The strange occurrence of the varnished wheels.

[Snowwolflair]

I'm posting this as an observation and as an advisory when buying second hand.

I recently bought a Dapol 9F second hand on eBay.  These are very good reliable models, I have a few, particularly after you fit the upgrade to the front bogie if its an early model.

On test the model ran fine on DC so I proceeded to upgrade it to DCC Sound and convert the boiler and tender to to a Crosti boiler variant using a white metal kit and a Zimo sound chip.  All went well but I suspected it was not picking up on all wheels so I did a test.  I realized quickly that only two wheels on the loco out of eight were picking up and 4 of the six on the tender. So I proceeded to put it in a service cradle and clean the wheels.

This is where I got a surprise!  Most of the wheels were varnished with what looks like glue, easily removed but it should not have been there.  At first I thought in might be friction snot but I know how that looks and this looks much more like superglue or a thinned PVA. 

I can only guess that the previous owner ran the loco on wet newly ballasted track and then wondered why his lovely loco wouldn't work.

Anyway almost done just some detailing and a few transfers to add.

[d-a-n]

Well spotted!

[Newportnobby]

That really captures the ugliness of the beast. Nice job

[Snowwolflair]

That really captures the ugliness of the beast. Nice job

Needs seriously weathered, never saw a clean one

[Newportnobby]

That really captures the ugliness of the beast. Nice job

Needs seriously weathered, never saw a clean one

Very true. They do say you can't polish a 

[Snowwolflair]

I was very pleased with the fit of the conversion kit, it was intended for the Minitrix version of the model, however the Dapol is a finer molding and it has necessary pipework never thought of on the Minitrix model.

I did not have to repaint the model either as once the new parts were panted with a silk black paint a coat of varnish blended it to the original paint.

[Dr Al]

Interesting - I bought a brand new Dapol B17 a good few years ago and it wouldn't pickup of any loco wheels - it seemed like there was some coating related to the blackening that was on them. Cleaning them (took some effort) restored conductivity, and it's been flawless ever since.

Nice conversion to Crosti by the way.

Cheers,
Alan

[Snowwolflair]

Interesting - I bought a brand new Dapol B17 a good few years ago and it wouldn't pickup of any loco wheels - it seemed like there was some coating related to the blackening that was on them. Cleaning them (took some effort) restored conductivity, and it's been flawless ever since.

Nice conversion to Crosti by the way.

Cheers,
Alan

Interesting but I was getting clear flakes like glue.  I have had problems with over blackened wheels before but it did not look like this.

[Bealman]

Nice Crosti. Always been a favourite of mine even if in reality they were less than successful.

[Dr Al]

Yes, the B17 was very strange - it was like a thin layer of transparent cyano - I spent a good amount of time chipping it off, then polishing the wheels (which surprisingly didn't take all that much of the blackening off).

It was clearly a rogue and could have been sent back, though it ran well anyway, so I tend not to send back good runners if any other fault can be put right.

Cheers,
Alan

[Snowwolflair]

When I get time I am going to reexamine all my Dapol locos. 

As you say the polishing is easy once the skin is off and I find fiberglass pens give a good finish, but you must give the model a blast of compressed air before running to make sure fibers are removed from the mechanisum.