I'm sure everyone is familiar with the work of cat and dog rescue centres, donkey sanctuaries and so on. This entry is intended to be the start of the story of my attempt to rescue a bedraggled and mistreated Buffalo. In this case, an Alan Gibson pannier tank kit that I spotted recently on eBay and managed to obtain for rather less than half the cost of a new kit. Was it a bargain? Only time will tell. What follows is something of a catalogue of errors and, though I have no intention of poking fun at the original builder (I remember melting a fair amount of the first white metal kit I tackled), some of this may be useful for novice builders to see some of the pitfalls than can be easily avoided.

The kit was advertised as "...complete but may have been incorrectly assembled in some areas..." This turned out to be an understated, but reasonably accurate, description, though most of the spring castings were missing and there were no plunger pickups in the box. Interestingly, though, there is a plastic cased gearbox unit and a set of cast brass outside cranks, neither of which I had seen before. From these, I'm assuming that it is a fairly old kit dating back well into Alan's days, rather than Colin's current version.

At first sight, it didn't look too bad and the tank and bunker had been assembled quite well though, strangely, not following the order suggested in the instructions. The top, sides and front of the tank had be glued together as a single unit whilst the lower part had been soldered to the running plate. This appeared to have been done using a relatively high melting point solder though, fortunately, the white metal had only been melted in a couple of places where it will be fairly easy to fill at a later date. Further evidence of failure to read the instructions came when I noticed that parts 31 and 32 were still on the etch and had not been soldered to the footplate first. These are rather important pieces serving to locate the smokebox front and the bunker, and provide strengthening at the points where nuts are attached for screwing the frames to the body.

The underside was not so pretty and the soldering showed signs of inadequate heat (probably too small a bit on the iron) and a lack of flux. The outside frames were also far from straight. Here, I suspect they were a bit wiggly before fitting, rather than suffering distortion from poor soldering technique.

Problems with the soldering of the outside frames and buffer beams became more apparent when I started to remove them, Only about one centimetre of the frames were firmly attached at the rear end. The rest, and the front buffer beam, came away with gentle finger pressure and only a little help from the iron. A clear sign of lack of flux and resultant dry joints as confirmed by the crystalline brittle fracture, and lack of flowing, of the solder seen in the next image.

Also visible in the above photo are several examples of overenthusiastic rivet punching. Mindful of the fact that not everyone owns a rivetting tool, Alan provided a pinpoint axle to serve as a primitive punch, and I think Colin still includes them. Being difficult to hold between the fingers, I suspect most beginners would be tempted to invoke the aid of a hammer. This is probably what has happened here as a fair number of the rivets have been pierced right through. An axle might be useful for this task, but only if first blunted and perhaps held firmly in a pin chuck. As they come, pinpoints are far too sharply pointed for this use.

The soldering on the brass cab was much better though again there were signs of insufficient heat where the cab was joined to the footplate. A conspicuous error here was failing to roll the roof so that it fitted properly before soldering. This resulted in some creasing of the half-etched piece and flattening of the curve where it was not supported.

Also, note that the backhead has been glued in a little too high with the footplate 'timbers' bent up to meet it, and with none of the extra detailing attached. The regulator, brake lever and fire door levers are still on the etch, even though there is a quite clear drawing of how they fit in the instructions.

Once the lower part of the boiler and tanks had been removed, the full horror of the splashers came to light. These are probably one of the hardest parts for a beginner to get right on a kit like this. Like the cab roof, it is essential to form the parts to the correct shape before soldering.

Finally, to the frames, and another example of how not to do it. You don't need an expensive jig, but some lengths of 1/8" silver steel and squared paper would go a long way towards avoiding this sort of misalignment.

In a very short time, I had reduced it all to a kit of parts and started on cleaning up the runningplate:

So where do we go from here? Much more cleaning, some straightening and re-shaping then, hopefully, a fairly straightforward reassembly. The holed rivets and the couple of bits of melted white metal can be hidden by filler and paint. The cab could certainly be recovered, but I'll probably use the other parts still on the etch to build an earlier cab as seen on the early pannier conversions. Apart from the bunker, the kit is well suited to this as it represents one of the earlier, smaller boilered forms with a flat top to the tanks. I haven't decided on a particular prototype yet, but will be aiming for something like the 1911 photo of No 1635 in Russell's fig 248.

Wish me luck!

Nick