7mm Hattons Gresley Coach

[James Fibbens]

John,

No, I took them off and put them in the bin as I don't think they look great and of course aren't functional. I have standardised on Slaters dummy buckeyes. I put these together such that they can be kept it the raised position - in which they will couple to each other (albeit not automatically), or dropped to allow coupling by non buckeye stock, i.e. mostly locos.

Cheers
James

 

[James Fibbens]

Here's a before and after comparison of the replacement buckeyes.

 

[John Ross]

Hi James

Thanks for info much appreciated.

All the best

John

 

[James Fibbens]

Just incase people are interested...I have found that the roofs can be removed as they are only a clip fit, albeit quite a strong one. This takes a bit of courage to do - to get the roof moving and un clip it from the body. I started by getting fingernail under the end of the roof and levering it up, then working my way along the sides. In addition to being careful and not over-bending the roof, you also need to be mindful of the bog water tank filler pipe on the end - I found this would slide up out of its brackets.

The only reason I no know how to do this is that on one of my coaches, during very light handling during weathering, three more windows separated from the bodysides (In addition to the one that was already loose upon first opening the box), and I wasn't in the mood to try and re-glue them in position from the outside only. (This is possible but tricky). N.B. Whilst handling the coach to remove the roof, one of the bogie spring planks fell off...!

As I remarked earlier, a pity that the build quality isn't a little more robust - I honestly think it would be if just a little more adhesive were used. One should be able to handle a model without bits of it falling off all the time.

 

[TheSnapper]

As I remarked earlier, a pity that the build quality isn't a little more robust - I honestly think it would be if just a little more adhesive were used. One should be able to handle a model without bits of it falling off all the time

It's possible that the assemblers have to pay for their own adhesive, and therefore use it sparingly....
Tim

 

[simond]

I bet that cuts down on waste, though I can imagine a proposal of a glue allowance at work leading to some undiplomatic language...

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

@Steph Dale made Kadee S scale couplers into dropheads in the thread here - Ker-lunk: Functional drop head couplers in 7mm scale posts #1, 5 and 12.