FCUK (16 Tons of French Connection in the Forest)

Posted on May 19, 2012 by bawdsey

One of the noticeable things in Forest of Dean images is the variety of apparently similar mineral wagons. I have a good few of the Bachmann varieties which have taken precedence gradually over the Airfix mineral wagon kit of the past. Spread amongst these are a few non standard types, one of which you can see as work in progress above.
So, why ‘French?’ A very simplified history is that these types were imported from France, as well as ‘home built’. The original design being Ministry of War Transport requirement and sent out after D-Day to assist in re-establishing the damaged rail network in Europe. After the war many were repatriated and some were built specifically for domestic use. This wagon will be completed for Railex as I want to be able to have a suitable mix of types available to make visually interesting trains without resorting to a cliche. There’s a bit more work to be done on the underframe yet and decals will come from Cambridge Custom Transfers. The finished wagon project is destined for a book which I’m working on with a good friend, more of that in the future.

I try to keep reasonably close to the prototype mix so based on photos the majority are ‘Standard’ Dia 108 or derivatives with a mix of BR grey and faded PO wagon liveries, MOT slope sided minerals and the ‘suicide’ door wagon above. I’m not sure how widespread the nickname was, I’ve heard it used a few times, but the logic is un-escapable. The only doors on this wagon are the cupboard side doors. Who’d want to be standing in front opening them if the wagon were full of coal?

If my past is anything to go by, that’d be the apprentices job …

For ‘wagony’ stuff theres some useful protoype and modelling information at

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brsncfmineral
http://www.cctrans.freeserve.co.uk/
http://www.railex.org.uk/

Posted in Airfix, Bachmann, book, Branch Line, British Rail, Canon G10, Chris Nevard, decals, Eastern Region, Exhibition, Forest of Dean, Great Western, hobbies, Hornby, Kalmbach, Layout, LMS, Midland Region, Model Railroad, Model Railway, Model Railway Journal, Narrow Gauge, Nevard, OO Gauge, Railex, research, Scottish Region, Southern Region, Uncategorized, Wales, waterslide, Welsh Marches, Western Region | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Railex Preparations Vol III

Posted on May 14, 2012 by bawdsey

First Test Train

Today the layout was put up for the first time in six months, and I’m pleased to report that apart from dirty track, there have been no problems with the layouts running. A few people have asked what is the track plan? Well as a picture speaks a thousand words, here it is in the assembly stage.

Track layout looking from fiddle yard.

This plan is based on Iain Rices ‘Cornfield Street’ with one or two changes by myself. The scenic break between the fiddle yard and main board is at the foot of the image. When set up this is marked by a line of structures that act as a view block. The backscene wraps around the right hand side of the layout as you look at this shot, and the ‘bare’ boards still allow me to mess around moving buildings. Other tasks worked on today were more trees being completed, and just sitting back and playing trains for once! In the previous post I mentioned I’d add details on the fire irons on the locomotives, well I’ve added them to the 15 minute heroes page as well as here. Many prototype images show a set of Fire Iron tools in the tender, on the rear tool brackets as per the Pannier illustrated, or lying along the top of water tanks on locomotives like the 45/55XX or 41/51/61xx Praries.


This is the raw etch, tools are well defined and they are well positioned in the fret to cut out.

Using a very fine wet and dry paper I gently rub both sides of the etch in preparation for the next bit which will save some offort when painting.

The etch is dipped into a blackening solution for a few seconds, I probably leave it in for ten or so and having rubbed them with wet and dry previously, there is plenty for the ‘black’ to get hold of. You can actually see it change color as the process occurs.

The blackening process can be stopped by immersing the etch in water. WHen its dry the etch will be a black colour and there is a matt residue left on the surface. This will come off with a wipe of tissue.

The tools can then be cut from the etch, I use a pair of sharpened nail scissors for this job. In real life the tools got pretty knocked about and didn’t stay nice and straight for long, so all of mine show a bit of lifes journey in their shape. You don’t need to put all the tools on, its often that you’ll find a picture with just one or two of items on board an engine, there are plenty of reference pictures in books which show variations you can model. You can use the same technique when replacing lamp irons too, and 247 as well as others do different types which you can fit.

247 Developments Fire Irons

http://247developments.co.uk/

Posted in 3f, Airfix, Bachmann, Branch Line, brassmasters, Canon G10, Chris Nevard, Eastern Region, Exhibition, Forest of Dean, Great Western, hobbies, Hornby, Kalmbach, Layout, life, LMS, LNER, Midland Region, Model Railroad, Model Railway Journal, Modelling, OO Gauge, Scottish Region, Southern Region, Uncategorized, Wales, Welsh Marches, Western Region | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

All the same, but different …

Posted on May 10, 2012 by bawdsey

All the same, but different …

One of the key features in setting a scene for a model railway is in choosing what stock and locomotives you run. Do this right and you can enhance the overall appearance of your train set. When Albion Yard was more generic in its era and location, I ran items, more specifically locomotives, that would have been unlikely to be seen together. I didn’t have really unusual mixes, but a pannier followed by a standard class 4 2-6-0 and then a class 17 in retrospect didn’t feel right. They didn’t appear on the layout at the same time, but on following trains as the layout is operated on the ‘one engine in steam’ principal. Something was bugging me that something wasn’t right hence the stagnation alluded to in the first post of the blog. https://albionyard.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/hello-world/

Coming to the realisation that the layout needed a focus the Forest of Dean location was chosen, see post link below and this  has lead to a tightening up of what I run on the layout. I still use it as a test track occaisionally but the real use is now just BR/WR types and traffic. https://albionyard.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/albion-yard-cinderford-glos/


So there’s been considerably less of the above movements, for example its known that the 350HP 08 variants were tried in the Forest of Dean but for various reasons weren’t considered a success, possibly a lack of speed contributing to it, and Class 14’s were used before their withdrawl as the Forest Railways succumbed to closure. There is one Class 14 in the fleet together with a low tank small prarie, and they will appear in the operating sequence. Heres the fleet including the ‘first reserve’ an Ivatt 2-6-0 which were found in the Gloucester area.

And if you’re wondering the 77XX in GWR livery is appropriate for the Forest of Dean in the 1950’s, it does need some pretty heavy weathering to finish it off though.

So what do I mean by all the same but different?, well the Forest of Dean area was served by a few common locomotive types, and the Pannier was one of them. I’ve used the Bachmann model which is a good starting point, and with a friend am hoping to produce some components for it that will improve it further. For the time being though I’ve rung the changes by changing numbers and adding different detail variations on them, the most noticeable are the cab vent and door modifications. By opening some of them more light gets thrown into the cabs, but it makes the locomotive look different, particularly when you have two of the same cab style and livery next to each other. Study photos carefully too, these will show you operating variations, for example the high cab locomotives often appear running with the rear cab doors open, I’ve yet to find a low cab variant on the open line with the rear cab doors open, so you can make an assumption that there was a good reason for this, perhaps something as simple as it was more draughty than a high cab, allowed them to fill the bunker with more coal, or that coal spillage into the cab was more of an issue with low cab types rather than the high cab Panniers.

Bunker doors open, Archer rivet decals and plasticard door, cab roof vent open, aluminiun sheet roof vent.

Whatever the reason it meant that I have modelled the high cab variants with more doors open than the low cabs reflecting the images taken at the time in the Forest area. Other easy mods for these are replacing the bunker lamp irons with etched sets and adding the fire irons, they make a huge difference too.

Fire and lamp iron replacements

The fire and lamp iron replacements have come from 247 Developments, as have most of the GWR numberplates I’ve used. In the next few days I’ll add a ‘fifteen minute hero’ post on how to use the fire irons.

http://247developments.co.uk/

http://www.railex.org.uk/railex2012v.html

Posted in 3f, Bachmann, Branch Line, Chris Nevard, DCC, dcc sound, decals, Eastern Region, Exhibition, Forest of Dean, Great Western, hobbies, Hornby, Layout, LMS, LNER, Midland Region, Model Railroad, Model Railway, Model Railway Journal, Modelling, OO Gauge, paint, research, Scottish Region, Southern Region, Uncategorized, Wales, waterslide, Welsh Marches, Western Region | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Railex Preparations Vol II

Posted on May 5, 2012 by bawdsey

These are the latest scenic items coming off the bench in preparation for Railex. They are a straightforward build of a Howard Scenics ‘house back’ kit, and two trees, one complete with foliage and the other the bare structure awaiting finishing. The trees are an adaption of a technique used by Simon Thompson on his Scaleseven ‘Y-Cae’ and ‘Aberbeeg’ layouts both of which I’ve had the pleasure of operating.

‘Aberbeeg’ S7 by Simon Thompson

I primarily model in 4mm scale, but will always look at other scales and modelling genres for inspiration and ideas that I can use or adapt in my own work, I find it mildly frustrating when I hear a modeller say oh its X or Y, so it’s not of interest. I can understand the prototype not being of interest in era, or protoype for example, but to dismiss modelling like that means the individual my be missing out on seeing or learning a new technique that will work for them, or allow them to adapt it. 7mm isn’t a big interest of mine but missing Simon’s trees would have made making mine much harder, and probably they’d not be as good as they’ve come out either.

‘Aberbeeg’ S7 by Simon Thompson

Another building completed recently is the agricultural merchant for Albion Yard, this will appear in an article for Railway Modeller in due course. The building is unusual for me in that the side you see here faces away from the viewer, so it’s never seen on the layout. Normally I leave the unseen face blank, the house above has no front for example, but this building just seemed to suit being made ‘in the round’, so, that’s what I did.

Abion Yard’s Agricultural Merchant

And to finish a gratuitous shot of a class 37 on Simons ‘Y-Cae’ layout, this is exactly the sort of view that makes me think, I want to make something. Next time you’re at a show, go and have a look at something that doesn’t interest you, you might just be pleasantly surprised.

‘Y-Cae’, S7 by Simon Thompson

http://www.railex.org.uk/

Posted in Airfix, Bachmann, Branch Line, British Rail, Canon G10, Chris Nevard, DCC, dcc sound, Eastern Region, Exhibition, Forest of Dean, Great Western, hobbies, Layout, life, LMS, LNER, Midland Region, Model Railroad, Model Railway Journal, Modelling, Narrow Gauge, OO Gauge, research, Scottish Region, Southern Region, Uncategorized, Wales, Western Region | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Railex Preparations Vol I

Posted on April 23, 2012 by bawdsey

Albion Yard

Over the next couple of weeks or so I’ll be burning some midnight oil as Railex at Aylesbury approaches. The layout will be assembelled as its been stored for five months or so and tested. In the intervening period I’ve worked out a new way to do trees, and am seriously considering a revamp of the layouts trees which should make a very big difference to the layouts appearance. One problem with them is the storage and transporting once complete, I’m really glad that the layout isn’t ‘on the circuit’, I’d spend all my time repairing trees. As ever I’ve been looking at the buildings, and there may be a few changes in time for Railex, the layout never standing still in terms of its scenic development. I’m pretty happy with most of the stock and locomotives, and anticipate a further low cab 77XX being added to the roster in time for the show, in an unusual, but prototypical livery. The layout will be DC controlled for Railex, so no sound panniers I’m afraid this timeout.

http://www.railex.org.uk/

Posted in 3f, Airfix, Branch Line, brassmasters, British Rail, Canon G10, Chris Nevard, DCC, dcc sound, Eastern Region, Exhibition, Forest of Dean, Great Western, hobbies, Hornby, Layout, LMS, LNER, Midland Region, Model Railroad, Model Railway, Model Railway Journal, Modelling, Nevard, New Radnor, OO Gauge, research, Scottish Region, Southern Region, Wales, Welsh Marches, Western Region | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Make Your Mark

Posted on March 24, 2012 by bawdsey

Hampton Hill Makeover Bachmann OO Signalbox
Catalogue. No. 44-010

Of late there have been many releases of resin cast buildings in both 4mm/OO and 2mm/N gauge scales from both Bachmann and Hornby. As these are mass produced items there is a real chance that you will see the same items on different layouts. I recently had a look at the Bachmann Hampton Hill signal box from their Scalescene range, to see if it were relatively easy to customise them, to give them a more individual appearance. The following technique works as well on the Hornby Skaledale building range.

I obtained two samples of the Hampton Hill signal box 44-010 which unfortunately had been dropped, and the areas at either end of both samples had broken away. As we were doing a test of this technique the damage was not of concern and was actually fortuitous, as it gave me the opportunity to repair them, which was easily done using normal superglue, and once the broken parts had been joined, accelerator applied. This makes the glue cure very, very, quickly, and the repair was almost invisible.

Having made the repair this gave me the confidence that the chimneys of the buildings could be replaced too, so using side cutters the chimney was cut away, the top of the stacks cleaned up with a file and then replacement plastic pots were made, one from scrap tube, and the other from the Wills scenic building accessory pack SS46.

Removal of cast chimney

These give an immediate improvement to the appearance and are well worth doing even if you don’t repaint the buildings. I used Tamiya acrylics for all the paint on these buildings as they are easy to get hold of in many good quality model shops and are easy to use.

Cutting back layers

The first thing to do is repaint the areas where there is a wash applied by the manufacturer to make the base color opaque, as in some areas we’ll be removing the paint to get a weathered effect.

Original and first stage paint

I started with a dark color, Hull Red XF9, and using a sponge applied the paint in a dabbing motion over all the brickwork, you can see the difference this makes in the comparison shot. I also break it up with a lighter color Flat Earth XF52 and leave it to dry out thoroughly. This is important for the next part of the technique to work.

Once the paint has dried I use a very fine wet and dry paper to cut away some of the paint layers, if you vary the pressure you apply, you remove different amounts of paint that gives a random pattern effect. You can accentuate this with the glass fibre brush, which will allow you to get into corners and detail you can’t reach with the paper. You’ll note I’m wearing latex gloves to prevent getting glass fibre splinters which can be very painful, and difficult to remove. Work your way around the whole building and don’t get too fixated in one place, as this helps keep the finish more natural.

Adding paint texture

Once all the faces/walls of the building are done I then pick out individual bricks using a mix of either water color pencils or acrylic paint applied with a very fine brush. There are also air ventilation grills on the building and these are picked out using a thin black or very dark grey wash.

Detail painting

As the building was nearly complete I turned my attention to the cracked are of the base, and decided that by applying some grass I’d hide any remaining visible damage. Using ‘No Nails’ type glue, I cover the area of damage with a thin layer. Then using dyed medical lint I gently cover that area and press the fluffy side of the lint to the glue and leave it to set for a good few hours.

Vegetation detail

Once happy its dried you can then pull away the textile backing and it leaves the grass in place, just requiring a few weeds from scatter material. The work you’ve done should give the model a matt finish, but I usually give a gentle dust over around the base with ground up artists pastels. You can take the process further if you like, on one I cut corrugated iron panels from Wills Scenic sheet SSMP216 to fill the windows, to give a derelict ready for demolition appearance. I was pleased with how these turned out, for a few hours work of an evening, you can change a good basic model into a much more realistic and individual building, that will stand out from the crowd.

Posted in Airfix, Bachmann, Branch Line, British Rail, Chris Nevard, Eastern Region, Exhibition, Great Western, hobbies, Hornby, Kalmbach, Layout, life, LMS, LNER, Midland Region, Model Railroad, Model Railway, Modelling, OO Gauge, paint, research, Scottish Region, Southern Region, Western Region | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fifteen Minute Heroes

Posted on March 15, 2012 by bawdsey

Masokits Screw Coupling in 4mm Scale

Ever thought I’ve only got fifteen minutes, not enough time to do anything with that, well this new page will hopefully show one or two of my fast jobs that make a difference. They’re not much, but all become a part of the whole project and eat away at those ‘one day’ job lists. This is the first of a few that will appear on the new page, so next time you’re scratching yer bum, see what you could have done instead …

The first quick job that comes to mind is couplings for rolling stock. I use three link couplings on both EM and OO stock, as I can live with ‘the hand of god’ appearing on scene for a few seconds or so.

Screw couplings for me in the past been difficult to find really good reliable and reasonably sized couplings. I do use overscale couplings due to practicality. The best off the shelf couplings were Cambrian, unfortunately no longer available. Then theres the Romford coupling, I have a few of them and they are gradually being replaced as I do any work on an item with them. They are very overscale and often stiff where the wire is wound on the links shaft. This means they hang unprototypically, an actual link is a pretty chunky and weighty item and gravity takes its own course, downwards. The other often used types are etched links. Smiths do a set available built or as a kit. I’ve found these not particularly easy to assemble, and they aren’t particularly robust, and I got fed up with them. If you use heavy trains then again the links can fail due to the small etched link shaft bending and the coupling coming apart.

I’ve now standardised on the Masokits screw coupling. These are the best value and once assembled the most robust, and they come with a nicely illustrated instruction sheet. It does take some soldering, but if you can solder a wire to a DCC chip, these will be well within your ability. So do they pass the fifteen minute test?

The first thing is to drill the holes in the etch 0.5mm to remove any etch cusp. Then use a very fine wet and dry paper on both sides to clean the etch.

Choose if you’re using long or short links. For practicality I use short link at hook and long link to couple. Cut the link from the etch sheet and form around a drill shaft ensuring the link eyelets are parrallel to each other.

Fold the centre link etch with the tommy bar and solder it together.

Get a clean overlength section of 0.5mm brass wire and thread it through one link, the instructions suggest a brass lace pin, but if you can’t get them, do as I do and use wire.

A quick touch of the soldering iron on the outside of the eyelet will make the join between the wire and link. Cut the excess wire off and file flat to link eyelet. Note I’m not tinning any of the components as that will potentially seize solid. Repeat on the opposite side. Then repeat the procedure again for the other link.

Remove the hooks and form them soldering them together. Clean any cusp material off and then attach the links.

To do this twist the hook enough to allow the link loop to fall into the link slot, and twist back closing the slot. That’s it coupling completed, you may not manage fifteen minutes for your first one, but you soon will, I tend to batch build them though, completeing them with a dunk into a chemical blackening solution.

These couplings are good looking, functional, robust and by far the easiest I’ve ever built. Just because they are soldered construction that shouldn’t put you off, and it does result in a coupling that so far in my experience is unbreakable with normal use.

http://www.scalefour.org/masokits/index.html

Not a bad use of fifteen minutes …

Posted in Airfix, Bachmann, Branch Line, brassmasters, British Rail, Chris Nevard, DCC, Eastern Region, Exhibition, Great Western, hobbies, Hornby, Ian Futers, Layout, LMS, LNER, Midland Region, Model Railroad, Model Railway, Model Railway Journal, Modelling, Narrow Gauge, OO Gauge, research, Scottish Region, Southern Region, Western Region | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Home Truth …

Posted on March 9, 2012 by bawdsey

Posted in Canon G10, Chris Nevard, Exhibition, hobbies, Hornby, humour, Industrial, Layout, library, life, Model Railroad, Model Railway, Modelling, Narrow Gauge, Photography, television, top gear, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Trinity’ 08 Brassmaster Rods

Posted on March 4, 2012 by bawdsey

Heres a quick step by step on how to do the conversion. This isn’t the Brassmasters version as they assume a wheelchange too, which if you’re doing EM/S4 is the most likely way forward. I didn’t want the expense of new wheels and bought the rods and Markits/Romford crankpins, (I’m embarrassed to say), years ago. Total conversion time for the first one start to finish was about three to four hours as I was working my way through the techniques, this includes soldering the rods together, finishing them and joining them with a crankpin rivet to give a prototypical knuckle joint. I’m also using a Peco PL-70 loco servicing cradle whilst I do much of the dissasembly. Its simple, cheap and effective.

Brake gear removal

Firstly remove the brake gear, this is a simple push fit, the locating pins are at either end and on the central brake shoes. The plastic is pretty flexible so you shouldn’t damage them. Refitting is a simple reversal at the end of the conversion.

Keeper Plate Removal

Keeper/base plate removal is next, one crosshead screw at each end of the plate.

Removing the wheelset, they are easy to remove the whole wheel, gear and axle assembly coming out together. Once I’ve done that I replace the keeper plate, this keeps all the components together whilst you don’t need them and holds the centre sprung axle mount in position too.

Rod & Crank Removal

The cranks and rods need removing, these are held in place by two lugs on the end of the crank molding seen here. You may need to squeeze these with a pair of tweezers to release them, and then pull the crank and rod away from the wheelset, it is a firm fit so expect a bit of resistance as you remove them. Doing it this way keeps the wheels quartered and reduces the workload of the conversion. You can see the left hand pin has already been replaced on this axle set.


This second image above gives a better view of the fittings as they are dissassembled.

The Bachmann crankpins need to be removed, the easiest way I found, and its a bit crude, was to file the inside end of the crankpin. This allows you to part the crankpin and rods from the molding and if you do it carefully the pins will push outwards, out of the crank from the end you’ve filed.

You need to do this for all six cranks, however I worked on one set of rods or side if you like, at a time. Once the Bachmann crankpins had been removed I replaced them with the Markits/Romford versions.

These were cut to length, again nothing scientific here, but about three threads of the screw was the ‘measure. These were cut one at a time with a fret saw, and then screwed, self tapping into the Bachmann crank. By fortune they are just oversize for the hole left by the original pins so this method fixes the new pins in place too. At this point the rods are made up as per the instructions from the Brassmasters PDF, downloadable from their site. The Markits crankpin diameter is marginally smaller than the etched rod crankpin holes so they fit perfectly. I used the main structure of the rods but omitted the cosmetic bosses as I was using the Markits crankpin washers. I wanted to keep the assembly within the original chassis loading gauge and this ensured that worked. Tapping the knuckle joint rivet through was a little tense, its ages since I’d done one (fifteen plus years), but a couple of gentle taps gives a prototypical joint on the connecting rod.

I made sure that the rods worked well, i.e. they weren’t tight at the knuckle and re-assembled the chassis, leaving off the brakegear. This means replacing the wheelsets only as the rods aren’t fixed yet.

To make sure the chassis ran well I slipped the rods onto the crankpins, and held the rods in place with plastic sleeves. This allowed me to run the chassis and see if there are any tightspots and that the rods are working well.

Once happy the locomotive ran well and slowly with no binding I fitted the brakegear and ran the test again, to make suire there were no clearance issues I’d missed. Satisfied there weren’t it was then time to fix the rods for real. I’d taken the easy option again and decided to solder the crankpin washers to the crankpins, cut them to length and then file flush.

This is a quick method of fixing the rods, but it is permanent, then again the originals were too, so you’re not losing any functionality by doing this. Make sure the rods are on the right way up, and use a barrier paper like I have here. Once they are soldered you can disassemble them and cut the extra length away, I used a fret saw again and filed them flush to the crankpin. The last job is to paint the rods, I did this using enamels and then gave the rods, crankpins and wheels a light weathering using MIG pigments. The loco’s had already been weathered with a mix of acrylics, enamels, MIG pigments and artists pastels, (yes you can mix em all if you’re careful) and were now really coming together.

The final touches, adding Shawplans EEFG0802 08 Laserglaze windows to the cabs and renumbering them using Pressfix transfers, choosing pre TOPS early to middle 1970 liveries. This included removing double arrow logos from the battery box doors on one loco, and replacing them to the bonnet doors. The reason being the bonnet door variety was far more prevalent and having two battery boxed examples, (my Hornby 08 is identical) seemed too much of a cliche. These engines are partly for a 1967-72 era layout that a friend is working on, but they’ve also sparked me off on my first ‘micro layout’, something I didn’t forsee at all!

It’s taken a long while to get these three loco’s to where I want them in terms of appearance, partly because I left stuff on the ‘to do’ pile way too long. I actually like them better than my Hornby 08’s now, and thats because I’ve put something into them, they’re unique, a model with my ‘stamp’ on it, and without me making that effort, they’d each just be another Bachmann 08.

http://brassmasters.co.uk/08_rods.htm

http://shawplan.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/9th-february-2012/

http://shawplan.com/

http://www.btinternet.com/~markits/

Posted in Airfix, Bachmann, Branch Line, brassmasters, British Rail, Canon G10, Chris Nevard, DCC, dcc sound, decals, Eastern Region, Exhibition, Great Western, hobbies, Hornby, Ian Futers, Layout, LMS, LNER, Midland Region, Model Railroad, Model Railway, Model Railway Journal, Modelling, Narrow Gauge, OO Gauge, Scottish Region, Southern Region, Uncategorized, Western Region | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bachmann/Brassmasters/Shawplan Trinity 08

Posted on February 26, 2012 by bawdsey

Not quite the holy trinity, but a decent place to start. Many years ago when t’interweb was a bunch of MSN chatrooms and Yahoo groups with people in effect emailing each other abuse, I did a makeover of four Bachmann 08’s, one BR Green, one Departmental Grey, and two BR Blue. These were written up on parchment and presented to the general public through the medium of the Railway Modeller Magazine. At the time the Hornby 08 was the original Triang version, a coarse body on top of the Jinty 3F chassis. The arrival of Bachmanns 08 made us all sit up and take note, clearly there was another significant step forward in Ready to Run fidelity. Previously if you wanted a really good 08 the two versions were the Modern Outline Kits etched kit, or a Lima body on top of an Impetus etched chassis. The Wrenn (nee Hornby Dublo), 08 was also kicking around but was often considered ‘too difficult’ to make a finescale model from. The Bachmann model then, was very good, certainly leagues ahead of its competition with a good mechanism, a good resemblance to the real thing, though I’ve never run a ruler over the real thing or the Bachmann/Hornby models, and a good paint finish. So on the whole we were presented with a good basic model to work on. In the original piece I concentrated on the cosmetic issues.

Scratchbuilt airtanks and cross beam

The airtanks under the front buffer beam were more Kate Moss than Katy Price, and there was none of the pipework around the chassis that is so noticeable on the real thing. New airtanks were made from brass tubing together with the channel section that runs between both pairs of front steps. This is an integral unit, using three link couplings I can afford to reduce the detail compromises needed for ready to run tension lock style couplings.

Scratchbuilt pipework under cab

The pipework was formed from brass straight wire, bent in an approximation of the shapes of the prototype. Pipe sections were shown by using masking tape wound round the wire and painted, and occaisionally a washer or small BA nut was threaded onto the wire to give a similar effect. I hand built four of these assemblies, and older and wiser now I’d have made a simple jig to bend all the wires to the same shape and length. Whilst far from accurate it gave a huge improvement to the chassis areas around the front and rear bufferbeams of the locomotive. This then left me with the opportunity to crack open the cabs and replace the glazing the hard way, by individually hand cutting each window pane. This is a tremendously tedious job, at the time laser cut glazing such as the Shawplan range was just a dream, not even on the horizon. This then left me with four 08’s looking like the following image.

Railway Modeller Article Bachmann 08

Until the arrival of the completely new Hornby model for the 08 seen below, the Bachmann model was the best game in town. With the Hornby release the deficiencies of the Bachmann model, particularly in the appearance stakes were easy to see.

Hornby's 08 Raises the Game

The Bachmann model had a less refined chassis in particular, this was easily seen comparing the two, Hornby and Bachmann, side by side. The Hornby connecting rods were finer rather than Bachmanns stamped variety and there was plenty of Bachmanns missing pipework on the Hornby model. The chassis springs are better defined on the Hornby model, however careful painting and weathering can significantly enhance the Bachmann chassis and can reduce the visual impact of Bachmanns thin springs. In terms of running quality the Bachmann model still scored highly. Some of the early versions of Hornby’s 08’s were nicknamed ‘screamers’ as at least one batch had a fault within the drive train resulting in what can only be described as a screaming sound. One of my Hornby 08’s had this fault which was cured by replacing the wheelesets with an Ultrascale kit. These have different shapes and materials for the axle bearings, so if yours is a ‘screamer’ then this may well be the cure, it certainly was for mine. In the meantime Brassmasters had realised that there was an opportunity to provide etched replacement connecting rods and balance weights for the Bachmann model, these were primarily marketed to modellers changing the Bachmann wheelsets with either Alan Gibson or Ultrascale replacements. I bought a few sets of these rods and as mentioned in the previous post they sat on the ‘to do’ pile. Another key arrival was the Shawplan Laserglaze kits for the Bachmann 08, I now had the final pieces of the jigsaw and three of the original 08’s were taken out of store and given their final makeover.
http://brassmasters.co.uk/08_rods.htm
http://shawplan.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/bachmann-08-laserglaze-kit-released/
http://shawplan.wordpress.com/laserglaze-product-list-20th-february-2012/

I’ll shortly cover in this blog how to fit the Brassmasters rods using the original wheels, and Markits crankpins, which is different from the Brassmasters instructions which involve changing the wheelsets.

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