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Class 121 & Replica Chassis. Airfix B set upgrade


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Several years ago I picked up a Hornby Chiltern Railways Cl 121 body, and a Replica Railways chassis for it. I have never been a fan of Hornby's new chassis, as I found performance under DCC very poor. This project has been on and off ever since. I did start a thread back then, but cannot find it, suspect it was 0n a previous incarnation of RMweb.

Previously I had resprayed The body shell BR blue (an easy cop out) fitted Southeastern finecast glazing (bring on the lazerglaze) added Guard compartment grills, and started fitting underframe details cut off a Hornby underframe.

And then it was put in a box forgotten and gathering dust, until this week.

 

First up was detailing and fitting buffer beams. The beams were from the original Hornby chassis.

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A Romford screw link has been added, along with 21" oleo buffers from Intercity models and Craftsman DMU jumper cables. Vac pipes are from a Bachmann Cl47. Just need to detail paint and add lamp brackets from a staple.

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Next, interior

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Due to the design of the chassis with two motors at floor level, it is impossible to fit the Limby interior.

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I obtained a few parts from Replica, MLV cab interiors, some coach seating and managed to source some Limby interior partitions.

I removed the factory fitted cab floor and partitions, held in by four screws.I replaced this with the MLV control desk and seats, having removed the solid partition first. I then cut out new interior flooring panels from 40 thou plasticard, shaped to fit around the rubber motor mounts and DCC socket. To these floors I added cut down partitions and the top of seat backs to provide the impression of an interior.

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This interior just needs a paint. I will hold the floor panels in place with appropiate coloured tape to allow easy removal.

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The foot steps on the Replica chassis is provided as a continual run, but is made of plastic This needs careful marking out and paring away to match the doors on your prototype.

To seat the body shell on the chassis at the correct height, I glued lengths of square plasticard at the correct height inside the body shell, so that they sit on the body locating lugs on the chassis designed to clip the MLV body shell on

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All I need to do now is final detail painting and weathering, add windscreen wipers, lamp brackets, driver, bogie steps and maybe a direct 8 pin decoder to do away with the wiring running along the interior to the guards compartment where decoder currently resides.

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For under the floor detail, I butchered a Limby underframe, mainly for ease and as I already had one available. It is only held on with double sided tape at the moment. Detail painting has started.

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Another option is to use Underframe parts from DC kits, which will give more relief. I may go down this route eventually.

Here are some pics I took of the 122 at Glos, Wawicks Railway this summer

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Hi Steve

 

Thanks for the info I currently have 2 Replica chassis's for my EMU's and I am very impressed with them. We have Replica Railways at the Marlow Maidenhead & District MRC exhibihition on 5th Jan and I will purchase another chassis for his project.

 

I will post some photos of the Class 121 on RMweb when I have finished it,

 

XF

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Mr B,

Good to see this project has re-surfaced!

Coming along nicely, looking forward to seeing it up close soon, the interior has worked out very nicely with the small space you had to work with.

Have some of those pics from Wawick if you need any more detail shots.

Catch you soon Bud!

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That looks very good Mr B.

 

The Replica chassis is very smooth running. I intend to use one in my forthcoming Trans-Pennine. I have used the new Hornby chassis on my current class 128 project and found it to run well on DC. Am I going to find the performance changing on adding a DCC chip?

 

Cheers.

 

Sean.

 

Hi Sean

 

The Replica chassis works really good with or without a DCC chip and will haul 12 coaches at speed without any problems. Be careful with the couplings though as they can slip outside the flexible plastic guides and are a bit fiddly to reposition this is a very minor issue though.

 

XF

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That looks very good Mr B.

 

The Replica chassis is very smooth running. I intend to use one in my forthcoming Trans-Pennine. I have used the new Hornby chassis on my current class 128 project and found it to run well on DC. Am I going to find the performance changing on adding a DCC chip?

 

Cheers.

 

Sean.

 

So far I have not had much luck with the new Hornby motored chassis on DCC, using a few different makes of decoders, and I have tried a 121 and a cl73, although both ran beautifully on DC. Hopefully you will have better luck than I. Not sure if the 153 has the same motor, but that is as sweet as can be on DCC.

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Thanks everyone for your comments.

I took the 121 for a test run tonight, unfortunately a cardan shaft has been damaged in a fall the other day, so I need to either repair it, or ask Godfrey nicely for a new one. Most disappointing.

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Not much progress on 121 due to technical problems to drive mech,except the interior floor panels and seats have been painted.

 

Turned my hand to upgrading a pair of old Airfix B set coaches. Removed the lumps of plastic representing Vac cylinders and battery box's and replaced with items from comet range. For the bodys I filled in the additional window in Guards compartment, removed inner end detail, stripped and repainted. Some over spray in places, especially door recess, but not too bad at normal viewing distance. Lining will be interesting. not something I have done before. Ordered the black / gold lining from Fox. Other markings will be courtesy of HMRS Pressfix.

 

Many thanks to Rovex for supplying a pair of bogies for this project.

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Also been building my christmas present from the mother in law, a Parkside Mink G. Absolutely confused by the fineries of the Dean Churchward type III brake gear(yes I know the instructions are wrong!!), despite lots of reference material. Hopefully will get to look at the example on the SVR on monday

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Had a nice trip to SVR yesterday with angell328. Didn't see the Mink G, but there was an open c at Bridgenorth, which I was able to crawl under and photograph. Now have a much clearer understanding of how it all works. Can't beat a bit of field research

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Hi Rich, regards the Mink, the mistake is regards the brake trunnion brackets, part E. These should be moved to opposite sides shown.

zero gravitas has done a good job here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/42331-on-the-workbench-at-the-moment-mink-g/.

 

I picked up a set of laserglaze at Warley for the B set.Not used these yet, I shall start small and do a Toad first.

I have posted some images of DC3 brake assy on this thread here..http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65307-dc-2-brakegear-as-fitted-to-4w-wagons/

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Packet of goodies arrived from Fox today, so was able to finish decaling the B set. Very pleased with outcome, but my, are those single digit coach enumbers small. Just needs a varnish, windows and buffers adding and a spot of weathering.Undecided about coupling system yet.Will decide if i ever build a layout for it to run on!!post-512-0-76017600-1357676119_thumb.jpgpost-512-0-99588500-1357676142_thumb.jpgpost-512-0-59544800-1357676178_thumb.jpg

 

This project has made a refreshing change from modelling my usual 80's BR blue.

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  • 1 month later...

Turned my hand to upgrading a pair of old Airfix B set coaches.

 

I have a couple that need a little work on and before I wreck them doing the wrong thing have you any tips for opening them please?  I intend to add some passengers but also want to remove the bogies- it looks as if that task should be pretty straightforward - put Bill Bedford couplings between the coaches and Dinghams on the outer ends.

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It is fairly straghtword - just a little strength, patience and perseverance needed! I have an Airfix set, which I also intend to upgrade.

Firstly, the bogies should just pull off. They are held on by the usual soft plastic pivot/pegs but if they are too stubborn, you'll have to wait until you have completed separating the chassis from the coach roof/body (this is a one piece moulding).

You can separate the chassis from the body by using a strong thumbnail, or small screwdriver. The body is held in place by three clips per side; one in the middle and one at each end, just outside of the bogie pivots. The idea is to gently lever the bottom of the coach body outwards from the chassis to clear these clips and then gently ease it away.

The seating is held on the chassis by four screws and, if you haven't already removed the bogies, you'll need to remove the seating to get at the top of the bogie pivots.

If you want to remove the glazing, it's just a push fit into the window frames - no glue!

Hope this helps.

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