Commission: Gladstone re-born...

I was asked to take a look at a lovely model my customer had purchased that wouldn't run when placed on his layout...

It turned out to be a scratch built model of LBSCR 'Gladstone' with remarkably fine wheels for what must be a 60+ year old model. I was keen not to alter too much, and agreed with my customer to investigate and try to retain as much of the original model as possible.

A quick check with a controller and I observed a short, which interested me... I was also puzzled about the 'out riggers' on the tender... then it clicked, it was effectively a three rail model... applying power to the wheel set and the outrigger still didn't evoke a response however so I dismantled the chassis.

The old Romford motor was caked in grease and gunk so I carefully stripped this down and cleaned the armature, windings and polished the contact strips for each pole with very fine wet and dry paper. I used a gentle scraping action to clear out the debris between each pole. I stripped and checked the end bearings on the armature before re-assembly. Applying power to the brush strips directly got the motor spinning, and a little further adjustment resulted in a reliable strong motor once again. Mission accomplished part one, motor resurrected. 

The next job was to work out a way to fit pick ups. I decided to cut out the pickups under the chassis that bear on the wheel rims, as they were fitted in such a way they couldn't be modified for 2-rail. Under this assemble were a pair of screws, removing these I found an original pick up system that suggest that as built the model was 2-rail! Curious, anyway this seemed to offer a solution and a neat way to preserve the model. I added some 0.45mm phosphor bronze wire to the pick up plates, and attached a wire to each, before threading these up through the frame and then bending the pick ups to bear on the rear edge of each tyre. Connecting these to the motor, I confirmed I'd got it wired up the right way, of course I hander so had to swap, finished by soldering these new wires to the old motor brush clips reusing as much of the old solder as possible and onto the rollers for a test.

Success, one old model resurrected to working condition. If you have an older model you'd like me to take a look at I can breathe new life into mechanisms and paint finishes. Get in touch for a personal proposal using the website, Facebook or forums. Until next time, more soon...