Paul's workbench

[nzpaul]

Hi Graeme
I'll send you a personal message, rather than discuss any possible arrangements in a public arena.

Cheers
Paul

[nzpaul]

Hi All
I managed to make some time for working on the D34 on the weekend, end result being a running chassis. I've made up and fitted the laminated brakes as well, another nicely thought out feature of the kit. Things are a fairly tight squeeze between the pick up plate and the brake assembly, so I slid a bit of plastic between the parts and epoxied it to prevent shorts. Initial running tests have been successful and it should be a nice smooth runner. That pretty much wraps up the project as far as my posts go, I'll post a picture of the finished article when it's all done.

Cheers
Paul

[nzpaul]

Hi All
Not in any way an LNER subject but I thought it might be interesting to those who have a wider model railway/toy train interest. I purchased this brass Chesapeake & Ohio 4-8-4 a while ago, made by Olympia in Japan in 1963. It was in really poor condition and several parts had come adrift and the electrics were a mess. I stripped the old paint away and re soldered the the broken parts and disposed of all the unnecessary wiring, I was very tempted to leave it in the brass as the level of detail is incredible, but I've ended up giving it a complete respray, a big 4-8-4 should be black (or orange if you like the Southern Pacific).
The size of the mechanism is quite impressive, I've posed a Mashima 1624, destined for use in a Reid Atlantic, on top of the original Japanese motor for comparison, it really is a whopper, runs very sweetly though, aided by the fact that all driving axles have suspension. The loco without the tender weighs in at 930 grams thanks to a piece if brass bar that fills most of the boiler space so I'm guessing it should tow trains without any problem.

Apologies for off topic subject matter but it gives and idea of what the Americans could buy when Triang and Hornby Dublo were still around, Hornby and Bachmann might be catching up now though.

[kimballthurlow]

Hi Paul,
That C&O is an interesting project. Thanks for sharing it.
The list price in the US in 1963 was $90 (Brown Book), which of course was way more than the cost of a Triang or Hornby Dublo of the time.

While I have a few brass US models, I still really like and run the old HD for their simplicity and useability.

regards
Kimball

[nzpaul]

Hi All
Happy new year, I hope your all getting some sort of relaxing holiday time. Thanks to Christmas/New Year break I've had the opportunity to get the D34 close to being completed, After agonizing over the names I've settled on #9495 "Glen Mallie", an Eastfield based loco so it can keep my V4 company. I'm still not sure how I'm going to apply the name, Fox do make plain 2mm lettering transfers but that's quite a daunting prospect to spell the name out with tiny individual transfers, so any ideas gratefully taken into consideration.
Loco painted with Humbrol satin black, boiler bands are presfix transfers and other lining applied with a bow pen, then varnished. It's quite glossy at this stage, I quite like it so it may stay that way. I'm still working on making my own coal rails for the tender, not as easy as Will's Workbench makes it look but here's the almost done product.

Regarding the C&O 4-8-4. I'm sure that they were pretty expensive by comparison to other models, Today's price for a Division Point modern version is over $1000 US so not something I'm likely to buy. I've probably destroyed the collector value of my one by repainting it but I don't really collect them as an investment, just have a few models picked up when the price was acceptable/affordable.

Cheers
Paul

[Atlantic 3279]

Nice D34, and nice restoration job on the 4-8-4. I think you've quite rightly ignored any artificially inflated "collector's values" for disfigured and inoperative models, just because what's left of them is "original". I'd far rather see a well executed and fully useable restoration piece.

[mick b]

Modelmaster do some Scottish names

http://www.modelmasterdecals.com/search_result.php

[nzpaul]

Thanks Graeme. Agreed, I'd far rather have fully functional models. Thanks to Mick as well, I'll look into model master and see what they've got.

Cheers
Paul

[Manxman1831]

Quick question regarding the D34 - is this one of the GEM kits that were originally designed around the Triang L1 chassis?

[nzpaul]

Yes, GEM kit with their chassis. Knowing what I know now, I'd probably splash out the extra cash and build the PDK version. If built as instructed the GEM body sits far too high on the chassis and would look ridiculous. This kit requires too much remedial work to make it a fun/nice build. I think the PDK kit would be less stressful, maybe someone who's built one of PDKs kits might care to comment on the quality, I'd like to get one of their J36 kits so I'm interested to know.
The GEM kit is certainly showing its age, some of the casting were pretty rough but the tooling is fairly ancient I guess.
Apologies for the long winded answer when a simple yes would suffice, but I thought my opinion might be worth sharing.

Cheers
Paul.

[Manxman1831]

Many thanks for the 'long-winded' answer. A bit of background is always appreciated. My interest lies purely with the substitute chassis - if it is indeed a straight replacement for the old L1 chassis then it would be a better candidate for the old whitemetal lump that currently resides under my dad's LMS 3P (also a GEM kit).

[nzpaul]

I'd say that would work out. The chassis is a multi purpose kit, other locos apart from Glen and Scott are mentioned in the instructions (sorry can't remember which ones and I've thrown the paper work away). The chassis kit was certainly the best bit, no problems getting it built and running well.

Cheers
Paul

[nzpaul]

Carrying on with the North British theme, I've made a start on this Triang-Hornby M7 to C15 conversion. This is this afternoons work involving re-wheeling the chassis and doing the cut and shut of the major body parts. Most of the M7's dimensions are fairly close to the C15 so while this wont end up perfect dimensionally, it should be reasonably close and hopefully unmistakeable as a C15.

This idea has been done before and is floating around on this forum somewhere, it's what inspired this build, so thanks to that man.

Cheers
Paul

[Atlantic 3279]

Never mind that you say that it's been done before - it's interesting to me to see such adaptations at any time. It all helps to free up the parts of the brain that do the lateral thinking. Looks as if it's going well. Is that sloping base to the smokebox, apparent in the pictures, going to cause any trouble at some stage?

[nzpaul]

Gee, can't get away with much around here can you...
No, the bottom of the smokebox will be hidden by the representation of the main frames above the running plate. Seems to be a feature of NBR locos that the smokebox saddle is concealed within the frames. Without proper engineering drawing to check against, I'd guess that the cylinders may have the saddle integrated into the casting. However its done ,as far as the model goes there should be no wonky bits on show....hopefully. Borrowed this piece of photo from McGowan models to illustrate.

C15_3.jpg (24.47 KiB) Viewed 9914 times

Cheers
Paul