I recently found a few photos of a recent conversion I did a while back of the Dapol B4 to EM for my Covid shunting layout.
I've been working quite a bit on Guernsey in the Channel Islands so this was originally an impulse purchase.
I decided the LSWR would have loaned it from Southampton Docks to work the Stonehouse branch in Plymouth in my universe anyway.
The B4 is a tricky thing to convert by the usual standards. I didn't want to change the wheels as there isn't a 100% accurate wheel available from Gibson. There's also very little room between the con rods and the front steps.
There is a chassis kit and full white metal body kit available for the B4 tank from Nucast Partners and I've one of these in the cupboard to do at some point.
After a bit of head scratching I decided to put the wheels in a lathe and skim down to 2.1mm thickness. It means you lose the wheel boss on the front but the good news is everything can be retained.
The wheels have a plastic boss on the rear which means they can be reset on the axles once skimmed.
Apologies to purists but my method was to use a 6BA bolt and nut fixed through the wheel and skimmed down. The remaining centre 'boss' was filed down afterwards. I took it very slowly over a couple of sessions.
All went back together using the original crank pins and rods. Pick ups were tweaked and all runs well.
Not much else to say really so here are some photos
original wheel and axle
skimming in lathe
the central 'boss' is then filed down
rewheeled
Wheels painted and all done
Edited by ullypug
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