Conversion: Toby the Tram
- Thread starter BakerJohn
- Start date
Thank you, Dave. I think building the boiler was the most fun and the most stressful at the same time. It taught me a lot about scratch building inside an existing shell. I made a few silly mistakes and had to cut it up twice to get it to fit properly. (This is why there's a visible cut on the right side of the boiler. Luckily it isn't noticeable looking through the windows.) But, I really enjoyed getting to detail it and I hope to add a few more things (hand wheels and gauges) once I've been able to purchase a few. Oh! A brake should be added to the cab someday too... They might need that...
Sometimes wheels for gauges can be a pain to get hold of. I like to fabricate them, quite easy if you can solder. Wrap cleaned up for Soldering thin bendy wire round a suitable sized tube, cut off where a circle. Place on a heat resistance surface, cut two more bits of thinner wire for the spokes, solder up. Cut off excess and clean up wolla job done. If you want to be really fancy you can cut the spoke cross pieces in 3 before Soldering to give a nice flat job.
Thanks, Jon. I might try that today! Even though I finished the loco yesterday...
Here's a bunch of photos of the work I did yesterday. I painted all the door trim and window frames, glazed the windows, installed the lights, lanterns, handrails, cab floors, and boiler. You cannot see it in any of the photos here, but I also took the plastic bell an repainted it a more metallic gold color. It looks more realistic now and matches the brass hand rails better.
The second photo is taken from outside one of the front windows to show how the interior looks front-to-back. The figured used in these shots is an LGB driver from my Forney. [Posting photos as thumbnails is so much nicer, you can click on them for a full-screen view.]
The second photo is taken from outside one of the front windows to show how the interior looks front-to-back. The figured used in these shots is an LGB driver from my Forney. [Posting photos as thumbnails is so much nicer, you can click on them for a full-screen view.]
Someday, maybe, I'll build a scratch model of a J70 using proper proportions. It's interesting to see how the artists for Rev. Awdry's stories slowly changed the look of Toby from a real loco to what I hold in my hands. I was talking to the owner of my hobby store yesterday and he was telling me he built one from scratch for his 5" gauge railroad years ago.
They were, essentially, caricatures of actual locos - but the original Rev. Awdry stories were based on UK railway practice. There have been many additional stories since then, mainly for TV, where railway operating procedures have been ignored largely through ignorance of the story writers. Once something becomes a commercial product, then the spirit is soon squeezed out.
But hey, it's kept a generation or three interested in trains
