GWR Modified Hall Pt6: Finishing the chassis
Entry posted by The Fatadder
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As it is still far too hot to go in the garage and work on Brent, I am getting on with finishing off the Modified Hall.
The first task tonight was to modify the front end of the chassis block in order to provide clearance for newly fitted step down in the front footplate. The Brassmasters instructions suggest using a hacksaw, that sounded far too much like hard work in this heat so I cracked out the Dremel which made short work of it.
While working on the chassis I also completed some quick work to the bogie, fitting the (small) centre bogie front and removing the NEM socket.
After a quick (and successful) test fit of the footplate onto the chassis I reassembled the cylinders. Of course now the footplate refused to correctly fit the chassis, remove cylinders and it is all ok. Now followed an hour of filing small amounts off, test fitting, refitting the cylinders and then finding once again it wouldnt fit. Eventually I managed to solve the problem (but still dont know the cause) and reassemble the chassis.
Before rebuilding the chassis I fitted the decoder (lenz gold), now I am a little worried with this one as I have removed the small weight in front of the motor. My logic was that this weight is very light so presumably makes a limited impact, but is located right over the drivers where you really want weight. I will do some testing on the layout once it has cooled down, but possibly this will require some rework... That said, at the end of the day I have another Hall and a County both with etched chassis and a decent weight (which can handle anything heavy which requires a Hall) while this loco can handle lighter loads or run double headed (as is so often the case running up Tigley bank)
Now that everything was working, the footplate was dismantled once again, primed and then sprayed satin black over the front quarter of the model. 
The boiler, footplate and chassis were now all reassembled (taking some time along the way to fit a Martin Finney smokebox dart (liberated from a kit build which is on hold) and a new smokebox door bracket. Once done it was time to repair the weathering.
Given it was only in this condition for 3 months, its not surprising that I haven't found a photo. Instead I have worked from other prototype images of almost new steam locomotives. Typically the green is nice and polished, but the black quickly matts down to a dark grey (which is what I have tried to replicate here). 
It now needs the front bufferbeam painting red (tonight's final job), the fitting of a screw coupling on the front, and the addition of bufferbeam numbers / nameplates (which will hopefully arrive from Fox tomorrow.)
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