Modified Graham Farish Warship

Simon Glidewell

Western Thunderer
I thought you might like to see what's possible, modification wise, with the Farish Warship. The out of the box model is good; the body moulding is superb but what lets it down in my opinion is the chassis (as is so often the case with RTR locos). The loco sits too high and the wheels are nothing like the prototype. So I set about trying to correct these errors with one of two Warships that I've had for several years. The first loco I experimented on was one of the early releases, the maroon "Druid" with full yellow ends. From that, having learnt what was possible, I then went on to modify the BR green "Goliath" loco (one of the later releases). It has to be said that the conversion is not easy or for the faint hearted. First, the bogies are literally pulled out from the chassis (this is how they are designed to be removed). I reduced the ride height of the loco by carefully filing the upper plastic surfaces of the gear towers; you really have to be careful here because if you remove too much plastic the gears will start to bind. Once this is done the loco will now sit at the correct height and the buffer line will match other stock. The lower body fairing of a Warship should just "clip" visually the top of the wheels. Mine now does this and the improvement is vast and you'd be surprised how good it looks by just making this small adjustment. Then come the wheels; first the side frames are unclipped and the wheels are then pressed out of their axle holes, being careful not to damage the very delicate phosphor bronze pick ups. The first thing I did was to mark with a pencil the four characteristic holes in the disc wheels (some Warships had two holes or a mixture of two and four) and then gingerly drill these out with a fine drill bit in a watch makers hand drill. Be very careful here because the wheel surfaces are not flat and the drill bit can slide and score the brass very easily. The resulting holes improve the look of the wheels no end, and on the model they look very fine, much finer than they appear in the photo below. The wheels and the holes are tiny! Then come those dreadful over scale central bosses on the wheels; these had to go. On the older models it is very hard to reduce these in size; on the newer models like "Goliath" it is much easier. You just file the whole face of the wheel until there is hardly any of the boss left protruding. You now have a much finer wheel profile into the bargain. You then remove what's left with a rounded mini file so that you are left with a plain wheel surface and four holes. I made the new scale bosses from wooden cocktail sticks, cut to size and super glued on to the centre of the wheel; I then carefully filed these back to the correct distance from the wheel surface. On to these I then glued the speedo details, so distinctive on the Warships and Westerns. I used fine strands of copper wire to represent the speedo cables which are attached to the wheel speedo mechanisms, and are threaded through tiny drilled holes in the side frames. The round speedo drive was made from some brass rod glued onto a triangular piece of plasticard. To get the correct positions and details I checked loads of prototype photos. "Goliath" has three of these; two on one side and one on the other. Some Warships differed in this respect. I then added the two cables that hang down from the fairing just above the inner wheels (these are found on one end only on each side). I then detailed the front ends; getting the supplied brake pipes into the tiny holes is a complete pain in the harris as I'm sure many will testify! I also added the missing buffer step at each end which I made from very fine phosphor bronze strip and super glued these on (not easy I can tell you). The last thing I did was to paint the cab interiors; these have to be very carefully removed by releasing the very fragile lighting channel strips which can break just by thinking about them! I can't emphasise this enough; when putting them back in be very gentle as you push the blighters into their tiny holes; the ends can just snap off in a trice. Anyway the resulting loco really looks the business in the flesh (the photo does not do it justice) and is a vast improvement on the out of the box version. If you place an unmodified loco next to mine, the difference is huge, especially the ride height. I'd like to add some etched name plates if such a thing exists. I'm so impressed by the look of the loco that I might even build a small Cornish N gauge layout using the new bullhead track kits that are now on the market.Warship1.jpg
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
I like the look of that track very much Simon, excuse my ignorance but does un-modified N gauge loco's & stock run on this track?

I was going to ask that question as well since I could find no note of the track standards on the web site. I model FS160 using US outline N scale stock. FS160 is to N gauge - 9mm, but uses 2mmFS wheel standards and the 2mmFS track standards minus 0.42mm track gauge. It would be interesting to know the track standards for the track on the web site.

FS160 has been on the go for several years and is popular on the continent. The web site is here :-

http://www.fs160.eu/

Jim.
 

Simon Glidewell

Western Thunderer
I like the look of that track very much Simon, excuse my ignorance but does un-modified N gauge loco's & stock run on this track?

I think any modern N gauge locos with finer flanges will run on this track; it states that it is N gauge rather than 2mm fine scale. Somewhere on the website (maybe the home page) the owner describes what will run on his system.

Cheers
Simon
 
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