On Jim T's Workbench

[Jim T]

]Hello all

 

Just to kick off hopefully a productive new workbench topic, here's what I've been working on in the last couple of days.

 

A couple of Bachmann 16T fitted minerals (one with top flap, one without):

 

 

Both have vac pipes from lighting cable core (soft enough to bend, better than the plastic covered paperclips I had been using); Smiths Instanter couplings, and axleguard tie rods from brass strip. Just lamp irons to do on these and then patch repainting and weathering.

 

The next one is a 10' WB 17'6 long mineral, from a Mainline body (modified to get rid of the top flap door) and the chassis off an (old-style) Bachmann cattle wagon.

 

 

Apart from the bodywork modification, this has had similar work to the 9' WB minerals shown above.

 

Now for something completely different (and thank you Roger Chivers for bringing out the kit and making everyone think this was easy). A 21T BR mineral, cut down from a Parkside 24 tonner, with new top flap door detail (this is a bit impressionistic to be honest).

 

 

Brakegear is a bit of a hotch potch, some bits from the kit, some from van underframes to make up the clasp gear. The roller bearing axleboxes are from 51L/Wizard models. I added the inside safety loops for the brake tie rods after I took the picture. I'm a little bit stalled trying to find some suitable brass strip to do the door bangs - there are 8 of them and the Parkside ones are rubbish - the strip will need to be about 1.5mm / 1/16" wide - anyone know a source who trades over the web?

 

And finally, we have to have a brakevan. This is a Bachmann LNER 20T brake, in the early stages of modification / detailing to represent one built by BR to the LNER diagram (the prototypes for all of these are from Paul Bartlett's most excellent website, Gallery 6801. The picture shows the fabrication of bolt heads to replace the grab irons either side of the ducket. These are from plastic rod (annoyingly I used Slaters, which isn't as good as Evergreen in my view, and is almost the same colour as the van making it a bit difficult to see). I made a little 0.010" plasticard jig to help me file them down to a consistent height.

 

 

Anyway I hope there's something of interest there for someone, and I also hope to be able to report some progress soon.

 

Jim

[26power]

Nae pictures of your wagons the right way up???

 

Neat idea with the jig for trimming the rod on the brakevan - I wonder if flush faced nippers resting on the 10thou would work.

 

Cheers,

 

26power

[Jim T]

I'll try to take some upright pictures and post them soon.

 

I cut off the rod with my Xuron cutters and then finished off with a file to get them all even. You have to watch this Slater's rod because it can be brittle and split along it's length when being cut - maybe mine has "gone off" - It's probably 20 years old. Anyway, I finished off by brushing a tiny bit of Liquid Poly onto the rod, which should seal it and prevent any problems.

[Jim T]

A bit more progress OMWB yesterday, mostly on a Heljan 27 which will become 27041:

 

This is my photo, in 1985 at Perth.

 

I'll actually be doing 041 as seen around 1980 on the West Highland - the only major difference is the number, which was located amidships in the earlier timeframe, as per the Heljan 27034. Anyway, progress to date has consisted of sorting out the bufferbeams (not as obvious as at first sight, for starters they are missing a hole as far as I can work out. This is the workbench, with the two bufferbeams, instructions, reference photos etc. laid out. It's only usually this tidy for photos!!

 

 

The instructions are quite good, identifying all the parts clearly, but the exploded diagram doesn't really show which pipes go in which holes very well.

 

 

I did the first bufferbeam as far as I could according to the drawing, but ended up with an air pipe in the wrong place.

 

With reference to photos and to the 80s Ian Allen Motive Power Recoginition book by Colin Marsden, I worked out where the pipes should go (I think) and sketched them out to help with the second bufferbeam:

 

 

The results are shown below. The top bufferbeam is in accordance with my sketch with an extra hole drilled just on the coupling side of where the MU jumper is bracketed to the bufferbeam for the air brake pipe (21). The bottom one is the one I did first and got slightly wrong. I will now have to cut off the part 18 I used in the top right hole (looking at the sketch) - this is a main reservoir pipe and as far as I can tell it was the air control pipes which were tucked up here behind the inboard edge of the buffers. I have used a Shawplan air brake pipe for this on the lower bufferbeam and have yet to remove the offending pipe seen just to the left of the right hand buffer. I'll cut this off and fit the air control pipe (part 70) and that will nearly complete the bufferbeams. I think the Heljan steam pipes are a bit skinny (pity, because the union and droppy down thingy - is it a bleed valve or something to collect condensate? - is nicely moulded). Nice Mr Hanson from Shawplan is sending me some alternatives so I'll finish off this element of the work when they come.

 

 

Just started is a Lima Class 20 I've had in my cupboard for ages. Even though this isn't up to the standard of the Bachmann model I thought I'd have a go at resurrecting it. First up is the removal of all the horrible moulded detail from the bufferbeam, plus the front nose handrail and an attempt to tidy up the worst of the glue marks from its previous owner's attempt to fix the headcode discs.

 

 

All comments and suggestions welcome...

 

Cheers

Jim