Ken's workbench Bagnall meets hacksaw

[Mountain]

Very good. I love seeing old locos restored and rebuilt. Much more rewarding then buying new ones.

[GeraldH]

Very good. I love seeing old locos restored and rebuilt. Much more rewarding then buying new ones.

I concur most heartily!

[Ken Shabby]

This is the chassis from the Hornby single Freightliner Conflat from 1982. After many years in the spares box i fitted it with this.

Which after a bit of work ended up like this

Nowhere near to the standard of the Accurascale 21T MDV, but once finished and weathered it shouldn't look too bad

Ken

[Mountain]

Really good. Nice how a little work can change an old model and give it a new lease of life!

[Bigmet]

...Nowhere near to the standard of the Accurascale 21T MDV, but once finished and weathered ...

...it will look like a BR mineral wagon getting the routine battering in the coal traffic operation. There's a subtle suggestion of a welded in plating repair at the left hand end...

My Accurascale wagons are few in number, to represent wagons on their first or second revenue trip, or alternatively being ferried to a trade show. Already have plenty of 'hammered' specimens. One thing that can be said about the steel wagons as operating on BR by the late fifties, they give full scope for 'damaged but still in traffic'; it would be interesting to read if there was a standard for setting vehicles aside for assessment of body work repair/replacement/recycling. Some of the histeel opens in particular looked to have received the attentions of a superstrength madman with a very heavy hammer.

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finishedbag1.jpg
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.

Is it shortening the chassis, or changing the wheels you haven't seen? If it's the latter here's Nellie sporting a set of Romford 14mm (3'6") wheels. Obviously it's the old Triang chassis but they produce axles to fit the newer plastic chassis including the knurled section for the gear. Also the brass bearings for the standard axles make a reducing bush for Triang axle holes.

The rods came from a GWR 101 and the cylinders came from spares for the ex Dapol Pug.

I can also offer a nameless Nellie clone as an 0-6-0.
The chassis coming from an H0 scale 0-6-0 imported a few years ago by Golden Valley decorated with a GWR livery. The red body came complete with Lord of the Isles dome which I lack the courage to remove in case it wrecks the boiler top.

[Ken Shabby]

Both those Nellies look very good, was it difficult to secure the body to the 0-6-0 chassis ? , I have had several projects stall because I could not find a way to get the body to sit straight and at the correct level on the chassis.
This is one of them.

AS you can see it's a Hornby 0-4-0 chassis with a primitive chassis extension made out of part of a wooden clothes peg. The groove in the peg which helped hold the peg spring now has a metal tube which is out of one of those white plastic electrical connection blocks for joining wires.
The axles is fitted through the tube and it has a lot of sideways movement allowing the now 2-4-0 chassis to run on tight curves.

The body is missing in action, It was from the Hornby 0-4-0 D class fitted with a Mainline J25 cab and the smoke box from a Triang Nellie.
Maybe I'll get round to finishing it one day.
Ken

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The 0-6-0 chassis had a feature I've not seen anywhere else, four or five thin plastic fingers sticking out either side of the chassis, intended I think to stiffen the bottom edges of the side tanks. The Nellie body just pushed on, stayed in place, the end to end alignment was purely by chance exactly right. It was obviously intended to be. The original body was H0 scale and it showed, so it had languished in a draw for a couple of years.

[Ken Shabby]

My latest purchase. won for £12.99 and listed as spares or repair. Repairs turned out to be a replacement motion bracket and a service
The loco runs very well indeed, it's quiet and the magnet still seems very strong.
It appears to be made up of 2 locos, as it has a green body and plated wheels, and I've only found pictures of the early 70's crimson LMs version with these wheels.
Ken

[Bigmet]

That Princess was a good find. Think you are likely correct that a past owner has combined the early 70s mechanism with an earlier body to make this combination. Just watch that XO4 like a hawk! The moment it loses power, off for a remag!

...a nameless Nellie clone as an 0-6-0. The chassis coming from an H0 scale 0-6-0 imported a few years ago by Golden Valley decorated with a GWR livery. The red body came complete with Lord of the Isles dome which I lack the courage to remove in case it wrecks the boiler top.

Coming late to this, the 'big dome' is great. Just paint it over. It's an 'olde puffer' with a steam dome that size!

As for the small outside cylinder 0-6-0T mechanisms under the Golden Valley branded HO tank locos, that's a super item. I have used a couple to repower friend's old industrial models previously 'somewhat hampered' in appearance by an old oversize mechanism. Look how well it integrates with the 'Nellie' body, cylinders directly beneath the smokebox, firebox ashpan between the middle and rear coupled axles; all just as it should be so the ensemble looks right.

I still have one lurking, that was sold with a scouring powder name, what was it? Bon Ami, Vim, Comet, Barkeeper's Friend, Cif, Cillit Bang? Aha, Ajax! When I get around to using it for an old crock, 'Bon Ami' could be a good joke of a name for the resulting inaccurate but charming outcome. Open cab of course, but with a tarp frame for weather protection...

[Ken Shabby]

I spent this afternoon working on 3 troublesome locos. The Lima 37 appeared never to have been run when I bought it, and it was a terrible runner.
As well as lubricating it needed the wire from the trailing bogie re soldered
The Class 25 was a cheap buy during lockdown, I had done some very mild detailing on it , but had found recently it kept derailing on points when running trailing bogie first. It looked like the trailing bogie had been dismantled many times as the plastic bogie frame would no longer grip the metal casting tightly, and this caused the whole thing to droop. I managed to solve this by super gluing a small Lego brick in the hollow gap between the wheels, and then gluing and clamping the bogie so it stayed tightly together until the glue had dried.

This Grafar Pannier has been a right pain since I bought it, and it got to the stage where I was considering just attempting to use a Triang Jinty chassis under the body. It has been in bits many times over the last few years, and now finally I managed to get reasonable running out of it by soldering wire directly from the pick ups to the motor. It's still a has a bit of a wobble but it will do for now.

Ken

[Bigmet]

...This Grafar Pannier has been a right pain since I bought it, and it got to the stage where I was considering just attempting to use a Triang Jinty chassis under the body...

If you ever spot a current Bachmann 57xx going cheap with a good mechanism, snap it up. (They do exist, I got one recently with a melted body for £20, sold as 'for spares'; ran perfectly with the body off.) This is the correct w/b for a 94xx pannier and does help the overall appearance.

[Ken Shabby]

This is a project from 2 years ago which I have revisited as I wasn't really happy with the end result. If you scroll back to some of my earlier posts you'll see some photos of the original conversion.
The loco originally had it's cast metal footplate narrowed slightly with a hacksaw and a similarly narrowed Hornby class 06 cab fitted..
This reduced the size of this giant shunter ,but cutting away the cast metal footplate and the steps had left it weakened and delicate.
Here's the Mk2 version, which is the Bagnall chassis and bonnet again fitted with the narrowed O6 cab but now on a reversed Pug chassis. A small amount of cutting was needed and a scrap Jinty body provided the cab steps..
Ken

[Bigmet]

Looks a lot better! The faded BR blue and suggestion of rust and dirt is just the thing too.

[Ken Shabby]

My much loved Triang 3F now has a new tender.
A while back I read that only one class member had a tender any like the Triang one, and started looking for a replacement.
I found a unbuilt Ratio Midland tender on ebay, which I vaguely recall was part of a early Midland 4-4-0 kit back in the eighties. The kit went together without any problems, except for the handbrake handle, which had to be replaced by a slightly too chunky one from a Triang toad. I'm not bothered by the lack of daylight under the boiler, but I do want to find a easy way of making a smoke box door plate.
The back to backs have been altered and she's a excellent runner.
Ken