Burnmouth and birthday

Today is my birthday and so I took the day off work and spent it mostly in the garage working to get some unfinished project furthered. I've been gathering them together... far too many to, so I promise not to start anything else till I at least get Britomart, Burnmouth and Lucy finished. Then there is Beddgelert which is at the painting and chassis sorting stage. Then there is my Tomix Percy bash which needs to be completely dismantled the chassis made to work and then rebuilt, it was last years birthday present so that shows how long I've not been getting on with that. There are a couple of IC locos in part built states and thats all before I open the unbuilt kit drawer(s).

There is also more half built coaches than most ng lines ever possessed... Then there is the small matter of a half built layout... And all this is before I even think about building all the things I'd like to make which I haven't even thought about not to mention the 16mm kits and the 009 quarry in a bag layout. I'm definitely going to finish something, really.

Looks better in real life and runs very nicely

Anyway, today I mostly concentrated on getting Burnmouth going. This is the Andrew Barclay alike which I built on holiday and the chassis for which I broke the best part of 2 Minitrix dock tanks to no avail. I realised the other day that I had a Farish 04 chassis in the drawer which is about the same size. The motor is in a different place but the wheel base is very similar. I have previously used one of these under my latest varikit bash, Nancy and so I knew it would be possible to add the piston rods from the Minitrix chassis which I had already used with the cylinders on the new loco. I removed the jackshaft drive by cutting the con rods and unscrewing the 'go roundy' bits. Dead technical, me. The body needed  a small amount of modification to allow the Farish motor to fit, mostly just some filing away of the inside of the cab. I also inserted a bit of biro/boiler barrel to move the tank forward a couple of millimetres to make room for the gearbox. It also raised the couplings so they needed lowering, anyhow it all works and I like the look of it still. The other new bit is a dummy front pony truck which is virtually invisible. It really is a cheat as its just a plastic wagon wheel with the flanges cut off stuck to the frame so it doesn't pivot but it makes me feel better.