G`day Folks, I don`t know if anyone else has tried this, but I`ve developed the following method over the last couple of years. I recently acquired a Lima Class 27, originally as a source of spare parts , however I seem to be repairing it instead. One of the things that needs fixing is a missing buffer head. My method for creating a new replacement part is a follows. Firstly measure the diameter of the original part with a pair of digital callipers, in this case the measurement is 6.6mm Take some cereal box card and punch a suitable piece out of it. I have hole punches of various sizes. In this instance I used a 6.5mm punch.......the difference of 0.1 of a mm will be difficult to spot. We end up with a lovely little disk of the ( approx. ) correct size. Now the replacement buffer head will be difficult to glue directly to the housing on the buffer, so I use a small flat head nail of an appropriate dimension, that will slide easily into the housing. The flat head gives us a good surface to glue the buffer head onto. The nail has to go all the way in, to try and match the other buffers, which are flush up against their housings. So the nail has to be trimmed The nail is then glued into the housing because it is a loose fit. A drop of Superglue is then put onto the nail head and then the card disk is applied to the nail head and centered quickly. Check the vertical and horizontal alignments and make adjustments quickly before the glue sets. The Superglue penetrates the back side of the card and gives it a plastic quality. Then paint the buffer head Black. I usually paint the other buffers as well so that they all match in colour and tone. I have a selection of other sizes in my hole punch stocks, so it`s reasonably easy to find the right size for the job. I hope you find this method useful Gormo
Gormo I have quite a few or should I say had quite a few drawing pins in all sorts of sizes thinking I had ordered the size I wanted. You are right OO size would take some finding.
Nice work Gormo ! The old hole punch does wonders. I used one to build my fire hose reels ! Cheers, Gary.
Yes I remember that Gary and it worked very well. I`ve also used this method to overlay larger buffer heads onto existing ones to help with shunting. Gormo
