I've applied the paint to this model now.

I started with Railmatch GWR loco green but on inspection the finish was p!$$ poor so I rubbed it all down again with wet and dry [used wet] and then re-sprayed it with Humbrol No 3 Brunswick Green, not my favourite colour an not 'olivy] enough for my liking but who's to know what colour this loco's first livery was? I haven't been able to find any info online about this one. I guess as it was a one off and scrapped early on [1948], it's slipped under the radar.

Anyway back to to work. On applying the second coat of paint the finish was much better, Previously I'd stood it across the supports but I think this caused turbulence in the paint stream, so the next time I didn't stand it on the wooden supports in the same way. I placed just one support in line with the body, this helped I'm sure.

I then hand painted the smoke box/chimney, running plate, cab roof with matt black. The paint on the buffer beams is a mix of Humbrol No 174 red satin and a dash of Humbrol No 113 red/brown matt. This mix toned down the very bright, unrealistic red. The heads of the buffers are done in Humbrol metal cote.

When the paintwork was dry I fitted the brass handrails and knobs, slightly more tricky on this one. The hand rail has a bend downwards into the running plate. Using Superglue I had to fix a knob on the verticle face of the tank first, no problem I used a short length of 0.45 brass wire to orientate it parallel with the corner of the tank, but then came the slightly more tricky job of glueing in the other three. I bent the hand rail wire at a right angle and trimmed it just over-length, threaded the three knobs on applied Superglue to the hole nearest the front of the tank fiddled the knob into the 1mm hole, easy, but the next two holes are only 20mm apart so as I progressed along it got tighter and tighter which meant having to bend the wire more and more. It all went ok and the hand rails are quite straight, no kinks.

I made the whistle from the head of a Biro with a short length of 0.8mm wire bent 90 degrees inserted, fixed with the good ol' Superglue. This and the safety valve were picked out in brass coloured paint.

I had a dodgy moment when I was fixing the offside handrail to the boiler, I threaded the knob onto the 0.45 brass wire and glued it in position, snipping off the tail and glued it into the hole nearest the tank. When it came to gluing the other end into the smoke box it would not go in the 1mm hole. Eventually with much juggling it went in,[ not forgetting I was using Superglue], I discovered I'd buckled the wrap around the smoke box which is only 0.25 plasticard due to the small circumference. In trying to pull the dent out the knob pulled out of the hole! That's it! the whole thing is ruined! after all that work too!! but fortunately I'd pulled out the dent, so after a good scrape with the scalpel fresh glue all was well, phew! just need to touch up the matt black on the smoke box and all's well.

Enough rambling on here's some pics :-

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SORRY

i CAN'T POST ANY PHOTOS HERE BECAUSE THE POST IS OVERLOADED SEE THE NEXT ENTRY FOR THE PHOTOS THAT SHOULD APPEAR HERE,

My camera is a Cannon 2 megapixel, Quite old in terms of technology now and it definitely doesn't like close ups. As an experiment I placed my Jewelers Loup over the lens and here's the result

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FOR PHOTOS SEE THE NEXT ENTRY [5A]

This one shows the roughness around the doorway due to turbulence caused by the roof overhang and the door edging.

Some of the detail inside the cab. The gauge was 3mm brass rod cross drilled 1mm, cut off approx 2mm from the rod with 0.8mm wire bent at 90 degrees and glued in, painted brass colour with white face. There is a regulator handle in there too out of view in this shot made from 1.5mm brass tube with bent 0.8mm wire arm,

So that's it for now, the finnishing touches will be in part 6

see ya then . TTFN