I love an easy repair...

[andyman7]

I dropped by a local exhibition yesterday which always include the society 'shop' where surplus models are sold. Alongside plenty of good quality items there is always a useful tray of broken/spares/sold as seen which naturally is where I make my beeline.

 

I spotted a Mainline Warship, still one of my favourite models and I have stripped ad repaired so many that a non-runner held no fears, £10 and it was mine. Even better that back at home the diagnosis took about a minute and the repair about 3 minutes, just one broken solder.

 

The previous evening I spent an hour replacing stripped gears on a 'modern' Railroad 9F, that time being for the painful disassembly and re-assembly just to get to the affected parts. That's what I do like about Mainline/Lima/Ringfield era Hornby - getting in to them is just so simple.

[Halvarras]

13 hours ago, andyman7 said:

I dropped by a local exhibition yesterday which always include the society 'shop' where surplus models are sold. Alongside plenty of good quality items there is always a useful tray of broken/spares/sold as seen which naturally is where I make my beeline.

 

I spotted a Mainline Warship, still one of my favourite models and I have stripped ad repaired so many that a non-runner held no fears, £10 and it was mine. Even better that back at home the diagnosis took about a minute and the repair about 3 minutes, just one broken solder.

 

The previous evening I spent an hour replacing stripped gears on a 'modern' Railroad 9F, that time being for the painful disassembly and re-assembly just to get to the affected parts. That's what I do like about Mainline/Lima/Ringfield era Hornby - getting in to them is just so simple.

 

No split drive gears then? 😜!

[andyman7]

1 hour ago, Halvarras said:

 

No split drive gears then? 😜!

Not on this one, I was amazed! I have a little stash of replacement gears for these, just in case

[roythebus1]

That's good to know, I've got 2 that need new gears and another with the big central can motor that has broken mazak frames,

[Titan]

So that's why they have problems with the gears, corn on the cog...

[roythebus1]

Corn on this group as well!! :)

 

[Halvarras]

21 hours ago, andyman7 said:

Not on this one, I was amazed! I have a little stash of replacement gears for these, just in case

 

The gear-splitting is not 100%, but the chances of getting two good gears on one model seem to be slim, so well done for finding a slim one 😃!

[andyman7]

6 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

The gear-splitting is not 100%, but the chances of getting two good gears on one model seem to be slim, so well done for finding a slim one 😃!

It seems to depend on whether the gear has a distinct ejector pin sinkhole in the moulding. The sinkhole creates a weak spot that inevitably splits. The ones I have that have avoided this fate do not have the sinkhole in the moulded final drive gear.

Edited April 4, 2023 by andyman7

[teeinox]

I have one Mainline warship.  Paid a lot for mine: £24.50.  Lights were changed to LEDs and the marker lights separately lit, so looks good.  It has one split gear, but the other is intact - so far!  Its resulting pulling power seems to be about one coach!  So it operates in multple with a Bachmann one.  It is fabulously noisy: a bit like the real thing!

[Halvarras]

That's the great thing about cheap Mainline Warship non-runners - perfect for double-heading with the Bachmann all-wheel-drive version, which is so powerful it doesn't even notice its twin 'dead in tow'!

[Captain Slough]

try double heading a Lima warship with a Trix Twin warship set up for 2-rail power.  Power levels good, inertia levels pose a danger to the structure of nearby walls in case of a derailment

[Halvarras]

1 minute ago, Captain Slough said:

try double heading a Lima warship with a Trix Twin warship set up for 2-rail power.  Power levels good, inertia levels pose a danger to the structure of nearby walls in case of a derailment

 

I've never owned a Trix Warship but I did once paint one for a friend who had chopped up the cast metal body and Araldited in various bits of metal (aluminium IIRC) to get it to something like scale dimensions. I can't remember now how he'd tackled the ends but he must have converted it from disc headcode to panels as I finished it as 824 'Highflyer' in blue full yellow livery. Would have been 1976 as I was a bit miffed I just missed D1013 'Western Ranger' passing through Reading station with its newly-acquired red-backed name and number plates cos I was in the Eames model shop down the road buying the etched plates for the Warship at the time.........the things one remembers decades later 😀!

 

Around that time an article appeared in one of the model mags in which someone described how he'd managed to stretch a Lima HO gauge Class 33 to OO dimensions, again by sawing it up and inserting bits of plasticard - in unpainted condition it resembled 'crazy paving' (remember that? Is it still a thing or am I showing my age now?!) but looked quite presentable when finished. Both of these models involved a lot of effort by their creators which was undermined (very quickly with regard to the '33') when OO versions were released by Lima. So having one's latest project rapidly surpassed by an unexpected RTR announcement 🤬 is nothing new!

[roythebus1]

I scratch, built a 73 in the early 1980s and ir appeared on the MRC's New Anningon layout. 2 years later, the Lima one appeared!

[Captain Slough]

When I have finished sorting and reducing my vintage train collection I will retrieve and search thru my archive of 1960s modelling mags to find the article on converting a Hornby-dublo AL1 into a 73

 

The guy did a huge amount of work, would have been less effort to scratchbuild one

[teeinox]

On 04/04/2023 at 20:59, Halvarras said:

That's the great thing about cheap Mainline Warship non-runners - perfect for double-heading with the Bachmann all-wheel-drive version, which is so powerful it doesn't even notice its twin 'dead in tow'!

Quite so, and here is an example; Mainline Highflyer is about to set off double-heading Bachmann Glory on a heavy 13-coach West Country express over the Dainton Bank, authentically recreated on my kitchen worktop.  First coach in the consist is another Mainline gem, the Collett “Sunshine” SK.

 

 

Usually, because of the power difference, the Bachmann works first; and it’s got the crew which the Mainline no longer has.

 

Struck me that another interesting pairing would be the Dapol class 22 piloting the Mainline Warship, though photographs suggest that may have only been prototypical practice in the early days before both classes got their yellow noses.

[andyman7]

Here's another project. This came to me as a part completed conversion to an early disc fitted Warship. The mechanism wasn't complete but at the time I had another Mainline Warship that was due to become a scrapline model. 

 

The great thing about the mechanism is that as the powered and trailing bogies use the same housing, it is possible to attach an additional pair of pickups to the power bogie using the fittings off a spare trailing bogie; and by swapping the wheels around, hey presto - no traction tyres. So this one has all wheel pickup. 

One body mod I need to do that had not been done my the previous owner is to fill in the upper central vent on one side, a feature that the early disc-fitted Warships were built without. 

[cypherman]

Hi all,

The easiest repair I dealt with when buying a secondhand none working loco was on a Hornby LBSC E2. All I had to do was move out the front steps that had been pushed in and jammed against  the connecting rods. Once that was done it ran perfectly

[Halvarras]

4 hours ago, andyman7 said:

Here's another project. This came to me as a part completed conversion to an early disc fitted Warship. The mechanism wasn't complete but at the time I had another Mainline Warship that was due to become a scrapline model. 

 

The great thing about the mechanism is that as the powered and trailing bogies use the same housing, it is possible to attach an additional pair of pickups to the power bogie using the fittings off a spare trailing bogie; and by swapping the wheels around, hey presto - no traction tyres. So this one has all wheel pickup. 

One body mod I need to do that had not been done my the previous owner is to fill in the upper central vent on one side, a feature that the early disc-fitted Warships were built without. 

 

Interesting, this appears to be a Mainline body flushglazed with Lima cab windows - never seen that done before! It looks good - Craftsman conversion kit for the Lima model applied to the Mainline version I reckon. Quite right about the vent, the disc locos had a circular plate with openings around the periphery between the fan grilles instead (so did D866-70). The underframe was also plainer on these, and the cab door kickplates were sheet rubber instead of ribbed aluminium. There were a few other minor differences too.

 

My easiest fixes of recent(ish) times - two mint boxed "non-runners" from Hattons: a blue Hornby Class 20 20035 with working motor for £30, I reckoned (correctly) that the drive shaft had been dislodged as the Lima original could suffer the same problem if clouted in its box - fixed in less than 5 minutes. Also a Lima 47564 in large logo blue with a loose trailing bogie for £21 - the clip had slipped, fixed even faster! Many models described as "poor runners" (which at least confirms the motor works) usually just need their pick-ups adjusting and a clean - mint Heljan Western D1041 in maroon fye livery for £48 (Hattons again! - sadly these kinds of bargains appear to be a thing of the past, the odd one can still slip through although these days I let others have the benefit as I have too many projects already 😀!)

 

[kernowtim]

I bought a new mainline warship and it never was a good runner, would have returned it at the time if I hadn't lost the receipt , think it was a gear meshing problem,  bought a second hand chassis and it was the same,

After the armature self destructed it was put away until I got the Bachmann version from the Warley returns stand scrum and it became a non powered dummy,

I dug them both out of storage a few years ago to sell as moving towards O gauge, however the Bachmann model has developed a distinct bend due to the mazak chassis castings expanding...

Never had any running issues with the Lima version!

[Halvarras]

2 hours ago, kernowtim said:

I bought a new mainline warship and it never was a good runner, would have returned it at the time if I hadn't lost the receipt , think it was a gear meshing problem,  bought a second hand chassis and it was the same,

After the armature self destructed it was put away until I got the Bachmann version from the Warley returns stand scrum and it became a non powered dummy,

I dug them both out of storage a few years ago to sell as moving towards O gauge, however the Bachmann model has developed a distinct bend due to the mazak chassis castings expanding...

Never had any running issues with the Lima version!

 

D800 in green or D804 in blue, by any chance? These seem to be the Mazak victims.......

I have five Mainline bodies on Lima chassis, created during the 1990s - no gear issues or bent chassis (except one which has developed droopy ends over the years - I'll fix it one day).

[russell price]

I recently bought from a trade stand a Hornby R300 pannier the last painted version sold alongside the 2721. I had one years ago which got worked up and still lives on the fleet. This one was boxed and in tidy looking condition. I paid the grand sum of £3 for it thinking it was worth a punt. Got home put it on the layout , flash from rear driving wheel and a dead short, so guessed correctly there would be a track pin stuck to the chassis magnet!!! Removed pin and a super runner appeared!!! It crawls along as good as any new stuff.  It will do for sons railway if nowt else. 

[kevinlms]

57 minutes ago, russell price said:

I recently bought from a trade stand a Hornby R300 pannier the last painted version sold alongside the 2721. I had one years ago which got worked up and still lives on the fleet. This one was boxed and in tidy looking condition. I paid the grand sum of £3 for it thinking it was worth a punt. Got home put it on the layout , flash from rear driving wheel and a dead short, so guessed correctly there would be a track pin stuck to the chassis magnet!!! Removed pin and a super runner appeared!!! It crawls along as good as any new stuff.  It will do for sons railway if nowt else. 

And probably someone was glad to see the back of a lemon!

[russell price]

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

And probably someone was glad to see the back of a lemon!

No doubt! I had a pile of stuff out of that tat box, lot of it very useful.

[Il Grifone]

Tat boxes at shows are full of bargains!

 

(Gives away a Grifone/trade secret!)  🤫

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Il Grifone

[Canal Digger]

On 03/05/2023 at 18:06, russell price said:

On 03/05/2023 at 15:31, kevinlms said:

And probably someone was glad to see the back of a lemon!

No doubt! I had a pile of stuff out of that tat box, lot of it very useful.

 

On 05/05/2023 at 07:08, Il Grifone said:

Tat boxes at shows are full of bargains!

 

(Gives away a Grifone/trade secret!)  🤫

Where do you think I find my curios