More Chivers go Slimmer

Whilst I haven't had a lot of time at the workbench of late, I have had a tinker with the parts from a Chivers steel-side open. This is another from the same batch of secondhand wagons as the two-plank and once stripped of old paint it was obvious that it was a little lop-sided. It was certainly well glued together (perhaps too well) and I had to be brutal to get it apart, I nearly regretted starting....

With the ends cut down and a new floor, this is the result:

I had envisaged this as a bogie wagon and opened out the headstock for a bogie mounted coupler. However as it reminded me of the drop-side wagons at the Kirklees Light Railway, the decision was made for it to be a 4-wheeler. Having completed basic assembly I filled the headstock back in to create a space suited to a MicroTrains coupler and then added some corner strapping to finish off the ends.

Underneath a previously split-in-two Peco chassis forms the basis of the running gear with Plastruct 3mm channel as the solebars. All of the N gauge spring and axlebox detail was removed from the chassis mouldings and as an experiment I used 51L Highland Railway axleboxes in their place.  A few strokes of a file removed the top section of each box to allow them to sit neatly in position. Visually this trick works very well. 

A coat of primer covers up many sins and allows all the filling and sanding to be hidden. The home-brewed sections of strapping are nowhere near as neat as the fine Chivers mouldings but hopefully once painted they won't look too bad.

This wagon is now in the paintshop getting a splash of colour.

Colin