Hornby Drummond 700

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Hardwicke
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Hornby Drummond 700

Postby Hardwicke » Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:47 pm

Anyone converted a Hornby 700? I know the handrails are wrong. Anyone changed the handrails too? Are wheels available or straight swap/ easichas?
Ordsall Road (BR(E)), Forge Mill Sidings (BR(M)), Kirkcliffe Coking Plant (BR(E)), Swanage (BR (S)) and Heaby (LMS/MR). Acquired Thorneywood (GNR). Still trying to "Keep the Balance".

Philip Hall
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Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby Philip Hall » Sun Jan 13, 2019 8:52 pm

I’ve done one in EM and have one for myself in P4. I don’t think I’m going to do anything about the handrails, as they are not too bad from a distance and replacement will be fiddly.

Two potential problems:

1. Clearance inside the splashers. I had to clear out space for EM wheels so P4 will be tighter. Just enough room for 1.85mm wide wheelsets but Alan Gibson are 2.00mm. The cab splashers are part of the cab side die-castings so are unpleasant stuff to mill out clearance from.
2. Alan Gibson wheels are set to a greater crankthrow than the prototype, 12”, the correct is 9”. I can’t remember whether these wheels are ready drilled for crankpins or whether you have to drill them yourself. If the former you have to plug and redrill, if the latter you have to ignore the dimple and drill correctly. I know this because I didn’t realise the problem and had a huge amount of hacking to underneath the footplate to get it to run without the rods clouting everywhere. With hindsight, it also looks wrong.

Otherwise it runs beautifully, well worth doing. I don’t know if an Easichas is available, but won’t use one on mine anyway because it runs so well as it comes. I’ll try and find a photo of the EM one later this evening.

Philip
Last edited by Philip Hall on Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Philip Hall
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Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby Philip Hall » Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:24 pm

Picture of the EM one as promised. You can just see where I had the grief with the excess throw of the driving wheels, all splashers had to be widened inside and there wasn’t a lot left. On this engine I experimented with drilling the crankpin holes out and tapping 10BA for the Hornby crankpins. I shan't do that again as it was dickens of a job to hold the pins to screw them in vertically.

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Hardwicke
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Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby Hardwicke » Sun Jan 13, 2019 10:13 pm

What size and spoke are they? No access to my books tonight....
Ordsall Road (BR(E)), Forge Mill Sidings (BR(M)), Kirkcliffe Coking Plant (BR(E)), Swanage (BR (S)) and Heaby (LMS/MR). Acquired Thorneywood (GNR). Still trying to "Keep the Balance".

Mark Tatlow
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Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:24 pm

Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby Mark Tatlow » Mon Jan 14, 2019 8:59 am

Phil,

What was the dimension between splashers before and after you went a grinding? I have a J36 on the desk and suspect I have a similar issue.



Mark
Mark Tatlow

Philip Hall
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Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby Philip Hall » Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:24 am

Michael,
No idea, sorry, I don’t have the engine now. The wheels were supplied with the engine, and I believe they were the standard Alan Gibson conversion pack. I have another set for my own one but they are 1/8” axles for a kit build I was going to do one day (until I got a set of Sharmans instead). These ones are not of current production - see my last comment below.

Mark,
I would have to measure the one I have to do for my railway, but am not able to access it at the moment. As far as I can recall I worked out that 1.85mm wide wheels would just about fit, 2.0mm would need a bit of hacking. So not much will hopefully be the answer. Most of the clearance problems were self inflicted by dint of not noticing the excess throw of the supplied wheels. Because I also used the Hornby crankpins, I couldn’t reduce the size of the bosses as I usually do, which of course made the clearance problem even worse...

It may well be that current wheels as supplied by AG do have the correct 9” throw, so will pay to check which wheel they supply in the conversion pack.

Philip

BorderCounties
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Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2010 6:19 pm

Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby BorderCounties » Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:34 pm

Mark

Just measured my J36 - 21.24mm between the splashers - grinding will be required. At least the measurement is consistent.

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CDGFife
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Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby CDGFife » Tue Jan 15, 2019 9:31 am

My mate Ian Terrell has done a Hornby 700 which has run a couple of times on Cadhay. It looks lovely but the comment was that he'd had to take "as much as I dared" from the back of the splashers to get the Gibson wheels to fit. Still it's run pretty well.

As you might imagine we've also had some discussion up here about the J36 and the consensus now several have their hands on them is that the splashers will require similar work.

Chris

Philip Hall
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Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby Philip Hall » Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:12 am

Another possibility would be to try and reduce the width of the Alan Gibson wheels, by taking off the tyres and filing the front carefully. Obviously how much depends on the thickness of the front of the recess in the tyre. I would not try this with the tyre in place because there would be no way of telling how much you can take off. If anything!

Philip

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android
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Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby android » Sat Dec 21, 2019 3:34 pm

I've read through this thread, and the one on converting the Schools, and both mention grinding the cast metal splasher backs. How does one set about this, apparently unpleasant, task?!

Andrew

Philip Hall
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Re: Hornby Drummond 700

Postby Philip Hall » Sat Dec 21, 2019 4:03 pm

Andrew, just use a parallel sided burr or mill in a mini drill, run quite slowly and with eye protection. Sweep the burr from side to side and gradually reduce the thickness of the splashers or whatever. Keep an eye on the front face as well as you will see tell tale signs of breaking through before you actually do.

As you say, an unpleasant job. It takes a long time as well...

Philip


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