Entry posted by Focalplane
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Back to the current kit building project, the GWR 14XX. This is slowly progressing with most of the etched parts assembled on the body but there still remain dozens of brass castings to the added, including the add on auto gear kit from Peter Roles.
The first photo was taken a week ago and hows the beginnings of the body taking shape. The boiler is made of two pieces of thick brass tubing, ready to solder together:
The brass requires a lot of heat and I switched to my Weller 40 watt iron for soldering anything related to the boiler. I nearly bought a gas (butane) soldering iron from the local bricolage but they didn't have one in stock, just a demo which didn't look to be complete. The ?copper tip of the Weller iron is a pain to keep clean and won't hold solder like it should. Maybe I should get the butane alternative.
The second photo I took yesterday and this is after soldering a lot of small parts. As noted above, many still remain to be added:
A degree of cleaning up has been done but there is more to do before any thought of painting begins. The roof still needs to be added but I am going to add the backhead and controls first. The floor is removable to aid painting after the roof is added. Even so, access is limited.
The instructions have also become a little less clear. As well as a few typos for etched part numbers, it really does need more clarification of what goes where. I found having scale drawings and photos most helpful but it is quite probable that I have made some errors which will be frustrating if and when discovered. It is also critical to mate the etched "skins" to the underlying framework accurately because some slots won't accept their tabs if the two sheets are misaligned. It doesn't take much and the remedy is not easy.
But the overall assessment of this kit remains very favourable. Patience is definitely required and good research into the prototype is essential. One aid I realized, almost too late, was the large colour photo in the lid of the box!
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