7mmMick
Western Thunderer
Onto the footplate. This goes together really well and uses the usual MF model of a fold up affair, which is then detailed with overlays. Nine overlays are used and looking at this you will be forgiven that there's not a lot to show, but let me assure you there's a few hours work here;
Now here's where I hit my first problem. The rivet details around the tank/bunker base. The instructions state to push out rivet detail. No problem I thought, I can do that. So off I went and fitted all the overlays. On admiring a 51XX built by @Fred Lewis at a show last year I noticed that the rivets were notably different in size. A large one, two small, then one large and so on. Not so here, had I made a balls of it???
In short YES !!! Looking at Brian's photo's this detail smacked me clean in the face. I lost sleep over this and sought solace in mates, who said 'no-one will notice, don't worry'. Well after leaving it for a few weeks I finally decided this would need sorting and I couldn't live with it. Luckily we have some spare overlays in stock, so off these came and new ones riveted up and fitted. The pictures are two painful to post but the effort was well worth it. Moral of the story is..........STUDY THE PROTOTYPE
Here's a crop of my new rivet pattern;
With the above tale in mind can readers please help me out with this build if you see me doing something wrong, I'm not a GWR man and need all the help I can get here
Final bit on the footplate structure is the valance joggle, again not noticeable straight away. This is a weak point in the etch and the instructions suggest strengthening with scrap etch. I used some flat brass strip from stock, which is much neater i think;
The remainder of the footplate construction is around the front end, motion brake/splashers and smoke box saddle. This was a lot of work and once finished represents the prototype really well. Excuse the messy soldering inside the saddle, to be fair this will never be seen. The only additions I've made are the bolts holding down the lamp irons. They are scale hardware and really noticeable on the real thing. The kit represents these with a rivet but I wasn't happy with that.
The motion bracket was a barrel of laughs
There's a rivet detail overlay and a number of small parts that try and ping off when you're fitting something else. Glad it's all done now as at times it tried my patience. All there is to do around this area now is to fit the castings but I will do this later when the tank is fitted;
That's all for now. Next the tank/bunker
Mick
Now here's where I hit my first problem. The rivet details around the tank/bunker base. The instructions state to push out rivet detail. No problem I thought, I can do that. So off I went and fitted all the overlays. On admiring a 51XX built by @Fred Lewis at a show last year I noticed that the rivets were notably different in size. A large one, two small, then one large and so on. Not so here, had I made a balls of it???
In short YES !!! Looking at Brian's photo's this detail smacked me clean in the face. I lost sleep over this and sought solace in mates, who said 'no-one will notice, don't worry'. Well after leaving it for a few weeks I finally decided this would need sorting and I couldn't live with it. Luckily we have some spare overlays in stock, so off these came and new ones riveted up and fitted. The pictures are two painful to post but the effort was well worth it. Moral of the story is..........STUDY THE PROTOTYPE
Here's a crop of my new rivet pattern;With the above tale in mind can readers please help me out with this build if you see me doing something wrong, I'm not a GWR man and need all the help I can get here
Final bit on the footplate structure is the valance joggle, again not noticeable straight away. This is a weak point in the etch and the instructions suggest strengthening with scrap etch. I used some flat brass strip from stock, which is much neater i think; The remainder of the footplate construction is around the front end, motion brake/splashers and smoke box saddle. This was a lot of work and once finished represents the prototype really well. Excuse the messy soldering inside the saddle, to be fair this will never be seen. The only additions I've made are the bolts holding down the lamp irons. They are scale hardware and really noticeable on the real thing. The kit represents these with a rivet but I wasn't happy with that.
The motion bracket was a barrel of laughs
There's a rivet detail overlay and a number of small parts that try and ping off when you're fitting something else. Glad it's all done now as at times it tried my patience. All there is to do around this area now is to fit the castings but I will do this later when the tank is fitted; That's all for now. Next the tank/bunker
Mick