Brian Madge - who makes the cab-less 'Alice class' kit we are using for the business end of the model - kindly offered us some basic brass front, back and side sheets of the correct profile which he had lying about, and Himself has been busy forming them into a cab.
As you can see here it looks very effective.
The plan is to use resin transfer rivets to complete the detailing and bring the naked brass to life a bit more.
Here you can see some of the detail Himself has already added to the back, such as the sliding doors to give a bit more elbow room when stoking the fire.
He has also done something about the big hole beneath the saddle tank which should really be filled by the boiler barrel.
He cut two pieces from a brass tube and soldered them under the tank, although they can't be put too far in as the motor has to pass up between them.
The other issue with using a brass cab rather than a whitemetal one as we had originally planned is that it will reduce the weight of the loco and slash it's feeble tractive effort still further.
We may be able to recover some of this by filling in the area in between the frames where the firebox sits. It needs something there in any case because right now the our model also has daylight where there should not be daylight.
Oh, and there's the small - or should that be tall? - matter of the chimney. But I'm hoping a friendly man with a lathe might help us out with that one....
looking tasty
ReplyDeleteJohn