Resurrecting old models

I've had an old cast Z from a mold that John made 20 years ago. However it was not the right width which annoys my inner finescaler. To placate the annoying bastard I took the wagon to pieces to fix this and fit some Trackgang 6' passenger bogies. the sides were cast in something called 'Epi-fill' which was a polyester resin that's no longer available. it was quite flexible back in the day. Surprisingly the structural properties have changed in the 15 years or so since it was cast, as it fractured in several places as I was taking it apart. I had employed the solid block inside method in construction, and decided to do so again (the inner wood block provides a solid inner form and somewhere to screw the bogies into). Previously the wooden center was 18mm by 18mm pine, when 16mm would be far more exact. After a look in the various hardware stores I discovered that they don't make the 16 by 16mm variety any more. This then lead to cutting out various bits of MDF until
l I reached something close to 16mm. These pieces were all glued together.


The sides were then sanded flat on the insides before being epoxied to the wooden inner.

I chamfered the inside of the side ends at a 45 degree angle to make fitting the ends a bit easier, as the casting thickness was still not quite uniform. The ends were cut from grooved plasticard and also had the 45 degree shaping. These bits then slotted together in a very reasonable fit.

for the roof I had a few options. After tossing the rest out, I recycled the balsa roof from the mk 1 version. This was persuaded off the previous wooden former and then epoxied into place on the mk 2 version.


So after a couple of hours I'm back to the same wagon thats 2mm narrower. Woo Hoo.