Rob Pulham
Western Thunderer
Earlier this year whilst doing a demo, a gent asked Chris if I built whitemetal kits (I was having some lunch at the time). She told him I did and he contacted me after the show.
It turned out that what he was looking for was someone to build some very early 4mm scale DJH Loco kit's of Highland locos - Specifically a Barney and a Jones Goods. I agreed that I would build them and rather innocently told him that I would endeavour to have them finished by the end of the year. At that point I had no idea how much time Chris's exhibition would take up so here we are almost at the end of the year so I thought I would at least try to keep my promise.
I started with the tender and I didn't really like the idea of putting axles into the whitemetal axle boxes without bearings so I cut down some 7mm wagon top hat bearings which fitted the Markits axles perfectly.
As soon as I looked at the brake standard it broke but luckily while looking in my spares box for bit's to scratch build a replacement I found a rather nice cast one left from my 4mm days so I used that.
There were some rather nice turned sprung buffers in the kit but sadly the frames got in the way for the tails/nuts so I agreed with the client to cut them of and make them unsprung. The vac pipe is scratched from various thickness of rod/wire and some thin walled tube.
It turned out that what he was looking for was someone to build some very early 4mm scale DJH Loco kit's of Highland locos - Specifically a Barney and a Jones Goods. I agreed that I would build them and rather innocently told him that I would endeavour to have them finished by the end of the year. At that point I had no idea how much time Chris's exhibition would take up so here we are almost at the end of the year so I thought I would at least try to keep my promise.
I started with the tender and I didn't really like the idea of putting axles into the whitemetal axle boxes without bearings so I cut down some 7mm wagon top hat bearings which fitted the Markits axles perfectly.
As soon as I looked at the brake standard it broke but luckily while looking in my spares box for bit's to scratch build a replacement I found a rather nice cast one left from my 4mm days so I used that.
There were some rather nice turned sprung buffers in the kit but sadly the frames got in the way for the tails/nuts so I agreed with the client to cut them of and make them unsprung. The vac pipe is scratched from various thickness of rod/wire and some thin walled tube.