Mucky Duck

I'm all for a bit of boiler soot, too… makes a massive difference, Tim. I've never really been a big fan of these locos, I don't really know why as this looks fabulous! I'll be adding one to my wants list.

Had I seen this in a collection of prototype images I wouldn't have twigged that it was a model… very impressive!

Hi Tim, thanks for the info… so my work is far from finished! I'm keeping mine lined, circa 1963 and yes please, by all means post your pics, no need to ask.

Hi Pete, I'm re-numbering this loco 44890 which, from the (not very good) photos, looks like it has a riveted – or at least a part-riveted tender.

I listened to Kratwerk's Trans Europe Express album as a bit of background music and the first track is Europe Endless. The word 'Endless' is repeated time and time agin during the track, which brought home just how long I've been spending on this project. I keep telling myself that I'm nearly there but I always find something else… am I ready for the nuthouse? Fuse wire was used for gravity feed pipes at the front of the smokebox and finer telephone wire made a crude finechain connecting the steam heat pipe to the buffer beam. What looks like inspection panels atop the cylinders on the prototype were modelled from the increasingly handy takeaway container and 'riveted' before glueing into place. The atomiser for the superheater had to be moved and its pipe replaced. When trying to scalpel-off the 'teardrop' I broke it and it left a massive scar too. Once again, there's some 'cleaning-up' to do here but I'm banking on the remains of the carnage being disguised by weathering. Whilst I was on a roll I decided that Hornby's original pipe leading from the boiler through the footplate on this side just looks too 'neat' and the prototype has a flanged joint in any case. Having no hooter included in my Brassmasters kit I tried a poor mans version of Tim Shackleton's lathe-turned solution from MRJ No.138. I used a short handrail knob – as he did – glued a short piece of wire through it but kept the plastic covering for most of its length, thus forming the body of the whistle, then cut a little opening into the top of it. Where there's a will, there's a way… it'll do for a temporary bodge. As with most modellers without train set curves, I wanted to close the unsightly grand canyon between loco and tender. I just put a 'V' kink into the drawbar – which should require just a light 'dink' with a hammer to lengthen it slightly if it's too close. This may well be another temporary solution. There are now a couple of lamp irons to replace, front and rear lamps to add along with the Hornby brake rigging and sandpipes… and that really will be IT!!! Let the weathering commence…

Meaning that finally, you must be considering them as a serious threat!

I think the 30-plus so-called fans who gathered outside Rooney's house, wearing balaclavas and brandishing a 'Move to City and You're Dead!' banner were a tad more than disgruntled.

Stalker – Robert Rich & B. Lustmord… very dark and beautiful cinematic ambient

Duncan, I just re-read the Brassmasters instructions and the tear-shaped object is indeed described as the cover for the superheaters, so my speed-reading failed me there. Thank you so much for the book suggestions; I think either of the first two titles sounds good… the last one maybe a bit too technical for me right now. I did it already, yesterday Tim, thanks – you make it sound… simples! After seeing the new prototype pic I referred immediately to Brassmasters' instructions where, of course, it is mentioned. I tried to remove it exactly as you did, with a scalpel but it was a right little tuff-nut so I had to drill it from the inside before the blessed thing would budge… and I still broke it! I'll post some more pics soon. Funnily enough, I ordered that John Jennison book – Locomotives in Detail Vol.2 – the other day! I think I'm now seeing light at the end of the tunnel (and, hopefully it's not the headlights of an on-coming express). How straightforward my other conversions should be compared with this! As much as I've enjoyed doing this (mostly), it's been very time-consuming and I've seriously neglected my layout!

Thanks lonesome. Steam heat pipes, vacuum pipes, gravity lubricators, steam injectors… I really need a basic 'how a steam locomotive works'-type of book/document rather than simply copying and guessing what these things do! Only yesterday I found a new pic of prototype 44890 and discovered that the teardrop-shaped 'blob' on the side of the smokebox is a 28-element superheater… and it's in the wrong place on the model.

Thank you, kind sir! This upgrade wouldn't have been nearly as thorough without the eagle eyes, shared knowledge and encouragement from fellow modellers… that's one of the main reasons for RMweb being head and shoulders above most others. Other fora/ums

Rooney to City Is the world going mad? Wayne Rooney to Man City?!? I really hope not. Indisputably a great player – but he's in the worst form of his career, making ridiculous wage demands and he's in the media spotlight for the wrong reasons. A quote from related article, "Statistics demonstrate that neither Manchester United nor England would be much worse off had Wayne Rooney stayed at home. A player who used to excoriate team-mates for lack of industry (shades of Roy Keane) is now a passenger himself. By any objective definition Rooney has detached himself from the great collective effort that distinguishes Ferguson's teams." Does the blue half of Manchester really need this? As things stand, the only plus would be winding-up the red half!

Yes, I'm with you there Gordon. Despite being born quite close to Main Road, I only became aware of, and interested in, football when I moved to north Manchester just about when Man City got promoted and with Joe Mercer and 'Big Mal' starting the 'golden era' with the likes of Colin Bell, Mike Summerbee and Franny Lee. Naturally, that was my most enjoyable footie-following period. Allison's passing is a sad loss but he had a good innings and certainly lived life to the max. Naturally, despite today's lack of big characters, I'd love a repeat of my team's modest '60s success and amidst acrimony and controversy about the way it's now being achieved – and at the risk of getting ahead of myself – I'm daring to think that something could finally happen this season. Touching on earlier posts about some fans hating rival teams more than supporting their own, it's not in my nature, however my wish for Man City to win a trophy is almost matched by the desire to see that banner taken down at that football club's stadium in Salford. It says something about a club's menatlity to shout louder about the lack of success of it's neighbour than it's own very impressive achievements and it wouldn't surprise me that when Man City wins a trophy, another banner with a different but equally derogatory slant will replace it. …which brings me on to Man Utd's biggest rival, Liverpool. Can this really be happening? I'm not a fan but Liverpool is part of top flight furniture and I can't imagine the Premiership without the club. Something has to happen very quickly before the downward spiral of players' confidence becomes permanent. Torres looks a shadow of his former-self… when he was firing on all cylinders, I thought he was the best striker in this country.

The more I delve, the more I think that Hornby should re-tool the Black 5. It's now seriously showing its age compared with recent Hornby products and with Bachmann's Jubilee, for instance!

Well, it just had to be done! I was reluctant to tackle this originally – I thought I'd gone too far with sticking on new bits – but after Tim's post I reckoned that if someone else has taken the trouble to show that it can be done without major problems, then why not? I chain-drilled the bulkhead panel as suggested, cut out fiddly corner bits with a scalpel and finished-off with files – and it's worked out OK even if I have taken some chunks out of the frames and lost a lamp iron in the process! Replacement bulkhead was shaped to the smokebox profile and slotted in. Underside view reveals exactly what Tim was referring to about paring back the front of the securing nut retainer to allow correct seating of the new part. Before painting, the white plasticard bulkhead really stands out like a sore thumb – but it also shows-off the steam pipe. The original Hornby vacuum pipe was redundant and its right-angle kink was perfect for this job. With a coat of matt black and the sun high in the sky, a nice dark shadow under the smokebox emphasises the new mod. The pipe is a bit too prominent and could have been moved back closer to the bulkhead but it was worth doing this work. This will be one of the first tasks on the next one! Sugar palm, thanks, your warning has been heeded… I've already bent the lower vacuum pipe several times! Can't say that I'm overly fond of white metal bits.

Cheers Tim, always good to see how other modellers have tackled a similar project. If it's that quick a job it may be worth me risking it… I can always glue back the accidentally pinged-off bits!

Thank you Tim. If you have any pics and info on how you did it, feel absolutely free to post it all here… or post a link to your thread if you have one. I've already received and appreciated valuable information from Larry (coachmann), Michael (cactustrain) and BR(W) amongst others and any more tips would be most welcome. At this stage I probably won't be attempting that particualr mod on this loco as I've already attached too many fragile bits. I'm not sure what else to modify – but I'm open to suggestions – and I'm also eager to get weathering to avoid boring the pants off anyone watching!

Relief! Not nearly as much work involved here as I had dreaded. The cylinders with the attached Brassmasters frame extensions simply unscrewed in one unit from the chassis whilst the slidebars and rods slid out of the cylinder slots without fuss. The rear of the frames and motion brackets had to be prized from the chassis and fared less well – one of them snapping, as shown – but not a disaster by any means. The cylinder/frame unit just slotted and screwed into the 'correct' replacement chassis, which has no vacuum pump operating arm but does have riveted driving-wheel balance weights. Motion bracket still needs re-fitting in this photo. It's only on close-up shots like this that I realise how crude and over-scale some of the Hornby motion is and how much better it could be. I will not be going there though… apart from a couple of plates atop each cylinder that I've only recently noticed on the prototype, that's the lot as far as detailing is concerned.

Useful information is just as highly appreciated as the kind comments that I've been receiving – and I've certainly learned much on this project as a result – so, thank you for pointing that out to me, BR(W). Obviously, I still have much to learn about the Black 5 and when I worked out, eventually, the culprit to which you referred (arrowed below), I realised that I had previously ignored it, assuming that the chassis was correct for my prototype 44890. Not having a decent nearside image of this loco didn't help. The trouble is that the vacuum pump operating arm isn't removable – it looks like it's part of the casting – so I think my best option is to swap the chassis with one of my others and add the Brassmasters dummy frames, motion bracket and draincocks to the correct one! It's a blessing in disguise, there are rivets on the driving wheel balance weights just about detectable on another photo of said prototype, which I found recently and Brassmasters confirm that long-firebox engines ought to have these rivetted balance weights, which my model's current chassis clearly does not… another oversight on my part! Not exactly back to the drawing board but I certainly shan't be weathering the beast this weekend, as eagerly anticipated.

Quickie update… Looking more like a 'proper engine' now, prior to being re-numbered – though you can't really see the mods too well I thought I'd stick these pics in anyway. I wasn't exactly careful coating the new parts with matt black and the bufferbeam with gloss red (even got some on the wheel treads, which I'll clean off) but it doesn't matter as this baby's in for some serious weathering… which will be another virgin experience! Click to enlarge

Going Loco! I don't know why but I find it difficult to hop from work mode to modelling. I tend to need that initial rocket up the nether regions and it doesn't help that I'm not exactly 'an hour here and an hour there' kind of modeller. I tend to like to get my teeth into a project over an intense few days. Thus it was no surprise that after a very busy work period during which I had to put aside this project completely, that I'd been struggling for motivation to get back into it… until I browsed through some recent RMweb topics which spurred me into action. Yes, the tender work definitely had the Pringles effect, Horsetan but I think that I've now gone as far with it as I can cope with – I was begining to feel dizzy and didn't know whether to 'stop startin' or start stoppin' as Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer would say! Preparing for with the final stages of the loco I thought it would be a simple case of adding extra wires and pipework but there's more than meets the eye and it's surprising the level of essential* detail one misses until examining prototype pics much more deeply. *Essential – Depending on how much of a rivet-counter one is. There's a massive amount of missing detail beneath the Hornby cab that even Brassmasters doesn't cater for, not least, the inner panels which appear to vaguely echo the cab's exterior leading edge profile. Pondering how and with what to fabricate these, I went on a household search and found an old aluminium takeaway container with 'Slice me up and use me for your loco' written all over it! It was easy to cut with a pair of scissors and to form into curves with the back edge of a scalpel blade – yet not in the least bit flimsy, for this purpose at least. I cut out the two panels and roughened them up with fine wet and dry to assist with glueing and painting. Making them was a bit of guesswork but as they're half hidden it's not such a big deal… as long as they didn't fowl the chassis. Earlier on in the thread it was pointed out to me that the shape towards the front end of the footplate on the Hornby model is wrong. I changed my mind about making this section from plasticard and chose my new-found aluminium friend to rectify this. As there is a natural join on the protoype in this area, I cut out a pair of overlays. As usual, they looked OK until viewed through the macro lens which exposed them as being a bit too thick! Another 'fault' to be disguised by weathering. More missing Hornby detail; the brackets attached to the chassis either side of the sandboxes are not picked up well in prototype pics. Having nothing else suitable to use which didn't require a lot of fettling, once again I fabricated them from the now trusty aluminium. Alas, it proved to be a bit too fragile for this purpose and the brackets tended to get knocked about and even broken (just visible in the pic) with constant removal of the loco body. I took them off but I may add them again as a final touch when the body is back on permanently. On to the pipework now. Brassmasters does a nice fret – separate from the Black 5 upgrade – but I found use for just one, which came in handy for this pipe disappearing through the footplate behind the lubricators. The larger bore pipework is plastic-covered and bare single-core copper wire, depending on the gauge required – 0.3 brass is used for the tubing and fine copper wire for the finest diameter tubing. Near-side work shown here. Offside footplate detail. The feeble moulding of what looked like a small lubricator (lower arrow) was scraped off and replaced with plastic and copper wires. I've no idea what the 'tap' (upper arrow) is on the prototype, but I cut something resembling it from the Brassmasters spare draincocks and fed a wire to it. That 'block' beside it came from a spare gravity feed. Offside. The area below the cab had to be pure guesswork based on unsatisfactory pics! Believe it or not, I've been unable to find a single close-up image from the web, books or otherwise, that shows this area in great detail. The best I could find was from Brassmasters' gallery of close-up shots of a finished model which, unfortunately, looked to differ substantially from the prototype that I'm modelling. The arrow points to the most difficult part(s) to work out and I think that I made the lever-type thing massively over-scale but I'll have to live with it… or go completely doolally!!! A couple of pipes added to the bufferbeam and behind the bang plate (for all I know, it may be a single pipe on the prototype). Finally the front steps are glued in place but I think I should have given them the same treatment that I did with the tender steps – they look a bit too beefy – I will add the their braces when everything is screwed back together. The coupling looks over-sized to me but is still more life-like than ginormous Markits version! A lick of matt black and we'll soon be ready for weathering! Much less work on the loco than that dreaded tender!

I don't have a clue about any model daleks but I just love your avatar…spot on!

Needless to say, there are many lessons being learnt on this project; one is complacency. When I first hacked off Hornby's 'generous' tender valance I thought, hmm, not too bad – a tolerable amount of work involved doing this. Mistake! Following Michael cactustrain's lead with his impressive tender work, despite being in two minds about it, I did indeed open up the the space between the drag box and the fall plate (herein lies another lesson: look before you leap!) …and unwittingly opening up another can of worms, which, once again, brought into sharp focus the shortcomings of this Hornby tender. Whilst Michael's mods work very well in his photo, I'm assuming that it's because he hadn't removed the dreaded valance. My decision to remove it has created a horrible gap between the narrow tender frame and body, which now needs covering with a thin plastic plate. My enthusiasm for the tender half of this project is starting to wane as each mod throws up another challenge and already I've put in far more work on this than on the loco itself. I shall forget about detailing within that space, hopefully very little of it, if anything, will be seen. Fire irons were fashioned from 0.3 brass and glued into mock tunnel. Fire iron 'tunnel' will be covered with coal. I don't know what this rail is (arrowed) but it's on the prototype Stanier tender, although the bracket above it on the real one sits slightly higher, so horizontal part of the rail shouldn't be bent. Somewhere along the line, I knocked off one of the handles! Water tank neck with lid glued in open position, shown here against an unmodified tender… it was one of my first ideas when I was thinking about the tender mods but cactstrain beat me to it! . To finish, I will be adding the drawbar, filling some battle scars, brimming with coal and adding a lamp – and that's as far as I'm prepared to go with this tender. A coat of matt black tones down all new parts – and offers a better a comparison with the standard tender – before weathering. Now that valance on the standard item really does stick out like a sore thumb! Brassmasters axle boxes are much more prominent, emphasised in this view. Despite the damage, which will be rectified, I'm particularly pleased with the thinning of the tender sides – an aspect of Hornby's tender that bugged me even more than the valance! The modified rear platform will be flooded with rusty 'water' to disguise the mutilation. Sunlight catches the edges, pinpointing the difference. Open coal space will be filled and fall plate will have plenty of coal dust, when finished. Unfortunately, there's still evidence of Hornby's coupling which will be only partially hidden by screw-link coupling. I have another half-dozen of these tenders to do at some point in the future. I know that I will be far more efficient, make fewer mistakes and avoid the pitfalls I've experiencing with this but now I'm seriously wondering whether next time I should bite the bullet, discover whether I have any metal kit-building skills and go for a Comet brass tender kit. The final stages of the loco will be next…

I certainly was intending to but thinking about it… I would imagine that the coal space doors would never be opened until there was very little coal in the tender? I'll be modelling the tender fully-coaled.

Thanks all yet again for the continuing encouragement, it's certainly spurring me on! Well, it certainly started off as a simple and straightforward upgrade with the most 'fettling' intended for the bulky tender sides but it seems that the more I did, the more I found out… and being shown what other people have done that I hadn't even noticed (Larry's tender valance)… just all adds up! Now I'm wondering where to draw the line before it becomes silly! As Horsetan suggests, the cross-bracing strips under the tender are possibly unnecessary. Anyway thanks Dave, I've seen (and been inspired by) your weathered locos too! Thanks Michael. I did saw through the tender tank neck but I made a right mess of it, hence the bright blue replacement taken from the end of a propelling pencil. I salvaged the lid to glue back exactly as you have done. Now, removing the pastic between the drag box and the fall plate and opening up the tool box door and coal space doors… blimey, that's something I never thought about!