Background

This loco started off as a Hornby Grange in "shirt button" livery, the 3500 Churchward tender was rebranded to G W R with my usual Microsol / HMRS transfer approach (which is nice and easy on a shirt button loco.)  It gained a new identity with a set of Modelmasters' name plates / cab side plates, along with the HMRS numbers for the bufferbeam.  6808 was intended as a guinea pig for improving the colour of the Hornby GWR green, as a result it was sprayed with Simons clear lacquer having seen it used to good effect elsewhere.  Unfortunately something went wrong (most likely either weather related or me spraying too much) as the paint reacted badly and bubbled up.  I was quick to wipe the mess off but it left me with a ruined paint finish.  Before dunking in paint stripper I figured it worth a go trying to save it, so there followed a lot of work with the fibreglass pencil and wet & dry paper to remove the imperfections.  Once I was happy with the underlying finish It had several applications of Vallejo acrylics, using various brown and grey mixes and the paint on wipe off method.  Before finally finishing off with a mix of Tamiya and Carrs powders, along with the usual loading of real coal. 

I then dismantled the loco to do a DCC installation, the Grange being a little more involved as one of the earlier Hornby releases which dont have the decoder in the tender.  Getting inside I found the chip that I wanted to install wouldn't fit, and went to reassemble the body / chassis.  Unfortunately in the process the mazac retaining location which sticks up on the rear of the chassis sheared off.  So not only does the loco still not have a decoder, I have no way of securing the chassis!  Thankfully its such a tight fit between body and chassis its not a huge issue.

Outstanding Work

As with most of the fleet 6808 still needs to be fitted with Dingham couplings to the rear, a screw coupling which is Dingham compatible to the front, lamps and a crew 

Planned Usage

6808 is something of a surplus loco, being a duplicate of my other Grange in GWR black (which does have a decoder).  However once it finds its way into the fiddley yard it is a very handy loco with potential to use on most services outside of the mineral freight & express passenger.