This is my second attempt at producing an ex-GWR K40 full-brake from the TPM kit and a Dapol B-set as the donor. My first effort can be seen in my earlier blog and was finished in plain Crimson. I was fairly happy with my first attempt but I was sure I could do better having had a bit of practice.

This time I completed the full assembly before painting rather than trying to paint each part separately first. I found in my last effort that is was too easy for glue to spoil the finish. Secondly I was not entirely happy with my use of Kristal Klear liquid for the glazing. Although it works really well on resin and plastic kits, it really needs a thick body to grip to. When applied to a thin sheel (10 thou etched NS in this case) it spread slightly beyond the aperature. Instead I retained the original Dapol glazing and cut it up to fit into the new window aperatures. Fortunately the GWR like standardization and both Dapol and TPM seem to have got the sizes the same meaning that the glazing will fit into the new etched window openings. A little Kristal Klear was applied to the edges to hold them in place.

The last thing I was not happy with was the branding. There are no suitable transfers available in N gauge for ex-GWR full-brakes and they had a fair amount of writing on them including running numbers, route branding, parcel branding and "Guard". I approached Steve at Railtec Models and he produced a custom transfer sheet which contains correctly matched branding for 4 different K40s based on photos I supplied. These sheets contain all the branding needed (apart from lining) so I don't need multiple sheets.

These sheets are now available to anyone else who wants them, the number is 3712.

So here is my second finished vehicle. I am quite pleased with it and it definitely improves on the first attempt. I think I might need to use some very fine filler along the top seem in future but it definitely looks the part.