Today I worked on extending the short Kato chassis so that it would look more prototypical in length under the body of my X 5800. The Kato chassis was about 2cm too short but luckily only one bogie was powered. Therefore I removed the non powered bogie and fashioned an extension from Plasticard (including the downward pin for the Bogie to sit in) and hey presto. An extended chassis.

From this

to this

I tried many different angles and set ups on the camera and this was the best that came out. Its not very clear but you see it is now longer. The Plasticard on the top keeps the body level when it is resting on top. The brass wire keep the contact with the pick ups so that it is still effective over pointwork and the like. It is pretty reliable considering I am not the best micro engineer.

Having moaned about making 3 different cabs for the X5800 unit last weekend I decided after posting my blog to have yet another attempt. It was not perfect but it certainly looked a lot better than the Balsa Wood effort. When it has the Plasticard supports glued into place it should look reasonable (even if my clumsy fingers have meant that the glass looks frosted!).

This picture shows the cab in situ.

As well as the X5800 I have been working on converting a Farish Bogie wagon into a non powered chassis for a spare X3800 body I have. It required extending as the chassis was too short. I don't have any pictures of this as it is still drying but once it is done I shall post some more.

And finally I received the body of an X5600 that I purchased off Ebay last week. I intend to have a go at getting a working chassis in there and fixing it up so that it is all well and good (the cab was broken off before the sale). To celebrate the growing collection of X units I thought some pictures were in order. Sorry about the blurryness of them. Although I am now usiung a better camera the light is not the best and I am finding it difficult to get the time when the light is good.

I was considering naming this post the X Factor but I do not really want to go there with that kind of joke. The X Files is a far better show!!!

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions about any of the projects then please let me know.

Stephen