I suppose I'm not very good at compromises.

The nose needed more work, obviously.

40 thou plasticard squares were added to the buffer faces to bring them closer to the front end face. Now the rounded lower corners of the face look right in regard to the two buffer beam faces. The hook and other gubbins in the middle recess will need to be brought forward, but that's a minor detail.

The buffers were actually spaced about 1.5mm too far apart, first time around. On the prototype the buffer shanks meet the inside edge of the two buffer beam faces. New holes drilled and buffers moved in slightly towards center. Thank goodness for 5 minute epoxy.

There was also a more gradual slope needed from the horizontal face of the nose to the front. A rough edge was run across the top of the nose till the old blue Hornby plastic showed through.

Another round of white rattle can primer, one more sanding, and hopefully I'm done. The body has had three coats of primer already, a lot of sins get hidden that way...

The scary part is how much rework is going on! Lesson 2347, the nose isn't deep enough vertically.

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After deciding the nose wasn't deep enough, 1.5 mm lengths of styrene bar stock was added to the bottom edge of the face. Luckily, the epoxied on buffers came off for a second time, and the etched bits glued to the nose were equally agreeable to being removed with a single edge razor blade. I didn't like that door anyway, it's not really right, it might have been intended for the Class 22. I may well give carving the door outline another try.

The red arrow points the way to added plastic strip, just in case you don't get it; I obviously didn't, at least not right away.

It will be interesting to see what the valances look like, the Bondo automobile body putty may see still more use...

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I'm cautiously optimistic that I have captured that North British look. Just in case though, I haven't glued the buffers on again...

The original Hornby model (top) is shown for comparison purposes.

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Comment posted by Pennine MC on Sun Jul 12, 2009 8:24 pm