Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Ground Signals Again

[Atlantic 3279]

So here's how my foolhardy attempt to upgrade the Lima Toad D has taken up my time:

Here are the inner ends, outer faces. I've cut out the glazing bars from the door, let in a rectangle of plastikard, and done a bit of paring and scribing to remove unwanted panel lines and create planking:

The rears of those inner ends, showing the door in-fill braced by a larger rectangle so that the joints around its edges become a stronger rebate rather than just a butt-joint. Close by my scribed 'B' you may be able to see that the thin togue down the edge of this side is still partly split away, awaiting repair after my ill advised attempt to remove the ends (from what turned out to slots, not plain rebates in the van sides) by tilting them:

[Atlantic 3279]

The body sides. Removing the moulded handrails, scribing in what little in the way of plank lines they had covered, and drilling holes for new rails was not a difficult "repeat operation" following the previous Airfix van. Adding planking to the plain area above the ducket was a bit tedious. Unlike the areas left plain for number-printing on the Bachmann van (that became a V4), the plain patch here was slightly raised above the surrounding planking. I didn't think it would quite look right if I merely scribed plank lines onto it, so I firstly cut-in a line to denote the top edge of the ducket pressing, and another to represent the bottom edge of the cantrail, and then set about scraping the surface between those lines down to the same level as the rest of the planking . I was then able to add the plank lines, with some difficulty as the ducket gets in the way when trying to seat a normal engineer's square on the side .
My results are not therefore as neat as I would ideally have liked.

At least "post-Airfix" I now know that I can form all eight main vertical handrails and the middle portion of each horizontal one to the same correct size just by bending the wire around the blade of my half-inch wood chisel. Likewise the lower loops form nicely over the last mm of the nose of my needle pliers.

[Atlantic 3279]

The concrete ballast weight easily comes off the outer end with a razor-saw cut positioned with care, leaving a bottom rail that cleans up nicely with a little filing and scraping. The BR lamp iron has also been removed. I'm not sure the wide planking on the outer ends is right in combination with narrow planking on the sides, but I won't dwell on that point:

With no spare brake shoes in stock, and the usual determination to buy nowt unless essential, I have tried to make the best of what was already moulded and yet still shorten the stepboards to the correct degree. This poses a problem with the lower stepboard (the only one that Lima provided, my upper one is a home made add-on from plastic strips). The outer brake show is moulded integrally with the end of the board, which no doubt makes it strong enough to survive handling but it didn't help me! With the aid of a razor saw again, a knife for paring and carving, and a fine file, I cut away the end of the board in stages to reveal the brake shoe, carve in basic missing features whilst it was still supported, and then finally separate it fully from the remaining end of the board:

[Atlantic 3279]

Thus:

[Atlantic 3279]

Of course, despite taking fanatical care with the final cuts to separate the brake arm/block from the board end, I managed to snap off a couple of the arms with the last stroke of saw. I repaired these, and reinforced the surviving pair, by super-gluing a spine of 0.7mm wire to the rear of the brake arm (upper end of the wire in a hole drilled in the chassis deck).

Again the final result with the "revealed" brake details is a bit rough and ready in extreme close-up photos, but painted black, dirtied up, and on the move on the layout I think any but the keenest observer will struggle to see the imperfections!

Here's a quick look at the part done work overall, showing the chassis ends needing to be plated over.

To be strictly accurate I ought to have filed the tops of the solebars down to the level of their notched ends, and then applied the cover plate at the lowest possible height. I reckoned this would consume further time, risk damage to the buffers with the file, and would reveal a gap below the bottom-end-rail on the body which I would then have to fill. So I took the easy compromise solution and added the cover plates slighly higher than they should be, on the existing solebar tops. The same error is there on my Airfix Toad D, for only slightly different reasons.

[Atlantic 3279]

Once glued in place the end plates retain the steel chassis weight quite nicely, which is probably a good thing as the clips that previously held the body on the chassis are lost when the concrete end slabs are cut away. When finished, the body may end up just glued to the top of the solebars, and I wouldn't want it to be knocked apart during transport or handling at some future date owing to a rattling chassis weight.

Here's the effect with the body on, and roof with some improved separately applied detatls reattached. You can also see the old end clips that held the body in place behind the buffers, on the detached concrete slabs:

I've supplied the basic V hangers and vacuum cylinder for the totally plain underside of the Lima chassis in the form of a spare MJT coach set:

[Atlantic 3279]

For the time being, the final broadside view. I've used plastic strips to represent the stepboard hangers in the LNER positions. Lima supplied only two per side, in the wrong places.
Handrails and lamp irons (and end plate rivets?) will have to wait for another day. Hunger now strikes and then I have a tender to alter.......

[mick b]

Graeme
Congratulations on your BRM award for your excellent W1

well done

Mick

[Atlantic 3279]

Ta Mick - Looks like I'm a prize lunatic now!

[mick b]

Yes Mr Wright does seem to doubt your mental health . It has been mentioned in at least one magazine and a book of his , to my knowledge

[S.A.C. Martin]

Just to say Graeme, picked up a particular mag today, and I hear congratulations are in order for your latest award!

[52D]

Congrats on your oscar, BTW do you have a model of your username?

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks again fellas. Wish I did have a model of 3279 in either of its Gresley guises. That is still on the list of intentions at present......

[madusjockus]

I'll add my congrats as well- in fact when I returned to modelling [ having stopped a few years ago due to double glazing] Graeme's excellent conversion was the thing that caught my eye. I've only ever seen this done once before in the Toddler in the mid 80's although in this case the modeller had decided to extend the cab side sheets but left the windows in the original positions. From at least one angle the loco looked like a small head with a big nose on it. Strangely enough,great efforts were expended on building a new tender body- strange!

Cheers
Kev

[Atlantic 3279]

I like this - people keep saying nice things to me.


Here's that re-detailed Lima Toad D ready for some paint. Has any body ever tried to solve the problem of Lima's short axles by pulling the Lima wheels off the axle and re-using the Lima axle with nicer wheels pressed onto it? Or is there another favourite easy way to avoid having to drill out the inaccessible rear faces of the axle boxes to accept "industry standard length" axles/new wheelsets?

This is the Hornby super-detail tender that I have been altering for a fellow enthusiast. Apart from the obvious 1948 rear cut-down, I have reduced the height and width of the whole of the left-side coping. Hornby ignore the assymetry of widths of the right and left copings of A4 corridor tenders which I suspect was universal (or almost so?) after the originally much fuller streamlined fairings were cut down circa 1938.