AJC
Western Thunderer
Since this is a genuinely GW piece of kit it seems sensible to start a thread in the appropriate forum. This started as a ‘simple’ re-gauging and detailing project retaining the original chassis. A quick – and far from comprehensive – tally of the work done, however, suggests that I may have got carried away…
Body Beautiful (or something like that; the thing is built like a second row forward, all broad shoulders and big back end)
Chassis
The nearly finished result is quite nice, all in all. You don’t see many models of these big tanks in black, the manufacturers and most modellers seem to prefer lined green and that’s fair enough, going on the photographs, so did Caerphilly works. When I get around to fully weathering it I envisage it being on the filthy side of grubby on the front of 30 or so minerals.
Adam
Body Beautiful (or something like that; the thing is built like a second row forward, all broad shoulders and big back end)
- Complete replacement of handrail knobs and ‘plain’ handrails. The boiler handrails were reused, however.
- New lamp irons (Masokits)
- Replacement vac’ and steam heat pipes.
- Smokebox dart, number plates, steps added to the buffers.
- Added injector pipework and all the usual thinning and titivation Iain Rice taught us how to do all those years ago.
- Enlarged cab ‘keyhole’ and thinned cab roof edges – this made the biggest difference to the model.
Chassis
- New wheels (Ultrascale – the loco’ came to me very cheaply so I could justify the expense). These entailed replacement balance weights and sundry mucking about.
- New brakegear – see my earlier post.
- Cosmetic frames behind the wheels.
- Cosmetic rear frames and front framing. Sounds simple but took a lot of thinking about though the end result is well worth the effort I think and, once thought about, only took an evening to complete. The rear frames are still far too narrow but are a country mile closer than what Bachmann provides. What Bachmann provides, however, is still there. I left the ‘radial truck’ alone though it’s actually no such thing. It consists of a sprung arrangement, reminiscent of a plunger pick-up, acts on the axle which runs inside a piece of what looks like phosphor bronze tube meaning that the wheelset is pushed, gently, onto the track. The axle can flop about in every plane going so I don’t think this qualifies as ‘proper engineering’ but if it stands up to service I will leave it be. The rods actually look quite good and are mechanically sound so I've left these alone too.
- New front sandpipes.
The nearly finished result is quite nice, all in all. You don’t see many models of these big tanks in black, the manufacturers and most modellers seem to prefer lined green and that’s fair enough, going on the photographs, so did Caerphilly works. When I get around to fully weathering it I envisage it being on the filthy side of grubby on the front of 30 or so minerals.
Adam