Replacement Wickham seats

 

 This isn't the greatest kit for a Wickham trolley as a few compromises have been made along the way. The most obvious being the seats. 

To my eye, they look like park benches. If I were a cynical person, I'd think that the manufacturer had casting for these in the range already and decided to use them in the trolley rather than doing the job properly. Unless anyone can prove otherwise, this looks a bit rubbish. 

So, out with some fat brass wire along with the couple of lengths of 0.7mm and during an old episode of Bergerac, I drew up a diagram on a bit of plywood and soldered up more accurate replacements. It helps that I had another trolley to measure as the copy of RM with the plan in has already gone back to the railway club. 

The job wasn't helped by me losing my stock of 100 degree solder so the brass to whitemetal joins had to be made in the traditional way by tinning the yellow metal before using low melt for the join. 

The result looks OK. Those back seat supports don't lean in as much as the photo suggests but now I've seen this, they will get another prod from a hot iron anyway. Seats will be plasticard or even thin wood as I feel a bit more thickness is required then sheet brass can provide, and of course the old seats don't fit anymore. Does anyone need a 7mm scale park bench?