Fiddly bits!

This week I have fitted the fiddly details. This has taken far longer than anticipated, especially forming the handrail for the smoke box. Welsh Pony has a Fairlie style smoke box handrail which has some really tricky curves and getting it to vaguely match photos of the loco proved really time consuming. The hand rail is not fixed and will be removed for painting along with the pipework , whistles and sand pots. The bases for the sand pots have had thin brass overlays fitted giving a curved front corner. These are a feature of the loco that obviously changed over time. Some photographs show the bases having a protruding ledge, whist at other times the bases seem to be simpler. I have chosen to model them with a ledge. This made a neater job on the model. The sand pots will sit lower once holes have been drilled for the lugs underneath them.

 The name plates from Narrow Planet.

I have added a wire hoop at the front of the tender to retain the current collection wires and prevent them fouling the wheels when the loco goes round a corner. Hopefully this will be quite unobtrusive when painted. I have experimented with several types of wire and the one selected is fairly flexible but with enough strands of wire not to cause loading problems I have encountered using very fine wire in the past. The coupling has been tested and is ready to mounted at the correct height. The Malcolm Savage couplings are one of the real delights of this scale, they work well and look the part, far better than Bemo or DG couplings I have used in 009.

The name plates and makers plates have arrived from Narrow Planet and match the cast bases well. I have been experimenting with paint shades this week as I'm almost at the painting stage. Various Tamiya and Humbrol spray shades have been tried. The Humbrol Brunswick green recommended by other modellers looks good for contemporary Ffestiniog green but looking at the few colour photos available of 1930s Colonel Stephens livery, it is not even close. The photos suggest a bluish green and there doesn't seem to be any paint that really matches. Interestingly there are several weathered front doors in our village that are exactly the colour suggested by the photos but all the doors were originally a shade like Brunswick green. Green quite an unstable colour and decays to a bluish shade in bright sunshine. Perhaps the Ffestiniog stock started off like a Brunswick green shade but weathered in salt sea air to a bluer shade. Another example of this is our Morrisons supermarket. The doors and exterior paintwork is Bruswick green in the shade but very similar to the Colonel Stephens green in those areas exposed to bright sunlight. So it looks like I will be mixing my own cocktail of paint which will be air brushed on.

The chassis has been masked and the cylinders and ash pan sprayed matt black. The connecting rods have been painted signal red. Its funny but in the past I would have been rather more cavalier in painting such parts, but now I do one part at a time leaving things to dry for a few days in between. The chassis will receive a wash of rusty brown acrylic paint to weather it to a more subtle colour.

So al that remains is to fit the couplings and to start counting rivets….

The original kit comes with a white metal roof, but it didn't sit quite as accurately as I wanted, so I filed the detail off and added a brass overlay. This gives a slightly sharper and less fragile edge. The brass is really thin, i'm not sure about the exact thickness but still required heating to soften it. I held the brass over the gas ring on the cooker until it went straw coloured and then left to cool. Once this has been done the brass can be rolled over the white metal base without effort. 

I used epoxy resin to bond the two together. The lintels over the cab sides were made by soldering on brass handrail wire. This still requires a little more filing down as the lip is quite subtle on the prototype. The ventilator comes from the body etch but isn't used in the original build instructions.

Pictures of Welsh Pony show the engine looking quite battered during the period I am modelling and I wonder if the edge of the cab roof shouldn't be rather more uneven! I'm not sure I can bring myself to spoil it.. But then again I chickened out on modelling the mangled dome cover too. All that remains now is to add the central band and rivet detail….

It might not look like stunning progress but the tank strapping has been added and the main fittings. I decided that I would use evergreen strip for the straps so that it would match the details under the dome and filler cap. Any gaps have been filled with Milliput. The holes for the handrail knobs have been carefully drilled. Masking tape was used to provide an accurate line to work against, it was still a heart in mouth - no way back moment! The pipework it temporarily tacked in place with Blu tac. The proportions are now looking good and its just a mater of finishing the details such as the bases to the sand pots and the whistle mount.

The pair of Rugga skips have finally been sprayed and had a first layer of weathering applied

The Archer rivets have arrived from America. I am looking forward to adding these to the tank and tender very soon. The on line You tube tutorials are very good but i'm a little worried about adding them to bare brass. Does anyone know if I should prime the model first, the instructions presume the model is plastic?

On the bench this week is Ffestiniog composite coach no15. All it now required is a roof and couplings. There is however one section of track that is too sharp for the current bogie clearances and some modifications need to be made so that they can turn enough. Other than this it is a completely un altered Malcolm Savage kit.