PROJECT 'BLUEY' - 1970's BR Blue Hornby 9F

[Raised On Steam]

Right then, I'm finally at a stage where I can unveil my latest loco:  a fictitious NE region 9F in 1970's blue colours based on a Hornby Railroad engine.

I originally started this to enter the running for the 2015 Build A Loco challenge with a 'quick, cheap and easy' conversion but as usual I totally underestimated the thing and it turned out to be a much steeper climb than envisaged. Plus I was increasingly busy toward the year end so didn't have much time for modelling and as the months whistled past it became plain I'd run out of time if I was still going to enter the challenge. I'd suspected this however, so resisted entering at the beginning however I documented the conversion anyway just in case so here it is.

This engine might not be the most pin sharp accurate model, it might not wins any prizes in a beauty contest, it might be a bit bodged in places but nonetheless I pull aside the curtain and give you Project Bluey…….

 

 

THE BACKGROUND

I got back into railway modelling a couple of years ago (I hadn't done any since I was a teenager) after putting off and putting off for various reasons. It wasn't long before I began wondering what a 9F would look like had it survived the steam cull and lived the working life intended for it. Plus I've always liked fictitious 'what if' engines ever since I saw some of those Robin Barnes paintings of locos that never were in a magazine when I was a kid. Couple this to the yearning I always felt stood on tiptoes (I'm still a kid at this point) to look over the parapet of the bridge crossing Tyne Yard and just wishing there was a big steam loco simmering there in the sunshine. 

I'd already made a blue 9F from an Airfix/Dapol kit. It was a test bed to speed learn some skills so I could make myself a classic Tyne Dock engine from a RTR model. As it was a 'throw away' project I had some fun with the static model and painted it blue with BR arrows. Would you believe it, it ended up looking rather sweet so I created a thread about it that you might have seen http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87351-1970s-9f/ and had some positive feedback.

 

As a reminder here's what I eventually came up with:

 

 

I was so pleased with it that a big question nagged at me -  after all that effort why on earth hadn't I made one that moved and could pull wagons? 

 

THE CHALLENGE

The Build A Loco Challenge spurred me into action. In mid 2015 I had a bit of spare time coming up and I had managed to accumulate most of the parts I thought I'd need for a quick (or so I thought at the time…) customisation job at some point. 

 

Here's the victim/base engine. 

 

 

I bought this a couple of years ago to convert into a Tyne Docker but it became spare when I used a Bachmann 9 instead. 

 

This project was to be done as cheaply as possible and I wanted to see how much detail I could add whilst keeping the engine sturdy enough to be handled. Like the plastic kit that went before It would have to be a Tyne Dock engine to fit in with my North Eastern region interests.

I figured I could keep the cost down as I already had the loco to hand as well as the set of Tyne Dock pumps and tanks (at that point still attached to the Dapol kit). I'd also bought an old Bachmann BR1B tender (I think from a 4MT originally) cheap from Ebay a while ago. This was always intended to go behind the Railroad engine but I only planned to use the body so I could keep the Hornby tender chassis with its pick up facility.

The spares and detailing parts had come via Ebay and shows and whatnot and had cost peanuts to be honest. They'd been bought with a vague plan to 'do something' with the Hornby eventually.

 

So at the beginning here's what I had sitting in front of me:

 

The Railroad 9F 

Dave Alexander Tyne Dock pumps and tanks - reclaimed from the Airfix/Dapol kit

Various enhancement bits also harvested from the plastic kit

Bachmann BR1B tender from Ebay

Transfers - HMRS. I got these for the Dapol kit

Brass smokebox dart - new from Comet.

Craftsman fall plate kit - pence from Ebay ages ago - to be cannibalised as a supply of scale checker plate

Jackson Evans 9F smoke deflector kit - nice thin brass ones from a tremendous little kit which also has the front smokebox step on the etch. It even included etched Evening Star nameplates which I've since sold on. 

Craftsman BR clack valves

 

 

Also there were a couple of bits I knew I'd definitely need so ordered them in from Comet/Wizard:

 

AWS equipment

Wakefield lubricators

 

[ColinK]

I like the blue 9F, but shouldn't it have yellow ends? Looking forward to seeing the next one.

 

Some years ago I painted the Airfix one into Railfreght Grey, yellow ends and large logo's. Made a good talking point when parked in a siding at exhibitions.

[Raised On Steam]

With the wind blowing in the right direction the Airfix kits still hold up very well don't they.

[Class 74]

Looks very cool!!!

[Raised On Steam]

Just a reminder that the blue engine in the OP is the old Dapol/Airfix engine. Hopefully the new one will look MUCH better ha ha.

 

Anyway, some more progress.

Here's the body stripped down. I toyed with leaving the double chimney on to suggest that a Kylchap arrangement had been stitched in from a scrapped pacific but decided to stick to the plan.

I removed the smoke deflectors because I'm attempting to replace them with thinner brass replacements. I say 'attempt' because at first glance the brass kit it looks very fiddly indeed and at this point rather daunting. More on this later.

I cut away the moulded smokebox door handles and chopped out the front shelf below it to make way for brass replacements. After humming and hahh-ing I trimmed off the moulded shed plate too reasoning that by the 70's the old shed codes wouldn't have been used any more. I have left the number plate in place as it looks too much faff to remove and the BR Vale Of Rheidol engines kept theirs into the 70s.

 

 

To the cab. The thick glazing piece took some wrenching out but I managed eventually. It's difficult to tell from the pics but I've enlarged the front spectacle glasses as the Hornby ones are classically too narrow. I'm going to fit thinner glazing eventually. The moulded vertical handrails are gone from the rear of the cab sides. I'll replace these later with brass wire.

 

 

[Raised On Steam]

I just realised I haven't posted the back story which explains the spec I'm aiming for. Here it is:

 

Legend

It's the mid 1970's. Steam was largely swept away in the late 1960's making way for diesel and electric traction. A small amount of steam locos remain however in isolated batches in mineral heavy industrial areas hauling freight trains. These engines are all BR standard classes and mostly 9F's that were still so new at the time of the mass withdrawal of steam that it did not make economic sense to dispose of them and they continue to live out the remainder of their useful life working alongside diesel classes. BR had planned to scrap these too but there was such an outcry at this waste of resources that they were forced to rethink. They are definitely all expected to be gone by the mid 80s though.

This engine is one of the ten surviving 9Fs in the North East. These were of course the legendary Tyne Dock engines famed for hauling the heavy iron ore trains up to Consett steelworks, a task they're still called upon to perform. All ten locomotives live outdoors at Gateshead MPD where they have a road to themselves. They have smaller satellite servicing facilities at Tyne Dock and the little shed at Tyne Yard.

Very little has been done to upgrade these engines, they are largely just maintained until they wear out as it's not seen to be economically viable to do other than what it absolutely necessary to keep them working. The main two modifications are the removal of the coal space divider in the tender giving the engine a larger range between replenishment, and the addition of Stones turbo generators and electric lighting equipment removed from scrapped ex LNER engines. These mods would have been carried out when a given engine visited Darlington works for repairs or overhaul.

Of course an added advantage of the Tyne Dock engines is their already being fitted with Westinghouse pumps and air reservoirs making them compatible with modern air braked rolling stock. 

There was a time when it looked as though the NE engines would be fitted with double chimneys like so many of their classmates and there was even speculation of possible experiments with Kylchap exhaust fittings salvaged from scrapped LNER pacifics, but this never came to anything for mainly budgetary reasons, but also because it wasn't thought these modifications would contribute much. The latter was seen by some commentators as being typical of the lack of interest in steam on BR's part.

Although kept in black livery at first, the surviving engines were repainted in BR corporate blue as the 1970s dawned. 

While they're never kept anything approaching clean, they are quickly washed down with hose and brush now and then.

 

So single chimney with air pumps and tanks, electric lighting with generator. Also I'm aiming for additional detail for the chassis: AWS, brakes, cylinder drains, detailed pony truck. That's the plan anyway.

[DCB]

One reason the Dapol model looks good is the loco to tender gap is reasonable.  The Railroad model has its roots in the Triang 9F which was designed for Triang standard 12" radius curves and as a result the loco to tender gap looks frankly ludicrous.   Not an easy job to move the tender closer and the tender footsteps back...

[Raised On Steam]

Next installment - roughing out.

With the body stripped I ladled filler into the slots along the smokebox sides formerly housing the smoke deflector mounts. I discovered much later that in the Jackson Evans deflector kit instructions they tell you to put the mounts back in and fill over them. Well never mind. I sanded the box back cylindrical and whilst it might be a bit lumpy this part is hidden anyway so no big deal.

The double chimney had come away easily enough and a little filler smoothed out the leftover marks. Then I sanded back the prominent seam along the top of the boiler and smokebox and fitted the Alexander single chimney from the spares box.

 

 

As you can see I've cut out the slot in the running plate for the air pumps to live in. This was so much easier on this engine than it was on 92062, my Bachmann 9. As the Bachmann plate is metal and VERY narrow there was a lot of holding my breath and gingerly trimming away. Not so on the Hornby plastic plate, I could chop away freely. As I learned from a George Dent Tyne Dock conversion article I keep handy you cut the plastic slot first and use it as a template to mark out the metal undercarriage. The metal part of the plate put up much more resistance but that's for a future installment. You might also spot that I've chopped out the moulded plastic lubricator facsimiles from the running plate too.

Carving away the moulded clack valves and pipes was quite a ticklish job. I whittled most of it away with a craft knife, then took the dremel to it the clear away the last nubs. This part was super awkward to sand flat too as there wasn't enough space to get a good sweep with the abrasives. To fit the new ones they need to be trimmed to size and a recess let into the boiler to take them. The above photo make it look like the copper pipe to the clack valve is wonky but it's just the angle of the pic, it's nice and straight in reality.

I'd chopped away the thick shelf under the smokebox door and tidied up as best I could afterwards. As you can see below I've inserted a styrene 'apron' to cover the slot where the chassis peg locates. I've test fit the chassis and it seems to fit well enough still. There's an etched front step to go on here later.

 

 

The photo makes the smokebox door look like I cut away the dart handles with a knife and fork but the battle scars aren't too severe in reality and they'll be smoothed out later.

 

 

[Raised On Steam]

Update time:

I've seen that it is desirable to trim away the moulded pipework from the boiler and replace with castings. I did consider this but I worried that chopping away the mouldings would leave too many scars and I'd never get it back smooth enough to be happy with it. I also didn't fancy removing and replacing the handrails and wanted to keep them where they were. Plus I reckoned that the castings would be a bit too fiddly for me at this stage (if only I'd known what was to come….!). I decided to go a less fiddly route and instead of completely replacing it leaving most of it in situ and sticking new wire piping on top the moulds to give a slightly more 3Dified look.

But first, as with the Bachmann beforehand,  I fitted a new regulator rod which now actually passes into the cab. Big improvement if I do say so myself.

Next I tried sticking on bits of fuse wire 'pipework'. This proved to be quite fiddly still but very addictive and a couple of days later I'd covered the lot! Looking pretty nice so far!

 

 

Next I reworked some of the mass of injector piping under the cab, trimming away excess moulded plastic and enhancing with wire. Doesn't look like anything much just now but hopefully will later when it's painted.

 

[Sylvian Tennant]

Love it already . I have an idea to one make a Teesside based layout set in BR blue steam. The last stronghold in the mid 80's. You've definitely inspired me to think it up in more serious terms.

[Raised On Steam]

Always a pleasure Sylvian. As I'll reveal later I've pinched a couple of ideas from your conversions too ha ha.

[Raised On Steam]

I've been a bit busy elsewhere so haven't had much time to add anything. Here are the recycled Tyne Dock air pumps and pipe runs being fixed in place. Unlike 92062 I did'nt fully authentically plumb them in and for quickness just made representations of the various pipes. It all looks the same from a distance anyway and I'm satisfied that at least I've managed to do it properly once ha ha.

 

 

 

These were originally fitted to the plastic kit but after liberating them and a dunk in Model Strip they came back up quite nicely if a little battlescarred. However the real things were quite battered looking so this actually adds character.

[Raised On Steam]

The saga of the generator.

 

Time for a little diversion. There'll be one or two more of these meanderings to come ha ha. Spoiler - contains some moaning about negotiating the intricate minefield of model railway supply and demand as it confronts the newcomer, although it's ultimately meant as good natured.

 

Anyway on with the story...

I knew I wanted to fit a LNER type Stones generator and electric type lights to Bluey. I imagined that as LNER pacifics and B and K1's were scrapped their lighting rigs could be recycled for surviving BR engines (as also must surely have happened in preservation). At first I thought I'd just make them myself. On the initial kit I'd just glued in a piece of sprue behind the smoke deflector similar to the LNER placing. This time round though I wanted something more authentic because I was going to put the genny more 'on show' as it were on the footplate so hoped to find something more detailed.

I figured that as quite a few Hornby and Bachmann LNER engines (B1, K1, A1, A2) had plastic ones they'd maybe have spares. WRONG! I emailed them and nothing of the sort. I am mystified by this. Do they make exactly the right amount they will need? They don't have any spare? I was willing to buy one.

Meanwhile I asked in a couple of local model shops but was met with shaking heads and doubts about my chances.

Then I remembered that the Great British Locos magazine had featured A1's or A2's at some point and tried to track down one of these beasties. Two things stopped me here - first the expense, I ran up against some real 'collectors' prices for a pretty basic plastic model. Secondly on closer inspection (and finding a close up pic proved very difficult indeed) the representation of the generator was nowt more than a plastic nub like the one I'd made myself from sprue!

Never mind by now I'd spotted that whitemetal ones were available from RT models. These are good and the right shape but seemed basic. It was difficult to tell from the pic on the website how detailed they were.

As sometimes happens inspiration struck (and not for the last time on this project either…..). I was looking at Dave Bradwell's web page drooling over the Tyne Dock hopper wagons and NER loco kits (and for a very brief moment I considered the 9F chassis kit for Bluey, but then remembered I was trying to keep things relatively simple on this one he he). I'd forgotten that he does a K1 kit and sells spare castings too. A quick email exchange and this arrived:

 

 

Nice eh? Not only was Mr Bradwell very helpful he sent the package so quickly it almost teleported! I think the toughest part of the transaction was rooting through my desk drawer to see if I still had a functioning cheque book as it had been few years since I'd written one out.

I, er, also succumbed to one of his wagon kits while I was at it….which I'll outline when and if I'm brave enough to build it…...

 

I was feeling rather pleased with my result but then at a local show discovered that Dave Alexander also does Stones gennies…..and he lives just up the road from me! I know, I know I should have just rang him up on the offchance to ask anyway but in my defence with the absence of a web site or catalogue to hand I didn't realise he sold individual parts and thought he only did kits, but I know better now!

[Sylvian Tennant]

Oh Mr Alexander's still knocking about! Excellent stuff... oddly enough I'm wanting to convert a 9F I updated earlier into a tyne docker and he's the only one I know who does the conversion kits.

[Raised On Steam]

He does indeed. He had them on his stand at Railex NE just before xmas. I think they're about a tenner. He also had the Tyne Dock conversion kit for the O1 which is something I'd love to have a go at eventually but which is currently sat at the end of an very loonng 'to-do' list….plus I'd need to fork out for an O1 first ha ha

[johndon]

Dave is a must for anyone basing a layout on the Tyne Dock line and a very nice bloke to boot.  I've bought the 9F conversion kit and 20 iron ore hoppers off him over the last couple of years...

 

John

[johndon]

 

and for a very brief moment I considered the 9F chassis kit for Bluey, but then remembered I was trying to keep things relatively simple on this one he he).

 

I bought one of his chassis kits at Scalefour North last year, opened the box once and it scared the life out of me.  I think I need to start on something simpler first

 

John

[Raised On Steam]

TIME FOR SOME PLUMBING

 

Pipework. What a job! Looks sensational when it's done but what a fiddly task I set myself. Building up some of the more obvious mouldings with fuse wire really started to bring it to life and spurred me on however after the first couple of pipes I realised what a labour it would be. Trying to keep thin fuse wire in place so I could wick in superglue was very time consuming and frustrating. I gave the drivers side a good replumbing (as you can see in an earlier post) but backed off a bit on the fireman's side and made subtler enhancements. Plus of course with all the Tyne Dock piping taking up space on that side there'll be plenty going on. 

You can see where I have enhanced the injector pipes under the cab.

 

 

TYNE DOCK PIPING

As Bluey is going to be a Tyne Docker the newly reclaimed and cleaned air pumps needed to be addressed. Originally my idea was to depart from the usual way of fitting these. Normally they're attached to the body which makes prototypical cross piping between the pumps and tanks difficult to achieve if you ever want to remove the body in the future without ripping everything apart. On 92062 I got around this by making the cross pipes semi removable in that they were only fixed at one end. This time I planned to attach them to the chassis with cantilever brackets similar to the real thing. This way I could pipe them in permanently at chassis level and make the body removeable. I made up the brackets in plastikard but when I dry fitted them they'd've worked except they didn't leave a lot of room for the aforementioned cross piping which I knew from experience was fiddly enough to get right! Plus of course I'd forgotten that the Hornby body fits on by slotting to the front and angling back and there  was a risk of fouling the pumps and knocking them off. Which I didn't want. So I elected to fit the pumps in the usual way by just attaching them to the body. 

There is a little footplate between the pumps which I made from the scale checkerplate. not perfect but looks okay I think.

Of all the piping the air pump exhaust pipes are the arguably the most visually obvious ones (at first glance anyway) so it's important to get them right. They're fairly straightforward to make but do get a bit ticklish when you try to get the elbow bends the same on both pipes. It took me a couple of goes to get it right on this engine (and many more on 92062 previously). Also they have to be kinked to clear the water pipe leading to the clack valve (which because I've replaced these ones are slightly thicker than before). Then they kink again over the joining flange for the smokebox and finally part slightly where they enter the smokebox side. I got mine to a shape that seemed to work so I quit while I was ahead and fitted them.

 

 

Next, and even more ticklishly, comes the pipe which runs out of the steam manifold on top of the firebox, then bifurcates into two, runs through stop cocks at the cab front and along the running plate to power the air pumps. After much research when I was converting 92062 I learned that the steam take off pipe was connected to the outlet on the manifold which I believe usually took train heating steam on mixed traffic engines (and perhaps Evening Star?). Now I could be wrong but I think most people make these pipe runs in sections and the article I originally read to inspire me to attempt these conversions did this so I assume that's the sensible way to go. I'm not very sensible however so make mine in one. It's more of a challenge that way.The shape I found toughest to form by far was the bend across the exisitng piping at the firebox top. It's a real compound job in many planes and both times I've done this conversion I've struggeled to get them to sit comfortably and had to resort to forcing them into place a bit. If you're using copper wire for these pipes then this will be easier to do but I use brass which is slightly more resistant to persuasion but to me looks straighter when it's finished. I tried to make more realistic stop cocks for the cab front but gave up and just used hand rail knobs as I did with 92062. Once they're painted they look okay. At the pump end I make these pipes long and nibble them to fit. They should slot into the pumps without any forcing. On 92062 they slipped in lovely but on Bluey they weren't so good a fit. They were close enough though and as i've said before this conversion is all about making do and keeping moving. The real life engines had safety valves poking up from the running plate pipes too which I include. I made these from handrail knobs with the shoulders filed off. I also filed off the very ends so there was a notch instead of a hole for the wire to sit in, to make sure they sat flush on the running plate.

 

 

 

TO THE GENNY

Meanwhile the generator was a tight t fit in the LNER position alongside the smokebox as there wasn't enough room behind the smoke deflector. Plus after all the effort getting the genny in the first place I want it to be on show! I moved it back along the footplate so you can see it and tried to work out where the piping would run. This is where imagination and conjecture enter the picture. I studied pics of LNER engines and there is a thin pipe that leads from the cab to the genny. Originally this ran along the boiler on K1's and that's how it appears on the Hornby model. However if you look at 62005 NELPG have rerouted the pipe out of view similar to a pacific. B1's seemed to have an 'either or' pipe run. As this is a freight engine I figured that Darlington works would not have had neatness or beatuy in mind if they'd carried out this work and would have just run the pipe in the most straightforward way a la original K1. I made up a pipe from piano wire and joined it to one of the moulded plastic pipes at the cab end. At the front end I threaded it to follow the water feed pipe under the air pump exhaust pipes (you're probably getting confused reading this - imagine how mixed up I got working this out!) thence to the genny.

The generator has an exhaust which on LNER engines just runs up and into the smokebox side. Here I had the chance for some more elaborate piping so as you can see I routed mine up and above the air pump exhausts to the same height as the previous pipe.

This only leaves the electrical conduit which seemed to be taken from either of a couple of outlets on the real thing. To make things more visually interesting I took mine from the side up and over to disappear behind the smoke deflector and reappear at the front. Here I fitted some more piano wire up around the smokebox to where the top headcode lamp will live.

 

 

So far so good! There were finishing touches to do but by this point there were clouds of glue fumes swirling up and my eyes had had enough so put it to one side.

 

After this I was out of town for a couple of days and one of the first things I did when I got back was admire my handiwork.

I wasn't happy with it.

I thought the air pump exhausts looked wrong and were at the wrong height along the boiler. I hated the genny exhaust pipe which looked a mess. It should have just followed the pump exhausts and I couldn't remember what possessed me to make them the way I did. Also as you can see from the pics there were blobs of glue everywhere too. It's funny what a time away reveals, even before paint goes on.

Disappointing but fixable as the pipes at fault were next to each other and easily removeable. I later made new versions of both.

 

That's it for now I'll show in a later post how I reshaped them.

 

[Raised On Steam]

Also note that I've cobbled the valve gear bracket from the plastic kit too. This is still the Hornby one underneath and I filed the plastic bits as thin as I could manage and bunged them on. They look rather clunky just now but with some paint on it and a squinty look at a good distance it should look better and have more relief than the flat pressed box. I've done similar on the other side which I'll show later.

[Horsetan]

 

....I was looking at Dave Bradwell's web page drooling over the Tyne Dock hopper wagons and NER loco kits (and for a very brief moment I considered the 9F chassis kit for Bluey.....

  

I bought one of his chassis kits at Scalefour North last year, opened the box once and it scared the life out of me. ...

 

Thing is, with Dave Bradwell's kits, you do tend to be given every visible detail.

 

The 9F chassis is the only correct one on the market, though it's a bit of a waste trying to build it in OO because the frames and spacers are at scale width (13.3mm). The etches are works of art, well worth the money, and would look good hanging in a picture frame.

 

Bradwell/Finney/Mitchell/Brassmasters kits aren't just kits, but a whole journey in themselves. The only question is whether you feel like travelling.

[Raised On Steam]

Bradwell/Finney/Mitchell/Brassmasters kits aren't just kits, but a whole journey in themselves. The only question is whether you feel like travelling.

 

I think never a truer word said. I still haven't been brave enough but I do have a Bradwell wagon etch on my to do pile but it'll have to wait until I finish Bluey and my mountain of customised RTR wagon projects. I need to sit and absorb the magnitude thoroughly first ha ha.

[Horsetan]

There wasn't, as far as I can see, a great deal going on underneath a Garratt boiler.

 

You'd have the carrier frame supporting it, the lower firebox and ashpan, injectors, a balance pipe linking the water tanks at either end, and control rods or pipes for the reversing equipment.

[Raised On Steam]

Time to write up a bit more.

 

So where was I, oh yes the pipes! The pipes!

I decided to live with the long air pump exhaust pipes. You have to remember that at the time I was doing all this I was racing to meet the Loco Build Challenge deadline. However I couldn't live with the generator exhaust pipe so picked it away (there was very little holding it on and it probably would have fallen off eventually anyway) and made a shallower, less obvious one that ran below the pump exhausts. Much better.

I also made vertical safety valves found in the piping between cab and pumps.

 

To the front end.

I'd previously chopped out the moulded shelf from below the smokebox door. Although very thick it was kind of prototypical for the era Bluey is meant to operate in but as I had an etched replacement front step from the Jackson Evans Evening Star smoke deflector kit to fit I removed it. Which left two big slots into which the front of the chassis fits. I'd blanked it with styrene but when I offered up the etched step it wouldn't sit very well so I guessed I'd used styrene that was too thick. I prised off the old one (and my knife took a notch out of the front frame edge while I was doing this which had to be filled with a tiny triangle of styrene) and made one from styrene so thin you could almost see through it. I trial fitted the chassis and all seemed to sit okay without any bulges or breaks. Hurrah. I have to say the scale checker plate makes a real difference. I made the step for 92062 out of plain brass as that was all I had to hand at the time.

 

I had a spare brass smokebox door handle which I made up with fuse wire and fitted.

 

 

Now I made up the electric headcode lamps. These are absolutely tiny as you can see by the log-like cocktail stick nearby! I made lamp irons from super thin spare etch which I basically just kept snipping until I had enough strips that looked about the right width and were fairly straight. After removing the lamps from the cast sprue I managed to tidy them up by holding them VERY CAREFULLY in tweezers and dremelling off the flash. There were a couple of 'jumpers' which pinged onto the floor but luckily these were find-able. It took MANY attempts to glue them together. Why on earth didn't I solder them? Well I'd just had a bit of a soldering disaster on another project and lost my bottle to be honest. If I was doing them today? Solder for sure.

I trimmed off the moulded lamp iron from the smokebox door and made up a thinner one from my strips of fret. It took a few attempts to glue the two pieces together anything like straight but I got there eventually after a few curses.

 

 

How should the lights be arranged? I looked at a load of pictures old and new for reference. A1 and A2 pacifics had three across the bottom front whereas B1 and K1's had four - a double one in the middle. As I have four I'll fit four, theorising that pacifies had fewer being express engines whereas the smaller engines were more likely to be reversing trains and would have a red lamp at the front. I've read that pacifies had red glass pieces to be inserted in the lamps if reversing. The top lamp was more interesting. Smaller locos such as the K1 have a big bracket sitting on top of the smokebox in front of the chimney whereas big pacifics had a smaller one on the smokebox front. I figured that as the 9Fs had whacking great boilers the top lamp would be in the pacific position.

 

 

When the lmaps were added they really seemed to bring the face of the engine to life. It's funny how some things do that.

 

Finally I had a go at the cab handrails which were tricky to get right. First I trimmed back the footplate as 9F footplates step back from the cab sides. The handrails bend into these and they're lost in the curve of the cab roof. There's also a knob mid way down. The rail was easy enough to form and drilling the tiny bottom hole was do-able, but drilling into the cab side sheet just wasn't going to happen so I had to trim down the knob by removing the shank. But. Once I dry fitted it the knobs I was using needed trimming even more. The first one sprung away into the air never to be found again but by threading them onto wire I managed to keep them still long enough to cut them back and after some fiddling they eventually fit in place and it was well worth it when they were on as they look terrific. Not quite the right profile at the top maybe but I'm not removing them now!

 

 

 

Right, here's the body ready to be primed. We'll see what the primer shows up!

 

[Horsetan]

Try to find a photo of 92079, the Lickey Banker, at the time when it carried Big Bertha's electric headlight on its smokebox door. The reason I mention this is that it had to be mounted so as not to exceed the loading gauge.

 

The top headlamp on yours looks as though it might be a bit "high".

[Raised On Steam]

Noted. To this day I still haven't painted Bluey so I'll put this on the list of last minute checks before I do.