More centenarys

Centenary

Entry posted by The Fatadder January 18, 2018

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Last night saw further work on the Centenaries, which are now rapidly approaching priming.

The first task was to fill the joint between the doors and sides with a couple of applications of Squadron White Putty.

Attention then moved to the ends of the Restaurant pair. Unfortunately when working with the sides I based the conversion on minimising plastic removal, and didn’t read the instructions. Net result I have put both on the wrong way round! So the next task was to carefully carve off all of the end detail (fortunately the corridor connections are removable). It now all needs to be refabricated on the correct end (maybe a job for tonight)

Moving on to the roofs, I have been filling and sanding the holes left by the old roof vents and preparing the holes for the replacements (which now just need to be glued in place). The restaurant first has been fitted with its raised panels (having removed the original), including the C profile cowling (thanks to the guys at Didcot for confirming what this part should look like.)

An additional job on the restaurant first was to add an extra door on the corridor side at the kitchen end. After drilling out the window (in the down position to save trying to replicate the window frame), I carefully scribed the door gaps.

Looking at the underframes I have added the extra etched boxes to both restaurant coaches, along with removing one battery box and replacing with a Frogmore etch. For the first I have prepared 4 gas cylinders from Evergreen tube with the ends filled with epoxy. I realise there should be five cylinders but the Airfix chassis has the posts too close together. At some point I will replace the chassis with something more detailed and correct the gas tanks at the same time, but for the moment I am happy with the compromise

The final job was to fit my plastic overlays onto the gutters, a small job leading to a big improvement restoring the relationship between side and gutter.

Remaining Tasks:
Add steps / alarm gear to ends
Add roof vents
Add gutter to restaurant first
Add gutter to Thirds / LH brake
Add window frames to RH brake
Fit metal wheels / couplings
Replace corridor connections
Paint