I'm acutely aware that there has been a lot of froth on the internet this week about the announcement that KATO and PECO have teamed up to bring us a ready to run England and even more surprisingly a double Fairlie. I knew about this for some while with my work hat on and indeed know some other things that would create even more froth, however mum's the word. But all this got me thinking about my Brian Madge 'Britomart', it has been looking pretty tatty for a while and the cab had broken loose too. I'd never been happy with the paintwork as the real one has intricate lining which I am not able to even contemplate reproducing.
So... I decided that a repaint and a rebuild were in order. The chassis is a good, smooth runner now it is run in so I didn't mess with that, except to replace the couplers with RT models lost brass PQR ones. They are a big improvement and really look the part.
The loco came apart very easily into three major sections, i.e. the chassis, the boiler assembly and the cab. Once in pieces the cleaning up started, I removed the name and works plates and the handrails came off along with the chimney and the safety valve casting.
The plan was to conceal the identity of the original and to rename it 'Daisy', I'd been planning on doing this for a while so had the Narrow Planet plates to hand. The major difference that I could come up with for an Alice class was to add a dome to the boiler. I don't think any were originally built with them but 'Velinheli' now sports one; although I believe that the boiler is originally from 'Maid Marian'. I'm not about to get into the lineage of quarry Hunslets though. I had a dome made by N brass in my loco fittings box which looks about right and with a little fettling up it worked fine. Initially I made a mistake and drilled a hole centrally for the dome. This left the tank filler out of whack so a second attempt moved it forward a little. It also left a hole in the tank top needing to be filled.
The other additions to the boiler were a new cast chimney and turned brass smokebox door darts. The door furniture was a big improvement but the chimney was just too small. It looked OK without the cab on but was evidently wrong once all was re assembled. I think it is an RT models Waril one. Nice but wrong.
With new handrails fitted, this time not with the loop round the chimney as another difference I painted her. I tried a variety of colours but none looked right, I wanted that faded Dinorwic sort of look so I ended up blending a scarlet and a brown to make my own colour. It still isn't quite right but it's closer than anything I could find in a paint and look very not blue. I will add some weathering once all is settled and dried hard and I get the nerve to spoil a pretty reasonable paint job. I'd like to add lining but as mentioned before I don't have the nerve.
Meet Daisy
I've also been adding some detail to the 3D print on a Fleischmann chassis loco I built a while ago. I'm waiting for name plates from Narrow Planet but it will be called 'Lucy B'. I wasn't quite happy with the look of the loco and couldn't quite pin it down so I've added a handrail on the front of the smokebox and a turned brass whistle. Both have just added a little detail and I've cheered up about it. Plates will be the finishing touch.
Meet Lucy B. next to the lighter green Lucy
It's a bit tricky adding crew to locos with the Fleischmann 7000 chassis as the motor takes up all of the cab below window level. The way I've got round this is by gluing pieces of styrene to the tops of the motor magnets and then a sheet of black card on top of that. The moving bit of the motor protrudes just higher than the magnets as I've found out before. Crew are the cruelly chopped at the waste and stuck on top of the card. Needs windows glazing too.
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