While I have missed my intended deadline to get the County running, I am making good progress towards that aim and should hopefully have it complete this month.

The first area of attention was the tender,
Given that the County’s ran with a tender that was 8ft6 (as opposed to the 8ft version that was used with the Hall / Castle) the intention is to build a Falcon kit for the correct tender version. However this project has stalled for some time (the basic structure is complete, but the fine details / beading and chassis have stalled). Fortunately I have a spare Hornby Hawksworth tender left over from a Castle, and as a stop gap I have pressed this into service. Eventually it is intended to be used with my Modified Hall replacing the inferior Bachmann tender.
Of course it is currently painted in the awful Hornby green, so after removing the GWR logos and lining I gave it a quick coat of Halfords green to match the loco body.
I then went to line it only to realise that the HMRS lining sheet only has one set of Hawksworth transfers (given the bespoke nature of the corners the standard lining is no good). As such I now need to order another sheet of lining before I can finish it off. Fortunately I will need the extra coach lining anyway when I start painting coaches.
A little thought has been given to the DCC fitting of the model, my intention is to hard wire loco to tender and then keep the Hornby 8pin socket for fitting the decoder. This will assist in giving the model sufficient running on DC to bed in the motor/gearbox and troubleshoot before fitting a Lenz gold in the tender. It also frees up space in the boiler for weight and the firebox for a large Mashima motor (which will either only just fit or will just not fit!)

So with the tender as complete as possible my focus has returned to the loco. Last time I worked on the model I identified that there was far too much slop in the lead axle, which in turn was causing the motion to jam against the crank pin. On Monday I dismantled the loco and fitted washers to the lead axle in order to remove all lateral movement. While the loco was in parts I also removed the other wheels and gearbox in order that I could paint the frames. After cleaning up with a fiberglass brush they were primed, then sprayed satin black (all be it the latter has come out with a rather matt finish that is more suitable for the area painted.) I then painted the inside of the frames Network South East red.

While the chassis was drying attention turned to the gearbox which had ceased up during the time after assembly. Checking the workshop I found that I don’t actually own any suitable lubricant for model gearboxes! Fortunately I do own lots of ready to run diesels, with Bachmann in particular typically applying far too much lubricant. A couple of minutes with a screwdriver later, all of the excess lubricant from a Bachmann Class 37 had been removed and transferred to the County gearbox. Next the motor was fitted and connected to a battery to bed in the gears, eventually getting to a nice free running state.
The model was then reassembled (once again having real issues with the poor fit of the Markits wheels onto the axles), and temporarily fitted to the body for checks.

I now need to get back to work on the cylinders / slide bars and modifying the conrods for the left hand side, before it can finally be tested under power. Its probably also a good time to chop off the rear drive shaft on the motor and check to see if it will actually fit into the body!