This last week I've been looking at my B5 and attempting to improve it.... I think I've managed to succeed.

I first stripped it back to the state it was in when it arrived from Strangeways. Then I refilled and sanded the boiler and cabsides, to improve the surface finish on the completed model. Once I had got this to a state I'd be happy with I resprayed it back in matt black, then I refitted the boiler fittings. At this point I replaced the original safety valves with a scratchbuilt set of Ramsbottoms, fabricated very easily from some plastic sheet and strip.

I had enough handrail parts left over from my Met electric to be able to completely replace the handrails on the loco, resulting in a much better result.

I then turned my attention to the lining again. This time I decided to paint a sheet of paper in bright red, then cut 1mm strips off of it and using brushes, tweezers and PVA glue I was able to coerce them into position on the model. Once the PVA had dried I was able to run the strips over with some black ink to thin the lines down from 1mm to about 0.5mmm still a little overscale but far more convincing. I think overall the model looks much better for the extra effort spent on it.