A Hunslet diesel hydraulic edges forward

Entry posted by readingtype June 8, 2020

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Time for something in 1:76 scale. This is my frst brass loco kit build, a Judith Edge kit. Started four years ago and still unfinished now.

Despite the very slow progress the experience of building it has been valuable and although I wouldn't like to stick my neck out too far there seems now quite a reasonable chance it may even be completed. I am very glad I took Michael Edge's advice at the time I bought the kit to try a relatively straightforward prototype. Thank you!

There have been two big challenges so far. The first was 'unsticking' the chassis for free running. That's where a lot of the intervening years went, to be honest; I feared I'd open out the crankpin holes too far and several times put it away to steep while I mulled over what I was doing. I also took it the the club more than once to solicit opinions. It turns out that pickups are difficult. A lot of the issues with running related to those, and I found it difficult to workout what was pickup trouble and what was sticking coupling rods. Running a loco on rollers turns out to be a lot different from running it on track!

The second was a lot more recent, last week in fact, and that was curving the edges of the roof. That issue was resolved by fiddling with it during an evening phone call. The payback for this opportunism was that I wasn't paying full attention so it remains to be seen whether I remember what I did next time. I'm showing the side where the roof edges are slightly out of line with the sides of the cab, which is painful to do but so far I haven't found the will to take it off and do it again, because I'm not sure whether it will come out better or worse. So far, carefully dismantling and refixing has proved the way to go but each slight misstep means another evaluation. But following my success with the cab I felt like carrying on and the front and rear 'hoods' have been done over the last few days.

These two photos confirm it's far from a perfect piece of work, there's loads more to do and I still have a lot to learn before it's finished. But I think it's worth celebrating the fact that now at least this model does have the outline of the real thing.

Incidentally I discovered a very useful gallery on Flickr which will help anyone else wanting to build the model, from ukrail: Hunslet 50T 325hp 0-6-0DH

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