Two problem cases
Here are a couple of kitbuilt locos which, in their different ways, need some decisions taken.
The C2X was my first kit and proved to be quite a saga. I've gone over it before but the gist is that, after building the loco in 2000, I could never get it to run satisfactorily. Finally, I took it along to one of the Missenden Abbey weekends where Tony Wright was able to take a look at it and confirm that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with my chassis build, just problems with pickups and (possibly gear meshing). Tony fashioned some new pickups for me on the weekend and the result was a definite improvement, but the loco still sounded like a bag of spanners and was not capable of prolonged smooth and steady running. Finally, I swapped out the original gearbox for a new DJH one and - voila - the loco ran the way I had always wanted it to.
With our house move in 2007 I put the C2X back in its box but when I took it out again one of the pickups had come adrift and the model needed some work. I put it back in the box until tonight. Rather than fix the pickup, I decided to strip out the rather ugly and obtrusive arrangement that I had originally installed, so tonight I put some much more discrete and tidy pickups in place. After some tweaking the model now runs very well again but (isn't there always a but?) I realised that one of my new pickup pads fouls the retaining screw for the body, so that will have to be moved before I can get it all screwed together again.
More problematically, in terms of the loco's future, is that there's no room for a decoder. Back in 2000 I definitely wasn't thinking about DCC, so I filled the boiler with a goodly amount of lead. The tender, as designed by DJH, is also a sealed unit, although in theory I could remove the base of the coal bunker to access the interior. A simpler option may be to just backdate the loco to Southern days as I am edging closer to the idea that my pre-nationalisation stock will remain largely analogue.
I must admit to not having much reference material when I built this loco, so I've no idea (especially after 13 years) whether it would even be feasible to back-date it to LBSC colours.
Another problem case is this DJH 1366 tank:
Unlike the C2X I had no difficulties getting it to run well, perhaps because I went for a DJH gearbox from the outset. In fact, it still runs really well, at least by my standards. But I had a heck of a job getting the bodywork to sit square, and I've never been entirely happy with the outcome. I doubt that anyone else would notice, not unless they picked up the loco and examined it carefully, but there are aspects to it that bother me and I've never been sure to what to do about them. The model is glued together - epoxy and cyano - so dismantling it would not be straightforward. I've thought about razoring the boiler/tanks away from the cab/footplate and re-establishing the relationship, and even obtaining a completely new set of castings. Or perhaps I should just accept the model for what it is, and live with its shortcomings? Again, there is scant room for a decoder although it would probably be easier than squeezing one into the C2X. I certainly want to do something with the 1366 as it is a shame to waste a decent chassis.
Edit: I've taken this photo of the front of the engine which has helped me get a better idea of the issues:
Although I was convinced that something was off in terms of the horizontal relationship between the pannier tanks and the buffer beam, it turns out not actually to be the case - it is all pretty level and parallel. My Photoshop skills were not good enough to add some horizontal reference lines, but you can check the horizontal-ness of it just by scrolling the image up and down on your browser window. But the boiler and panniers are definitely skewed to the right, as you can tell by dropping a line from either the left or right side of the panniers and seeing where it transects the buffer beam. In fact looking carefully at the model, I can now see where the smokebox saddle is slightly offset from its correct position. My guess is that I was so concerned with getting everything level that I didn't pay quite enough attention to centering the boiler/pannier assembly.
Since everything else is level and square, it would be a shame not to have a go at fixing this, is my view. But can it be done without completely disassembling the model? I'm willing to try, anyway. My plan of attack would be to carefully cut through the base of the smokebox saddle with a razor saw, so that the saddle is no longer connected to the footplate, and then try using gentle coercion to persuade the boiler/pannier assembly to shift slightly to the left compared to its present position, before reattaching the saddle. It's probably no more than a mm, so I reckon that it should be possible to achieve that without disturbing the cab, since the change in angle along the length of the loco will be extremely slight.
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