Whilst at the SDR a couple of weeks ago I managed to pick up a pair of battered Peco 'O' gauge GWR Toads for the princely sum of £5. Ok, one was a wreck but it had a roof and wheels and the other was a basic body but little else (see pic). My challenge is to build one Toad from the bits and perhaps a grounded cabin with remainder. I'm going to have to source a couple of bits and scratch build the others. It might not end up as a work of art but it will give me a useable brake van. I hope. If it all fails a set of wheels and bearings would set me back a fiver anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. My first task is to sort out and clean up what I have and transfer the axle boxes from the loose solebars and fix them to the body and modify the pivoting suspension bit to make them work again and fix those to the body along with the chassis bit. Will put some pics up once I've done that as a progress report.
I have just purchased several kits so I'll be watching for any tips whilst you assemble your van. Cheers, Gary.
Bargin, and the wheels are pre weathered as well. Looks like most bits are there to make one up. Paul
Progress report 1. 1. Cleaned up the axle boxes and fitted then on the solebars of the body and sprung in one set of the wheels. 2. Cleaned up and repaired the suspended axle parts, replacing the pivot bar with brass wire as the plastic bar had been broken then made up a pair of pivot brackets and mounted everything in place before fitting the wheels. Surprise it ran a treat and was level. 3. I then cleaned out the buffer holes in the bufferbeams and fitted some Slater's GWR Wagon Buffers (The stocks anyway, will fit the heads after painting). I used the Slater's buffers as I don't like the Peco system. That's it for now. More tomorrow when I scratch build a brake standard and a couple of sand boxes and fit them onto the body.
That's a great job coming on well there Bittern, a real value buy too and i agree with you that Peco buffer system is not the best holding tings togeter with a small piece of piano wire... JLTRT wagon kits use the same system with the added disadvantage you have to cut a slot in the end of each buffer shank to hold the wire.
Here is the next little progress report. On the verandah there is a bench (locker) which goes the full width and two sandboxes mounted on the bench/locker. These were not in the bits so having a look at a pic on the web knocked all parts up from plasticard. Couldn't find a decent drawing to work from so used good old guess work and I was surprised that it looked ok. Then I turned to the brake standard. Again no dimensions were found so knocked something up out of scrap brass rod and wire. Looks convincing enough. As I said from the start it wasn't be a work of art but will suit its purpose. GWR brake vans are a nighmare as no two batches were the same so this is going to be a generic one. It will look all right but not for the rivet counters out there. Till next time when I will have a go at the steps.
Excellent Bittern, as long as you are happy with the end result then thats all that matters, I think you are making a top job! Pete.