Grafar / BachFar and confusion!

[jdtoronto]

I have some Farish loco's:

An LMS Jinty which has a cast metal body and Grafar Ltd Made in Great Britian on the chassis - obviously pre-Bachmann.

An A4 which has GRAFAR moulded in the chassis and Made in China which has a Bachmann warrnty card - seems it would be made by Bachmann using the Grafar tooling.

And a newer one (I dont have it here right now) which is clearly identified as Bachmann Made in China.

I am assuming that this represents the pre-takeover, early takeover and established Bachmann era's of the Farish product line? Would this be an accurate summation?

Where should I go to get spares for repairing these things. It sees to me that even new these loco's need an overhaul before you put them on the track. The brand new one needed all the lubricant flushed out and the motor re-aligned. The A4 is very lumpy and although shows virtually no wear it is going for a compelte strip-down and overhaul. The Jinty appears to have already been done, it runs as sweet as a nut!

John

[richard]

Yep that's it. For the steamers, the Bachman/Chinese builds are essentially the same models. However, the printing has improved and build tolerances also appear to have been improved. Ie. they usually run a bit better.

Does your A4 have tender pickups? For some unknown reason old Farish stopped fitting these, but they do make a noticeable difference. Luckily you can still get them from BR Lines:

http://www.brlines.com/

The pickups are easy to fit - I've fitted them to my A3 (same tender as the A4). If you're stripping the loco down anyway, then the only thing needing extra skill is the soldering iron for one of the wires. I also had to use a dab of superglue to keep the pickups in place whilst I re-assembled it (the tender screws should everything together when assembled).

BR Lines is also your source for Farish parts. He ended up with a lot of the stock that was sold when they moved to China. I've only ordered from him once in the past but had good service.


Richard

[jdtoronto]

No tender pickups! That would help, yes.

I havea motto here, if it can be soldered we can solder it! I have everything, conventional solder, Metcal irons, resitance soldering and welding, microflame gas, hot air and even micro-plasma. I used to do hand finishing of microcircuits and I sitll have a lot of the gear including a laser trimmer and nitrogen flood equipment.

I will have a look at brlines and get an order off to him, thank you very much!

John

PS: Did you see what ahppened to those teaks form the guy in BC! They are at $91 USD with 3 days to go.

[richard]

Well you won't notice the soldering then! One connection is through the tender draw bar, so there's only one wire for the connection. This needs connecting to the motor - I think it might be to one end of the capacitor, I can't remember now.


Yes I noticed they went quickly from my not very serious bid of $30 to $91.
Value to me is less than market value, so I'm letting them go.


Richard

[jdtoronto]

OK on the tender pick-up. I dont think I will haev a problem. I am also going to figure out how to get DCC into this thing too!

What do you do about couplers on your BR stock? Do you keep the Rapido style, or do you use Micro-Trains? Would it be worthwhile to change or am I just hearing too much Rapido is bad talk from the North Americans?


As for the coaches: I am thinking about it still, they might be worth a little more but I am not sure how much. There are another three MiniTrix just listed from the UK, I have bid £30 on them. They seem to be coming up regularly, I just wish they were a commodity like the OO versions.

John

[richard]

Yes I've heard the Rapido is bad in the US a lot! I think the Rapido couplings are overscale. For North American prototypes, the MT-style looks much more prototypical.
Are they any better? Perhaps. I have seen them fail a lot at shows. But I've also seen Rapidos fail a lot at shows! The main problem with MTs seems to be the pin that can catch turnout parts/etc. They can also be a problem with coupling up on some stock. Rapidos in my experience usually fail when the track/loco is beginning to get dirty and the loco gets a bit jerky (=>sudden changes in tension & bouncing...).

On top of all that, UK stock is a pain to convert. I did convert my Flying Scotsman and Farish teaks, but it was a mistake. I swapped MT bogies in for the coaches and they look awful. I've stopped converting any further UK stock, but I keep all my Union Pacific stock in MT-compatible state.
There is a drop-in coupler available. Unfortunately I can't remember the manufacturer now, but it drops into Rapido pockets - so the Flying Scotsman was an easy conversion. Wagons might be do-able like this but you'd have to dis-assemble them (hard luck if they're glued!). Many of the old Farish bogies can't be converted this way.

Richard

[jdtoronto]

Understood.

It just seems that every time you buy a loco or piece of rolling stock here they want to sell you the MT couplers! In fact, some of the loco's I have came with Rapido style couplers fitted, but they had the MT ones in the box with the other detailing parts.

Of course all of the stock on the Princess Brenda layout, being European, came with Rapido couplers as well. If their were some significant advantage to changing I would, but if it is marginal at best, as you describem then I wont bother!

John

[richard]

I think including the parts is a good idea.

If presented with two identical models with the two coupler systems, I would choose the MT over the Rapido - they're less intrusive and probably are a bit more reliable (I just don't think it is as clear cut as many suggest).

I probably won't buy any more US stock with Rapidos unless I intend to convert. With pre-made US prototype trucks (bogies) available, the conversion is simple but does add to the cost.


Richard