 1/4", poor alignment of rivets between parts and pretty coarse detail.

 

The body had started to crack along the joins, and the paint job was one I obviously rattle-canned when I made this at age 14.

 

So, the whole body went in the paint stripper, it all (a) fell to constituent pieces, and (b) all the paint came off (revealing gloss black under the matt so no wonder the rivet detail was a bit poor!).

 

Just today finished rebuilding it, attempting to detail it, repainting, and weathering. As someone who hasn't really touched railway modelling for 30 years plus, I'm reasonably happy with how it has turned out.

 

So, apologies but long answer confirming the K's 97xx bodyline on HD 0-6-0 R1 chassis.

 

[hayfield]

If you want to upgrade the chassis and perhaps do something about the block protruding from the rear bunker Southeastern Finecast produce an etched brass replacement chassis which can be used with this body, Alternatively file down the block on the rear of the chassis until its shape is flush with the body and paint it the sane colour as the body. You could even remove the rear fixing  completely, fill up the hole and make a new fixing from a small bit of sheet metal

[97xx]

It might be worth making a decent chassis for it, I agree. I did consider simply rewheeling it (so having fully flanged wheels) but the odd wheelbase meant custom coupling rods and so the task snowballed.

 

The right answer is a scratch chassis, which I'm happy to do, but wasn't sure whether the quality of the kit justified it.

 

Here is the almost-finished article - i'd be interested in opinion on my return to modelling after a verrrrry long time...

 

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by 97xx
Added better images.

[hayfield]

Not all may be lost with the chassis, the axles are 1/8th" so standard Markit/Romford wheels can be used. There is a choice of 2 styles of etched coupling rods in the Mainly Trains range from Wizard models.

 

As I said Southeastern Finecast sell an etched chassis (with brake gear) as a direct replacement for the HD R1 chassis, Branchlines do a R1 etched chassis for the R1 body. Alan Gibson does a set of milled brass mainframes.

 

As for your loco looks superb and deserves a chassis to suite 

[Prometheus]

That really does look rather good.

 

Did the Weir pump come with the kit 97, or did you scratch build it? I rescued the remains of one of these tanks to rebuild a good few years back and whilst there were parts missing (and badly broken), there was no sign that the pump had been fitted and I scratched up a basic copy.

 

It runs quite happily in GWR green on an old Hornby chassis, with a rake of restored and detailed Wrenn Mica vans. I have thought about improving its under-pinnings but there’s just so much else to do....

 

Tony

[NCB]

That looks decent. K's did one in 3mm, and it looks odd. This is far better.

[CKPR]

There was an article in MRC for May 1977 on detailing the K's 97xx (including building the Weir pump). 

[97xx]

On 28/04/2020 at 10:51, Prometheus said:

That really does look rather good.

 

Did the Weir pump come with the kit 97, or did you scratch build it?

Thanks very much for the encouragement.

 

The Weir Pump was a brass casting from Branchlines.

 

This shows what I've added: anything brass = not from kit...!

 

When I originally built it, the handrail had three knobs, but prototypical for 9707 was four per tank.

 

The cab door handrails are oversize - the one bit of detailing I left for posterity from my build 40+ years ago.

 

On reflection, I could and should have done the tank vents 'correctly' - perhaps a piece of twin and earth conductor, folded, soldered to shape as round vent, then curved out to each tank.

Edited May 1, 2020 by 97xx