richard carr
Western Thunderer
I received my Dapol Mark 1 Coach today, a green BSK, green as this is the only livery available at the moment and the main point of obtaining one, is to see how easy or difficult it is to convert to S7.
I'm sure though that plenty of you would like to see one even if it is going to stay fine scale.
I have to say that I think the coach body is excellent, it really captures the look of a mark one, there is some good interior detail, probably more than I would put in a kit built one and the side profile is very good.
Get to the under frame and it's not quite so good, it's not bad the dynamo is good size and the brake detail representation isn't bad either.
But get to the bogies and it's not so good , it is ok from the side but there is little of the frame details, but for the price I'm not complaining I think these are excellent value for money and it has working lights too.
The main reason for me posting this though is how easy is it to convert to S7.
That depends on how you do it, I tried some Peartree wheels first, this would work except that the distance over the centres of the wheels is about 1mm too wide so although you can force the the bogie back together the wheels won't turn.
For the bogie on the right I have reused the supplied finescale wheels, these are reasonably close to S7 being 3.5mm thick with a 1mm flange, they run ok through my test track, so this is an easy cheap conversion as you can easily change the back to back to 31.2mm and this nicely removes what I consider to be excessive sideplay in the bogie for finescale.
I then tried some slaters wheels, these need some additional bearings and the pin point part of the axle needs to be cut off. I made my bearing from some 2.5mm outside diameter tube drilled out to 1.9mm internal diameter, these need to be about 4.5mm long. These the slip over the ends of the cut down slaters axle and fill the bogie bearing nicely. Ideally it would be nice to get some proper bearings machined up, but these will do for now.
I'll certainly be getting a good few more of these in maroon and blue and grey.
Richard
I'm sure though that plenty of you would like to see one even if it is going to stay fine scale.
I have to say that I think the coach body is excellent, it really captures the look of a mark one, there is some good interior detail, probably more than I would put in a kit built one and the side profile is very good.
Get to the under frame and it's not quite so good, it's not bad the dynamo is good size and the brake detail representation isn't bad either.
But get to the bogies and it's not so good , it is ok from the side but there is little of the frame details, but for the price I'm not complaining I think these are excellent value for money and it has working lights too.
The main reason for me posting this though is how easy is it to convert to S7.
That depends on how you do it, I tried some Peartree wheels first, this would work except that the distance over the centres of the wheels is about 1mm too wide so although you can force the the bogie back together the wheels won't turn.
For the bogie on the right I have reused the supplied finescale wheels, these are reasonably close to S7 being 3.5mm thick with a 1mm flange, they run ok through my test track, so this is an easy cheap conversion as you can easily change the back to back to 31.2mm and this nicely removes what I consider to be excessive sideplay in the bogie for finescale.
I then tried some slaters wheels, these need some additional bearings and the pin point part of the axle needs to be cut off. I made my bearing from some 2.5mm outside diameter tube drilled out to 1.9mm internal diameter, these need to be about 4.5mm long. These the slip over the ends of the cut down slaters axle and fill the bogie bearing nicely. Ideally it would be nice to get some proper bearings machined up, but these will do for now.
I'll certainly be getting a good few more of these in maroon and blue and grey.
Richard