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James Harrison

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  2. James Harrison
    I did a little more work on the B5 (after declaring it finished).
     
    The tender; fitted a buckeye coupler and plated over the coal rails. The locomotive; added the reversing lever and picked out the smokebox door dart and hinges in silver.
     

     

     
    Then I directed my energies toward the Ratio kits.
     
    The first one I am looking at is an all-first. Most of the work involved consists of changing the bogies. I discarded the ones provided with the kit and settled on Coopercraft 8' Gresley bogies. I bought these a few years ago- and am glad that I did! I understand that presently mail-order from Coopercraft is suffering technical difficulties.
     

     
    To get it to sit right, the lump moulded on the top of the bogie has to be sanded back. Then the bogie bolster and the carriage floor have to be drilled through. Finally the bogie is secured to the carriage via a screw.
     

     
    This done, the rest of the carriage can be built as-per the instructions. I will of course be adding an interior.
     

  3. James Harrison
    There is something quite pleasing to my eye about the Robinson 4-6-0s. In fact I think the day I decided I had to model the GCR was the day I found a photograph of GCR Class 1 Sir Sam Fay in a volume of locomotive portraits, and for the last few years I have attempted to model various of the classes in differing mediums with differing success; recently many of my earlier hackbash efforts centred around Triang B12s have been scrapped as I find older whitemetal kits on Ebay.
     
    One of those kits was the Milholme Models iteration of the B5, which I bought last year. It had been built in an odd fashion; it was fitted with the Robinson-pattern boiler fittings but the boiler itself was pitched too high, an odd amalgam of GCR and LNER features. Had it been a complete B5/3 I would probably have passed it by, however what with the GCR chimney and dome it struck me that all it needed was 2mm lopping off the smokebox saddle and firebox to backdate it into GCR condition.
     
    So I bought it, had a look at it, and then put it into the 'one day' pile and forgot about it until a few days ago when I found it languishing in a box. I had a vague idea how the operation might be accomplished and I was tiring of plodding through rolling stock models; so for a change I decided to have a go and see how it went.
     
    ~~~
     
    The first thing I did after separating the loco body and chassis was to put the former in a jar of paint stripper, where I left it for a few days before cleaning it off and scraping it down.
     
    The big problem with trying to alter or rehabilitate kits is that the instructions have usually been discarded by the previous owner, and thus it was this time too. So I had to go very carefully, which paid off as parts I thought would have been soldered turned out to have been glued, and vice-versa. Parts that I thought would be hollow castings turned out to be solid billets, and parts that I thought would have been a single casting turned out to be made up of two or four pieces.
     
    My vague idea to remove the 2mm of excess height was to use a pair of draughtsman's scribers to gently, carefully and slowly scrape out a 'trench' of sorts through the metal, and cut it out that way, but that turned out a none-starter so after marking the metal I turned to a hacksaw instead for the main cuts. I'm glad I started with the scriber though; I doubt I would have gotten neat straight cuts otherwise.
     
    The upshot is that after a few hours' work last night I succeeded in cutting down the firebox and smokebox saddle by 2mm each and managed to reassemble the model.
     

     
    The largish lumps of material in front of the model are the billets of metal I had to remove. I'm now going to consult my reference works to confirm the pattern of safety valve for the circa 1920 period, and ascertain whether the pipe to the smokebox is appropriate to that period. After that I think the major part of the work is done and all that should really be left is a repaint.
  4. James Harrison

    Some photos

    By James Harrison,

    I don't usually go in for large photography sessions, but a friend recently asked if I'd take a few of 'complete' trains of mine, rather than ones of the individual stock as and when I complete it.
     
    So I thought, as it is the bank holiday and I have the time to do it, to oblige him.
     

     

     

     
    As an initial set-up I decided on a coal train. Millholme Models Q4 0-8-0 (awaiting its turn in the paintshops for GCR livery), a short rake of Cambrian Kits pre-1923 private owner wagons with POWsides transfers, and a short rake of Colin Ashby GCR 5-plank opens with my homebrew GCR 6-wheel brake bringing up the rear. This last is on the replacement list in the light of new information and a new tool (the portrait cutter).
     

     
    Then I went in for a local stopping train. Nu-Cast or Little Engines A5, a Ratio low-roof suburban carriage (GCR-ised with a set of heavier bogies [Gresley 8'-ers for those taking notes] and an ersatz teak finish), and a pair of GCR clerestories which are made up of portrait cutter drawn sides fitted to the old Hornby short-style clerestory carriages.
     

     
    And finally a much-abridged 3.20 Down Manchester. The loco is my 'Lord Faringdon', which had started life as somebody else's hackbash. Since it came under my stewardship it has undergone two rebuilds and now I feel is a far closer representation of the real thing. The carriages are Graham Farish mainline stock from the 1970s/80s, which I have repainted.
     
    I'm quite pleased with these. Usually I just build the models and view them in isolation, but putting them together I've given myself a good idea of whether I'm succeeding in my aim of replicating the GCR circa 1920-22. I think I am. I think I am.
  5. James Harrison
    So I then went on to finish the window and door mullions, and the fitted ventilators over them.
     

     
    This is the corridor side.
     

     
    And the kitchen side, which is something of an educated best guess as the drawings I am working off show only the corridor side and the carriage plan!- the saloon windows are easy enough and luckily I was able to find a few photographs of GCR restaurant cars to serve as pointers for the window arrangement to the kitchen.
     
    Then it was time for some paint.
     

     

  6. James Harrison
    A few years ago I set out to build a couple of rakes of lookalike GCR mainline stock circa 1920, one of five converted from Mainline/ Bachmann LMS carriages and the other of four from Graham Farish generic types. At the same time I bought another ex-LMS carriage for eventual conversion to a restaurant car, but as this involved a lot more surgery I put it up for a while and got on with some locos instead.
     
    A few weeks ago I dug it out and work was able to start in earnest. The first stage was to cut away the window and door mullions, and to cut away some of the panelling at both ends of the carriage. When this was done I carefully scraped away the moulded panelling with a stanley knife.
     

     
    I was then able to start building up the new windows, taking a drawing in George Dow's 'Great Central volume 3' as a guide.
     

     
    Now this is all very rough and ready right now of course, but the next stage will be to smooth it all down and build the window inserts proper. At which point it will, hopefully, start to look more like a carriage and less like a pile of scrap!
  7. James Harrison
    Finished?
     
    Well, practically.
     

     

     


     

     
    There are a few bits that need final finishing off; it still needs couplings, for example. And I think some extra plumbing and maybe some lining and nameplates would not go amiss. I'm surprised how much of a difference simply fitting the etched brass spectacle surrounds has made. Just sets the spectacle plate off nicely. I still have to varnish the model, thinking about it, and that will do wonders for flatting down the gloss finish and evening out the paint texture. So there we have it; a scratch-built engine by myself that doesn't look a total dog!
     
    What next? Details shortly...
  9. James Harrison
    As I mentioned in my previous blog post, one of the roundtoit projects that has been sitting on a shelf for far too long is a rake of four Graham Farish OO mainline carriages, dating from around the 1970s.
     
    It is my opinion that they closely resemble Robinson mainline stock of the post-1910 period and that with a little bit of work they can become quite convincing, albeit generic, GCR express coaching stock.
     
    So here is a brake third, which I have worked on.
     

     

     
    There has been no major work undertaken on this model!- The only cutting, sawing and gluing on it has been concerned with fitting Kadee couplings.
     
    After removing the roof (a push fit), and taking the glazing out for safe keeping, I first painted the interior. Once this had dried I applied two coats of Humbrol #61 (a sort of dull orange/flesh sort of colour) to the sides as a teak undercoat, and once that had been allowed to dry I used a very much diluted Humbrol #133 (satin mid-brown) applied with a stuff brush and wiped off with a coarse rag to complete the job. The stiffer the brush and the coarser the rag, the easier it is to suggest the woodgrain.
     
    Once all that had dried out, I sketched in the matchboarding below the waist with a pencil. My previous matchboarded rake, I used a ballpoint pen, however with hindsight this looks too heavy. I am much happier with the more subtle finish from the pencil.
     
    And, aside from transfers and varnish, that's it! It took maybe a week of work, working for an hour or so an evening. The second carriage in the rake (a corridor third) is currently drying out having just had the teaking finished, and shall be matchboarded, transferred and varnished tomorrow evening.
  10. James Harrison
    Tiring of blasting through a rake of PO wagons, and wanting to make a start on some projects that had been languishing on a shelf for a few years, a few weeks ago I pulled down an OO Graham Farish mainline carriage and had a good look at what it would take to GCR-ise it.
     
    To be fair, it is already rather close. The compartment side doesn't really need anything doing to it, and the corridor side has the right arrangement of wide and narrow windows. I rather think the only real alteration necessary is to scribe in panel joints at alternate narrow windows to suggest doors down the length of the carriage.
     
    Having made that tweak, I took the roof and glazing out and painted the interior. Even this made a huge difference, and when I repainted the teak and pencilled in matchboarding below the waist, the carriage was pretty much finished. Not bad for maybe a weeks' work.
     
    I then made a start repainting an LNER A5 into GCR condition. Of course, a repaint is not the only thing to do; I had to fabricate new cabsheets out of plastic sheet (in 1924 the entire class was fitted with side window cabs, previous to which they had cut out cabs). Once I had done this I made the mistake of painting the model in Humbrol gloss brunswick green, not realising it would be 3 days before I could touch it again.
     
    Whilst waiting to be able to return to the A5 I made a start on another GF carriage... and then a silhouette cutter turned up.
     
    So today has seen me not working on the tank engine, or on the carriage, but rather scanning carriage drawings from George Dow's 'Great Central' and tracing over them in the silhouette cutter design software. My word this is a useful tool!- two hours to draw it up, five minutes to cut it to a far great degree of precision than I could ever manage by hand. The problem now is that I only have 20 thou plastic in stock at the moment; which is a little too thick for the cutter. So I've ordered some sheets of 10 thou.... which should arrive next week sometime.
     
    In the meantime I guess I can use the delay to get one of the other projects off the workbench.
  11. James Harrison
    Over the last few years I have shared my building of locomotives (some good, some bad) and carriages (again, some good, some bad). But recently it has struck me that I've somewhat neglected the freight side of things.
     
    Oh, I've built a couple of goods engines, and a GCR brake van (which really needs rebuilding in light of new information), and I've been lucky enough to find a couple of covered vans and coal wagons, and just recently I've completed the first of a pair of 15-ton bogie fish vans. But there's a huge and obvious gap, no appropriate private owner stock.
     
    Now we all know there's a paucity of pre-1923 goods stock available RTR; and that goods wagons generally are the poor relation of rolling stock. I have a couple of Hornby and Bachmann wagons, but they're one of the following:
     
    - wrong region
    - wrong era
    - right era, right region, on an inappropriate wagon.
     
    So put simply my choices are to put up and shut up, or look to kits.
     
    So a few months ago I spent a little time on Ebay, and bought, quite cheaply, a couple of Cambrian Models kits (pre-1923 private owner types), some Hornby axles and Romford bearings. I then visited the POWsides site and spent an enjoyable few hours going through their catalogue finding liveries appropriate firstly to the GC area, secondly appropriate to the pregrouping era, and thirdly appropriate to the wagon types I had bought.
     
    The first kit I have built is the 4-plank 'Wheeler and Gregory' type with rounded ends. I found it a very easy little kit to build; I'm very happy both with it and the ease of applying the transfers (rather like the Letraset I used to play with as a child). Four evenings' worth of work and I have a nice little wagon.
     

     
    My weathering technique is to brush chalk pastel over the model; I'm quite happy with how that has turned out.
     
    A few weeks ago I bought a Hornby coke wagon in GC livery. When I didn't want one there were several on Ebay!- as soon as I decided I did want one they'd all gone... my example I bought mail-order from Frome Model Centre (very pleased with their customer service).
     
    It's a fairly basic model, apparently dates from the 1970s and is based on a North Eastern prototype. A few things struck me immediately.
     
    1) No detail at all inside the wagon.
    2) Brake gear fitted to both sides- this only became widespread after 1923?
    3) NER-practice brake gear at both ends of the wagon- unnecessary for a GCR prototype.
    4) Huge, awful tension lock couplings.
    5) Lack of bearings leaves the wagon reluctant to roll freely.
     
    I started by splitting the body from the chassis, and then I used a scalpel to remove the brake gear from both ends of the body. Cleaned up my cut marks and repainted the ends, and set it aside to dry.
     
    I took the axles out of the chassis and tried to fit my usual Romford pin bearings, however they wouldn't fit quite deep enough in the axle boxes so had to come out again. I'm reluctant to start fooling around with drilling the axle boxes out to accommodate them- it's a job just looking for an opening to go terribly wrong- so I've decided to have a think about alternatives there.
     
    I removed the tension lock couplings, and replaced them with 3-links. At the same time I removed the brake gear from one side of the chassis.
     
    By now the body had dried so I was able to paint the insides of the wagon black.
     
    It's not a comprehensive rebuild of the wagon, nor a comprehensive list of things that can improve it, but it has improved the model immensely for very little outlay in time and money (an hour's work and maybe £2 or £3 for couplings and paint).
     

     
    Now to rebuild that 6-wheel GC brakevan...
  12. James Harrison
    Only the one photo in this entry I'm afraid; however there has been something of a metamorphasis...
     

     
    Still awaiting a new reversing lever (on order), nameplates (in the spares box), safety valves and whistle (ditto) and boiler bands.
     
    Quite an improvement!- I'm staggered how lowering the body by a matter of 1 or 2mm has improved the appearance so much.
  14. James Harrison
    Last year I bought a completed McGowan Models LNER C4, and it rather threw the inadequacies of my hackbashed C5 'King Edward VII' into sharp relief.
     
    I had already decided that something had to be done about the compound's chassis- I had bought a Hornby 'Patriot' chassis to replace the existing hacked-about B12 running gear- but a scheme to rebuild the loco below the running plate was shelved whilst I considered how to proceed. ,
     
    A few months later a whitemetal C4 body came up on ebay and was secured for around £40, and at this point the putative project suddenly moved from being a mere chassis replacement to replacing the whole loco.
     
    So when I was putting together my 2015 build programme it was almost inevitable that a new C5 would figure prominently in it; more than anything else I now had a new donor chassis and a semi-completed body taking up valuable storage space, part of which can be cleared for other projects just as soon as the one is introduced to the other.
     
    In the meantime I started gathering my research materials; a copy of Volume 13 of Yeadon's gave documentary evidence that what I want to model actually happened in real life (that being, LNER lettering on GCR livery)- even if only for 6 months in 1924. Etched numberplates were ordered and I suddenly found myself with all the necessary bits to do the engine, even if the motor and tender would have to wait a while... well that wouldn't stand so a motorised Hornby tender was bought- which just leaves the tender body to acquire (and I'm pretty adept at making those from scratch).
     
    First step of course is to turn the 4-6-0 chassis into a 4-4-2, and I'll be covering how I am doing this next time.
  15. James Harrison
    I have spent the last few weeks working on the interior and the roof...
     
    The interior was built a plastic false floor. Compartments were likewise built of plastic, and the seats were built of balsa.
     
    The roof was built on a flase ceiling. Two thick pieces of styrene strip (2mm square) were run down the length of this as a pair of keels, and then the roof itself is a sheet of paper pulled taut and fixed with UHU. On the corners I need to break out the filler and sort out the little gaps, and I think it needs cutting back a little. Then I need to sort out the roof vents...
     

     

     

     

  16. James Harrison
    I've reached the point where the carriage looks substantially complete but needs fitting out internally and a roof adding!
     

     

     
    The beading below the waist was done in 0.5mm styrene strip and the panelling above was done in 0.5mm styrene sheet.
     
    Teaking was done using Humbrol enamels, paying attention to the fact that GCR teak is much darker and richer than LNER teak. It's been done in matt paints but when finished and given a satin varnish it will come up nicely.
  17. James Harrison
    A few weeks ago I started work on some GCR Parker stock... to briefly recap. The original donor vehicle is a Triang 'Caledonian' carriage that was a good 50mm too long, had the wrong detail at both ends and the wrong roof profile. The windows and the compartments can be worked with but the windows require attention as they're too small. I cut the carriage sides up and rearranged them to get the window layout I needed, then used a file to widen the windows to something approaching the right size. I then had to leave off the project for want of 0.5mm styrene strip to form the beading.
     

     
     
    And now we can pick up again! The aforementioned styrene strip having arrived I've been able to make a start on the beading. This I anticipate to be something of a chore; it takes quite a while, the strip has to be cut accurately, when it gets picked up it has a tendancy to ping out of the tweezers, and it is so fine that the glue tends more to melt it than anything else. So last night I did the lower half of the corridor side and then called it a night. I'm debating how to go about the upper half, as there is less beading there but rather more panelling. It may become a partial overlay of 0.5mm styrene sheet more than anything else...
     
    To get a better idea of what I am building, I decided to give the carriage side a coat of primer. Previous to this I was laying white plastic on top of maroon plastic, which had been painted first red, then green, then a mucky brown colour. Concentrating on it tended to send my eyes crossed.... now it is all one colour I can see more clearly what I am doing!
  18. James Harrison
    About a year ago, I was able to buy a Triang Caledonian composite off of Ebay for a few pounds. It had been painted brown and lettered LNER and it looked vaguely North Eastern, which was what originally picqued my interest.
     
    When it arrived I thought that the sides looked well enough but was disappointed to find it was fitted with BR Mk.1 ends, roof and undercarriage, so it went onto a shelf whilst I had a think what to do.
     
    Whilst idly flipping through my copy of George Dow's Great Central trilogy for ideas of rolling stock to build, in Volume 2 I found a few line drawings of 1898 Parker stock which looked as though they could be bashed from the Triang Caley coaches. A little more research produced 4mm scale drawings in copies of Railway Modeller from the late 1970s/ early 1980s.
     
    This being a first attempt I decided not to go for anything overly ambitious- the carriage as bought most closely resembles a Compartment First, so that is what I decided to model.
     
    I didn't note down any measurements or take photos of where to cut up each side to get the right number and arrangement of compartments, or windows on the corridor side!- as there are any number of ways these sides can be cut up and reassembled I think anyone following my example would most likely prefer to make their own decision on where to place cuts.
     
    After a few evenings' work I had two sides...
     

     

     
    On the reverse I had to use some plastic sheet as a sort of spine to give strength to the sides.
     
    I had to then carefully file out the windows to get them to the right size, using the moulded beading as a guide, and once this was done I removed the beading entirely with a file and sandpaper. I need to replace it with new beading from plastic strip.
     

     
    I cut a section out of the middle of the underframe (before I did this I removed and discarded the trussing) and then used more plastic sheet to reinforce the new joint.
     

     
    And I have removed all of the detail from the ends of the carriage and reprofiled the roof line to produce the distinctive flat down the middle of the roof.
  19. James Harrison
    It's finished!
     

     

     
    I did a little research on the internet but couldn't really find much about livery details for WD rolling stock, beyond that they were painted grey. I did find a few photographs of preserved narrow gauge wagons, but to my eye (your mileage may vary) they look too dark. Eventually I painted the van with Humbrol #64, mid-grey. I chose this colour on the basis of nothing stronger than this is what the likes of Airfix and Trumpeter call off for their model dreadnoughts.
     
    The WD markings are from the Modelmaster range- I used the largest ones on the sheet- which looked too small until I applied them to the model, when they started to look right. Any larger and I think they would somewhat overpower the panelling.
     
    I have decided to use this van, a couple of Cambrian Kits PO wagons, and a BEC J11 as guinea pigs with which to experiment with three link couplings.
  20. James Harrison
    I seem to be getting on a roll with backdating and repainted all of my ex-GCR locos into proper full-bore GC livery.
     
    I have just completed repainting a Jaycraft model of class 11E (LNER D10) 'Sir Clement Royds'. I originally built this model two years ago and finished it in pre-1928 LNER green; now it is finished in GCR livery, which I think suits it better. Odd how we perceive certain liveries to suit certian classes better than do others.
     

     
    It seems that the application of waterslide decals on the tender has upset the PVA coat I give my models as a low-cost low-risk protective layer; this looks worse on the photos than it does on the model, and I know from experience that a second coat of PVA will put it right.
     
    The lining I did myself as an experiment; usually I draw it up on photoshop and print it, but this time the printer decided to have other ideas and it didn't go to plan. With three sets of tender and cabsheet lining on the one print, I was loathe to waste the paper and ink so I worked with what I had. I masked off the lining and painted it on by hand. For a first effort I think it is perfectly serviceable, and I anticipate the method will improve with practice.
  21. James Harrison
    The next thing to do with Gerard Powys Dewhurst was to touch in the paintwork in the areas which had received attention. A few coats of signal red on the buffer beams, some matt black on the new buffer I had to build and some crimson lake on the tender frames.
     
    Then it was time to glaze the cab. I have found quite a useful product called 'glue 'n' glaze', which as it's name suggests can be used either as an adhesive or as a glazing material. It looks rather like a more elastic PVA glue, it goes on as a thick white fluid but eventually dries clear. You get a good amount on the model in one corner of the window, then gently drag it across the aperture to fill it completely and leave it to dry. Occasionally you'll have to have a few goes at this as sometimes the glazing bursts as it dries!
     
    Finally, to remove the odd high-gloss finish of the model as supplied, I gave it a few coats of matt varnish to dull the whole thing down and give it more of a work-stained appearance.
     

     

    Now for my next trick- restarting 'City of Lincoln' after the chalky varnish issue a few weeks ago.
     

     
    I re-primed the loco a few days after the debacle, so this evening I gave it a first coat of matt acrylic green paint. The matt paint has the right colour, but results in a very dull final finish. Meanwhile gloss paint of the same colour appears too bright... the way I work around this is generally to start with a matt coat, then a gloss coat, then another coat of two of matt to finish.
  22. James Harrison
    After the debacle last weekend with 'City of Lincoln', I decided to put that locomotive on the 'shelf of terrible mistakes' for a short while and get on with something else (something more productive than burning down the Humbrol factory in revenge, that is).
     
    So I sorted out my GBL 'Butler Henderson' and set about converting her (him?) into a running model.
     
    The first step obviously is to take the model apart and then consider how to get the running chassis to fit. The GBL model breaks down quite helpfully into three main parts; the cab, the boiler and the running plate. And when we look at the running plate, we see marks where extra material has been added to the original Bachmann model (via CAD, after being scanned perhaps?) which forms the mounting for the cast static chassis. I followed these marks and cut the extra material away, and lo and behold it fit the new chassis. The new chassis is a Triang 2P/ L1 chassis, Bachmann Director chassis being as rare as hens teeth and not offered as a spare by Bachmann.
     

     
    So here we see the material removed from the model to allow the chassis to fit- I also had to file down the thickness of the boiler a little.
     

     
    And the chassis it sits on- I removed a tiny amount of material from the motor mount to get it to fit. If you aren't concerned about getting the bod to sit at scale height, you can save the hour or so of filing and fine-tuning and just have the body sit around 2mm too high.
     

     
    To get the tender rolling, I had some Triang axles and wheelsets sitting in my spares box. I drilled right through the axleboxes and inserted the axles through them. I then used plastic sheet to reinstate the axlebox fronts- in this photograph I need to repaint the tender frames.
     

     
    The only real part of the locomotive body I found disappointing was the moulded on boiler handrail, so I scraped this off and drilled holes for new handrail knobs. I used split pins for the knobs and brass wire for the new handrail. At some point in the year I had the model in storage the front lefthand buffer had disappeared, so I used some 2mm plastic sheet to form a new buffer head and 1.2mm plastic rod for a new buffer shank. To get a strong joint between the two I drilled a 1.2mm hole through the buffer head and cut off the shank about 1cm too long. Once I had slid the head along the shank, I flooded the joint with plastic solvent and once it had dried cut the shank back to length. Etched nameplates were bought from Modelmaster, etched numberplates are on order from Narrow Planet.
     

     
    The model as it currently stands. There are a few areas which need repainting- I have tried with this project to retain the factory finish as far as possible- I also need to fit frames over the bogie and look to the cab glazing. For a cheap, quick and easy project though, this has made a nice change.
  23. James Harrison
    I'm happy to say that, aside from a couple of details, 'King Edward VII' is now finished as (s)he appeared for six months in 1924.
     
    Much of the last week has been spent getting the tender painted and lined to my satisfaction and I think it is just about there.
     

     
    Now for the next project...
  24. James Harrison
    With the locomotive now practically complete, attention shifted to the tender.
     
    With using a Hornby Patriot for the chassis, the intention had always been to use a tender drive unit for this model, so a Hornby 8F tender was bought. I had been expecting to be able to use only the motor and chassis from this, and to have to completely scratchbuild the tender tank, however comparison with a scale drawing suggested that this may not be the case.
     
    The tender chassis itself is around 4mm too long, and although this could be reduced by shaving off the odd mm or two from the front and rear the tender itself still would not be right as the tender tank could not be built to scale dimensions, due to the weights cast into the chassis at either end of the motor. You would end up with a scale length chassis fitted with an overlength tank, which I reckon would be as bad as, if not worse, than a flat-out overlength tender.
     
    So I compromised. I accepted an overall length of 4mm too long, but by cutting out 3mm of the moulded tender tank I was able to get the tender tank to look about right in length in relation to the chassis. I had to reduce the tender tank in height down to the level of the flat tank top to the rear, and then I was able to reinforce the two halves of the tank by filling the joint with milliput and gluing a decent sheet of 0.5mm plastic over the joint on the inside.
     

     
    A new front bulkhead and coal space was then fabricated out of the plastic sheet, using the GBL 'Butler Henderson' tender as a guide. This same tender was also used to trace around the coal rails- a much neater result than my usual tracing over a drawing, then transferring that tracing to plastic sheet.
     

     
    It's probably about three-quarters finished now, much of the actual fabrication work is complete and the challenge I expect will be getting the finish, tone and sheen of the paintwork of the plastic tender to match that of the whitemetal locomotive...
     

     
    Aargh, the cruelties of a close-in shot...
  25. James Harrison
    More slow progress...
     
    Having gotten to the point of having a decent rolling chassis, I made the frankly unwelcome discovery that in changing the wheels I had completely fouled up the pickups. The original chassis has cast metal wheels, and the chassis block is electrically live, but the new wheels have metal tyres and plastic centres.
     
    So what I had to do was to buy a pickup block from a later Patriot chassis, and I was able to glue this directly to the bottom of the cast block (of course, I had to remove two of the phospher bronze pickups first, as it only has four driving wheels). I'm now looking at how to wire this up to the drawbar- having tired of mixing and matching I've decided to follow up the newer pickups block with the newer style of drawbar too.
     
    Meanwhile work is progressing on the body work- the thick fusewire handrails have been removed, the original split pin handrail knobs have been pulled out and a new handrail has been fashioned from thin brass wire. The intention is to use split pins as handrail knobs as this is what the kit was designed for and originally supplied with- and at £2.50 for 100 from an internet auction site they're much cheaper than the last pack of knobs I bought.
     
    The frames and splashers have been painted crimson and a few more coats of brunswick green have been applied to bring up the colour- this just needs, I think, a drybrush coating or two of gloss enamel now to really bring up the finish.
     
    Then I can move onto the tender.
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