Suitable Plastic Kits for conversion to Scalefour

[Noel Ottaway]

I am considering seriously switching to Scalefour British outline railway modelling. Currently I have One kit by D&S of a NE/GN 5 ton Refrigerator van, One Cooper Craft plastic kit for a GWR O5 Four plank open wagon and Two Parkside Dundas LNER bogie sulphate wagon kits.
I am wondering if these kits are suitable for conversion to Scalefour operation.

Any comments will be most appreciated.

Noel Ottaway

[Noel Ottaway]

Thankyou for your comment. I am considering applying for membership of the Scalefour Society.

Regards,

Noel Ottaway

[Russ Elliott]

Noel - all of those are do-able. The D&S will probably come with its own set of rocking W-irons. Not everyone's favourite design it has to be said, because they are a bit of a fiddle to bend up and can be a bit flimsy under a whitemetal body weight. You might want to consider another type of rocking W-iron like MJT, or a sprung version like Bill Bedford or Masokits. The Coopercraft open will need more work because the axleboxes and springs are moulded in: usual practice is to chop these off, use metal W-irons (either rocking or sprung, according to choice) and then reapply the old plastic bits onto those, or use new axleboxes and springs from MJT. The key to doing these types of plastic wagons is to build the W-irons first before the body, and make sure there is enough room between the solebars for them to fit during body construction, for example by taking off all the floor underside ribs where the new W-irons will go, i.e. making sure there is enough height inside the chassis for the new units. (I also file a recess in the thick plastic solebars for steel solebar wagons, in order to keep the outside of the solebar set at a reasonable prototypical distance.)

The bogie wagon should be fine as it is - the bogie wheelbase is very short, so you shouldn't need to doing any special for it to be fine in P4. But you'll need a bit of added weight!

[Paul Willis]

I am considering seriously switching to Scalefour British outline railway modelling. Currently I have One kit by D&S of a NE/GN 5 ton Refrigerator van, One Cooper Craft plastic kit for a GWR O5 Four plank open wagon and Two Parkside Dundas LNER bogie sulphate wagon kits.
I am wondering if these kits are suitable for conversion to Scalefour operation.

Any comments will be most appreciated.

Hi Noel,

If I have pulled from the stock boxes the models that I think I have, I have built a couple of the kits that you mentioned, constructed to P4.

First the Coopercraft GWR Open: this is actually uncompensated/unsprung. I simply ensured that the chassis was built squarely, with brass bearings and pinpoint axles. Oh, and a *lot* of lead weight inside it. It seems to run okay on reasonable (well, built by me) trackwork.

Secondly, I have a D&S outside framed covered van, which I believe is the NER one. This has had, as Russ suggested, the D&S W-irons replaced with some rocking MJT ones from the Society.

If I was building both kits now, I would probably use springing rather than compensation, but many of us have numerous frets of etched W-irons to use up...

So yes, it can be done, and relatively easily as well.

HTH
Flymo

[Penrhos1920]

I am considering seriously switching to Scalefour British outline railway modelling. Currently I have .... One Cooper Craft plastic kit for a GWR O5 Four plank open wagon .....kits.
I am wondering if these kits are suitable for conversion to Scalefour operation.

Any comments will be most appreciated.

Noel Ottaway

I've done a few coopercraft kits using Bill Bedford 1907 sprung w-irons, but you will have your heart in your mouth as you thin the solebars and slice of the plastic w-irons to leave just the axlebox and springs. I've also used the Masokits Fold-up Sprung Subframe kit 6.08: 9' 0" GWR Dean Churchward Cross-Cornered brakes. You won't need all of the parts but you will also need kit 1.01 which has the swan neck lever. In both cases I've dumped the kit floor and replaced with a 3 laminate floor of scribed plasticard planking, lead, plain plasticard.

In conclusion, although this kit is a good starter for OO, it needs a lot of effort for a good P4 model; at least when your track is a colliery like as mine.

[Dave K]

I've done a few coopercraft kits using Bill Bedford 1907 sprung w-irons, but you will have your heart in your mouth as you thin the solebars and slice of the plastic w-irons to leave just the axlebox and springs.

I've done this many times and finely got feed up with rubbing w-irons up and down on files and or wet & dry paper to get them thin enough and adding all the bits that are missing that I decided the easy option was to have etched solebars to go together with an Exactoscale sprung underframes.