I have long been a fan of lan Kirk's modular coach kits, and have built dozens of them over the years. I have recently been putting together one of the 'cut and carve' kits that Ian had on his stand at last year's Telford exhibition. These do not appear in his regular catalogue, but he occasionally makes them available as specials following suggestions from his customers. The one I was making uses parts from his LMS period III coach kits, to build into one of the impressive looking 68ft, 12 wheel dining cars.

If you are not familiar with Kirk kits, they are designed to build a basic vehicle body, underframe and bogies, but you have to add items such as wheels, interiors, buffers, door handles, as well as dynamo, vacuum cylinders, roof vents, if you want something more detailed than the basic ones included in the packs.

Peter Callon

When it comes to buffers, I usually get these from Prestige. They come ready assembled and sprung, with cast whitemetal bodies and turned nickel-silver heads / shanks. They represent good value for money and only require painting. Unfortunately, because of the way they are designed the type with oval heads, as fitted to the LMS dining cars, have the problem of the heads twisting around out of position. This problem can be solved with a modification to the buffers, but I decided to look elsewhere. I buy my detailing parts for LMS and LNER coaches from Malcolm Binns of Sidelines, and the appropriate buffers from his range were ordered, and promptly delivered by Royal Mail.

Sidelines buffers have lost-wax cast brass bodies and nickel-silver heads/shanks. They are nicely detailed, but require a degree of fettling to put them together. Two problems immediately presented themselves: How to make them operational and how keep the oval heads correctly orientated, with the long axes horizontal.

The buffer shank has a flat cast onto the back end, with a dimple impressed into it (figure 1). Although no instructions come with them, I suspect that the buffers are designed to be sprung by drilling a hole through the shank at the dimple, and passing a piece of spring steel wire through this and into the opposite buffer shank via a hole in the back of the coupling hook, to effect a crude form of springing (see Guild Manual

Part 4 - Rolling stock, Section 2.6). I have tried this method with other makes of buffers, and have been disappointed with the results. Clearly, a better system was required. After a bit of experimentation, I came up with the following method, which has proved successful.

As well as the buffers kit, you will need the following items:

• A length of brass tube, outside diameter 5mm, internal diameter 4mm (I get mine from Metalsmith)
• 4 small springs, 3-3.5mm diameter, ideally about 6mm long, but if necessary you can cut them to length with sidecutters.
• A length of 0.8mm diameter brass wire.
• Some small pieces of brass sheet, about 0.030in thick; I use bits of scrap etch saved from loco kits.

First prepare the buffers castings. The rear part of the body (that fits into the buffer beam) should be cut back by about half its length (figure 2). You can do this with a small saw, but it's quicker and easier with a slitting disc in a mini drill. Then open up the hole through the body with a 2.2mm drill bit. Clean up the buffer heads with a fibreglass scratch brush, and dress the shank with a fine needle file. Check that the brass tube will fit over the rear of the buffer body. Drill a 0.8mm hole through the shank at the point marked by the dimple (figure 1). Pass the buffer shank through the body, making sure that it moves in and out freely.

Cut a piece of the 0.8mm brass wire approximately 10mm long, push it through the hole in the shank and solder it in place so that an equal length projects each side of the shank (figure 3).

Clamp (not too tightly) the brass tube vertically in a vice, and cut two slots approximately 7mm down the tube with a razor saw, and then open them out (carefully) with the mini drill to the thickness of the slitting disc. Cut off the tube at 10mm long (figure 4).

To assemble the buffer, make sure that the head is correctly orientated in the buffer body; then take the piece of brass tube that you have just slotted and push it over the shank and onto the rear of the buffer body with the 0.8mm brass wire fitting into the slots in the tube. Making sure that the 3 parts stay in position, run some solder around the joint between the tube and the buffer body (figure 5).

Insert the spring into the back end of the brass tube (it will project from the end), place it onto the piece of scrap brass and push it down to compress the spring and bring the tube into contact with the brass scrap.

Run some solder around the joint between the tube and the brass (figure 6). Trim off the brass scrap around the end of the tube and file it smooth. Snip off the ends of the 0.8mm brass wire and file them flush with the outside of the tube. Repeat this with the other three buffers, and you have a working set of self-contained buffers. The heads will always stay correctly positioned. All you have to do now is to drill 5mm holes through the headstocks to fit them.