The body had gone together okay but, being a whitemetal kit, it was not crisp at all and the side tanks just didn't want to be parallel with each other but we got there.
The next stage was to add some detailing. There were a few obvious items that needed adding:
- There are rods that run along eh top of the water tank on each side so these were made up from a scrap of brass with a nickel silver rod.
- The safety valve casting had a gap between it and the cab front so that was slimmed down and a piece of brass glued over to represent the lever.
- There is a rod that runs from the cab to the sandboxes. This was soldered up from a piece of square nickel silver. It should lie flat on the side of the sand domes but I decided to drill out the sand domes and push the rod into them otherwise there would be no strength in the part and be at high risk of being knocked off.
- There are pipes that run from each sand dome on each side which have a very visible joint in them.
- A whistle was made up from more brass and nickel silver.
- It also got a detailed cab from bits of plastic, nickel silver and even some wood.
- A replacement roof was also formed as the whitemetal one was just too thick.
The photo below shows the finished result though it is cruel from being blown up larger than in real life.
Adding this level of detailing was a new experience for me and practically everything had several attempts before I was happy enough. Generally I chose materials that were too big and needed replacing with something thinner or finer.
It was then cleaned and primed with some etch primer but it has not gone on well. The primer was an existing can that I had used before with mixed results. This time it came out worse, patchy and thick in places. It afforded me the chance to see some of the blemishes that needed fixing but ultimately it's going to be stripped and another can used.
Once the primer is replaced, the next stage of detailing can begin. The real engine has a significant number of rivets on the tanks and once you see them you realise the model is too flat. I've never tried them before but I've been given a sheet of Archers rivets so I built a mock side tank from plasticard, The rivets are very fragile and it was suggested I put them on after priming to limit them disappearing in paint. There was then a question of whether to put them on before the black and/or green. In the end I stuck with straight after primer, then sprayed the green, then brush coated the black as below
After that it was time to consider the lining. Again, something I had not done before but I wanted to try it. I picked up some Fox Transfers in the smallest thickness they had. As warned, they were tricky to keep straight and it probably is better to go for thicker ones and thin them with an overlaid black transfer. Nevertheless I was pleased with the finish. I discovered to my cost that I had no micro sol/set in stock and it shows with the various transfer edges still being visible and not being able to bend a transfer round the larger curve. The smaller curves were bought. I counted that there are 30 small curves on this engine alone so that sheet was worth purchasing.
The result is pleasing and with practice I ought to be able to avoid some of the mis-joins that you can see close up.
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