Product Description
Set of 20 guides for the RCH-standard self-contained wagon-buffer. Turned heads/rams and springs (from MJT or Alan Gibson Workshop; 12" buffer head) are needed to complete.
These are models of self-contained buffers: i.e. the full-size buffers were sprung with a volute spring contained within the bottle-shaped body of the buffer, instead of a leaf spring behind the headstock. C.f. the leaf-sprung buffers with ribbed guides fitted to most RCH-specification mineral-wagons, which are very different. The self-contained buffers were mostly used when rebuilding wagons that had been built with dumb buffers, which was done in the first quarter of the 20th century. The LNWR also used these buffers when converting dumb-buffered bolster wagons and on wagons with restricted space behind the headstock, such as the later "furniture" wagons.
There were many designs of self-contained buffer, but in the RCH published in 1906 a standard design in three variants (cast iron, wrought iron or steel and cast steel; the visual differences are minimal in 4mm scale). The current model is based on the RCH drawing for the cast-iron version, as reproduced in the book Ince Wagon Works. The latter drawing does not show the flange at the base of the guide and I have modelled the flange on photographs of the LNWR D38A wagon on p.189 of LNWR Wagons vol.1, by Northedge et al. Thus the model is accurate for the LNWR wagons and at least partially accurate for the PO wagons.
These are models of self-contained buffers: i.e. the full-size buffers were sprung with a volute spring contained within the bottle-shaped body of the buffer, instead of a leaf spring behind the headstock. C.f. the leaf-sprung buffers with ribbed guides fitted to most RCH-specification mineral-wagons, which are very different. The self-contained buffers were mostly used when rebuilding wagons that had been built with dumb buffers, which was done in the first quarter of the 20th century. The LNWR also used these buffers when converting dumb-buffered bolster wagons and on wagons with restricted space behind the headstock, such as the later "furniture" wagons.
There were many designs of self-contained buffer, but in the RCH published in 1906 a standard design in three variants (cast iron, wrought iron or steel and cast steel; the visual differences are minimal in 4mm scale). The current model is based on the RCH drawing for the cast-iron version, as reproduced in the book Ince Wagon Works. The latter drawing does not show the flange at the base of the guide and I have modelled the flange on photographs of the LNWR D38A wagon on p.189 of LNWR Wagons vol.1, by Northedge et al. Thus the model is accurate for the LNWR wagons and at least partially accurate for the PO wagons.
