Hydraulic Heaven

Morning Andy,

 

Nice work on both models but I like the finish on the 14T tank. The Alclad looks to have worked really well.  Are there plans for more of these Esso tanks?

 

It's also good to see a model of an unusual prototype-and the bromide tank is one such example.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

Nice work on both models but I like the finish on the 14T tank. The Alclad looks to have worked really well. Are there plans for more of these Esso tanks?

Thanks Mark. Yes the Alclad stuff is nice to use. The main drawback I found being that it is airbrush only. My tank was quite a tight fit into the cradles and between the tie rods and this caused some damage to the finish for which there is no obvious repair. Fortunately the damage was in some very inconspicuous places though. The damage did actually have an unexpected advantage - I was really puzzling how to line up the transfers because there is no reference to use once the tank is off the chassis. The fact that the tiebars had made a little nick in the corners of the tank solved that one quite nicely.

 

If I was doing another one I'd try to make sure that it wasn't such a tight fit... although that's tricky with the tie bars because there really is very little room to fit everything in.

 

I'm not planning any more silver tanks in the foreseeable future but I do have the Stephen Harris 35T kits waiting to be built. Most of these will be class A but I think that silver was very short lived for these tanks (with the original silver ones being repainted surprisingly quickly) so mine will be grey.

 

All in all with the kit, the Alclad and the transfers that little 14T tank has wound up costing more than a coach. It also took a fair bit more effort to build than I was expecting. Naturally if I was doing more then the cost would come down. I did manage to resist any temptation to buy more of them at the Expo though.

 

Regards, Andy