Chivers Diema:
Many years ago, around about the turn of the century, I bought a Chivers 7mm scale Diema diesel kit. The intent was to build it for Ashcross but although I started the body it never got completed and I have been wondering what to do with it ever since. I wondered if a 14mm gauge Bullant bogie would fit – and concluded that whilst it would fit, it would be a bit of a challenge for me to fit dummy inside frames to the Bullant chassis. Then Mark Clarke introduced his Tenshodo SPUD replacement bogies and I though a bespoke one would be just what I needed. Mark very kindly printed one for me that was slightly different from the standard chassis in that it is longer and the 27mm wheelbase is offset slightly.
The body needed slight modification and I removed the side frames that I had soldered on so many years ago and filed off all of the underside ribs. I also removed a bit of the cab gearbox mounting block to clear the motor terminals. I don’t think I needed to do this but better to be safe than sorry. As I was unsure how the chassis would fit, I specified a length slightly less than the body.
I cut 10 thou plastic sheet to size which could be easily fixed to the chassis with solvent, but I did remember to paint around the wheels and the curved cutouts of the overlays before fixing. Sorry for the blurry image, the camera was really struggling. The overlays were deeper than the chassis block to take the side weights and the sides were drilled to take the brake blocks – I struggled to drill in the right place so they look a bit of a mess, but hopefully won’t be so noticeable when painted.