The Budget Brush – The Bayer Method

The previous posts on the rebuilding Lima class 47s have brought some very nice comments, both  public and private. One request was for more details on the work on the underframes – this is something which makes a huge difference to the appearance.

The first budget class 47 based on the Lima model complete with the completely rebuilt underframe.

I’ve made reference to Gareth Bayer’s article in DEMU UpDate on rebuilding class 47 underframes a number of times. This article had huge impact upon me – it seemed like a revelation and it encouraged me to look beyond the obvious way of detailing models and take things a step beyond the obvious.

The original article the article in ModelRAIL by Lawrence Dickinson.

Gareth was in turn influenced by the article in an early ModelRAIL supplement by Lawrence Dickinson – Lawrence wrote a couple of articles round this time (the other was a superb piece on a Class 40 with Dyna-Drive) and they still stand up today. The article on modelling class 47s is still a useful read for anyone contemplating this sort of conversion. Gareth, however, took things even further with his underframes. I have shamelessly stolen Gareth’s method! I won’t reproduce just what Gareth’s article said, but these are the main stages which will show the overall process.

Gareth Bayer’s article from the DEMU UPDate, No. 27, Autumn 2001.

The first stage is to remove all the unwanted material, and there’s quite a bit of it too…

The initial stage of the the work involves removing most of the ‘box’ leaving only the battery boxes and ends of the oil tank.

Lima chose a battery only type underframe, the variant without either the original water tanks or the later long range fuel tank. For the battery only variant as for 47294 and 47380 the battery boxes, their brackets, the oil tank ends and the angled pieces near the battery boxes – these latter items are associated with the brackets for securing the water tanks when fitted. I drilled out material where I could joined these up with a sharp blade. A brand new blade makes light work of cutting the plastic Lima used. Care at this stage sets things up nicely ensuring a neat appearance as thing progress, but be careful as the chassis is very fragile now and could easily break.

A new ‘floor’ will begin to reinforce the chassis, 20thou Plastikard works very well – I also braced it on the upper side to make it as solid as I could. This will  provide the base for all subsequent parts so, again, care at this stage is repaid handsomely later on.

The ‘floor’ in place.

Adding the substantial frame which protrudes beneath the loco in the centre is what really starts to bring the loco to life I think. The UpDate article had a useful template for this but using photos as a guide you can easily estimate the size required. It really adds to character to the model and begins to fill up the gaps we’ve already created in the underframe. Although there’s a lot of ‘fresh air’ to be seen around the underframes, there are many places where you can look through the underframes, so to speak.

The underframe is already beginning to take on a more three dimensional appearance, even at this early stage.

This completes the core of the underframe, from here on in, it’s a case of adding details – Gareth’s article is very helpful here. Combine this with prototype photos and it’s quite a nice, steady detailing job – quite relaxing in many ways. Brian Daniels’ album on Flickr is an excellent source of information for this. Arm yourself with various bits of Plastikard and wire you can go as far as want, adding as little or as much as you feel necessary – after all, however much you add will be better than what was originally there, but we’ve made full use of the lovely tooling eveident on the battery boxes and oil tank.

The completed but unpainted underframe for 47380 – in this state the layout of parts can clearly be seen, as can the variety of material too. Very impressionistic, but in the gloom, it looks just like it should.

I don’t pretend that this is a perfect result. It’s very much impressionistic modelling – adding key details, pipe runs and trying to capture the right kind of ‘feel’ for the model, this latter goal is one which can make or break a model. A model can be very dimensional accurate but if it lacks that certain something, they can be stale, sterile and just not feel right and be, ultimately, quite disappointing.

What I like about the approach of Gareth and Lawrence is that they didn’t accept things as they were, not content with just a respray and a renumbering, they set about doing things in their own way. In these days of plentiful and varied ready to run models, it’s something we’d do well to remember.