Paul's workbench

[JASd17]

I agree with Jonathan that they were similar, but the extra bay of seating in the third class carriage, 4 bays as opposed to 3, also meant the layout of the kitchen end was not exactly the same. There was one less window in the Pantry section, for example.

John

[nzpaul]

Thank you gents for the advise. I will attempt to track down a copy of Harris book.
Mr Leary, if you reading this, do you have said book in your library? If so, would you mind popping it into the car next weekend.....ta.

Cheers
Paul

[Graeme Leary]

Hi Paul, don't have the title Jonathon mentions but will bring Michael Harris's 'LNER Carriages' and Nick Campling's 'Historic Carriage Drawings Vol 1 - LNER and Constituents'. Might be of some help. See you Sunday afternoon.
Graeme

[nzpaul]

Thanks Graeme, se you next weekend.

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all on a damp day in Surrey

I find the grafting of brass sides onto plastic stock very interesting as I've been wondering about this for a while.

I'm tempted to graft Comet pullman sides onto Hornby pullmans (cheap for ex-set items), to form a Queen of Scots train.

I also have several Kirk semi-corridor compostite, which could be modified, using Comet sides, to thirds and brakes.

Thanks for the info.

Earlswood Nob

[nzpaul]

Hi All
Quite a long time ago....(once upon a time perhaps??) I was attempting to upgrade an old GEM J36. Sadly, despite my initial enthusiasm, the re power of the old cast chassis didn't end up going so well ( if, like me, you've read Tony Wrights Loco Kits book, you could argue that I had been warned....). The next step was to be the purchase of a NBR Developments chassis kit, which would have built up into something lovely I'm sure, but....I happened across a Bachmann C class 0-6-0 going cheap and purchased with the re power in mind.
Now, after much chopping and filing and a hole in the firebox side, I have squeezed the Bachmann chassis into the J36. I've had to accept some inaccuracy in the wheel base, which the side on photo cruelly shows, but on the positive it runs really well. Once the cab steps are refitted and the rest of the thing is reassembled the error will hopefully be hard to spot.
All of this just in time for the arrival of the Hornby model, mine is due in February apparently. It will be interesting to compare the performance of the two, providing that the motor is up for the job the kit should be very strong, it's certainly heavy.

Just in case anyone thinks I've been lazy since my last post, here's a couple of Pics of other things that are on the go. The 4-6-4 is a approximation of a Nickel Plate Road L1 that started life as a Mehano 4-6-2, quite a lot of work but a really sweet runner, the Std 4 2-6-0 is nothing more that a Dapol kit....because I had it

I've also been working on some Marklin digital conversions which have lead me to the conclusion that British railway modelers are still not getting particularly good value for money from manufacturers, especially when you see how robust and well made Marklin locos are, twice the price they maybe, but different planet build quality and easy to work on compared to H and B, not that it bothers me at all, just an observation.
I think that'll do for now....happy new year

Cheers
Paul

[Atso]

Lovely work Paul, the C class chassis looks perfectly acceptable under the J36 to my eyes.

[nzpaul]

Thanks Steve, it's not perfect but not awful either, close enough for me.
Last bunch of photos for this one. I don't know if the GEM kits ever had a boiler back head or cab floor but this one didn't. I've made one up out of plastic and scrap bits,it protrudes into the cab too far but is resting on the wiring behind the motor so that's where it has to go.
Selecting the identity ended up taking an hour or so of trawling through the books trying to find a Canal or St Margaret's resident with vacuum brakes. Settled on 9763 from Canal shed which had both Vacuum and Air brakes so I've installed the compressor and associated plumbing that the loco carried until 1946 (according to RCTS)
The tender is now fitted with extra pick-ups and also houses the LaisDCC decoder and all wiring is permanently soldered to a Vero board strip above the front axle. I've also added some brake rods to the chassis in an attempt to make it look a bit less naked.
The biggest surprise of this whole thing is the performance. I knew that the Bachmann chassis should run well but this is one of the best I've come across,much smoother than my K3s or even the new chassis V2. I'll have to record a video for youtube sometime.

Cheers
Paul

[Graeme Leary]

You were up late last night Paul - looks great! Now about my next visit to Wanganui?????????

Graeme

[Atlantic 3279]

Looks good.

The running qualities of Bachmann K3 chassis are notoriously imperfect.....

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Very nice job with the J36, it's come up very well.

I've had my K3 for 8-10 years, it's a good runner, a heck of a lot better than my V2.

manna

[nzpaul]

Thanks gents.
The problem I've found with Bachmann is their insistence on fitting capacitors from the brush holders to the frame of the motor. I think that they are supposed to reduce radio interference by dumping the back EMF generated at the brushes back to the frame. The end result is that DCC decoders and feedback controllers (eg Hornby HM2000) can't measure the back EMF to do their whiz bang motor control tricks, meaning that the locos behave rather erratically (almost comical with some DCC chips).
So chop the caps out and you'll get instant better running, even on plain old DC from the likes of Gaugemaster controllers. My 2 K3's are both pretty good now that the unnecessary caps are gone. One of them was factory DCC fitted and the decoder couldn't figure out what it needed to do and added massive bursts of speed at intermittent intervals when running at slow to moderate speeds. Removal of the caps cured the issue completely.
Having pointed the finger at Bachmann I cant remember if the last Hornby loco I chipped (J50) had the same set up, I know that they fit the capacitor across the brushes but not sure about the two to the motor frame.

Cheers
Paul

[nzpaul]

Hi All
I'm on a roll, so here's the next one. This will finish off the NBR family for my layout.
When I purchased the chassis for the J52(a few pages back) from Mainly Trains they sent two chassis kits by mistake, I offered to return the unwanted chassis but was told that I was welcome to keep it rather than incur postage. Given that the Hornby J52 and J83 are both normally powered by the same generic chassis I thought it might be worth the effort to build up the free chassis and see how it looked under a J83. Despite not being designed for the job it still looks considerably better than the original so I will see this out to a completed model.
The chassis is powered by a Hornby "type 7" and Romford 40:1 gear set attached to a Branchlines bracket and the wheels are from Scalelink. This combination runs very well and is more powerful than the Hanazono 1024 set up in the J52.

Work on the body has so far has only included removing the old molded handrails, fitting a round windowed spectacle plate and installing a cab floor and boiler backhead.

Once again providing an identity is turning into quite a grind. J83 aren't exactly a minefield but there are some significant differences in appliances provided among groups of them.

Cheers
Paul

[Atlantic 3279]

The more common cause of complaint from those who want things spot-on is that there's far too much slop and (consequently un-measurable) inaccuracy in the rods and axleways of the Bachmann K3 chassis, giving it a slightly uneven action at certain speeds.

I think this may be the first time I've seen Hornby's "stretched Polly/Nellie" J83 tribute model given a decent spectacle plate and relieved of its moulded handrails, but I haven't honestly paid a lot of close attention to the work of modellers of the Scottish LNER. I shall be pleased to see a nice model emerge from the process.

[mossie]

I upgrade the Hornby J83 about ten years ago, it was my first attempt at detailing, not great but a big improvement.

See this link - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6394&hilit=j83