I felt it worthwhile to "break cover", as it were, with one of my current projects. Seeing as the forthcoming article on repainting a Hornby 'Duchess' doesn't require me to go into much detail on the deflectors, I thought I might as well make mention of it here.

I'm not a fan of the plastic ones as supplied by any means. The only options open to the modeller these days are either from Comet or Jackson Evans. I've chosen to use the former here, but with a bit of a modification to produce the variant required by my chosen subject.

The head-on view above shows how much of an improvement they make. I did modify a set of the original plastic deflectors on my original model of 46256 but as they're lacking a bit in the height department, I chose to use Comet ones as my standard across my small fleet.

These are the deflectors meant for a utility front Duchess, because those supplied by Comet for the fully curved running plate version do not have the foot hold at the base. Out came the 6 thou brass and some wire and a pair of new extensions to the lower front were made.

I've worked from a few photographs on Flickr of 6233, which really made my life a lot easier. Next job is to prime and paint them before fixing them permanently to the model so that I can finish it off for HM! The other side still requires lining as it is.....

Cheers for now.....