The BNR (another way)

[luckymucklebackit]

Hi Gerald great job on the 29, looking more like the 21 it should be. You could scribe the three lines up from the bottom to make it look like the end doors that the early engines had. Odd that hornby actually had these lines running up to the bottom of the headcode panel.

Jim

[GeraldH]

Thank you Jim. The Hornby 29 is ideal for the BNR being something of a fictitious melange of Class 21 and 29 . It looks like the restoration team will take the easy option of plating over the end doors to keep the draft out. The ends might need some more work though as they don't look very elegant. Once the paintshop have sorted a new compressor it can be given a quick spray to see how it looks. It may then be tweaked further and possibly double motored as the current drive system is not performing that well.

[GeraldH]

The lines preserved 9F has been behaving erratically lately and failed on a Santa Special having to be rescued by the not yet completed Class 21/29. Once dismantled it didn't take the maintenance crew to spot something suspicious. An uninsulated power feed was causing a short. To get the 9F back on the Santa Services quickly a piece of insulation (paper) was temporarily slotted in and the 9F is back in service.

[GeraldH]

The line's preserved and restored Mainline Standard 4 has just been coaled up ready for some winter warm-up services. The coaling stage has a Linka base with sections of an old footbridge, Triang axles and sleeved wheels used for the working crane.

[GeraldH]

The paintshop has been at a standstill while they figure out how to connect their old (Humbrol airbrush) spraying equipment to a new compressor. The old equipment had a connector designed to connect to a propellant can of compressed air. These propellant cans have become rather expensive and can run out at inopportune moments and so management decided to invest in a modern compressor (Fengda FD-18-2 Mini). No adaptor seemed to be available off the shelf and so considerable head scratching and research took place. The only way it seemed to obtain a male propellant fitting was to procure a airbrush tyre adaptor and it was decided to try and attach this to a 1/8 BSP adaptor in some way. The paintshop had already mistakenly purchased a 1/8 to 1/4 BSP adaptor and so it was decided to use this.

The attachment between the two was achieved by creating a plastic inner sleeve from some waste material in the workshop stores (part of a retractable biro) and this was turned down to size using a drill and a file.

The parts were then stuck together using epoxy and the paintshop can now hopefully get back to work

[End2end]

Ingenious!
Glad you got it sorted Gerald.
Thanks
End2end

[GeraldH]

The BNR have for some time been looking for a full brake to match their standard 54' Triang Mk1 coaches. The availability of cheap, good quality BG bodies via Replica Railways seemed to provide a potential solution. The stores had a Triang 54' underframe from a damaged coach that had to be scrapped and so it was decided to shorten the BG body to fit the Triang underframe. A previous attempt was successful, but the coach was destroyed by a supposedly plastic friendly paint stripper. The new coach body can be seen here being shortened along with the Triang donor chassis and the remains of the previous BG which was retained as template.

[Bigmet]

Thank you Jim. The Hornby 29 ...It may then be tweaked further and possibly double motored as the current drive system is not performing that well.

There's a good alternative if an early Bach 24/25 can be found cheaply, must be possible with upgraded and competitor models swanning into view: the mechanism stripped of all exterior cosmetic parts, and the block having a slight taper filed toward the top to fit into the class 21/29 bodyshell, goes in a treat. Presto, the BNR lcoo shop has produced a competent centre motor driven Hornbach. What really tickled me was that with a little freehand carving the underframe then clipped onto the body, and the cosmetic bogie frames fitted onto the bogies. Those that recognised the Hornby body were surprised that it ran so smoothly and had effortlessly ample traction...

[GeraldH]

There's a good alternative if an early Bach 24/25 can be found cheaply, must be possible with upgraded and competitor models swanning into view: the mechanism stripped of all exterior cosmetic parts, and the block having a slight taper filed toward the top to fit into the class 21/29 bodyshell, goes in a treat. Presto, the BNR lcoo shop has produced a competent centre motor driven Hornbach. What really tickled me was that with a little freehand carving the underframe then clipped onto the body, and the cosmetic bogie frames fitted onto the bogies. Those that recognised the Hornby body were surprised that it ran so smoothly and had effortlessly ample traction...

Thank you Bigmet, it's certainly under consideration and if a Bachmann chassis pops up at a good price it could well happen. There's also a 5 pole Ringfield motor somewhere in the stores which might be tested first. The current 3 pole armature is, even by Ringfield 3 pole standards, not great.

[GeraldH]

It took several attempts to reattach the ends to the shortened Replica BG body so that they were flush. There were some gaps between the ends and the main body which were filled with Milliput and then sanded down with fine wet and dry sand paper. The body has now been reinforced and test fitted to the Triang chassis and the location of the footboards marked out.

[GeraldH]

A large number of new citizens have recently arrived in Ballybongle. They are a rather peculiar bunch and appear to have arrived via China. There must have been quite an inequitable distribution of food during their journey, as some individuals are rather large and others quite malnourished. The local clothing industry has been helping them with their colour coordination, but some of them insist on wearing top hats. Most of them are likely to be regular commuters and so are unlikely to be seen out and about on the streets.

[GeraldH]

Workshop staff have been busy preparing footboards for the full brake. As always the BNR have been recycling materials and some scrap plastic in the stores (SIM card holders) has proved to be exactly the right thickness. Cutting proved a little tricky and it's important to get the cuts close to vertical so that the footboards will land up perpendicular to the coach solebar. Several damaged footboards on other coaches have been repaired in this way in the past.

[GeraldH]

A bit fiddly, but ten new footboards have now been attached. This recycled material (SIM card packaging) has proven very useful for replacing damaged footboards on the BNR's Triang coaches in the past and it closely matches the originals.

[GeraldH]

The BNR's roving photographer had a few moments at Pewsley waiting for a train so he decided to take a picture from under the overall roof looking towards the rather blurry signalbox .

[GeraldH]

The BNR's loco department have been spending quite a bit of time resurrecting a Class 21/29 that looked to be destined for the scrapyard. The engine was running rather erratically and was particularly noisy on one direction. The engine was dismantled for cleaning and it was suddenly noticed that part of the holder for one of the brushes was missing so that the brush was not properly held in place when working in one direction.

This part is hard to come by now and so the missing part of the brush holder was built up using epoxy. Running has improved and the noise reduced, although it is still not quite good enough. A little running in might do the trick...