A 20t brake from coaches and stonework.
Before Christmas I was given a part completed model of a BR 20t brake van by a good friend. Damian (of Diesels in the Duchy 'fame') had dabbled in 7mm before and never got round to finishing the Slaters kit. Rather generously he thought it would be of use to me on Pencarrow.
Well it's been sat on the shelf for a few months whilst I've been working on my Maunsell coach but, I needed a break from that so this brake was picked up. Finishing the model as the BR version was obviously too easy and therefore I decided to alter it into the late LNER variant.
I did think that this would be straight forward but there's no end of differences. Those I've spotted are:
- Rainstrips should be flat and straight not curved
- Majority of the rivets on and around the ducket need to be removed
- The planking above and below the ducket is different
- Different arrangement of lamp irons on the ends
- No handrails on the end platforms
- Insets in the concrete end weights need to be filled (this seems correct for a Toad to Diag 158 but not the later 1/500)
- Different arrangement of handrails either side of the entries
- Shortened step boards
- Vacuum braking equipment added
- Different brake shoes
- Altered axle guards and J hangers (amending the kit parts to better reflect the shape in photos)
Most of the above alterations aren't mentioned in the Slaters destructions. Their drawings of the early Diag 61 van (no concrete ends) also includes the underframe trussing which of course shouldn't be there on the early vans. The kit doesn't mention the Vac equipment on the Diag 158 and there are no parts in the kit for it. Thankfully I've learned the hard way that it's best to look at books and photos before making stuff.
As the kit was part completed, some of the mods above required open kit surgery and a little backwards progress before moving forwards. Would have been easier to start with a fresh kit but where is the fun in that?
Like many others I've struggled to find details of how all the brake linkages work but there's a fair few photos buried within various threads on here and elsewhere. I've enough info now to produce a passable representation.
I did want to add chassis springing to this van using either bill Bedford or ambis parts but that would have required significantly more surgery to reset the solebars.
Today's first task is to find the roof vent I dropped in the full waste basket under my desk...
Surgery
Reconstruction (weight added to concrete slabs)
Slab mods
Stepbboard brackets
Weight added and Vac equipment
More underside work
Brakes, axle guards, J hangers, surgery for compensation units (late change of mind)
Step boards (shortened) being added
Roof detail. All the photos I carried show the rainstrip bring flat and straight rather than heavily curved (as per kit) or straight and raked (as per later BR builds).
Ducket detail. Majority of the rivets removed and the vertical planking extended to the edge of the ducket. Some tidying to do.
second stepboards