A4 Pacific Sir Nigel Gresley, O-scale

[Tim Crowe]

More great work, Erik

Tim

[Erik Zwaan]

Hi guys, interesting discussions taking shape here, thanks for that! I noticed the water tender as well on some of the pictures on the internet. Would certainly be interested to have such a tender as add-on, however this beautiful model simply deserves nothing less than a coach I'd say!

Cheers,
Erik

[Diderick A. den Bakker]

Anyone like to help and design such a lovely teak Gresley coach?!

[Erik Zwaan]

A short update and once again thank you all for your feedback , I appreciate it very much!


The outlines of the tender are finished so now it's time to add the details. Buffers, steps, hooks and lamps on the backside are in place. Nothing special to mention here, just a few remarks:

• Make sure the right buffer plate is embossed, as indicated in the instructions
• The spacers between the steps (part 155) are short by approx. 2mm but they can easily be extended

The lamps are a fine detail to the backside of the tender, however after studying an actual picture (as attached hereto), I couldn't resist to add a bit more realism. If you look carefully at the pictures, you can see that the right side lamp has already been altered, the left one is still to go.
For the hinges I used brass thread, rather than the equivalent paper parts.

Finally, also for next time, I'm going to detail the (hand) railing a bit further, as well as the "porthole" and continue with the suspension details (last picture). Why the fuss of adding all this you may think, well, it's just fun and once you have started it's difficult to stop .

Cheers,
Erik

[mercurykid]

Thanks for your posts Eric! I'm also building the same kit.... I've finished the tender and am now working on the locomotive. I've completed the chassis (chA listed in the instructions) and the the boiler assembly (boA, boB, boC). There are some instruction and fit issues which I'll be happy to share with you.

[Erik Zwaan]

Thank you Mercurykid, I would be very interested to hear about your experiences. You're ahead of me!

Forgot to include the picture of the lamp and, to compare in more detail, how my version looks like. It seems like the original has a kind of blue-grey reflection in the glass but I decided to stick to the red color presented in the model.

You may notice that I've started working on bringing out the handrailing in the mean time. It's made of 0.5mm dia plastic rod, still not fully in place and painted yet.

Erik

[Diderick A. den Bakker]

Of course no red in the original: it is a white front light, attached to the right hand front end of the engine!

[Don Boose]

Magnificent work, Erik!

Don

[Erik Zwaan]

Thank you Don and Diderick!

Although progress is steady, it is slow. Nevertheless, the tender is almost finished.

Firstly, at last I finalized the suspension details, not part of the model but a simple effort to enhance, which hopefully can be seen in the close-up pictures.

Then the brake cranks and they were installed in line with the instructions, three in total. These are very fragile laser cut parts. When I browsed through actual pictures and the General Arrangement drawing, much to my surprise I noticed a fourth crank. Each picture and drawing shows the cranks in a different position (and sometimes different location) but mostly in the pictures four cranks are shown. So I changed the model and added the fourth one. For this I had to remove one of the already installed cranks and I couldn’t prevent a bit of damage to the vulnerable print, which appeared hard to restore with marker and pencil. In the first picture showing the crank details the situation as per the instructions is shown, in the second one the final layout.

At the back side of the tender, the connecting part to the first coach also had its moment of fame. The instructions aren’t very clear on that. I had already installed “tunnel” part 117 differently than indicated, but in line with actual tender pictures. I had forgotten about the harmonica-like structure (part 117a) and finally concluded after studying various pictures of the real thing that it must be sort of wrapped around the tunnel. The instruction drawing is not correct in my opinion. Missing in the model is a floor board in the tunnel opening, to prevent any person from falling down. Not difficult to make and I will install it later on.

Also in place are the front steps and some of the railing details at the backside, which I made from 0.5mm and 0.75mm diameter plastic rods. At first I used 0.75mm for the entire assembly but changed the vertical bar to 0.5mm later on, which looks more realistic. Paint used is Tamiya flat aluminium and medium blue (not an exact match but the best I could find).

More to follow!

Erik

[ricleite]

I see no problem in the cranks, Erik! The attention you put to enhance kits is amazing