This will be my final update this year; we’ve numerous visitors over the holiday period and thus my modelling room will revert to guest bedroom status for the duration.

Since my last posting, I’ve managed to make some progress, which I hopefully have made clear herein. Techniques employed were, as always, developed as each task progressed… learning on the job seems to be the quid-pro-quo with these tasks. Recently, I managed to secure a back-copy of Model Rail No. 124, through a well known auction site, which included part 1 of George Dent’s report on using Brain Hanson’s initial class 55 etch parts and modifying a Bachmann 55 (my brother passed me a copy of No. 125 last year… before I started collecting the mag); I wanted to see what George had done in the areas I was now working… and I was pleased to see that I hadn’t strayed too far from the obvious intent… and whilst the roof louvers do look excellent, I’m not going to attempt these until I’ve completed this project…. I really will need a hold-and-fold tool for those (and I forgot to put one on my Christmas list).

The first task I completed was the remainder of the lifting point covers, together with the hooks underneath.

I’ve already mentioned that I shied away from the windscreen etches as I didn’t want to remove all of that material around the windscreen after fitting the bonnet doors to one end… but I still wanted to improve the basic finish. I toyed with the idea of making a new surround in plasticard, using the etch mask as a template… but that didn’t really work. However, I found that by carefully scribing with a sharp blade along the border of the recessed part of the etch’s representation of the windscreen frame and the lower plate, I could slowly cut cleanly through the material without damaging the fine etch… something I was cautious about previously.

Ok, ok, so cutting steel with steel is never going to be easy… but I did get there, and finishing off with a polishing wheel on the mini drill gave me an etch of the windscreen surrounds and centre pillar only… which is what I wanted.

Prior to fitting, I replaced the Bachmann windscreen and placed the etch on the outside to see whether there’d be a gap between the two… which I then addressed by removing a little body material of the inside of the pillar and windscreen opening to allow the windscreen to sit slightly proud, addressing this gap. The windscreen panels will need to have the silver beading removed… and then polished… but I’ll tackle that later. For now they were useful to use as a guide to ensure the surround sat centrally when gluing in place… applying glue to the centre pillar… attaching and checking alignment… and then gluing around the rest of the surrounds once this alignment was verified. I still may use some clear material instead of the original screens… but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The bonnet top doors were then added to the No. 1 end and the ETH connector brackets fitted to both ends… bent to shape with bolt/rivet heads punched out from behind.

The cab footstep reinforced surrounds are reasonably represented by the Bachmann model, but this is greatly improved by the addition of the appropriate etch parts. At each location, the raised material is removed (filed) and then the opening for the footstep is enlarged to accommodate the opening of the etched part, using an engraving bit in the mini drill, file and sharp blade. A small amount of material was left to replicate the door-step (although I should’ve removed this to allow the etch checker-plate to replace this … as I acquired this later) for the etch plate fitted to sit just underneath this.

Once all necessary material was removed, the etch piece was attacked with a needle to punch through all rivet details (there are lots of them) and then was gently curved to match the tumblehome and stuck in place. I’ll fit the step checker-plate once I get them.

Next, as the majority of serious bodywork was complete (except nose steps and brake levers), I decided to fit the engine intake and nose end grills… as previously described.

Next up was the roof fan grills. My first attempt went wrong…. So don’t try to fit these inside the existing cut-out on the model… it needs to sit on-top of the roof. Look closely at prototype photos – the grill mesh sits atop the roof, the surrounding ring sits atop the mesh. To fit this, I carefully rolled the mesh to shape and carefully glued the mesh in place with Zap-a-gap Pink (thin) carefully applied through the outer edge of the mesh to the roof. The ring is then glued on, in the same manner. Having messed up one mesh, I managed to fit three before going back to Brian for a replacement… that duly turned up in time for Christmas.

Deltics 19, 20 and 21 were originally fitted with horns on the cab roof… when these were repositioned to the bonnet tops the original mounting bolts were not removed, and could be seen all the way to the loco’s demise… I wonder if 19 still has them? To represent these, three holes were drilled on each side of the cab centreline, one set just aft of the other, and small lengths of wire glued in place… all filed to length in turn. Just to the right of centre there is also a small plate (didn’t find out what this was for) but this was represented with a small, thin piece of plasticard, glued in place.

The final tasks completed this year was the fitting of the representation of the water filler hatch catches to the loco’s B side only; Nimbus had these removed from the A side. This was accomplished by drilling two small holes alongside the etch plate and gluing in two short lengths of 0.2mm wire, which were then cut to just over 1mm length and then carefully bent over to represent the catches: Simple… but (I think and hope) effective.

Finally, the cab side data plates were glued on. Whilst these are painted etches, by the time the locos were in BR Blue, most were over-painted… as will this one be. Hopefully the etch parts’ relief will still show through.

Finally, an overview of the progress to date. More will follow next year; for now, Happy New Year to all Napier enthusiasts and railway modellers worldwide.