Richard Spoors
Western Thunderer
I spent an enjoyable last 18 months with a Finney V2 on my workbench, from which you can see I'm not the quickest of kit builders. I'm a keen supporter of Missenden Railway Modellers, and I sometimes think as much work gets done there as at home. My early railway interest was the ECML with many a happy Friday night as a teenager spent at Newcastle Central station before steam disappeared. To complete my collection of ECML pacifics, I need to look at the Thompson A2's. DJH produce kits of all three classes, so I'm starting with the A2/2. The kit is quite old and follows the DJH practice of designing the kit so that a decent model can be built by the less experienced modeller. Comments on this forum suggest that the weakness in their kits is a lack of detail below the frame. With that in mind I'll be looking to see what additional detail can be added to make improvements.
I started with the main frames, which are quite chunky when compared to the Finney V2. Rather than punch out the rivets, I drilled 0.5 mm holes for Scale Hardware rivets. These were soldered in place using paste and a flame. I chose Slater's hornblocks as I needed a hornblock frame with narrow sides to fit between the lower frame spacers. They also have a useful cast mark showing the axle centre. They will be carefully soldered in place such that the spring retaining pegs are vertically aligned to the correct horizontal level.
Cheers
Richard
I started with the main frames, which are quite chunky when compared to the Finney V2. Rather than punch out the rivets, I drilled 0.5 mm holes for Scale Hardware rivets. These were soldered in place using paste and a flame. I chose Slater's hornblocks as I needed a hornblock frame with narrow sides to fit between the lower frame spacers. They also have a useful cast mark showing the axle centre. They will be carefully soldered in place such that the spring retaining pegs are vertically aligned to the correct horizontal level.
Cheers
Richard