3D x 2 = 6D?

No, I haven't been doing algebra, thank goodness but I have pretty much completed two of the three 3D printed locos I was working on. They've been a bit of a rush as I wanted them both to be ready for the Borth y Gest show in a fortnights time. The two beasties in question are Pamela and Blower. I think that Pamela will probably end up with a different name as I've wandered from the prototype a little but as it came with a nice nameplate and I don't have an alternative at the moment, Pamela she is for now. Blower is a name from a previous loco which suffered from enormous bad luck and never made it to finished so I pulled the plates off it and put them to better use on the new little Bagnall wing tank.

 Here they are early on in the build, Pammy is obviously further along the road to completion. The wing tank has been a very simple build as it is such a simple little loco. I added RT PQR couplings and a whistle and gave it a squirt of Halfords red primer which as I suspected made a rather fetching colour for this loco.

 The only tricky bit has been attaching the body to the chassis, and that was only tricky because I got the hole for the nut slightly too far back initially. This meant that the flywheel was jammed against the cab and so nothing ran. After some filing and filling and swearing I've managed to move the nut forward and make a better fit.

Pamela was easier to fit together having a custom printed hole for the nut, thereby reducing my ability to get this wrong. I've added various details like a vague attempt at an injector made from a bit of styrene and some thin wire; the now ubiquitous PQR couplers and an assortment of pipes etc. Somewhere along the way I've managed to give the chassis a bit of a limp, this is easing off having had a bit of a fettle last night, hopefully it will disappear altogether with some running in.

Here they both are down at Underhill posing for the official photographer. There are a couple of little jobs left to do such as glazing the cab windows on Pamela. The prototype didn't have a cab back sheet but I added one to hide the motor a bit more effectively, some loco crew will help with this also. I'd recommend both locos as interesting prototypes and easy to build kits. Come and see them in action along with their stable mates at the ByG show on the 22/23 August.