Maudslay ML3 bus plus gratuitous T9
This week's project has been this Maudslay ML3 bus from the very old Peco kit.
I built one of these for my old layout back in the 80s, but for some mysterious reason it never resurfaced when my train stuff finally came out of storage a decade
and a half later. Everything else did, but not the bus, which was always considered a bit of a shame as I was fond of the model and reckoned I'd done not too bad
a job on it considering my teenage modelling abilities.
It's still not turned up (I'm starting to suspect it may be lost!) so I decided to build another one. I can't remember if I glazed the original model - there's no glazing
material in the kit - but whatever the case, I thought I'd try flush-glazing it this time, so once the basic shell was assembled, I spent a couple of evenings cutting
and test-fitting small rectangles of clear plastic, and securing them with Glue-and-Glaze. Once I was reasonably satisfied with the windows, I completed the
painting in my approximation of the Western National colours, and the next job will be to apply the decals and see if my general stash of transfers has any plain
gold lining for the division between the cream and green.
The roof is only attached loosely at this point as I intend to put one or two passengers into the model.
This is a really nice little kit which adds a touch of period elegance to our station forecourts, and it was enjoyable to revisit it after so many years.
Edit- the original photos were lost, so here are some new ones including the underside with rocking suspension on the rear axle.
In other modelling news, but vaguely connected in terms of period and regional subject, my Hornby T9 spent a few hours on the workbench last week. There were two issues with my model, which was from the original batch: some of the details had been misapplied in the factory, and the model had also suffered some damage at my own hands, not too long after purchase. Some of the damage had been fixed a few years ago, but one of the lamp irons needed replacing, a split in the footplate and buffer beam still had to be addressed, and some of the boiler details had come loose. These items were attended to, and then I turned to the things Hornby got wrong. The copper pipework between the driving wheels was fixed the wrong way around on these models, so the moulding was removed, swapped around and re-fitted - a small detail, and not really noticeable, but nice to have it right. The more annoying issue was that the tender frames were also the wrong way round, and this required some more brutal dismantling and surgery, due to the originals being glued in place.
Once the model was repaired and its errors rectified, I set about weathering it, something I'd never got around to before because I always meant to fix the faults first. The look I was after was one of a loco that was showing signs of hard work, but where the attractive elements of the livery still came through, so it was mainly a question of applying various weathering hues and then taking off what I didn't need, until I felt that the effect was getting near what I wanted. I found the white boiler lining hard to tone down to my satisfaction - it was a very fine balance between too subdued, and too garish. I find that going back over the boiler work with a clean cotton bud produces a semi-gloss burnished look which begins to get away from the plastic look, and more in the direction of oily/metallic.
This model still runs absolutely superbly, I''m pleased to say.
Edited by Barry Ten
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