TangoOscarMike

Oh, and I have a specific question: Can you suggest a paint that's a reasonable match for the LWNR locomotive red (which you've just drawn to my attention)? I've painted some of my freelance models with a rather muted red, and I'd like to have a splendid red engine or two. But I think the red that I'm using for buffers is a little too bright. If you happen to know of a suitable colour, then a Vallejo, Revell or Tamiya acrylic would suit me, because I know where I can get those locally. But I won't insist on one of those three. Cheers Tom

I think I need to be careful what I wish for! Right now my horizon doesn't extend much beyond these 0-4-0 projects! But I will refer to these things in the future.

So: It's intended to work with the same tender, and (apart from time) there's nothing to stop me from making another tender with the same dimensions but different styling. By the way, I'm already preparing an empty version of the tender, for people to add their own coal. If you could tell me in detail the features that are characteristic of an LNWR tender then that would be grand. For this inside-cylinder locomotive I started with the outside cylinder version. I removed the cylinders (of course!) and then started making stylistic changes: Different firebox. The splasher curves down at the back. Dome with a flatter top. Adjusted cab side cutout. Different smokebox, of course. New safety valve (still being planned). More steps to cover the gap where the outside cylinders would be (but it might not hurt to move them as you suggest). At this stage I'm just doodling, and I'm completely open to suggestions like yours. Let me address your points individually: Making the chimney the same high as the dome. Certainly - I'll give this a go. Sticking a whistle on top of the cab roof. I can attempt this, but (with "white strong and flexible") it might just come out as a blob of plastic. Making the buffers bottle-shaped like the LNWR locomotives. I can try this too - I like the flared shape. But if it's important for the tender and locomotive to have matching buffers then I'll stick with a single style, because it would be nice to be able to mix tenders and locomotives. The steps at the front could be moved back slightly to where the splashers end. I'll give this a go. Maybe I'll make a 3D mockup of the chassis, so that I can produce pictures that give a better idea of how the end result would look. Handrails. No, at least not with the "white strong and flexible" plastic. They would end up being far too fat and crude. At the moment handrails are left as an exercise for the modeller. Way, way down on my list of plans I'm thinking of producing plain locomotive bodies (no chimney, dome, etc..) and a separate set of detail parts in a higher resolution plastic. But at my current rate of progress it'll be years before I get round to this. Thanks for your input, and please let me know whenever something crosses your mind. Cheers Tom

Thank you, thank you! The 0-4-0 tender engine is very close to completion now (as in - I have to draw the line somewhere!). I have the final version nearly painted, and I hope to offer it and the tender for sale before the end of the month. And, as a matter of fact, I have recently turned my attention to the inside-cylinder version of this chassis, which Hornby sells with the side tank body in your picture and another one (and a diesel). This is the current state of my doodling (I'm working on the safety valve at the moment): Of the locomotives you named, I particularly like the Improved Precedent, and of course the SECR D Class is just glorious. I will study them all carefully. And of course, I would welcome feedback! Cheers Tom

Thank you! I didn't get any takers for the white-strong-and-flexible coach bodies, which is fair enough I think, because maybe the price/quality relationship doesn't quite make sense. I plan to revisit this soon and produce something in a finer detail plastic. I'm thinking of 3 compartments in the same style on a Dapol 10' wagon chassis. This is quite a bit shorter than the Hornby 4 wheeler chassis, so the comparments will be smaller (less luxurious (more realistic)). Cheers Tom

Magnificent!

I have no objections to the spoilbellishment, but there is a risk that it could lead to an unseemly outpouring. I could end up ranting about work for many paragraphs, foaming at the mouth and biting my keyboard.

The Johnster: thank you for your detailed analysis! I was sort of dimly aware that there is more to this than just getting round curves. It seems obvious now - if I make the wheelbase short to go round tight curves then the penalty is that the ends, and hence the couplings, have big sideways excursions on those curves. In the end I will probably just go with a 23' wheelbase (or some other number) plus fixed couplings, and see how it goes. As for my layout - at the moment it only exists in my mind, but I don't actually intend for it to have tight curves. And no gradients: instead I plan to have flat track with the terrain rising above it and dropping below it. My goal is to have nothing (except the station) level with the track. We'll see. Northmoor: I like that a lot. But I also like to turn these euphemisms back against the management (and other guilty parties). It's not really OK to say "What you have just shown me will be my new standard by which I judge shoddy work.". But it is OK to say "I see some opportunities for improvement here.". Which means the same thing. Cheers Tom

And now I'd be grateful for some more advice - I need to choose a wheelbase. A short wheelbase is desirable because: As already mentioned, I don't want the underframe and the couplings to interfere with each other. Actually, I think there's no danger of that. The shorter the wheelbase, the tighter the curve that can be managed. I have some Fleischmann H0 curves with a radius even tighter than Hornby's smallest. I won't insist on a coach that can go round these curves, but it would be nice. So, looking at my trusty Furness railway book (thank you Gibbo for pointing that out!) and a few diagrams on-line, I've done a little survey of length/wheelbase ratios for 6-wheel coaches. My coach is just over 35' in length. For this length, I reckon that a 23' wheelbase is at the short end of the spectrum, but not ridiculously short. And it's a prime number. It would look something like this: It might be hard to tell with only naked, flangeless wheels in my sketch. But does that look sane to you? I might do some more calculations and find out exactly what radii the Cleminson underframe can manage for a given wheelbase (given the constraints of my solebars). But more likely I'll just pick a wheelbase and see what happens - I'd like to keep this project to under a year. Thanks in advance! Tom

Hi Bruce. I like what you've done, especially the roof seen from above. There really is ample plastic to trim away above the top row of panels. I've been tempted to reduce the height, but I decided not to because of the toy versus model balancing act. I want a 6 wheel coach that will fit in with unmodified 4 wheelers for the sake of my (long lost) ten-year-old self. Also, it's already quite a bit of work.....! The ordinary chassis is easier to come by than the track-cleaning one. So: I wonder if the buffer height could be lowered by moving the wheels up in the ordinary chassis. Fill the holes (melt some plastic into them?) drill new holes (easier said than done), maybe fit metal bearings. I suppose there could be trouble with the height of the coupling, and the running boards would be rather close to the track. Perhaps the simplest thing would be to add a new buffer beam and literally lower just the buffers and nothing else. If I push the boat out on detailing, then I might add proper steps and rails at the end, as Nile does, for example. I think it's a beautiful finishing touch.

In the end, I will probably take Jon's advice (thank you Jon). But before that there will be an extended period of prevarication, because that's what I do best. So I'm putting the body to one side. Which means that I have to stop prevaricating about the chassis. Before I assemble the Brassmasters Cleminson underframe I have to choose a wheelbase, and before I do that I have to choose a coupling arrangement, to make sure that I don't end up fouling the wheels with the couplings. I've decided to go with the big Bachmann couplings, and I've added two vertical rods (brass pins) to support them. I will add, in due course, a threaded rod in the middle, to allow me to fix them at the correct height. They are terribly wonky, and there will be bending. This bodes ill for the underframe, which must be soldered together with skill and delicacy, and not by an ape. But there's no turning back now. Clearly they're too long. I will cut off the surplus later.

Actually I'm Tom - as in Tango Hotel Oscar Mike Alfa Sierra. I was given this nickname years ago by the father of two girls whom I much admired. More recently I've resurrected it for use on the internet. Cheers Tom

Dear all In this post (and other posts in the same thread) I've shown a 3D-printed ducket for converting Hornby 4-Wheel coaches into brake coaches. I'm now offering these for sale here. I've included some basic instructions for the conversion, but I intend (time permitting!) to produce more detailed instructions and explore a some other conversion possibilities (this, for example). I would be very happy to answer any questions, and of course I'd be delighted to see pictures of conversions using these duckets.

.... and I've run into a bit of a problem. I'd be grateful for advice. My plan was (is) to use the attached glazing to clip the roof onto the body, just as the original 4-wheeler does. A few months ago, when I glued the roof parts together, this was looking rather promising. But in the intervening time the roof has warped a little, such that the glazing sides are closer at the bottom than they are at the top. This means that they no longer fit, and they won't hold the roof on properly. It's not really that clear from this picture. I suppose that this is the result of long-term negotiations between the glue and the plastic. I think I have two choices: Detach the glazing from the roof, glue the pieces into place when the time comes. Force the sides apart with wooden blocks and wedges, then use hot water to encourage the plastic to stay in the shape I want. Option 2 would give me the outcome I want, but it could go wrong in disastrous ways (I know from experience not to use a heat gun for this sort of caper). I would be grateful for opinions, advice and recommendations. And if anyone thinks the hot water approach is workable, then I'd like to know suitable temperature ranges (is boiling too hot?), thermal regulation techniques, etc. Thanks in advance! Tom

So, Project Genesis notwithstanding, I'm cracking on. Painting of the body is more or less complete, using the base-coats / dry-brush / touch-up technique that I used for the brake coach. I'm satisfied with the result, although I'll probably paint the end rails and steps, crude though they are.

I overthink everything! Progress is only made when I disconnect the thinking from the doing!

I've put a bit more paint on the outside, and completely painted the inside. It isn't perfect, but I'm moving on anyway. I don't know how you manage these things, but I usually reach the point where I decide that I can't improve it any further without an unacceptable investment of time and effort. So I've sprayed a thin coat of varnish for protection, and next I'm going to try the masking / dry-brushing / retouching technique that I used for the brake coach. I hope that the wobbliest parts of the painting will be concealed by the gold beading. The join is fairly well concealed. I'm happy about that.

Well done! It's all pretty plausible (at least for my tastes). More importantly, the locomotive looks plausible - something which isn't necessarily the case for real-life Garratts!

Meanwhile the 6 wheel coach is inching along. I'm going to use the same painting technique (as for the brake coach), and I've sloshed a couple of coats on the outside. I've also put in dividers between the compartments. I'm not going to bother with a detailed interior, but I want to make sure that nobody can look into one compartment and out through another. Having learned from past lessons, I've left plenty of clearance for the glazing between the partitions and the sides. I will paint the whole interior with the same brown as the exterior.

So, I'm still stumbling forward with the ducket project. This is what it looks like with the brown and cream paint touched up. Could be better, could be worse. In order to get the roof/glazing on I had to cut away the two windows. And this is what it looks like in context. This is more or less working out as intended. And now I must do the other side.

Yes. My main motivation is that I really like these coaches (in spite of the fact that they're a little toy-like), but I don't like the fact that there's no variety. Not to mention the danger to the passengers. So, I want a guard coach that matches the off-the-shelf coach. And above all I want the modification to be easy. But you're right. There is plenty of other raw material for this sort of thing. Cheers Tom

Hi Gibbo - I'm slow to answer because I've been away again. I have two pairs of duckets, and with the second pair (and another coach, of course) I'm thinking of chopping out a section on each side as shown here. If I swap these cut out sections over, that will give me a coach with a single passenger compartment, and a guard/luggage section with double doors occupying two thirds of the coach. I might also do this to the on-going 6-wheeler. With further butchering of the coach sides (converting more windows to panels, maybe filling in the grooves either side of a door) I'm sure that a van version would be feasible. Cheers Tom

And this is the result before and after the removal of the masking tape. I've been a little too heavy-handed with the dry-brushing, I think, but I'm pretty sure that it'll be OK after the brown and the cream are touched up. I'm thinking now of adding these duckets to my 6-wheel coach, and maybe cutting and moving some panels to make a guard/luggage compartment. We'll see.

So...... I've had a long absence, arising from a holiday and a crazy work situation. I've made no progress on the 6-wheeler, but I have made some progress with the ducket. I should probably move this to "Smaller Suppliers", since I might offer it for sale. But not yet. Here it is on an Annie. The brown is Vallejo German Camoflage Black Brown, which may not be a perfect match for the GWR brown, but it's a pretty good match for the brown plastic of the "GWR" liveried version of this coach. The cream is an "ivory" hobby acrylic. The window of the new guard's compartment has been filled with a simple rectangle of plasticard, and I've removed the word "THIRD" from under the door. I have (what I believe to be) a cunning plan for getting gold paint onto the raised beading, to match my old, old "GWR" 4-wheelers. I've painted this beading by hand before, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I'm going to: Give it a thin coat of varnish. Mask off the large flat areas (the panels and the whole bottom 3rd). Repeatedly dry brush the whole thing with gold acrylic. Remove the masking tape. Touch up the areas that now have a little bit of unwanted gold. Let you know how I get on.

And this attitude is absolutely correct - I am about to benefit from Steve's careful hoarding! There is another aspect, as well. It seems terribly wasteful to throw away these little pieces of metal and plastic - wasteful not only of the natural resources but also of the time and effort spent on designing and making them. All those craftsmen in the 60s carefully carving wooden masters (I suppose)..... The miners who dug up the ore.... etc.