Ken's workbench Bagnall meets hacksaw

[gppsoftware]

I have added an article here which shows how I have enhanced Triang MK1 coaches: http://www.mrol.com.au/Pages/Vu/Restori ... rk1Coaches

[Lysander]

Interesting read. I was particularly impressed by your 57ft BG conversion.

Not everything produced by Triang was rubbish (as so many seem to believe) and these sorts of upgrading are quite rewarding efforts. Most of my own work has involved the clerestories ( and one or two wagons), but I’m updating the L1 right now.

Do post any others you’ve done.

Tony

[gppsoftware]

Tony,

I guess the ultimate conversion I have done is what started life as this:

https://www.hornby.com/media/tinymce_up ... 7e6ac1.jpg

and now exists as this: http://www.mrol.com.au/Pages/Vu/HymekOverhaul

Heaps of other modification/conversion/build articles here: http://www.mrol.com.au/Pages/Vu/Articles

Graham

[Ken Shabby]

This one is not all my own work, I bought it off eBay for £12 where it was listed as a non runner. I was looking for a couple of cheap Triang Jintys to restore , and I was quite taken with the neat , but not authentic hand painted livery.
The chassis was is one of the earlier ones where the screw goes down the chimney. I found the armature had had it, but the magnet was still very strong. Luckily I had a spare motor in the spares draw minus it's magnet, so It was a 10 minute job to get her running again.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find the previous owner had altered the back to back measurements , so she runs without faltering through my Peco points.

[Mountain]

That looks lovely!

[Ken Shabby]

My sons' Railroad Bagnall is a really nice runner, but it's so huge, the cab is like a portacabin . For this reason I held off buying one for myself.
Last week I found that Jadlam were doing the Coca Cola version on eBay for £26 ,post free. I figured that I could have a go at slimming it down a little, and If It all went wrong ,I'd still have a chassis, bonnet and cabin, and could in time probably find another Bagnall / Class 06 cast footplate to put it all back together.
I had a spare Hornby 06 cab in the spares box,which had once been part of a long dismantled freelance project. I decided to use this instead of the Bagnall's original cab. I sawed it into 3 parts long ways and then glued the narrowed down cab back together. I then carefully cut a little off the sides of the Bagnall's metal footplate. This took about a hour and was done over a couple of days.
Anyway, here's some photos of progress so far. There is still alot of work to do on the footplate and the cab and bonnet are currently just placed in position.
Ken

[Footplate]

Ken this is looking good, will be watching to see the finished loco.

[Ken Shabby]

Some more progress this afternoon. The cab I'm using had a hole in the back, which I've now blanked off. This is because I once had a plan of building a freelance centre cab shunter , and I needed the cab to clear the motor.
I've decided I need to completely remove the steps from the footplate and build replacements. This is because thinning down the sides of the footplate has cut away most of the treads on the steps. Trying to build them back up again would mean the steps sticking out beyund the buffer beams and being out of gauge. I have built a pair of steps to go under the cab , using bits of a Wills Finecast cold frame which came with their green house kit , mounted on a thin strip of wood. I'm reasonably happy with them , but intend the front steps to be a little narrower.
The job I'm dreading the most is finding a way to attatch the cab to the footplate.

Ken

[Ken Shabby]

I've had mixed fortunes with my Bagnall since my last post. I cut the steps off and made some replacements, one is now glued in place.
This was my second attempt at making steps as the ones shown in the previous post were slightly too wide.
Although there is still much work to do on the footplate , I'd been trying to think of a way to reattach the cab to the footplate once the time comes to reassemble it. I've discovered that the chassis can be removed and refitted to the metal footplate without removing the cab and bonnet, this means they can be glued in place, which will make life a lot easier.
The cab has had a couple of coats of Humbrol matt red which is a reasonable match for the bonnet and should blend better with a little weathering.
I found that the chassis doesn't run nearly as well as my son's Bagnall, which we bought about 4 years ago. . His Bagnall will happily crawl through insulfrog points , while my Bagnall is seems higher geared and is much more sensitive on pointwork and track which is not absolutely level.

Ken

[Ken Shabby]

The footplate is now complete, the holes have been filled with Milliput and I decided that the 2nd attempt at Scratch built steps still wasn't right.
Instead I found a ladder off a old diecast fire engine which proved to be ideal for cutting up to make cab steps.
At the moment the cab is missing in action, I did a few test runs round the layout and being only balanced in place it fell off and disappeared .
I'll check in the tunnel.
Ken

[Ken Shabby]

Nearly there now. The cab was lost for a week and I was just about to order another from Peter's Spares when it turned up. I'd spent hours in the railway room trying to find it. The exhaust needs to be shortened slightly and I may add a little extra weight inside the bonnet and cab. I did this with my Hornby 06, there's plenty of room.

Ken

[Ken Shabby]

The Bagnall is pretty much finished now. I had planned at one stage to slightly shorten the running plate and bonnet, but decided against this as there is only so much you can do to making these Hornby 0-4-0 locos look smaller without changing the wheels, and I've not seen anyone try that yet without scratch building a new chassis.
Here's a few comparison photos with a unmodified loco.
Ken

[Ken Shabby]

This was a Wells Brimtoy clockwork 0-4-0 which was a recent very cheap purchase off eBay . The clockwork chassis is now in the spares box, and as you can see it now been fitted with a recent Hornby 0-4-0 chassis . Fixing loco bodies to chassis's is something I find difficult, I managed to do it on this loco by using Milliput to fill the bunker and the spaces in the back of the chassis behind the motor as well as the space at the front between the cylinders. Once the Milliput had hardened I put a long thin bolt through the bottom of chassis and into the bunker.
A little bit of adjustment will be needed with the ride height, but I'm reasonably happy with it so far. The body is quite delicate and there is a very slight warp to the sides, so I'll have to go carefully with it. Since taking the photos I have test fitted some dummy cylinders using off cuts of thin plastic tube.
Ken

[Dad-1]

The Hacksaw bit made me smile.
I've spent part of the morning working out how to saw Airfix wagon RTR coupler mountings
off without doing damage to what I want to keep.
I'm thinking a tile saw ? In effect a rough piece of wire. Have you tried one of them Ken ?

Geoff T.

[Ken Shabby]

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I already have 3 of these in various liveries , but when I saw this 2 car set in a antiques market for £17 It had to come home with me.
It had decades of dust on it , but I managed to get it running in about 15 minutes. The problem was the infamous chunky and ridged wheels which are hopeless on modern track. I was sure I had a couple of spare sets off a 70's version of this model, but it seems I'd already used them on a Dock shunter a few years ago. I did find 2 sets of wheels off a ruined Triang Class 31. These have on a nylon axle , which means the back to back measurements can easily be altered to allow them to be used on modern track. The following photo should hopefully some the minor alterations needed to get the unit to run with these wheels.

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My electrical skills are very poor , so I managed to work this out by fitting the new wheels and placing the bogie on the track and turning on the power. Because this power bogie works differently to the one on the Class 31 there was no movement. But when a screwdriver touches a wheel on the non pick up side and is also allowed to make contact with the metal bogie frame, the motor springs into life. After this light bulb moment I simply soldered a strips of copper to the tinplate ends of the armature housings , so that the other ends rested on the wheels.

dmu3.jpg (157.93 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

This works perfectly and the DMU runs like a dream. My layout uses mainly small radius streamline points with a few Peco set track Y points, and the DMU glides through them with out hesistation. The only alteration I had to make to the wheel was to cut the axle ends off flush with the wheels so that they fitted into the bogie frame. I wish I'd thought of this years ago, as 2 of my other Triang DMUs have had expensive new wheels fitted.

Ken