Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

nberrington
Posts: 575
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:15 pm

Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby nberrington » Wed May 06, 2020 9:31 pm

I’ve successfully converted Hornby Maunsell coaches to P4 without issue. I got a shock when I flipped this guy over...

Has anyone converted one of these?

Backstop plan is to trash the wheel housings in favour of some Bill Bedford W irons or the old MGT ones I have kicking about someplace

Suggestions?

B278E3BE-C89F-4892-8DF9-8DFD0BC858DF.jpeg

D3809F30-8433-4156-97EB-A93E18948666.jpeg
8715D976-BD77-4176-985E-DBF997E97163.jpeg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

David Knight
Posts: 810
Joined: Sun Jul 20, 2008 6:02 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby David Knight » Wed May 06, 2020 11:35 pm

Hi Neil,

Mr Hornby was not thinking about P4 modellers when he designed this van. I took one look and decided a Parkside kit was a better idea. The closest I've come to it was doing the Hornby LMS Horse Box which was a bit of a faff and I'm not happy with the results either. It's in my sin bin waiting for inspiration and a tranquil mood. Doubtless there will be some good advice from other quarters but I suspect new underpinnings will be involved.

Cheers,

David

Philip Hall
Posts: 1944
Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2009 7:49 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Philip Hall » Thu May 07, 2020 12:03 am

I have successfully converted one of these to P4 and I have another two to do for myself.

I retained the inside bearings, removing the pinpoints on the axles. At the fixed end, I just dropped the wheels in. I don’t think I used any washers on the inside ‘cradle’ to restrict sideplay as there is only just enough room for the P4 wheels anyway.

On the other end, I engineered/bodged a rocking axle within the ‘cradle’, by removing a little plastic from either side of the axle slot so it could move upwards a little, and did the same for the ‘clamping clip’ to allow downward movement. I then arranged a central pivot point with a thickish piece of styrene, cut to lie just below the axle centre. Actually it’s best to do this before cutting the axle slots so you can set the height of the pivot point. I then drilled a small hole in the piece of styrene and inserted a dressmakers pin, set so it sat snugly under the axle.

The rocking axle pivots on this pin, but because it is a curved surface there is virtually no drag, and the van was almost as free running as a pin point fitted vehicle, and quite steady on the track. I am tempted on the next one to put two of these pins on the fixed axle as well to reduce drag even more. The van needed a bit more weight, and a nice touch is to add collars to the buffer shanks.

A good friend decided he couldn’t live with the underframe as supplied and ended up springing and generally refining it with new components. However, it took him three times as long, if not more, than my method...

I’m afraid I can’t agree that the Parkside kit is a better bet. Maybe because you can engineer a better underframe, but I haven’t a chance of finishing the upperworks to Hornby’s standard. I have some Parkside kits to build but I will struggle to match the RTR ones. I should say that I have also successfully converted the Bachmann Southern van without any compensation at all, but that at least has outside bearings. However, I used a slightly deeper flange on this vehicle, produced to my special order. And before you think I simply used an EM wheel, I didn’t!

I doubt I have any photos of the conversion because it was a long time ago, but I will have a look later this week.

Philip
Last edited by Philip Hall on Thu May 07, 2020 8:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Porcy Mane
Posts: 129
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:55 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Porcy Mane » Thu May 07, 2020 12:36 am

I went the springing route. Long time since I did mine so some of the details may be a bit hazy.

Modified Bill Bedford LSWR W irons. For this job, they'r not quite right as they don't drop below the bottom of the axle box enough but I can live with that. I think the brake blocks and bow strings will probably have been Old Mopok/ABS castings.

To obtain the correct ride height the W Irons had the be raised by the equivalent thickness of the chassis floor. Fortunately the Hornby chassis is moulded from a solvent friendly plastic.

HnbyVanCSusp-4-SM2.jpg


HnbyVanCSusp-5-SM2.jpg


P
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

Terry Bendall
Forum Team
Posts: 2416
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:46 am

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Terry Bendall » Thu May 07, 2020 6:43 am

I have not done one of these and the arrangements are different to other long wheel based Hornby products. However my usual method of a fixed axle in the existing bearings as Philip suggests and a rocking W iron at the other end would be my preferred method. I know that some don't like the idea of rocking W irons but they work and are fairly simple to do.

Terry Bendall

Philip Hall
Posts: 1944
Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2009 7:49 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Philip Hall » Thu May 07, 2020 8:14 am

I have just thought that an alternative would be to use the little Masokits spring carriers in the Hornby W irons. I am always keen to used as much of what is provided so long as it looks good enough.

Another possibility is to use the MJT inside bearing units, making one fixed and the other rocking. With the length of your trains on Swanage the slight lack of free running shouldn’t be a problem.

Philip

Steve Carter
Posts: 643
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 6:51 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Steve Carter » Thu May 07, 2020 9:47 am

BRM November 2008 has an article by Geoff Meredith on converting the Hornby van C to P4.
It was very simple to follow, the only difference I made was to use a MJT inside bearing unit. It sat too high so some cutting of the floor was needed to get the unit at the right height. Now MJT do a low profile unit that may work better.
PM on its way Neil.
Steve Carter

Jeremy Good
Posts: 278
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:36 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Jeremy Good » Sun Jun 07, 2020 9:09 pm

I’ve done mine using a Masokits Universal Springing unit retaining as much of the Hornby moulding as possible. The W-Irons do get a bit thin but there is sufficient brass from the springing units to support the W-irons.

I’ve attached 2 photos which should hopefully show how this fits together.

DB5DC9F2-A9A1-4079-B9C7-1C4AB732459A.jpeg

EFA75B1C-A3EC-46FE-B66A-AF067C7C39BD.jpeg


I’ve been trying to work out how to replace the brakes and tonight have used some Masokits Clasp Brake etches attached to the spring underfames and using the Masokits PMV kit as a guide. It seems to have come out reasonable well. I’ll post some photos when I’ve cleaned it up.

Jeremy
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

nberrington
Posts: 575
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:15 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby nberrington » Sun May 23, 2021 5:24 pm

So here we go:

Dismantling the van is easy - gentle pulling here and there.
Just replacing the wheels didn’t work well, so I drilled out the axle boxes with my trusty Bob Payne drill and inserted some brass bearings. The van weighs only 2 oz, so I bumped it up to 3 with some lead over each axle

Dirtied up, but I see the guard cleared his window a bit.

The brake fittings need s rethink, but the model has a ton of detail - Hornby did a nice job on all kinds of rails and latches.
B2D5A1D4-31D7-4EEA-91AE-C329EA9095CC.jpeg

33C5C80E-5EE2-4DD1-9D59-6F58B5A9D7E1.jpeg

659B3788-CD00-4E2B-83CC-774FC1BB319F.jpeg


.
0AA931BB-3A18-49C9-8188-093C7E6901C5.jpeg
BA32710B-9A65-4E9C-A3C7-B43831370A11.jpeg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

User avatar
Noel
Posts: 1973
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2010 1:04 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Noel » Sun May 23, 2021 8:31 pm

SR BYs had mesh behind the windows [apart from the Guard's, of course] plus a 4 (vertical) x 3 (horizontal) grille behind that. The grille was bauxite in BR days; I don't know what it was when built, but it was a pale colour, possibly white or grey. It is very conspicuous, at least if you can see through the windows, which wasn't always the case in BR days. The bogie version was the same. From memory MJT do a black mesh printed on clear plastic and Blacksmith do an etch for the grille [which are still waiting for me to start painting my Parkside version]. Apologies if you already know all this...

PS A piece of trivia, the periscope wipers should be one up, one down.
Regards
Noel

bécasse
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 8:26 am

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby bécasse » Sun May 23, 2021 9:17 pm

The real things were usually appalling dirty. There was something about the design that caused them to attract brake-block dust and once it got onto the wooden bodyside it stayed there. A van's painted number was usually wiped clear but that was about it, even the guard's window was usually filthy, they lowered the droplight if they needed to look out but they usually used the periscopes for observing signals, etc.

In the second half of the sixties, in most cases, the only way to tell if the actual body colour was blue or green was to look at the type face used for the painted number.

User avatar
Noel
Posts: 1973
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2010 1:04 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Noel » Mon May 24, 2021 10:05 am

bécasse wrote:The real things were usually appalling dirty. There was something about the design that caused them to attract brake-block dust and once it got onto the wooden bodyside it stayed there. A van's painted number was usually wiped clear but that was about it, even the guard's window was usually filthy, they lowered the droplight if they needed to look out but they usually used the periscopes for observing signals, etc.

In the second half of the sixties, in most cases, the only way to tell if the actual body colour was blue or green was to look at the type face used for the painted number.


True, I saw plenty of NPCCS in that condition then, but this is not necessarily relevant to SR days or BR circa 1960. By the late 1960s traffic patterns were changing, operational patterns were changing, and SR 4-wheel guards vans were close to being life expired. Withdrawals started in the mid-1960s, and BYs had largely ceased to be used by guards about the same time [they could travel in the rear cab of diesel locos from 1968, which confirmed this tendency], hence the dirty guards' windows. From 1969 this was formalised by the removal of lighting and handbrakes and they became just another parcels van. I think it was also 1968 when Guards were relieved of responsibility for checking signals, so no more need for periscopes.
Regards
Noel

bécasse
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 8:26 am

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby bécasse » Mon May 24, 2021 12:10 pm

They were certainly absolutely filthy much earlier than the late-1960s, I obviously don't remember them before the early-1950s but they were certainly filthy then and again it could be very difficult to be certain whether they were green or red.

There may have been a few outstations where they got the benefit of some attention from carriage washers who perhaps only had a handful of actual carriages to clean, but otherwise they weren't washed (although the bogie luggage vans sometimes went through carriage-washers with the coaching rake they were attached to) and, as I have already indicated, brake-block dust stuck to their wooden sides almost as well as if it had been sprayed-on paint. It was often quite difficult to even see the yellow (orange?) patch that indicated a stove-fitted van. The only time that they looked clean was when they were fresh out of shops.

User avatar
Noel
Posts: 1973
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2010 1:04 pm

Re: Hornby Maunsell Van C Brake

Postby Noel » Mon May 24, 2021 3:16 pm

bécasse wrote:yellow (orange?) patch that indicated a stove-fitted van


Orange on the SR, yellow on BR so far as I know.
Regards
Noel


Return to “Coaches and NPCS”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: ClaudeBot and 1 guest