Hello

thanks for all the kind comments so far -

So , I'm now up to the underframe and bogies.

The Bachmann bogie sideframes have been cut off with a hacksaw and glued back on - the thickness of the saw cut narrows the bogies when they are glued back together. I use slo-zap and accellerator to re attack the sideframes.

The bogies have the missing speedo details added , from brass wire - the fittings on the actual axleboxes are turned from brass rod. The path that the cable takes along the bogie varies between locos - as always check the prototype.

On the bogie sideframes I have replaced the separate brake cylinder mouldings with Hornby class 50 parts - Bachmann have beefed up the brake cylinders , after initially fitting some very odd 'skinny' versions to thier retooled 37s - I still think the Hornby 50 parts are the best looking. Interestingly , the vitrains class 37 bogies dont have the brake cylinders as separate parts - they're all moulded on , but they look just the right size. As mentioned earlier I have added Shawplan brake chain brackets - with A-Line brass chain . By far the easiest way to attach the chain to the bracket is to tie it using a very fine stand of wire. One the bogie , I make a little 'hook' from brass wire, drill a little hole and glue this into the bogie sideframe just ahead of the steps then the other end of the chain hangs from this - so the bogies/chassis chan still be separated.

now some cruel closeups of the fuel tanks im afraid

- I tried, for about 30 seconds , to try doing this detailing/hacking with them still attached to the main plastic chassis moulding - but of course its just much easier to cut them off.

Everything such as inspection plates - the triangular mountings on the ends of the tanks is plasticard - all the little taps or small details (im afraid i dont actually know what they are on the real things) on the ends of the tanks are scraps from vitrains sprues - in several cases ive chopped up the vitrains plastic scew coupling , to make little drain taps. The sanding pipes are knicker elastic again , mounted on the end of the brake rigging - I had some nickel silver strip,left over from a fret of O gauge detailing parts , approx 0.75mm wide - carefully drilled at one end , to thread the pipe though - the other end was superglued into a hole drilled into the underside of the brake rigging. You need a good sharp drill for this - as the brake rigging is moulded in quite rubbery plastic. The pipes are a good push fit into the nickel silver mounts , but ive secured then with a tiny smear of PVA just incase..

The 'cut-outs' in the top outer corners of the tanks are for the pipes running from the sandboxes - the filler points being above them in the bodyside. These pipes are quite a distinctive complex shape - hard to model - iave made a rough approximation with some thick brass wire - they dont quite line up with the sandbox fillers as they should in the photo - but the tanks are still loose at the moment.

(thats what the scrunched up bit of blue paper is there fore )

Theres quite a lot of pipework between the two tanks - and prototypes vary - the route of the sanding pipes also varies - but some good prototype photos 37 underframes can be found here:

http://eastmoor.blogspot.com/2010/05/class-37-details.html

http://www.brianhanson.fotopic.net/c1481786.html

I could not quite fit in all the details in the underframe area - it might not necessarily make the finished result look better -- but the model does - I hope show theres alot of 'stuff' going on below the body of a 37 - alot of which is missing from the Bachmann model . In this area its starting to look a bit crude and dated compared with newer models, particularly from the same manufacturer.

So , I still have to paint the tanks , and the roof grille and finally fit the ploughs and buffers - but the loco is now pretty much complete - On this occasion I didnt add shawplan windscreens as i didnt want to spoil the factory finish - If i made mess of it , it would be expensive to get another one of these locos as its a collectors club models.

A couple more shots - you can see the top end of one of the sanding pipes has 'escaped' - it tucks in to a hole up in the chassis .

Thats all for now - looking forward to Showcase on Saturday

Tfn

Jon