K's GWR Railcar restoration and Lambourn kit build

[Guest jim s-w]

This appears to be what's on the Lima, and I assume the Hornby version is derived from the Lima Railcar? The wheels look bigger, but I think it's the flanges!! 13.4 mm is correct over tyre, and they are being done to the tightest limit of RP 25 spec., for the flange, and normal width to prevent any drop!!

I have some bogie pieces coming, and any further shots would be appreciated.

 

Phew, yes!! the Kitmaster would have trouble with the weight, the K's one either slipped violently or overheated, and Romford was not much better because of the massive load. Mind you, a twin motored one coud out haul a Deltic once underway.

 

Stephen.

 

It is but as the good old lima pancake didnt have CE approval it uses a new design of motor bogie. I think it uses better wheels than the pizza cutters lima used but aside from that and a slight re-design to the chassis for the power bogie pretty much all of the Ex lima stuff is unaltered.

 

I happen to think that the lima motor - especially on feedback control was much better.

 

CHeers

 

Jim

[Il Grifone]

 

 

Phew, yes!! the Kitmaster would have trouble with the weight, the K's one either slipped violently or overheated, and Romford was not much better because of the massive load. Mind you, a twin motored one coud out haul a Deltic once underway.

 

Stephen.

 

Wouldn't that be "slipped violently and overheated"?

[Il Grifone]

Photo of power bogie and unpowered bogie. Cosmetically both bogies are identical with the drive on one side only. Note the puny looking Kitmaster bogie. I'll try to get a better photo if needed, but my camera is not all that good at close ups.

[hayfield]

Batteries now charged and garden watered so here are the photos

 

 

The casting is 59mm long and 10mm wide (5mm at the end)

 

 

The casting is 61mm long, square boxes about 6mm square.

 

I hope this helps

[melmerby]

Photo of power bogie and unpowered bogie. Cosmetically both bogies are identical with the drive on one side only. Note the puny looking Kitmaster bogie. I'll try to get a better photo if needed, but my camera is not all that good at close ups.

 

That power bogie looks suspiciously like an old Triang type without it's top mounting fitted.

 

Keith

[bertiedog]

Thanks for the shots, it's providing the needed details

Stephen.

[Wayne Rite]

That power bogie looks suspiciously like an old Triang type without it's top mounting fitted.

 

Keith

It was the result of someone at Rosebud Kitmaster thinking that the Tri-ang motor Bogie was such a good design that they copied it!

 

Stephen Knight in his book 'Sticking Together' refutes the urban myth that Rovex supplied them, as they had all the parts bought in and assembled at the Raunds Factory. Still if you put them side by side there is more than a passing resemblance. Only trouble with the Kitmaster MB was the size of the axles, I think it was 3/16in of an inch, made my early attempt at finescaling it very difficult, until I persuaded someone in the Tool Room at the place I worked to make some axles from 304 stainless steel and even got the brass gears induction soldered on the axles. Oh, the power I had!

 

By the by, apart from a remag my Kitmaster Wagon chassis under a scratch built 0.4.0 electric loco has had nothing done to it in over forty years.

 

Best regards

[Il Grifone]

That power bogie looks suspiciously like an old Triang type without it's top mounting fitted.

 

Keith

 

I didn't fit the weight/pivot casting. This looks like the Tri-ang one too. A bad experience with the motorised van* makes me suspicious of this bogie, but this one seems to be and works OK.

 

* It fell to pieces! Still the body makes a nice BR van on an Airfix underframe.

[melmerby]

I didn't fit the weight/pivot casting. This looks like the Tri-ang one too. A bad experience with the motorised van* makes me suspicious of this bogie, but this one seems to be and works OK.

 

* It fell to pieces! Still the body makes a nice BR van on an Airfix underframe.

 

Does the motor bogie have the same sort of wheel treads as the Triang?

I used to have a Triang DMU and those ribbed wheels were awfully noisy without seeming to have any benefit!

 

Keith

[Il Grifone]

Does the motor bogie have the same sort of wheel treads as the Triang?

I used to have a Triang DMU and those ribbed wheels were awfully noisy without seeming to have any benefit!

 

Keith

 

The Kitmaster wheels are smooth tyred with a tapered flkange and a nasty sharp angle between tread and flange. (The Tri-ang knurled wheels were supposed to aid traction - unecessary with the DMU or EMU - but were only good at making noise and picking up muck. They are somewhat similar to Dublo, with B-B 14.4mm, flange thickness 0.9mm, overall thickness 3mm, diameter 13.2 and flange depth 1mm. Like Tri-ang, a sintered iron wheel on plastic axles incorporating the gear. Pickups consist of two phosphor bronze strips; better than Tri-ang's steel wire.

[Phil Traxson]

Does the motor bogie have the same sort of wheel treads as the Triang?

I used to have a Triang DMU and those ribbed wheels were awfully noisy without seeming to have any benefit!

 

Keith

 

Later versions were made without the ribbing and were quieter but the profile of the wheels was just as bad!

 

Phil T.

[bertiedog]

And now modern modellers wonder why people never trust Hornby, we who have lived throught the strange and stranger ideas and products that they made at times. Knurled wheels......I ask, you any dim witted apprentice could have spotted the flaw in that one!!....and now we get told off for complaining that Margate in China can't even put tender frames on the right way round..they do have a history to still live down..

[Il Grifone]

At one time, it seemed that there were two ways of doing things - the Hornby way and the right way!

It's probably better not to go into the go too far into the argument, but here are a few. That ghastly 08 with inside frames (this was rubbish in the fifties and should long since have been consigned to history. GWR clerestories without panelling! (penny pinching - if Tri-ang could do it 20 years earlier!...). That awful droopy Walschaert's gear, with the cranks the wrong way round on one side.

[bertiedog]

The Railcar has arrived and although there were a few seconds of wondering if it was repairable without painting, another bit fell off, so it was in paint stripper and now thinners overnight to remove the lot.

 

The glue was epoxy, so the stripper will remove any traces, but all the joints broke anyway.

 

Needs flatting and fettling to get everything to fit and then re solder.

 

The secret of assemble of these is to do them upside down, the roof line is the datum. I will fit a brass ceiling under the cast one to allow removal. The roof vents need brass replacements and a few details tidied up. some shots tomorrow.

 

Stephen.

[bertiedog]

 

The Flying Banana parts all cleaned and stripped, filed clean, sanded where needed and about to be flattened before test fitting together to check fit.

 

 

One of the Railcar cab units is missing a glazing bar, it was always missing, the breaks had been painted over. I will file one from nickel silver and solder it into place

 

 

The roof now restored to one unit, joints near invisible, with the roof now flat and quite straight, and a constant width along the whole length. The roof is soldered together with low melt alloy solder, applied with a ordinary iron 25 watt, with a tinned phosphor bronze tip, very fine point.

 

The flux used is Bakers fluid, the best acid flux for joining white metal alloy. Some minors holes and blemishes were soldered over with the low melt alloy to fill the marks.

 

The roof is sanded flat, and rubbed down with a fibre pad, and will be finally brushed with fibreglass brush. I am making a set of new brass ventilators for the roof, the cast ones were partly missing. The two larger ventilators are usable.

 

K's kits for the railcar often had complaints about the roof and the difficulties of assembly, but as you can see it goes together fine if carefully soldered. Took about a couple of hours to finish.

 

Next are the four side joints, here is a bit of flattening to do to get true sides.

 

Stephen.

[bertiedog]

With this wet Bank Holiday I think I will press on with the railcar!! Repairing the cab end first, then making the ventilators if I can find some scrap brass rod!

The power bogie may be doubled up, two small motors, with a central drive shaft, the motors centrally mounted, as the floor at the moment is quite raised, although I am thinking about lowering to scale position, and this would mean quite small motors.

 

Stephen

[bertiedog]

The first Railcar side repaired, just a couple of marks to fill with low melt, the basic side is straight and flat. The castings, three pieces per side, are very good quality, there is a makers plate cast in the cab front wall, but partly worn, It appears to confirm K's production rather than Autocom/Nu-cast, who still produce K's kits.

 

 

Stephen.

[bertiedog]

 

The GWR Railcar body all soldered together, but with no cleaning up or filing as yet, with the roof added as well. I decided the complete roof being soldered on solid is best, with the soft coach sides it is all to easy to damage the body without the support of the roof.

 

The only problem is the glazing which is a touch more difficult to do, but the chassis can be made in a complete unit to go in in one piece. The cab interiors and backs can be attached to the chassis, along with a new floor in ply, to take a better set of correct depth seats.

 

 

The roof refused to fit on exactly when the right way round, so the extra vent holes have been filled and new ones drilled at the guards end. The fit was quite good, but was better one way than the other. The body was soldered upside down to the roof line, and then the roof attached to that line.

 

The central skirt's still sit flat to the workbench, showing the body to be in reasonable alinement all round. One side was .05mm longer than the other, not bad for a cast coach this big. The buffer beam mountings line up exactly, the beams still have to be soldered back.

 

There are fine details to add, and the hand rails added around the doors replacing the cast on ones. New brass bolster will be fitted behind the skirts to support the body onto the new chassis unit.

 

Stephen.

[bertiedog]

All filed down on the roof and rain edge, small uneven areas levelled off, and the cabs smoothed over, it will be cleaned with vim tomorrow, after fitting roof vents and then wrapped in cling film to protect it a bit from handling whilst the chassis is prepared. Windscreen wipers are needed, and the buffer beams re-attached.

 

 

Stephen.

[smudgeloco]

Well Stephen, this is an enthralling thread, one I really am enjoying. It is so nice to see something done, and by someone who knows what he is doing. No reflection on anyone else - other than myself!

It looks to be making into a really nice model.

 

I look forward to the next update.

[bertiedog]

Might slow a bit till the bogies are sorted, I had a parcel delivered today that might have had bogie parts in it, but it did not fit the post box, and has to be re-delivered after the bank holiday.

 

However the side frames are really only cosmetic on this design so the actual centre parts with gearboxes can be assembled. The body wieghs in at about 500 grams (1/2 a kilo) so is Heavy.....I think two motors is the ideal with this, one each bogie, but in the centre where the diesels were sited on the real thing.

 

The outside drive is impossible, the scale size of the boxes is just too small to take bevel gears, so a duplicate drive shaft in the middle will be needed, with the outer drive a dummy, with telescopic joints to allow the movement of the bogie. The central drive to worms should be almost hidden as it is higher up under the floor.

 

The wheels have to be done as well, in Stainless Steel, and four identical gear sets made or sourced. I can't afford to buy any for it really, so they will have to be made, should be able to get about 25:1 in the space with care. I will have to calculate the pitch , the worm can be cut to match rather than making to a particular Mod or PD. The gear can be cut a straight tooth form about 1.5 inch wide and a set of four made by sawing up and machining each piece into the final gear.

 

The wheels are 13.4mm dia, so a radius for the gear of 12 will clear, so an pitch diameter of 10 is about right, 10mm/25 is .4mm pitch, which is easy to work to on the lathe to make the worms to match.

 

The other alternative is to use small motors set in the bogie between the axles, but this needs double ended motors, and all the spares I have are single ended. It would however drop the need for a central drive shaft.

 

I will have to search out some other motors, and see what will fit.

[hayfield]

Stephen

 

You realy got a move on with this one, I used to solder whitemetal kits then got lazy and glued them. Must go back to soldering them again. As I said on my PM I have 3 of these beastes (wanted one since a kid looking through K's catalogues)2 have the bodies built but need repainting. Both motor bogies have been assembled but not finished, so I must try and see if they work, one is missing a non powered bogie so I must do something about getting a replacement.

 

The other one is a kit which has had a failed attempt to solder the body parts together, no real damage looks worse than it is.

 

The bogie fixings seem a bit Heath Robinson, so I will watch to see how you fit yours then try and copy the solution. Thanks again for an interesting thread.

[Il Grifone]

Inspirational!

 

I put mine back in her box along with the K's autocoach I bought at the same time. (I started on this one while it was out. Stripped some of the treacle paint it had been covered with and dismantled it. Some sort of useless glue (Durofix?). The inside is painted copper for some reason! ? This is the version with the metal roof, so it's going to need something with clout to pull it. (Pity a HD 0-6-2T doesn't look like a 14xx!) An Airfix tank will struggle.

 

The K's ventilators will have to go however. even though they are all present on mine the casting is poor and they are different sizes.

 

Does she actually need 8 wheel drive? There is no shortage of weight for adhesion.

 

It should really be in the vintage section, but, if anyone wants a Kitmaster motor bogie or even some more photos, there's one here.

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...=item483ab6689e

[bertiedog]

There are two Rosebud power bogies on Ebay at present, like London Buses, none around but they come in pairs when they turn up! Although well hidden in the K's unit, I think a modern motor would be better, and I am thinking of a single small motor, as although the weight is high, as long as it's free running there is little load.

 

I have a small 5 pole motor that can go in the centre of a single bogie, if it is not powerful enough, I can do a second!! I have some small gearsets ready to use and being small it may provide space for flywheels on the motor. The outline is for gears of 11 mm, so with the smaller gears there will be a space between the motor and gears

[Guest jim s-w]

Hiya

 

You do realise you have just drawn a black beetle power bogie? They start at 25.5mm as the smallest wheelbase.

 

Probably doesnt help with the way you are approaching this project but might be useful for anyone else.

 

HTH

 

Jim