A couple of weeks back I had an over-shiny J10. Since then I have ’Methfixed’ its number and its owners lettering. Unfortunately the Methfix sheet includes some well-known shed names but not “Heaton Mersey” where 5186 was shedded in my modelling era. At that time, LNER locos had their shed name in very small white letters under the number, to the left of the right buffer housing. I’ve left that area blank rather than have the wrong shed name.

With the ‘Methfixing’ done that horrible shininess could be obliterated. So I spent a lot of time watching videos about airbrushing and weathering; in particular, one by Tim Shackleton and one by George Dent, both of which are recommended viewing. I also went mad and purchased George Dent’s book “Airbrushing for Railway Modellers” (Crowood Press: ISBN978 1 84797 265 1; 2012): Glad I did, its well worth having both as reference and as re-reading. Sorry, I can’t give details of the DVDs because I’ve retuned them to MMRS’ library but they are in the BRM listing (Shackleton) or in Model Rail series (Dent). I have a lot of respect for those two guys.

As you can see from the following photo’s, all that reading has not raised my weathering abilities to dizzy heights. I set out to have a loco just a few weeks out of shops. What I have achieved looks much more like several months since shopping! I’ll have to see what the judges think!

The close-up views have shown me several areas needing further work that my naked eyes had not picked up. That front brake tie will have to become a bar rather than a rod; some scruffy workmanship below the smokebox will have to be disguised by smokebox ash; the front curve of the handrail needs some tweaking; the lamp irons also need tweaking up-right; the open space between loco & tender, below footplate level needs some ‘tubes or pipes’ to fill it up – the wiring that links both split frame chassis will go a long way towards that. Incidentally while the space between tender and loco looks too long, it is in fact correct to works drawing – at least it is if based on front tender axle centre to rear loco axle centre!

If I say don’t look at my crude work on my homemade tender wheels, then you will look, so I’m saying nowt!! Luckily when on the layout and with lighting from above, they are always in deep shadow and remain unseen. However I can make two certain claims; they are concentric and true; they have the correct number of spokes and are correct diameter for a GCR tender under Robinson’s reign.

Some few years ago the number of spokes caused me to do some quite extensive research. Nearly all drawings and books aimed at railway modellers state the diameter as 4’3” and the spokes as 12. Only the Isinglass drawing matches the wheels on the tender of the preserved O4 - 4’4” and 13 spoke. My J10, J11 and O4 all have 13 spokes and 4’4” wheels on their tenders (scaled of course!!!)