As I said before I had shelved this project with no great desire to carry it on, however after a couple of months I was able to look at it in a different light.

The bogies I'd tried to use were completely wrong, the scale was all wrong too. In height it was ok but in length it was way too long, something like 8 scale feet too long. This was largely due to my trying to use the RTR bogies, something had to be done. With nothing to lose I proceeded to hack the thing to bits.

I had to lose something like 32mm from the length. I managed to achieve about a 28mm reduction overall. Firstly I cut off the smoke boxes and then lost some 5mm from both boilers, I lost another 5mm from each pair of tanks and around 8mm from the central section between the two cabs, all I had left was a pile of bits that somehow I had to fix back together fairly seamlessly.

I managed it successfully, to my surprise it all fitted back straight and true. I then proceeded to fill and prime the joints and generally make good ready for painting.

I made up and added some detail inside the cab and hand painted it before fixing the roof on. I made this by laminating two layers of 0.010 thou plasticard bent by putting them in a jar inside a saucepan of water,heating it and allowing to cool.I then fixed first one in place and then adding the next layer held in place by matchsticks and rubber bands.

I omitted to say about making the chimneys, I made these from 1.5mm plastic rod fitted inside 3mm plastic tube fitted inside 5mm plastic tube [i think} topped with a blank disc that came from using a hole punch on 1mm plasticard finaly finished off with a sliver of 5mm tube. I achieved the belled out effect using Squadron green filler and rubbed them down with 400 grade wet and dry, holding them in a battery drill. This assembly was cut to length,then inserted into the stub of chimney already cast into the body, the joint blended with more filler.

The whole thing was then given a coat of primer ready for painting.

While I let the primer go off properly I set about making some different bogies for it. I'd given up on motorized ones, they were to problematic given the limited space inside the body, I could have probably used something like a Tenshodo or Black Beetle to power it but at this stage in the build I didn't know how it would turn all out, I could easily have knackered it with a poor paint job or something so a cheap alternative was to use two steam engine bogies which just by chance I had in the spares collection. I cut off the front steps, removed the mounting bar together with the wheel sets.

I made the cylinders using roughly the same technique as the chimneys, fixed them in place and wrapped them with 0.25mm plasticard I ordered replacement 10.5mm bogie disc wheels from Mainly Trains, these were fitted and to me looked the bizzo, albeit no coupling rods were possible. I made an extension to the front of the chassis that I drilled and fitted with a re-shaped plastic buffer to vaguely represent the prototype.

I cut out two mounting plates for the bogies drilled them 2mm and with 2 part epoxy I glued on 8ba nuts to the inside face, ready for an 8ba fixing/pivot bolt that would go through the hole left from the original mounting arm rivet in the bogie.

I made up the distinctive round sand boxes with the same method as the cylinders/chimneys, hand painted these and the cylinders to match.

The body was painted with a French make of paint which isn't really true to Merddin Emrys's livery as it was [ it's now been painted black] but I went with it because by now the project had gone on too long to go back and strip it, with all the inherent problems that that might have caused.

I lined it using HMRS pressfix LNER lining which were as-near-as the real thing, again this was a potential hazard because I'd not done lining before.

So here's the result, I'm quite chuffed really, it's an improvement over the USA class project, not perfect by a long way but better.

The prototype Merddin Emrys

I've ordered some etched nameplates from Narrow planet who make the sets for the FR shop in Porthmadoc, these won't be ready until some time in January. The smoke boxes have been given a coat of matt varnish and the vacuum pipes are fitted now.

See ya later.