Detailing a Hornby Royal Scot

[RonnieS]

I have 90% of the locos I need for my next project (Haresfield/Standish Jct). I recently picked up a Hornby Scot and fully expected it to need a lot of work and a Brassmasters kit to bring it up to a decent standard. However, I think it must have been retooled as the chimney, dome and top feed look good to me and quite unlike some (now dated) magazine conversion articles I have seen. The smoke deflectors are commendably thin and the pipework and cab are streets ahead of the Black Five. Not so the tender!

The Scot performance is not bad either. At 295g it happily pulls 11 coaches but slips at 12. So inspired by Silver Sidelines’ post on upping performance on a Castle (Hornby New Castle - improving haulage capacity) I decided on a similar tack. The 7p Scots, 7p Castles, 7mt Counties and 7mt Brits were all allowed 450 (14 coaches) tons on my route so I began the project by ballasting the loco.

The body is removed by a small screw at the front and (not mentioned in the Hornby instruction leaflet) you also have to remove the rear L/H side crankpin as the speedo would prevent this otherwise. A tip here is to put a tiny bit of kitchen roll in the end of the Expo box spanner as the socket is too deep.

A convenient decoder socket at the front of the chassis is ideal for 18g of lead.

However, the rest of the weight needs to go rear of the centre diving wheels as the loco is front heavy.

(1)  A gap below the cab floor allows 16g of double thickness 2mm lead.

(2)  A shaped piece of 2mm at the back of the firebox door.

(3)  A 42x19x2 lump in the top of the firebox

(4)  And a 20x16x2 lump in the front top of the firebox because the motor slopes!

(5)  Eileen’s Emporium sell some self-adhesive 9x1 lead tape. Ideal for lining the sides of the firebox.

(6)  The boiler

(7)  And the boiler sides.

A 8g piece of 2mm lead goes out of sight in the cab roof. A new cab floor from the same material plus a cast pewter crew from Masterpiece gives an all up weight of 385g.  

 

Now for some cosmetic improvements  starting with that tender!