PaulR
Western Thunderer
I'm going to blame Gordon Gravett for this. He did a talk recently at Pendon Museum on 'The Art of Compromise' and had Arun Quay running there with two terriers made from the old Vulcan kits. Let's face it, Arun Quay is the business - and terriers are just about my favourite locomotive!
I modelled in O Gauge for a time until about fifteen years ago. I built four locos in all, which I was pleased with at the time except for a Roxey Mouldings terrier which never ran well despite it being a good kit. I was actually quite ill when I made it and it was hastily constructed. Soon after this I gave up railway modelling for a few years.
The day after Gordon's talk I decided to get my old O Gauge stuff out and have a reminisce. When I looked at the terrier, it was obvious why it didn't run. I won't pretend otherwise - it was appalling - badly made, badly painted - just a complete dog's breakfast!
I unscrewed the chassis and had a look at that - good grief!
Although I'm committed to 4mm scale and am working on 'Old Parrock', I couldn't help thinking that the best way to lay the ghost here was to see if I could rescue this poor wretch. I'm fairly impetuous by nature and it only took about five minutes to decide to strip it down and see what could be done.
The body was put aside and I stripped down the frames. It wasn't a pretty sight.
However, I did believe that there was hope. Everything was carefully cleaned up. The Mashima motor with ABC gearbox was held gently in a vice and given a good run, the woeful hornblocks were discarded and new ones made - I decided to stick with a rigid chassis on this occasion. I also decided that the frames needed extra bracing. The new hornblocks were set up with coupling rods through the jig. This time all was extremely carefully measured and re-measured before committing the soldering iron.
Once set up with the coupling rods and motor it ran smoothly for a couple of hours in both directions which was very pleasing. Today I've started working on the brake gear, as this photo illustrates.
I'm now confident that I can finish the chassis to a good standard. The body may be more challenging and is going to need a lot of work. It's mainly whitemetal but it all looks a bit 'thick' and some of the fittings are crude so I will probably want to replace stuff.
The unlined black livery was late 1930s, a little too late for my tastes, so I'm going to repaint it in the post 1931 lined green livery, an opportunity to practice airbrushing and bow pen lining, I've got nothing to lose. I'll keep posting...
I modelled in O Gauge for a time until about fifteen years ago. I built four locos in all, which I was pleased with at the time except for a Roxey Mouldings terrier which never ran well despite it being a good kit. I was actually quite ill when I made it and it was hastily constructed. Soon after this I gave up railway modelling for a few years.
The day after Gordon's talk I decided to get my old O Gauge stuff out and have a reminisce. When I looked at the terrier, it was obvious why it didn't run. I won't pretend otherwise - it was appalling - badly made, badly painted - just a complete dog's breakfast!
I unscrewed the chassis and had a look at that - good grief!
Although I'm committed to 4mm scale and am working on 'Old Parrock', I couldn't help thinking that the best way to lay the ghost here was to see if I could rescue this poor wretch. I'm fairly impetuous by nature and it only took about five minutes to decide to strip it down and see what could be done.
The body was put aside and I stripped down the frames. It wasn't a pretty sight.
However, I did believe that there was hope. Everything was carefully cleaned up. The Mashima motor with ABC gearbox was held gently in a vice and given a good run, the woeful hornblocks were discarded and new ones made - I decided to stick with a rigid chassis on this occasion. I also decided that the frames needed extra bracing. The new hornblocks were set up with coupling rods through the jig. This time all was extremely carefully measured and re-measured before committing the soldering iron.
Once set up with the coupling rods and motor it ran smoothly for a couple of hours in both directions which was very pleasing. Today I've started working on the brake gear, as this photo illustrates.
I'm now confident that I can finish the chassis to a good standard. The body may be more challenging and is going to need a lot of work. It's mainly whitemetal but it all looks a bit 'thick' and some of the fittings are crude so I will probably want to replace stuff.
The unlined black livery was late 1930s, a little too late for my tastes, so I'm going to repaint it in the post 1931 lined green livery, an opportunity to practice airbrushing and bow pen lining, I've got nothing to lose. I'll keep posting...
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- here's some inspiration - 
