John Broadley

Having been fortunate enough to acquire ‘13240’ - the black DCC soundequipped model of the above as a present from a generous Australian software client of mine, I entirely concur with Iain Gould’s findings in the February issue in respect of this model.

Readers of my article in an earlier Gazette about fitting Kadee #743 couplings to various 7mm RTR models may find my successful conversion of the Dapol Class 08 to Kadee couplings of further interest. Unsurprisingly, because you’d need to be looking for it, Iain made no comment on the fact that Dapol has pioneered the provision of a British Kadee interface – something which, so far, Heljan has held out against. Previously, the only relevant example of a Kadee interface was underneath the Stanier coaches of USA manufacturer MTH which were not designed by a British company; I’ve heard the tooling is of Russian origin.

If you examine the underneath of the Dapol 08, you’ll find at both ends a pair of location holes in the base casting which are exactly right for the fitting of Kadee ‘New Generation’ #746 long-shank couplings.

Because of the design requirement to model the compressed-air cylinders at the front end and at both ends the below-bufferbeam pipework, it’s necessary to remove (by cutting immediately underneath them) the air cylinders with a sharp blade e.g. X-Acto and unclip the pipework, laying these to one side. This is essential because it’s impossible to screw into the Kadee coupling holes in the draught boxes of these units after assembly (which only takes a few seconds) because they are obscured by the air cylinders in one case, and cannot be inserted between the buffer beams and pipework because of the curved uncoupling horn.

I have a supply of pan-head slot-and-cross M2.5 screws and find these suitable for securing Kadees as they self-tap into the chassis interface holes. With #746 couplings tightly screwed down at both ends and the pan-heads flush with the name side of the draught boxes, it’s time to replace the compressed air cylinders. I have a supply of CD-ROM cases with thin, black, plastic backs, so I cut out a square of black plastic 25 x 25 mm and superglued the cylinders onto it, having first drilled a hole in the centre of the square. After drying, the cylinder assembly is screwed down into the centre hole of the draught box allowing easy removal of the new couplings if later required. Finally, the brake pipes are replaced fore and aft with a tiny dab of superglue and the conversion is done.