A New #4 for the Bradford Valley Lumber Co. (On30 Porter Kitbash)

Hi all,

A couple of months ago, I tried scratchbuilding a new number 7 locomotive for the Bradford Valley Lumber Company, using a Roundhouse HO scale old-time 2-8-0 as the basis. Unfortunately, when that locomotive was reassembled, I was unable to make it run reliably.

Following this, the BVLC motive power roster went through a bit of a shake-up, which left a gap in the roster at the number 4. I had one of the Backwoods Miniatures slope-back tender kits, which I’d originally purchased for the 2-8-0 conversion. I hadn’t used it for that project as it would have made the engine too long to fit on the turntable. I wanted to use this for the new #4. After doing some checking, I realised that the Bachmann 0-4-0 Porter was short enough to fit on the turntable with this tender attached. So I bought one.

I’ve now started converting the porter from a saddle tank to a tender engine. I’m starting with the engine first, then going onto the tender.

My first step was to remove the saddle tank and cab. There was a circuit board above the motor with resistors and capacitors, connected inline between the decoder and the motor. Most Bachmann models I’ve seen have one of these, and it’s used for RF suppression. I usually remove these, as doing so provides smoother motor performance. In this case, it also meant that the replacement boiler could be lower than the original tank.

After removing the

Looks good! Out of curiosity, is the tender kit the same width?

The body of the tender is about the same width as the cab, but the chassis is slightly wider than the footplate of the locomotive.

Nice work! Always good to see hands-on railroading.[tup][Y]

That’s good to hear. This should look fantastic!

tbdanny:

Very nice work! It will be a handsome little locomotive when done.

Dave

Hi all,

I’ve had a chance to do a bit more on the new BVLC #4. This was mostly additional tweaks to the model itself, as well as some work on the tender.

In the 0-4-0 Porter, the DCC decoder and the board that connects it to the locomotive’s components are concealed by a small coal bunker on the right of the cab. Given that I was converting this into a wood-burning tender engine, having coal would look a little odd. This part is made of metal, so I filed it flat until most of the coal load was flat and level with the edges. I then filled in the lower parts with body putty, and left this to dry.

Once the body putty was dry, I filed the top flat again, then painted it black.

I then assembled the tender according to the instructions. I did, however, make a couple of adjustments. One was to put a square of styrene across the tender frame at the locomotive end, with a hole drilled in the middle to accommodate the screw from the drawbar. The other change was to use a Bachmann LED headlight in place of the casting that came with the kit.

I decided to feed the leads for the LED down through the resin body casting, and wire them up inside the body. As such, using the etched brass ‘shelf’ that came with the kit would have caused a short circuit. Instead, I just drilled holes for the leads, and used strip styrene to raise the front of the headlight until it was leve

Hi all,

I’m aware that it’s been a while since my last update. I had to put this and my other model railroading projects on hold, due to finding, buying and moving into a new house. Now that that’s all sorted, I’ve been able to get a bit more done on the model. This is also why you may see the background of the photos change during this particular post. My new garage had enough space for me to set up a proper workbench, rather than working on the model at my desk.

Picking up from where I left off, my next step was to sort out the drawbar. I’d purchased one from the Bachmann spare parts store as part of an order of parts for another project. I can’t remember exactly which model it was for, though. I screwed the locomotive end of the drawbar into the Porter’s rear coupler pocket, then bent it so that it was just below the styrene pad I had stuck at the front of the tender. I also drilled two holes through the left of the rear pilot, to allow the wires to pass through.

I was now ready to install the decoder, so I set up the speaker. I was using a 1" Soundtraxx speaker with baffle. In order to allow it to fit, I had to carve away part of the inside of the body walls. They were about 1/2" thick originally, and reducing both sides to 1/4" along part of the rear section provided enough room for the speaker to fit in the tender shell. I then wired up the speaker through the baffle.

I forgot to

tbdanny,

Nice work, it’s a great looking loco. But something isn’t quite right, you say? I’d guess that the bulk/height of the tenders is a little much, just not sure how you’d go about reducing it?

Mike,

That’s pretty much it. The chassis was a little high for the porter - it was designed for bigger locos. I also accidentally damaged the chassis during construction, which resulted in a bit of a gap between the body and the chassis. I’ll be covering how I fixed it next post.

Great job Danny, it’s great see modelers modeling for a change. I always enjoy seeing loco bashing on steamers…

Hi all,

At the end of part 3 of this write-up, I mentioned that I wasn’t happy with how the model of BVLC no. 7 had turned out, following what I had thought would be the completion of the build. The problem lay with the tender chassis.

The tender kit had been in storage for a while before I got around to doing it. When I went to actually build the kit, I discovered that the chassis casting had a bit of a bow in it. I tried using my hands to straighten it out manually, but this only resulted in breaking it. After an email to the manufacturer, I was able to use hot water and a flat surface to flatten out the chassis, then some styrene to reinforce the bit I’d broken. However, the chassis was still slightly bowed where the break had occurred.

Further to this, when I went to attach the tender body to the chassis for the first time, the fit was a bit tight, due to the DCC decoder and wiring. I had tightened the screws to try and force the body down on it, but all this did was push the tender floor up, creating two ‘bumps’ at the front of the chassis. The result is the gap you see in the first photo above. So, I decided to scratchbuild my own chassis, using the same techniques I use for my freight cars.

My first step was to dismantle the tender and remove the DCC decoder & speaker. I cut the front of the chassis out and removed the wires without cutting them

Bravo, tbdanny! She looks ready for lots of hard work and is easy on the eye.

Really nice work TB! I enjoyed following your adventure in tender building.

Joe