Scalefour Forum

Has anyone any experience of converting a Hornby B12 to P4?

I'll take that as a no then.

Perhaps we're all waiting for the correct driving wheels?

Surely in some darkened mountain workshop an intrepid engineer with googly eyes has already turned down the flanges of the Hornby wheels and reprofiled any other erroneous aspects. Or do such things only occur successfully in magazine articles? Perhaps the artisan is so engrossed in filing his spokes that time and place have lost all meaning and his cobweb draped skeleton still clutching a swiss 3 square will be found by a future version of Tony Robinson skipping between trenches in a holographic time team projected onto a coffee table.
Lest the membership be so reduced by such extreme requirements could somebody please help his Lordship soon. The integrity of the North Norfolk Area Group's layout 'North Elmham' depends upon the appearance of a B12.
Wot? No B12?
Never in the field of scale railway modelling has so much depended upon so few.
I thank you.

[quote="Crepello"]Perhaps we're all waiting for the correct driving wheels?[/quote.

Alternatively, one could accept a modicum of compromise and get on with it using the best option available.

John.

Alan Gibson for a start/compromise?
4878E 6’ 6" 26.0mm. 20 spoke LNER B12 Class Plain PB12" 4.00mm

Thanks John, that's handy to know.

I’m not that familiar with steam engines from the East (as in Anglia) but I always thought that Alan Gibson did a B12 driving wheel. If so there is probably a set with the correct axle size available. If not, then assuming that the chassis has brass bearings they can probably be reamed out to 1/8”. Unless the Hornby axles are 2mm...

Turning the flange down on a Hornby wheel is not for the faint hearted. The tyres are quite nice, but the flange is in the wrong place for a P4 wheel unless you are able to turn nearly a millimetre off the front face. Now the plastic of these wheels is very tough indeed (I have had trouble with a piecing saw!) and turning the front face off will result in quite furry spokes which will need a lot of cleaning up. I believe it has been done but on my little Unimat SL I didn’t fancy the idea.

A positive goer though is to remove the Hornby tread and reduce the plastic centre to take a Gibson tyre. For this again you will require a lathe of sorts and a mandrel. The axle hole can be reamed out to take an appropriate axle, new axles made and the wheel pressed on in the usual way. I have seen this done recently in a Hornby Peckett and it worked well.

Philip

Philip Hall wrote:A positive goer though is to remove the Hornby tread and reduce the plastic centre to take a Gibson tyre. For this again you will require a lathe of sorts and a mandrel. The axle hole can be reamed out to take an appropriate axle, new axles made and the wheel pressed on in the usual way. I have seen this done recently in a Hornby Peckett and it worked well.

Indeed it is possible. I’ve successfully re-tyred Hornby (BR standard 4MT 4-6-0) and Bachmann BR Standard 9F wheels. The latter was very time consuming but I feel the end, below, justified the means. A lathe, soft jaws, a couple of mandrels, patience and a can do attitude all played a part.



Morgan