Entry posted by Jon020
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A novice’s update whilst I'm stuck several hundred miles from my modelling room… since my last post, some extra parts were acquired from Mr Hanson’s at the Warley show, and some time has been spent fettling the body to accept some of these new acquisitions.
First of all, I acquired the new windscreen etches, but needing to cut a lot of material away to fit these dissuaded me from attempting this initially… although I’ll probably come back to these at some point. I therefore set about replacing the nose grills with replacement etches, which are formed of two parts, and inner and outer grill piece. A template is also provided to form the hole to the right size without using the fragile etched grills.
It’s imperative to get these holes straight and in the right place. The Bachmann ones seem about right in this respect, so after checking the size of the template against the original, I used the drill and file method to remove the middle of the grill area, using the original surround as a guide.
All of the plastic up to the inner edge of the surround must be removed (and some of the outer surround) to allow a snug fit. The surround beading can then be removed and filed flat to the bodyside. The inner part of the etch needs some careful bending to get square… and without the appropriate tool, it’s quite a challenge to get it right…
The inner etch can then be pushed home and secured with a little glue. The outer etch attaches to the inner using the two slots and tags on the inner etch… the result is quite fragile so I left the fitting of these until all remaining holes had been cut.
The same process was used for the mid-body engine air-intake grill… drilling out a number of holes and filing away using the outer surround as a guide to keep the hole central and straight; removal of the surround was completed once the hole was correctly sized. Care is needed here if you, like me, are modelling a post 1965-68 loco with the additional battery louvers to not damage these when filing/sanding the air intake surrounds; I don’t think there’s an etch for these… yet.
All in all this resulted in probably enough holes being drilled out for now...
Time was then spent on the front ends, replacing the plastic handrails with 0.4mm brass wire instead, with the lower handrails moved a fraction outboard. In addition to fitting the upper headcode bracket etch, I added a representation of the 6 bolt heads that sit astride the upper bracket, fixing the bracket reinforcing plate to the curved section of the upper nose. I’d yet to see these modelled, but simply drilled holes in (what I thought were) the correct locations and inserted a short length of brass wire, gluing-in and then filing this flat and proud to represent the bolt heads. It was a first attempt, and it’ll probably look ok once painted… I hope.
The next step was to set about fitting the lifting cover flaps, 4 per side. These could just be glued on to the bodyside as the etch is very thin, but I wanted to add a little more realism and used an engraving bit in my mini-drill to cut out a shallow in the area to take the etch, removing more material towards the bottom, to represent a hollow area, and then removing more material again at the bottom lip to represent the recess into which the hook that holds the body-bogie sway-cable (is that what they are) is found.
I’ve a plan to fit these cables (I’ll need to maximise curve radii on my layout eventually) so wanted to fit such a hook.
To do this, I drilled a 0.4mm hole very close to the edge in the recessed plastic and inserted a small piece of 0.44 brass wire, the end of which was formed into a hook, which was then subject to the engraving bit to flatten the head and open out the inner. Secured in place with plenty of Zap-a-gap green and trimmed flush (ish) inside. The last photo shows a little 0.2mm wire made into a simple loop to show how this will eventually sit inside the flap. This was done for all flaps… although to be honest, I’ve still two to do.
And finally, a shot of both types of flaps with hooks just visible
Oh, I tried some of the zap-a-gap thin glue - the pink one, acquired at Warley and found that it was quite useful to lip underneath some of the etches that were lifting a little, especially the brake exhauster panel on the side of the no. 1 end... and it worked well... but oh my... when opening the inner cap - you need to twist it off to break the seal and re-cap it once used - so much emanated from it's first release... and its so thin that I managed to stick three of my fingers on the right hand and twpo on my left well and truly together. Much cussing and easing of fingers seperated these, but suffice to say lesson learnt... treat these thinner glues with care.
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