Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Atlantic 3279]

Glue the new outside frames to the sides of the brass channel, paying careful attention to getting them straight/horizontal/symmetrical with the visible features in the correct fore-aft relationship compared to visible features of the cab & firebox. It's easy enough to study photos for guidance on this point. Refit the inner spine of the old pony truck, with the reassembled wheelset. The tag washers of the pick-up leads can be tack-soldered to the new axle tubes. Keep or junk the extension of the spine carryiing the old rear coupling, according to preference. I eventually chopped it off and made a new metal hook.

Here's what it looks like with the original small wheels still in the truck:

I've added some little pieces of plastikard to fill the triangular gap between the leading edge of the new rear frames and the sloping rear end of the lower part of the main chassis block. The frames now look "solid".

Full size wheels can be fitted too (these came from a V3) but slots have to be cut in the brass channel piece to clear the tops of the flanges....

[Alpineman]

That's really helpful. Thank you. I'd love a Tiger but around £25k upwards now for a good one. A quick trip to the divorce court I think!

I actually have two Alpines, a 1964 Series IV low fin car (off the road for years) and a 1963 Series 3 big fin car.

Alpineman

[mistahjim]

Superb as always Graeme. Is much modification to this process needed to carry out similar surgery on a V2?

[Atlantic 3279]

By the way.......As I'm sure you've all noticed anyway....if you re-use the original trailing wheelset you have to cut/file/grind (as preferred) the outside stub axles from the centres of the cast wheels, otherwise you'll have very little available sideswing at all!

[Atlantic 3279]

The suggestions that I made to Alpineman regarding the Bachmann A4 tender helped to gel some thoughts that had been flowing around in my mind regarding my own tender. Convinced that I had not employed the best approach, I had another go at it today.

I decided that I had been wrong to trim off the lower eges of the sidesheets to expose the thick moulded "soleplate" of the Bachmann chassis. It would be awkward to widen the solplate and thin down its visible edges in the desired way, and even if this were done there would be a mismatch with the buffer beam height at the rear. So I have reinstated the lower eges of the sidesheets using some plastic strip approx 1mm wide x 0.75mm high. To the lower edge of this I've added some black 15 thou strip 2.5mm wide, protruding 1.5mm outwards to mimic the edge of the non-existant soleplate. I have thinned this a little at its outer edge by means of an underside chamfer. To allow the narrower tender top to again fit the chassis I have taken 1mm off the thick moulded top lip at each side, for almost its whole length, saving just the ends of the front and rear beams. The chassis now fits within the lower edges of the body just as it originally did. Also, to allow the body to sit a little further forward, I extended 1mm further forward the rebate on the top rear of the chassis, and then screwed a little block near the front of the chassis top. The block locates agains the front inner edge of the body moulding, keeping the moulding pushed forward in its new position atop the chassis. It is still possible to unite the chassis and body with the original screws, so the glue I forecast is not required .
The pictures below may help to clarify my written drivel.......

[Atlantic 3279]

Thus:

The moulded mounting bosses for the tension lock coupling continue to brace the rear buffer beam internally, but the increased rebate does just break through in the thin areas to the space behind the beam/below the top plate. No gaps show when the tender top is back in place.

Assembled, with some blue paint brush-blobbed onto the altered areas as an undercoat. Note ledge of soleplate now more-or-less correctly exposed above rear buffer beam

Cab doorway now nice and narrow too. When time permits I must now do something about front handrails (and can I be bothered to change all those chunky knobs on the loco at the same time?) plus amend the funny curve of the lining at the front end.

[mick b]

Top work as usual. I am so glad I sold my Bachmann ones off in favour of the Hornby version !! it has saved me a lot of work !!

[Atlantic 3279]

Your approach is miles easier Mick. It is only my hoarding, skinflint nature that refuses to part with something (possibly quite cheaply) and then replace with new (probably at a higher price) when the old one can still be fixed up.......

[davidwest]

Just goes to show how close to the mark the Bachmann A4 was. Thanks for posting the pictures Graeme!

[Atlantic 3279]

Cheers David. I've had a go at "camouflaging" the thick handrails and knobs on the loco with Garter blue paint, but it is a very limited improvement so I think I'll have to change them, when I eventually get the time and urge.
Now can somebody write my Christmas cards for me please? I know it is supposed to be "the thought that counts" but, much as I like the season, I'm afraid I rate card writing as one of the most boring and irritating jobs of the year........

[Atlantic 3279]

Yet more pictures, either to bore you to death or to show that I have slightly improved the paint finish on the alterations to the tender by means of a quick rub-down and blow-over, I've fitted the missing handrails (slightly countersinking the rather large original pillars), and I've had partial success only (as stated above) in disguising the chunky loco handrails with matching blue paint. I've also added a a couple of images revealing the de-doored narrowed front plate of the tender and the simple close coupling arrangement: Merely the original eye on the tender bent up a bit, and the moulded pin chopped off the rear of the loco and replaced by a wire hook.

[davidwest]

You made it all look quite easy - will any more of work appear in BRM?

[Atlantic 3279]

BRM have more that could be published, but it is not my decision.

Alongside the work on Peregrine's tender I also lowered the internal representation of the corridor on my 4-8-2s tender as I had threatened to do, reinstated the affected coping, and added the new rear porthole, painting in the blue to match on both tenders at the same time.

Enough of locos for the time being anyway. I'm turning to something that I can tinker with, a bit at a time, with minimal tools, as time and family permit over the festive season:

Goods brake vans.

I've picked up (at some cost) an unbuilt Parkside Toad B, which will go together more or less as intended by Parkside, although I'll firstly be trying to copy some or all of the parts in resin to permit future easy building of Toad Bs and other brakes too, bearing in mind that the kit is no longer available. I also want to have a go at building a scale size Toad E, either by replacing duckets and other details on a B, or by stretching the body and shortening the underframe of a Dapol Toad D kit. Maybe I'll do an E by both methods, for comparison. Additionally I need to copy J Weallans in building a Dapol Toad D as the pre-WW2 LNER version. My existing "not quite a Toad E", the Bachmann model, which is too short in the body, I have earmarked for an ambitious (insane?) attempt to turn it into the similar-looking, but in many details very different, ex NER V4 brake van, as it is more nearly the right size for a V4.

Here's the Bachmann van as it has been running on my layout (at times) for several years:

And here we are with the body off, rather annoyingly revealing the fact that the roof is moulded integrally with the sides and the separate floor is very firmly glued in:

I have to decide whether to shorten the body and underframe to correct a discrepancy of only 1 to 2mm. The roof needs to look thinner and more highly arched. The inner ends need changes in their lower halves. The outer ends need added stanchions. The body has to be deepened/thickened at solebar/floor level, the top of the underframe needs skimming off by a matching amount and the remaining solebars must look like flat timber rather than steel channel. New handrails are needed all round. NE style buffers are needed, and NE style timber duckets. That latter point is already receiving preparatory attention as I have cleaned up one of the ducket mouldings from the Parkside Toad B kit and started making a silicone sealant mould so that I can cast duplicates in resin.

You will no doubt get to see how I go on. If anybody spots any flaws in my approach, or sees an easier way to do things, please speak up!

[Atlantic 3279]

Participants in the speculative discussion of "Toad A" over in J Weallans' workbench topic may be interested to to know that thanks to the kindness of 2512silverfox I have had a personal message from the man himself Peter Tatlow, confirming that the Toad A designation applied to vans in the outstanding order for a significant number of NE V4 pattern vehicles, completed after grouping.

I've also been thinking about that proposed Dapol Toad D to Toad E conversion, which might ideally demand two kits, leaving enough spare parts to adapt and combine with some plain scratchbuilt sides in order to model the experimental ferro-concrete van.....

[Atlantic 3279]

I have so far been unable to decide whether to shorten that Bachmann body (and therefore the chassis too) as part of the conversion into a V4 van. The moulding is 70mm in length, (Bachmann's dodge I presume to make it half-way between the correct 65mm Toad D body and the correct 76mm for Toad E so that they could use it on both "models"), and as such is strictly 2mm too long for a late pattern V4. So the proportions may not quite perfectly convince if I leave as it is, but the number of planks is more nearly right if I leave it alone and they do look the right width . As the 2mm error would be less than half of Bachmann's Toad D/E error, and leaving it alone obviously involves least work, I'm sorely tempted to turn a blind eye. Does anybody disagree with the conclusion towards which I am drifting?

I have at least made a significant start on the work that I know I will have top do. An evening of whittling, scraping, scribing, skrawking, filing, slicing, snipping, drilling and eventually gluing, has made quite a difference. I also must have managed to find the "weak corner" in the gluing of the floor, as in the end it popped out neatly as I applied only a little force. That revealed that the inner ends were also quite un-necessarily glued into their snug-fit slots in the sides, but they popped out too when I flexed the sides apart slightly. I have now cleaned up the joints so that they just slide in and out.

Here's the van completely pulled apart, although by this stage I had already removed a lot of original details from the mouldings and added (in white) some strips to deepen the sides on their lower edges.