A4 Pacific Sir Nigel Gresley, O-scale - Page 18

**Diderick A. den Bakker** · #**171** 07-25-2017, 06:41 AM

Back from holidays myself - England and Scotland, with the Eskdale narrow gauge railway in the middle. Some pictures later.
About the valances: they were used for the speed record, but soon removed because they made life for the man with the oilcan very difficult. And the wheels of a locomotive need very frequent oiling...
Have you thought of the possibility to add the valances on one side only?!

**Erik Zwaan** · #**172** 08-28-2017, 07:03 AM

Holidays are over and work has started again. Time flies and in the past few weeks I've only been able to catch a few minutes here and there to work on the Gresley. Your suggestion Diderick had crossed my mind as well and I'm considering to prepare the closed valance option for one side, as a sort of cover to be placed over the open valance. More about that later.

A bit of progress to report. Last weekend I have prepared the head lamps and modified them in a similar way as done for the ones at the rear side of the tender, based on attached picture from the Sir Nigel Gresley Locomotive Trust Ltd website. The size of the lamps is very small, just a few millimeters. One of the lamps is in its place, the other one will follow later this week.

Also, I have started with the straight steam pipe connecting the boiler with the steam pressure indicators in the cab. The pipe will be installed at the left side of the boiler only. The hand railings will be next as well (refer to picture of the real loc, which also clearly shows the white head lamps and shunt lamp in the centre), but both pipe and railings require some extra detailing to make them look more realistic. May take some time though so stay tuned!

Cheers,
Erik

**Erik Zwaan** · #**173** 09-07-2017, 02:25 PM

Very modest progress – work is just too busy at the moment.

Steam pipe along the boiler body installed and one side of the hand railing that runs along either side of the body. A few remarks here:

The laser cuts of both parts are too long, similar to the boiler body that is about 1cm too long in the original prints of the model (has been corrected by the publisher in the meantime).
I have detailed the steam pipet a bit more by laminating the laser cut with the model’s printed part and by highlighted the connection through the boiler plating as well as the brackets that hold the pipe in place and by adding spacers between pipe and body.
I found the laser cuts of the hand railing of not much use, too fragile. Instead I used 0.75mm thick plastic spruce, shaped it along the laser cut template and glued spacers on it. Punched small holes in the boiler body and gently pushed and glued the railing in place and kept a clearance of 1mm between railing and plating. Finally, a coat of black paint. The end result certainly looks much better is my humble opinion. The right one is still “work in progress” and the pictures show you some of the process of preparing them.

Never mind the ways I walk to have the glue drying – I hate superglue.

The small white head lights have come off already, the paper bracket connections are just too fragile. I’ll think of something else to attach them in a better way.

The quest of the final details will continue

.

Cheers,
Erik

**ricleite** · #**174** 09-08-2017, 07:34 AM

Always a joy to follow and what a cute way to apply pressure in order to glue

You paited the railing detail after gluing? Isn't it riskier than the opposite?

**romanmodels** · #**175** 09-17-2017, 02:37 PM

good work Erik

**Erik Zwaan** · #**176** 10-09-2017, 01:11 AM

Well, it's been a while since my last update. Work got in the way, long hours in the office and in the field. Not much spare time and definetely not the right mindset to work on the concluding details of this model. But, as work slowly returns to normal mode, finally time and piece of mind to pick up where I left.

@ Ricardo: Luckily I have a rather stable hand

but in this case there wasn't so much risk. When the paint is still wet it can quickly be corrected with a wet flat brush to wash away small spills.
@ David: Thank you

Ok, the right side hand railing is finished now, at last. On the right side of the boiler plating also markings have been printed for a steam line similar to the on the left side. However, this is not correct as there is no such line on the right side.

At the right front side I corrected the small gaps between chassis and boiler plating, with bits of wall filler and painted it rubber black. This color fits the tone of the model print better than "bright" black.

Fixed the head lights and used a small metal pin glued to each lamp, rather than the paper struts provided in the model, to fixate them the chassis. Also the hoses on the front side needed some sort of extra support as the connection to the chassis is very delicate.

The last detail I added are the handles on the (wheel) inspection covers on either side of the boiler plating, made of 0.5mm dia plastic rod. I used Tamiya Medium Blue to paint them, which is not exactly the "Royal Blue" of the the boiler but it comes closer than the royal blue paint that I have.

For this kind of details I have been using tacky glue, which seems perfect for gluing plastic to paper (better than acetate based glue).

That's it for now. Other details will follow...

Erik