In the last entry I mentioned my problematic 1366 tank loco, built from a DJH kit. Although I took care building the loco, some distortion crept into the boiler/pannier assembly and once I discovered this - long after painting - it bothered me enough to put the loco away until I thought of a way to tackle the issue. I did not really want to dismantle the body after painting and decaling it.

For some reason I had convinced myself that the pannier top and buffer beam were out of alignment but this turned out to be an optical illusion, I think, caused by the boiler being skewed slightly away from the desired center line. I took this photo last night:

I think it illustrates the problem well enough - as mentioned in the other entry, if you drop vertical lines down from the sides of the panniers, they don't intersect the buffer beam an equal distance from the ends -it's about a "rivet" too far to the right. Even allowing for my camera not looking directly at the engine, there's clearly something amiss. Happily, though, the bits that should be level are all true and parallel to each other - I really had convcinced myself that there was a "droop" to the loco's face.

Rather than dismantling the loco completely, I wondered if it might be possible to sort out the alignment with some relatively minor surgery to the front end? The boiler is anchored to the loco at two points - the cab front, and the smokebox saddle. If I could free the join at the front, might I be able to shift things back into alignment without damaging details or paintwork?

Rather than dwell on it, I decided to have a go. Firstly, I eased out the handrail knob at the top of the smokebox door and swung it out of harm's way. Then, using a knife, I was able to gently pop the etched brass smokebox front away from the rest of the boiler, exposing the solid white metal of the boiler/pannier and smokebox saddle. Using a razor saw, I very carefully cut along the base of the saddle until it was completely severed from the footplate. I took my time and made sure I wasn't cutting into the footplate or deviating from a true horizontal. In the process I dislodged a buffer but it will be easily reattached.

Finally, with the boiler now just "sitting" on the footplate, and fixed only at the cab end, I found that it could persuaded to shift to the left:

I'm not sure if we're completely there yet but there's a been some improvement, which encourages me that I can gradually achieve the necessary realignment. Again, if you drop verticals from the pannier sides, the offset is no longer as obvious - to me, anyway. I will leave it overnight in case the casting has a tendency to "spring" back to its former position, but once it is centered and stable I'll reattach the smokebox to the footplate, fix the front etching, pop the handrail knob back in and touch up the minor damage to the black paintwork caused by handling. For the sake of a couple of hours easy work I might be able to salvage this loco, which would please me enormously if it works.