Triang/Hornby SR coaches

[daryll]

I have just acquired four Tring Hornby R 933 , and one Tring Hornby SR R 934 coaches , having asked on another forum the opinion was bin them and buy a modern SR coach , well thats not going to happen , so is there a way to improve the looks of these models . someone said they sit 1 mm too high , and the wheels are 12mm , they should be 14mm , this sort of negates the point of lowering the bodys , drop the body by 1mm , then put 2mm on the wheels , any advice is welcome , I am not a rivet counter , I just want a model railway
Cheers
Daryll

[IanS]

I can't advise on the look but your maths is a little off.

If you lower the body by 1mm and change the wheels to 14mm you will get the same overall height.

14 mm refers to the diameter so it would only add 1mm to the height. (Unless someone tells me I'm wrong of course.)

1 mm is so little it probably isn't worth the effort of lowering the body (however you were planning it).

[Mountain Goat]

A modeller on another forum does this and it is most effective and simple. He first removes the glazing, and paints the internal window surrounds in matt black. The depth of the windows is no longer noticable. He then replaces the glazing.
Using more modern wheels. 14mm wheels are nide gut they do add another 1mm to the height so maybe some nice new 12.5mm wheels would be the better option.
If one has the cast metal bogies, one can slide the new wheels onto the old Triang axoes, but one needs to cut small amounts of plastic drinks straw to act as spacers on the outside of the wheels as this takes up any un-neccessary slack. The wheels do roll better being metal despite them using the old axles.
If bogies are plastic, buy a pack of top hat bearings and drill out a 2mm hole in the axleboxes to fit the bearings, for the new pinpoint wheels and use filler on the outside of the axleboxes to hide the new bearings. The wheels should roll nicely with the new bearings!
I do happen to have some old heavy 14mm Romford wheels somewhere but these will raise the roofline by an extra millimetre so though they will roll nicely, is probably going to be visible if you say they already ride high.

[Chops]

An interesting endeavor. Pics if you might. Not that I'd be of any help whatever, but it's no less interesting.